“like so much narrative shrapnel”
– Murray Toews after receiving another email bombardment from writer, poet, paradigm shift disturber
and the Duke of Delusion, Victor Enns, in other words, well in a word, me.
undated
who realized his “negative tapes” those calling him a worthless piece of shit, impotent, unloved, reviled by women and most men as an inferior ….well you get the drift. Who be less menacing if they came with voices he knew from popular culture, so when he heard “Foo(l)!!!” he heard Mr. T. If he couldn’t stop the tapes (and he had decided to reduce his psychotropic meds, to thinking more clearly to work) he could use his imaginative super powers to recast them. He had done enough “Reframing” for several empty houses, so time to try something else! Mind you he had to be careful. “You useless piece of shit! Make my Day!, without nuance still sounded meancing. But to hear Jimmy Stewart speak those lines, or Fred McMurray say, took some of the darkness, some odd the stuffing out of that phrase. Opera singers he didn’t know very well, but made up how composers or playwrights might say the line. He got excited and thought about the “imagined moment” being key to survival for his self. Wasn’t a long way from Clint Eastwood to the magnificent seven, but they would be HIS magnificent seven having conversations with him and each other, Euripides writing his lost Oedipus play, Duke of Wellington, (with a recipe of course), Augustine before sainthood, who destroys Euripides Oedipus plays so the morals of his fellow men aren’t warped (though he kept a couple of the especially “hot” parts for himself under his ticking). Menno Simons distressed by the rise of profanity among his people, (this links with the Involuntary tongue ms.) Duke of Wellington, the boring victor at Waterloo, but how about the boeuf Wellington, eh?! (no his really)Queen Victoria (and all her clothes sings Leonard Cohen) playing RISK, The poet Dehmel, being tried for profanity seeks help from Sigmund Freud, having dinner with Alma and Gustav Mahler (there will be a lot of food), and finally Gump Worsley. But he gave them each a “voice” but was very careful never to say I hear voices. Or I see Dead people. And finally there is a banquet that becomes one funny carnival with the Corporal leading the ensemble in a new game of charades, drawing self-portraits, and historical trivial pursuit….(optional…but you get my drift.
So I don’t actually want historical set pieces with a clear story…the Corporal will start out creating these characters who become who he is instead of suffering in his aching body. So it’s more like the 12 days of Christmas, with each character fading in and out in a way the Corporal can be the “Master of his Circumstances!”
Ok, something else, but it will be much funnier, to introduce this character through a continuous narrative, rather than blabbing along artifical set pieces. which I thought would make it easier. Instead it’s just got in my way.
Whadda think about this narrative shrapnel I wonder, if there isn’t a way to make this more interesting also in the context of 360 cardboard??? Feverish, hot and sweaty. Dying for a cigarette. Am also working on website, six hours a day…if I can sit that long.
Happy thanks giving