Category: Life

In Which Even My Budgie Thought I Was Crazy

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

My pet budgie had been sick for a really long time: for about a year or so.

She became this little blue cloud sitting in the highest vantage point of her cage: between her mirror and one of her toys. It got to the point where the only time she would chirp would be when she climbed down–still possessed of her surprising agility–and either attacked her cuttlebone or ate from her seed cup.

Even when she was well, she barely ever talked to herself and when she did, it was this quiet, faint little chirp or two. Later on, she would be quietly and excitedly chirping to herself when we covered her cage for the night. She slept so much during the day that she became a nocturnal bird of sorts and she would always “go to sleep” whenever we left her for the night.

Personally, I don’t think she liked me very much. She would sit on my finger but then eventually lean away from me and go back onto her perch. I could never find the right whistle to match her chirping pitch and I suspect she squawked because she hated it when I clapped. It also probably didn’t help that I would threaten to eat her every day like I was some kind of Dread Pirate Roberts with budgie on the menu: with the caveat of “not today.”

That, and I liked to point at her and growl, “You.”

She got used to that after a while: so much so she started to ignore me as most sane sentient pieces of fluff tend to after a while. In fact, our whole owner and pet relationship was pretty much me asking my family how she was doing, occasionally putting her on my finger–which she would entertain the notion for a while–and feeding her her millet when she got too lazy and learned that she could get humans to do more things for her, and later when she got too exhausted and anemic to get for herself.  When she was well, I enjoyed getting her to stretch out her neck and reach for the millet that I would move gradually away from her. Sometimes she would peck at my finger when she realized it was in the way of her food: even though it was the very thing keeping it there for her convenience.

I never said she was smart: in that way anyway.

Towards the end, which had been coming for over a year–because she was too stubborn in general–she vomited up probably about as much as she ate. She was thin and cold underneath her blue puffiness. The heating pad stayed on her cage all the time and only got shut off when it was time for her to sleep or we had to leave the house: because we didn’t want her to get accidentally cooked or incinerated. When she threw up, it was more of an annoyance to her than anything else: just something she had to get out of her way before she could do her birdy things.

For all I sometimes deluded myself into thinking that she was groggy like a drunk in her fluff and hungover enough to just say “leave me alone” to the rest of the world, she really was sick. Even so, whenever she moved she would preen herself and chirp quietly: letting us know that she was still here. She was still here.

The day before Saturday, she sat on my finger. She was exhausted and we stared at each other a bit. Eventually, I just put her back on her perch and left her alone. She ate, she cleaned herself, she talked and sat on my brother’s finger and slept. That bird always loved my brother: she’d kiss his finger and his lips and warble at him in an attempt at communication. She seemed no different and no worse than any other time.

I was in bed when I heard that they found her at her seed cup. She was gone at that point. Unlike our other birds, she wasn’t on the floor gasping or squeaking in pain from cancer or whatever ultimate complications happen when you inbreed budgies for prettiness in cages. She never seemed to be in pain: at least, I hope she never was. She just got tired and tired and, one day, on Saturday, she just stopped.

But more than that, she died pretty much the way she lived: eating.

For all of her simplicity, she knew there was something wrong with her and she just kept going until she couldn’t anymore. There was no complex thought or visible fear: it just was. That night, mostly avoiding the living room and that empty space near the wall where her cage was–as though she were just on vacation or upstairs in my parents’ room as they did some oven-cleaning–I still swear I thought I heard some of the small, quiet chirps that she made at night.

There is one other fact about all of this. When I talk about that wall, I have to mention that this is where all our birds were placed when we moved into this house. In our old house, they used to sit right next to the TV or a window. Essentially, the bird would sit in the corner of this room and watch us from a distance whenever we didn’t visit her. She also rarely ever came out. Some budgies fly around all the time. But not this one. Most of the times she would come out, it would be disastrous. She could fly, but her landing skills sucked. After a while, we didn’t let her come out for fear of her killing herself and  eventually she didn’t even try.

And sometimes I wondered. I wondered what it would be like to have no contact with anyone of your own kind, placed in a cage you never came out of–that became your home–in corner of the room where you had to make yourself heard all the time. I sometimes wondered if her sickness was just physical.

I also realized that, looking at myself, I didn’t have to wonder that much. Over the years, we had a lot in common. Both of us probably felt confined and bothered by people. Sometimes neither of us wanted to wake up and eventually night time became a blessing for us: because no one would bother us and we could do our own thing. We were also both lonely: I’m pretty sure. And we both sat in our cages for so long they became our mostly comfortable homes and we forgot at times that we could fly.

When my second budgie Carni died, I felt a disconnect with the birds that came after him. That affection and tactility was gone or more distant. I felt like I couldn’t get close to any pet like that again, and even though I played with the other two, it wasn’t the same. By the time we got this one, I was in the process of working and eventually moving out. I visited from time to time these past three or so years but I guess it just wasn’t the same for her.

I’m not sure if we are going to get another budgie. They have played a long role in my life. They were the first pet I never had as a child: as my Dad is allergic to everything else. I even made a primitive childhood mythos or a chant for them: ranging from addressing human with “The budgie will eat the world” and “They’re coming for us all!” to the budgie “You will be devoured, it is your destiny!” or even some weird tautologies like “The Budgie’s name is Budgie.” It’s going to take some getting used to not doing that anymore. In retrospect, it’s much the same way some writers will start rhyming all the time just to get into a creative or hyper-mindset. Sometimes I’ve joked that I had “budgie turrets”: if only because I liked to say the word “budgie” so many times. It is such a silly, ridiculous word for a bird with a dotted happy face below their beak: as though they are happy all the time.

Budgies are also very good imitators when they want to be.

It gets to the point where you wonder whether you trained them to be crazy, or if they trained you to be more like them. All of this must sound very weird, I’m sure. I mean, it’s just a bird right? I also never said I didn’t have some issues. But I just want to say that if I ever get another bird again, somehow I will show them that it is okay to fly. I’ll play with them as much as I can and spend more time with them. Or something. Or I will get out of my own cage a lot more often.

I don’t know. Right now, after burying myself in work, all I know is that I will never get the chance to point at Squawkes again and simply accept my craziness for whatever it is. May she be in the largest cage there is: made from the cuttlebones of the sky.

As I Miss the Point: Pixel Girls and Broody Men

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I saw Laurie Penny’s article I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl through a tweet that Neil Gaiman made: with him questioning whether or not his character Death–in The High Cost of Living–actually fell into that stereotype. I’ve actually heard this term before, in passing, but I think I kept mishearing it as “the manic pixel girl,” or something along those lines. Maybe it was after watching and reading Scott Pilgrim that my brain started to make that reference.

Still, the definition of that term still stands: as a female character created specifically to make some dark, broody, introverted young man open up to life and not that much else. You know: the quixotic help-mate that comes and goes and whose only purpose in life is to help some guy “lighten up.” There are many conceits about this kind of character–this stereotype–that rub me the wrong way. I mean, I can talk about how she isn’t a whole human being, how she probably doesn’t eat, drink, sleep, eliminate in any fashion or probably even menstruate. I can describe how she is more of an elemental than anything material and is more of a shadow or a mirror for a man than anything else: at least when taken to the nth degree.

But I think what really bothers me, as a man and as a human being, is that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl always seems to have a kind of knowledge–inherent in her being–that she gives to the man, and he gives her nothing back in return. It’s insulting, really, to both genders in this dynamic.

I mean, think about it for a few moments. What this dynamic says, as a narrative, is that a brooding, insular man needs some agency outside of themselves to become a full being: that for all of their knowledge and skill, they really aren’t that bright as it were. They are not “naturally happy.” In fact, they are so hopeless that only one kind of woman can give them what they need and not, you know, come to some kind of understanding from personal experience or begin to help themselves. And is this pixie girl so whole and so unselfconsciously perfect that she can’t learn anything from him in return? That maybe he might also know something about life and it is not all about an Apollonian shallow self-centred view of the world in which everything has to be positive all the time, or someone’s view has to be saccharine sweet all the time to the point where they can’t stand the negativity in the world or other people and will either ignore or phase out someone who is “not positive enough” or try to change them?

As Thomas Mann points out in “Tonio Kroger,” some people dance and some people watch people dance and appreciate it for what it is. But I posit that this is no reason for either dancer or watcher to not interact or learn something from each other’s perspectives.

And I think that if I had to really go into this, I would say the following: people cannot fix each other. They can’t. The only way that a person can be “fixed,” whatever that means, is for that person to decide that they want to fix themselves: or to change. That person can ask for help, can accept it as well, but the agency is ultimately with them. Also, what is a “main character?” Is a main character someone who has to be in charge and in control all the time: making everyone else into an extension or a side-character in their own personal odyssey? If so, then it’s just so … tiring. It’s tiring and unrewarding because you are losing out on some experiences when you are like that.

You know what story would really intrigue me? Honestly? Something that began like a Pixie Dream Girl meeting a brooding dark young man and she presents this stereotypical face to him. And it isn’t all bad. She and him have fun despite himself and, god forbid, he actually begins to remember or know what happiness feels like. But as this relationship goes on, he notices that she is a human being too: someone who needs to use the restroom, sweats, passes gas, gets tired, gets periods, doesn’t get periods, gets cranky and has her own shit to deal with. And maybe she in turn learns things from him too. Maybe he shows her exactly what he perceives as wrong with this world. Maybe she learns that sometimes it is necessary to sit down and take things in: that there are times when it is appropriate–and healthy–to be solemn and really look at what it is that you are doing. Perhaps she can see that sometimes he just doesn’t want to be the main character anymore and that he just wants to be an interesting side-character–the kind that is generally unplayable, a strange NPC–who can come and go with her as she pleases, or as they do.

Perhaps they can dance in the sun and the night and enjoy being alive together. Maybe they can sit in a peaceful and non-threatening silence. And why does she have to be “simple” and he be “complex.” Why can’t they both–or all–just be intelligent and different as human beings? Why can’t they both be wrong, and be right at the same time? In fact, when it is all over in some form or another, why can’t they both go home at the end of the day changed for having met each other?

Because I tell you right now: whenever you do meet someone, you change them. I don’t mean you force to be what you envision them to be, but even if you don’t teach them new things even something as seemingly superficial as your mannerisms sometimes rub off on each other and get adopted in strange ways. And even if you ever get reduced to the point where all that easy conversation and love becomes stilted and somewhat embarrassing after at least one of you moves on with your lives–when you are just a little sentimental enough to make the person you once loved uncomfortable after … whatever the fuck it was you had–you know that just for one moment you both understood each other and held each other for dear life as human beings. And who knows: it might well happen again.

Maybe there is a film or a story like that which uses these two stereotypes–the Manic Dream Pixie Girl and the Brooding Young Man–and subverts them like that. Or I’m just amalgamating another stereotype and some cliched human dynamics together: like from some romantic comedy. But whatever the case, stories about actual human beings are nice: even when you don’t want to live them.

And I will just end off by stating one thing. Ramona Flowers is not a Manic Dream Pixie Girl. If anything, she is more like a Depressive Dream Pixel Girl: at least in the film. She is too detached and ironic to be manic and, frankly, is just another stereotype. And don’t even get me started on Scott Pilgrim. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have the intelligence going for him.

But I will say this: that just because someone isn’t a main character doesn’t mean that they aren’t–or they can’t already be–a protagonist.

Yet These Hands Will Never Hold Anything … Except For Paper and a Pen

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I was fully intending to let you all know that I was going to attend–and this time participate in–the 12 Hour Marathon Comic Book Marathon at the Comic Book Lounge and Gallery. However I ended up re-blogging–and blogging–about Pollychromatic’s Be Brave, Be Heard article instead, which was more than worth it seeing as it attempts to create a powerful visual symbol of female identity, voice and survival in the social and cultural climate of this particular era. So at this point, I have already participated in the Marathon and I want to talk about that, and my weekend.

I woke up early Saturday to gather some supplies together and check my email. When I came online, I saw that Julian Darius and Cody Walker published the first part to my article Yet Those Hands Will Never Hold Anything: Emiya Shirou as the Interactive Superhero of Fate/Stay Night on Sequart. You can look up Sequart through the link I just made or on my Blogroll: there are many interesting scholarly articles on themes, character analyses, and the history and influences in and of the comics medium. I have to say that this made my bright hot summer day before trekking out to the TTC and getting to the Lounge.

On the subway ride there, I spent some time writing out some notes as to what kind of story I wanted to sketch out. I am not much of a visual artist, as I’ve probably said before, but I was resolved to make something come from this Marathon. This was not the first time I’d attended, as I recounted in another entry of mine, but I actually made it earlier and prepared to get some work done.

The organizer of this event, Keiren Smith, met me as I came up the stairs and introduced me to the other creators already in attendance and heavily at work. I settled onto the black leather couch next to the washroom, took my shoes off, and took out the lined paper on my clipboard that I was writing stuff on earlier on the subway. I proceeded to make a few notes and create my captions and dialogue before my crude attempts at drawing the images and the panels around them.

Of course, it didn’t work completely as I planned. I was pretty tired from the heat and the fact that I’m not so used to being up and about as early as I had been. I also kept losing my pens. I got to socialize with some people from time to time and met new faces along with a few old ones. I took my entire box of business cards for Mythic Bios with me just in case as well. At first I was torn between socializing and getting this comic done. The comic itself evolved from an idea I came up with in another work not too long ago. Basically, this mo-fo–and I say this fondly–was going to be a first-person comic: where we as readers get to see the protagonist interact with other people and surroundings from his own perspective along with some helpful dialogue and captions along the way.

Yeah. My first comic in ages and I have to be experimental about it: just as the story was intended to be. It is the extension of a world that I began working on four or five years ago and it amazing to realize the point where you centralize a world of your creation so much that it actually extends itself outward: when it becomes the core of a growing reality.

Okay, so after clicking on the Creative Process Category part of this Blog entry just now, I’m going to go into more of what actually happened. Well, it fought me: naturally. I sat there and despite the snippets of quotes and ideas I had on the margins, I was stuck for a little while. I knew I had to make something at least twelve pages and that this would determine what story I would be able to tell. I was also a bit hot and I wanted to talk to people when I wasn’t pleasantly drowsy on the couch.

Finally, an artist I was sitting next to and chatting with, Megan Kearney, suggested the obvious that I was missing: that I should just create thumbnail sketches.

And that was when I began to draw my comic. I thought about my panels and, aside from the occasional rectangular ones, I did mostly three columns of two large square panels. Sometimes they were arranged differently, but most of the time they were just side-by-side patterns. I had to also think of how a first-person perspective would work. I mean, I had seen one before such as in the zombie apocalyptic graphic novel known as Daybreak, but I could only see the complications that my former Master’s thesis supervisor and I once talked about when he was comparing book narratives to comics and film.

But I did show my protagonist in a mirror and came up with a good line there. I also showed his … hands occasionally. Mostly, I was focusing on the narrative in the captions. I already accepted that my drawing would be basic at best, so I focused on the writing and the graphic pauses between visuals and that writing. It’s like what is said about Jeff Smith: in that he wrote and drew Bone as though he were telling a joke.

I also got to watch other artists and some of their creative processes at work. I saw some people with reference books and sketches. Megan herself was doing some water colouring of the project she brought with her. I saw a few people looking at books from the Lounge whom I didn’t get the chance to speak with. And I saw some people doing some very intricate work with paints and small inked cells on paper. Hell, some people were even inking their comics. It was insane and intense: in a lot of good ways.

The number twelve was both intimidating and painfully doable to me. Just twelve pages, I kept telling myself. Eventually, my thumb-sketching became my drawing and I just focused on telling a story. My concentration wasn’t all that great the entire time. Sometimes my mind wandered and I got tired. It became painfully apparent to me after a while, even after I ate the food that I brought akin to breakfast, that I needed to get something to eat or the only thing I would be writing would be ellipses. Sometimes I can power through creating something and then dealing with my body afterwards, but on that summer day on Saturday it was a bad idea.

At one point, at about the beginning of page five, I walked out of the Lounge and down Little Italy to find some more food. It was beautiful out. People were dressed in colourful light clothing and talking and holding hands at outdoor cafes. I admit I’d been watching them outside the window above the couch anyway when I needed to get up. I even walked past Euclid Avenue and realized that the Dragon Lady that I visited with some friends a few years ago had been here. By the time I got past Sneaky Dees, I was feeling nostalgic in this familiar summer setting of everything. Then I ate some food as I came back and talked a bit more with people.

Of course, by then it was too late and I began to realize that I had the beginnings of a headache. Luckily, I brought my regular strength Tylenol with me: just to be sure. Of course, now–for me–I was going to be working with a handicap. My mind was really drifting and I vowed to myself that I was going to at least get to page six of my work before doing anything else: to get halfway done. Neil Gaiman did not succeed in finishing his 24-hour comic, but I could succeed in drawing and writing twelve bloody pages!

Then I somehow got to seven and at that point I had gotten fed up, took some more business cards, talked to some people, and gave them out. Then I browsed the comics because, after all, this was a bloody comics store and it was my duty to do so. At this point, my Second Wind kicked in in a terrifying sort of way. So I sat down and after telling someone else I was going to do this, I did.

The thing is: this story had been in my head for a while that day–with other elements of it being in there for much longer–and I wanted it out. I wanted to finish what I started and have, in my hands, something to be proud of. And then seven pages became eight, and nine … by the time I got to the double digits, I knew I was going to do it. I just began drawing as basically as possible, not really caring about too many inaccuracies such as who was on the left or right, but just getting it out.

It was only after a while, after doing this all on my writing paper, instead of the white blank paper I brought for the purposes of drawing on, that I realized I was actually going to go over twelve pages.

And I did.

I finished my comic with about two minutes to spare before the deadline of 11. I felt … a good kind of tired. I did it. I finished the first part of an entire chapter of a fictional book I created in another world and I finished it more or less how I wanted to. So I talked with Keiren and some other people, and then I walked from College and Clinton in the summer night of Toronto back to Bathurst Station where I took a long ride back to Thornhill.

There was no way I was going to write the full story of that comic in just that night and maybe one day I will continue it, but I did what I set out to do: I drew it up to the point where I mentioned the very last sentence that it possessed in another narrative of mine. That night, I basically went to sleep in my clothes and on top of my blankets. I don’t remember even going to sleep, but I actually woke up pretty well rested all things considered.

The Marathon was a good, constructive day and I’m glad I did this. Oh, and for those who might say “Pictures or it didn’t happen,” I don’t have a scanner and just a camera. Also, my pictures are insanely crude and my writing … somewhat legible. Maybe one day I will show it, but right now I will just leave you with the message that I went out, took an idea with me, fleshed it, and finished it strong.

But I lied. There is actually one more thing I want to say. Aside from thanking Keiren Smith and the Comic Book Lounge for organizing and hosting this event respectively, and all my fellow awesome creators for attending it, I want to add a little tidbit about storytelling. A long time ago, a Creative Writing teacher of mine asked me which story-line of a meta-narrative I was making was either true or false. Nowadays, and after working on this comic–with its own meta-narrative sense–I realized something.

Something that parodies another thing, or subverts it and yet has its own intrinsic world-rules–or writing continuity and rhythm–can be more than just one thing: or one thing or the other. The fact is, for me, I like the idea of a multiplicity of different things happening one space and different dimensions. I like that dynamism. The truth is that all of my stories, even the stories within stories, are real. They are real to me.

And I think that is the thought out of all of this excellence that I am going to leave you all with.

ETA: Towards the end of the night, at the other end of the room people started singing this song parody. And as I worked, I sang along with them.

This is what happens when you put a group of geeky creators together in one space for an extended period of time.

Be Brave, Be Heard

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 6 Comments

So I don’t generally do re-posts of other Blog articles, but this was is an exception. In fact, I wasn’t going to do anything else and just let Pollychromatic, and the image presented, speak for themselves. But not only have I been informed that there are some opinions of mine that need to be written down, but I also feel compelled to do so anyway.

Now first, I hope you read the above article. Secondly, I actually know Lady Katza personally–the person who took this picture of her daughter and made her costume at the time–and I have seen this awesome image before. In fact, not only have I seen this picture before, but Lady K herself asked me if I could make a story based off of it.

I’m not going to do that today, however, but there is something about the image that I do want to write about. This post, which was created by Lady K’s friend and sewing ally Pollychromatic, has been reposted and linked to a few other places. A few responses to this article were something along the lines of it being impossible for someone to maintain their childhood–their innocence–after protecting themselves from harm: that it should not be the imperative of a child to defend themselves, but rather it should be the responsibility of an adult instead.

And while there are some merits in these thoughts, I believe that they ultimately miss the point. There are two ways of looking at this issue.

The first is the literal perspective: the one which some of these responses attempt to address. If we look at this picture realistically, violence and surviving violence does neither maturity nor adulthood make. That, in my opinion, is a fallacy. Someone who kills or commits violence at a young age–even in self-defence–will have psychological trauma. They would need counselling and lots of guidance and understanding to process what they had done, and what happened to them. One response mentioned war as well as violence as making children grow-up far too quickly: and my opinion on the matter is that child soldiers are not a good basis to make a stable adult from, nor does violence function as a crucible that forges a “stronger” person. Instead, whether that violence is physical or semi-conscious in a culture, it can traumatize and create an individual with major emotional issues: people that, as I mentioned before, will need family and social structures to somehow help them cope … these same factors that should also be called on to change those aspects of a society or culture of violence.

So yes, when taken literally that image of the girl with an axe in one hand and a wolf’s head in another is not a thing that can solve societal and cultural violence.

However, there is the other perspective: the metaphorical one. The image that Lady K creates and Pollychromatic describes is an iconoclast: specifically a picture or an idea that takes preconceived notions and subverts them to make a statement. Both women are trying to say something with the language of archetypes.

They are taking an ancient cautionary folktale in the form of Little Red Riding Hood which, in turn, takes the archetype or the stereotype of the little girl as inherently innocent, pure and chaste–who is easily exploitable and is the victim that must always be cautious or guarded from harm–and they are changing it. Because I can tell you right now, that the image of this Red Riding Hood does not only represent little girls. It represents women of all ages and backgrounds. Whether that is completely successful or not, I will leave it up to others to decide and debate, but when I look at it in that context I see a representation–not the representation of course because there is never only one–of women and what they should do in the world of inherent violence and exploitation.

Now take the axe. The axe can be seen as an implement of death, but it is also a tool to help people survive: to cut wood and other substances for fire and food. Learning to use a tool is a form of knowledge and experience. When you place that in the hand of a symbol that is meant to represent a form of neoteny–both an essentialized symbol and an idea that women are eternal and infantile children that need to be minded and to fear–you begin to change that symbol through that addition alone. In Little Riding Hood, the axe also belongs to the woodsman whom–in at least some variations of the tale–ends up killing the predatory wolf. Perhaps he or someone else of either gender has taught her how to chop wood and use a tool to defend herself should she need it.

And now we come to the wolf’s head and the blood. For me, they represent–respectively–fear and the world. The wolf is not just violence, but the fear of violence. The girl, here, has decapitated her fear. But notice how she holds that wolf’s head. She isn’t holding it up like a trophy, or as something to be dominated, or even as a vanquished foe. Rather, she holds it as something more akin to a stuffed animal or a teddy bear. It’s almost like in addition to being fear the wolf is also her sense of violence and perhaps something more one day. She inherently accepts it as a part of herself and, while she has eliminated its power over her, she still utilizes its essence in a totemic way. It is her natural violence. It is a fallacy to question whether or not a cat hunting a mouse or a bird still has their innocence: in that they are just following their nature. I’d also argue that the essence of human nature is to preserve itself: an urge that can be honed into a conscious instinct for self-defence.

As for the blood, it would be really easy to equate it to upcoming puberty or a crimson baptism heralding premature adulthood, but the fallacy is equating adulthood with maturity and the idea that maturity and innocence are mutually exclusive forces: especially since we do not have a working definition of what innocence is beyond an idea of sexuality or age.

I see the blood as a consequence of being in the world. The natural world of the woods and beyond them is a messy, organic place. This is something that children, and hence adults, learn very early in their existences. If you are going to live in the world, prepare to be dirty and to also know that each cause has an effect.

This archetype that has been depicted here is no new idea. It has probably had many names in the past, but TV Tropes has its own heading under the term Little Miss Badass. You can find them in all media: as Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and even Lettie Hempstock in his new novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane. But I want to get beyond this a bit and look at what is meant by self-defence. The fact is, I hinted earlier that violence is not merely a physical act, but also a systematic one: one that uses a societal or cultural threat or fear of violence to define a victim and make them hide … make them silent. However, self-defence need not only be physical as well. It can be arming someone with the tools to not only recognize overt and subtle dangers, but also to speak, to protest, and to challenge what are generally long-held and unquestioned assumptions.

So now consider this image in the political dimension that Pollychromatic brings up. If you interpret this image as being an archetype–again not the archetype–for all women, then the message seems to be clear: that women should defend themselves against forces that threaten them and that the first form of defence is knowledge of what needs to be defended against and how to properly respond to that danger.

And then you can look at the image with regards to children: to actual children. If you interpret this image as teaching children how to recognize the inherent dangers of the world around them, as well as working with the benefits of that world and focus more on them interacting with the world as it is, then perhaps you can slowly change that world from the ground up: by simply having those children, and the adults that they will subsequently become, actually exist.

Ultimately, I will say this. Pollychromatic’s version of Lady K’s photograph as a potential political symbol for change does need some work. Personally, I think it would look awesome in the form of FV Disco that was utilized by Nick Marinkovich as the illustrator of Kenk: with its collage-like quality, sharp white angular outlines, and rhetorical art quality that would still keep the essence of the image as it is. What I see when I look at this image is a timeless figure, an innocence that protects itself and its own: a force that teaches you that innocence still exists with a bit more canniness and wisdom and, more importantly, it makes you seriously look at what forces define innocence in a created world.

That is what I got out of what Pollychromatic and Lady K try to say about their article and picture respectively.

pollychromatic's avatarpollychromatic

Something sort of weird happened on the way to sharing a picture for the #WeStandWithWendy campaign.

A couple years ago my friend Lady Katza from Peanut Butter Macramé took a picture of her daughter. She had made a gorgeous Little Red Riding Hood costume for her daughter, and completed the costume with a bloodied axe and a wolf’s head.

Her daughter was 8 in the picture; unmistakably prepubescent. There was little question of context for herself, her husband, or for me. In this storytelling, Red had saved herself with a Huntsman’s axe. She did not need saving. The girl in the picture was wide eyed, with her innocence still visibly intact. She did not look menaced or menacing. She looked determined, and young. It was, ultimately, a picture of female innocence that was capable, and not the least bit helpless.

It was the kind of story-in-a-picture that upends paradigms, in…

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What You Are Fighting

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

There are two things you need to remember when you are dealing with attachment. If you prefer the metaphor, think of attachment as a short opponent and you–always–as the taller one. In fact, no matter short you physically are, or how small you want your presence in this world to me, you are always bigger than attachment.

And that is the trap right there.

The first thing you need to remember as taller person–a bigger person–fighting a smaller opponent is that you always need to maintain your distance. Always. Attacking in a place of your choosing and using the terrain to your advantage is your best bet. But if you really have to face each other, remember that generally your shorter opponent has an advantage with punches, while you have an easier time with kicks. Your opponent has larger shoulder and arm strength and can make a decent kick of their own: which they can use to their advantage if you are in range.

But you as the taller opponent can make kicks and punches with longer limbs that are ranged attacks and keep attachment at a distance because here is the second thing to remember: if you let attachment–your shorter opponent–get under your guard and into your personal zone of space … unless you make it into a grappling match, more likely than not your chances of winning have just decreased considerably as this has now become about close-range combat. Your long limbs–which have been your advantage up until this point, will miss your smaller target and your opponent will close in on you: and you will either lose, or it will become a whole other kind of fight altogether … especially if attachment becomes hatred, fear, or love.

However, I lied. There is one more thing you need to remember about dealing with attachment: about confronting that third thing. And the thing you need to know is that not all binaries, or metaphors, are true: and not all opponents are–or continue to be–enemies.

Photo Credit: Klara Faberova

What I’ve Been Up To and Where This is Going

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

It’s been some time since I’ve taken a step back and talked about what has been going on with my creative projects and myself. And while I’m glad I actually had the opportunity to post up some actual fiction here for a change, this has been long past time.

The more the game changes, the more it stays the same: both figuratively and literally. Let me start with the practical matters first. I need a job. That’s pretty much it. I need to find a job and do some volunteering that can help me get more contacts. The good news–aside from the fact that my worker is the first person to ever get a Mythic Bios business card–is that my social assistance program that I’ve been on for a while is actually giving me a little more in the way of concrete advice.

For instance, I have some websites now that seem to tailor more to the kinds of things I do or that I’m interested in. There was at least one job looking for a potential creative writing teacher: which would be a strange role for me given how I have been–and I am still–the student for so long. But that is one avenue. Another possibility that was given to me is that perhaps I can join a newspaper and help create or add to a column that matches with my “Geek” interests. This would be a major boon because I would have something out there in print, get more of my stuff out there, and potentially even get paid for it. I won’t lie: getting paid would be very nice at this point.

On the other hand, I am now motivated to really and truly start asking questions. What I mean is that even if I can’t get a job at one place or another, I can ask “interview” questions to someone about what it is that they do, what I should expect, what I would need to focus on with regards to my resume, and if they know anyone who is looking for anyone. I can ask questions. And I suspect there will be some business card trading. All of this is a focus that I have been fighting to keep clear as time has gone on.

I won’t lie to you. A part of me is scared: scared that I won’t find anything and that my help will run out. But there is another part of me that is also concerned that if I do get a job, it will me take away from the very Projects that I need to get to where I want to go: that my energy and my equilibrium will be so drained after practical work that I won’t want to do anything more. Of course I know a lot of that is utterly ridiculous given that I know what I can do and what I love the most.

Also, I need a change of pace. I need to make a new routine and schedule that will allow me to get out of my house, wake up earlier and have more time to myself and even get more opportunities to work with other people and explore again. It is exciting, even as it is utterly terrifying in a lot of ways. I have a lot of stuff I need to overcome and, in my way and in this past while, I have been endeavouring to do so.

The fact of the matter is this: in order to shape the life that I want and grow and maintain the relationships that I need, it is imperative that I reach my full potential: or as much of it as I can. And oh god is it terrifying to fight that anxiety, but invigorating to also realize that I have so much to actually look forward to.

And I do have things to look forward to. First, I am going to be getting Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane soon. I look forward to finding it in, or near, my mailbox. It’s the first Neil novel in ages and I am going to enjoy it. I know that I will. Also, for the first and last time, and if all goes according to plan I am going to be seeing Neil personally–along with countless fellow geeks and fans–in Toronto itself: at the Danforth Music Hall. It is his last signing tour for the foreseeable future.

I had to go through some hoops: cancelling an Amazon order to get a Chapters-Indigo order so that I’ll have a proof of purchase and thus be allowed to have that book signed. This tour is also not a free one and it has cost $31. I know that bothers some people and deters them from going. But there was also something else that made me hesitate initially. That fear again. I’ve looked forward, so much, to meeting Neil but at the same time it scares me. It scares me because meeting the person who pretty much helped reshape my writing style in a very paradigmatic way is kind of intimidating. He’s not going to be the writer behind the narrative of his novels and Blog, or the tweeter of his Twitter, or the man in some of the videos I see online. He is going to be an actual human being–which he is–sitting for a long bloody time at a table or something signing books.

And I know I probably won’t sound as eloquent talking to him briefly as there would probably not be that much time. Okay. Fine. I’m going to be a fan-boy. Are you happy now? Neil is the closest thing to a hero that I have and this is his last signing tour. And it makes me sad even as I feel something kind of fitting about how the first time I meet him like this will be the last in a while.

The fact is, I just hope that when I do get my chance to meet him that I can just say to him, “I am really glad I finally got to meet you.”

Now, that aside, let me go into some of my creative matters. I have been insanely busy. I have been working on my Twine novel. Novels are fucking intimating. When you make a novel, you make sure to have an outline of plot and character, or you will go crazy. Also, as you’ve probably heard before, you cannot write each novel in the exact same way. I outlined to you what beginning this Twine Project has been like, and it has more or less continued the exact same way. I am still writing it all out by hand. I have decided all of my creative projects worth making need to have that “automatic first-draft” experience of being ink on paper before being typed into another draft.

But this Project … I set out to expand on the details of all the plot-branches in relative order: from upper all the way to the lower tiers. I have finished about six of the places I want the player-reader to go to and there are about nine or ten more places left that I need to expand on. Also, I did something different: I decided to write the happy ending before anything else. It is the closest thing to a utopia that I have made, and I am not sure that anyone is going to get to it.

Sometimes when I look at what I’m making, I sometimes feel like it is getting too long and what I’m planning may be too exact. .I wonder how many people would see this Twine, play some of it and then click away as they lose their both patience and their interest. Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing it. The content is unorthodox and sometimes controversial and I just wonder if people will like it, hate it, or simply not care. I am not doing it for money or fame. And I haven’t even toggled with Twine yet beyond watching some video tutorials and sometimes I think to myself: why am I working on this thankless thing? What is the bloody point?

And then I remember: I want to work with games and having something like this would be good to add to my portfolio. But more than that, it is something I have to do for me and finishing it will help me grow as a creator.

Which brings me to the last part of this Blog entry. In addition to this Twine Project, I’m going to undertake something else. And it is going to be big. And, when I say it is big, I am not exaggerating. This is going to be big. This totally took me by surprise. And I didn’t even see it coming. But now that I know it is here … I don’t know what will happen with it, or if I will succeed but I can’t–in good conscience–turn this possibility down. Sometimes I think that some things all happen at the same time for a reason, or at the very least they make for a good motivational story.

I’m actually not sure if I can get away with this. I will say, right now, that it will be the basis of–or will become–a novel because it has to be. You have to understand: I have gotten so used to writing short stories and vignettes–which have their own set of intrinsic challenges–that sometimes I can’t even begin to conceive of writing a novel on a professional level. It is daunting. It will take time and energy and, like I said, I can’t turn this prospect down.

I won’t.

If it succeeds, even to a point, my routines will change. If it doesn’t, they will still change. I can never just do things simply. And if it even goes further …

Anyway, I was wondering what I was going to write here today on this Blog and here it is. A whole lot of very daunting challenges and busy days and the realization that I need to parcel out my time. It feels like summer: in so many different ways right now. I also intend to keep up this Blog and let you all know what’s going on: as much as I can.

It never ceases to amaze me to see how many new Followers I keep getting and how many people are starting to read my Blog and its multifarious branches of content. I am definitely going to keep you posted on what is going on with this last Great Challenge in particular. In the meantime, thank you for Following me and I expect to see you again sometime soon. Take care and good night.

Ready-Made and Waiting for Acknowledgement

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

A while ago, I finally finished watching the movie Adaptation. And there was something in that movie about writing, meta-narrative and the very essence of fascination that kind of–metaphorically–punched me in the face. There is one part in the film where the protagonist’s brother explains to him that the reason he could deal with rejection and, well, life is that he “owns his feelings.”

Now, I don’t know about you but this is a phrase that I hear a lot from popular culture. I know I’ve heard, and in the past really tended to get told when I got angry or upset in a human interaction to “own my feelings.”  Usually this is used when someone is angry at another person and it tends to come out, at least from my perspective, as some kind of rebuke: to remind that person that no one else is solely responsible for how you feel despite any action or inaction on their part.

But the way that Nicolas Cage’s character (who is both the protagonist and his brother who is telling him this) interprets this is very different. In his case, he is talking about loving someone who not only didn’t love him back, but actually and quite audibly made fun of him behind his back. Yet he still exists that he loved that individual. And how he explained this was that his love was his own. It wasn’t the other person’s, or the world’s, or society’s, or anyone else’s.

That love–that feeling–belonged to him and him alone.

So when he told his brother that he owns his own feelings: he means that his feelings belong to him.

Now, think about it like this if you’d like. Imagine that feelings are resources. They are sources of energy that are already inside of you. These are the basic shapes, eddies and swirls of emotion and they stimulated by external factors. These energies are already inside of you and sometimes it takes something outside to bring them out in varying degrees. Things that stimulate these feelings can be anything from reading a book, watching a movie, hanging out with your friends, playing a game, or having a relationship of any kind. But these energies are inherent in you.

Now imagine, and you don’t have to imagine all too much, that you can control these feelings. You can’t necessarily control experiencing them: because, if this is possible at all, it takes time and perspective to even come close to accomplishing something like that. However, you can control them by having the ability to remember and bring them out. Anyone can do that.

But what I wasn’t able to put into words before came to me when I was watching Adaptation and I realized that both characters were writers. What I realized is this: if you can own your own feelings, and you have the ability to make things, then you can take these feelings and channel their energies into creating. You can make your feelings into your greatest tools or most fearsome weapons. Or whatever metaphor you prefer. You can even view them as your friends if you’d like: as unruly companions that can aid you if you are in the right situation and if you know how to ask them for help.

The fact of the matter, for me, is that I realized that by owning your feelings, you own yourself and you can gain a greater power than you have ever had before. Someone told me once that I create beauty when I write. And this is part of that process for sure.

I guess I could have summarized this whole post as saying that you can take emotions and use them to create in various states of mind, or channel them into constructive forces.

I certainly don’t claim to have “mastered” this. And I suspect no one really has. But I never really thought of it that way and as I said it is definitely an interesting way to look at the creative process: or at least one possible manifestation of it.

What I Did On the Anniversary of My First Blog Post: The Toronto Comics Arts Festival

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

This is going to be a late entry as I have been recovering from the last three days of attending–and volunteering–at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival. The first time I ever went to the Festival was when it was still at the University of Toronto: back in those days when I was still in Undergrad and working at York in 2007.

It’s an understatement to say that it has long expanded since. I came back to it in about 2011 while still in Grad School and then last year before my official Graduation. I mentioned in another post that it is about this time of year, specifically the month of May, where things have ended for me. Actually, this post is being made two days past the Anniversary of the online Mythic Bios: namely, this whole Writer’s Blog.

So let me celebrate this missed anniversary by telling you all a bit about my weekend at TCAF.

On Friday I reported to my set-up shift. I haven’t really lifted heavy boxes or tables in a while, so my arms are still all sore from that. But the company of my fellow volunteers was totally worth it. We all wanted to be there and, for me, it is a novelty to be able to talk with people with similar Geek knowledge and interests. Really, for that alone and working together with like-minded people on straightforward tasks it was totally worth it. I got my bright blue volunteer shirt along with everyone else, and then headed home to attempt an early night to wake up earlier the following day.

Well, after failing to go to bed early I woke up the next day and somehow found the Marriott Hotel without getting lost where Art Spiegelman was going to be doing some signings. So I naturally brought both of my volumes of Maus with me and waited in the line to meet him. It was only after a while that the volunteers on duty that day informed us that Spiegelman would only sign two books, and one of them had to be one of his new ones. I will admit, I was annoyed. Like I said, I had the old version of Maus that was divided into two volumes and I had been keen on having them both signed. I also didn’t see any of the new books that I was interested in.

At first.

I was tired and hungry and I almost left the line until I decided “What the hell, I’m getting to meet Art Spiegleman.” Then I found Breakdowns: essentially a large collection of his earlier work that I had either only seen excerpts of, or only saw references to in text books for my own researches. Some of these comics had led to the creation of Maus as well and also shed more light on his family life and his own experiences. In fact, some of the comics in there have that very 1960s to early 80s Underground Comix feel: specifically the pieces that really share Robert Crumb’s wobbly, sometimes vulgar but very iconic aesthetic.

By the time I got to see Art Spiegelman, he was sitting across from his wife–the stately Francoise Mouly–and the artist Frank Viva. He looked like someone’s elegant Viennese Jewish grandfather. I know he doesn’t come from Vienna or Germany, but that is about the only way I can physically describe him. I told him that it was a great honour to meet him. He seemed pleased to see that Breakdowns was one of the books I had and he described it to me as something along the lines of a building with which he keeps adding renovations. At one point he joked about whether not my name had changed by the second piece he was signing and I told him, “Not this time, but usually I change the number of Ts in my name just to mess with people.” He found that (very untrue joke) very amusing. Then I shook his hand and left with my prizes.

I just have to reiterate that Spiegelman’s work really influenced me. I originally encountered him in my Literature of Testimony course in my Grad Program at York. A lot of the literature made my own first-person narratives stronger: increasing my voice and its depth. But Spiegelman in particular not only taught me that symbols be used to represent literal things and ideas, but that this same order can be subverted to either destroy their meanings or through doubt on them. This is a very sophisticated technique and one that definitely will affect at least one work of mine. That is one major reason I really had to meet him: to meet one of the masters of what I’ve tried–and am trying to do–in my own writerly way. So yes, it was awesome to finally meet him.

By that time, I made it back to the Reference Library and got a few more books. It was there that I met Hope Larson for the first time and her sign her adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time for my Mom in honour of Mother’s Day and her birthday. She apparently found that cute. I chose that book because my Mom loves Madeleine L’Engle’s series and she used to read them to me when I was much younger. So it was kind of a bridge between our interests. Later, I remembered that I had read Hope Larson’s Salamander Dream and Gray Horses when I worked for the Clara Thomas Archives.

But I couldn’t make it upstairs as I had planned. I was tired and dehydrated and apparently there was a line to get into the suite with more of the vendors that I wanted to visit. I met a friend and we ended up going for a meal of some kind, or I did, and then went on our way to Bento Miso for its own Bit Bazaar. Bento Miso is a place where games–electronic and analog, as well as many start-up businesses–are made and they were opening for the Festival. It was a nice sunny day in downtown Toronto as my friend and I tried to circumvent the ridiculousness of the TTC shutdown from Bloor to Union Station and went to Ossington and walked with tons of stuff in my arms to Bento Miso for the first time.

I met a few people there and got to play some games: including one game called Bijouxred: which is essentially a game that combines the strategy war game mechanics of Fire Emblem with the rough brawling moments of Streetfighter II. And that is just a simplification because the fights themselves have some elements reminiscent of Final Fantasy–with its Combat Options, and even Mario RPG with regards to having to press a button to simulate blocking, charging your energy, or even chaining attacks together. It was really cool. I met Rene Shible–Director of Development–and Lead Animator Michal Szczepanski: who were quite friendly and directed me through their game.

The Bit Bazaar itself was awesome. There is a very Underground feel to it: a combination of grit, digitization and nostalgia along with a lot of geeking, friendliness and adventure. A few of the games from the second Comics Vs. Games collaboration were being shown and played there as well. It is still something I want to do with an artist programmer one day. 🙂 I got a Steamkey to Spooky Squid Games They Bleed Pixels: which I ranted about a really long time ago as also being awesome. It came with its own small black envelope and a simulated red wax seal. That was a very lovely touch. I also got to meet a few people and a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in a while. I think I will visit there more often soon. So by the time I finally got home that night, I was bloody exhausted.

But it wasn’t over yet.

The next morning I woke up even earlier. I gave my Mom her present before leaving and made it again to the Marriott just in time to observe the Art Spiegelman Spotlight panel: with Seth as its moderator. It was a very eye-opening exchange between the two cartoonists and it was this interaction, combined with reading some of Breakdowns that gave me a little idea as to why Spiegelman wanted people to read his new work and not focus as much on Maus. I mean, first of all there is the creator perspective of it: in which an artist doesn’t want to be solely determined by one creation–no matter how great–that they did in the past. But another, more personal reason, is when you consider the content of Maus and just how much Spiegelman had to delve into some dark and personal spaces: some of which were not even personally his own, but affected him just the same. This article from the Toronto Star might explain it a little better and might have made more sense had I read it before meeting him. Having that long shadow cast over you can be brutal. I also learned that Breakdowns has been reprinted twice with new work or “renovations” added.

Then I went to the Library, got some Hope Larson comics for myself, met some cool new creators, and made it to the upper level where I met Maurice Vellekoop with his elegant, airy lined and water-coloured comics: often portraying erotic and adventurous content. I got something and had him sign it. Then I went around that level and left to eventually get to the Bryan Lee O’Malley Spotlight panel: where in a strange game of “Guessing the Answer Before Asking the Question,” I answered, “No,” and asked if he had ever intended the character of Mobile in Scott Pilgrim to actually turn to be Gideon. Suffice to say, I was right and I don’t think I was the first one to ask this question.

Eventually the Festival was closing down and I went to my next volunteer shift: the tear-down phase. This was the shift I covered last year and it had been my only one at the time. I got to say hello and goodbye to some people I met and then I wandered home in the suddenly cold with hail balls coming down.

And that was my TCAF.

So, there is one thing I want to mention before I wrap this long post up. Some of the artists I was talking to were commenting about how awesome TCAF is and how people from all over Canada and the world come here. They were talking about what makes TCAF different from other conventions. Well, I have my basic two cents on that matter.

The first thing to consider is that TCAF is free. It has no entry fee and all you have to do is come in and bring money to buy work, or simply come to the panels. It is also a festival and it is spread around a few locations. But I think the second element of TCAF that I like is that the barrier between artists and readers is somehow thinner here: or at least far more permeable? You can interact with many artists as you would any other person or vendor. It also helps that many artists are in fact fans of other artists. There is just this positive enthusiastic energy around all of that just makes me happy. What really makes me happy is that so many younger people come to this Festival and are so enthusiastic about the comics medium and what they like.

It’s some of the few times that I am proud to have lived in Toronto and still do some business in it. And this event was what I needed lately. I feel more inspired to just do things and get things done. It’s like I got recharged, if that makes sense. I also finally decided to make a basic business card that I can give to people that is linked to this Mythic Bios site. And I made more connections. It was a truly rewarding experience and I would like to thank the Festival Staff, the artists, the vendors, the fans and my fellow volunteers for making this time exist every year.

Also, thank you all for continuing to read and Follow me. I know that this particular post was a very long one and I feel in some ways that I did this event more justice in my own personal written journal, but I did what I could and I underestimated just how much happened in three days. These three days made this part of May a good beginning and I have plans now. And I can’t wait to begin the process of implementing them.

A Place Where Writers Come to Write Upon the Revenge of the Sixth

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

May generally hasn’t been a very good month for me. It’s not so much that bad things tend to happen to me so much as it is a time when things end: and end hard.

So I will tell you now that there was lead-up to this weekend and that what followed didn’t just happen from nowhere. It started slowly and gently as I’ve begun taking out books from the Thornhill Village Library. And not just ordering books, but actually walking across the main road in the good warm weather to pick them up. It may seem like such a small thing, but it isn’t.

Sometimes something like this can mean all the world. Also, have I mentioned that the Thornhill Village Library is purportedly haunted? So of course it is one of my favourite places. You can read a story of mine where I make mention of it.

I’ve been feeling very argumentative lately and as such I have been in “Geek overdrive.” One major site of this resurgence of fiery spirit has been on Sequart: a non-profit site that publishes and promotes scholarship on the comics medium.

You can find the Link to their site on my Blog as well, but what I want to say is that Julian Darius had a look at one of my comments and suggested that I interact more on Twitter and email.

It was then that I didn’t so much realize what I had to do as I felt like I needed to act. So I went on my Twitter account and linked Sequart and Julian to some of my Miracleman articles. What followed was Julian replying back to me and asking why I wasn’t writing for Sequart. So, at some point I am going to be doing some writing for the Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. I have been told that re-posting is not an encouraged practice, so I will be making some original articles for the site and, I have to say, I have a few ideas. I always have a few ideas.

So after this exchange, more people started adding me on Twitter: including Gregory Guy Gordon whom–among many other things–was one of the producers for the Los Angles Sacred Fools Theater Stage version of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere that I’d been hearing about lately. At this point, I went on Facebook and started telling people that I had gotten more Twitter Followers. And that was when a few friends, who didn’t know I had Twitter, added me: including someone really special who hadn’t talked with in a while who told me in response that she, “Finally Found the Place where Writers Come to Write.”

I can’t put into words how much that means to me.

And then the weekend began. On the weekend, two things happened. First, I got my schedule for my Volunteer Hours at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival. I did mention that I volunteered last year as well: which led to me meeting and writing about Sarah Powell’s comic, among other things on this Blog. I look forward to seeing what I will find this year at panels, events, and booths. But the second thing that happened this weekend is I did something I hadn’t done in a while.

I went downtown for more than a few hours: specifically to go to G33kpron’s Second Anniversary Event.

It was the first time I ever took the streetcar from Queen Station down past Queen and Spadina: at least from that direction. I was a bit lost–for a change–until I ran into a Lethan (red) Twi’lek, her female Darth Maul companion, and their photographer friend. I decided following them was the wisest course of action. I even managed to make some conversation: though given my companions everything I was saying geek-wise was neither that novel nor so insightful on my part. Even so, it was strange and nice to walk through Downtown Toronto under the light of the Summer Day-Star again.

So we talked with some people and then I danced for a while–something I have no done in a bloody long time–and I watched people also dance and I wished I had a lightsaber like most of them seemed to. I felt kind of naked without one. That said, when some of that music came on, it felt like my Imagination and Enthusiasm Stats Modifiers were increasing through the roof. I felt this raw power coursing through me and … some other emotion too. To be honest, I felt like a fucking god.

However, I still have a flesh body. After a while, I started to get tired. I forgot that when you dance and you are around a lot of people that you can get really tired and dehydrated fast. I also realize that I’m not exactly in my middle or late twenties anymore. It started to feel about that time and I was about to leave until, finally, the feature event happened.

I was coming back up the stairs when I heard a remix of Palpatine’s voice issuing his fateful edict around the same day he became Emperor.

And that was when I saw the Nerdy Stripper perform burlesque for the first live time ever.

Yeah. Suffice to say, I will never look at Order 66 the same way again. Many Jedi died happy that night. 😀

It was at this point that I realized that my mission had been complete. I was glad to see so many people having so much fun again. I said goodbye to one of my new friends–whom I never really gave my name to, and whose names I did not ask for, because who am I kidding, I am still shy–and walked to the streetcar in the night almost-summer air.

So I had a good weekend and I am in a better mood now. It’s like I Regenerated in the distant golden light of Thornhill’s old places. I realize I don’t just carry my Hell with me, but something else as well: something warm and infusing. I’ll have plenty of time to be a bitter old man at some other point. Maybe there is still hope for me yet.

And before anyone comments, I happen to like Revenge of the Sixth as a turn of phrase. I do not understand why it has to be the Fifth for some people and I am sure they have a perfectly good reason for it, but I think it is perfectly acceptable to call it such today: as acceptable as any pun is anyway. So expect to see some new links from Sequart and such here in the near-future. But here is my Twitter Account in case you are interested in looking me up and seeing some really random thoughts: I’m MKirshenblatt.

As I said before, May has traditionally been a time of endings and near-endings for me. But perhaps this time around, it will become the start of some new beginnings.

Picture0025

ETA: After this event, I realize that I really need to find a good costume again. Or get some good makeup.

Depression

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 9 Comments

Warning: This post contains angst. If you want to read something better, witty, geeky, creative and otherwise far less personal, any of my other posts will do. Reader’s discretion is advised.

Do not say I didn’t warn you.

Me and my Head

In 2005, I started writing in this notebook. This was long before I began writing my Mythic Bios notebooks and I was in a very different, uncertain, and unpleasant place in my life. In this particular notebook were a series of fragments, thoughts, aphorisms, and a whole lot of bitterness, anger, and bile.

I called that notebook my Dorian Grey: because that was where I placed most–if not all–of the ugly parts of myself at that time. And it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

After a while, I stopped writing in it. I just didn’t want to see it anymore and, eventually, after much bitching and angst I moved past it and turned those fragments into more and more unified stories in my Mythic Bios.

I wanted to forget that first notebook so much that I eventually did. I thought I buried it somewhere else, though later as it turned out it had been in my room at my parents’ house–on my closet shelf–the entire time. I vowed, after a time, to never get into the position where I would write a notebook like that. I promised myself never to create another Dorian Grey again.

That is one of the main reasons I’ve tried not to talk about my personal life on my Writer’s Blog. Even oblique mentions of it seem to verge on breaking my own personal code. But I also realize this might be helpful. It might even show others that, in the immortal words of the Face of Boe, “You are not alone.” So here it is.

I am depressed.

This doesn’t come off as too much of a surprise, I would imagine. I have alluded to it. In fact, in a really dark mood, I once wrote this entire even longer post on what my depression actually entails. But I’ve decided to do something else instead. I’m going to describe what it has been like in a Choose Your Own Adventure style of “You,” instead of “I.” But you don’t get to make decisions: seeing as this isn’t a Twine game. Also, I am going to italicize it: to make it distinct from the rest of this post. So if you have difficulty reading a whole series of paragraphs in italics, please skip this or read something else I wrote on this Journal. Anyway, here goes nothing.

You don’t remember how you got like this exactly. There is one memory, though, that stands out at you. You were young: literally a child. You were at your grandparents’  near the entrance to the house, sitting at the old rickety table and its rotary dial telephone with the living room not that far away. You are pretty happy: because when you are here you are actually safe and it is a refuge from that cold place that is school and other children that you don’t really understand.

And then, as you are waiting–perhaps for some chocolate cake with coconut sprinkles that you have to eat in the kitchen along with the tea and milk you were once able to actually drink without being sick–you feel this … pang go through you. It is a strange feeling: like a reverse orgasm. It is not comfortable. It’s what you will later on know to be a painful moment of clarity: of realization.

You understand that this–all of this around you–is going to go away one day. And there is nothing you can do about it.

That is the earliest memory of the shadow and its melancholic length beginning to stretch down throughout the years to where you are right now. You start to bury yourself in old tape-recorded movies in a futile attempt to keep the past present. You immerse yourself in old books and keep them as friends: for they will be more constant and understanding than any flesh and blood companions you will ever have. You try to ignore your teenage years out of existence through books, said tapes, and video games. But the one thing that none of these elements can save you from is loneliness.

You make friends and somehow they keep moving on with their lives faster than you do. Your family tries to shelter you. It doesn’t help that they are religious and have food restrictions. Nor is it particularly helpful that you were born … different, as people keep telling you: in addition to the ethnicity thing. You don’t learn things the same way that people do and later you strongly suspect that you don’t experience things the same way either.

So you already have this predisposition to not trust the outside world at all. And you will be fighting this impulse with varying degrees of success for the rest of your life. You also are both drawn to people because you do not want to be left behind, and you are repulsed by them because they are not you. But those differences also intrigue you: a lot. This is going to be a running theme for the rest of your life: among other things.

So let’s fast forward this a bit. Finally you manage to gain enough inner strength to move out of your parents’ home: though you do need them for more practical matters from time to time. You get into Grad School with the aid of some people who care about you. You feel like you are making progress. You are slowly subverting and breaking free of all of those self-imposed and outwardly imposed restrictions.

But then there is this to consider. You are an introvert and this particular set of relatively simple and straightforward characteristics as set out in this link describes you very well. You now really have to deal with bureaucracy and its complete and utter ineptness. You have not been raised to deal with it really, and it galls you that you have to let it rule a portion of your life. This is the adulthood that you have unintentionally been fearing and loathing even before you knew about it: when you were so immersed in books and films and games in the vain hopes of trying to avoid it. The very frustration and cold reality that your family and school has been trying to shelter you from relatively until now when, suddenly, you have to deal with this shit a lot on your own.

But you persevere despite it. You even make new friends and new lovers. You get to go anywhere you want relatively at any time that you want. You get to dance. You get to hang around with people without curfews. You are working. You have something not unlike an adult life. 

You realize after a while that the depression is not chemical: as much anything in human behaviour isn’t the result of biochemicals in some way. Your depression is really situational and the results of a personal cycle of behaviour. You get into situations where the person you are trying to be is not the person that you are acting like. You begin to emotionally, as opposed to intellectually understand, that people are not constant beings. It’s not so much that they lie–and some of them do–but they aren’t always the same person. Their lives change too.

You’ve always internalized emotions and what you are feeling now is a lot of anger, sadness, stress, anxiety, resentment, and outright hatred. You’ve been led to believe that it is unseemly to display these emotions: as though it is somehow more mature to be in agony all the time but continue to express that socially acceptable mode of behaviour known as adult irony. You’ve always had headaches and migraines. Your stomach bothers you. You have always been really over-sensitive–hypersensitive–and in the worst case scenario the stress only makes it worse: to the point where your muscle-memory has memorized your anxiety and tenseness, and you’ve realized you have actually been having panic attacks.

In fact: do you remember the characteristics of introversion in the link above? Imagine them magnified even more so. You get to the point where you don’t feel comfortable going outside. You feel ill thinking about being in a social function where no one is giving you that “in” to speak and so you don’t go anymore. And between you and others bashing your personal beliefs–which were rosy yet flimsy things at best–you just stop opening up altogether. You used to like travelling around, and you had a certain degree of confidence. It erodes as you sit and you no longer move.

And this is before you realize that you have been eating up your girlfriend’s money by not getting a job, that you’ve been selfish as fuck, and it is hard to relate to anyone anymore. And those books and the Internet are no longer taking the edge off from reality. You can’t escape anymore: or at least not as well as you could when you were younger.

You realize that there is a terrible consistency in telling certain people that you feel as though they are a part of you when you know–deep down–that you have begun, or you are resuming, to hate yourself. You don’t say what’s on your mind to anyone: not really. You begin to believe that no one has ever really understood you and it is less an element of adolescent angst and more of a matter of fact.

Then you run out of money and you have to move back in with your parents. Your privacy and peace and quiet becomes compromised. But you don’t really leave the house like you used to. You don’t like to go out and you have withdrawn from most people: save those small few who come to visit. It is as though you have spent years trying to overcome your introversion and now you are paying the price by not wanting to move at all.

You are in debt because of your Degree. And after getting a Master’s Degree, you have to go on welfare. You realize that the given moralities of hard-work and debt are things that should be questioned in society rather than simply being accepted. You become dependent on a computer again to socialize and then it breaks down and you need to use the public desktop. You will not go anywhere unless there is an accessible restroom of some sort nearby. Your clothes begin to fray and you neglect yourself because, on some intrinsic level, you don’t give a fuck anymore.

You begin to resemble outside what feel like inside. You remember moments of joy and they become poisoned by what happened after. It is hard to remember actually being happy anymore. People keep intruding on your space and asking the same tired old questions over and over again: despite the fact that you are clearly trying to keep busy. Some others, when you talk to them, say that you are over-exaggerating your “complaints,” and they make you feel like others have it worse than you and you should shut up.

You are looking for work and sending in submissions–and you know that is important–but there are days when you wonder if there is any point to it. Because then the depression really starts talking. It tells you that you will never be “this good,” and that this is “too difficult,” “too much work,” and “too confusing,” and that everything you have ever done does not matter–and never mattered–a damn.

It really gets bad at night. You start to miss people a lot: people you will never really be able to speak with again the way you did. You start to feel tremendous resentment towards the people you wish you had told off. You wonder how many opportunities you let pass by you in your brain fog. You have memories of past life: when you were more confident and more assured and then you look at what you are now. The screaming you feel inside you everyday gets much louder at those times.

It is safe to reiterate two facts: that in those moments you hate the world, and you hate yourself.

Of course, there are the fantasies too. Of going back in time and telling your younger self to do this instead of this, or not to to do this ever. That is, also of course, when you don’t fantasize about going back in time and killing yourself at that moment in life when you were truly happy so that you never, ever have to know about the partially self-made hell waiting for you in the future. At the same time, you also know that were a certain TARDIS come to visit you, you would leave without question or regret: that those people who don’t appreciate your complaining or have gotten tired of it and they can keep their precious world.

You basically feel like you are in a prison. Your therapist flat-out calls you on describing it as thus. And if you were to summarize this long, rambling thing into one sentence: Depression is is a prison of your own making where you only remember dancing, only remember contact, only remember fun, you feel like you lost or are otherwise losing everything you ever cared about, where you suffocate on your own inaction and sense of failure, where you are disappointed when you actually wake up the next morning, where you punish yourself, and anyone that you attempt to meet and socialize will see that cycle of self-entitlement, spite, grief, self-recrimination, and self-absorption you’ve found yourself spiralling into–ingraining itself into your bones–and will politely run for the hills.

Because no one likes a person who does not like themselves.

So, I’m going to end that there because it is way past the whining mark and these things tend to wind out of control once you keep writing about them. It is paradoxically this thing that I have been trying to avoid. I’m not trying to glorify it or make myself out to be this innocent victim of circumstance, but it describes kind of some days in a lifetime, I guess? I guess I just feel like I failed myself in some ways and that I have no one to blame–or perhaps more appropriately hold responsible–but myself.

It isn’t all bad though.

I am seeing a really awesome therapist. And I have a 250-word tax to keep fulfilling and at least a half an hour quota of going outside to remember. I keep filling out a worksheet of places I send work to and to seek employment at. I am researching some free-lancing opportunities. And I also speaking with some people from my past again.

I guess I am ironically making a routine for myself: something I sorely lacked when I lived on my own. If I learned anything from my girlfriend before I had to move out, it is that routines can be our friends. As such, I don’t like to deviate from it much. I don’t like to be pushed, or trapped in a small space with someone who likes to control things but to go about matters at my own pace. I’m also working on sleeping better and I am eating better too.

There is another positive even in the negative. I just finished reading Paradise Lost and remembered that part where Satan realizes, even when he escapes Hell, that he carries Hell with him: inside of him. After having the occasion to revisit some of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, I realized that we all do the same. And this fact, my personal hell, gives me the power to motivate and keep making things: to create some kind of … meaning out of all of this. Someone once told me that I create beauty and pain is an excellent material to craft beautiful things from as any kind of creator might tell you. It is one of my sources–if not my central source–of power.

But there is one more thing I want to mention: something that I specifically want to leave you all with. During the period of the Dorian Grey, I was talking with a counsellor at my University about something job-related and she also flat-out called me on being depressed. She told me to make a point of writing about three constructive things that I do in a day. And eventually, after a while, I realized that helps too.

So Dorian Greys can be necessary when you need to purge things out of you, or begin to unleash Hell on Earth, but remembering the useful things you’ve done–the positive and affirmative things you’ve done, no matter how small they seem to be–can be just as invaluable: if not more so.

ETA: If you’d like, please read this link about the care of extroverts. It seems that this world is becoming, or has always been, difficult for the both of us.