Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

Three Month Mark

CHALLENGE: Answer these questions by the time this post goes live: Do I go on hiatus or do I keep doing this? If I keep going, when do I stop? If I stop, how long until I start again?

I have found it difficult lately to meet my self-imposed deadlines here. I think that I may need to keep trying to challenge myself to do these posts for the simple reason that it is difficult.

I mean, that makes sense, right? Oh, good. Another question.

Well, really it’s all the same question: Keep doing this? I think I need to. Pushing through anything that might seem like writer’s block would be a great reason to keep plugging away. The challenge of finding subjects and following whatever research and/or soul-mining paths that are necessary to keep producing blog entries could be seen as an end in and of itself.

What’s been happening lately is that I will start working on an entry and then realize that I’ve taken on a bigger subject than can be handled in a blog entry. I also need to place work elsewhere than here. The fine line I have not found yet is the one around what is appropriate for this blog, and what fits better elsewhere.

Not finding a way to quickly identify the proper place for each new writing impulse means that I have more work to do here.

RESOLVED: Keep going! There will be a new entry here on Tuesday of next week, and for the next several weeks.

C/older

There aren’t so many rowan trees
In our neighborhood
As there were a few years ago.

The one in our yard
Was cut down
Because the berries made a mess.

I didn’t even know
It was a Rowan
Until it was gone.

I didn’t love it,
Didn’t miss it,
Until I found out its name
Too late

And its orange berries
No longer
Popped color
Against the snow.

Sitting Up With The Dead by Pamela Petro

I bought Pam’s book off of the author table in the Marran Gallery at Lesley University the week I graduated. She had been my thesis advisor and the semester had gone well, so I was excited to read some of her work. This was the only book of hers they had, so I picked it up.

It’s a travel book about southern storytellers. In each chapter, Pam talks about a particular storyteller and frames them geographically, temporally, and in the course of her journey, including a story by them. Its outermost framing is four road trips that took place over the course of the summer of 1999, so the book has the feeling of a road journal. Each chapter is different, some having a formal story set in a different typeface intermingled with or slighty set off from Pam’s text in a separate font. This allows her the ability to interject observations or comments in the flow of the story, and have them easily identified. There’s one fascinating chapter where she juxtaposes three different versions of the same story against each other, two in identifying fonts, one described in Pam’s text. It’s a fascinating exploration of the folk process.

That’s only one chapter in the book: every experience with a storyteller is different, and every chapter of this book takes its own shape. There’s gorgeous writing — both in Pam’s descriptions and in the stories she collects. David Holt’s story “Ross and Anna” is horrific, heartbreaking, and gorgeously told. There are several trickster stories, including a faithful telling of The Tar Baby from the Brer Rabbit stories, and a Jack story (of Jack & the Beanstalk fame) as told by Orville Hicks. Orville’s Uncle Ray gets an entire section of the book, deservedly. Another favorite of mine is Annie McDaniel’s “My First Encounter With a Flush Commode”, a recalling of a childhood memory which tells us about the south’s journey into modernity, and how recently things we now take for granted and consider necessities were new and alien. There’s history in these stories that goes back hundreds of years (at least two stories are about Kings) and there are ghosts lurking around almost every corner, both within the stories and around them.

The book pairs up nicely in my mind with Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music”, mining the same territory, though the time frame is different. Instead of inhabiting what Greil Marcus describes as the “Old, Weird America” of the pre-electrification south, Pam collected these stories in the penumbral pre-shadow of 9/11. As such, the book has historical value as a journey through a part of the world that has undergone changes since. For instance, the Pre-Katrina levee at the south end of the Mississippi River stands as a backdrop in one chapter. I think Sitting Up With the Dead is a great book. I don’t feel qualified to capitalize those words, but in my mind, they ought to be. It drips cultural significance, and I can’t think of another like it.

It’s also a wondrously good read.

Goth quotient: 72

Rating: 11 stars.

What Happened at Program 1

Trans program 1 happened today at the Alford Auditorium at MFA Boston.

I had an amazing time. The program went over well: every film hit the mark, though I was surprised at the reactions to some of the individual movies.

People loved Calamity. It was funny, deeply awkward, and pithy. I love that movie, but I was worried no one else would. Beyond the representation issues (see original post with my comments here) it’s an edgy comedy. I didn’t know how my audience would react to it. I needn’t have worried.

The biggest surprise to me was The Real Thing. There were very few dry eyes in that house at the end of that movie.

I put my favorite movie at the end of the program, and that one didn’t impact the audience nearly as much as I had thought it would. The last couple of minutes of that film are just amazing. Alex Trahan’s wordless performance in that two minutes are the whole film for me, and they make it the best one. But it may have been too delicate a moment for a show-ender.

I will acknowledge that I was freaking out quietly in the front row about something unrelated, so some of the subdued audience reaction may have been my fault. I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll sit in the back from now on.

If I had needed to shorten this program for some reason, the two films I would have taken out got the best reactions. How about that? I can’t tell you what a rush it is to be in an audience full of people sniffling while the next film spools up.

Wicked Queer: The Boston LGBTQ Film Festival, Trans Program #2 and Sundry Addenda

By Saturday night I was screaming in pain…

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Spring has sprung, I think, in the last couple of days. We had the fizzle Nor’Easter, a few crappy cold days, and then, all of a sudden yesterday, things warmed up and the feeling of this place changed. When New England decides the next season needs to begin, it can be quite definite about it, sometimes spectacularly so. This time, it was like flipping a switch. No production, no fuss, just, “OK, it’s Spring now.”

I saw snowdrops today. They made me so happy. There was a big-ass pile of snow over them last week, and I thought we’d lost them for this year. But today, I saw them in the gloaming as I was walking home from the bus. The pile of white crap (well, black crap, really: this being Eastern Mass) had melted back some to reveal a small patch of them near the tree they grow under.

They’re so lovely.

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So, the thing. The thing with the dentist and the wrestling. Where to begin?

On Thursday, a tooth I had been neglecting started smarting a bit. So I called the oral surgeon I had been avoiding, and made an appointment for the following Monday.

About the middle of the day on Friday, with the pain beginning to crescendo, I remembered that this was an infection, and that having an infection when going for oral surgery was not the best notion. I called my regular dentist and asked him to prescribe me an antibiotic. The last time he had done so, he had given me these Penicillin horse pills, like 875mg or something. They knocked down my infection to nothing in a matter of hours. This time, he prescribed me 250mg. I looked at them a bit askance, but I took them, figuring they would work, since my dentist had prescribed them.

By Saturday morning, the infection seemed to be going down, but it was still raging. By Saturday night I was screaming in pain. I went to the emergency room. They prescribed me a different antibiotic in capsules the size of the horse pill penicillin and a pain reliever, and sent me home.

I took my pills, and slipped into blissful sleep. I slept for eight solid hours. Thank you painkillers. The next morning the pain was less and the swelling was going down. By Monday morning it was still bad, but not nearly as bad. I had no appetite: I really don’t like painkillers that much, lucky me, but I was taking them. I showed up to the appointment, was greeted cheerfully and without judgment, and a half an hour later, after the alluded-to wrestling, I emerged sans #19 molar.

From Friday until Monday, while I was waiting for my appointment, I was on my couch in the living room. I didn’t do much of anything but watch TV and look at Facebook.

I’m feeling better now, thanks, but I’ve got some healing to do.
And that’s why this week’s blog post is two days late.

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Suggested activity: Go back and read my first post on this blog. I’ll wait.

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So as you can see, I have some issues with executive function. No sense denying it. In fact, one of the main purposes of this blog is to help me develop a structured approach to writing:, with an assignment to meet every week. I set the posts in advance and the challenge is to never put up a late or empty post.

Oops.

But it won’t happen again.

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Enough of my dithering: let’s literally get on with the show.

Trans Program #2: Untitled

Pink Tiffany (44 min) (US) Nepali with Subtitles, English with Subtitles

I don’t know if this is an obvious thing to say or not, but the thing that makes a documentary work for me is a beating heart. This movie has one. Her name is Laxsmi, and she is principal subject Meghna Lama’s mother. Her inner beauty and love for her daughter come through so clearly on screen. I love Meghna too. She is this movie’s second beating heart. She is beautiful (Miss Trans Nepal), a committed trans activist (runs a trans activist organization called Pink Tiffany), and rides her scooter around Merrakech, She’s funny, and direct, and such a queen. Wicked Queer is the first US festival to show this film, and I am so excited that we are doing so

I Am They (58 min) (UK) English, Icelandic with subtitles.

I have been a Fox Fisher fan for a long time and seeing their film show up in WQ’s submissions was very exciting for me. I was not as familiar with Owl Fisher (so I probably need to catch up on a few videos, heh.) They are Fox’s partner in this film, as in life. Fox and Owl run one of my very favorite Youtube channels, My Genderation, and they are crack documentarians.

Fox is nonbinary transmasculine, and Owl is nonbinary transfeminine, and as the title suggests, this movie is about their experiences as nonbinary and as a couple. They both talk to the camera in an adapted vloggish style, but they are in control of their message top to bottom and this doc is very fast-paced, though not rushed. They cover a surprising amount of territory in less than an hour. The film shows a very strong documentary voice!

This program runs at 2 PM on Sunday the 8th of April at the Brattle.