Platypus of Truth

  Lorna from Over the Garden Wall. Great character from a great short that plays its twist well. Poor Wirt. What a dupe! 

  Using AI to flesh out the characters of the Ronald Fairfax novels (The Corpse House and The Place of the Skull).

  Brave Saint Lizzie. 

 Connecticut would like you to get off its lawn before it has to tell you, moron. StarryAI says this is what the average person from Connecticut looks like. The facial expression is perfect.

 In 1989, our family moved to Southern Connecticut so I could begin receiving cancer treatment. The house wasn't haunted, but for a brief time I was. The Warrens lived in the next town over. We were Protestants. We prayed. It stopped. The Haunting in Connecticut is a merely competent horror movie. It deserves the two stars Ebert & Roper gave it. It also deserves the praise they gave to the core actors. While the movie is wildly beyond anything I ever experienced (and isn't even shot in CT), the texture of non-paranormal elements is jarringly real. In some sense, it's validating: cathartic. There are only so many people who have lived in Connecticut. Far fewer are childhood cancer survivors from the 80s-90s. I'd be willing to wager even fewer have been haunted. It's such a small, small segment to base a pop movie on. Honestly, I have a hard time connecting with others. I've just accepted that I'll always be a sort of platypus. But people watched this movi...

Well, I have submitted a short story for potential publication. I have no idea what its chances are of being accepted, but it was fun to give it a try. I enjoy folklore, and this piece, The Devil and Cotton Mather  was fun to write and fun to read. If it doesn't find a home this time round, hopefully I can try again soon. Wish me luck!

Karen Sullivan as she appears in the unpublished novel The King of the Summer Court (picture and photo by the author). Be mindful of these bones, be mindful of these bones...

I paint my life in bricolage of Autumn Leaves My high school art teacher always told us: "art is with your eye, not with your hand." In other words, Art is a way of seeing the world. It draws our attention to things we don't normally take the time to see -or even know how to see until an expert shows us. Where we grow up and what our life's experiences are color how we see any given piece of art, but it works the other way as well. What pieces of art we've seen color how we see our lives. I've been watching all sorts of autumnal fare this Autumn season and it helps me narrativize my life while also being narrativized by the life experiences I bring to it. That said, I've been feeling lately that if my life could be narrativized in film it would be Over the Garden Wall , followed by Dead Poets' Society , shading into Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House . There are, of course, other ways to spin it, but that's how I feel right now. What about ...

After finishing Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House , all I can really say is that if you can stomach restrained and artistic horror, watch this series. It did not end the way I thought it would. I could not predict the twists and turns. It is a work of art that transcends its genre. Like Eliot's poetry, there's something so specific about Flannagan's re-interpretation of Jackson's novel that it becomes universal. There are all kinds of things I never experienced depicted in the ten hour series and yet it felt as if it was speaking directly to me. It's about a family that starts in New England and when the parent's dream falls apart, the family moves to California. The eldest son wants to be a writer. Mental illness runs in the family. The youngest sibling has an interracial marriage. There's infertility. Siblings move across country and keep contact by phone -or not. And, of course, the haunting. Those are the similarities I'm willing to commit t...

Birthday 2018 Today is my birthday On this day was Cassius born I write my life in bricolage Of Autumn leaves and poems for persons That I meet (real and unreal) Who shimmer Whether all alone on the Forest floor or grandly swaying on the tree When God turns all the Hills to gumdrops in New England. I cannot see the Whole but only in parts as The Apostle says: Through a glass and darkly. Each part considered Carefully connects back To the branch from which It fell at that first Moment of Creation. My life remains a pile of Leaves; Sybiline Books of prophecy -a child's jump and the meaning's gone- The Meaning and the Moment missed.

Ghosts I believe in ghosts; Banquo appears at my dinner parties. He smiles, lips and throat. I didn't kill him, and knowing who did makes little difference. Do you miss the dead? They are all around us. Half of those who ever lived are dead, while the half that live are always dying. I loved the dead from an early age. Their houses are like home to me. I'd pick a tombstone in New Haven sooner than a condo in L.A. My vacations are in cemeteries. Why do I disclose to you what will not make a difference? You know the place where You are going and I fear it as much as you. Maybe there is some hope in strangeness that is shown. We need not all be like Macbeth and think that thoughts of Death betray a guilty conscience.

December Loving Christmas is easy As a child; You have to learn to hate it. Business encroaches and Seasons fall out of joint The further finance forces you From home. Moloch always did hate children. I tried to find the snow That fell at Christmas But it withered with the Carols that Anglicans are Too holier-than-thou to Sing. Or maybe it was just the Commercialism Harvey blew All the way to the windy side of Thanksgiving. There was no magic In those eight lost years When we hauled our own Christmas trees from the Jones' and set them up Beneath the vault of a Cathedral ceiling. There was pain in every Movement of the saw. These words are blood upon The snow. They lead past the river to Our exile.

I'm still learning the ropes of Clip Studio Paint, so here's a little of what I've been working on. These are two characters from an unpublished novel ( The King of the Summer Court: The Strange Life of Ronald Fairfax Volume IV) . Each one took more time than I care to admit, but at least it gives you an idea of my learning curve.

concept art from an unfinished novel ( The Place of the Skull: Volume II in The Strange Life of Ronald Fairfax ) done in Clip Art Mr. Hunter looked at the clock and dropped his lecture voice. “Ok.  So it’s Halloween season, right?  Do you know Huntington has its own history of ghost stories?” “Like Mellonheads?”  Horrowitz ventured. “That’s a rather newer one, but ok, so you’ve heard of the Mellonheads.”  Mr. Hunter leaned back against the wall.  “Anyone else?” “Hannah Cranna?”  One of the boys in the back piped up. “Yep,” Mr. Hunter nodded, “ that’s one from Monroe.  Now, how many of you know about Sigismund Chesterville?” To his surprise, Ronald found that his hand was in the air.  “Fairfax?”  Mr. Hunter turned to face him.  “Evidently, we’ve got a connoisseur of local history.” Ronald’s mouth felt dry and his mind went curiously blank.  He had a sudden sense of panic at the thought that he might be asked to say...

Proclamation, December 2017 I Do Proclaim: That this is my hour. I take as my demesne All things that you reject: Rainy days, Cold, crisp Autumn, The glistening thickets of Winter, Old churches, Graveyards. And the moss about the foot of trees. I will be kind to postmen, And those who prepare my food. Praise God for tobacco, and The fellowship of working men Smoking cigarettes on the porch. I will thank God for immigrants Who cut grass, Domestics, All who do the work my Irish ancestors did. Praise the Almighty for every man Who calls himself a stranger in his home, Chronically reduces his boil to a simmer. I will not forget you either, If you have what you love Taken from you Yet remain unbowed. You are my teacher. I welcome All From the boarders of my kingdom In the particular- A shake of hands Or a nod Between potentates.

On Rainy Days On Rainy Days like this one I feel Gettysburg in my bones- or maybe Plymouth- seeing puffs of smoke in the wet air when no one else is out. You happy people who will not face the Rain, you Insiders, who never looked in through lighted Windows and wished to God that you belonged: What do you know of Astor or of woodsmoke- who never had the larger fellowship that comes with being Alone.

After a drawing by Rockwell Kent Marker on Strathmore Toned Tan A whale-ship was my Yale college and my Harvard. -Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Well, I've done it: I've finally finished Robert E. Howard's entire Conan oeuvre. The journey has been several years long, and I've also taken side trips to cover Howard creations Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn, but I have finally reached the finish. What do I say now that I have reached the end? When I began this journey, one of my friends quipped that Conan should be known as "the venerially diseased" instead of "the barbarian". Others told me that they had simply given up along the way -the racism and misogyny were too much. I did give up on Howard's younger contemporary, Fritz Leiber, for about that reason. Having read to the end, I can confidently say that these criticisms are true: Conan is not a good man, and Robert E. Howard was a cynical nihilist out to earn a buck -but that's not the whole story. Conan and his creator also reflect the realities of the Great Depression and a life on America's not-so-tamed former frontier...

I'm always a day late and a dollar short to things. In this case, it's about two years late. Late to what, you ask? Well, my wife and I finally got around to seeing Cartoon Network's mini-series "Over the Garden Wall". It's a show about two brother who become lost in the woods and travel through an eerie feast of New England Americana seasoned with a with worthy of Homestar Runner . In short, it's the show I wish I was brilliant enough to create. As Emerson might say, it was my own thought come back to me with an alienated majesty . Beyond it's carefully researched aesthetic, the show is a delight for the classically educated. The bleeding edelwood trees have their true home in Dante's Inferno  while the talking beasts and witches' cabins are firmly rooted in the Brothers Grimm. There are subtle grecco-roman touches too: the need for two coins to take the ferry across the river, for instance. "Over the Garden Wall" is on DVD and c...

I decided to test out the technique I used for the stained glass in yesterday's drawing on another sketch for my study hall's t.v. pitch. This led to a discussion with my wife about the probable provenance of said window and its use in the post-Vatican II era. The window itself is freely adapted from a set of Tiffany windows created in Shelton Connecticut for use at Huntington Congregational Church (with apologies to Saint Joe's).