Snobbery and pipework (and where the hell is all my fiction?) · 10:45pm Oct 11th, 2021
So hey.
First, cat tax:
Pictured: Treacle
I'm not going to lie: writing has been tough for the last... year. Jesus christ, Time, stop running away from me and let me love you! I spend all my time in front of a computer for work, in the same office I do just about everything else in, and I've been working long hours for quite a while. Again. When you spend your day staring at a screen, you tend to not want to stare at it for any longer than necessary.
That said, I have been writing. It's just that what I've been writing hasn't yet formed into coherent chapters for anything. I've produced bits. Bits here, bits there. Snippets, pieces; scenes that touch all the right spots. I know where they belong in the narrative for the two stories I'm focusing on, but the bridging parts aren't there yet. Like for Stars Shine Forth, I've got at least one piece of all the remaining chapters written (currently four, could change depending on how things turn out) and the outlines for everything that fits between (these are the things that need to turn out), but I've not had the time to glue them together. Not yet.
I promise it will be done, though. I owe you all that much for being so patient with me.
Otherwise, not much to report in that direction. Life goes on.
In the meantime, I had to perform emergency surgery on my jeep:
The heater matrix cracked. Last week it decided to start dumping coolant into the passenger footwell; a known problem with the XJ, with a few solutions. The simplest, as pictured, is to bypass the matrix entirely. I've done this, because I need to drive the car now rather than wait however long it takes to find a replacement matrix, tear out the dashboard, fit the replacement, and plumb it all in again. As long as I get if fixed before winter really sets in I should be good.
Note the wire wrapped around the hose. That's to stop it kinking and blocking the coolant flow. I was pretty proud of that, given it was a last-minute improvisation.
If I could just apply that energy elsewhere, I'd be golden.
Oh well.
edit: I forgot the snobbery!
Listen to this.
This is Zubin Mehta conducting Holst's Jupiter. It is, as far as I'm concerned, the best rendition of Jupiter out there. Everyone else conducts it too fast; they rush ahead with the intro, as if trying to get it out of the way as fast as possible, rendering it antithetical to the theme of the piece. Jupiter is not rushing around like Mercury. It's not a speed demon. He's ponderous and majestic and slow. The notation of the piece even sais Andante Maestoso - slow, with majesty.
I don't know why I wanted to point this out, except that it's an object lesson in understanding the point. If you want to portray Jupiter, don't make him run around like a headless chicken.
That's it.
I absolutely feel for you on the writing front. I've pecked away at stories I've been hiding away like Golem and his Precious for years, hoping that some day they will see daylight and not burst into flames. Some sections I really like, too. But work responsibilities just keep piling on me, too, and that squeezes out all of my creative energy. Anyway, I will be waiting patiently and looking forward to anything you publish, whenever that may be.
So, I've had this CD for decades, now, and even with all of its many obvious flaws, it's still somehow my favorite. I just wish the YT posting of Zubin Mehta's was dynamically better—YouTube mangles everything it touches, and I'd love to hear it in higher fidelity.
I grew up in a poor family, so my father fixed everything himself, outside of his day job as a machinist. This included far too many cars to count. I know he would be proud of your repair work, too.
So... you're saying that headless chickens can't be slow with majesty? Harsh, man, harsh.
5594725 I had the unfortunate experience to watch someone make headless chickens (or make chickens headless) when I was young, and they really do run around after the fact. They are in fact very much not ponderous at first, although of course they do inevitably come to a stop in exactly the way that Jupiter does not.
That's a bonny rendition of Jupiter, and much obliged for your sharing it. Like you say, it really does justice to Jupiter's stateliness and power, rather than have him whizz along to get to the good stuff.