Category: Life

We Interrupt These Stories to Bring You Andrez Bergen, Great Capes and GeekPron

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 7 Comments

Originally, I was going to make the month of October 2013 Storytime for Mythic Bios: if only because for the past three entries I have been posting up stories. And I was going to do it again today until it occurred to me that there are two updates that I need to make.

So first of all, I am friends with Andrez Bergen: an author and musician whose Blog you can find under a cap-locks version of his name right here with the subtitle: a wayward soapbox for author/hackwriter Andrez Bergen. He has written a few books, but the one that I have read is his new Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?: of which you can either click on the previous link or look at Heropa itself. Basically, imagine a virtual reality world modelled after an original Silver Age comics universe where players can be either superheroes or villains. Then add to it with the fact that it operates on the Comics Code Authority rules: such as no swearing, fraternizing between hero and villain roles, drinking in public, revealing your secret identity, and then some. And then complicate it by having set in a dystopian offline society and have the dregs of it start to affect this ideal world.

I actually met Andrez in the WordPress Blogsphere when, I believe, I wrote My Best Friend Was a Sith Lord. What it seems like in this amateur version of Blog archaeology or psychogeography is that Andrez commented on my entry and I commented back, followed him to his site where his book was being promoted and still in the process of being finalized … and the rest is history that can be summed up into a continuing friendship and a consequent Sequart article published yesterday entitled Revisionism Comes to a Silver Age: Or Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

Suffice to say, I am really pleased with how the above article turned out and if you are interested please buy Andrez’s book, look at my article and read through Sequart’s really fascinating scholarship on the medium of comics and everything it has influenced. You can find the link to Sequart through my article or my Blogroll on the right-hand side of Mythic Bios proper.

It is just amazing how things can come together: and in ways that you didn’t even think of beforehand. I also have another element of news. As you might have seen from my Blogroll, I have been following G33kPr0n for some time now. What you might not know is that they were looking for some contributing writers and, after sending them some work, you are looking at one of the newest members of the G33kpr0n Contributing Writer Staff. 😀

I didn’t want to say anything until I posted my first article and made it official. It is different writing for G33kPr0n than for Mythic Bios, but it has opened various new avenues to me: if only out of sheer geeky enthusiasm. My first article actually covers The Dark Crystal Author Quest and outlines it for the readers of G33kPr0n. I am also getting revitalized for my work for the Quest as well in creating my story. I know what I want it to be about and the rest is now a question of details and time. Suffice to say, I have a whole lot of ideas for G33kPr0n articles, new space to collaborate with, and good awesome geeky people to share it with as well: both staff and readers.

I have wondered, however, if this will impact my writing of Mythic Bios: if I will have to cut down on articles in order to also work on my other projects … maybe to once a week instead of twice for a while. I still need to look for other avenues as well and we will just have to see where it goes. But in the meantime, yay: lots of links tonight, ladies and gentlemen and beings of all kinds. I believe I will have some other news if and when specifics are given to me as well. I have plenty of branching ideas and I just want to see how they bear fruit.

So stay turned everyone, as I become an even more obnoxiously speaking-Geek. Same Mythic time, same Mythic Bios …

Looking Outward

Play It Again

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

It can be a video game where you can’t skip past the cut scenes. The part of you that plays your character sits disquieted, out of immersion and clicking on the controller frantically, uselessly as you watch yourself doing something stupid and you can’t stop it … or look away.

You just don’t understand. These actions are not in-character and it messes up your sense of equilibrium–of continuity–with yourself.  And even when it all works out, your brain otherwise seems to function like Super Mario RPG: including that annoying tendency to fall into pseudo-3D gaps and the frustrated screaming that comes after.

And sometimes other people laugh at you when you tell them that people give you advice behind houses and you can only find treasure by jumping in the corners of places. For when others attempt to dissect and hack those places, they do not find the sprites of others or the value of hidden items. They find nothing because, deep down, they are are only looking for nothing.

But you? You might not be real, like they are, but you are a character in a video game. Only you can see the people that hide behind bit-houses or vanish into the black squares of doors. You have the intuition to find those unseen blocks. You are the one that can hear the music of invisible secrets.

And that, my friend, says it all.

Please play again.

Stitches, Meetings and Silver Keys in Downtown Toronto

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

Well, I have been fighting off a cold for some time now and it seems as though in these days two days I’ve finally lost that battle and I’m now in the process of surviving. Sometimes I wish I was like one of Vampire Maman Juliette’s vampires to that regard who, from my understanding, are immune to such annoying things as sickness. But, sadly, there is already one vampire in her world named Matthew and having two would just be redundant.

No, I’m still mortal–for better or worse–and annoyed at my body right now because I have so much to do and not an infinite amount of time to do it.

So, how about some good news? The third and final part of my article The Stitching Together of a Mythos: Kris Straub’s Broodhollow came out a few days ago. It really made things come full circle: especially since it talks a bit about Kris Straub’s story “Candle Cove”: which is what got me interested in his work to begin with. We’ve been talking a bit on Twitter as well: which is really awesome. And in addition to getting a few more Twitter Followers–which is always excellent–I may have opened some … new avenues up for future exploration. I need to just develop this possibility further and I’m not sure how well I will do with portraying current events–even of a Geek kind–but let’s just go at it one thing at a time.

This passing week has been a challenge for me on some many different levels, but I did go to an interesting meeting before an evening Torontaru at the Get Well Bar: which I went to for the very first time. Unfortunately, already having gotten lost (because neither of the places I went to were right along the way–between Ossington and Dundas Street West–and where there is Toronto, there is always construction and the TTC to contend with) I didn’t think to actually use some networking time to–you know–network (aka talk to people) and it only occurred to me after I was heading home. But I did more or less what I had to and, besides, the Get Well Bar was over capacity and I was already feeling tired and a bit ill and there were few people I even knew there. The Bar’s game cabinets were amusing though the first little while I was there before I left and couldn’t get back in. I still never figured out how to get the Barbarian to fight in Gauntlet and I died in Frogger: a lot.

So I have been mysterious about two things so far. Upon risk of making this the most boring Mythic Bios post ever, I will leave it at that until I get more information. Instead, I guess I’m going to lean on my fall-back and become retrospective.

I’ve been to Ossington and Dundas Street West before. It’s less that I have a specific memory and more that I have found myself in the general atmosphere before. The buildings are old and run down, but there is new life and–life–in all of them. Many of them are stores or bars and you can make out some apartments above them.

At one point, after I was at the Get Well Bar–which is an ironic name given that I’m sick though it has nothing to do with anything really–I was sitting at Subway near the window. Here I was, finding myself sitting downtown watching people walk and interact beyond the glass. I saw a few couples holding hands and a few pairs of friends talking. One man was carrying his meal in layers of containers wrapped in a white plastic bag. And there was an old man I saw pass by twice and an older woman walking by.

And it made me wonder as night time already took over the faded gold and pink sky I’d been walking through earlier in my quest to find that meeting place: was this part of the city like this–like all of this–thirty or forty years ago when those older people I saw were my age or younger? Was it always like this? And would those couples still be together and those friends still meet up? Would they be as old as the people I saw that night: remembering all those times they passed through this area of the city talking and laughing and thinking it would all be the same the next day when–one day–it is going to inevitably change somehow? Would Toronto’s proclivity towards construction eliminate so many familiar landmarks that no one would even recognize this place with most of their mind or would the gritty aura of it transcend the loss of a mere few buildings that were hosts to so many other things in the past?

And it occurred to me that people lived here–actually lived here–and it was like seeing some of the Scott Pilgrim video game in real life. Is the Scott Pilgrim game really Ossington and Dundas as well as the Chinatowns? I tried to live in Toronto but, more than that, I tried to understand it: to find its spirit and companionship. I tried to find its life as it could relate to me and embrace it and–to this day–I’m not sure if I ever succeeded. A lot of the time I just found “being lost” and “afraid of the dark” as my common feelings towards being downtown: with some “dazed and confused” and the occasional and inexplicable … magic, I guess.

I think everyone of us gets nostalgic and sometimes yearns for and broods about the past.  Sometimes it’s almost like there is a choice between having some awesome moments and watching them disappear into memory forever … or never having a life of any pain or joy and watching other people’s and feeling nothing but envy, when you really get right down to it, a sense of hollowness: of having wasted your life. The first is magic, as far as I understand it and the world feels a little greyer when it finally fades. And no matter how much you want it back, you either can’t or it will never be the same: and that’s not always a bad thing.

It does make for good writing, though, such as my short story Stop 17.

I’ve been angry at Toronto and in love with it and disappointed in what I thought I found occasionally. But as I was sitting in that Subway shop, that night it just seemed like another … place to me: just a place I visit from time to time.

I’d like to leave you all with one more thing. Leeman Kessler has succeeded in resurrecting a homunculus of H.P. Lovecraft to answer all of your questions. As such, Mr. Lovecraft was good enough to answer a question that has been close to my heart for a very long time. Have a good night everyone.

Art From Trauma and Twine: Red From a Violet Magician

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

So a little while ago, I mentioned that I was working on a Twine game: a text-based choose your own adventure story. I made a few decisions on the way. Essentially, I decided to put my Twine novel idea aside–to work on from time to time when the mood and the inspiration really set into me–and I began expanding on the root idea that it came from to make a shorter Twine that doesn’t even have an ending so far. I’m writing out the first section by hand and I’ve finished the first section and I am currently focusing on the second part. I meant to complete this sooner as I have some other priorities.

However, this post is not about me or my Twine. It is about someone else’s. No, what I’m going to do, late tonight in some many ways, is I’m going to introduce you to a Twine that was derived from an initial Challenge that I gave to a friend: who then utilized Twine to tackle both a personal and universal issue.

https://i0.wp.com/31.media.tumblr.com/c844da5a455d8705e7894c5025720e27/tumblr_msvx9qY1OC1qgyk1bo1_500.png

Here is the *Trigger Warnings* Disclaimer from here on in. Do not read further if any of you are set off by a discussion or depiction of trauma. You have been warned.

Trauma is a very human experience: or at least in how we perceive and express it. I’ve mentioned depression and grief and bad memories on this Blog before, but this is something different. Post-traumatic stress disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are what happens when an event of violence or violation, or a series of such events created by environment and society affect a person’s psyche to the point where certain stimuli–such as scents or sounds or sights–or sleep or even memories can elicit a sense of panic, anger and fear inside them.

And I am not doing justice to either definition. From what I understand, it is taking a really awful moment, or a series of moments and having them imprinted into the brain–much like stimuli and exercise imprints trained reflexes into muscle memory–or injecting fear and crippling anxiety into a cell of a memory that can be triggered by anything: hence my earlier disclaimer for this post.

It can affect anyone from any form of life and, as such, it is unfortunately part of a variety of different personal and human experiences. However facing it in any way is a sign of both necessity and, as far as I am concerned, a tremendous amount of bravery. My friend Ionas has taken on this force and manifested it into a Twine, which right now at this moment, I want to speak for itself.

Ionas’ Twine is called Red. It is an important story to anyone who either experiences trauma, or knows someone who does, or wants to know more about it. Really, it is just a very important story in and of itself. If any of you, my readers, appreciate my own writings please sit down, click on the above link, and take the time to navigate through the world that Ionas has created. I got the rare privilege of watching this story get constructed from the ground up in a very deep kind of creative process.

And while I do not suffer from PTSD or CPTSD as far as I know, this is still something that is close to my heart for various reasons. Some of the best art can come from pain and while that pain is never wished for, it can create powerful experiences.

So please read this Twine and share it on WordPress, Twitter, Facebook and any social media site that you like to use. Also, Ionas is an excellent graphic artist whose work can be found within the Violet Magician. Ionas also takes artistic commissions, so anyone out there looking for art, the Violet Magician is fascinating to go to and see.

I am going to be encouraging people to make Twine games. You can find the link for the free online Twine software right in this link. I have another friend too whom I have also assigned this “homework”: to make a Twine. You know who you are. I understand that you’re busy, but I will be checking up on you … soon …

I Think I’m Ready For Another Adventure

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

It’s been September for a little while now. Cool winds vie with warm air as Summer continues to want its time. The seasons tend to be greedy like that. And every year, at this time, I remember feeling a combination of fear and anticipation as school started again: as a whole new journey began.

Of course, after a while and as my Master’s work came to a certain point I had fewer–if any–new courses to look forward to and dread. Even so, in 2009 of this time I had Dragon Con as my next great journey–all the way into Atlanta–followed by forays into new places and meeting new people. But eventually by 2012, even that sense of movement began to ebb and fear–that natural fear of impending change–turned in on itself and became a deep sense of internalized anxiety followed by a sense of burn-out and a whole lot of being practically sedentary: in almost all the ways that mattered.

For about a year or so, my only real movements were–aside from meeting from friends–very reluctant journeys into practical matters and solitary walks. I can’t even remember a lot of last year’s September, but a lot of it was writing, writing, writing and the slow and inevitable realization that despite one inclination to shun connections and being the North American equivalent of Hikikomori–a recluse or a shut-in–I was now talking a different journey into making voice actually heard and slowly opening up in a different space in my life.

I’ve told you all about some of the somewhat modest developments in my life over time, including these recent ones, and I want to tell you a little more before going on my next journey.

I am working on The Dark Crystal Gelfling Gathering story and continuing to explore the world of Thra and its characters through story sketches. This is a recent one: it is the story of two urSkeks–though of one in particular named YiYa–who die before the Crystal is cracked. It is a brief look at YiYa’s existence, of a role that he didn’t have enough time to gain, and an attempt to give his demise some meaning aside from being a throwaway character. I tell more than I show, there are undoubtedly grammatical errors and perhaps some choppy sentences, but it is literally another foray into the world that I plan to look at with a little more depth. A journey does not happen all at once, but in increments and with setbacks and some insights along the way. The urSkeks came all the way to Thra to heal themselves, but they also got to explore an entirely different world and find out some things about themselves in the process. It is a nice background for me as I will continue on with how the Gelfling operate.

In other news, Sequart has published the second half of my article The Stitching Together of a Mythos: Kris Straub’s Broodhollow: which, in turn, focuses on a more neurotic young man named Wadsworth Zane undertaking a train ride of his own. And with Kris Straub’s comment today on my Twitter, stating that “@MKirshenblatt’s dissection of broodhollow and its origins is everything i ever wanted” fuelling my sails further I am also going to go on my own train ride: to Ottawa.

And by the time you read this, I will be on my way. I won’t be gone long and it is a relatively ad hoc journey. In fact, it’s almost completely out of character for someone like me: or the person I’d turned into this past while. While I am going out of some practical concerns–such as developing my skills and resources further to actually gain employment and even go so far as to create my own job–I’m also enjoying the prospect of meeting some old and new friends and, really, to get something akin to a vacation.

Some people might think to themselves, “But Matthew, you’ve not had a paying job or gone to school in almost two years. You’ve had about two years of vacation.” And that’s all very well and good an opinion, except that they would be wrong. I have been out of school and work for almost two years, it’s true, but almost two years of unemployment, of anxiety, of being shut-in, of not really having my own space, of doing a checklist and a report for Ontario Works, of looking for work, of networking, of constantly writing everyday–as enjoyable as that may be–is not a vacation. What it has been is almost two years of work and struggle and rarely, if ever, letting myself fully relax.

But I have been waking up. As much as I want to retreat back into the tiredness sometimes–especially when it gets stressful–I find I’m like I always am where when I am up, I’m up. I have built up a certain kind of momentum but I also recognize that I am going to have to take some paths I didn’t even think about and that sometimes they happen suddenly and that life does not stop when you want it to and–perhaps–that is a very good thing. Life happens when you make other plans and life happens when you make any kinds of plans, or you think you are going to be on a certain track for the foreseeable future and this is true of gods and monsters and careers and relationships of any kind. And even now, I don’t intend to really take a break.

It’s almost fitting that while I have a Project or two to catch up on, I will also no doubt be reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring on my journey by Via Rail on my seat by the window: watching the space I’ve been in for so long pass me by. A part of me is scared to be leaving the familiarity of my surroundings–both my comforts and my inconveniences and so relatively suddenly too–but there is another part of me, a part I’d almost forgotten about that is excited and looks greatly forward to meeting up with some awesome friends and to learn new things together.

To my friends and loved ones I love you all, and I will see you again on Monday because in the words of Bilbo Baggins–my favourite Hobbit–I think I’m quite ready for another adventure.

Looking Outward

It Made My Day

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

I just wanted to take some time to talk to you, my readers, old and new. It’s going to be a short post this time around, but don’t get used to it: I’ll be writing your ear off again soon enough. 😉

In fact, that’s what this entire post is really about.

So, a week ago now the first part of my article The Stitching Together of a Mythos: Kris Straub’s Broodhollow got posted by the fine folks of Sequart: which I followed on Twitter only to find that Kris Straub himself had retweeted it. After a brief Twitter exchange my day–then–was made. I thought that, if it ended here, it would be okay.

A day or so later, I posted a few comments on Amanda Palmer’s Blog. She wants to have some feedback with regards to a non-fiction book on the topic of asking that she was, ironically, asked to write. As I was responding to her second book post, I had an epiphany about something. When Amanda asked what I wish I asked for, I rambled a whole lot and then, not as satisfied with the answer I gave her on this post I went on Facebook and Twitter to state that I realized “that, after commenting on @amandapalmer’s Blog, most of my regrets aren’t about things I didn’t ask for.”

A day later, I opened my email to see that on Twitter I got a retweet from Amanda. I have a friend named Amanda and then I did a double-take and looked at this Amanda’s last name.

Another day. Made. In fact, I was told by a dear friend I’d never talked with on the phone before or even seen that–at least for the moment–I gained more Nerd cred than she has: though I have to say she is definitely one to talk and will beat me in no time. ;p

Then not long after that, Miguel Sternberg of Spooky Squid Games was on Twitter complaining about being in a house with no tea with the hashtag #canadianhorrorstories. You have to understand: I couldn’t resist. I ended up writing this: “Short two sentence horror story: The last man on Earth sits in a house. There is no one at the other side of the door with tea.”

Suffice to say, this got retweeted as well.  I wrote a bit more, but he tweeted his screams of terror at me far before that part and that was satisfying in and of itself.

But then I thought: all right. I am totally on a roll here but I have work that I need to do. I’d finally finished playing Christine Love’s Hate Plus and I had to write something for it: I just had to, you know? So I did. It was long and I stayed up late into the night to watch my brain shrivel into the corners of my skull from exhaustion. I’d written a previous article about Christine’s games and I thought nothing of it. I thought I would get a few views or what-not–maybe more because the game had just come out relatively recently–and that would be about it.

So for a day this seemed to be the case. I added stuff and made some corrections and what not. I even added images and had the damnedest time finding a particular image of *Mute in her uniform. So whatever.

The next day …

I’ve briefly exchanged tweets with Christine Love occasionally but this was the first time she had ever retweeted me. Ever. And then I went on my Blog–and this was a few days ago now or however you reckon time when it is very late past what some would consider night–and I see, and I am not joking at all here, I see this … large number of visitors and an even larger volume of views. You get alliteration from this no matter what word you use. And some unintentional rhyme too. See, this is what happens when I write when I’m tired.

Anyway, now that I’m writing up this post to all of you I just have to ask: how many days equal a week made?

I’m feeling really good right now. It’s still confusing and scary, but I can see the hints of opportunities coming up and all of these things–which may seem trivial to some people–are signals that indicate that I am travelling on the right path to … to something. I made something for Andrez Bergen a musician and an excellent writer as well that will … come up on October 9th. I am corresponding with a friend that may be able to help me find some more contacts and connections that I need to begin the process of supporting myself.

I also have two projects that are really experiments to see how much you guys want to see me … make something. One of these would be shared with the public: though I need to look into the logistics of it more. As for the other: I may or may not attempt some …. self-publishing. We shall have to see on that. But the first will definitely be in the form of a question that I will share with all of you whom might be interested.

I might also be … doing something else too in addition to everything you might already know I’m the process of working on. But I have to make some decisions. It seems lately that I am always having to make decisions. A while ago, some friends of mine who were in Vancouver entered their Master’s Program and I entered mine–at least in part because I also wanted to gain that prestige and knowledge (with no little debt)–to feel like a part of what they were feeling if that makes sense: to prove I was equal to them and, more importantly, capable of delving into places by myself.

For a while, especially after still being in debt and a change in circumstances I began to despise academics and wanted to distance myself from it. But it seems as though it will never really leave me, but not only have I learned that I can deal with it on my own terms through this Blog and Sequart and other places but I now feel close to my distant friends in space and time in a different way.

Because, here is the thing: even though I know this is still going to be hard as fuck, I don’t just want a made day, or a made series of days, or a made week, or even made years.

I want a made lifetime. But more than that: I want to make my lifetime.

And now I think it is beginning because, when you come right down to it, it never really ended.

Thank you Kris Straub, Amanda Palmer, Miguel Sternberg, Andrez Bergen, Julian Darius of Sequart and Christine Love for giving me those little extra nudges towards where I need to be. You are inspiring. I also want to thank one of my former Humanities Professors Markus Reisenleitner for endorsing me on LinkedIn. He actually showed one of my posts–Worms and Bicycles Or How People Make For Strange Stories–to his students and that was very encouraging. And I want to thank Gil Williamson for publishing my science-fiction story To Serve on Mythaxis Magazine.

But lastly, I want to thank all my friends and loved ones and all my readers for always being there in some form or another and encouraging me to keep making this Mythic Bios possible. You will be hearing from me soon. I promise.

Looking Outward

Con Fail

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 8 Comments

This is what it was like to be me, on Sunday, attempting to look for the Toronto Fan Expo.

Me and my Head

You find yourself walking out of Union Station through the Toronto Train Station to get to the Skywalk. Unlike the other times you’ve been here, there aren’t any cosplayers or people with Fan Expo bags to follow, but you make your way to the Skywalk.

You know that, in the past, all you had to do was open the glass door on the left-hand side in order to take some escalators down the stairs in order to get to the lobby. All you would have to do is get your prepaid ticket scanned, get a wristband, wait in something of a line and get in. And because it’s Sunday and almost 3 pm, you think that you won’t have to wait very long. You would get in, meet with your friend from London, Ontario and explore for about two hours. The only issue would be the line that might form as you are all leaving like last year’s.

However, it is precisely because of your knowledge of last year that you know that the door is locked and you have to go the long way around, down stairways and across a street or two to get to where you need to go. You get out of the Skywalk and you are outside on the roof. You wander around. Finally, a really nice young lady–whose costume you can’t even recall now and who isn’t a staff member or a volunteer–asks if you’re lost. You admit it and she points you to where you need to go: a Pavilion entrance down below the Convention Centre.

So you travel down the steps. Your thin tight black Dr. Who T-shirt is sticking to your body in the summer heat. You walk to the Pavilion entrances and notice that there are either “Priority,” “Vendor” or “Re-Entry” entrances and exits. So much for that. You keep walking: past a large Aquarium, the line to see the CN Tower and even the Blue Jays booths. You still don’t find the entrance.

You go back and move onto the streets. In fact, you follow a large group of people across a street or two. You even notice some signs that say “Fan Expo” on the sides of walls. They are few, and scattered, and far between. There are no arrows on them pointing anywhere or even a map. You walk past a place where someone, who may or may not be a staff member is talking with a driver. You find another sign. You follow it to a dead-end.

You go back to a park area where you see a young woman standing in a grove of trees dressed and posing as Saber from Fate/Stay Night. It is very awesome and you see her friends taking pictures of her. You try to ignore the lonely feeling, wishing that you could contact your friend or someone that can help you, and continue on. And then you see that you are back in the same place you started at: the Pavilions. A small train ride, that you passed before, nearly runs you over as you are clutching your ticket papers in your hands: which you’d gotten out beforehand so you would be ready for the booth and your wristband.

You have been steadily losing your patience. Finally, you get fed up and go through the Re-Entry to ask the people in charge where you need to go. The security woman in her red uniform is nice enough, but her directions are long and vague. She mentions the Aquarium as a land mark that you’ve passed more than twice. You are tired and hot. It has already been something along the lines of twenty minutes or so that you have been lost in the non-Euclidean geometry of this part of the city or, let’s face it, Toronto itself.

Or at least it might as well be non-Euclidean because this is a vast space and you have spatial issues and difficulties with direction to begin with. You can’t follow the vague map on your papers–if that is what it even is–which has no written directions whatsoever. You keep to the Aquarium and because there are no signs indicating where the Fan Expo ticket-scanning booth is, you walk up some stairs and find yourself at a Hotel.

Then you see two men and a child. You see they have Fan Expo bags like everyone else. You ask one of the men where the ticket booth is. He points vaguely in back of you and asks if you are going to pick up a wristband for sentimental value because the Expo is essentially over. You say that is impossible because it says, specifically on your sheet that they close at 5 pm. He says that this is not possible.

It is 3:45 pm by this point. You walk back down the stairs and across the Blue Jays booths to see if you can find this place. You are feeling a weariness begin to creep into your very being. At 3:55 pm or so, knowing that by the time you find this fabled ticket-scanning place you will have less than hour assuming the vendors weren’t packing up at this point, you realize that this venture is over.

You can feel the bitch-face–that cold unsmiling mask–forming over your features to cover the growing rage you feel inside. You pass by two kids that have shirts with the words “Game Over” and you can’t think of anything more appropriate than to call this waste of an outing. The anger is doused by pure exhaustion and sheer disappointment as not only do you realize that you have wasted $45 for a Sunday ticket to an event you couldn’t even access, and time you could have used to rest, but you also know that your friend is probably heading back to London by this point.

Seeing all of the cosplayers, con-goers and young couples with their loot is just another slap in the face: as though their mere presence this point just rubs in the fact that you couldn’t partake of any of this. You look at the papers in your hand and feel like a fucking idiot. Everything around you feels as cold and as impersonal and uncaring as the business that Fan Expo has begun to represent to you and so many others you know. You’ve already folded the un-scanned papers and now you just crumple them into one fist.

Under your breath, you whisper the words, “Con Fail.”

Then because you went so off-track trying to find this booth, this booth that you wonder ever existed to begin with, you can’t even find the Union Subway Station again and, when you do, you end up sitting in a subway car that takes too long get there, pauses at points and decides to go out of service at Eglinton without even waiting for another back-up car to be there. And all that time, you get to sit there and see more Expo-fans sitting around with their comics and their bags: just reminding you of everything you did not experience that day before your week begins.

You are told later, after you post on Facebook, and after a polite but brutally honest letter to the latter that is probably buried under a high volume of many other incoming emails that Hobbystar–the company that has “organized” the Fan Expo–is going to have new ownership and perhaps things will be better next time. Perhaps they will have volunteers around the streets with signs, or clearer signs on posters, or perhaps just greater organization itself. At the very least, they could have a ticket booth is not in the centre of Pan’s Labyrinth or long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Because right now, just as then, you vow to yourself–having already had issues with Hobbystar and knowing that your other friends have experienced the same–that you are never going to try to go to Toronto Fan Expo again.

This message has been brought to you by Con Fail. I’m glad that everyone else, who managed to make it to the Expo had one. I just wish I had been one of you. As it is, I’m pretty ashamed that I had to spend valuable time and space writing this piece out when I have so many more interesting things planned, but it just had to be said.

It Is Never Still and Neither am I

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I dream in the green of it.

In fact, I never really left the green that my friend brought me into last weekend during the summer sunshine. She told me before that I seemed disconnected–that I’d been so for a while–and, as a matter of course, we walked through High Park, then to a pub and back to her place. A night or so later, I found myself on a shuttle bus from Eglinton back to Finch after meeting Neil Gaiman. And on that ride, tired and somewhat dehydrated, I had time to think.

I had time to think about a lot of things.

There was a time that I took a night bus from College Street all the way to Finch after spending time at Neutral. At the same time, when I passed Eglinton I would look for the Higher Ground store with its old apartments that my friends used to stay at. Years ago I would come to visit there and sometimes I would stay the night after going down to Queen and the Vatikan from Ossington. The irony–that I would finally understand how we always navigated from there to there years later after they were gone–never escaped me.

The associations spread from there like creeping vines of psychogeography ignoring all perceptions of time and space. I remember walking down Spadina: from College Street to Queen with my friend from Germany and later giving her her first Halloween. I recall walking with another friend through Kensington Market to look at old thrift clothes and makeup.

Of course the Lillian H. Smith Library comes into the fore with its statues of fantastic animals: whose doors we sometimes stopped into. That library becomes a nexus: where a friend introduced it to me for the first time and I waited for another person there to see the Merril Collection for the very first time.

When I follow the track down I remember Neutral and the girl with the Cheshire smile who decided she wanted to dance with me. Further on, down the streetcar path in the night to Dufferin and then Brock Ave where I sometimes spent the night and free-cycled things like abandoned doors. Down the very opposite, away from the Lillian H. Smith Library was Broadview where two awesome ladies used to live and sometimes had parties. And then near College and Clinton was the streetcar line to Euclid Avenue.

Euclid Avenue.

I recall all the streetcar rides to comics conventions like the Paradise at the Ex or some chain of hotels and all the Starbucks and places I used to find myself in when I wandered. But of all these days and all these evenings what really sticks out at me the most of all was the night bus after a Star Wars game with my friends in Richmond Hill taking me back into the city and my walks on the Danforth and Woodbine where I used to live. And Woodbine. Woodbine. Woodbine …

There were the moots and the munches, the parties and the events and just the times when I allowed myself to wander. I’m not sure when that moment was when I changed from a quester into a castellan, or a wanderer into a hermit. And when I was coming back from meeting Neil and wondering if life would any better after reaching one of the things I looked forward to the most, I finally realized that I was in mourning.

I knew I’d been grieving for a while. In my mind I understood that this was what I had been doing and I even told people I knew that this was the state I was in. But it wasn’t until that night that I began to understand that I’d been grieving for a really long time–for all these things that I thought I lost–and I wasn’t dealing with it.

Of course, that’s not entirely true. I was dwelling in it. I didn’t let go of it. And when I moved back to Thornhill away from the city, all I could do was blame myself and scream quietly why. Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn’t I keep my perception of freedom? Why does loss exist? Why do I have to be so fucking unhappy?

And I understand something now. That boy who made his ridiculous budgie chants, who went out to his first Conventions, who went to Euclid Avenue, who danced with the girl and her beautiful smile at Neutral, who went to Brock Avenue for the night, who stayed above Higher Ground, who helped a friend find Halloween, who played at the Two-Headed Dragon, who lived and still loves at Woodbine, who went to York University and who wandered around at all times of the day and night downtown in various forms is no longer here. I am no longer that boy or that man. I am not that person–or those people–anymore. It’s all so vital and immediate: before time eats through experiences and turns them into memories. And sometimes it sucks. It sucks so bad and I feel that anger come out at that sense of loss.

Me and my Head

But I have to accept that and live accordingly.

I’m … something else now. I’m not new. I still have all of those memories of being all those different variations of people. And I haven’t sorted through it all yet. I don’t think I ever really will. I know I’m not always wise or strong and I tend to repeat the mistakes of the past in different permutations. But I am doing so much now. I feel closer to something: something that I can’t entirely focus on or name. It’s like I am breaking through a barrier partly of my own creation and the other half belonging to the rest of the world. It is a penumbra of pain, loss, regret, rage, guilt, ennui, and rut but also stability and order and “just the way things are.”

And I am tired of feeling like a stagnant, rotting old man with crazy hair. I want to be an active powerful young man with crazy hair instead. I realize I still feel and that it is okay–and more than okay–to have strong feelings: even though and especially because I own them.

I know a lot of this might go over some people’s heads with details that explain little or nothing. But to those of you who know, and you know who you are, even though I’m a changing person I still love you and I will treasure what we had and whatever else we can have again now. I was really very lucky. And I guess I still am.

I guess this is just a really long way of saying that I’m still healing and it is confusing, and uncertain, and sometimes really quite scary. But at the same time, I feel alive and this is my space and my time: or as Gwendolyn MacEwen put it, I’m dreaming “in the green of my time.”

Until another time, my friends and loyal readers.

Toronto’s Boyfriend Tells Us To Dream: Neil Gaiman at the Danforth Music Hall

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 4 Comments

For a day that I’d been looking forward to for a very long time, there isn’t very much I have to say about it.

The day before I’d packed everything I would need: my ticket, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and its proof of Indigo purchase, my first edition of American Gods–the book that started it all for me–and then the following day I packed my less-than-often used digital camera: just in case. After a shower that same day and dressing up in my World’s Ender’s T-Shirt and carrying my leather jacket I got a ride to the subway and then eventually got off at Broadview to head towards the Danforth Music Hall.

I didn’t plan to be second in line. I came by the Hall and noticed that it was still closed. So I went for some food and came back and started talking with someone there. We became the beginning of the line: even though we all had reserved seats.

Eventually at 6 pm we were allowed into the Hall. A very nice Indigo staff member working for the event marked the place in my Ocean book where it was going to be signed and personalized and then she wrote down my question for him on another piece of paper. I asked a really convoluted and boring question along the lines of: “Was there an interview or an article where you actually stated that you wrote an origin story for the Beldam?” Actually, I just called her “the Other Mother” for good measure because it was easier for the person writing it: even though I knew my question wouldn’t be chosen anyway.

You wouldn’t have figured I’d have asked a Coraline question, huh? 😉

I was directed to my seat and after I went to the restroom I came back and settled in. I realized that two of my friends were actually at the event. I’d come to terms with the fact that I would be going by myself but I suspected I’d know at least a few people there. One of them was someone I helped at the Global Game Jam, while the other was a really lovely person from our stints as this year’s Toronto Comics Arts Festival volunteers.

The event started a half an hour or so later due to the bad traffic of downtown Toronto and the TTC. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to be seeing him soon. Someone won some front-row seats because they had access to their twitter. And then after some introductions from Mark Askwith of Prisoners of Gravity who would go on to choose the questions we submitted for the Q&A and actually referred to our guest as “Toronto’s boyfriend”–and who better to have a one-night stand with the scattered secrets and mystical places in this city that keeps rebuilding and losing itself  … he came on stage.

There was this roar of applause and shouts. In the spotlight, his wild crazy hair seemed white. In fact, as he kept talking, I could almost see him much older than fifty with a cravat under his chin and the collar of his dark suit.  The light played with the shadows of his cheekbones and the hollows of his eyes, but it was him. It was totally him.

He started things off by reading a bit of Ocean: which he did with such expression and fluid emotion. What I mean is that he basically flowed from one nuance and tone to another according to each sentence that he came to. His voice, from the microphone and the lilt of it, filled the room of so many people who were so incredibly silent: just to listen to this man, this one man, read from this book.

And then he was done and the questions that were written outside by the Indigo staff representatives came to the fore. If the storytelling hadn’t already brought me to a very different place, then the Q&A did. After talking about wanting snakes for hair–just for the company–and which female characters of his he loved (Delirium, Hunter, Yvaine, the Hempstocks and even Ursula Monkton of all beings: who was “fun to write”) and a whole lot of things that I know I have forgotten or won’t come to mind until later tomorrow when I wake up, someone asked him what he thought of Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor and it was then–at that point–that I wasn’t just watching a hub of geekdom geeking out.

I was there. I was a part of the cheering. I was in the middle of it.

He even told us a story I’d never heard before: of the last event which made him no longer be a journalist anymore. He explained to us that the paper he was working for wanted to do a series on “the evils of Dungeons & Dragons.” And, according to him, it was the last request they ever asked of him because he quit not long after. In addition to this, he told us that there were two Hempstocks in his other books: Stardust and The Graveyard Book. After this, he proceeded to tell us, in just how many “greats,” that these two women were related to and descended from the Hempstocks in Ocean, these “great great great great great great great great great …” he went on, “great great-grand nieces.”

After this, he did another reading: this time from his upcoming children’s novel Fortunately, the Milk. I wish he had read to me as a child, but this was more than good enough as well and definitely something that you parents out there should totally get and read to your children. It was that good.

Then came the signing. He decided that instead of being called up row by row that each row would be chosen by lottery. I was in row ‘S.’

Row ‘S’ didn’t get called until a little past 1 in the morning.

He himself had those who were pregnant or sick or disabled come up below the stage and signed their books first: which was a really decent thing to do. There was wine-tasting outside that I didn’t get in on because I am not much of a drinker. The rows of seats had little space between them and I constantly had to get up to let them through or go into some weird contortionist stance. We also hadn’t been allowed to bring food or drink in and, for something this long, these elements were crucial. This rule was relaxed as the Hall’s bar and store closed down for the night and we were allowed to go out and get some food: which is what I inevitably did and it made all the difference in the world.

And he just kept signing. He kept signing. Sometimes he hugged someone and I could see him talking, but mostly he just kept signing. Then at one point he had to take a break. What I didn’t know, then, was that he had injured his finger–a fingernail was apparently coming off–and he went to walk, probably go to the washroom, and get a band-aid. And he came back.

And he kept signing.

Eventually various rows were called up and I started humming a song under my breath–Scissor Sisters’ “I Can’t Decide” which I suddenly remembered right out of the blue and it made me start to feel happy along with the food I had from before–and I prepared. I saw that representatives were using peoples’ cameras to take pictures of those people and our friend the author. I kept coming closer in that line, out of the lobby, into the auditorium again, near the stairs, thanking one of the really tired volunteer representatives there, going up the stairs and slowly realizing that he and I were no longer separated by writing, or a screen, or row of seats and stage, or stairs, or even … people after a while …

To be honest, as I came closer to him I wasn’t thinking about the fact that this was the man whose book radically influenced my writing style as it is now. I wasn’t thinking about how I wrote my Master’s Thesis on his work alongside Alan Moore and Herodotus, or the many books I’d read of his, or the sightings of him with Amanda Palmer, or any of that. I just kept focused on what I came there to do.

He was looking down at the books–my books–that one of the representatives handed him. He was signing them. A part of me couldn’t believe that he was actually there. Like this was all some kind of illusion. I was also, in the back of my mind, hoping that I would not miss the last subway car on the Bloor-Danforth line back from Broadview to Bloor Station. And he was sitting right in front of me.

I more recited what I wanted to say in a brief oratory manner than anything in the way of conversation. I told him that my friends and my Message Board told me to say hello to him. And then I told him the other most important thing: “I’m really glad that I finally got to meet you.”

I think at this point he looked up, or so my pictures–that a representative was really good enough to take–seemed to indicate. I actually made eye-contact. He thanked me and he said that he hadn’t been on the Board in a while or around there. I’m not sure what he meant, but I had nothing to really add to that. But he told me, saying my name, to tell everyone hello from him and that he sends his regards.

As I was leaving and he went back to his singing, I turned around and said one more thing. I told him, “Dream well.”

I think he actually said, “Thank you, Matthew,” and the representatives around him seemed to smile and laugh at what I said. In retrospect, it is rather redundant to tell the Prince of Stories, in his own words, to “dream well.” But I couldn’t resist. I had to have something else to write about.

Then I rushed out of the Music Hall, down the sidewalk, across the street, into Broadview Station, where the train was taking five minutes to get there, and I got out–got to Bloor before 1:30, and had to run to the other side side upstairs to get the Northbound train … for it to go out of service at Eglinton and take a shuttle bus home to where my Dad was waiting for me at Finch.

Much later, I realized that the personalization in my Ocean book read, “Dream, Matthew.” He’d said the same thing for one of my other friends and I suspect for many more. I didn’t really care, however: just that he took that time to do it despite the exhaustion and the long hours and the many more hours to come even as I am writing this. I also saw something else. The representative that took my picture actually took more than one. And suddenly, I just felt so … tired. I came and did what I had to do, what I had been looking forward to for so long, on perhaps what is going to be his last Signing Tour ever and now all that would be waiting for me is a host of responsibilities until Fan Expo when I can meet up with my friend Angela O’Hara.

I sat on that Shuttle bus going past the old place on Eglinton where my friends used to live and I thought about all the times I’d ridden this bus–this shuttle–at this time and how I was here by myself and just how strong I had been today. These past two days I had overridden my own anxiety. I continued on. Even before I came to the Music Hall, when I was still at home, I looked at myself in the mirror and I realized that I felt … beautiful again.

And all the annoyance and irritation and panic was totally worth this day. Because this day, that happened a day or so ago, I got to meet Neil Gaiman for the first and last time. And whatever else happens, I will still continue to dream.

On the Dangers and Merits of Sequels: Or a Post in Post-Haste

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

This post is late. Actually, I’ve had to redo this post at least two or three times already in that I had no idea what exactly I wanted to write about. In fact, I wasn’t sure I was even going to write about anything.

It’s been those kinds of days.

Usually I have some posts in reserve–as I’ve probably mentioned before–or I get one done the very day of Monday or Thursday. In fact, I think some of the few times I’ve been late with an entry have been on special occasions such as holidays: you know, like New Years. This was not New Years: at least I really hope not.

I have been busy. I recently finished writing an article for Sequart which I plan to send to them with some associated images once it gets a look over. I actually got all fancy and annotated it: doing some of the very academic things I swore off because of how tedious and infuriating they can become. Still, it’s kind of like creating a formulaic ritual around your words: either keeping the forces of skepticism out, or binding them inside the circle.

My analogy of academics as formulaic magic aside, I’m pleased with how it has turned out so far and I look forward to showcasing it: one way or another. I’m also now brainstorming more elements for the plot of my Secret Project: though there are some details–both practical and otherwise–that I have to get before I can go forward. I am also working on a short story and doing research for that. In addition, I have had to reread some of my Twine rough draft notes so that I can eventually go back to working on that lovely monstrosity. I almost gave up on it because it really has been a while, but my plan involves finishing one or two “chapters” and then work on one “chapter” that I can experiment with Twine proper. This one chapter will be an excerpt for people to read and play through: or a standalone piece of game writing. I think focusing on this one part captures the spirit of what I want to talk about and will be a good example of what I want to do. So there is that.

As for the rest of it … I guess I can sum it up like this. Sometimes an event in life is like a film. And even if that film becomes “a downer,” it can still be a very good and detailed work of art: something complete in and of itself. Despite the highs and the lows, that film is unique and it has a happy ending: in that it actually ends. Unfortunately, in most cases a film interests people so much that a sequel is created and most sequels tend to be shoddy and derivative shadows of their predecessors. The story should have just been ended while it still had some dignity. But there is another phenomenon to consider: that of trilogies. While some trilogies are degenerations of that first movie, more often than not it is the second film that serves as a bridge to that much more effective and satisfying end story.

So the way I see it, right now my life is The Empire Strikes Back–a very good sequel–and maybe, just maybe I can get to the place where I can blow up AT-ST chicken walkers with teddy-bear Ewoks.

I have quite a few things to look forward to and not the least of which being next week, on Tuesday, when I finally get to meet Neil Fucking Gaiman. Anyway, that’s it for tonight. I’m glad that I got to end this on a more positive note and I will see you all later.

Take care.

Looking Outward