Random Modulation

This and that, May 27, 2023

Updates on this and that

A little bit of a miscellany this week. What I'm reading, stuff I'm writing, and things I'm looking forward to.

Current reading

• Nonfiction:
  • A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, by S. Foster Damon
    • I'm still working my way through this. I'm in the J's.
• Poetry:
  • Middle English Lyrics, edited by Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman
    • Still working my way through this, as well. I find the Middle English easier to understand as I go along. It's glossed copiously in the margin, but I try to figure it out on my own first.
• Fiction:
  • Zero Saints, by Gabino Iglesias
    • Speaking of languages with which I have slight acquiantance, I always read Iglesias with Google Translate pulled up, because my two years of high school Spanish left me long ago. It's worth the effort. He's one of the best writers working in horror today. (And now I'm tempted to find a Spanish class in the area.)

Writing

I belong to a couple of writing groups. One of them, primarily focused on poetry, has been around since the 1930s. (No original members remain, of course.) We met via Zoom today, and I think we've more or less decided to publish a book. When/if there's more to say about that, I will.

I'm working on (no longer "getting ready to work on") a horror novel. I've had the main characters for a while, along with the primary settings (one of them a highway antique mall) and a handful of incidents and images. Today I started outlining the plot in earnest. I'm giving myself until May 31st of next year to finish the first draft.

Things I'm looking forward to

1. A community theater production of Sondheim's Into the Woods in June. I've seen it done a few times, with varying budgets and degrees of polish, but I never get tired of it.
2. Heart of America Shakespeare Festival's production of The Tempest in late June or early July. One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but I've never seen it live.
3. An Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy in July. It's described as "a four-part interactive show and cocktail experience spotlighting the influential author’s most famed works." But if they invite us to the basement to sample an amontillado, I'm declining.
4. The end of summer. I hate hot weather. I'm hoping things will cool down by November this year.
5. Halloween. Always. I'm always looking forward to Halloween.
6. Reading submissions for the Halloween 2023 issue of tiny frights.
7. The arrival of Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl, which I hope will be any day now.
8. And last but not least, Pride Month. It's especially fraught this year, in many places dangerous, and therefore all the more important.