Thu - August 21, 2008

Little People


After writing about four or five different explorations of characters and ideas in very loose form, which I called the Ash Fork Series, I selected one of them to develop. Actually, Linda said something about the one with the midgets being the one she liked, and I sort of liked it also, though I had some misgivings about it. One of my misgivings was that I don't actually know any little people, such as midgets or dwarves. So I was violating the first rule, which is, write what you know.

Posted at 05:57 PM     Read More  

Sun - June 22, 2008

Shifting Software


I've been writing poems for a few days, like a kid absently poking around in his alphabet cereal. I have a funny relationship with poems I write: I don't personally identify with them and I appreciate them because they are like snowflakes ... they appear only once. A poem is a stopping on the road to have a look around, or it is realizing you have always been stopped and the scenery going by is stagecraft.

Posted at 02:30 PM     Read More  

Wed - October 24, 2007

Installations


I am beginning to look at Ash Fork as a gallery. At first I thought of it as my working on a story in drafts. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it dissolves into logical inconsistency so that the Deus ex Machina is never out of work. The enjoyable thing about imagination is that it isn't trapped in time, as it has no location and thus only an abstract existence.

Posted at 05:24 PM     Read More  

Wed - June 27, 2007

Organic Fiction


I originally set up "Shuffle Play" as a category where I could repost past blogs.  Then I started writing a couple of experimental Ash Fork's from the point of view of a clone, and then I tried to move them and crashed.  While Linda rebuilt my computer I was with a strange computer, and it was exciting at first, but then there were things missing and the screen was always dim, complaining about how wasteful it is to leave the lights on.  I kept doing more experiments with the clone character, and now I've sort of started another Ash Fork Series.

Posted at 08:10 AM     Read More  

Mon - April 16, 2007

Sexual Content Policy


When Linda and I were talking about the page, she mentioned that the only advertising she considered, which is the little Google ads, she decided against because the ad contract demands a level of decency I adopt only under duress. For example, when I am talking to somebody with a lot of muscle adhesions in the coccyx. Note that coccyx can be bandied about with impunity, while cock sex, phonetically identical, is frowned on. As George Carlin observed, "You can prick your finger but you can't finger your prick."

Posted at 03:26 PM     Read More  

Thu - February 22, 2007

It's Bigger


Shuffle Play is pretty obviously a way to post when I don't have time or inclination to write. Today, for example, I am impaired. Do I care? No. And not caring is the worst possible state for consistent effort. So I take something related to the previous blog, say, a rat turd in tweezers, or a random memory, and present it to you as a gift.
When I was thirty a brass balled Jewish guy from New York and his girl Friday brought me a dish drainer I had earlier seen laying just off the road to my house. "This is for you," he said. "A housewarming gift."

Posted at 01:32 PM     Read More  

Wed - February 7, 2007

Jack for Jesus


Today Arnold and I met for a late breakfast at the Tyger Cafe in Glen Park. It's become our tradition to meet there and go for a walk. Mostly we laugh a lot, and we talk about our work. Today I was mentioning to him that Ash Fork is on hold, because I want to try making a rough draft of the book out of the raw material I've done on the site. "It's like weaving," I said, "more than narrative. I made some strands and now I'm going to try to build the frame."

Posted at 02:21 PM     Read More  

Sun - October 29, 2006

Shifting Gears


It's been two years since I wrote the first Ash Fork installment. The idea was that I would learn to write narrative off the top of my head, without looking back, and I've done that. But now I'm at a place where in order to do something more with it, I have to pull it together, edit and give it a tight structure. I can't do that online, so I am going to do something different for awhile online, and put some time into a science fiction novel derived from Ash Fork.

Posted at 09:34 PM     Read More  

Tue - July 25, 2006

Crossroads


Ash Fork has come to a crossroads, which is a good time to take a look at what happens at the crossroads. The intersection of two highways is a good spot for thieves, because they don't miss any traffic if they wait there. Everybody has to pass by. So the deity of the crossroads is often a trickster, such as Hermes, and the intersection of two highways is considered a good place to cast spells.

Posted at 03:10 PM     Read More  

Sat - May 6, 2006

Overview of Stray Shot


I like three ball juggling to music, and when I was younger I worked on it and danced with asymmetric patterns. You learn to juggle by learning to make a pattern which repeats close enough so that balls and your hands mesh, like gears. It's mechanical and there is a joy in it when one day you aren't counting how many times you did it, you're just doing it as long as your attention stays on it.

Posted at 02:20 PM     Read More  

Fri - April 28, 2006

About Ash Fork


I have a very short time frame today which fits as I've been writing about the little people. I know next to nothing about them, really, though I noticed this week that there has been trouble brewing between two bands of Dwarves modeling themselves after "Kiss." Some things are just in the air; I write about them and then I discover them. Dwarf Rockers are on a roll.

Posted at 02:11 PM     Read More