Wysardessence

Precious Sails

2012-01-27T23:55:00.003-06:00

"Lutes, Laurels, Seas of Milk, and Ships of Amber." ~Belvidera in her mad scene, from Thomas Otway's tragedy Venice Preserv'd (1682)

    As with the duck of the adage, there's been a lot of flurry beneath the seeming serenity of my life lately. I've been writing and publishing other things besides this blog, which explains the long stretch since my last post. The Ryel Saga, having garnered many readers as an e-book, has finally been birthed into a paperback with the inclusion at long last of a map of my protagonist's world.
       Queen of Time, my foray into contemporary magic realism, is likewise now available as both an e-book and a paperback. Unlike The Ryel Saga it's on the slender side (230 pages), takes place in the here and now, and is sometimes overtly autobiographical. It's also even more timely than I'd intended, since the story's mention of a Mayan Ragnarok had been written well before the coming event was world knowledge.
       The other day I dusted off a work in progress that made me think of the quote that heads this post, which in turn led me to recall the Schatzkammern, Wunderschranken, and cabinets of curiosities that were popular in England and northern Europe during the 16th through the 18th centuries. I've always loved such collections, and make a point of seeking them out when I travel. By far the most memorable--breathtaking, really--have been the fabulous Green Vaults (Grünes Gewölbe) at the royal castle in Dresden. Never before or since have I encountered so many precious things gathered in one place--the most lavish, glittering, gorgeous assemblage of objects, truly 'beauty too rich for use,' since every item is meant to be admired solely for its combination of costly materials and exquisite workmanship.
      The driving force behind the Green Vaults was Augustus the Strong, a cultivated lover of the finer things who spent immense sums on art, palaces, and amours (he was said to have enjoyed more than three hundred mistresses, and kept a gallery of their portraits to record his conquests). His penchant for magnificence coincided perfectly with the opulent age in which he lived, and under his direction the Green Vaults filled with masterpieces of the Baroque wrought in gold, silver, enamel, jewels, and other precious materials. I don't remember a ship of amber, but there was one of ivory.

The pride of the Vaults is The Court of Aurangzeb, a masterwork in precious metals, enamel, and gems depicting the enthroned sultan surrounded by his entourage. More than a hundred tiny figures, all about three inches high, are depicted in exquisite detail. It took eight years to make, and cost the price of a castle. Click the image for a larger view.

Here's a delicious detail:

As I examined the gorgeous toy--or rather knickknack, since it had no earthly use save to be marveled at--I thought of Augustus' legendary cousin King Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, and how that energetic, impatient, intelligent young soldier might have reacted to such wanton extravagance. Compared with Augustus' lush wigs, gemmed silks, rampant libido and reckless excess, the celibate Charles with his cropped hair, stark uniforms, ascetic nature and unswerving purpose was an object lesson in the virtues--and hazards--of severity. My novel will describe those two remarkable and entirely opposite men, and I'll definitely include a scene in which Charles gets a tour of the Green Vault; he once paid Augustus an impromptu visit in Dresden, blithely disregarding the fact that he and his cousin were then at war with one another. Augustus, ever the gentleman, greeted Charles cordially, and let him depart unhindered.
Since I haven't the means to construct a Schatzkammer of my own, I keep one in the domed vault of my cranium. As with Augustus' collection, not much of mine is really useful, but it's a constant and ever-added-to trove of marvel and delight. Ideas and images from every place and time, all sorts of odd bits of information and out-of-the-way anecdotes, poetry, history, art, myths and legends, theater, music, languages, journeys, loves and passions...infinite riches from years of observation and countless books, that make my writing what it is. All my life I've been careful about what I stick in my brain, and now, in times like these, I cherish my mind-hoard all the more.

To Boldly Glow

2011-10-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

Will you wear orange, my dear oh dear,
And will you wear orange, Jenny Jenkins?
No, orange I won't wear, and it rhymes, so there!

Jenny wasn't alone in her antipathy. According to a study, orange is one of the least popular of hues. Observe the pie:

White, grey, and brown are disliked even more than orange, which isn't surprising; they seem to be most preferred by monks and winter. Still, I can't understand the animus toward orange, because to me it embodies optimism. It paints the hope of sunrise and the promise of sunset. It's the standout color of this my favorite month, figuring in pumpkins (away with those trendy pasty ones!), gourds, squash, and blazing leaves. It's wonderful to have such a gorgeous glut of the hue, braving the barren onset of November.

Some of my leaves from yesteryear.

Red and yellow, which combine to form my beloved color,

can be a bit trying on their own.

Then again, they can be stunningly splendid.

(For more examples of uchikake, see my blog post Imperial Opulence.)

I'm always wary of "What your favorite color says about you" articles because they tend to over-accentuate the positive, and sweetly assure you that you're introspective and outspoken rather than narcissistic and obnoxious. However, one analysis that I came across the other day seemed eerily spot on:

"Orange: This color of luxury and pleasure appeals to the flamboyant and fun-loving person who likes a lively social round. Orange people may be inclined to dramatize a bit, and people notice them, but they are generally good-natured and popular. They can be a little fickle and vacillating, but on the whole they try hard to be agreeable. Orange is the color of youth, strength, fearlessness, curiosity and restlessness."

A decade ago I'd have agreed entirely with that assessment, but I've become reclusive since then for reasons that I hope will prove temporary, and my patience is mightily strained at times. Still, in my heart and in my writing, the traits described are still very much alive, although the passage of time has made me prefer the darker shades like cinnabar, persimmon, and (most apropos) bittersweet.

Another color I've become fond of is the deep purple I associate with wine, but which is more often called maroon. It's a popular color in India for bridal saris, perhaps because it's both regal and restrained.

I didn't quite know what motivated my affection, but the article previously cited had some answers:

"Harsh experience has probably matured the Maroon person into someone likable and generous. It is often a favorite color of someone who has been battered by life but has come through. It indicates a well-disciplined Red personality—one who has had difficult experiences and has not come through unmarked but who has grown and matured in the process."

The hesitant prophecy of the first sentence is, I hope, true in my case; the other conditions certainly seem to fit. When I look back on my writing--I recently unearthed a trove of stuff written in my teens that I'd entirely forgotten about, with mostly good reason--I'd have to agree that what I'm now working on is rich in the fruits of experience. It's not purple prose, but definitely autumnal. Most of my short fiction is set in the fall, a time of reflection, meditation, and harvest. Ripeness really is all.

Namaste,

CK

At The Core Of The Happy Apple: A Mystery Solved

2011-09-23T14:38:00.023-05:00

Let me begin by stating that I'm careful with things. Like an Entwife, I prefer order, and plenty, and peace. Wanton destruction is something I can't remember indulging in even once in my entire life, and I make the following confession with a contrite heart. Caution: this post contains possibly disenchanting revelations. If you have fond recollections of the Happy Apple and prefer to let its inner workings remain an enigma, please don't read on.

Some background first. The Fisher Price Happy Apple was a wobble toy from the early 1970s, and countless babies loved it for its cheery face and soothing chimes reminiscent of a gamelan. They also enjoyed its invitingly chewable and easily detached stem and leaves, features typical of playthings in that less-regulated era. Fisher Price shortened the stem later to discourage teething, and here are the two versions:

Chipper, aren't they?

Fisher Price retired the Happy Apple after 1974, which is odd considering the toy's popularity, and sad because quiet lovely sounds are always good for people no matter what their age. Although it was made to be patted, batted, and swatted by tiny flailing hands, the Apple is best savored when held close to the ear and just barely shaken. If Fisher Price could make a minimalist version for the present day, unencumbered by perilous foliage and minus the rather overly-insistent grin, they'd sell jillions. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

And now for the regrettable part of my tale. Always keep in mind while reading further that my Happy Apple was nowhere close to mint condition when I acquired it at the local Goodwill some months ago. Shorn of its stem and greenery and covered with a heavy patina of scratches, it looked all of its nearly forty years, but from its secret depths emerged the most lovely celestial harmony. Many people are that way, with a world-worn exterior masking inner resonance. The poignancy of the notion moved me, and the 99-cent price tag seemed a killer steal.

After I got Happy home and gave it a scrub, I kept it on the table next to the sofa where I like to write, and at intervals when I required inspiration I'd rock it and swirl it, letting its soft tolling like distant temple bells imbue me with serenity. What a wonderful toy this must have been, imparting to a child the lesson that the more gently something is handled, the more its beauty will appear! The Happy Apple could have fallen from Buddha's bodhi tree.

But the serpent had entered the garden. Peace fosters the spirit of inquiry, and eventually Happy's deep delicate tones caused me to muse "what's inside this battered tchotke creating such an exquisite, angelic sound?"

Not wishing to expend effort that would destroy the object, I looked all over the Internet for an answer but found none, which astonished me. People are always tearing stuff apart, so I expected to find at least a few YouTubes or gleeful accounts of someone taking a sledgehammer to a Happy Apple, but no. The toy had existed long before the Internet, and had achieved a venerable prestige. The few YouTube videos that chanced to feature a Happy Apple tended to show closely-watched infants interacting with what was clearly considered a cherished family heirloom.

Still, Happy Apples aren't all that rare since they were produced in the many thousands during their brief time of flourishing, and I was relieved to find that they can still be readily acquired online, stem and leaves intact, for a nominal price. Reassured by their availability and unable to control my curiosity any longer, yesterday I took a compass saw and went to work, severing the fruit along the weld line in the middle.

Happy turned out to be a toughie despite its disarming smile. It's hefty, about the size of a small cantaloupe, so it wasn't easy to hold steady on its side. To add to the difficulty its plastic was as thick as harness leather, which meant I had to saw around the complete circumference before the halves finally came apart. As I worked, I frequently stopped and gave the Apple a shake to make sure I wasn't wrecking the mechanism within, and it always chimed reassuringly. As I got closer and closer to my goal, however, I began having trepidations. What if I accidentally cracked open a hidden chamber of mercury, spilling it everywhere? What if it for no reason at all the thing caught on fire? What if what lurked inside was really a malevolent alien being who'd been waiting nearly forty years for liberation? The chances were remote, but you never know. Worse than any of those possibilities, what if I ended up destroying whatever caused the beautiful sound? I began to feel a bit like Eve must have when she handled her apple.

But none of those dire mischances occurred, and here's what I found. Click the image for a larger view.

The Happy Apple's core exposed.

I'd never have guessed that the mechanism was so simple. I'd envisioned spheres within spheres, delicately balanced and calibrated, only too capable of falling apart beyond any recovery once the Apple's secret was unlocked. Instead, I found a little circle of eight metal rods in different lengths in the lower part, struck by a swinging metal disk suspended from the top section, very much like a fixed set of wind chimes. The components of this ingenious gong were of springy steel tough enough to withstand the wear of decades.

And there you have it, another of life's mysteries solved. While I regret sacrificing a vintage treasure, I take heart in knowing that my discovery may save countless other Apples in far better states of preservation from a similar fate.

Since my Apple's aesthetic appearance, if it can really be said to have had one, is now impaired, I plan to remove the mechanism and house it in something made of natural material like wood or bamboo or gourd. That way I'll be able to enjoy its lovely harmonies in a form rather more dignified and decorative than a plastic fruit with a goofy grin. Still, I'll always remember Happy.

CK

Five For Free

2011-09-20T02:13:00.001-05:00

I've put the first five chapters of Queen of Time on my website. Just click the link at the top and enjoy, with my compliments.

Moreover, I've installed a Facebook button on the left side of my blog page. Click it to fan me! Thanks.

CK

Queen of Time, Here and Now

2011-09-05T22:27:00.004-05:00

Queen of Time, my long-awaited contemporary magic realism novel, is now available at Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and other online booksellers. The length is a slim 200 pages, but as is always the case with my writing, I try to make every word count.

And as with everything I write (and read), Queen of Time is meant to both entertain and reach deep, moving past genre designations and expectations into someplace bigger. The story starts out quietly, building momentum by deliberate stages until events achieve critical mass and all hell breaks loose in the most literal of ways.

At the story's core is the tense triad formed by three faculty members of a second-tier Midwest university, leading seemingly pedestrian lives that mask a disturbing shared history spanning centuries. Plain and socially awkward Lucasta Hilary, whose expertise in classical literature has never brought her the recognition she deserves, senses that past only in premonitions. However, her colleague Dunstan Lightner and military historian Byron Steele are fully aware of their mutual eternal enmity, and are instrumental in a quirk of fate that brings Lucasta fame and a Faustian bargain that makes her beautiful. The three are soon drawn into a web where temptation, damnation and redemption are inextricably entwined, in a struggle that ranges from the bleak remnants of Hadrian's Wall to the lush jungles of the Mayan highlands to the very edge of existence.

Hard to resist, no? Read the first two chapters at my newly-renovated website.

Note: While nothing in Queen of Time is overtly and/or gratuitously graphic, especially as books go now, I wrote the story for adults.

CK

Italian Hours

2011-08-08T20:20:00.017-05:00

Ciao, amici! It's been a travel-rich summer with no time to blog, since I spent most of June in the Rockies and explored Italy for the month of July. Eventually I'll post about the West, but this one's all about bella Italia. I'd visited there many years ago and it was a pleasure to return, especially since nothing went seriously wrong, the places we stayed were uniformly comfortable, and everyone we met kindly tolerated my rusty struggles with their native tongue.

Hub had a week-long conference at Pisa, after which we explored Tuscany and Umbria by train before ending up in Venice. We visited as many towns as our schedule and stamina would permit, with a preference for new territory. Since we never got enough of Venice, we gave ourselves three days there to crown our travels. Unlike my past visits, this time I had a camera with me, and I nearly wore it out. Click on the images twice to enlarge them to full size.

During our week at Pisa we stayed at this former monastery. Although the monks had long departed, their church was still in active use, and its early Mass bells were our wake-up call.

An evening view of what Pisa is famous for, peeking out behind its companions. They all look a bit off-kilter to me.

Assisi with its immense church dedicated to St. Francis, viewed from our hotel window. The local bus spared us what would have been a stiffish climb.

A monk enjoys the cool of the Assisi evening. Compared to the throngs of pilgrims and tourists I remember from my first visit back in the 80s, Assisi seemed very quiet this time.

The tranquil Tuscan landscape viewed from
the heights of ancient, austere Todi.

One of mighty-walled Perugia's massive Etruscan/Roman gates; the traffic sign gives an idea of its size. The Umbrian Jazz Festival was in full swing while we were visiting, and we wandered the town enjoying free music from stage acts and street musicians.

A street in Spello, one of the loveliest places in Tuscany.

Another view of Spello. I loved its unspoiled, unstudied charm, and hope its citizens someday decide to lessen (or better yet, eliminate) car traffic through the narrow streets, a regrettable feature of Italy's medieval towns.

Gloria! An ecstatic upward-yearning angel on a

chapel fresco in gracious, art-filled Modena.

What Chaucer would call a 'a verray, parfit, gentil knyght,' found gracing a wall of Modena's archaeological museum. The sculpture's low relief and other aspects of its style remind me of Egyptian art, making me wonder if this unknown paladin was a Crusader.

A stately pleasure-dome indeed: the fantastic pavilion at the luxurious Tettuccio Spa in Montecatini Terme, a resort once frequented by the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable and Sofia Loren. Taking the waters is a declining pastime now, and as a result the pavilion is only open for special events. By lucky chance a charity gala was going on, and the door guard let us in to look around.

Towers and church spires of the hilltop old quarter of Arezzo spike the horizon in this view from our hotel's roof terrace. Touristed mostly by Italians who come for its classic ambiance, annual jousting tournament and association with the film La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful), Arezzo is a gem of a town, full of beauty, vitality and warmth. So few Americans visit Arezzo that Hub and I, who are both blondish, were routinely mistaken for Germans.

No, I don't own a time machine, and these soldiers aren't discussing their upcoming campaign against the Picts. They're Roman re-enactors at the amphitheater ruins in Arezzo, looking perfectly at home in legionary gear.

Bologna, which I'd loved at first sight years ago, had changed very much. Still, I was intrigued by a sculpture show in one of the courtyards, full of stylized slaughter and rapine. Viewers could get as close to as they liked and the place was packed, but somehow I managed to take a few snaps that weren't crowded with people, like the picture above.

Padua's university district, dating from the Middle Ages. Graduation was going on, and we watched students celebrating with friends and family in hilarious ceremonies steeped in ancient tradition--costumes, speeches, jokes and songs, accompanied by lots of wine. Despite all the fun, I could tell it was a very proud moment for everyone concerned. In Modena I saw honorees crowned with actual laurel wreaths.

The Roman acqueduct at Spoleto, flanked by a monastery and a fortress, the latter built to guard the water supply. Spoleto's famous music festival had just ended, but there was much else to enjoy, from the giant Calder sculpture in front of the train station to the winding maze of medieval streets and the wonderful architecture from every century.

The striking, typically Tuscan banded-marble cathedral in Pistoia, one of several such buildings in the city's old center. The weekly market was taking place when we visited, making for a lively, crowded scene.

Pistoia's a bit rough around the edges, and I saw a lot of faces that would fit in perfectly with this detail from the c. 1525 terra-cotta reliefs depicting the Seven Works of Mercy on the loggia of the Ospedale del Ceppo. The hospital was founded in 1277, enlarged after the Black Death in 1348, and is still used as an administration building.

On a typically broiling Venice summer day this gondolier wisely waits in the shade for customers, who should appear very soon. Despite the high prices for rides (starting at about $80 a half-hour), I saw far many more gondole in action on this visit than I did during my first trip years ago. Mainland Chinese seemed to make up a large fraction of the clientele this time.

Palazzi on the Grand Canal. Since 2011 is a Biennale year and many countries rent floors of beautiful buildings like these to serve as galleries, Hub and I had the glorious opportunity to enjoy not only the art exhibits, but the wonderful rooms once inhabited by noble families. I loved the frescoed walls and ceilings, terrazzo and inlay floors, and magnificent balcony views of the most fascinating main street in all the world.

A water view of the Piazza San Marco, taken during the ten-minute trip back to our lodgings on the Lido. We had a 3-day pass for unlimited vaporetto rides to all parts of Venice and the outlying islands, and it was always a pleasure to cruise down the Grand Canal on our way home. The Lido was a restful, small-town-feeling, welcome break from the tourist mobs.

A detail from one of the medieval 15th-century column capitals of the doge's palace at Saint Mark's square. The theme is the Seven Deadly Sins, and this panel features Gluttony. Hub insisted that the greedy lady is devouring a cone of gelato rather than a chicken drumstick, probably in allusion to my own passion for Italy's amazing ice cream. (For what it's worth, you can see the bird's claws just below Gluttony's clutching hand.)

I took hundreds more pictures, but these few give an idea of how much I enjoyed my return trip to a country that has given me countless things of beauty from the most distant past to the present moment, all of them joys forever.

Now that I'm home and settled in for a while, I'll be putting all my efforts into getting Queen of Time published. As soon as it's live, I'll be posting the news here.

Arrivederci,

Queen of Time

2011-05-08T18:56:00.003-05:00

UPDATE (1/2/12): Queen of Time is now available as an e-book at most online bookstores, and as a paperback at Amazon.

*****

It's been a long time coming, but my beta reader is nearly finished with checking the text for the novel I'd originally called Faustine, but have now decided to entitle Queen of Time to avoid conflict with an existing work recently published. It amazes (and naturally delights) me that no one seems to have used the title before.

Here's the cover design, which needs a few tweaks but is pretty much the final version:

I like the gravitas and elegance of the painting, and the wonderful way it left space for the title and my name. Queen of Time will be digitally available for Amazon and many other e-stores in a week or so, and once that happens I'll be posting an excerpt from the novel on this blog.

And now that that's wrapping up, I'm on to the next project, a story based on a book that made the semi-finals of the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition back in 2008. Much more on the way!

CK

Just Up!

2011-05-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

My Norse-themed tale The Kind Gods was published today in the current issue of Bewildering Stories, a speculative fiction e-zine with a venerable reputation and a multiplicity of offerings in the form of short fiction, novellas, novel excerpts, nonfiction contributions, and reviews.

You're invited to read the story and check out my BwS bio, and if you're inclined to engage in a discussion of The Kind Gods, feel free to at the bottom of the page of Challenge 429.

The story has been getting thousands of downloads on Smashwords, and many readers consider it a classic. Enjoy!

CK

A-Maying

2011-05-01T16:03:00.010-05:00

La la! It's May, the lusty month of May!

That darling month when ev'ryone throws self-control away!*

"So it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster." ~ Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur

I like to think that Guinevere, a lady I admire despite her often taxing behavior (I'd have let my knights sleep in), was singing Kalenda Maya during her diversions. A medieval ballad in honor of May Day, it was a smash hit in its time; an authentic-sounding (to me at least) version of it can be found here, and the lyrics with English translation are here (along with an automatic midi file that plays when the site loads, so be warned).

Which leads me to some gently cautionary verse from a more complicated century:

"How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays ;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid ;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose." ~from The Garden, by Andrew Marvell (c. 1650)

Marvell, whose last name wonderfully describes his poetry, was using botanical shorthand to indicate the honors men strive for, or once did: palm for saintly endeavors, oak for great deeds civic or martial, bays for artistic achievement. I've vainly amazed myself in pursuit of the latter all my writing life, and will continue in the quest no matter how quixotic--always remembering that I owe that adjective to Cervantes, who also wryly noted "I know well what the temptations of the devil are, and that one of the greatest is putting it into a man's head that he can write and print a book by which he will get as much fame as money, and as much money as fame" (Don Quixote, Book II).

But if I had leisure to construct a garland of repose, it'd be made of irises and peonies just now, since they're growing in lush Spring profusion all around the house. Huge ruffly showy blooms they are, and would make a glorious Pre-Raphaelitish sort of crown, or fetching noggin-toppers like those sported by the brazen nymphs in the divinely preposterous Chevalier Aux Fleurs (1894). This image really must be clicked on to get the full effect.

Although I'll probably end up changing its name because another author recently published a young-adult book with the same title, I'm pleased and relieved to have finished writing my magic realism novel Faustine. When my beta reader is done with it I'll put the first chapter up on my website. Here is the tentative cover design, featuring a famous marble bust in the Capitoline Museum at Rome that awed me when I visited it many years ago:

May the Muses guide and cherish their elect,

CK

*From the musical Camelot

Double Happiness Chocolate Cake

2011-03-17T18:57:00.009-05:00

Life can always use a rich bit of sweetness. Today I made my never-fail Italian chocolate cake, and feel as if I really must share it with the world. It's easy, simple, and never goes wrong, highly desirable qualities under any circumstance but absolutely heavenly in this instance.

Note: This recipe doesn't require a mixer. A wooden spoon works fine, although I use a whisk to stir the batter once it's assembled.

Double Happiness Cake

The Yang of dark rich chocolate cake
Meets with the Yin of smooth delicate chocolate cream,
And both meld in a glazed caramel Nirvana.

This recipe makes a European-style single layer cake frosted with ganache and drizzled with caramel. Measurements are American, with the assumption that your butter is 4 sticks to a pound. The sequence of steps begins with the

Cake:

1 stick butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups white flour
1 ¼ cup white sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
½ tsp. salt
½ cup Hershey’s cocoa powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup hot coffee

Cream the butter with the sugar. Add eggs one by one and beat to golden smoothness.

Stir the cocoa into the hot coffee until blended, and pour into the butter mixture. Add dry ingredients.

Whisk well and pour into a well-greased and floured 9-inch round baking pan lined at the bottom with waxed paper. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. The critical part is not letting it bake too dry, so watch the last few minutes closely. This cake never fails. Promise.

Ganache Frosting: Heat 2 cups heavy whipping cream in a saucepan along with an 8 to 12-ounce bag of semisweet chocolate chips depending on how strong you like the flavor. Refrigerate until it’s thickened, then whip it to a fluff and frost the cake with it. Once you’ve done that, move on to the finishing touch—

Caramel Drizzle:

1 stick butter
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Melt the butter in a small saucepan (use a nonstick one if you have it). Add the brown sugar, and bring the mixture slowly to a boil. Add the milk in a stream, whisking all the while, and bring the mixture to a boil again. Remove the pan from the heat, let the mixture cool to warm, then stir in the vanilla and slowly add the confectioner’s sugar sifted through a sieve, beating to a smooth consistency. Drizzle this in Jackson Pollock style over the cake.

Variation if you have the time: Split the cake and fill it with the ganache, then top with French chocolate glaze, then apply the caramel drizzle. This is what I do if I'm feeling very fancy.

French Chocolate Glaze: Put a half cup of cocoa powder into a glass bowl with about ½ cup of sugar, a lump of butter, and a dash of water. Microwave about 15 seconds. Take it out and stir to get everything mixed smooth. Microwave again for about 30 seconds and stir again; add a dash of vanilla. You’ll know when it looks right. It’ll thicken a bit as it cools.

Serve each slice with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream sprinkled with cocoa. Accept the inevitable homage with grace and serenity.

CK

Remembered Beauty

2011-03-13T18:05:00.007-05:00

“From the withered tree, a flower.” ~Zen proverb

I've loved Japan since childhood, and the beauty of its culture has continued to enrich my life in countless ways. Its language is able to define the ineffable: wabi-sabi, shibui, mono no aware, mottainai. Visiting Tokyo and Kyoto in 2008 was the fulfillment of a dream for me, and now as I try to comprehend the horrifying news images from the earthquake, what I most remember is how kind everyone was, and how gracious and patient. Those memories give me hope.

Out of my wrung heart, the wish to live mindfully, spending each instant in the best possible way; to do all I can to help as much as I can. Out of the withered branch, a flower.

The following photographs were taken by me during my Japan visit, and reflect the spiritual strength I found everywhere. Click twice on them for the biggest view.


A granite prayer wheel. Heavy as it looks, the slightest touch moves it -- a lesson in stone.

A quiet shrine on a rainy day.

The Buddha of Old Fans,
its altar-table piled with offerings.

A favorite temple, serene and restful.


A Buddhist monk chanting in the street.


A shrine fountain with the inscription "I live for the joy."

Smashwords Read An E-Book Week Sale

2011-03-10T21:33:00.000-06:00

I'm late about getting around to this announcement, but...

As part of the ongoing Read An E-Book Week celebration, all of my novels are on sale for half price at Smashwords with the coupon code RAE50, including The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic. My short fiction, which is getting thousands of downloads, is still free (all five stories are collected in a single volume, PenTangle: Five Pointed Fables, also half price).

Mark Coker*, you rock!

CK

*Founder of Smashwords and all-around great guy

Springing Forward

2011-03-03T15:46:00.001-06:00

I'm delighted to announce that Luna Station Quarterly has published my wryly nostalgic fairy tale Everafter Acres as its Spring issue Story of the Week. The encouraging reception of my first humorous work of fiction just at the start of my favorite season is inspiring the light-hearted side of me, and I can promise that more droll tales are in the offing.

:-)

CK

So Much Now

2011-02-22T19:23:00.003-06:00

The worst of the year is officially over. Yesterday I found daffodils blooming in the back yard, fragile but dauntless, pushing their gentle way through the litter of dead leaves. The contrast of fresh green and yellow against the withered browns and grays is a reassuring triumph. Winter can't last. Sorrow has a limit. We take strength, and move into the light. I look forward to warm breezes and bared limbs, and hopefully some baby foxes scampering around the brush pile in May, as they did, enchantingly, a couple of years ago; I saw what looked very like the mother fox today, who seemed to be considering re-tenancy.

The other day I completed She of the Silver Feet, a short story unlike anything I've ever written before, very light and frothy on the surface but roiling with implication, and am sending it to magazines. I'm delighted that another of my short pieces, a fairy-tale pastiche called Everafter Acres, will be published March 1 in Luna Station Quarterly.

Namaste,

CK

Emerging Energies

2011-01-27T01:40:00.005-06:00

Before I start talking about myself, I'd like to announce the launching of a colleague's latest book. Valmore Daniels, author of Forbidden The Stars, has just published his fantasy novel Angel Fire: The First Book of Fallen Angels. The book is available in both paperback and in digital formats. Visit the author's official website for more information. The cover is simply gorgeous:

I wish Valmore every success with his newest production, and his other books as well.

Regarding my own endeavors, last month I promised myself I'd have my novel Faustine completed by the Christmas holidays, but that didn't happen. All of my books take a long time to write, because I get the germ of an idea and let it grow like a tree, taking root and branching over the years. The finished product has little or nothing in common with the original draft.

My other books have taken place in worlds of my own creation, but Faustine is magic realism grounded in the present day. In the first version of the story I wasn't a character, but the revision finds me pretty much in my entirety as the protagonist's mentor, all my quirks exposed. It's been more fun than I expected, and I'm now down to the final polishing of the manuscript, which should hit e-print at Amazon before Valentine's Day if not sooner.

CK

Just For The Lovely

2011-01-25T15:42:00.008-06:00

By wonderful chance I found The Kaleidoscope Painter last night. It's free, charming, and gorgeous--the perfect antidote to cold gray winter. Here's a pattern I constructed in a few seconds:

I love to just put the designer on Auto and enjoy it as my mandala mantra while I meditate. There's a Valentine Kaleidoscope maker, too.

And for another small escape, Fly Guy is a classic. Just load the game at the site, click the arrows, soar, and explore.

Have fun!

CK

Imperial Opulence

2011-01-16T03:31:00.014-06:00

The new Sovran of Almancar had swept in like another sunset, arrayed magnificently in trailing raiment of deep rose satin brocaded in emerald-blue. A light mantle fell in a rustling torrent of gold-silk mosaic, its collar framing his head, its folds rippling about his shoulders to the ground...

The fabled city of Almancar is one of my favorite places in The Ryel Saga, because it is synonymous with the most refined luxury. It was a deep pleasure to create, and in doing so I drew from many times and places. Medieval Japan was a great influence. When I visited Tokyo and Kyoto in 2008, I was surprised at how much of the ancient glory not only survived, but thrived. In particular, the elegant garments that inspired the golden robes of my novel's nobility are still being made. The uchikake, at one time daily wear for Japanese aristocratic ladies, is now strictly wedding finery, to be worn by the bride during the ceremony and never afterward. Such magnificent garments take a year to create, and no two are alike; they are made of the finest silk, splendidly woven, dyed, and embroidered, and as is only fitting, they cost a fortune. A uchikake is worn beltless, as a coat atop the kimono; its padded hem trails several feet, and its hanging sleeves just clear the floor. With its elegance, opulence and otherworldliness, it is truly the garb of fantasy.

For the sultry climate of Almancar I made the uchikake much more light and airy, but changed nothing of its grandeur. Both men and women wear them in my novel, but exorbitant cost and stringent sumptuary laws limit their use to the wealthy and the nobility. The sole exceptions are the courtesans of the Diamond Heaven, Almancar's famed and magnificent pleasure quarter, and that district's clientele, who come from all over the world to taste the ruinous delights of the place.

Here are some glorious examples. Click the images for larger views, and imagine the rustle, the gleam, the grace.

La Belle et la Bête

2011-01-09T21:28:00.011-06:00

NEWS: I'm delighted to announce that in the last week I've received an award for Top Indie Fantasy of 2010 at the well-regarded site Red Adept Reviews.

*****

I seem to write only fables. All of my short stories are about lessons learned the hard way, and the Ryel Saga's ending fulfills with bittersweet irony the prophesy uttered by one of the story's most equivocal characters: 'You will have what you wish, but not as you wished it." The novel I'm now finishing, Faustine, is grounded in myth and legend, with a female protagonist embroiled in the classic diabolical bargain.

The other day I was browsing the free movie site Veoh and to my happiness found one of my all-time favorite films, Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bête. I hadn't seen it in many years, and while I loved every moment of the re-acquaintance, I especially savored being able to replay the Beast sequences to my heart's delight. Everything about the Beast is riveting--his feral grace, his dark bejeweled Cavalier garb, his growly voice's savage inflections and courtly phrases, his ravenous desires quelled by the most tender adoration. Baroque, Byronic, utterly irresistible.

My favorite scene occurs midpoint in the film. The Beast has returned reeking from the hunt, his fangs and claws stained with fresh blood, his elegant attire muddied and torn. After a moment's hesitation he shoves open the door to Beauty's chamber and scans the room with burning eyes.

But Beauty is absent. "Ou est Belle?" he shouts in rage and terror to her mirror; and the glass reveals her robed like an angel, listening at the door. When she returns to the chamber and demands that he leave, the Beast, quelled by her fearless indignation, stammers that he merely wished to offer her a present, and it forms by magic in his bloodied hairy hand: three strands of great pearls, the gems of innocence clasped by diamond roses, reminding us that until Beauty came into his life the Beast considered roses 'the things I most love in all the world ' (ce que j'aime le mieux au monde). Disregarding the gift, Beauty again orders the Beast to leave; but her tone is more gentle the second time.

As he departs without a backward glance, his steps unsteady, the Beast passes a statue of a nymph; his hand grips its shoulder for support, then slowly travels downward to caress the bare marble breast of the image in a poignant gesture of regret and yearning. I'd never noticed this before, and it gave me chills, for it is the only overtly sensual act in the entire film, and leaves no doubt as to the Beast's intentions.

Since 1946 when this enrapturing film was made, cinema has become a thousandfold more complex, but no amount of special effects can take the place of heart. See it if you haven't yet, and watch it again if you have; one can never have too much beauty.

CK

(Click the photos to enlarge them; they deserve it!)

Just Out!

2010-11-19T21:05:00.009-06:00

I've gathered five of my short stories into a collection entitled PenTangle: Five Pointed Fables. It's available for the Kindle at Amazon.com, and will be appearing soon at Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and various other e-book stores. (If it isn't listed as available, give it a day or so.)

Although I'd originally thought of using an actual pentangle for the cover, it looked too literal and didn't really fit the content. I finally decided on a starfish, because they're so strange and lovely.

The stories are all very short, fantastical, and meant to elicit reflection:

   The Kind Gods: Did the old gods really die? A warrior seeks answers at the burial-mound of his greatest enemy.
   The Heart's Desire: A government scryer's life is a prison until she and her bodyguard discover the ultimate secret language.
   Last Laughter: A cautionary tale about a wicked court jester and his comeuppance. First published in Silver Blade Fantasy Quarterly.
   Regenerated: Cela always hoped she’d find Jorgen again someday…but was this really Jorgen? A tenderly bitter tale of love and giant lizards, first published in Quantum Muse.
   Everafter Acres: Happily Ever After isn’t always perfect, but dark knights can be illuminating.

Five's my lucky number, so I'm hoping the book does well.

CK

Hot News

2010-11-12T12:48:00.002-06:00

Today my novel The Ryel Saga: A Tale Of Love And Magic is being featured on the popular e-book site Daily Cheap Reads, and as an extra boost to the day I've been interviewed at Two Ends of the Pen, a terrific writers' blog.

What a great way to end the week!

Unreasonable Things

2010-10-17T19:19:00.004-05:00

Oh, reason not the need! ~King Lear

During the Fall season I become at once nostalgic and merciless. I remember the past and either want it back or wish that it had never happened, and I sort out and/or get rid of whatever I feel I no longer have a need for. Useless knicknacks and trinkets, clothes that no longer suit me, shoes that never were comfortable, books and magazines that only take up space and collect dust, beliefs that no longer hold water...away with them. Winter is a spare, lean season only weeks away now, and I want to meet it on its own terms.

But some things I keep in defiance of mutability or reason. I love paper with a scribe's reverence (I love pens too, but that's another fetish for another blog entry). Empty books I'll probably always leave blank, delicate handmade washi I just like to look at, origami paper too lovely to wreck by folding...I keep them safe and dry and bring them out now and then to contemplate, imagining possibilities. Here are some I recently collected on my travels to Japan and Taiwan; click on the images to enlarge them.

Very fine origami paper. The picture doesn't do justice to the splendor of the gold highlights.

A Japanese gift topper. I just can't bear to give it away yet.

An empty book that says it all, in shiny white with black flocked velvet.

Anything I wrote in it would seem futile.

I suppose I acquired this in the naive hope that the contents would magically open up into the swan pictured on the wrapper. Had I looked closer I'd have realized that I'm expected to construct the bird myself from the enclosed myriad of tiny pink and red squares of paper. Maybe in my next life...

A couple of extremely teensy models (only a couple of inches high) based on very large buildings. I can't bring myself to pop them out of the cardboard and construct them.

A perfect notebook for an ironic angst-filled autobiography.
I'm saving it for later.

Regarding writing matters, I was recently interviewed by David Wisehart on his popular blog Kindle Author. David asked an intriguing array of questions that I greatly enjoyed answering. See what you think!

Namaste,

Visions Of The Mystic East, Part Three

2010-10-02T03:06:00.023-05:00

The two earlier installments of my Taiwan travels focused on exotic cuisine and gorgeous temples. This final segment will concern other aspects of Taipei, and some attractions outside the city. As with the first two parts, I was the photographer; click the images twice for the biggest view.

The bamboo-inspired tower of Taipei 101, which until recently was the world's tallest building. Within its towering shadow lies the city's upscale fashionable district, where European-style luxury combines with an elegance uniquely Eastern.

Inside Taipei 101's world-class shopping mall. Besides the trendy high-end boutiques one finds the world over, there were shops on the top floor's viewing area full of museum-quality Eastern jewelry and sculptures in coral and jade, with equally fabulous prices. I contented myself with the panorama of the city, watching as the sun slid into the mists, night stole over the land, and the lights came on little by little until everything sparkled as far as the eye could see.

Ooh la la! Frothy finery at one of the dozens of full-service bridal establishments on Taipei's 'Wedding Street.' Marriage is a very big business in Taiwan, with every step of the elaborate ceremony painstakingly planned and no expense spared. Brides change outfits several times during the big day; this gown seems destined for an especially grand ball.

This picture is so Taipei--a pearl tea break with a

clearly cherished pet along for the ride.

The entrance of Taipei's huge Jade Market. Antiques and other rarities are also sold there, making it a wonderful place to while away an afternoon. Expertise in jade takes long study, and I confess I couldn't see what made one bangle cost ten times as much as another; they all looked lovely to me.

Not everything in the Jade Market was expensive. These stone bead bracelets were only a couple of dollars apiece, and kindred bargains abounded.

The Flower Market is right next door to the Jade Market. Both take place only on weekends, and are thronged by tourists and townsfolk alike. Fresh flowers are a way of life in Taiwan.

Antique implements once used for drying the island's fragrant, famed Oolong. These were in the workroom of Taipei's oldest existing tea shop, where the proprietors, two charming sisters, gave us an after-hours tour of the premises and a tasting of rare brew thanks to T. C., who seems to know everyone!

Hip little bhikkus in a Buddhist religious goods shop. It was very hard to maintain my Zen equilibrium and not take one home with me, but I contented myself with a pair of moon blocks for my own personal divinations.

A view of Taipei's superlative subway--always spotless, civil, and on time to the instant. It's usually much more crowded than this picture shows, but we were coming home late from a perfect evening at the lively seaside district of Danshui, where Taipei goes to play on the warm summer nights.

A view not of a court lady's pavilion, but one of Taipei's restful parks. Every inch of the pond's surface was crowded with huge sweet heavenly pink lotuses, one of the glories of early summer in the Orient.

A surprise moon window view in a quiet neighborhood street. Every corner I turned in Taipei, I found something fascinating.

An exhibit demonstrating how the once-notorious Snake Alley in the old Dihua district got its name. Thanks to recent municipal improvements in the form of a new covered arcade and bright lighting, the place isn't nearly as raffish as it used to be.

Outside of town:

Besides exploring the city, we had a chance to visit some fascinating places on the outskirts, thanks to the kindness of Hub's colleague Otto Kong. As a pleasant finale, he and his wife invited us into their home for a memorable dinner of the freshest possible fish.

Otto strikes an echoing attitude at the sculpture park dedicated to the works of Taiwan's renowned artist Ju Ming.

The serene spiritual fortress of Dharma Drum Mountain. Our visit there was an experience in order, generosity, kindness, and being deeply and happily at one with the world.

The midday meal at Dharma Drum is provided free of charge to the retreat's hundreds of visitors. Despite the crowd, everything was so well-organized by the numerous volunteers that we were served in a matter of minutes. The food was vegetarian and simply delicious; I finished my bowlful down to the last grain of rice.

Buddhist nuns at Dharma Drum. The moment I said hello, they all smiled and greeted me with the Namaste. Their grace and sincerity were deeply moving.

Otto showed us yet more equally unearthly, unforgettable places:

Natural statuary at Yehliu Geopark, an incredibly strange and

beautiful landscape on the edge of the sea.

The park's most famous formation,

The Queen's Head.

The above image really must be clicked twice for the full enlargement. On a prime location overlooking the ocean stands this fantastic city, inhabited solely by the dead. Confucian tenets honor ancestors, and palatial tombs like these attest to the most profound filial piety. The day was drizzly and gray and the place was deserted, adding to the solemn, eerie atmosphere.

A stucco relief (huge, covering an entire wall) portraying a gathering of the gods, in an eye-bogglingly gorgeous temple at an otherwise plain little town named after the goddess of mercy, Guanyin.

I'll always be grateful that I had a chance to visit such a fascinating country. As a final image for this, my third and last Taiwan blog post, here's a pair of perfect bunches hanging out at a favorite fruit market:

I hope you enjoyed the travelogue as much as I enjoyed the trip! My upcoming posts will be all about Fall, the season that resonates most with me.

Visions Of The Mystic East, Part Two

2010-09-03T20:45:00.024-05:00

Thanks to everyone who read the first installment of my sojourn in Taiwan. Part One described culinary adventures; this will explore the spiritual side, which left a deep, inspiring imprint on my imagination. Taipei is a city of sometimes startling contrasts, where ancient folkways in the older parts of town are a world apart from the trendy district shadowed by the towering spire of Taipei 101. Hub and I visited as many temples as we could, and our friend T. C. Yuan took us to even more, far from the beaten tourist track. The photos featured here were taken by me; click on them for a larger view.

T. C. announces himself to the world beyond this at the Confucian Temple. The prevailing belief system in Taiwan mingles many teachings, creating a uniquely independent view of one's relationship to the divine. There exists no formal notion of a church in its Western sense: no stipulated assemblies, no specified hours of worship, no sermons, no hymns, no commandments, no dress code. Temples can be devoted to the Buddha, Confucius, the traditional Chinese gods, or all three together. One visits a temple for as long as it takes to ask the intercession of the higher powers or to commune with a loved one; there are no seats, but padded boards allow worshipers to kneel in comfort as they pray or cast oracle blocks.

Offerings at Longshan, one of the oldest temples in Taipei and thronged at all hours. My first visit there was at night, and the place was packed. Even though it was right next to a train stop and across from a busily trafficked shopping street, once I passed through its gates I entered a different plane of reality. I'll never forget the gold-drenched splendor glowing in the light of red lanterns, the otherworldly fragrance of jasmine and incense rising on the warm spring air, the clatter of moon blocks (bwa bwei), the soft floating strains of meditative music, and the sense of feeling at once utterly transported, and completely at home.

Flower offerings at Longshan: small bouquets of jasmine and other blossoms attached to paper saucers, sold by vendors outside the temple gate.

Well-worn moon blocks. One asks the gods a question, takes a pair of blocks at random and throws them on the temple floor. If the result is one flat side and one curved, then the answer is yes; two flat or curved sides down means try again. Three throws per question is usual.

An exquisitely folded paper basket full of flowers, set atop a temple plinth as a decoration.

Offerings at the highly frequented temple of Gong Kuan, who is both the god of literature and the god of war. Note the beribboned pyramid of Taiwan Beer in the foreground. Both deities and departed loved ones receive gifts, usually of food, drink, or flowers; some temples accept meat offerings.

Another view of the lavish offerings at Gong Kuan temple. A small donation buys a paper bag full of gifts for the gods: candles, incense, snacks, and joss money. Shops outside the temple sell more offerings. It's an eye-widening display, at once a symbol of life's impermanence and the human need to connect with a realm beyond this flawed reality.

Rituals are as simple or as complicated as one feels necessary, but T. C. kindly showed me the customary method of visiting a temple. One enters, takes a bundle of incense--which is always available, abundant, and free--lights it, and makes a tour of the altars, starting with the one belonging to the principal god. After some moments of homage, a stick of incense is left in the burner of each shrine. This one is dedicated to the Buddha of the Four Directions, originally a Hindu deity.

A joss oven--very restrained in design--part of a temple complex. Paper 'god money' is burned not only in ovens like this one, but in metal barrels made for the purpose and found everywhere in Taipei's older, traditional neighborhoods.

A sidewalk offering table displayed by a local business to insure the favor of the gods. Offerings are left out for a few hours, then brought back indoors after the deities have enjoyed their essence. The red and gold stack of paper at the upper left is joss, which in addition to being produced in enormous quantities and sold for next to nothing is made not by machine, but by hand.

Here was a high point. We'd visited the Raohe night market, one of the most crowded we'd yet seen, with two lanes of one-way-only pedestrian traffic hemmed in by shops and divided by a long row of food stalls and tables packed with friends and families enjoying themselves; there wasn't even room for the usually ubiquitous motor scooters. T. C. (visible in the right foreground) promised us a surprise at the end, and he stunned us with this temple. It had four stories, and was more dazzling/elaborate/marvelous than any other we'd yet seen, which by this time in our visit was saying a great deal.

An altar to the God of Examinations at the Raohe temple, with offerings of test papers, snacks, and other items more unlikely. Some of them put me in mind of a favorite night market delicacy, scallion pancakes.

One of the unique features of the Raohe temple were the big decorations of silk and wire lantern sculptures that seemed to float from every floor over the courtyard, many of them featuring playful tigers for 2010. This flower arrangement caught my eye.

A balcony on the way up the hundreds of steps leading to a very special temple on Taipei's outskirts. T. C. guided us to this wonderful place, and we felt privileged to be able to see it. The day was thick with mist, lending an air of exotic mystery that was quaintly dispelled by the down-home organic neighborhood atmosphere around the sacred precinct: kids running about playing, people snacking at the nearby outdoor eatery or shopping for amulets, and dogs perfectly welcome.

The third and concluding part of Visions will describe Taipei's modern side, as well as some noteworthy sights outside the city. I really enjoyed writing this entry, although it took a while to complete because of the hundreds of snapshots that I needed to sift through, and the photoshopping necessary for the chosen ones. Thanks for reading!

Ja ne,

Visions Of The Mystic East, Part One

2010-08-16T10:59:00.115-05:00

Note: Click the photographs twice for the biggest view.

I've been busy since my last entry. This was the most traveled summer I've had in a long time, and it started early. For three amazing weeks in May I drank in the extraordinary energy, spiritual depth, and pervasive civility that make Taiwan unique in the world. Enter the dragon...

The Taipei experience would certainly have been far less eventful had Hub and I not been fortunate enough to be shown the city by our friend T. C. Yuan of the Institute of Physics at Academia Sinica. Not only did T. C. introduce us to fascinating places and wonderful delicacies we'd otherwise never have known about, he did so with patience, charm, and stamina. Xie-xie ni, T. C.!

T. C. at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Gardens.

Taipei is huge, with a vast population, but the principles of Confucianism and Buddhism go very deep. During the three weeks I was there, I noticed some surprising, extremely pleasant things about the city. First, there are no 'bad areas.' You can go anywhere in safety, any time of the day or night. The subways are marvels of pristine efficiency, and people actually line up politely to board. There's no homeless problem. Cars don't blast thump speakers, and graffiti doesn't seem to exist. Young people seem happy and purposeful. Education is highly esteemed, and courtesy is endemic. There's no custom of recreational drinking; public intoxication is virtually unknown. Children and the elderly are treated with touching kindness and respect. I hope none of these things ever change.

Because many people agree that one of the most memorable parts about travel to exotic places is the food, this entry will focus on the cuisine of Taipei, and the ways and places I enjoyed it. I'll be posting a second entry later about Taipei's many other fascinations, and some sights outside the city.

Since the climate's hot and muggy, people like to go out in the evening when things cool off, and they throng the night markets, which are another of Taipei's notable features. Eating is a popular activity, as can be seen from this picture taken at Taipei's biggest such market, Shihlin.

Above, traditional night market cuisine. Although I sampled and enjoyed many of the wares, I have to admit I never tried one of the most touted offerings, stinky tofu; I couldn't manage to get close enough to taste it. Seriously, it's got a pong you can detect a block away, but braver souls than I insist it's delicious. Maybe next time...

Night market fruit. Taiwan is famed for its fruit, and this particular stall had some of the best I've ever tasted. I particularly recall the melt-in-your-mouth mangoes; the fragile yangmei berries that I'd never seen before, dearly love, and can't get in the U.S. because they don't travel well; and the crunchy, juicy wax apples that deserve a much more appetizing name. I'm sure I'll eventually learn to savor durian; Hub adored it.

Culinary adventures:

One of Taipei's thousands of hard-working independent food vendors. Sidewalks are crowded with stalls selling all kinds of food and drink, from early morning until into the wee hours.

Another takeaway stall, at a covered morning market.These do a brisk trade until the lunch rush ends, after which they shut up shop. Morning markets sell everything from food to clothing to housewares to jade jewelry, at bargain prices. I had an enthralling time exploring them, and although I was always the only Westerner there, no one seemed to notice save to smile in welcome.

A visit to world-famous Din Tai Fung is de rigeur for any Taipei stay. In the steamer are the restaurant's signature delicacy, crab roe dumplings; T. C. has just enjoyed one of them. The restaurant features charming waitresses in crisp uniforms, and a big window on the kitchen lets you admire the impeccable skill that goes into making those little gems of edible art.

Pearl tea (or bubble tea) is a uniquely Taiwanese beverage: a tall cup of sweet cold milky matcha (there are variants, but matcha was my favorite) with a thick layer of pearl tapioca at the bottom, black from previous simmering in caramelized sugar. A wide-gauge plastic straw allows the tapioca to be slurped up along with the drink. It's addictively delicious, and oh, how I miss it. My favorite purveyor was Ten Ren, a chain of tea shops where you can be treated free of charge to a gracious ceremonial tasting of rare island Oolongs in delicate porcelain cups.

Food becomes art with the exquisitely fresh offerings at Farm To Table, a dining experience where ambiance combined with food in perfect harmony.

At a busy Cantonese restaurant we'd never have found without T. C.'s expert guidance, we ended a delightful dinner with this rich, gorgeous cake, reputed to have been Madame Chiang-kai Shek's favorite dessert.

*****

Most of our night market forays concluded with a visit to a temple. Used as I was to the spare, serene, unfrequented shrines of Japan, exploring Taiwan's places of worship was an adventure for the senses. I always came away dazzled by the gold and scarlet, my memories full of the murmur of chanting, the clatter of oracle blocks, the mingled fragrance of incense and jasmine, the riot of gods. Temples and other otherworldly venues will be the subject of my next post.

Xai jian for now,

CK

Note: All of the photographs, with the exception of the pearl tea image, were taken by me on my Canon PowerShot SX110.

Food of the Gods

2010-04-27T17:53:00.005-05:00

It's mango mochi. It can only be mango mochi. Disregard the garishly-hued whole items on the plate and contemplate the cut-open white one. That's the thing I mean.

Hub and I buy most of our groceries at the local Asian market because they're cheaper, tastier and more unpredictable than the ones at the regular chains. Every week or so we make the drive to get long skinny Chinese eggplants, chubby striped Mexican zucchini, leeks, chard, pod peas, Thai basil for pesto, as well as Malaysian cream crackers and coconut biscuits. Recently the market started carrying different kinds of mochi, and we bought lots of the matcha (green tea) variety, having loved it since Japan; but last week we discovered mango. Surely the kami favored us that day.

Just opening the box and breathing in the fragrance was heaven, and those little bundt-cake shapes were so adorably cute. Then it only got better: the most tender fresh glutinous rice wrapping , satiny to the teeth, just sweet enough, enrobing an ambrosial smooth mango conserve. I could have scarfed the whole 6-piece box in a sitting, but had to leave some for Hub.

I'm almost tempted to start a food blog.

Risings

2010-04-01T18:54:00.010-05:00

The first real Spring days have begun, and they're splendid. My daffodils had glorious innings, and my crabapple and redbud trees are now on the point of bursting into bloom. I've opened the windows wide, letting in the sweet winds from the south.

I've finally gotten around to making a map of the world in which The Ryel Saga takes place, and now have even greater respect for cartographers. It's so much easier to just write, and let the lands fill out in imagination.

Although I didn't model any of The Ryel Saga's characters on actual or fictional persons, I was very much inspired by art. If it hadn't been for Donatello, I'd never have written the scene in which Lord Michael Essern, perhaps my favorite character in the story, appears in Almancar disguised as a grim and squalid street preacher. It was the statue of the prophet Habbakuk that made me envision my black-uniformed soldier-sorcerer with the shoulder-length skeins of blood-red hair as a shorn and ragged-robed fanatic, spreading the ruinous word of the Master, a deity in harsh absolute contrast to the gentle forgiving pantheon of Destimar's luxurious capital. This is a man tormented since birth by demon-bane, who once served his country honorably but has been corrupted by the false promises of a malignant power, and is now capable of terrible crimes. The statue perfectly captures his intensity and isolation.

Finding It Everywhere

2010-03-14T13:27:00.008-05:00

Chilly, chilly winds blowing
Lovely spring coming soon

I wear my body like a caravan
Gipsy rover in a magic land
Misty mountains where the eagles fly
Lonely valleys where the lost ones cry

I had a little letter full of paper
Inky scratches everywhere
Always looking, looking for a paradise island
Help me find it everywhere

~The Incredible String Band, 'Ducks On A Pond'

Bleak and gray as the weather's been, I managed to snap a picture of the daffies in my yard whilst the sun was shining. It's hard for me to exercise patience at this time of year, but I take heart in knowing that the days will grow ever warmer, and this terrible winter will die at last.

I've been more active on Facebook lately, because it's a warm feeling to have friends. Although I'll always be a nomad in my heart, and the lyrics I've quoted above have many meanings for me, it's a pleasure to rein in at that Internet caravanserai.

The Kind Gods now has 211 downloads at Smashwords since I posted it a week ago, a response I never expected. I'm working at completing another short story, Everafter Acres, which I'll probably send off to e-zines for consideration because street cred counts, but the instant gratification of Smashwords was what I needed in this gray interval between ice and awakening.

Since its publication only a couple of months ago, The Ryel Saga has sold hundreds of Kindle copies, but so far has only a single Amazon review. I'm of course delighted with it because it's five stars and from the well-known critic Red Adept; I just wish it had more company!

CK

Cutting Diamonds

2010-03-07T14:36:00.010-06:00

Short stories take lapidary patience, and I labor mightily to get the maximum glitter out of each little facet. My latest has gone through many versions, but I'm finally contented enough with the result to put it up on Smashwords, where it will be free to read. The story is The Kind Gods, and here is the blurb:

Did the old gods really die? A warrior seeks answers at the burial-mound of his greatest enemy.

The story has only been up since last night and already has 60 downloads, all of which are of versions not as good as the final cut, which bothers me. I don't want anything but my best to show. Fortunately, the cover is just the way I want it.

CK

All Me, All Now

2010-03-01T00:47:00.012-06:00

INTERVIEW: I'm now among the featured authors at Spad's Literary Potpourri, a delightful blog bringing its fortunate readers "an eclectic mix of art, articles, anecdotes, aphorisms, poetry and brief excerpts from a variety of sources related only by their excellence and timeless quality." Ron Skinner, aka Spad, asks the sorts of questions authors dream of answering, so if you ever wanted to know all about me, here's your chance. It's a tremendous compliment to be interviewed at such length, and so thought-provokingly. Spad is widely read and deeply reflective, and his blog is a daily array of treasures, absolutely free.

I've also redecorated my website, A Writing Life. Colors and format continue to be spare and restrained.

After deciding that my cover for The Ryel Saga wasn't eye-catching enough, I went back to the old design, altering the title a bit. I've linked the cover to Smashwords, but readers with Kindles can visit Amazon:

Catching the Glow

2010-02-08T22:51:00.011-06:00

When I give a dinner, my favorite time is afterward. The above photograph was taken during one of those relaxed intervals. The weather was still warm with fall just beginning, the hour was late, and people had momentarily wandered out to the deck as I reached for my camera. I muse upon that image and forget, for a happy moment, how cold it is now.

Never Ending Stories

2010-01-20T22:29:00.008-06:00

Heavens, it's felt like forever.

For the last couple of months I've been runnin' down a dream, to quote my favorite Tom Petty song. The Ryel Saga, which was always meant to be a single volume, finally is. It took a frazzling deal of work, but I finally joined together Wysard and Lord Brother and added tons more material gathered up from the cutting-room floor, where it had fallen because of page constraints during the irksome Age of Paper. Were it trad-printed instead of e-pubbed, the new Saga would be a massive tome indeed at almost 250,000 words, equaling 600 pages or so; I'm sure quite a few hamadryads are murmuring my name in prayerful thanks at being spared from so much pulping and binding. My website has links to chapter samples, plus purveyors like Kindle, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble.

Finally, I can work on something else, and there's so much else.

CK

The Soul's Secrets

2009-11-22T19:58:00.004-06:00

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory. ~Shelley

Recently, a discussion board I frequent asked its members what sorts of music they had on their players. I looked over my Sandisk files and made a list, starting with what inspires me most.

World and ethnic: Milongas, taksims, kizombas, fados, cumbias, rumbas, reels. Klezmer, gitana, Griot, gidayu, sirtos, llanera. Gamelans, kotos, ouds, sitars. One of my most favorite songs is Baaba Maal's 'Lam Tooro,' that always makes me think of swaying camel-back on the Silk Road.

Baroque: Bach, Corelli, Couperin, Rameau, Purcell, Handel, Hayden, Lully, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Telemann, Vivaldi. I'm wild about harpsichords.

Renaissance: Dowland, Frescobaldi, Machaut, Monteverdi, Gibbons, Praetorius, Gabrieli. I collect versions of Dowland's lute song "Can She Excuse My Wrongs."

Ambient: Air, Michael Hedges, Pierre Bensusan, Shadowfax, Enigma, Sasha and Digweed, Paco di Lucia, Ottmar Liebert, Strunz and Farah, Infected Mushroom, Jazzanova, Gotan Project, De Phazz.

Blues: King (Freddy, B. B., Albert), Musselwhite, Mayall, Clapton, Guy, Hammond, Hooker, Sumlin, Wells, Allison, Vaughn, Mahal, Mo'.

Jazz: Chet Baker, Charlie Mingus, Cal Tjader, Jack McDuff, Ponty, Corea, Metheny, Davis, Monk, Keith Jarrett when he isn't vocalizing.

Celtic: Altan, Lunasa, Celtic Nots, Liz Carroll, Natalie MacMaster, Slainte. I'm pretty picky with Celtic, and like it modal and traditional.

Classical and opera: Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Bartok, Dvorak, Satie, Debussy, Faure, de Falla, Tchaikosky, Schumann, Schubert, Puccini, Verdi; not much Mozart. I have a huge fondness for Beverly Sills and Joan Sutherland, and collect versions of favorite arias.

Bluegrass: Ranges from old (Bill Monroe, etc.) to new (String Cheese Incident, Bela Fleck). I collect versions of 'Salt Creek,' and my favorite so far is the guitar duet with Doc and Merle Watson.

Rock: Eighties alternative (stuff that never made it to the commercial airwaves, alas), Motown, Fifties classics, Sixties icons (Stones, Who, Hendrix, etc.), Seventies punk.

The Art of Ending

2009-11-06T01:27:00.004-06:00

As the old saying goes, "Great is the art of beginning, but still greater is the art of ending."

It's always good to know when to quit. In anticipation of winter, that clean, sere season, I'm paring down the superfluities in my life, striving for less junk in every form, and more time spent profitably; never getting too comfortable, and traveling as lightly as I can.

Still, as seriously as I take this life of mine--since we know not the day nor the hour when everything will fall apart forever--I never forget to have fun. At present I'm putting the finishing touches on a new short story, dedicated to Anne Braude who was more generally known as Talpianna, that wryly explores what happens after Happily Ever After. I'm sorry she won't be reading it.

CK

Pourvu!

2009-10-26T15:21:00.004-05:00

Napoleon's mother wasn't an optimist. Whenever people congratulated Madame Mère on her imperial son's success, she would simply reply, with a slight shrug and a strong Corsican accent, "Pourvu que c'la doure!"--"As long as it lasts!"

My Kindle sales for the past few days have been in the three digits, and I'm delighted. This post commemorates my books' current status as bestsellers in the top 100 of the entire Fantasy category. Ranks change hour by hour, but shining moments are priceless. I thank everyone who's reading me.

Last week the Ryel Saga was included in Barnes and Noble's eBook catalog. I'm so glad I'm no longer sacrificing trees.

CK

Safely Gathered In

2009-10-18T14:57:00.004-05:00

The passage of time should have its celebrations. I took this picture at a local grocery last week:

Where I Am

2009-10-16T00:02:00.005-05:00

For a long time I've kept, in addition to my journal, a list entitled Where I Was, distilling the events of a given year into a paragraph per month. It's been very handy for keeping track of travels, happenings, home improvements, significant purchases, and prevailing moods. With that data, I could readily construct a graph spanning several decades, with many a rise and fall.

Lately the graph would show a marked upswing. Ever since my birthday--September 1, the start of my personal new year as I noted in an earlier post--my Kindle book sales have surprised me. In the last month, 130 people have bought my works on Amazon. Very soon, Barnes and Noble will be carrying the e-versions of my books via Smashwords, and I'll have the chance to see if it's really true that good things rise to the top.

More welcome news: although I've been out of the loop for a while, today I received an invitation to attend a fantasy con as a guest professional. It made me remember the wonderful times I had at Norwescon and WorldCon, and convinced me that it's time I got out more. Finally.

CK

The Price of Light

2009-10-04T13:06:00.014-05:00

Among the many things that awe me, John Milton's writing is high up on the list, and his poem that inspires this blog's title came very much to mind today. The stranded despair of the opening quatrain grows ever more calm under the warming radiance of faith, and serene resignation magnifies the ending with its immortal, commisserate last line. Milton always makes me feel trivial, and I'm grateful for it.

In that spirit of thankfulness I shopped for groceries yesterday in the warm bright afternoon, wishing John could have joined me. This is my favorite time of year to linger around the produce. I love those odd little gourds that never quite look real, and the equally strange but kindly edible big squashes, and the regal hues of Indian corn, and best of all the pumpkins. Amid such reassuring defiant opulence death is stingless, relegated to the shelves of marshmallow ghosts and twinkly-eyed plastic skulls.

Today it's rainy, a perfect time to stand and wait, or sit and write; they're pretty much one and the same where I'm concerned. When words fail me I can always wander over to Mysoju or Crunchyroll or Dramafever and escape to my lastest passion, Korean multi-series epics. Recently I finished up the splendid Jumong, 80 episodes worth of battle, intrigue, preternaturally restrained passion (not a single smooch in the entire story, despite emotion aplenty), and enthralling acting, especially by Song Il Guk who delivers a channeled, demandingly physical performance as the legendary hero of the tale. Now I'm on to the totally opposite Jewel in the Palace, which concerns itself with the mercilessly imbroglio'd woman's world of the royal court c. 1500, and recounts the tribulations of Jang Geum, who became Korea's first female physician to the king. Since she started out as a kitchen-maid, there are lots of wonderful cooking scenes lovingly filmed; the poignant soundtrack sticks to the memory, the historical recreation is big-budget and meticulous, and the lead actress is simply perfect in her plain, demure, stubbornly principled way. Both series were huge hits in Korea and many places else, and I thank the Internet for the chance to see them subtitled in their entirety. Highly recommended.

CK

Twig By Twig

2009-09-21T21:21:00.013-05:00

Tomorrow marks the autumnal equinox, officially the last day of summer. For the past many years I've viewed the event with regret either bitter or resigned, but this one's different. This winter I'll be warmed by memories of harvest and the promise of even greater growth to come.

Some time ago while writing in a forum I invented a character named Yin Qi, an imperial concubine called Autumn Grass by the other court ladies in mocking reference to her advanced age (she was thirty) and inferior rank (she was of very minor nobility, from the barbaric northern steppes). What inspired her creation was a picture by Shibata Zeshin, c. 1870:

The first time I ever saw this exquisite image, the original of which is worth a trip to New York where it lives, I instantly recalled Archibald MacLeish's riskily precious wish that

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

In a story I've submitted to a flash fiction journal, I describe the moon through a warrior's eyes, as a shield of gold dented from countless blows.

It is always best to fulfill old dreams before moving on to others, and to that end I'm working at joining my Ryel Saga into a single volume, with a new cover of my own design:

Then it's on to everything else, uncounted pages else. It doesn't matter, the passage of the equinoxes. I will move as the moon climbs.

CK

The Lady and the Mage

2009-09-08T18:51:00.004-05:00

I enjoyed writing Last Laughter so much that I'm thinking of more short stories involving my as yet anonymous Countess and Cyril Dagleish Dacier, the Thaumaturge Royal. When I began the tale, I thought of it as typical standard fantasy set in a semi-medieval world, but by the end it felt (to me, anyway) decidedly Edwardian, hence the court mage's quaintly British name. I never thought I'd ever write anything steampunk, but there it is, with perhaps more to come. Last Laughter is now fully corrected and will be at Silver Blade for an entire quarter-year; I hope it garners lots of readers.

The Kindle and other digital versions of my novels are finding a wide audience, and I couldn't be happier, more optimistic, or more energized.

CK

Hot Off The Presses

2009-09-02T22:28:00.006-05:00

I'm happy to announce the publication of my short story 'Last Laughter,' now appearing in the current issue of Silver Blade Fantasy Fiction. The entire site is very attractive, and my story has a terrifically scary/funny/witty cover, plus other illustrations.

There are a few corrections that will be made in the next day or so. A phrase in the first paragraph should read "Whenever his behavior became simply too appalling."

Another short story, 'The Kind Gods,' will hopefully be hitting print fairly soon. And I've finally gotten around to finding the right ending for another yarn that I've been fussing over for ages, 'The Heart's Desire.' The two couldn't be more different: one is a Vikingesque afterlife dilemma from a warrior's perspective, and the other's set in an all-too-near future involving a government scryer and her discovery of the ultimate secret language.

I'm having fun.

CK

Flowering Fortunes

2009-08-28T17:12:00.006-05:00

In the Byzantine calendar, September 1 is the beginning of the new year. Since I was born on that date, I always (or at least since I became familiar with the Byzantine calendar) consider it my personal New Year's Day, promising another fresh start.

This could well be one of the best creative years I've had in a long time. Last week, the rights to my two novels reverted exclusively to me, and I've decided to make both books available solely as digital versions for the time being. No sooner did they appear on Mobipocket the other night than they began generating sales. Today, Smashwords (which carries my short story 'Regenerated') sent me an e-mail announcing their affiliation with Barnes and Noble, for which my books will apparently qualify. My short story 'Last Laughter,' to appear in a few days as part of the fall issue of Silver Blade, will be yet another birthday present.

I'm now working on combining Wysard and Lord Brother into a single volume as they were originally meant to be, including in the text all the passages that fell to the cutting-room floor because of page constraints in the paper versions. Many other projects are competing for my attention, though, and I'll try to give them all quality time.

Among those projects will be a story dedicated to a friend who recently passed away. Anne Braude, better known as Talpianna to the numerous acquaintance that cherished her, affected my life more than her gentle whimsical nature would have ever taken credit for, and I know I'm not the only one so privileged. Namaste, Anne.

CK

Coming Soon...No, Really

2009-08-12T21:45:00.013-05:00

One of the most macabre yet sincere compliments I've ever received came from a friend about half my age who read my books soon after their publication, and commented that the emotion they most evoked in him was sadness, because someday fairly soonish I'd be dead and he wouldn't be able to read any more of me. Charmed, I assured him that by the time the Reaper came to collect, I'd have a dazzling oeuvre of at least a dozen more tomes to swell my legacy.

Now it's a decade later and I'm tired of feeling guilty. Making W ysard and Lord Brother available for the Amazon Kindle has gained me many new readers and I'm very grateful, but only guys like Homer get away with just two books to their credit. Yes, there were reasons, some of them dire, for my lack of output, but that was then. I have four novel manuscripts in varying stages of completion, and they will be completed, but I was hankering for the sweet taste of some immediate recognition, so to that end I dusted off a short story that had been moldering in my skull for years, finished it, and sent it out into the world. 'Last Laughter,' a fable involving a wicked court jester and his comeuppance, will appear in Silver Blade Quarterly at the end of this month. It's a free read, and I welcome comments.

Lots more to come. Finally.

CK

On Shining Brightly

2009-08-02T11:45:00.021-05:00

This last month of summer makes me want to hold on to the heat and never let it go. The inevitability of another year's demise makes me restless and brooding, ironic in a time of harvest. The Zen way, which I admire, is to give one's full mind to the Now and to treat every action as a ritual; I've been trying very hard to be as conscious as I can of every moment, and in doing so I realize just how necessary reflection is to the health of the spirit.

When speaking of reflection, I don't mean the current hyperactive obsession to make oneself an object of dedicated perpetual scrutiny. There is nothing more limiting than self, and when it comes to the things of the mind, people desperately need to get out more. It's crucial for the betterment of the world, which is quite literally dying for a dose of sublimity. Life has never offered more in the way of possibilities than now, and yet culture has become so cramped, stale, mean, and corrosive that I often feel as if these are the New Dark Ages. The worst of what we are is being exalted. Popular entertainment is mining our baseness and reaching rock bottom. Most of what purports to be uplifting is doing it for the dollar, and is cloying and condescending. It's bafflingly, appallingly childish, this joy in kicking over what was built with care, in smearing and scrawling, in the gleeful obsession with the low and the vulgar.

When a toddler tries to run out into the traffic, it's testing the gentle caring arms that will pull it back into an embrace that is meant to sustain as much as restrain. The current state of societal arrested development both annoys and disturbs me, but more babysitters isn't the answer. We need to be better parents to ourselves, and grow not only up, but outward. We need to quit stuffing our selves with junk and defacing our minds and bodies and deliberately putting ourselves in harm's way simply because there's no one there to stop us. Little children are precious beings full of promise; why should that be any less true all their lives?

CK

The Way Of The Sword

2009-06-19T22:44:00.019-05:00

I'm ferrying over the last of my Amazon posts here like Robinson Crusoe, because I'd wanted to include the description of my butsudan now that I'm in the midst of watching Musashi, where those litte shrines feature frequently.

Having enjoyed the 2008 Japanese public television drama Atsuhime (described a few posts down), I moved on to Musashi last week, expecting the same gorgeous, decorous inaction. I couldn't have been more surprised...or thrilled. Musashi takes place in a man's world, where the way of the sword is exalted and all other considerations are deemed secondary, if not worthless.

Musashi, the story of Japan's legendary fighter, began as a nearly 1000-page novel written by Eiji Yoshikawa in 1935, and has gone on to sell 120 million copies and inspire 36 films. Watching the 50-hour televised version (2003) is like enjoying the novel as it had been conceived, in serial format.

I knew I wasn't in the Shogun's Ooku (women's quarters) anymore when the story opened with the aftermath of the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), and the young soldiers Musashi and his friend Matahachi struggled their way out of heaps of dead bodies steaming in the cold dawn. The action follows the novel with faithful attention, all the performances by the numerous cast are flawless, and the gritty realism, especially coming after Atsuhime's courtly decorum, is often startling. The lead is played by a rivetingly charismatic young Kabuki performer, and the rest of the cast make up a Who's Who of Japan's acting talent.

So far I'm at Episode 28 and have witnessed every kind of desperate peril and deadly combat, along with tender devotion, offhand lust, remorseless hatred, gnawing inner anguish and hilarious broad humor, all amid striking scenery, engagingly ramshackle towns, and those exquisite interiors, rustic, regal, or religious, that Japan is famed for. The plot teems with ronin, thieves, magicians, brigands, ninja, madmen, warrior monks and nobles. The women range from demure maidens to brazen harlots, vengeful hags to dauntless warrior-lasses. The swordplay's constant, vicious, and uncannily graceful.

But I'm enjoying Musashi most because the underlying theme is love, the kind that makes great sacrifices without regard to self, denying one's own happiness for a greater good. Miyamoto Musashi only gradually becomes a hero, owing his transcendence to the wise and gentle people he meets in his wanderings, who teach him that without beauty, life is meaningless, and that the creation of beauty is man's best employment; that the way of the sword is an empty, futile path. The final showdown looms, but I'm taking the story slowly, savoring a world that seems alien to the point of fantasy to my Western eyes, and yet so fundamentally, placelessly, timelessly human.

How I wish I could read the novel in the original! Ah well, perhaps next life.

The portal to all of Musashi's online episodes is here.

CK

Terry And The Bumrolls

2009-06-12T16:57:00.040-05:00

I love costume. Not mere clothes, especially not the current mode best described as Goodwill Meets Frederick’s, but beautiful dress-up garments. The other night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief, and the gold lamé gown worn by Grace Kelly at the climactic ball, baring superb shoulders and trailing acres of glittering panniered skirts, had me palpitating far more than did the film’s famed rooftop chase.

Elegance of dress is part of the historical periods I prefer, which explains my particular fondness for 1400 to 1700. Few clothes are more becoming to both genders than Van Dyck’s, but I’ll admit that late Elizabethan togs are the last word in bizarre. They distorted the body in freakishly perplexing ways, and getting into them was a major feat. William Harrison, writing in 1577, long before matters got totally out of hand, railed in Holinshed’s Chronicles:

“…then must we put it on, then must the long seames of our hose be set by a plumb-line, then we puffe, then we blow, and finallie sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand upon us…In women also it is most to be lamented that they doo now farre exceed the lightnesse of our men …What should I saie of their doublets with pendant cod peeses on the brest full of jags and cuts, and sleeves of sundrie colours? Their galligascons to beare out their bums and make their attire to sit plum round (as they terme it) about them? Their fardingals, and diverslie coloured nether stocks of silke, ierdseie, and such like, whereby their bodies are rather deformed than commended?”

The 1570s were the heyday of the bumroll, a stuffed fabric ring worn under skirts to give the illusion of wider hips, and hence a smaller waist. I’d never really gotten up close and personal with a bumroll until 2004, when I attended WorldCon in San Jose. Among the con’s plethora of parties was a crush given in honor of Terry Pratchett by the Costumer’s Guild. (I call it a crush rather than a bash, because in consideration of Mr. Pratchett’s following among very young persons, there was no alcohol present save for the whacking big snifter of brandy that the guest of honor, dapper in a crimson velvet Edwardian smoking jacket, held in one hand as he greeted his guests.) The Guild’s membership was, as I recall, entirely female, and I inadvertently stepped on many a brocaded train as I mingled, sipped the innocent punch, admired the Discworld chess set that was to be auctioned off, and asked the costumed ladies about their garments, which were beautifully made and often exquisitely whimsical. The gown I recall most was an Elizabethan farthingale that combined two contrasting aloha-shirt fabrics, red and blue, worn with a choker necklace composed of a row of tiny plastic palm trees sewn onto a velvet band, jutting out fronds first. The young woman wearing this piquant confection was silvery blonde, slim, lovely and charming, and it was she who enlightened me as to why her skirts belled out with such angular symmetry, inspiring the title of these reflections.

Later on in the Virgin Queen's reign, for reasons not readily explicable, the simple bumroll evolved into a vast wheel big enough to break a cutpurse on, the bodice elongated into a point that makes today’s viewer wince to behold, sleeves swelled into blimp-like enormities, ruffs reared up behind the head like the back of a peacock chair, and, given the scant hygiene that prevailed, waking life must have been close to unbearable. Below is a portrait of Her Majesty rigged out in this bizarre and mercifully short-lived fashion.

Regarding WorldCon, I’d made Terry Pratchett’s acquaintance the day before the party, and a rum encounter it was; bittersweet to recall, now. I’ll write about it soon.

Imperial Opulence

3:05 PM PDT, May 20, 2009

I was lucky this year. My pink Minuet peonies were fat spheres packed with promise, on the point of bursting into huge cabbagy bloom right as I was about to leave for a week-long jaunt to Florida, and I deeply regretted that I'd miss them at their peak; but fortunately the weather was unseasonably cold, and kept the flowers in stasis until I got back. Today they're in full perfection, and I have two of them in a vase here at my desk, where I can admire their Fragonard lushness and heavenly fragrance.

To the Chinese, the peony was queen of the garden, a sentiment I share. I can't grow roses because the deer eat the buds, but I add to my peony collection as much as I can. So far all I have are the bush varieties that flaunt their splendor far too briefly, but a friend recently told me that there's a tree version which yields longer-lasting flowers. I shall find, select, and plant straightway, to enjoy at next year's springtide. Mono no aware is an increasingly painful sensation as time passes, and All Now is becoming more and more my slogan.

Here's a wonderful time-lapse video of a peony opening up. Life rocks at times.

CK

The TMI Age

7:17 PM PDT, May 8, 2009

I spent far too much time today ridding my computers of the obnoxiously ubiquitous New Folder virus, and now know more about regedit, msconfig and autorun than I ever expected or desired to. But that's the price one pays for having a second self--and the computer has become just that, prone to its own versions of all the frailties human flesh is heir to. I shrug, and cope. Read the Merck Manual, and you'll wonder that anyone's alive at all.

The Police had it righter than they could ever have wanted to know, back in pre-Internet 1981 with their all too prophetically titled album 'Ghost In The Machine' featuring the eerily apropos 'Too Much Information':

Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane

Overkill, overview
Over my dead body
Over me, over you
Over everybody

Never in mankind's bewildering history has communication become so rife. I'd call it a global group hug, but it often feels more like a desperate grasp. Look at me. Listen to me. Make me matter.

I'm on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Blogger, discussion forums, this site, my site...the other day I was actually thinking of becoming one of Stephen Fry's nearly half-million Twitterfollowers, but fortunately the yearning passed. Time is very flexible, but even Silly Putty snaps.

And now I'm thinking of another Sting song, about the hundred million bottles washed up on the shore...all with a message in them. Did the castaway feel the need to read every single one?

Islanded,

CK

Who's also Kindled, and loves her books being digitized.

Love, Honor, and Inspiration

9:50 PM PDT, April 30, 2009

Before I get down to blogging about my topic, I’ll note that the Kindle editions of my books are now on sale, and will be priced at .99 each for the entire month of May. It's always a pleasure to acquire new readers, and that sensation will, I hope, be heightened when both volumes are available on Mobipocket in the near future. Established reviewers are invited to email me for complimentary pdfs of both Wysard and Lord Brother; the address is on my website at A Writing Life, along with links to synopses, first chapters, and media commentary.

Regarding my subject matter, inspiration comes from anywhere, and I can't specify my wysard Ryel Mirai's origins. I was an adolescent when I envisioned him, and I didn’t know his name; he had none. He was then as he is now: about 24, slender and tallish, heroic and kind, with long dark hair and features mingling classic Greece with Mongol steppes. I made him the protagonist of a Victorian-flavored short story and a whimsical narrative poem, both of which are still extant in some shelved box or other; eventually I’ll type them up as Word files.

I more or less forgot about my wizard after that, immersing myself in Tolkien and Eddison and Burroughs along with less fantastical classics. But not until college did I encounter John Dryden’s two-part play ‘The Conquest of Granada,’ written in 1672 when Charles II ruled Britain and Louis XIV France, and not much else in the world mattered. Its influence has stayed with me ever since. It was really and truly magical, and ensorceled me entirely. I recently re-read it, and even though I’m older and wiser and have been rigorously trained to recognize all its faults, I love it still, as I will always love that which is magnificent and brave.

Like all extremely serious things, ‘Conquest’ is easy to make fun of, and was hilariously lampooned in its day. The dialog is exclusively rhyming verse, the subject matter is entirely love and honor, and the characters are without exception noble even when behaving deplorably. Its plot deals with the power struggle between the ruling Spanish Moors and their Christian enemies in 1492, but the beating, bleeding heart of the story concerns the hopeless passion of the heroic warrior Almanzor for the beautiful Almahide, wife of King Boabdelin. There are striking lines in it, like Almanzor’s taunt to the king:

“No man has more contempt than I of breath,
But whence hast thou the right to give me death?
Obeyed as sovereign by thy subjects be,
But know, that I alone am king of me.
I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”

Despairing in her adoration of the bold hero, Almahide laments:

“How blessed was I before this fatal day,
When all I knew of love, was to obey!
'Twas life becalmed, without a gentle breath;
Though not so cold, yet motionless as death.
A heavy quiet state; but love, all strife,
All rapid, is the hurricane of life.”

King Boabdelin, cankered with jealousy, breaks into bitter distichs:

“Marriage, thou curse of love, and snare of life,
That first debased a mistress to a wife!
Love, like a scene, at distance should appear,
But marriage views the gross-daubed landscape near.
Love's nauseous cure! thou cloyest whom thou should'st please;
And, when thou cur'st, then thou art the disease.
When hearts are loose, thy chain our bodies ties;
Love couples friends, but marriage enemies.”

Granada with its gorgeous oriental court became Wysard’s Almancar, with some Renaissance Venice and Edo-era Yoshiwara and the Empire of Trebizond thrown in.

The play in its two parts can be found here. No one would think of performing it now, for excellent reasons; but it’s wonderful to envision a world in which people flocked to watch it, and to imagine being part of that rapt audience.

More to come about influences, inspirations and defining moments.

CK

The Milk Of Paradise

11:33 AM PDT, April 24, 2009

The official drink of the angels, I'm convinced, is St. Germain liqueur. It’s celestial in every way—from its graceful bottle that resembles a fin-de-siècle flacon, to the pale refined gold of its hue, to its exquisitely fresh, heady fragrance, to the mystery of its making which involves hand-picked Alpine elderflowers, to its divine flavor, at once tangy and sweet in perfect balance. Its only drawbacks are its expense and its rarity, but even those seem virtues.

The other night Hub and I shared our last precious drops of this nectar with a favorite couple, making a very heaven of the warm spring evening, candlelight, civilized music playing softly in the background, and a sense of everything being exactly as it should be, however briefly.

Kitsune

5:45 PM PDT, April 20, 2009

My house surely must be blessed by the kami, since I've got a whole family of foxes living in the brush pile out back. The mother is slim and pensive, supervising her brood with mild vigilant care, her russet pelt vivid against the emerging green of the trees. The five little ones romp about adorably, wrestling and pouncing and tumbling. I look at them and can't help but think of the way I grew up; and then I turn my thoughts elsewhere.

April can indeed be the cruelest month, but for me it marks a time of needful endings and wished-for beginnings. The other night I was dancing with Hub at a benefit party teeming with Bright Young Things, feeling the combined bliss of Santana-tinged music and liberal Cuba Libres, when a girl came up to me and said, shouting over the racket, "You're the only one here who looks like they're having any #&@%ing FUN!"

That's just the way I want it, from here on out.

Cheers,

CK

La Princesse Lointaine

12:43 PM PDT, April 15, 2009

Life is often irksome, and at such times I take refuge in that which is pleasing and uplifting.

While in Kyoto last summer, I chanced, on a couple of rare occasions when I wasn’t embroiled in extreme sightseeing or sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, to watch a bit of television. One program in particular intrigued me: a historical drama featuring court ladies in splendid kimono, indulging in behavior dismally typical of people with too much time on their hands--gossiping, scheming, maligning, betraying. Among these craven weeds one woman stood out like a sweet, slender flower, taking no part in the pettiness, fulfilling a higher destiny.

There were, of course, no English subtitles. I knew the period was Tokugawa, but other than that I was lost. Once I returned home, I did some Internet sleuthing to find out just which program it was, and with only a little trouble learned I’d been watching Atsuhime (Princess Atsu), a multi-segment story set in the 1850s when Commodore Perry and his black ships were threatening a status quo unchanged for centuries. Just the other day, to my surprise and pleasure, I stumbled upon a site featuring English-subtitled videos of every episode. It’s heaven.

Atsuhime moves at a deliberate, almost dreamlike pace. So far I’m at Episode 11 and haven’t yet witnessed a single usually de rigeur multi-samurai katana battle, nor any overt exertion at all save for a great deal of carefully calibrated bowing. It’s wonderfully restful. The beauteous young princess is admirably wise and noble, and defies convention in various charming ways. Although she and her family exhibit no physical affection whatsoever, the bonds of the heart are clearly deep-rooted and unshakeable. This restraint is shown by everyone: deadly enemies never come to blows, and desperate lovers never touch. Honor, sacrifice, and loyalty are emphasized and exalted. The production values are quietly stunning, and the acting topnotch; the only off note, so to speak, is the Westernized musical score in a milieu demanding koto, shamisen, and hyoshigi.

Elegant, informative and pleasurable Atsuhime eminently is, in ways American television can never comprehend. Only when one stirs the inscrutable surface of the princess' world does one remember that this was a pivotal, terrible point in Japanese history, marking the end of the nation’s lofty seclusion and the wholesale influx of all that now makes the culture so uniquely strange—Shangri-La crossed with Bartertown.

CK

Petals on a wet, black bough

2:56 PM PDT, April 11, 2009

Mildly seasonal as this post's title may seem, Ezra Pound's poem about faces packs all kinds of brooding angst in its two short lines and perfectly sums up my present mood. I admire Pound most because without his censoring pen like a refiner's fire, Eliot's The Waste Land would have ended up a negligible ditherfest. I often wish ol' Ez had worked his merciless mojo on Virginia Woolf's novels.

I never thought of myself as the Facebook type, but life can be either a luxury cruise or dinghy ordeal of self-discovery, depending on viewpoint. So far my profile page is an abject blank, but I'll add to it once I get over the social anxiety I never have in person.

And there's always the Delete feature. Would that all of life's events had one.

Writing is coming along wonderfully, given much recent inspiration.

CK

Dear Shadow

11:45 AM PDT, April 8, 2009

It came like a flash—and ended in flash fiction. By sheer accident I chanced to listen the other day to a song I’d never heard before by a group I’d never heard about, and in another moment I was writing a story. It’s been a very long time since I've done that.

“Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” is by Fleet Foxes, a Seattle-based band who debuted in 2008. Its lone-guitar, single-voice slow waltz, poignant chords, and evocative lyrics rife with ambiguity were simply ensorcelling, bardic, timeless. It took me about twenty minutes to write most of the story, and I thought up the ending last night.

Perhaps it’s the season, or a change of outlook that makes time inestimably precious, or good friends and fan mail, and/or just finally getting my chemical balance right, but to feel like creating again is like being saved from drowning.

Grateful thanks to everything, anything,

CK

Wanderers this morning came by
Where did they go
Graceful in the morning light
To banner fair
To follow you softly
In the cold mountain air

Through the forest
Down to your grave
Where the birds wait
And the tall grasses wave
They do not
know you anymore

Dear shadow alive and well
How can the body die
You tell me everything
Anything true

In the town one morning I went
Staggering through premonitions of my death
I don't see anybody that dear to me

Dear shadow alive and well
How can the body die
You tell me everything
Anything true

Jesse
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon

CK

The Hounds of Spring

4:49 PM PDT, March 24, 2009

It never lasts long, this sweet first flowering time. Two days ago the redbud and crabapple trees around the deck were just beginning to bloom; now they’re at their height. From my window I can see their delicate hues, purple and rose, demurely defiant amid the gaunt trunks and branches of oaks and maples still leafless. The daffodils flaunted in their golden hosts weeks ago, and are now shriveling on their stalks. So temporary, and for that very reason so beloved, this fragile, fitful interval.

I can well understand why medieval people always went wild when Spring finally arrived. Even with my modern comforts, winter is a grim and shivering eternity that gets more arduous with each passing year, and this particular year was a bad 'un. My left tympanic cavity is still clogged from the crud that began afflicting me around Thanksgiving, and is only now making an all too leisurely retreat from my mortal clay. To finally feel warm, really and truly warm, is wondrous.

So with my one good ear, my two bad eyes and my cough-rough voice I’ve been reveling in Karl Orff’s Carmina Burana, singing along to the irresistibly upbeat ‘Tempus Est Iocundum.’ Orff’s mainly known for another song in the cycle, ‘O Fortuna,’ but its grim staccato howl that made perfect background music for the last several months has been bumped from my player, replaced by the pagan glee of youths and maidens giddy with the joy of shrugging off heavy itchy rank infested wool breeks and coathardies and frolicking about bare-limbed on the greensward.

Oh, oh, oh!
Totus floreo!

Texts and translations of the Carmina Burana can be found at http://www.tylatin.org/extras/index.html

Swinburne's breathtaking poem about spring's hounds is here:
http://www.bartleby.com/101/808.html

CK

Life, Exquisitely Examined

1:51 PM PDT, March 13, 2009

Like all good torturers, the malaise mentioned in an earlier post granted me a brief respite, during which I took a road trip to Chapel Hill, NC with my hub, who'd been invited to give a colloquium at UNC. I enjoyed every minute of it, my pleasure all the more enhanced by the blessing of complete, actual health. We drove through snowy skies and white-laden stretches of forest by late afternoon, the first real winter I’ve seen all year. Although we outran the weather on our way to town, when I awoke the next morning at UNC's lovely Carolina Inn and looked out the window, all the world was covered in ‘ermine too dear for an earl.’ I wandered about the near-deserted campus (classes were called off until noon) and took photos before the sun shone out and all the wonder melted away.

We met up with many old friends, and three days fled by in a delicious blur. Breakfast at the Inn on the morning of our departure capped the experience with a serendipitious chance encounter. I’d at once noticed the man across from me, whose unruly hair, visionary eyes and civil but strained forbearance with the over-attentive waitstaff presaged singularity. In British-accented tones just above a whisper, he eschewed the communal carafe in favor of a bespoke espresso, and specified fresh eggs made to order—perhaps a covert jab at the scrambled offerings of the buffet, which were pretty visibly heaped on my plate. Amused, I made some remark about the persistence of Southern hospitality, to which he replied with ironic resignation, and then surprised me by asking if Hub and I were with the orchestra. We soon discovered that we were conversing with the founder of the Arditti Quartet, which was visiting UNC for a concert and a master class. The group specializes in contemporary music of a rarefied, difficult, experimental nature, and is widely considered the best in the world at what it does. Hundreds of pieces have been commissioned by and composed for the AQ, most notoriously Karlheinz Stockhausen’s irresistibly weird Helikopter Quartett, which has to be seen to be thoroughly appreciated.

I like to define my life as 'Vissi d'arte,' but Irvine Arditti really, truly walks the walk. He formed the quartet in 1973 while barely in his twenties, three years before joining the London Symphony Orchestra, and is now the only original member. He and his group have recorded more than 160 cds. He lives perpetually on tour, never at rest. His skill as a violinist is breathtaking, as this John Cage piece will demonstrate.

Since I'm most at home with Scarlatti and Dowland, the conversation was as much an education as a pleasure, and all too brief. As he departed for morning rehearsals, Mr. Arditti noted that I’d find a lot of contemporary composers mentioned on his website, and gave both Hub’s and my hand a slight but cordial clasp. Since then I’ve been enjoying a new realm of music, and value the maestro's farewell gesture all the more. I hope to see the quartet in concert as soon as may be.

How I admire people who live big, dedicated, beautiful lives.

CK

Free Rice and Fairy Princes

1:01 PM PST, February 28, 2009

Having not visited Free Rice for quite a while, I was delighted to find that it's expanded to include more subjects besides English vocabulary. Art, mathematics, geography and other languages have been added to its multiple-choice format, allowing me to feed the world even more lavishly as I bone up on my German and distinguish Cassatt from Caillebotte.

When that world is too much with me--and so often it is, lately--I take my spiffy new imperial-scarlet Dell Vostro for a spin, cyber-escaping to the pagan realms Wordsworth yearned for. What the mild retiring bard would have thought of Prince Nuada Silverlance I can only guess, but my own views are definite. (And yes, I know the prince is an elf, not a fairy, but the alliteration was piquant.)

To Airy Thinness Beat

6:42 PM PST, February 18, 2009

Donne was using gold as a metaphor for distance in his famous love poem that always struck me as the most unromantic effusion ever penned, but airy thinness perfectly describes my mood just now. I've got a cold I can't get over despite weeks of pills and hankies, a half-dozen writing projects that don't feel like being finished and are loafing slackerwise in the basement of my brain; and worst of all, my favorite pine tree where Swoop the Owl used to perch and stare at me as I pestered the muse is reduced to a shattered trunk, victim of last week's high winds. It bent as much as it could, luckless conifer, until it split utterly and its great boughs crashed all over the roof. Now that the branches are neatly chainsawed and piled on the ground, I'm surprised at just how very big a tree it was, and saddened by how much naked space it's left at my window.

Here's the tree with Swoop in it, taken in happier days:

A few lower limbs survive. Maybe he'll come back. Maybe my cold will quit. Maybe that frowsy useless muse will struggle up out of her beanbag and get crackin'.

Hope's a beautiful, silly thing.

CK

De Tout Coeur

12:01 AM PST, February 13, 2009

For the first time in the life I can remember, Friday the Thirteenth ushers in Valentine's Day, a piquant coincidence if ever there was one.

Deep Sweet Ineffable

6:15 PM PST, November 22, 2008

Peace happens in the most impossible places. This past summer, at a crowded downtown Kyoto shopping arcade between a reggae-themed clothes stall and a hyper-hip music store blaring a conjoined brain-shred of Burning Spear and Infected Mushroom, I discovered a Buddhist temple tucked away down a little path, its presence indicated by a marble pedestal supporting a sutra-incised granite prayer wheel that spun effortlessly beneath my reverent fingers, summoning the Unseen. At the temple fountain I performed the ritual hand-washing, then slipped off my shoes and ascended the smooth wooden steps to the sanctuary. As was often the case at the dozens of shrines and temples I visited in my two weeks in Japan, I had the place to myself. The tatami matting comforted my weary tourist feet, grounding me to serenity. Only a few yards away music still thudded from the teeming mall, but I no longer heard it. I was far elsewhere, in a place I cannot describe, but which was far more immediate to me than the world I returned to, refreshed and at rest, a little while later.

I put together a butsudan once I got back to the States, to commemorate and re-live that rescuing tranquility. Japanese butsudan are exquisite objects, but they can seem too much like dollhouses for gods--a profusion of gilded lacquer and ornamentation as costly as the owner can afford, with expensive ritual food offerings and rare flowers and images meant to be worshipped. I'm not sure the Buddha would have approved, prince though he was. So I took a little yard-sale table and spray-painted it black, and placed it in the southwest corner of my reading room--that direction is special to me, since it evokes the Four Corners--and above the table I hung a batik picture of Kwannon, the goddess of mercy. On the table I arranged the following objects:

A dish full of mostly blue-and-white porcelain shards collected during my trip. It's very common to find bits of broken offering bowls and cups around shrines and Shinto graves; earthquake tremors or misadventure are most likely to blame for the breakage, since vandalism seems virtually nonexistent in Japan (with the exception of Western-style graffiti around Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, where Lost in Translation was filmed--why is it that the rest of the world seems to choose the worst things about America to emulate?). I grouped the shards around a simple holder enclosing a stick of the kind of incense sold only at shrines, thick, slow-burning and divinely fragrant.

A wooden statuette of the type called the Weeping Buddha, face buried in and hidden by agonized hands, knees bent in fetal angst instead of the customary crosslegged attitude.

A little brass handbell from India, thrillingly sweet and clear at even the slightest ring, that my grandmother borrowed from me for my great-grandmother's use during her final illness; one of the very few things I possess from my past.

Pebbles collected over many years from many countries, and a 27-bead mala of rose quartz and jade that I made myself.

A vase to contain fresh sprigs of the evergreen cherry laurel that grows around the house, reminding me that winter can't kill everything.

Every morning I stand at my butsudan and ring the bell, and drape my mala over my hands and make the sign of the wai, and bow my head in reflection. I don't pray because I can't, but my hopes tend to take the following shape:

May I be grateful for this day, and live it as well as I can.

May I perform some action that makes a good difference.

May my creative energies be focused to their sharpest, and find their best expression.

May I always cherish others for their kindness, and remember that harboring ill will weakens the soul.

May I be mindful that of all qualities, arrogance is the most injurious, and the ability to forgive the noblest.

May I always recognize delusion and avoid it, and may those now in error do the same.
May I never forget that only the end of the world is the end of the world.

I then think of people and situations I'm especially concerned about, hoping the best for them; and then I bow twice and proceed with the rest of my day, wishing it might be tinged by the ritual. To my grateful surprise, it very often is.

Namaste,

The Scribbling Itch

12:21 PM PST, November 15, 2008

November is, and has been since 1998, National Novel Writing Month. According to recent studies, many more Americans are writing instead of reading, and no wonder.

One of Paul Simon's songs begins with the feeling observation 'When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school/It's a wonder I can think at all.' By the same token, when I remember the 'classics' I was forced to read far too soon in that ill-remembered milieu, I can't blame anyone for not cracking a book after graduation. 'Wuthering Heights' and 'The Scarlet Letter' I especially recall as sheer torment, inflicted by the overworked bored on the restless apathetic, taught in a total vacuum with no attention paid to the utterly foreign worlds in which they were set, or the life and times of the authors who created them. What astounds me most is that these books and others of their dour ilk are still being forced upon luckless high schoolers in the same sullen, context-free manner decades later, in a world that has changed so much that the name Miranda no longer evokes a brave new world or even Huxley (another author I read far too soon), but instead a cop-uttered formula. Incredibly, it's still a self-perpetuating given that no one voluntarily reads a novel after high school, and since this sole brush with literature will be the last, it needs must be forcibly administered like bitter medicine. For all too many the loathing engendered lasts a lifetime...a stunted, light-deprived lifetime. Some disturbing information can be found at this site, beginning with "1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives." I won't go into the 1/3 of the population that doesn't graduate at all.

Still, there's hope. Lots of people survive high school with their love of reading intact, as I did. Like many others, I look forward to at least a minor renaissance with the upcoming presidency. A holistic approach to literature might come into fashion, thanks to the Internet's invaluable ease of access and wealth of resources that make learning an at least physically effortless pleasure, and galvanize independent spirit of inquiry. Miranda just might rediscover that dream she believed in--I re-read 'Brave New World' recently online, and it was terrific. I only hope that a Google search someday finds her Shakespeare version in less than the few hundred entries it currently entails.

A wealth of sites offer the entire world's best reading at no cost, and here are three of my favorites:
The Digital Book Index

The Great Books

Project Gutenberg

Regarding writing, and those who are currently observing NaNoWriMo, I offer some words from my website:

"I believe that some people are shaped by nature to be writers, and these people instinctively do everything possible within the limits of reason (and very often without) to make life an experiment toward a result that will change the world. It's important to go as many places, read as many books, meet as many people, try as many things as can fit; and most important, to strip away delusions and pre-judgments and set opinions of every kind. Seek, demand and accept only the best, especially in your reading; the old saying "garbage in, garbage out" couldn't be truer when it comes to books, and if you read only junk, junk is all you'll ever write, guaranteed."

Here endeth the lesson.

CK

Bestness

1:11 AM PDT, September 30, 2008

Now and again I'm asked if I use specific people as templates for the characters I write about. I always reply that I prefer to create people that I wish existed.

The closest I've ever come to basing fiction on reality happened some years ago, when I participated in a collaborative fantasy tale on a now-defunct forum. The other writers were so incredibly good--I've never seen such varied talent assembled in such quantity before or since--that it was a privilege to join them. I contributed a storybook princess who embodied the most predictable features of the quintessential Mary Sue. Stunning good looks, a quick way with a sword, a deft hand with Rachmaninoff...she could have easily been insufferable, had it not been for her constant run of abysmally bad luck. I remember it being said that people felt too sorry for her to hate her.

What I most liked about my princess was getting the chance to be her. She was not demonstrative, but she felt deeply. She loved beauty. She was gentle and generous and brave. She could no more betray a confidence than she could lay bare the secrets of her heart--an obstinacy not conducive to happy endings.

CK

Namaste

12:35 PM PDT, September 28, 2008

I've been following the presidential race this year as impartially as I can. For a keen and compassionate understanding of the crucial importance of this kind of detachment, I offer Father Joseph S. O'Leary's gentle essay, which compares two great belief systems in a political context.

Instead of the loaded language of a handshake, perhaps the contenders in the struggle might consider this gesture, which respects both one's person and one's privacy.

"The first duty of love is to listen." ~Paul Tillich

Calumny, Serendipitous

5:07 PM PDT, July 4, 2008

While browsing about in the local Blockbuster last week in search of surprises, I chanced upon Russian Ark, set entirely in the Winter Palace of Catherine the Great, now the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, and "filmed using a single 90-minute Steadicam sequence shot," according to Wikipedia, which I consulted immediately after viewing. The camera meanders and gyrates far too quickly through many splendid chambers and several periods of expensively costumed history, guided by an oft-flummoxed and frequently exasperating old man dressed in circa 1830s garb. Thanks to Wiki, I learned that the gentleman was the Marquis de Custine, and that Russian Ark had portrayed him with an injustice that, now that I'm better informed, seems almost criminal.

You can find anything on the Internet, and I soon located Astolphe de Custine's two-volume travel journal, La Russie en 1839. Since I've visited St. Petersburg and the Hermitage, love most things French and relish well-told anecdotes, I found de Custine unputdownable. Far from being the clueless buffoon of Russian Ark, the Marquis comes across as a man of great cultivation, discretion and ironic charm. Many of his observations struck me as having particular relevance for our own time, like this one that describes France during the Revolution, yet seems only too well suited to the current state of arts and letters:

"La lutte entre le bien et le mal soutient l'intérêt du drame de la vie; mais quand le triomphe du crime est assuré, la monotonie rend l'existence accablante, et l'ennui ouvre la porte de l'enfer."

("The battle between good and evil sustains interest in the drama of life; but when the triumph of crime is assured, monotony renders existence unbearable, and boredom opens the gates of Hell.")

CK

Idling with Edith

6:14 PM PDT, March 25, 2008

Now that ABNA's laid to rest I've been clearing my palate via Project Gutenberg, reading whatever strikes my airy fancy. In the past few days I've read Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, a vampire tale contemporary with Bram Stoker's Dracula; the unsparingly frank memoirs of the Countess Palatine Elizabeth, who was sister-in-law to Louis XIV; some of Robert E. Howard's endearingly overwrought Conan yarns; French accounts (all approving) of life in harems; and Lady Betty Across the Water, a formulaic but delightfully fizzy romance involving a young English aristocrat coping with us Yankee barbarians at the turn of the 20th century.

The last story led me to Eliot Gregory's Worldly Ways and Byways, a collection of American essays written for the Idler, a magazine similar to our own Vanity Fair, during the year 1897. Gregory's observations combine upper-crust anecdotery with Puritanical carpings in an oddly charming way, and I was much diverted by descriptions of life in the last throes of the Gilded Age; but what struck me most was a passage from the essay "Living on Your Friends," describing the idle young men of good family who spend their lives cadging free dinners, yacht cruises, opera tickets and other necessities of life:

"So far, I have spoken of this class in the masculine, which is an error, as the art is successfully practised by the weaker sex, with this shade of difference. As an unmarried woman is in less general demand, she is apt to attach herself to one dear friend, always sure to be a lady in possession of fine country and city houses and other appurtenances of wealth, often of inferior social standing; so that there is give and take, the guest rendering real service to an ambitious hostess. The feminine aspirant need not be handsome. On the contrary, an agreeable plainness is much more acceptable, serving as a foil. But she must be excellent in all games, from golf to piquet, and willing to play as often and as long as required. She must also cheerfully go in to dinner with the blue ribbon bore of the evening, only asked on account of his pretty wife (by the bye, why is it that Beauty is so often flanked by the Beast?), and sit between him and the “second prize” bore. These two worthies would have been the portion of the hostess fifteen years ago; she would have considered it her duty to absorb them and prevent her other guests suffering. Mais nous avons changé tout cela. The lady of the house now thinks first of amusing herself, and arranges to sit between two favorites."

This paragraph so perfectly describes Lily Bart from Edith Wharton's House of Mirth that I can't help but think it inspired the novel, which came out in 1905. All the smart set read the Idler back then, and Wharton was so much a part of that heirarchy that its social complexities finally drove her to a nervous breakdown.

Lily's problem was, of course, being far too handsome.

CK

What I'm Learning Today

10:48 AM PST, January 14, 2008

Self-restraint and self-awareness really are the most elusive of virtues.

CK

Sweetness

10:31 AM PST, January 11, 2008

I've always loved those black and white movies from the 30s and 40s where men wear hats and women wear gloves, and where dead bodies, if they're around at all, are never shown.

One of my favorite moments in "It's A Wonderful Life" happens early on, when Mary (Donna Reed) receives a letter at the prom, then instantly turns to the people at her table and asks, in the most winningly natural tone, "May I?" before opening the envelope.

James M. Barrie best defined the essence of this compelling quality, charm: "It's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have."

When I think of charm in a man, I remember Humphrey Bogart's rare, boyish, dazzling smile.

CK

This Sense Most Essential

4:58 PM PST, January 5, 2008

For sheer utter torment that teaches a lesson, a speck of grit under a contact lens can really be an eye-opener.

I have extreme congenital myopia, near-sightedness so bad that without glasses and contact lenses life’s one big blur. If you sat three feet away from me and grinned your widest, I wouldn’t be able to gauge your facial expression with my naked eyes. It amazes me that people can wake up in the morning and actually see the world around them clearly from the get-go.

Back in the days when my condition wasn’t correctable, history suffered—the emperor Nero, whose well-documented affliction made him paranoid to the point of insanity, is a notable example. Even when remedies came along, rulers didn’t use them since use implied weakness, and thus Louis XVI, though expert at the meticulous craft of locksmithing (he could focus to a couple of inches, as I can), had no way of judging the expressions on the faces of his courtiers or the citoyens, with disastrous results; it didn’t help that his wife Marie Antoinette was blind to all save her flatterers. Robert B. Edgerton, writing about the Crimean War in his book Death or Glory, notes that “Eyeglasses were worn by a few officers at this time, but many hopelessly near-sighted officers were so vain that they chose to do without them”—certainly an enhancement to calamity. In the present day it’s by no means unusual, so I hear, for near-sighted members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) to forego their wonted eyewear during re-enactments no matter what; I can only imagine how many tent-ropes get tripped over.

I’d probably have been a very different, no doubt happier person had I been born with perfect vision, but time has made me a counter of blessings. Bad sight beats none at all, and a childhood as Four Eyes made me fulfill the stereotype to the hilt, giving me the infinite world of books in return. As the old song has it, wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.

If Beauty Is Difficult, Then...

5:36 PM PST, January 1, 2008

One of the first phrases I learned long ago when taking classical Greek was Plato's Χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά, beauty is difficult. Those words mean more to me the longer I live, and I considered them yet again on this first day of yet another new year.

If beauty--meaning the search for it, and the understanding of it, and the love for it--is indeed difficult, does that mean that the reverse is true as well, and the ugly is easy?

Absolutely. If you write, as I do, try writing something really disgusting sometime. Plumb your seamiest depths and just have at it. You'll be astonished, perhaps frightened, at how effortless it is, how the words gush like a burst sewer onto the page. Your gorge will be rising in no time, and you'll turn away shuddering at the wrong you did to your soul. If you don't, I pity you with all my heart.

Me, I'm dead bored with ugly. I'm sick of foul-minded entertainment, snickering nastiness, base motives, vile panderings. It's been a consolation to note that so far in history, every period of excess has been counterbalanced by a return to decency, but I'm wondering if that's possible now. I'll fight as long as my strength endures.

Breathless

9:04 PM PST, December 7, 2007

The hammer fell at Sotheby's New York and the tiny Guennol Lioness (see my previous entry) sold for a whopping 57.2 million USD, the highest price ever paid for a sculpture in recorded history. Given her diminutive size, that's about 16.3 million an inch, and worth every nickel. The buyer's name is not yet disclosed, but I'm looking forward to finding out the identity of that modern-day Sardanapalus.

On to something less staggering, but just as breathtaking in its way.

Sir William Russell Flint seems to have spent his working life surrounded by beautiful women in pronounced states of undress. Even if watercolor was a less recent medium than it is, Flint would still be considered one of its greatest exponents today. His pictures shimmer, and no effect seems beyond his powers. I love the man. Here's just one reason out of hundreds why:

During the Italian Renaissance that this picture evokes with such cool deliberation, no artist would have thought of doing a portrait of his model. Models impersonated goddesses, the Virgin Mary or allegories, and the portrait, especially in profile, was reserved for ladies of social position who would never have dreamed of revealing so much flesh, nor probably could have possessed it to such a luscious degree. Flint did his best work after World War II, and this picture captures all the chic, slightly reticent elegance of Fifties England.

Flint seldom ever painted portraits, or men for that matter; he seems to have been an artistic pasha, serenely enjoying and depicting the lush carnality that filled his studio. Watercolor perfectly captures the evanescent, floating-world quality of the subject shown here--the provoking contrast of flawless skin barely yet sumptuously clad, luminous blues and ivories, the regal pose and the delicately-rendered, ironically ordinary face. Flint specialized in such offhand bravura, and all of his works never fail to temper the sensuous with just the right amount of distance. Lots of them can be found at this site.

Ineffability, Going Once...

11:25 PM PST, November 28, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, define 'priceless.' I present the Guennol Lioness, to be auctioned at Sotheby's very soon (December 8) in what promises to be a paddle-waving frenzy of heavy hitters in the art world.

The Lioness has haunted my imagination ever since I first encountered her many years ago in a book about the art of the ancient Near East. I'll never forget how stunned I felt at the sight of those merciless elegant contours and juts, feral with a terrible touch of humanity; I know my gasp was audible. I'd thought her bigger--Ozymandian proportions would have worked perfectly--but even at three and a half inches tall she's massive. I'm almost glad she doesn't have legs, since they might have diminished her breathtaking force (historians have theorized that the limbs were made of precious metal and therefore stolen, leaving the remains intact and unvalued--yet another of fate's piquant ironies). Drilled into the back of her exquisitely savage skull are holes by which she could hang around the neck of some lucky purple-robed satrap.

So far I only know her in two dimensions, having never made the pilgrimage to Brooklyn where she's resided for decades, but I hope someday soon that will change.

Despite her admittedly cool resemblance to a video-game anthromonster, the Lioness had her birth in Babylonia at about the time the wheel was invented, five thousand years ago. The crown jewel of a dazzling private collection, she's expected to realize anywhere from 14 to 18 million dollars, which seems more than reasonable to me considering what too much junk fetches nowadays, and the proceeds will be donated to charity.

Is it any wonder I have hope for mankind, when it creates things like this, and sells them for a (hopefully) noble cause?

Those wishing more information on the Lioness are invited to consult Artdaily.org.

No, no, Doctor No.

5:26 PM PDT, November 2, 2007

Despite the opinions of some, I must gently insist that I do not write young adult fiction (abbreviated in the biz as YA). Wysard and Lord Brother were meant solely for grownups with a wide range of experience, fine-tuned inner workings and a lifetime of constant, well-chosen reading.

That said, I recall Ian Fleming's Doctor No simply blowing me away when I was 13. Still, I'm pretty sure he'd not have approved.

Perhaps the misconception arises because my books feature a lone protagonist in a linear plot, which apparently is a YA staple; but when I wrote the duology, I was unconsciously following almost step by step the path of the hero of Joseph Campbell's monomyth. The books form a bildungsroman complete in their entirety, and I have no intention of dragging the tale out into a Never-Ending Series, fashionable as that is just now. Ryel's story is told and done, despite the equivocal ending. (I think.)

Nevertheless, I like the characters enough that I'm contemplating a stand-alone prequel, which I'll get around to after I'm done with Faustine, which I've made my NaNoWriMo project.

New Cover!

3:18 PM PDT, October 23, 2007

The Wysard had its second edition this month (first edition was 1999), with a new cover design featuring the protagonist Ryel Mirai and his horse Jinn out in front of the walls of Markul, citadel of the Art, just before Ryel returns to his Steppes homeland. While I liked the original design for its stark symbolism, this current cover is far more mainstream:

The Unicorn and the Cash Cow: A Fable

9:13 AM PDT, October 5, 2007

Since these comments of mine were received favorably on the Amazon.com fantasy discussion thread "CAPPING OFF THE LONG-RUNNING, UNREMITTING, OVERWORKED SERIES" (caps NOT mine), I will include them here, for diversion's sake. No particular author is singled out, my observations are strictly general, etc.:

Writer creates unicorn, who has many interesting adventures. Readers flock to marvel at this new and fascinating creature.

Unicorn, fattened by adulation, morphs into cash cow.

Cash cow begins meandering aimlessly, tolerated by the faithful but an irritation to those who believe the purpose of the cow is to be eaten, digested and done with, next unicorn please.

Cash cow continues to meander and becomes an irritation to the faithful, some of whom consider seeking another unicorn.

Unicorn is ultimately remembered as only a cash cow, save by a few of the remaining faithful who recall its glorious early days with a nostalgic sigh.

Too purple?

6:35 AM PDT, September 19, 2007

Early fall is the time of year I become nostalgic, meditative and impatient. Another year is ending, and everything suddenly seems dry and cluttered. I start wanting to make my life elegantly, mercilessly spare, the way a tree is when its leaves drop.