Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Bleh.
Yesterday I started Chapter Nine, and wrote 1,468 words in only three and a half hours. That was a good day. I should do so well today. And Spooky did some research for me, including a call to the coroner's office in Oakland, CA. I spent much of the day staring at John Everett Millias' Ophelia (you'll understand later) and reading portions of Hamlet.
The trip to Rhode Island and Massachusetts is starting to come together nicely.
Last night, TCM was having this Rita Hayworth thing, with an hour long bio, which I watched (twice, actually), along with Gilda and the peculiar The Lady from Shanghai. And watching Gilda, which is surely a successful — indeed, a great — film by anyone's standards, I was struck by how utterly detestable almost all the characters are. Did the sympathetic-character police have a deal going with film noir? Or is this infantile obssession with "sympathetic" characters afflicting so many readers and filmgoers today a fairly recent development? Isn't it perfectly reasonable to imagine great stories where every single central character is a total louse? Of course it is. Is not the downward spiral, the disintegration of self-destructive human beings, as interesting and (back to Campbell) instructive as the triumph of the virtuous hero? It seems, sometimes, like we can't stomach anything stronger than anti-heroes and whores with hearts of gold. Which is a shame, as it not only ties the hands of artists, but obscures vast tracks of human experience and history.
I cannot bear the reader or filmgoer who whines, "There was no one I could identify with. There was no one to root for." Pigs root, dear.
Personally, I adore heroic stories, and stories with loveable characters, but I also adore films like Gilda, which don't waste time putting virtue where there's really only vice.
I have room for both.
Also, I read Ramsey Campbell's short story, "The Unbeheld." I love how softly Ramsey can speak, and yet deliver words that cut to vulnerable, secret places deep inside.
Poppy's writing some good stuff in her livejournal about "yarns" and toenail clippings, which you should check out (Sept. 8th, then 9th). I have to try to get Rogue (The Crüxshadows) on the phone today. I think he's in Houston. People should follow my example and stay the hell at home. Now tell, what, if anything, is wrong with this paragraph?
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