Prescription is not a cure
The problem was never you, April booklist, beakstars are coming
Hey you again.
You didn’t ask.
I may not be what I think, but I’m a bit more so what I do. What i do besides making art is read.
I’m reading short stories this week, I don’t have the mind space to accomodate the people from novels. I can’t read non fiction outside of science or nature. I feel angry being sold.
A prescription is a command for my mind to shut my body down.
You are enough. I am enough. Always.
The world is full of salespeople selling you the solution to a fantasy problem you would never rid of. You can’t rid of you.
I play along.
Some days. Not today.
I laboured on the new beakstars
They have always been.
They have been but in a way that could not be described.
A tortoise without shell, a dog without eyes, lumps without identity.
Shape without prescription
Emotions taking shape but without a prescription.
They can’t be told.
They can’t be described.
But they exist.
I give them attention. I let down my guard. An opse here and a yay there. Stitch by stitch they come together and fall apart.
Many have become.
Many have cooperated, they have taken shape on my arbitrary timeline, the end of the lunar cycle.
One resisted.
They kept changing shape and form and colour, and with these, their personality too. With their new strength and size, I no longer push back as easily as I used to imagine i could.
Now i wait.
***
Books read and not-read
This is not a book recommendation.
I mostly borrow, therefore sample many, and am not at all precious about them.
This is a spoiler-free description of my feelings reading them. I don’t care if they were winners in academic awards or bestsellers, I care only for their ability to either crack open my head, or my heart.
Reading
Your Utopia by Bora Chung
Not even done with the first story yet. So far reads different from many other sci fi shorts, perhaps because of a different cultural origin, later.
Sinkhole, and other inexplicable voids by Leona Krow
Ordinary lives with absurd normality, shifts perspective
Abandoning
The terror of evidence by Marcus Steinweg
Chapter names sound like my kind of thing, but nothing sticks. Words floating in the air, nothing grounded in action or doing. I mean i get that it’s philosophy. But, sigh, bye.
Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan
Interesting start, and stayed there, no progress, i can’t bare to wait with their waiting. Not for me now, I need more action.
Dark Eden by Chris Beckette
Not entirely original but just looking at the same from the opposite side. Too much explaining, readers aren’t dumb, or have infinite patience.
Moonbound by Robin Sloan
Got me a few chuckles with the spoofs and satires. Even sitcoms get tiring without engaging emotional core.
Done
There There by Tommy Orange
When you start loving the characters, you then you see through their eyes, where love never left a mark. In the end, it’s as if I’ve known every one as a friend. And, i fear picking up the phone because i love them.
The peculiar state by Patricio Pron
Good game. I might try it and predict we’d fail for a different reason.
***
Mess is norm
I think I’m trying too hard to please and my head is a tangled mess. Everything i thought i needed to say I’ve swallowed and is causing indigestion.
Coming soon
Beakstars are coming, games are coming, videos are coming, except there’s only me. One lane traffic for too many cars—every engine powerful with impatient drivers who refuse to merge. I’m sorting them out, thanks for your patience.
Yours wonkily, marn
