muse...

qqotd: sacerdotal, Sapphic, pied-à-terre, flagitious

2010-01-11T17:15:00.001-05:00

It was the Catholic Church's mishandling and cover-ups of the scandals that he felt was the most flagitious of the sordid goings on, and it soured his sacerdotal aspirations, leaving him bereft of his sole source of solace after he learned that his wife had been exploring her Sapphic desires at their beach-side pied-à-terre without ever offering to let him watch.

Cross-posted: QuadrivialQuandary.com

qqotd: savoir-faire, piffle, leviathan, gallimaufry (plus a few earlier ones)

2009-12-04T14:17:00.008-05:00

When QQ is a linguistic leviathan with sole authority to regulate and police sesquipedalianism, it will ensure that no public square, real or virtual, is without a gallimaufry of long words in every language and a rich macédoine of examples of their usage in groups of four; but, despite its awesome power and the ubiquity of its myrmidons, there will be piffling subversives among its ranks who will weaken the prevailing esprit de corps with claptrap disguised as charm and savoir-faire.

Cross-posted: QuadrivialQuandary.com

qqotd: chef-d'oeuvre, flaneur, winnow, roborant

2009-12-03T13:46:00.002-05:00

Another pointless morning, countless days into the media fuss over his one and only chef-d'oeuvre, he spotted two roborant words in the Classifieds that rescued him from the morass of notoriety: "Flaneurs Wanted," the ad read, "Explore the landscapes of your choice, physical or otherwise, at your pace, on your terms, with our implanted, patent-pending Human Condition Aggregator (HCA) that will winnow from your experiences (and those of other networked testers) the beta version of the Human Condition Genome (TM)."

Cross-posted: QuadrivialQuandary.com

qqotd: amour-propre, hebetude, disputatious, couture

2009-12-01T18:56:00.003-05:00

Using the latest couture, he mixed and matched popular designers to create au courant, sartorially iconoclastic attires that had a disputatious effect at fashion events, thus replenishing his amour-propre with a vindicating superiority over the hebetude of the unimaginative designers who were far more influential than he.

Cross-posted: QuadrivialQuandary.com

qqotd: expiate, buttress, littoral, exegesis

2009-11-18T20:08:00.006-05:00

Put a couple of drinks in him and any mention of writing will launch him into an exegesis of his last novel set in a small, coastal town where watching the littoral erosion seems to be the favorite pastime and the inhabitants zealously prosecute tourists caught using pot, as if to expiate their own epidemic of meth addiction and buttress their respectability among neighboring communities.

[qqotd = QuadrivialQuandary Of The Day]

qqotd: nettle, Jezebel, galvanize, billingsgate

2009-11-20T16:27:00.007-05:00

The Jezebel married the quantum physicist for his beautiful mind and bragged about him to nettle her many paramours enough to galvanize their alpha-male instincts, which made them try to outdo his genius with the intensity of their lovemaking, but her deceit paled in comparison to her husband's who was taping the poetic billingsgate she tended to spew in conversation and publishing it as his own in the prestigious Journal of Slumming Geniuses.

Cross-posted from QuadrivialQuandary.com.

qqotd: nettle, plicate, pittance, germane

2009-11-21T15:41:00.003-05:00

In the picture he sat on an exquisite yet unassuming chair that he had designed, against the backdrop of sheer, plicate curtains through which you could see the lake outside the window, all of which nettled me because he had made for himself a much nicer home than my suburban McMansion, despite earning a pittance compared to my seven-figure income and never ever considering success to be germane to his life.

Cross-posted from QuadrivialQuandary.

qqotd: nettle, leaven, mollycoddle, affable

2009-11-22T11:13:00.005-05:00

She seemed at her affable best, greeting every insufferable guest with charm and poise, as if she had decided to mollycoddle their fragile egos, which she later told me was precisely the case, and that every time one of them nettled her with their self-importance, it only leavened her distaste for the milieu she had married into and fortified her resolve to escape from it.

Cross-posted from QuadrivialQuandary.com.

qqotd: doggo, gestalt, pedantic, benison

2009-11-23T16:29:00.004-05:00

When challenged, his characteristically pedantic response was that sitting doggo (except for pressing buttons on the remote) and staring at TV shows, his only benison, just about summed up the gestalt of his existence.

Cross-posted from: QuadrivialQuandary.com

qqotd: cap-a-pie, claptrap, macédoine, martinet

2009-11-24T23:59:00.003-05:00

Amidst the macédoine of antique furniture and objets d'art, he stood uandorned, wearing cap-a-pie the adoring gaze of his mistress, which the martinet she was playing couldn't belie; so, when she pointed the whip at him and said, "I don't want to hear any mushy, romantic claptrap from you," he could tell she was finding it difficult to stay in character and he knew that the magic between them was gone.

[qqotd = QuadrivialQuandary of the day]

qqotd: videlicet, shill, temerarious, Brobdingnagian

2009-11-25T18:01:00.003-05:00

Knowing that the farmers had been indentured for generations, he picked the most temerarious youths in the village, trained them in the Universal Capitalist Arts, videlicet price gouging, predatory lending, bait and switch, etc., and sent them off to the powerful and ruthless money-lenders to shill for his plans for building a Brobdingnagian shopping mall on the villagers' farms.

Cross-posted from QuadrivialQuandary.com.

qqotd: scienter, languish, imbroglio, malleable

2009-11-29T17:52:00.003-05:00

This mind, this macédoine of passionate fancies, fickle enthusiasms and perverse proclivities, is ultimately a listless imbroglio languishing in the confines of corporeal possibilities, accused of renouncing scienter its storied ability to keep reality malleable in the face of all manner of relentless adversity.

Cross-posted: QuadrivialQuandary.com

When Tomorrow Comes

2009-05-24T21:21:00.004-04:00

Take the train that left the station when tomorrow comes
Give in to the lost temptation when tomorrow comes

Hope and lust will grow a tree and shade forever
Mediocre aspiration when tomorrow comes

Books lined up to fend off love between breathing bookends
Left bereft of sublimation when tomorrow comes

All the prickly heat desire soothes to pamper touch
Won't subside and save sensation when tomorrow comes

Left alone with TV shows, time will make peace with space
Skip the ads of admonition when tomorrow comes

Groundhogs scared of shadows and robins obsessed with Spring
Will tell tales of pride in nation when tomorrow comes

In the heart of fortune lies the blind comfort of bliss
Drink from fountains of damnation when tomorrow comes

The mess, Aslam, at meaning's last horizon of faith
Could show proof of evolution when tomorrow comes

(A ghazal. I had some fun with this one -- goes from personal/"deep" to silly to topical, tries to mix it all up, and isn't ashamed of a few clichés...)

And Lie

2009-05-18T22:23:00.002-04:00

Quiet truths rise with evening's fall from grace and lie
Morning beckons dreams to fly in life's face and lie

No more, no less this everlasting absent time
What demise will life's work adorn, efface and lie?

Win for me love's lavender bounty in daylight
My prize, I pray, this time I won't deface and lie

Soon it will begin, the promised epoch of naught
Today's still moment must know this disgrace and lie

Worlds turn, Aslam, dancing with all of your past loves
Would that you could eke out one true embrace and lie

(This is a ghazal.)

Happiness

2009-05-12T01:04:00.000-04:00

Attention abates as soon as
the distraction fades

Colors don't dance on
the macular focal points
once illumination strikes

Inevitable dreams find
time's lost interstices
rummaging through the recesses
of accumulated skins

Comforts stand witness
to the reclines of last resort
on a separate plane of touch
innocent of the pain

The road's end is everywhere
the distance knows
its festering stories

Home is the unknown
that outlasts all wisdom

[Claiming for Bloglines]

2009-04-23T15:59:00.001-04:00

Got some stuff down before noon today

2006-03-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

...and I've yet to have the first cup of that miracle chai...which is brewing, BTW. They were only short scenes, with little dialog; still, better than nothing!

The next scene is in a gym, which will be tough to shoot, but there's no way to avoid a gym scene when your character is a Manhattan yuppie clone wannabe, who likes Chelsea boys. Besides, all movies are a pain to make; so, if you're gonna make one, then might as well go all out, to the extent that your budget will allow...

The cart's getting ahead of the horse again. This is no time to be thinking about dealing with the real world. The script needs to get written first.

I'm thoroughly enjoying working with Celtx. I found this open-source software for "digital pre-production" a few weeks ago, when I was struggling to get started. It has made the mechanics of writing very easy, which is a boon, given how excruciating it has been to launch and maintain this damn creative process...

Here comes the chai...and I say, it's alright! Chai, chai, chai, here it comes!

It's cold, snowy, damp, and generally gloomy, outside. Inside, it's warm, quiet, unshaven, unshowered, and out of shape. The table-lamp illuminates just enough to show that the mind bone is connected to the finger bones, which are connected to the laptop bone, which is connected to the broadband bone, which takes my bits and bytes to their special place in a glorious never-never land, where all manners of things are accomplished in the most compelling of ways, untouched by the rough hands of reality.

Many months later...

2006-09-25T20:38:00.000-04:00

Our hero has found his way back to the comfort zone. Work. The kind that pays the bills. Well, he ain't much of a hero, really, nor is he fighting a villian. Reality ain't the bad guy that everyone wants to shun. So, it turns out that there may not be much of a story to tell after all.

That would be true if the comfort zone weren't resting on an active fault-line. The tremors were a constant reminder that reality didn't take kindly to being shunned, and that its anger ran deep. All one can hope is that there won't be hell to pay.

Of course, hope is hardly enough, so its absence is probably not a grave concern. There will be hell to pay, and the collectors will not be impressed with any number of the other bills that get paid.

Chai Chai Chai*

2006-03-01T14:11:00.000-05:00

* Sorry, Aretha.

Wow! It's about 2 hours before the usual time when I get to this. Lunch is done, and I'm only waiting for the chai, which is just about ready. I'm letting it simmer, so it'll be nice and strong...

Anywho...the characters are getting fleshed out with every scene. They reveal themselves to me as the story seems to be getting uncovered through my keyboard. Not sure what I have to do with it, which is just as well, because I can disown it if it isn't a cool read when it's done. Yeah, it doesn't have to be mine unless I like it. Good, that takes care of that.

But what if it's really crap? No, I mean, really...like all those B-movies that make me go, "That's a bad script!" Or worse, it could be worse than all the Hollywood crap, and I won't even have the multi-million dollar budget to make up for it with big stars and spectacular special effects...shit, this chai better start doing its thing soon! If I end up in a universe where I want to get an Oscar, and actually get it -- there's an original idea for a Sliders episode -- the only thing I could honestly thank would be this f**cking chai! Or, I could make millions by marketing this incredible Anglo-Sino-Indian tea that unlocks the doors to productive vistas, steeped in deep, creative hues! Oh, who am I kidding? I'd never make the millions, I'd just blend into the vistas and create new hues of my own...well...a girl can dream, can't she?

OK then, let's get going before the chai wears off...

Steady as she goes...

2006-02-28T16:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was not bad. That tea combination seems to have the intended effect, helps concentrate. Was flowing for over an hour, but started too late in the afternoon, so couldn't get too far before the requisite solitude ended. Still, felt much better last evening.

Also started up on my Spanish yesterday afternoon. I so want to get beyond "Yo quiero apprender la lengua de los guapos," which made me a darling of a drag queen doing a floor show at a Madrid restaurant, 3 years ago. It's an abomination for me not to know Spanish despite having lived in Texas and now, for 9 years, in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Going out in Jackson Heights, Queens (NYC), made that need all the more urgent...but more about that another time.

OK, once again, the chai is done, so here I go...

A Desperate Measure

2006-02-27T16:36:00.000-05:00

It was (way past) time to bite the bullet, and invite intervention. Fortunately, it was available for the asking. So, I am supposed to wake up no later than 8:00 every AM, and not be online except for limited, planned durations; nor can I substitute channel surfing for web surfing.

Not my proudest time in life, for sure, but I didn't get online until about 2:00 this PM. Began brushing up on my Spanish this morning, after running errands that took me all over creation.

BTW, only caught catnaps last night, after going to bed at midnight. Kept waking up to check if it was time to wake up, and eventually I woke up just before my alarm was set to go off.

I know, scintillating stuff, well, what can I say? Anyways, I'm making masala chai, fortified with Yogi Ginkgo IQ tea. Yes, that's how desperate things are!

That's it, the tea is made, and I'm going offline...yes, seriously, with something vaguely resembling hope or prayer.

Meandering

2006-02-24T17:31:00.000-05:00

A thousand roads, each forking a thousand times, winding and intersecting each other, create a labyrinth of longings. Journeys along these are destinations, for sure, but none seem to lead to the desolate land of destiny.

[creativity | muse | frustration]

They're done making out.

2006-02-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

Finally we move forward. The first scene sorta felt like porn, which is actually kinda appropriate. All 3 principal characters have entered the screen...BTW, it's a movie script that I've been trying to get to consume me.

So...a friend called while I was doing the writing at long last. He proceeded to explain the problem he had with JSF, and it made no sense to me, since I didn't know much about it. I read about it over a year and a half ago, when I went to JavaOne. Then, my host returned from work, so that's gonna be it for today.

Still, good to have budged.

[scriptwriting | creativity | writing | creative writing | muse]

Late Morning

2006-02-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

The NYT is to the words what caffeine is to the waking brain. But the words are fickle, and impatient. They will not stand still. If not released through the fingers quickly, they scatter all over the mind's wilderness. The hunt for them begins.

[words | creativity | writing | muse]

Morning

2006-02-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

Afraid of the madness, and bored with the sanity. That's the face of the morning. Completely out of touch with the inner feelings of the day, the first hour luxuriates in its rituals. Meds with chai, followed by a motile reading of the NYT; which awakens the words and queues them up, at the threshold of coherence...