Echoes in a Hollow Space

TV Show pitch: This Old Crone
Like the PBS seres, This Old House (the original remodeling show), but featuring the transformation of an old crone rather than an old home. It should be hosted by the person who really knows how to do the work rather than the half-assed dilettante hosebag. In this series, instead of covering up the flaws in the crone, we shine a bright spotlight on them so that anyone, including the crone, can learn from them. And the eccentricities of construction will be celebrated rather than trying to turn them into something sleek and modern. Repair work will be done, of course, but with the knowledge that decrepitude is inevitable and the only sure and certain principle ruling the Universe is entropy. Rather than mourning this, the show will encourage us to accept it with as much grace and dignity as possible and learn from it, as well. But we must also remember that if entropy rules the Universe, irony is its only begotten daughter.

Everyone's path is their own. No path is superior. Everyone has to find their own way. The path of quiet contemplation is as valid as the full-throated war cry. Anyone who judges your path isn't as secure in their own as they think they are. One person has trouble crossing a room without pain; another climbs mountains. In the end, it doesn't matter. All that matters is the flame in your heart. If it dies, you've failed. If it's still burning, you're still burning, and you're where you need to be.

One of my ancestors is named Mary Polly Armor and I always want to read that as Mary Polyamory. #BecauseThatsJustTheSortOfBrainIHave

What’s the first major news event you remember in your lifetime? I was going to say the assassination of JFK but it’s really the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember those drills, our young teacher herding us little bitty kids into the cloakroom to shelter. I remember her crying each time and I didn’t figure out until later that it was because she never knew if we were hiding out because it was real and the bombs were on the way or if it was just another drill. I was terrified and didn't really know why.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion that paranormal activity is caused by places being built on Indian burial grounds. It’s quite prevalent in paranormal research and I’ve also fallen prey to the thought of vengeful native spirits. Lately, I’ve reconsidered this. It’s as essentially racist as the Ancient Aliens/Van Daniken notion that primitive (read “people of color”) societies could not possibly have invented the wonders they did—it had to be gifted to them from Space Overlords. The Indian burial ground notion has even pervaded popular horror movie culture. The one exception to this that I can think of in popular culture (rather than supposedly legit research) is the movie Poltergeist. The dead folks in that movie were just vengeful dead folks, not vengeful natives. I can't think of such an exception in paranormal research. It makes me feel guilty that I even considered the Indian burial ground scenario. Although I'm not sure my white guilt is any more helpful than white appropriation or white nullification of culture. Mostly I realize it's not about me except for when I can work for positive change.

Here near LAX we got a gentle rolling from the July 5th 7.1 earthquake (downgraded to only 6.9), but it did go on for a very long time. Sometimes they are gentle at first then the big whammy hits, so until things stop there's always the fear it will get bigger. One of my neighbors was standing out in her front yard screaming, however, which I thought kind of extreme but it takes everybody different. I did feel seasick afterwards, though.

The only thing I know is that whatever negative thing you are when you're young, you will still be that negative thing when you're old, only more so. Unless you do a s*** ton of work on yourself between youth and age, if you're a young rage monkey he'll be in old age monkey; if you're a judgmental young twat you'll be a judgmental old twat. The good news is, if you're a thoughtful, considerate person when you're young you'll most likely still be a thoughtful, considerate old person. The seeds of who our selves are planted at the moment of our birth.

I think the dictation on my Word program must be Scottish. It never wants to capitalize the name Ken.

I lived a block from the Sidewalk Cafe in the 80s. We often ate there in the day time, but knew to stay off the Boardwalk at night: too wild & dangerous for girls on their own. It sounds like things have changed—and not changed: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/08/a-night-with-a-bouncer/#.XRlOldiNsgk.twitter



I have to confess that as much as I loathe Ancient Aliens, it's a good show to have on for background noise when I'm not feeling very well. I can read Twitter while it's playing and look up every once in a while to yell very rude things at the screen. #NeverSaidIWasntWeird

I don't feed the crows every day. But every time I do feed them, the day after one of them will perch on the rail near my open front door and yell at me to feed them again. #LoveThemCrows

The Detectorists – a lovely, gentle, funny show. One of my favorites.


I have a terrible confession to make. I hope you'll still be my friends once you hear it: I like the lumps in cream of wheat.

About 8:39 p.m. PST. 5.0 centered in Lennox which is 8-10 miles due east of here so it was a good shaker. The framed posters were thumping lightly against the wall, but for he most part everything was fine. Nothing fell, no power outage.

I thought it felt like it rolled in from the east (which it did) and it went on about fifteen seconds, a long time when the earth is shaking. I also thought it felt like about a 5. Once you've been through a few, you get a sense for them. It was felt quite widely across the basin and beyond.

The scary thing for me is not so much a shaker of this magnitude. It's wondering whether it's a foreshock for something bigger. Only time will tell.

But we're all okay. Min, otoh, got pretty terrified.

When I was a young girl we had a landlady named Mrs. J. who had, when she was a young girl, survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. She talked about it occasionally, but not much. Maybe nobody asked. Or maybe, like many survivors of trauma, it wasn't something she wanted to talk about.

( Read more. )

I have been reluctant to do daily stats like several writers in residence on LJ do.

Partly it's superstition: I'm afraid that if I pick too closely at the scratch of my writing it will all turn to chicken poop.

The other thing is, it'll be righteously boring. I pretty much plunk it out and don't think about it much and occasionally something swell happens, but mostly it's just plunk plunk plunk. I can't see reporting on that being much help to me or anybody else.

Occasionally, I get stuck and frustrated and whereas writing about that might help someone like they aren't alone in their frustration, it's not particularly helpful to me in getting over the hump. I just keep trying stuff and tricking myself and playing with things until the log jam clears and then it's whoosh. Followed by more plunk plunk plunk. That might be really irritating for people to hear reported on.

But I do get all this stray stuff floating through my head, stuff I think I'll blog but never get around to, or strange artifacts of the day that I want to share, but never seem to get around to, either. So, for that purpose and to not to feel too left out and in a desperate attempt to fill LJ space (because, Lord knows, LJ needs more verbiage) I've come up with something that suits my fractured personality. But I'm not sure it will be all that interesting. The topics may change, and I can't even guarantee I'll do this every day. Lord knows I don't need anything else in my day to be obsession-compulsive about.

There are even some vaguely writerly bits at the very end of this list.

Things I thought of blogging about today: The earthquake and the reaction of the California newbies here at work to it. Tsunamis were mentioned. We're very close to the beach. It was an inland quake. Eventually the building stopped swaying.

Why I didn't blog it: The day eluded me. Too caught up in getting another chapter of Night Warrior posted to OWW and devising this post.

Strange thought of the day: Am I dizzy? No wait, it's just an earthquake.

Strange event of the day: I guess that would have to be the earthquake. Although they aren't that strange around here these days.

Cliche du jour: My chest swelled with pride.

Darling du jour: n/a - Nothing really lit my pipe today.

Quote of the day:

"There is, after all, no happier occasion for a writer than another writer writing something bad."

—Steve Erickson, Amnesiascope


To which I counter, "It depends on the writer."

Certainly, if a writer is patronizing, self-aggrandizing, pompous, pissy, or Michael Crichton, I take great glee in them putting out a bad piece of writing.  Anyone else, I generally feel bad for them. 

But Amnesiascope was not a bad piece of writing.  Great piece of fiction—dystopic, hilarious, erotic, ultimately moving.  And set in a post-Apocalyptic L.A.  What more could a girl want? 

I especially loved the scenes in the Sand Castle, a wonderful old gothic building that used to sit on Santa Monica beach.  Something from the bygone days of grand ballrooms and sweeping staircases, but at the end of its days converted into apartments.  Sadly, it didn't survive the last major earthquake and had to be raised to the ground.  They replaced it with a modern building that tries to convey, on the outside at least, the spirit of the old Sand Castle.  It succeeds to a certain extent.  It could have been a real chumpy endeavor, but it's not a bad building at all.  I haven't been inside to see if they duplicated anything like the splendor of the old building.  I doubt it.  No one can afford to build splendor anymore.

I spent a wonderful night in one of those apartments in the old Sand Castle in my misspent youth, the kind of night that stays with you forever—the smell of the sea; the plushness of the carpet (admittedly a bit moldy-smelling); the feeling of camaraderie and togetherness and friendship; the balmy summer air through the open windows; being so high up, above the world and looking down; the crash and hiss of the sea in the night.  A night of storytelling, true confessions whether they were fictional or not, of feeling young and free and immortal. 

Not all of it disappeared with the old Sand Castle, of course.  It will always be inside me.  But I admit a part of my heart crumbled with the wrecker's ball. 

Such is life.  And glee is fleeting.