Originally posted on the Benrik website: http://www.benrik.co.uk/...
Nate is READING: Plutarch, "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans"
LISTENING TO: The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast
WATCHING: "Session 9"
The Book: http://www.amazon.com/...
As per usual, I'm going to start off the blog entry by pimping my serialized online novella, Ghost Dance, which is the story of a boy, a girl, two swords, two pagan gods, and one very old and very powerful undead spirit that's very, very pissed off.
I finally posted Chapter 6, which is the chapter where Frank and Linda finally have sex.
You can read the most recent chapter here: http://authorofghostdance.wordpress.com/
If you haven't been following or if you're just joining us, it starts here: http://authorofghostdance.wordpress....
And as before, I've got a MySpace page up and running. http://www.myspace.com/...
Essentially, the MySpace page is the same as the Benrik blog, except alot more ergonomic.
Re-read The Monkey Wrench Gang, by good ol' Cactus Ed Abbey. MWG is the best book ever composed by Man or Beast and will remain so for a long, long time to come. If you're so inclined, you could use it as a "mayhem manual"; it's certainly detailed enough. But we must remember its other merits: The characters, the dialogue, the pure poetry of Abbey's writing. It is my very favorite book.
Of course there's good old George Washington Hayduke, everybody's favorite psychopath. I've included a character based on Hayduke in Mahdi, my steampunk story. My guy's name? Haiduk. Haiduk is a Turkish (or is it Hungarian?) word that means "Bandit" or "Renegade." And that's where Cactus Ed got the name for his own character.
God bless George Hayduke.
Just watched "The Outlaw Josey Wales" earlier today. Excellent picture. Not quite as compelling as the Sergio Leone pictures, but I liked it. I've also been watching plenty of samurai and kung-fu pictures lately; Akira Kurosawa and Yuan Wo-Ping movies, respectively. I've started thinking about going to film school. I'd like to make some zombie pictures, some kung-fu pictures, a Revolutionary War picture, a few comedies . . . I don't know the first fucking thing about making a movie, though. But I guess that's what film school is for, right?
Can't wait for summer. Can't wait to visit Hot Emma. I love that girl so much. And she loves me back, God knows why. As the Dust Rhinos said:
"Girl, you know I love you
To the end of my days,
But the fact that you still love me back
Makes me think that you're insane.
I'm a rat, I'm a drunk,
I'm a rotten old punk,
Ain't worth more than a dime,
And that's not likely gonna change
Until the end of time.
And I hope you treat me kindly
As you're walkin' out the door
And I hope you're still here on the day
After the night before . . ."
The ol' Communist library's annual writing contest is coming up later this month. I'm allowed two entries per category; that means four in total, two poems and two stories. I've got one poem ready (it's about Georgia, and it's the one I used to open Ghost Dance) and I'm working on another one about reincarnation. As for the stories, I'm working on one (a short piece about reincarnation, inspired by General Patton's poem "Through a Glass Darkly") and I'm bouncing around ideas for another one. How about two journalists who go see a musical while they're on acid? That might be fun!
Some thoughts on that business with the earthquake in Haiti: The place was a bloody slum before we started sending help, and when the help stops Haiti will still be Haiti. The place has been a riotous cesspool ever since the slave revolt, and it's not likely going to change . . . ever.
The Book tasks since I last posted . . . let's see if I get all of them from memory, without consulting the Book. Firstly, I was asposed to keep a look-out for the paranormal. I saw some ghouls, some vampires, a couple Bigfeet, some zombies; nothing to get in a big fuss over.
Then I was supposed to write a letter to a dictator to stop torture. I'm still workin' on that.
After that, I was supposed to assign little tasks to the people around me. I've been sick all day, so I was unable to do that one.