(For those who long to be home this Christmastime. A poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 – 1894)
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ‘twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
“All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.
“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first mate Jackson, cried.
…”It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
Partly due to my commitment to give my time and talents, partly due to my passion for the subject matter, I led the creation of a new event last October at Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC where my wife Alison is pastor. Our church had held a wonderful homecoming event in early September 2012 outside on the grounds and there was interest in doing more events like it. I floated the idea of holding a Halloween event, except with a bit more meaning and substance than one so often finds in the plastic and sugar commercial orgy of the “Halloween Season.” Everyone involved in the conversation immediately said, “Yes!” and All Hallows’ Fest was born. It went well, given that we tossed it together in the span of a couple of weeks. One of the ideas we set aside was to use the church cemetery, which is just a couple of blocks away and can also be reached via a short hike through a park and over…wait for it…Deadman Brook. This year we featured it.
We held the 2nd Annual All Hallows’ Fest this past Sunday. It began at Evergreen Cemetery with the creation of a “Memory Grove.” Participants were encouraged to bring photos, drawings, sayings, or objects that symbolized someone whose life they want remembered. They could also use the materials on site. We provided base objects (picture frames, bird houses, large letters, etc.) for the participants to adorn with the materials and then they hung their completed object on one of five “trees” my wife and sons helped me build. About 30 people participated in creating the installation that evening. We put flyers in the neighbors mailboxes letting them know that something unusual was about to appear in the cemetery and that the installation will be there until November 1. We also invited them to add their own objects during the week. I visited the site today to add some explanatory signage that reads:
Halloween is a pop culture economic bonanza in our country, but its origin and rich themes are often overlooked. The name “Halloween” is a contraction of All Hallows’ Evening. Hallows’ is shortened from hallowed, meaning sacred. Thus, Halloween actually means “sacred evening.” Sacred because it was originally a time for remembering loved ones who have died. Holidays based on the idea of remembering and celebrating departed friends and relatives are found in cultures around the globe. Additionally, many of these holidays occur at the end of the harvest season. The ancient origins of Halloween and related holidays are inspired by the cycle of the seasons. As plants withered and shadows lengthened, people labored to prepare for the symbolic death of winter. They feared the cold and silence to come, but knew that the rebirth of spring lay beyond. Thus, Halloween is a thematically rich holiday that explores our very human fear of death and our interest in what lies beyond.
I also took some photos, which I’m pleased to share here:
April is National Poetry Month. So, while on vacation in Tucson last week I decided to write some. Time was scarce, being all caught up in visiting family and going out and doing fun and interesting things, so I decided to see how many desert-themed haikus I could write in one short session on the back patio of my sister-in-law’s apartment. I wrote the five below, which I present along with an author’s note after each. Enjoy.
husky in desert
sniffing at a saguaro
all the news is bad
(My sister-in-law has a beautiful female husky that had just sat on my foot, so I decided to include her. I like the humor of the image, but the truth is also that much of the news last week was bad indeed.)
unfamiliar birds
sing while they pose for pictures
taunting the tourists
(I had been enjoying all the unfamiliar bird songs of the local species and was definitely doing the touristy thing of shooting many, many pictures. Locals, including my sister-in-law, tend to be amused.)
every patch of shade
is a fleeting oasis
like so much in life
(After that last lighthearted haiku, I decided to try a more philosophical angle and seek truth in nature. Change is constant. We cannot remain comfortable in one place or set of circumstances for long.)
two black feathered birds
perched in the desert sun
lamenting their clothes
(Two black feathered birds had just landed in the tree above me and were having quite a conversation. I wondered whether it’s hot being a black feathered bird in the desert.)
washing the sidewalk
on a desert city street
while others wake parched
(Earlier in the day while my sister-in-law was running an errand, the rest of us sat in the car watching a city worker power washing the sidewalk. It struck us as an odd, sort of wasteful thing to do. When my sister-in-law returned, he offered to power wash her car, which was pretty dusty. She accepted and we laughed as we watched our impromptu trip to the car wash unfold, but I kept thinking about people who don’t have enough water.)
“The Awake Fairy,” my first published children’s story is now available in the April 2013 issue of Spaceports & Spidersilk (Nomadic Delirium Press).
Like so many children’s stories, “The Awake Fairy” is about a misfit of sorts. I had fun telling this story to my 10 and 7 year old sons and then more fun typing it out and giving it a polish. Thanks to Marcie Tentchoff for taking in this little fellow and giving him a home so that others can meet him.
Spaceports & Spidersilk is available on Smashwords and can be purchased and downloaded for your Kindle, iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo and other eReader devices. It’s also available as a PDF or in HTML or in several other formats. Basically, if you have a computer or a phone or other device that acts like a computer, you can obtain a version that will work for you.
I’m having a fairly normal year for me, writing wise. In January, I was bursting with creativity and words were flying out of my fingers. I wrote more in a month than I did in half of 2012. Then February came. Illness and school vacation and competing agendas slowed my creative engine to a sputter. But then March arrived with improved health and a couple of submission deadlines I wanted to meet. End result: a second good month where I met all of my goals. And then….
Right. April has been lousy so far. For two weeks I was hopelessly sidetracked by a marketing project for my church. It’s good work to do, but it consumed far more of my time and spirit than I had anticipated. Add in the Little League season starting up along with a couple of projects for the school my sons attend and I’ve been getting almost nothing done on the writing front. (Including posting here. Twitter, by design, is easier to keep going even when busy.)
But April isn’t over. Heck, there’s more than half to go. So, I’ve plenty of time to restore order and regenerate momentum.
I just wish I was wired a little differently. I wish I had enough endurance and could parse my brain space sufficiently to do it all. And sometimes I have the demoralizing sensation that if I just did less for other people, I’d be a more accomplished and successful writer. Lots of great artists are renowned for their selfishness and/or chemical dependencies. So, maybe if I turned my back on my family and became an alcoholic….
But that’s not me. And most of the time I love doing all of the volunteer projects and other work that I do. I certainly don’t know how to parent any differently. I have always poured massive amounts of time into being a dad. The results of my approach are pretty darn good, as the most recent set of parent/teacher conferences reaffirmed this week. (And, yes, I know I’m not solely responsible by any stretch, but I like to think I have something to do with their development.)
So what I’m left with is a writing life that takes place in fits and spurts, ebbs and flows. The rest of the time I’m busy with other parts of my life, all of which informs my writing in the end. And the artist in me always reasserts itself. That’s how I started this journey to begin with. I hadn’t written fiction for years until I woke up one day and had to and wrote what became my first published story. Having figured out that I am an artist and that writing is my primary form of expression, I know what’s wrong when I am busy for too long with other things and start to get bitter and depressed. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m not feeding the artist.
My family and I are traveling to Tucson to visit one of my sister-in-laws for a week. I’m leaving behind church marketing and youth baseball and Scouting and school art projects and the rest. But I am bringing my journal and my pens and my Kindle.
Love this. If my Dad had built one, you would have found me like this quite often. I have a tiny fraction of his skill with tools and building things (though I surprise myself every so often) so it is unlikely I’ll be building this for my sons. Besides, they’re getting big…and I’d want to climb in there, too…and so would Alison. Which would mean I’d have to build one at least double the width of this and able to support hundreds of pounds in readers.
I’m pleased to announce that Supernatural Tales #23, which includes my story, “Last Testament” is now available for you to purchase and enjoy. You can buy a digital flavor for your reading device of choice. You can also buy a print flavor. Both taste shadowy and pleasingly strange and will linger long after you brush your teeth, but you wont mind. (And if you are a fan of supernatural horror of the ghost and weird tale variety, consider buying a subscription.)
“Last Testament” is about a family awash in grief. It is also about secrets that cannot, despite all efforts, be kept hidden. And it’s about grappling with how to reconcile belief in God with a mounting belief in supernatural phenomena. There’s even a graphic novel hidden in the middle with no pictures except the ones you’ll see in your mind.
I’ll let the Marketing Department of Supernatural Tales tell the full story of what you’ll find inside #23. (I’ve shamelessly copied and pasted the below from here and hope the Legal Department of Supernatural Tales won’t sue.)
Supernatural Tales #23
Edited by David Longhorn
‘The Singing’ – Iain Rowan
A mysterious stranger who can’t – or won’t – speak is washed ashore on an island of fishermen and farmers. When he is taken to church, he reveals an extraordinary, wonderful, and – for some – disturbing gift.
‘Ilona’ – Tina Rath
An East European worker is mopping floors in an NHS hospital. She is an ‘illegal’, on a sub-minimum wage. What could be more mundane? But behind closed doors, an ancient evil lurks…
‘A Moment of Your Time’ – Katherine Haynes
Have you ever been waylaid by one of those people who ask you to complete a survey in the street? Or are they, in fact, people at all?
‘Screech’ – Gemma Farrow
When a couple are expecting their first child, it’s only natural for them to be possessed by irrational fears. Unfortunately, in some cases those fears are rather well-founded. ‘Last Testament’ – Craig D.B. Patton
An artist dies, and his relatives try to make sense of his strange legacy. Modern technology becomes the medium of supernatural revelation.
‘The Second Wish’ – James Everington
When a man returns to England to deal with the estate of his deceased parents, he finds himself sleeping in his old room, and reading a familiar book of eerie tales.
‘Or, How Love Deserted the Reverend Danforth’. Set during the early part of the last century, this period piece riffs on the classic idea of a mysterious artefact with strange powers.
The new international trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness is out. Take a peek and then I’ll go on:
Ok. Now catch your breath. Or stop shaking your head and frowning, depending on what you want and expect from science fiction and from Star Trek in particular.
As I’ve posted before, I don’t have any problem with Star Trek going dark or into action hero mode. Over the almost 50 years (!) it has existed, Star Trek has been there, done that on just about everything. It isn’t one thing, one style, one mode. Never has been. Woven into it all along (sometimes prominently, sometimes subtlely) are comedy, horror, crime, romance, period drama, mystery, fantasy, and even the western.
So I disagree with anyone who says that J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek isn’t “real Star Trek.” Nor do I see anything in the trailers to date or the 9-minute preview that cause me to arch an eyebrow higher than Spock in skepticism. Abrams is presenting his version of Star Trek. He is drawing on the elements that he feels are strongest and/or that interest and inspire him and then leaving the rest behind.
I recently reread some quotes from Nicholas Meyer, who directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is still widely considered the best Trek film or certainly no worse than in the top three. He also directed Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, another strong entry in the film series. Meyer said, “There are only two kinds of art…good and bad. The only allegiance to the content of Star Trek that I felt owed was to that which struck me as good. I felt that I owed no allegiance to anything that was bad, for any reason whatever. My feeling, when I was working on Star Trek II was to divide things up with that in mind. I didn’t like the costumes in any other version, so I made new costumes. I didn’t like the sets, so we reworked the sets.” He proceeded to infuse his movies with a high seas adventure aesthetic. It worked very well. Why? Because the core characters and their relationships were both recognizable from what had come before and revitalized with new ideas. So it is with Abrams.
But….
I do have one lament. It’s not even a Star Trek lament, really. I regret that so many high profile science fiction films are working solely in the action flick mode. The reason why is obvious: money. Studios fund Star Trek films because they think they have a good shot to make a lot of money every time out. They also think that their best chance to make a lot of money is to tell big, exciting Star Trek stories with a lot of action/adventure. All of the better Star Trek films work fairly exclusively in that mode…except one. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a time travel comic romp, is the exception.)
What we’ve wound up with is a steady cinematic diet of excitement and thrills and an almost total absence of awe and wonder. And that is regrettable. Because we could all use a little more awe and wonder in our lives, moments when we catch a glimpse of something that evokes the grandeur of the universe/Creation. Stories that remind us that we’re only a very small part of the whole, while eminently capable and driven to reach out and connect with the rest. The desire for those stories, our primal curiosity and urge to explore, is why the age old Star Trek voice over still works when read over an image of an endless star field.
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Of course, it helps if you have someone with the vocal talents of Leonard Nimoy or Patrick Stewart reading those words and William Shatner does fine as well. But a very large part of Star Trek and of science fiction in general is the feeling we get when we look out at the stars and wonder what else is out there. Star Trek and other mass audience science fiction (or space based, if you prefer) films don’t feed us much of that anymore.
There’s a counterargument: You want that? Turn on the television. Stream something. Buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc.
I’ve recently started introducing my sons (10 and 7) to Star Trek and we began with the Original Series episode “The Man Trap” that aired on September 8, 1966. I streamed it from StarTrek.com. (Terrible viewing experience, steer clear.) Then I found the magnificently restored versions on iTunes and bought “Space Seed”, “The Trouble with Tribbles”, and “The Devil in the Dark.” Then I realized I didn’t want to buy them all and should look in the library and we borrowed more. After about 20 episodes, we have now moved on to Star Trek: The Next Generation.
We just watched the two-part premiere, “Encounter at Farpoint.” It tells exactly the sort of story that isn’t typically presented in the Star Trek films. The Enterprise is way out at the edge of charted space (The lure of the blank area beyond the current map never fails.). Picard and Co. have their first encounter with Q, a member of a godlike species who toys with them. They later encounter another completely unknown and extraordinary species that would probably benefit with a bit of a redesign, but is nonetheless wondrous. The Enterprise crew succeeds not by defeating a villain, but by solving a mystery, although Q repeatedly threatens them with extinction. They prove to Q that humanity is more than he/they/it assumed and should be allowed to continue to exist and explore. (We’re left to assume that the android, Klingon, and Betazoid on the senior staff, not to mention all the other non-humans aboard are OK too by association.)
There aren’t many explosions in “Encounter at Farpoint.” Everything about it suffers from it being the first time out for what eventually became an outstanding show. A lot of it isn’t good art, when placed on Meyer’s scale. Despite all of that, I was glad to see it again and be reminded of what’s been missing from the Trek films for too long.
I’m looking forward to Star Trek Into Darkness. But I would like to see Star Trek set thrills aside and evoke awe and wonder on the big screen again someday soon.
PS: I’m bemused that the YouTube screen cap for the trailer winds up being Alice Eve in her underwear, an image which sails by in the trailer. There are any number of more representative images, but I can’t figure out how to change it. Then again, I’m reminded that women who aren’t wearing very much isn’t new to Star Trek either. I also expect that Eve’s Dr. Carol Marcus will be a formidable person once we get to meet her in May.
PPS: As of 9:00pm EST it appears that YouTube has changed things and Alice Eve is no longer in her underwear at the top of this post. Instead you get Benedict Cumberbatch nose-to-nose with Chris Pine, which makes far more sense.
I’ve started listening to / watching more of the TED talks recently. They’re on all sorts of things and feature smart and articulate people sharing their ideas and perspectives. My wife pointed me to this one by Shane Koyczan, a Canadian spoken word poet and writer. It starts off with some autobiographical musings to set the stage and then he launches into a piece he calls, “To This Day” accompanied by a violinist and animations. It’s marvelous and absolutely worth your 12 minutes, especially if you know someone who has been bullied. (Maybe that someone is you.) I also recommend it if for anyone who felt confused or frustrated when people asked them, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” and expected clear, committed answers that fit into their own expectation of what life is about.
I had never watched Doctor Who before last fall. Lately we’re spending our scattered bits of television viewing time watching nothing else. I’m firmly a fan and just dropped a Doctor Who reference into the story I’m working on. Ran across this video by Greg Kumparak, who used to be the mobile editor at TechCrunch. He just up and made a TARDIS model from scratch one day. Looks pretty good. Certainly better than anything I could do. I’ve never been any good at building models. But then he decided it needed to be cooler and…wow. Take a look. “What?” “Brilliant.”
Flawed Creations 