tfw

when you tune out and realize that you've been listening to an ad for 5 minutes and your song hasn't come on yet

possession

E: do you ever feel it's not coming from you at all?

W: yes, it's as if I just chanced to be in the right place and it chose me. Is that strange?

E: no. I feel that too....when my writing is at its best. 

Sometimes it's not as if you're writing something or you're creating something....it's as if this thing has to be written and it's using you for that purpose. at the same time, you know you're writing it. 

page and screen

I enjoyed the TV show, The Man in the High Castle, so much that I got the book by Philip K Dick. It's a good example of the principle that, to faithfully adapt a book for the screen, you have to change the story in fundamental ways. 

The basic idea is the same. The axis, not the allies, won the second world war, so America is governed by the Reich and the Japanese. There is a subversive text or set of texts that show a world where the allies won. In the TV show, the subversive texts are films, but in the book, it's a book. 

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. In a TV series - a text on a screen - the subversive text is a film - a text on a screen - but in the book, it's a book. In a funny way, it's not even a change. It's a direct adaptation. It's faithful to the spirit of the book, not the letter of the book. 

taper news

Officially I'm down to 3 x 2 mg of Valium a week, but for the last 7 weeks, my weekly total has been less than 3. There's a certain logic about the mechanics of tapering that presents itself. My plan flowed from the realization that I could break the tablets into quarters. Now I get through most days on a quarter of a 2 mg tablet = .5 mg. 

Breaking the tablet into 4 quarters isn't an exact science, but it doesn't really matter. Because I can't break the quarters into eighths, not that there would be any point to doing so, I can only reduce to 0, from this point. I'm getting there. There have been a couple of days when I forgot to take the quarter but then remembered later. Also, how much is .5 mg going to affect me? Even when I take a whole 2 mg, which I sometimes do, I don't really feel any effect anymore. 

The big thing is sleep. I used to need at least 2 x 2 mg to sleep and that has been steadily reducing until now I take .5 x 2 mg and I don't really need it. I can sleep without it, and soon I will.

dreary night in november

There are actually 3 editions of Frankenstein. There’s the first edition published in 1818, then the revised edition published in 1831, and in between the two there is an 1818 manuscript that Mary Shelley made changes to and gave to a friend in 1823. James Rieger published an edition in 1974 that incorporated all the deletions and additions that Mary made in the 1823 copy. Cancellations are enclosed in angle brackets and additions in square brackets. 

It’s very interesting reading Riegers’ edition along with the 1831 edition. That’s a way of reading all 3 actually, because you’re seeing the additions and cancelations made by the 1823 copy, and the 1818 copy is just that text minus the additions and cancelations. 

synchronicity

A soldier with a broken arm made Bowie stare at the wheels of a Cadillac. It wasn't an intentional reaction. That's just where his eyes fell. 

chordination

When I was learning to play guitar, I didn't think I would ever master transitioning from one chord to another. I always had to stop and move my fingers, then start playing again. How can you even do that? How can you reposition your fingers in zero time? 

But I kept practicing and then one day I had the idea of moving my fingers just before the transition....that's the thing - you have to do something different from what the music seems to require. Drumming is like that, as is singing and playing guitar at the same time. 

That was pretty much it...once I started moving my fingers slightly before the transition, I had it.