something some people fail to understand about the character names in Dune is that the ridiculously basic names like “paul” and “jessica” and “duncan” serve as slightly jarring reminders that this is all taking place in the far-distant future of our very own society. it’s such a fanciful future not rooted in reality that it can be easy to lose track of that sometimes until you read the name “duncan idaho” or references to the “orange catholic bible” and are reminded that oh yeah, our current earth has a place in the history of this world

Here it iiiis! Not the tiny horse but the last chapter of the first book of the first book (it makes sense somehow). The One and Holy ⚡️

✨Chapter 22✨

This is a chapter I’ve been waiting for since I’ve started the book, which means the build of the story is really well made for me. Even the setting, Paul sitting with his mother but not feeling very different than if he was alone, since he’s mentally so far away, with the hutment, the desert and the night…. so perfect. Reading it I was so impatient to just turn to the next page, I purposely take a break so sit with this first part and digest it as it should and deserve to be digested.

Let’s start by saying I have a lot (a looooot) of expectations and crazy high ones with how this whole chapter is going to be convert on screen. The ambiance of the setting is so good and since most of the "action" is happening inside Paul’s head it’s not going to be easy, both with how it’s going to be filmed and how Timmy is going to act. This is not something we’ve seen him done before and I wonder if he has it in him. It’s definitely going to be an interesting challenge, one of the kind that doesn’t come very often in life (if not ever) and I’m already very proud of him for trying. And I can’t wait to hear him talk about it, and how he did it. I hope lots of people are going to make him ramble about this particular scene (Josh please, 3hrs of podcast are required here. Thank you.).

There are a few images I particularly want to see on screen, such as:

and this:

and this: (i mean is it p💛rn? because it sounds like p💛rn to me.)

and this, even if it has less to do with how Timmy is going to act and more about how it'll be shown on screen:

I'm actually delighted because Paul is giving me stuff I was expecting from the character. When he's looking for sorrow inside him as it's expected from him and finding nothing, or finding that he can stop it and put it aside to examine it later... It's something I find very relatable and that I would have found even more relatable when I was Paul's age. I'm not sure how it works exactly for him though. Because of these two parts:

and

(yes I'm also triggered but the typo but let's ignore it)

My guess is that something shifted at some point through the chapter and allow him to access this mourning phase but I'm not sure I can pinpoint it (yet?). It'll be something interesting to study and to make theories about.

He's extremely touching in this chapter. There are a couple of lines that made me go aaaw Paul 😭❤️ Like this one:

Paul heard his mother's grief and felt the emptiness within himself. I have no grief thought. Why? Why? He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.

You know I like to think of every piece of art/creativity as part of a gigantic conversation through time and I feel like this part of Paul is somehow in a conversation with Elio and his father in his home office. They're both in this distress state regarding of grieving, one being overwhelmed with too much of it and not knowing what to do with it, and the other one needing it and not knowing where or how to find it. It's cute, imagine the both of them talking about it.

This one as well:

And now he saw that he had a wealth of data few such minds ever before had encompassed. But this made the empty place within him no easier to bear. He felt that something must shatter.

My poor baby boy 💔

The chapter is so difficult to take in when you're trying to connect with Paul's feelings and mood. He has these very hard words towards himself like freak and monster and he panics, not understanding what's going on, and at the same time knowing his mother was aware to some extend of what he was supposed to become and he's mad at her and at the same same time there is all this infinite knowledge pouring on him and drastically changing him second by second. And then the mindset in which he ends up is so interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about him being something else (thank you Oliver Queen), because I liked the Kwisatz Haderach concept very much but there are too many sentences for me to not be hyped right away. Paul's answering to Jessica's thoughts as she was saying them out loud is 💦, saying stuff like "They thought they were reaching for me. But I'm not what they expected, and I've arrived before my time. And they don't know it." and like "I'm something unexpected." and "You couldn't possibly know. You won't believe it until you see it." is 💦💦 but, mostly, mostly, the image of the seed. I love it so much. I'm a seed. I don't receive it as something necessarily positive. Like all the futures he's able to see, the seed can grow into anything, good or bad or both. Totally something tattoo material 🖤

About the little sister... Still not convinced. Obviously she exists enough to have a name but it doesn't mean much since Paul can see all versions of all futures now. Who knows in which one we will walk. He could very much know the name of a never born child who happened to exists in another version of reality. Still not sure what part she'll take if she does exists. A Knife apparently?

First part general notes:

I liked it a lot. It's a good introduction for the universe and for an epic tale. If anything, it gets me even more expectations for the rest. I guess I could ask for even for details? More pages, slower narration? I wouldn't mind at all. With an universe of that richness, I want to bask so much in it that I would want to throw my money for overpriced merchandising reproduction without blinking twice. Maybe I miss a bit of that for now. Otherwise, I like what I'm seeing right now. I'm just crossing fingers for the plot to remain good all the way through and for the characters to stay interesting. But my god do I have crazy, crazy high expectations for the movie now. Tbh, I'm not sure they'll even be met, since movies rarely match books and books are mostly highly superior. But I'm keeping faith and trust and hopefully we'll end up with something good, or good enough. Even if we take the Timmy factor aside, I'm loving this Dune journey so far. Can't wait to see what's next 🌔💛

ALTERED STATES REVIEW TIME!

OK, this tumblr is, today, a vehicle for me to review ALTERED STATES. And you (the one person who stumbled on this review two-hundred years from n- oh who am I kidding, when the aliens from A.I. who show up to thaw out Haley Joel Osment and the teddy bear who was the real hero of that movie find this) should be very excited about this. Because this movie is insane. And highly entertaining.

Yes, the movie poster looks like ass. If I told you this was a movie where William Hurt (not the William Hurt from that awful 90's Lost in Space remake, or the one who slept through an entire performance as Duke Leto in the Syfy miniseries of Dune. This is before the body snatchers got him) took ayahuasca and got in a isolation tank and it blew his mind so hard he started devolving into a neanderthal and creating dimensional portals and he couldn't stop because he was addicted to finding the truth of existence... Well you wouldn't get that from this poster, would you? So let's move on. Shall we?

The film opens in 1967 with William Hurt's character, psychopathologist Edward Jessup, already immersed in a sensory deprivation tank, whilst his colleague and “buddy” Bob Balaban (he's just Bob Balaban in everything I'm not giving you his character's name look it up yourself if it's bugging you so much) oversees.

Now, you may notice I put buddy in quotes. The reason for that is that Jessup is a self-obsessed ass who seemingly has no reason to be around other people unless he can expound to them one of his various monologues. Bob Balaban barely gets a word in edgewise throughout the entire film. Bob Balaban.

See, Jessup loves the sensory deprivation tank experience. Unsurprisingly, as it allows him to be completely alone with himself for hours.

Later, at perhaps the lamest party ever, a bunch of faculty are chilling out and listening to the Doors. Everyone we see is talking about Jessup. Why? Well, much as Jessup is obsessed with himself, everyone else seems to follow suit by being obsessed with him. One young woman, Emily, (Blair Brown) is introduced to him in this very shot below as he arrives at the party:

Notice how is framed in holy light? There is a closeup after, of him framed in blinding glowing light followed up with a zoom in on Emily's face, enraptured with this incredible dynamic man. So much so that the moment he tries to make a goddamn sandwich she starts grabbing his celery (get your mind out of the gutter) and flirting with him. Which for these two that means talking science, immediately. Talking more at each other than with each other. This is often the way with Paddy Chayefsky's scripts.

PAUSE

Paddy Chayefsky is doubtless one of the great American writers for the screen. He wrote Marty, The Hospital and Network (which is a fucking incredible piece of work). He got an Oscar for all three. He also wrote this movie (Altered States, remember? Good lord) and disowned it completely three weeks in to production. His scripts tend to have very intelligent, driven characters at the center, who monologue extensively at each other. These scripts are not attempting to sound naturalistic.

Ken Russell, however, directed the film. He, like Chayefsky, is top notch at what he does (Direct. I said he directed the film like a second ago, come on keep up). His films, like Women in Love, The Devils, (which was banned in several major countries upon release and has never been shown publicly in its full, uncut form (by the way it's a masterpiece)) the Who's Tommy, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are all fucking gonzo nuts. I mean like, when you gave this guy the reins, you were going to Overthetopsville and there will be no stops on this trip. And god bless! I love directors who GO for it!

You're getting the chance to make a movie. Stop hemming and hawing and hit me over the head with what you want to say! Film is a visual medium, USE IT!

I feel I might have made my feelings clear here. So, moving on...

Ken Russell and Paddy Chayefsky immediately started butting heads, right from the start. Chayefsky was a BIG deal, and he wanted control over the picture in a BIG way. Ken would listen to his suggestions on everything to lighting and set dressing, and politely tell him, “No.”, and continue being the director of the film. Chayefsky hated him pretty quickly.

He had much more control over films like The Hospital. Which, if you watch The Hospital, well, it shows. You've got great actors (George C. Scott, Dame Diana Rigg (Dame may be the greatest official title of all time)) saying great dialogue. But its just two very witty bitter people sort of expounding on topics and speaking at each other and suddenly admitting they are in love and discussing what drapes they will have to buy for their new home. It's utterly preposterous, and it doesn't work in the way Sidney Lumet got it to work in Network, by literally making one of the lead characters realize his life is turning into a ludicrous soap opera.

So of course Ken tried to humanize, naturalize, the dialogue sequences. And it works! The film feels more human than the Hospital or Network. Despite the fact that Jessup is literally becoming more and more inhuman throughout the film. One of the ways he does this is by having the character's eat, drink, and work on other things during the dialogue sequences. This is perfectly normal in film, it's called giving the actor “business” to do, during the scene. Chayefsky HATED this. “They are mumbling my precious dialogue! Chewing through it! Sucking it through a straw!” Sorry, Chayefsky buddy. It works for the picture. Chayefsky also felt the actors were too emotional with his dialogue. Right. See, they call that acting.

UNPAUSE

Which brings us back to the first meeting of Emily and Jessup at the party. They are eating during this important scene! I can just picture Chayefsky seeing this, and running to the studio brass to tattle and get Ken Russell fired (as he got Arthur Penn of Bonnie and Clyde fame fired before Ken Russell came on board).

Emily and Jessup are, true to Chayefsky form, extremely intelligent, driven people and hearing them discuss topics such as anthropology and schizophrenia is quite interesting. It's just that what is to come, film being a visual medium, will eclipse just about any dialogue, no matter how good, from our mind thingys.

The two give up on the science talk and go straight to banging on her couch. After, she asks what he was thinking about. His answer is priceless. “God. Jesus. Crucifixions.”

She smiles.

Bwahahaha! Oh Paddy Chayefsky, you sure know women.

He admits he used to have religious visions. She listens to him from the sweaty couch whilst he sits naked on the floor, and starts going on about his father's horrible death of cancer and his loss of faith. And he admits to her that he's a nut. Her response is to call him a fascinating bastard. I think Lucas may have taken notes for Padme and Anakin.

So naturally, they get married immediately.

But none of that matters because Jessup gets back in the sensory deprivation tank and has his first vision. A nightmare of his dying father and lost faith in christianity. It's pretty great, filled with foreboding hospital rooms, his father's face being covered in a burning Shroud of Turin, everything covered by horrible blood red clouds and then THIS FUCKING THING SHOWS UP AND ITS ALIVE AND WRIGGLING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

excuse me...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The many-eyed goat is slaughtered over a gold bible and suddenly Jessups screwing Emily again and we enter a blood vessel looking thing and the vision ends and he never mentions this again. Oh. Okay,

Emily continues on about what a nut Jessup is as they make marriage plans. Her monologue:

“You're an unmitigated madman. You don't have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I'm the girl in your bed the past two months. Even sex is a mystical experience for you. You carry on like a flagellant... Which can be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it's me that's being made love to. I feel like I'm being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God. (Emphasis mine)

"And you are a Faust-freak Eddie! You'd sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn't have great truths. We're born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we're alive. And one way we do that is we love each other, like I love you. I can't imagine living without you. So let's get married, and if it turns out to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.”

It's a disaster.

As in, by the next scene. It starts off happy enough looking, they have kids and people are smiling. And hey, wow it's seven years later! But, well, see, whoops, they are getting a divorce. Well, not they. See, he is divorcing her because he considers the seven years with her a complete waste.

She still loves him, desperately. He doesn't give a shit about her or the kids. He tells Bob Balaban this, straight up. And then starts bugging him about deprivation tanks and Hinchi Indians in South America who have sacred mushrooms that can really fuck you up.

It's at this point you would like for Jessup to be hit by a Mack truck. But the movie continues on. By the way, this is one of the kids he doesn't give a crap about:

That's right. Drew Barrymore's first role is a kid that William Hurt doesn't give a shit about. Something that William Hurt would make a career out of with narcoleptic performances in Lost in Space and Syfy's Dune. So, Emily takes the kids to Africa for her anthropology work while Jessup goes to South America to go deeper into his own creepy mind.

The Hinchi Indians agree to allow him to participate in the drug ritual. They enter their holy cave.

This shot is beautiful. At this point the film becomes increasingly gorgeous. Ken Russell has started to go into overdrive, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle. Your. Seatbelts.

The Indians grab Jessup's hand and cut him, freaking him out. They pour his blood into the drug mixture. They begin to drink. Then he takes a sip. The intensity of the film here has quadrupled. The vision begins, fireworks going off all around him. He sees cave paintings of humans and komodo dragons and this:

The proper life he left behind with Emily. He's convulsing, sweating. The Indians are all around, masked. Snakes. He's laughing in pain. Energy spills from the void. A snake under the parasol strikes and begins to strangle him. He and Emily march toward a nuclear explosion as energy pours from the cut on his hand, becoming a lizard. From within a sandstorm, Emily watches him, naked. Jessup looks at her, entranced, as the soothing sands cover them both, slowly.

It's a beautiful sequence. A perfect film sequence. I can't overstate how strong the vision sequences are from this point forward. Great visual effects work and the madman mind of Ken Russell create something unforgettable, with it's own pace, independent from the rest of the film.

Jessup awakens with a komodo dragon laying before him, ripped to pieces. The Indians and the others all claim he killed it in rage. Jessup remembers nothing, takes samples of the drug to reproduce it, and goes back home.

Back home, Jessup keeps doing as much of the drug as he can and having Bob Balaban record results. They can't up the dosage any more so Jessup hops back in to the self deprivation tank to create a more extreme experience.

In his next session, Jessup states he is having a vision of early man, hunting a deer and killing it. Suddenly he states he is one of them, killing the deer. He begins to grunt like an animal. The two pull him out. He's incredibly pale, blood seeping out of his mouth. He can't speak, and has difficulty breathing. He insists they do an X-ray. It shows that there is a vocalizing lump in the front part of his throat. Jessup claims that his body had begun to revert to a simian state. The medical doctor agrees, stating the throat X-rays looks like that of a gorilla.

Luckily his throat returns to normal. So Jessup finishes up his day by having over a student of his and sleeping with her.

Our hero, people!

At this point we hardly feel sorry for him as his body suddenly begins to twist and bulge in the middle of the night, shifting in and out of neanderthal shapes. It's a horrific sequence, disturbing as hell. You certainly didn't expect the film to shift into body horror.

Jessup feels normal after a while. but sees visions of lava explosions, the birthing of the Earth all around him. Not a good sign.

He goes to pick up Emily from the airport the next day. She asks how he is doing.

“Oh, fine.”

Yeah right.

Emily has been told what Jessup has been doing and is worried, which of course pisses off Jessup even more. The guy is obviously obsessed with reaching the truth and root of existence, much as Emily surmised earlier, and we see he has no fear of even losing his own soul, again true to her word. The only thing that allows us to give a shit about him at this point is that Emily cares for him and she's decent people, okay?

So back Jessup goes into the tank with his ayahuasca or whatever it is. Alone. The tank door opens from the inside.

The hand that pushes it open is covered in thick hair. He's devolved.

Ape-Jessup escapes the tank room and chases a janitor around the building. Again, this scene is fucking freaky as hell. We can't get a good look at this screaming animal that was Jessup.

The janitor gets a guard to help and chases after him into the boiler room, where we finally get a good look at him when he assaults the security guard and escapes.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ape-Jessup runs through the city at night, making his way to the zoo where he kills a antelope and eats it. The Ape-Jessup sequence goes on way too long, but is nonetheless unforgettable. The makeup is much more convincing than the above picture suggests, and whoever performed Ape-Jessup did an admirable job.

The cops find an unconscious Jessup in the zoo and bring him in. Emily picks him up and questions him. Jessup admits everything that he can remember. He also admits that he probably killed that security guard. And once again doesn't seem to give a shit. Prick. He calls it the most supremely satisfying time of his life.

Even Emily seems disgusted with him. But, she's also fascinated with what he's accomplished. As an anthropologist, his transformation fascinates her. And so, she agrees to help oversee his next session. Big mistake.

Before the big session Emily and Jessup romantically reconnect, and then into the climactic session we go!

Get your popcorn ready!

After a few hours in to the session, the video monitor shows Jessup begin to literally melt apart like goo, reverting to primordial ooze, the very beginning of existence. An attempt to open the isolation tank doors blasts everyone unconscious, as light and energy pour forth. Emily is the only one left. She sees Jessup's life energy pulse from within the tank.

Rain pours down around them. The pipes on the walls twist and turn like jelly. The ground is covered with a pool of swirling fog and energy. Emily advances toward the vortex of the tank.

In the emptiness of the beginning of everything, Emily seizes the energy before her and reconstitutes Jessup.

They take him home. While he sleeps, Emily rages over the fact that she loves such a insane bastard, and can't get over him. And, then, after Bob Balaban leaves, leaving Emily alone, Jessup wakes up.

He sweetly admits that the truth he learned was that there was no learnable truth, just unknowable horror, and all that's real is human experience. And he'll be a good boy from now on. Well too bad!

Because that horrible truth isn't done with him, and it's back to goo-Jessup! Emily tries to help him, grabbing him, but this in turn effects her, turning her into a shimmering lava form of herself. Both of them begin to self-destruct as Jessup, enraged, watching her in pain, struggles to retake his humanity, slamming himself into the wall, reforming himself through sheer will and physicality. He grabs her and brings her back, mirroring what she did for him during the final session. They embrace naked in the hallway. He finally admits, “I love you, Emily.”

Fade to credits.

Awww true love!

What can I say to sum up? Awesome 80's practical effects. Genius wacko go-for-it Ken Russell directing. Out of this world vision sequences. A awake and actually remarkable performance from William Hurt. An occasionally turgid but often fascinating script by the ever ornery Paddy Chayefsky. Whats not to like?

Well, the ending is a little rushed. The ape sequence goes on for a little too long and takes up perhaps too much of the films overall running time. The central love story is, well... a little hard to swallow, but hey, I guess there really is somebody out there for everyone. Even self-absorbed, deadbeat, cheating, sensory deprivation loving, ayahuasca dropping, Harvard teachers with a messiah complex!

And on that note, aliens from A.I. Artifical Intelligence, have a good day, and don't leave poor Teddy alone with no one to keep him company!

Sayonara!

and the thing is, i’m not scared anymore (part 2)

In which you are a healer being held against your will by the First Order. There are legends swirling around the galaxy of a great Sith healer, one that can bring a man back to life, all without Jedi power. But to you, you’re just a girl stuck on a planet with nowhere to go, left to rot there for the rest of your life. That is, until a cocky and utterly charming Resistance pilot crashes in to save you. (So kinda like Tangled but make it Star Wars. Only kinda though.) 

Word count: 2418

In the safety of space, Chewbacca returned to pick up Poe and rather roughly dump him on one of the beds in the sleeping quarters. Poe groans as he clutches at his side, making my heart ache. 

I help him so that he’s leaning against the cold metal wall. “We’re going to have to take this off of you so I can see what we’re dealing with. Is that okay?” I ask, my fingers tracing along the hem of his shirt. 

“What? Oh, yeah.” If I didn’t know any better, I would say that Poe’s cheeks tinged pink. He sits up a little straighter so I can peel his shirt off, which allows me to really get a look at a very toned abdomen, I mean wow they don’t make Sith leaders as attractive as this guy- and of course, his blaster wound. 

“Think you can fix it?” he asks softly.

I nod confidently. “Oh, I can fix it. I’ve worked on a lot worse,” I reassure him.  “Just don’t… Y’know... Don’t freak out,” I say. 

“What a great thing to hear with a life threatening wound,” Poe jokes weakly. 

I give him a look and he shuts up. Very gently, I ease him back so he’s relaxing against the pillows, and cover the wound with my hand. I hear him inhale sharply- obviously it still hurts- but he doesn’t make any more jibes. I close my eyes, letting myself focus on healing him, feeling the flesh beneath my fingers sew itself back together just as if it had never been touched. After a moment I pull my hand away, revealing perfectly smooth skin beneath. 

I look up, and Poe is staring at me with huge eyes. “Don’t-” I start, but he shakes his head.

“This is me not freaking out,” he says quickly. He looks down to inspect where the wound was previously, running the tips of his fingers over it gently at first, and then firmly poking it. 

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

He shakes his head no again, seemingly at a loss for words. “It feels great, actually. Like, like even better than before I got hit. Thank you.” He slips my hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I can’t believe I was just healed by the legendary Sith healer,” I hear Poe murmur to himself.

“I didn’t get to choose a side,” I correct him. “I was taken when I was young. I don’t know how they knew about my power, but they did. I’ve been stuck there for years Poe, and if I don’t help them, then they hurt what’s left of my family, or they kill me.” I sigh, rubbing at the bridge of my nose, right between my eyebrows. “You don’t understand. I was given the label of Sith- but I’m not. There’s no hope in the Sith. The only one out of all of the First Order that has ever given me any kindness was Kylo Ren. That’s it.”

“Well, I hope I can change that,” he says, and for once in my life, I feel like I can trust someone. “We need someone like you in the Resistance,” he adds. “Someone… Someone gentle. Calm. Everything is chaos all the time, with flying off here and there and having battles all the time. Every moment is so- so stressful. I wouldn’t have it any other way, don’t get me wrong. Everything I do is for the Resistance. But this,” he gestures to his side. “And you? Are incredible.”

I look down, my cheeks burning in the wake of his compliment. I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that someone so kind and stupidly handsome would ever think I was incredible. But he treated me like a person instead of a tool. And for a lonely girl who was more often referred to as a thing instead of a person, that meant a lot. “Thank you,” I whisper.

He shifts forward, gently tilting my chin to meet his eyes. “Eyes on me, baby,” he says softly. “You don’t need to look down anymore. No one in the Resistance will treat you like they did, ever. I promise you that.”

He’s staring at me so intensely, and the air feels thick with tension. I just want to kiss his stupidly chiseled face, make him do that half smile thing where the side of his mouth quirks up on the side and-

A droid crashes into my leg. It’s different than the one I saw before, it’s smaller and orange and rolls around. “BB-8!” Poe cries happily, but I can’t help feeling a little sour that the moment is lost. “Don’t I look great? Our new healer here fixed me up good as new.”

BB-8 lets out a succession of excited beeps, its head swinging back and forth to look between the two of us. Whatever it said makes Poe laugh, that little flush coming back to his cheeks. 

“Droids,” Poe says to me with a chuckle. “I think I’m gonna head up to the cockpit and see how it’s going,” he says as he stands up, tugging his shirt on. “Care to join me? Or you can make yourself comfortable here. I would say explore the ship, but then again, Han stored weird shit all over the place in here, so that might not be the best idea.”

“I think I’ll come along. I’ve only seen space from all the drawings in the books I had,” I mention as I saunter down the hall behind him. BB-8 circles my feet, beeping and eyeing me up and down before twirling around and zooming back to where I assume the cockpit is. The ship is huge- or at least I assume it is, considering I have nothing else to compare it to. I take in the metal floors, the worn white walls, the hum of space- it’s all so new and overwhelming, but I can’t stop smiling. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of. 

Poe leaves to go toward the cockpit, I’m assuming to take over piloting. He had only been there a minute before I hear him screaming, “What do you mean one of the engines is shot, Chewy?!” He storms back into the main hold of the ship, the Wookie following on his heels. “I heard you the first time, I know that jumping to lightspeed away from the planet saved our lives, but the engine!” He takes a deep breath and turns to the little huddle of droids and I. “Okay, change of plans. We’re gonna have to stop somewhere to get the engine fixed or we won’t be able to make the jump to hyperspace, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stuck in this tin can for weeks while we slowly inch our way back. Tatooine is close enough; I’m thinking we lay low in a cantina, get the Falcon fixed, and get back as quickly as possible. Sound good to everyone?”

Chewy says something, looking between Poe and I and then laughing. I studied languages, but I’ve never actually heard a Wookie talk so it was hard for me to make out what he was saying. Judging by Poe’s face, he was making fun of him. 

Perplexed, C-3PO perked up. “Why would Master Poe be going on a date, Chewbacca? This is a mission, there is no time for romantic endeavors!” 

“Can it, 3PO!” 

I look between the Chewy and Poe, heat creeping up to my cheeks as I realization dawns on me. 

Poe, visibly flustered, shakes his head. “You know- I was gonna… I’m just gonna go back and pilot the ship,” he finishes before turning on his heel and beelines for the cockpit. 

“Master Poe is acting quite strangely,” 3PO remarks as I try to suppress my giggles. 

*

Tatooine is hot. Like really hot. I’m used to the sticky feeling of humidity, so the dry, unrelenting climate is uncharted territory for me. The sweltering heat makes the air shimmer, causing things in the distance to look wavy. It almost looks like they’re dancing. Everything is dry and dusty, and this planet has sand, which crunches under my feet and kind of tickles. I can taste it in my mouth, sand crunching every time I clench my teeth. Chewbacca insists on staying with the Falcon at the repair hangar with all of the droids, so it’s just Poe and I heading across the dunes to the town a few miles away. 

“I’ve never seen so much sand before,” I say as we trudge across it. The town is getting closer, everything being bathed in a bright orange glow as the suns begin to set. 

“I bet,” Poe chuckles. “That’s all this planet really has. That and Jawas.”

“Jawas?”

“Yeah, nasty little shits. They’re scavengers, and if you’re not careful they’ll strip your ship faster than you can blink. I’m sure we’ll see a few of ‘em in town. Oh, that and the dark lore creatures,” he says with a mischievous smirk. 

I give him a gentle shove, which makes him laugh. “Poe?” I ask hesitantly. 

“Yeah Sweetheart?”

I feel embarrassed, but unbeknown to Poe, I’m terrified. My mind swirls with stories I've overheard from Stormtroopers about the thugs and bounty hunters that hang out at bars on planets like these. “Will there be… Ruffians there?”

“What?” Poe laughs. “What do you mean?” “You know! Bounty hunters, thieves, crooks, people that would want to take me back to the First Order!” I huff. I feel foolish and regret even asking anything. I should have just kept my mouth shut. 

“You would have loved me back in the day then,” he chuckles to himself. “I was a spice runner. Lot’s of ruffians in that business,” he adds when he sees my confusion. “But don’t worry about it Sweetheart. Just stay with me, and nobody will bother you. I promise.” He gives me a warm grin, and my worries evaporate. 

Before we enter the bar, Poe slides an arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him. “Remember: just stick close to me, and don’t talk to anybody. We should only have to be here for a few hours.”

I nod in agreement, my heart thumping out of my chest. Poe holds onto my waist tighter as the doors open, his grip soft but firm. I try to hold in my shock at the scene in front of me: creatures beyond my wildest dreams are sitting around drinking some kind of blue liquid at the bar, while others are cleaning weapons and eyeing everyone shiftily in their booths. It’s loud, and two men near the entrance are shouting at each other over seemingly counterfeit Imperial credits. Trying not to bump into anyone, Poe weaves us through the crowd to the back where it’s a little bit quieter and more private. 

We smash ourselves into the small booth, Poe so close to me that I’m able to count the freckles that just barely stand out against his tanned face. “How are you doing, kid?” he asks, just barely audible over the din. 

“I’m okay,” I stammer. “Just- just taking everything in.” My eyes must be the size of moons; I know I’m not doing well at concealing how scared I am. 

Poe gives me a small smile, squeezing my hand. “It’s alright. Maybe just try to look a little less terrified. I’m starved, do you want anything?”

“You’re going to leave me?!” I squeak. 

“Just for a minute! If I don’t come back in 5 minutes, you have permission to scratch up my X-wing.” He starts sliding out, but I grab his hand. “5 minutes,” he repeats before disappearing into the crowd. 

Poe returns a few minutes later, his hands full with drinks and what looks like a warm stew. How anyone could want to eat something hot when it’s already scorching on this planet escapes me, but once I smell it I realize how hungry I am. “Dinner,” he says as he passes me my bowl. “I hope you like it,” he adds as he scooches close to me. 

“I’ve never had anything except Imperial rations, so I’m sure that anything will be better than those,” I say sincerely. Poe makes a face at the mention of Imperial rations; I’m glad to see that he isn’t a fan either. 

“Try it, see what you think.” Poe rests his head on his hand, his dark eyes sparkling in the dim light of the cantina as he watches me. 

I take a bite, more flavor than I thought was in the galaxy hitting my tongue. It’s warm and smokey and even a little spicy. “This is really good,” I say after I swallow. “Who knew that food was actually capable of having flavor?” I giggle. 

“You know there’s Jawa in that, right?” Poe says offhandedly as I start to take another bite. My face falls in shock, making him burst out into laughter. “I’m just kidding, no Jawa. I just had to, it was too easy.”

“Whatever, Dameron,” I huff, rolling my eyes. Poe just continues to giggle to himself, shooting me an ‘I’m sorry but not really’ kind of look. 

We stay in the cantina for a few hours, talking about anything and everything. I ask him what the Resistance is like, if Leia is nice and if she’ll like me, who this Rey person is that everyone in the First Order can’t shut up about, if she and Kylo Ren actually have a thing for each other or if it’s all just Stormtrooper gossip; he asks me about what it was like being stuck in the same place my whole life, if I’ve ever seen Kylo Ren with his mask off and if he can actually talk clearly, who the ugliest Sith is, if I remember where I came from. I feel like it’s just the two of us in that bar, the other patrons melting out of sight. The way Poe listens to me, the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like I’m the only person in the galaxy that exists. After another harrowing story about his bravery and excellent flight skills, Poe begrudgingly mentions that we should head back. And for as scared as I was, I think I like cantina’s now. 

Chewy looks like he knows that too, with the grin he gives us as we board the ship to head back to D’Qar. 

8. 27. 43, 95 and 97! :D

thanks a lot, Joe!

8. What are your current goals?Get the most i can from my internship, finish my study, learn as many languages (and other stuff) as possible, see the world, be happy and feel confident as often as possible!

27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you?Fanfik - for the pure sake of being a good Polish YA LGBT book, with (spoiler?) a transgender protagonist. I can’t really think of YAs in English with trans protags, so seeing such a book on my home turf was a positive surprise. Also the language of the dialogues is pretty realistic and not annoying? So many authors have trouble with writing teenage voices after all. And I can’t think of movies rn, sorry.

43. Who inspires you?Sir Terry. I just freaking love his books, and their philosophy. I like to think that Discworld played an important part of haping my adult moral compass.

95. Share your favourite quote.Here we go! Not quote, but quotes, since i cannot choose one.

Whole Litany Against Fear from Dune.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you. (Tyrion in Game of Thrones. This one is So. Very. Much. Important. For me.)

And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is. (Granny Weatherwax from Discworld)

“I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”“NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEET THE RISING APE.” (Susan Sto Helit and Death, Discworld again. Okay, I could just copy-paste half the Discworld content here, you get it)

A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own…you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart. (From FMA, which is great. And now I realised, that Granny Weatherwax’ views on sin align nicely with the philosophy of FMA. c’mon, the mythology of Philosophers’ Stones is literal treating people as things, and so it’s opposed to the protagonists’ moral code)

97. Do you like horror movies?I haven’t seen a lot of horror movies, and I don’t really feel like watching something for the sake of being scared? But a lot of my favourite things play with horror cliches/tropes. Take Shaun of The Dead, which is a zom-rom-com. Take my beloved In The Flesh, which uses zombie to build a metaphorical tale about opression and one depressed teenager, who got a second chance at life (also for a similar vibe check out Revival and les Revenants, though neither is as beloved by me as In The Flesh, which is one of the most important artworks in my life). Heck, even the Only Lover Left Alive, and its absolutely amazing last scene. I love this scene so much.

A world in color

  A FFXV Prompto one-shot, in which Prompto has Synesthesia.   No warnings, Word Count 1064

 Prompto’s world was more colorful than most.  At a very young age he learned that sounds had color. So did music. And so did voices. He could spend hours at a time just listening and watching.

 His adoptive parents didn’t seem to mind. Peculiar? Maybe, perhaps a little. But he was a kid, and kids say strange things.  He asked them if they could put the music on; “The blue one” he says when they look over the CDs. He didn’t seem to remember the band name or any song names. So what was the blue one?  They tried to put in any one that had a blue case, a blue disc, blue lettering, blue anything and every time he would shake his head and demand for blue again.  They finally got it right; a heavy metal band. The album was shades of green and black that formed an image of being on the shoor and looking at a bridge with a city in the distance, the band name in big white letters. There was nothing blue. But it was his blue.  Strange? Just a little. But he was a kid. There was no need to take his ‘blue’ away.  Prompto eventually thought it would be easier to memorize every last shade in his boxes of colored pencils. Thought that the world of color that he saw would be easier to explain.  But somehow it didn’t.  His father didn’t understand when he answered he was feeling periwinkle when asked what was wrong. So he didn’t understand that when Prompto told him this that he meant he was feeling sad and hopeless.  From childhood, Prompto learned that no one else he knew was like this, and that once more he was all alone in something.  Other students didn’t understand why instead of saying cool he meant super green or that when he was feeling good that he was aureolin. And they didn’t like it either.  They all laughed when he tried to describe the scene of a song to them.   “Weird”, “Stupid”, “Freakish”, “Touched”, they all would call him. He was laughed out of every circle.  And in a fit of sadness he went home, and he got rid of his colored pencils; never to return to art again.  Eventually he started to forget the names of all those shades he had spent so much time in trying to learn and memorize.  He tried to forget that much of his world was in colors that should have never been there. But how could he when each sound of Insomnia carried it’s own colorful wind?  Prompto kept up his photography. Prompto might always always have that ‘curse’ in his eyes, even as he snapped a quick few, but later he would have pictures he could look back on. He could see the normal world for what it was and Prompto so desperately wishes he could hop right into the pictures and experience that normal.  Best of all; he’s just a weird kid with a camera. After so long no one thinks to call him a freak anymore, now that he doesn’t talk about it. He’s now just that weird, quiet kid with the camera.  Solace was what he found when he finally left the city with the other guys.  Like a breath of fresh spring air and of freedom; none of them had ever known of that little ‘issue’. Here the was no one to bring it up and no one to tease him about it.  But strangely, being with the guys somehow kicked up the periwinkle in him. And the amber of his nostalgia kicked in.  He wishes he had those words back...  He wishes he could talk like how he used to.  When Gladio speaks in his normal tone, his voice is tan and it swirls around him; it reminds him of a creamy espresso.  Ignis is like light frost creeping up on the corners of his periphery with speckles of pale yellow and white and streaks of deep blue- like looking out at glacier filled lake while the sun reflects off the cold blue water- Ignis is his own slice of coldness without bringing the cold.  Wisps of many kinds of green with rolling gray, just as if the fog just came in and blanketed over, whenever Noctis talked. When he laughed, the green would over power and there would be nearly no gray for a split second. And it was calming.  The Chancellor’s reminded him of sand dunes, and he was betting if he ever heard Lady Lunafreya that she would paint the prettiest picture and Noctis would never know just how lucky he was.  Sometimes Prompto wants to have his old words back. Sometimes he wants to let his friends know just what their voices look like and how it makes him feel safe seeing what they paint his world with. Sometimes he wishes he could tell Cindy that the color of her eyes is complementary to the color of her voice.  But he also fears having his old words back. What would the others think? Would they make fun of him, tease him, or mock him? He doesn’t really want to think about that. So he pushes his amber aside and deals.  Or so he tried.  It’s early in the morning and Gladio takes a quick jog around the area to get started with his usual training routine. He spots Prompto on a nearby hill with the camera in his hand.  He approaches, and while he does Gladio notes the peace and serenity on his face and he’s glad that Prompto has something to ease him from the stress of the journey.  “Hey, you look like you’re doing pretty good today.” He comments.  “I know! I’m feeling pretty aureolin today!” He smiles. But for a split second his eyes go wide and he can see the horror that briefly flashes. “Happy! I mean I’m feeling pretty happy today.” Prompto awkwardly chuckles and goes to brush it off before excusing himself with, “I, uh, should go and see if Noct is up yet.”  Gladio’s not sure what that was about. Odd? Maybe just a tad.  Perhaps Gladio, and the rest of them, will never know what that moment was about. But did it matter? Prompto is Prompto, odd quirks and all. And that was something that none of them would chang

[[[Author’s Note]]]

I kind of wanted to write a thing that centers a bit around Synesthesia. It’s a subject that never really gets much love, whether in stories or even conversation, and there are about 60 kinds of Synesthesia. Being someone who does have a couple of types, it does sadden me that there’s just hardly any content about any of it. But because I do have some forms, I often like to project and headcanon them onto some of my favorite characters and this time it happened to be Prompto. In this one Prompto has specific form of Synesthesia known as Chromethesia; a sound-to-color type, and another one that’s emotion-to-color. 

First Second Coming, the debut fantasy/supernatural/romance/suspense novel by Jeff Pollak, was released on 1st August. Prior to it’s release, I sat down for a virtual chat with Jeff, and I am delighted to be able to share this with you all today. Let’s jump straight in, and then I will share all the important information about the book with you all.

What was the inspiration behind First Second Comings?

When 9/11 occurred, I watched the World Trade Tower collapse just as everyone else did. Of course, I was horrified by the spectacle. Perhaps more so than others, because I had connections to that building. Born and raised in New York City, I’d been in the building a few times as a child. In my adult years, my law firm would hold annual seminars in the Top of the Tower conference centre every May, to update our New York/New Jersey corporate clients about California law and important appellate decisions. As a partner in the firm I’d function as a speaker, a panelist, or just a meet-and-greet guy. I had some clients in the building and gotten to know some of the conference centre’s staff. So the collapse was very hard to watch – some people I knew in that building didn’t survive, I later learned. That day a random thought came to me, that this planet really needs a new god, someone who is a planetary turnaround specialist. Some fourteen years later, when I’d decided to spend my future retirement writing fiction, the concept of a character who is a planetary turnaround deity came back to me as the seed of a story. I developed it and First Second Coming is the result.

What are your favourite books as a reader?

My all-time favorite books? I’ll break it down by genre.  Historical fiction: James Clavell’s Shogun and Tai-Pan novels. Also Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost. Fantasy: Tolkien’s Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Science Fiction: Frank Herbert’s Dune and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Thriller/Suspense: Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October and John LeCarre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Horror: Stephen King’s The Stand. Magical Realism: Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. Non-fiction: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin about Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War Cabinet, and Simon Winchester’s Atlantic about that little pond that separates England from the U.S.A.

Which authors inspire you as a writer? Is there a particular author who it would make your day to be compared to?

At the moment the authors who inspire me the most are, in no particular order, Iain Pears, David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami and Daniel Silva. The first Pears book I read, An Instance of the Fingerpost, is told from the point of view of four different individuals. Each POV character narrates the same events entirely differently, leaving the reader amazed that the story  comes together. Pears is a master at that sort of intricate plotting and character development. As for Mitchell, the man’s off the charts as a writer. Incredible talent. I don’t read his books, I savor every sentence in them, especially The Bone Clocks. As for Murakami, I started with 1Q84 and it was a revelation. Something different in its Japanese setting, in the richness of the details of both the real world and the alternative world he creates, and in the uniqueness of the story. Finally, Silva – he writes espionage thrillers along the lines of LeCarre or Follett. Silva’s ongoing series of about twenty books now all involve Israeli Mossad spy Gabriel Allon. Silva’s books are a bit formulaic, but he often incorporates real world events into the story and he has a conciseness to his writing style that I try to emulate in my writing. At this point in my development as a writer, being compared to Silva would probably make my day as I’m not yet at the “master writer” level of a Pears, Mitchell or Murakami. I aspire to get that good, though.

What did you learn over the course of writing First Second Comings that you wish you had known before you started?

Good question. I was learning the craft while I wrote, so I suppose the short answer is ��everything.” I attended writers conferences, participated in critique groups, did online courses and researched answers to the “how to” things that came up. If there’s one thing that stands out that I didn’t learn but instead experienced, it’s getting so close to your characters that they actually talk to you unbidden (in your head) while you write. The first time my female main character, Brendali Santamaria, started talking to me I pretty much freaked out. I wasn’t expecting that and didn’t know this is a fairly common occurrence in the writing world. She’d tell me what was actually going on in the story, as differentiated from what my outline said was happening. I enjoyed hearing from her before long. Her romance with Ram Forrester, for example, wasn’t something I had planned to include in the story – but it happened and is now a major piece of First Second Coming.

Do you have a regular writing routine? If you do, what does it look like?

I do now, yes, but while writing most of First Second Coming I’d write as time allowed, around my work and family obligations. Now, as a retiree and empty-nester, I have plenty of free time. I do most of my work in the morning, from about 5:30 to 11:30, taking breaks for exercise and to get showered and dressed. In the afternoons I’ll hike for an hour or so, do any errands or chores that need doing, and write or edit as time permits. I don’t write in the evening, leaving that time for reading or other leisurely pursuits.

Do you have a plan in mind for your next book?

I’ve begun writing the second book in the “New God” series, or to put it another way, the sequel to First Second Coming. I’m also doing research for it and writing a novel that will be a spin-off from the series but not part of it. All those things – the two novels and the research – are in the start-up stages. I hope to have a first draft done on at least one of the two novels by year end.

Thanks so much Jeff, for taking the time to talk to me. Now, onto the all important blurb!

BLURB:

In 2027 the deity known as NTG – short for New Testament God – retires after more than two thousand years of minding the store for his employer, Milky Way Galaxy, Inc. The new god, a planetary turnaround specialist, must decide whether the Earth’s dominant species should or should  not be included in his plan to bring the planet back into full compliance with Milky Way Galaxy, Inc.’s planetary operation standards.

Earth’s new God introduces himself to humanity by unexpectedly appearing on the Ram Forrester Hour talk show. Ram, an atheist, and co-host Brendali Santamaris, a devout Catholic, are stunned. God’s interview, beamed worldwide, shocks and infuriates viewers. They learn that a sixty-day conference will take place in Los Angeles to determine whether humans are capable of helping him implement his planetary turnaround plan. All that those in attendance must do to assure that mankind earns a coveted spot in this God’s good graces is eliminate religious violence forever, without his heavenly help, before the conference ends. Failure means extinction.

God designates Ram and Bren as the conference’s only authorized media reporters. This assignment, fraught with peril, ignites their romance. Not only must the harried couple attend the conference meetings by day and do their show at night, they must also outwit a group of religious fanatics bent on killing them. When conflicts with the conference intensify, it’s up to Ram and Bren to do whatever it takes to protect their budding romance and assure mankind’s survival.

PURCHASE LINKS:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeff Pollak, the author of First Second Coming and sequels to come, was raised in the Riverdale section of the Bronx by a single mom and two grandparents who lived eight floors up. After graduating from college in Buffalo, Jeff headed west to Los Angeles for law school and spent his entire legal career in and around civil litigation. Now retired, writing fiction is Jeff’s new passion.

  SOCIAL MEDIA:

Goodreads

Website

Twitter

Thanks again Jeff, for taking the time to talk to me. I think this sounds like a fascinating book and I am very much looking forward to reading it.

Join me for a virtual chat with @jspollak author of First Second Comings #bookblogger #q&a #meettheauthor #fantasy #supernatural #suspense #romance #fictioncafewriters #spoonshortagebookclub First Second Coming, the debut fantasy/supernatural/romance/suspense novel by Jeff Pollak, was released on 1st August. Prior to it's release, I sat down for a virtual chat with Jeff, and I am delighted to be able to share this with you all today.

The Compass of Balance and Order

More concept art for Lustre Zeal. While attempting to try and develop the look and feel of the world the characters interact with I've also been trying to learn how to balance the aesthetics that I enjoyed while growing up with more modern sensibilities as copying the past because it was a simpler time won't necessarily make you a better artist. If anything it just makes you look dated. Also development log.

Development Log 7.21.17

So between working on various pictures and time spent trying to piece my psyche back together, apparently the development of the self and the deconstruction of the ego can be arrested at various stages in the individuation process leading to psychoses that I've no doubt Freud would have had a field day with, I've been developing a model of thought based on the nature of the Artistic Identity, the use of Inner Vision and our relationship  to the social forces present in Emotional Economies to achieve what Jung would term 'a level of psychic functioning' that allows me to 'try and reach for an idea' without relying on the Extension of Self, Embodied Presence, the Avatar State, or the Panopticon Effect.  

Don't know what any of those things are? Good, that saves me the trouble of trying to explain them because doing so would involve talking about higher-order thinking and metastrategic knowledge and I don't feel like being here all day. Suffice it to say that the two most prevalent processes I've come across in terms of communicating the means by which an artist experiences the creative forces analogous to the ones they seek to convey is Method Acting and Stanislavski's System, and I don't think I need to tell you which is the one that I prefer. Or maybe I do because quite frankly Method Acting has some very scary side effects and has caused many an actor to come back as something other then themselves. Think Alia from Dune when she gives Baron Harkonnen a place in her mind after speaking with him in other memory. Yeah, not pretty. Anyway back to talking about Artistic Identities and whatnot. Because working on Lustre Zeal has involved making so many freaking design decisions, I've lost count at this point as the sheer complexity of the processes involved has forced me to seek out even greater levels of organization then the one's I already rely on, I've had to focus more on a core set of techniques rather then my usual experimental and iterative explorations of various form languages. Good god that sentence was an absolute mouthful. Let's try that again shall we. Because I prefer to draw characters with more realistic looking anatomy and proportions, I've had to focus on things like the Reilly Method of drawing for my use of construction, gesture drawing for establishing the pose, Frazetta's Emotional Core for my relationships and blah, blah, blah for everything else. Seriously, do you think I'd actually sit here and list off every single artist, actor, animator or director whose work that I've studied in order to form the very foundation that I reach for when I sit down to draw? Well, I could, but it would be a fairly long list and a lot of the names would be Japanese so let's just stick with the whole Artistic Identity and whatnot as the degree of knowledge involved in achieving the level of realism I desire is fairly high and requires an obscene amount of investment in terms of time and energy to actually learn. Having said that, because of the desire to establish one's self both emotionally and mentally is a process of self-actualization, I figured that something similar must be happening whenever artists sit down to draw, writers write or musicians compose, if not only because such an identity allows us to establish our own individual presence in an Emotional Economy but because it also allows us to recognize the visual appeal of our work as well as further understand and define the form language we use to communicate our ideas with both our audience and our peers. A matter which is not helped much by the fact that the rites of passage artists undergo and the harrowing that we experience while setting out on such a path tend to have the unfortunate effect of either destroying our egos utterly or leaving us completely disillusioned by the nature of the realities we choose to engage with. The fact that I scare the absolute shit out of most people when I talk normally is something I've had to live with my entire life, so imagine my surprise when the art that I sought to create and the stories I started to tell became a reflection of the self I'd long sought to hide in order to pass off as normal. I don't doubt Jung would refer to that as the Shadow seeking to express itself in an otherwise healthy way, but then again my pursuit of finding my own Self amidst the ruins of a life ruled over by the fear of what others cannot possibly imagine has been motivated more by a desire to end such intellectual isolation then anything else. Anyway, as an Artist and a Writer I have the freedom to act and think as I want without hindrance or restraint, but balance that with the need for a Persona which to embody and the need for an Artistic Identity becomes both an ego defence mechanism and a means of self expression. There are of course countless downsides to this as dissociation and supplantation can and do occur, watching that happen to celebrities is disturbing to say the least, but then knowing  the risks lessens the dangers so there is that. That said the purpose that I had in seeking out the concept of the Artistic Identity was because I wanted a way to discuss the idea of developing one's own Inner Vision without having to rely on the words 'feeling' or 'style' due to the incredibly vague connotations already associated with their use. Seriously, I hear those words used to describe everything related to art and it just grates against my mind because of how hollow and meaningless they are because if Art Deco is a style then no matter how much I may love it it isn't my 'style' its a style that I 'identify' with. Don't even get me started on 'feeling,' hoo boy, sensation is a much better word because not only can I externalize the concepts involved, I can internalize the information being gathered without harming my psyche in the process. But back to what I was originally saying, if we have an Internal Monologue, which can only be reported to exist as I know of no actual means by which to prove it exists save for maybe some form of telepresence or mind to machine transfer system, which in turn begs the question of machine learning and machine consciousness, it stands to reason that we also possess some form of Inner vision. By definition that would mean that if an Internal Monologue is about thinking in words, then Inner Vision is about thinking in pictures. Oh screw trying to dumb it down, there's a mode of meditation used in Vajrayana Buddhism that uses fully realized forms and sophisticated visualization techniques to create art. The fact it can also be used to achieve a substitution effect using imagined experiences that evoke the same cognitive and phsyiological consequences as their corresponding real world counterparts is in my mind an unintended bonus. Though not one I would personally prefer to try and teach someone as you can see by anything I try to draw, its a process that leaves little room for error and can seriously mess you up if you aren't aware of what the hell you're doing and what's going on. Seriously, ten years spent practicing a technique to achieve what people can experience in five minutes after eating a handful of mushrooms. Grumble, grumble, grumble . . . anyway, in order to differentiate one's own Inner Vision from, say, Mental Images or Mental Representation, its important to begin by distinguishing the idea of Inner Vision from the mathematical models and the spatial awareness skills we use to visualize objects as when attempting to represent an imaginary object rather then say, trying to recollect an object from memory in order to construct it, we rely on different visual processes to access and interact with the information in question. Which is to say that copying, transferring, transposing and transubstantiation all describe varying levels and degrees of the qualities we wish to ascribe to an object or form. Or in other words a sword can change its appearance to match its setting without altering its basic properties and still be recognized as a sword in spite of the differences between the artist's mental image of a sword and the way it appears in their own Inner Vision. And if that sounded confusing try applying the concept to architecture and you'll start to understand why so many artists default to the known forms that they've grown up with if only because doing so prevents them from experiencing the kind of trepidation and fear that comes from crossing through Liminal Space. Even I struggle with that one as the number of social constructs and intergenerational gaps that have created new and unprecedented chilling effects increase I find myself wondering what fresh new hell the masses have decided to pass off as popular opinion and commonly held belief. But then again the conflict that exists between attempting to establish one's own identity by rejecting the value systems of those who came before and the realization of one's own agency in a vanishing world is nothing new, its simply happening much faster now. Anyway, back to my point about developing one's Inner Vision, when we look for the primary influences that serve as the basis for the way we attempt to visualize objects, I found that focusing on those experiences that serve as our introduction to a work tend to form the foundation  we unconsciously reach for when we draw as not only do they often have largest amount of emotional investiture but the degree of familiarity with the subject matter cannot be matched by the increasingly complex mental and emotional needs imposed upon us by the realities present in an adult world. Or in other words, the reason why the things we enjoyed as children absorbed us so completely is because the fabric of the social realities  they presented us with served as a means of translating the elaborate social constructs of the adult worlds around us in a way that allowed us to relate to the events and forces that were shaping the geopolitical landscape of the time. The reason that I say this is because when I look back at many of the cartoons I grew up with I find myself seeing references to things that only those of us who were adults at the time would've recognized or even cared about. And this is in no way an isolated phenomena as not only is it present in my own work, but a few of the more recent cartoons that I've seen seem to be trying to reach a point where they appeal to both children and adults in a way that encourages parents to watch them with their kids so something to root for I suppose. That said, whenever I try to reach for an image in my mind that fits the parameters I've set in terms of design, I've found that comparing and contrasting it against things that already exist in reality is the only way to anchor the idea in a tangible way as asking myself to try and direct my own attention towards a certain emotion, theme, mood or even concept is all but impossible without associating my intent with some other established work. I suppose if I were to try and put it into words, its basically the difference between drawing, designing, and development. When I draw, I work from memory, when I design something I work from either an emotional intent or a previously established concept, when developing a novel or an illustration, I work with either a composition in mind or a set of parameters that in turn serve to define the work. Case in point when trying to visualize the Tower of Zeal I needed something that was simple enough to draw over and over again, and yet different enough from the rest of the surrounding architecture that no one would ever mistake it for having been built by the local population. Seeing that in my own mind on the other hand meant I couldn't rely on simply trying to copy pre-existing objects or styles even though doing so helps to familiarize us with the form language that human's use to try and express concepts like reverence and worship. That and ornamentation, people love ornamentation to the point that it is rare to see a truly blank surface anywhere in art or architecture. Anyway, I think that's enough rambling from me. As I said I'm still trying to develop the concept of the Artistic Identity and the function of Inner Vision so if I'm even less coherent then usual that would be why. Until next time folks, have a good one.