Tag: poetry

White-Hot Greasefire of Entertainment

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment
Pippin-Anxiety
Josh Darnell as Pippin, with The Players

Pippin opens on Friday.

If you’ve been wondering why the blog has been so quiet — here’s your answer. I’ve been directing a production of this musical at our Friendly Neighborhood Theater, the Town & Gown Players.

Here’s the part — were I a normal human being — where I would gush about the show. Partly from genuine excitement and pride;  partly in a cynical, manipulative attempt to convince you to come see the show.

But as this blog provides ample evidence, I am not a normal human being. I have a complicated relationship with positivity. Most evident in creative projects where I am invested. I have a, shall we say, extreme reluctance to speak without restraint, to truly commit to the excitement. How about a list of your neuroses related to this, I hear you all shouting with animation and curiosity at your computer screens. Okay!

1. Pure superstition. If I say that the show is good, amazing, colossal, etc. etc. I’m calling down the attention of the gods. I live in Athens and hubris-smiting is most definitely on the menu. A musical is a super-complicated, involved creative endeavor with thousands of moving parts. Everything has to gel – the music, the movement, the acting, the vocals. Layered on top of that is the spiritual mumbo-jumbo of any community – you want every person’s chi to align just so. I do not need Hermes to start

This doesn't happen in the show. Only in my heart.
This doesn’t happen in the show. Only in my heart.

feeling capricious or mercurial[HAR HAR HAR] and throw  a wrench up in my show, just for giggle-shits.

2. Cynical Directing Style. I’m not quite sure where I picked this up — but I truly believe that if I tell an actor that what they are doing is good, they will immediately get worse.  As an actor myself, fear is the best motivator. If you believe that you are doing a good job, you will stop working to get better – you will relax, get comfortable. It’s a short trip to Craptown. Every rehearsal, every performance you should be striving to exceed your previous attempt.  Add to that the weird parental aspect of being a director — actor-children work much harder when they are unsure of Daddy’s approval. It’s cynical, but it works. Most of us performers have some sort of approval-need or bone-deep insecurity, as a director you might as well plug in to that and use it to get them to do sharper pirouettes. I’ve actually made a point to get better about this one, giving GRUDGING positive notes. Baby steps!

3. First Impressions. The beginning of a play is a holy moment. The moment when the lights go down — it’s pure, unbridled potential. Anything could happen — a whole new world is being born right in front of you. I treasure that moment, and I hate to pollute it. Especially with generic ‘Rah-Rah Show’s SO AWESOME’ posturing. So, if I started rambling on about how great the show is, or how much I like X scene, or Y song — then I’ve put things in your head. Expectations, judgement, etc. The less said the better. Come to the temple with your eyes unclouded.

So, what can I say about the show – through the net of my psychosis?

The set looks amazing. My designers really outdid themselves – I can comfortably say that it is unlike anything we’ve put on that stage in the past 10 years, easy.

The light design is also excellent. My bacon was Epic Level saved by the last minute addition of our Light Designer.

The choreography is excellent, thanks to my crack Choreography Squadron.

The band is crisp, and the musical director’s re-scoring of several key moments is inspired.

Pictured: The Cast of Pippin
Pictured: The Cast of Pippin

The cast? Solid. I know that sounds like faint praise — but I’ll double-down. This cast is Solid Snake.

I won’t say anything more, due to neuroses listed above. But when the curtain opens Friday night, that’s where you want to be.  I want you to see what the cast has accomplished, has earned through months of hard work.  I believe you are going to see something exceptional.

If you are anywhere within a 50 mile radius of Athens, GA – you should make a point of attending.

Click on the image up top to buy tickets. You can pick your seat and everything, through the magic of the internet.

 

Sora no Umi

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Before our world, there was Nothing.

seventypercentethanol:
dreams of the shore near another world (.)

And then Nothing thought.

It’s first sin.

It wanted to be more than it was. It wanted to know. It wanted to have.

Emptiness filled.

The water grew dark. Regret, fear, desire.  Seeds of our world.

All from Nothing. Thinking.

The Others were born, the Elder Gods. Then the Sun and Moon. Then their children, the brawling ones. Hantei and the rest. They shaped and formed our world, this Emerald Empire, this Rokugan.

The bones of our world, the secret in every drop of blood. The sin of Nothing. The filling of the empty, the darkening of the water.

Is this the secret to Shinsei’s path? To return to the serenity of the absolute, to be empty water once more?

Is it even possible? To live without regret. Or fear. Or desire?

A curious riddle.

This bears careful thought.

I hope my readers will forgive my small joke.

– Musings – Kitsune Miho

[With apologies to John Wick and Alderac Entertainment. I’m starting to do prep work for what could be my next long-running tabletop campaign. Returning to the hallowed system of yore, 1st Edition Legend of the Five Rings. I’m rereading a lot of the setting information for the first time in over a decade. Such a strange mashup of Eastern and Western mythology, neatly combining the Amaterasu myth with the Cronos/Zeus story.

And also forgive my crude use of Japanese. My only aide is Google Translate.]

Judge the Book by its Cover

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

I am beyond excited….and more than a little terrified. I actually have an artist working  on the cover art for Spell/Sword.

Cyberman – Mike Groves [poopbird]

I insist that you click on this super-rad Cyberman art and check out some other examples of his work. He’s got a lot of style-flexibility, but everything he does is interesting, distinctive and [as mentioned] on the north side of Rad. We had a great brainstorming session last week, and I should start seeing sketches in the next couple of weeks. I almost wrote ‘barnstorming’. I really want to have a barnstorming session in the immediate future.

Mike Groves – aka Poopbird – is a phenomenal artist, living in my hometown of Athens, GA. You should follow all of the links below and rub your grimy internet-hands all over his virtua-product. He is also an amazing tattoo artist, so if you need some ink (especially nerd-ink) he’s the man to call.

Poopbird.com

Tumblr.

Deviantart.

I can’t wait to see what he comes up with — even though the anxiety-engine in my head is already revving up.  Cover art means we’re getting closer and closer to the book being real, and launched into the world where everyone will hate it.

But at least the cover is going to be boss.

The Pitch

G. Derek Adams5 Comments

An act of salesmanship is never an act of truth.

That’s not to say that it is a falsehood, or a pure fabrication. Certainly there are many who call themselves salesmen that deal in outright deceit, but they’re just liars. Plain ordinary liars.

No, salesmanship is all about awareness. Complete knowledge of the product: it’s particulars, benefits, problems, logistics and idiosyncrasies  and your most reliable perception of the character of your customer. Everything you say, everything you withhold is an attempt to calmly weave the product into the customer’s needs and desires. You concentrate on what you know about the product, and carefully present only the parts that you intuit will be attractive to your mark. You are creating a narrative, a workaday tale — a story with purpose. To make the sale. To win.

This is antithetical to the creation of art. An act of art should always be an act of truth. Individual truth — the opening of the inner eye and allowing the energy of your private whirlwind to express into your medium:something. Anything. As long as it’s true. Or real. Or important.

I’m still a ways from publishing Spell/Sword — but I’m already thinking about how I am going to sell it. The plan remains to self-publish, then grassroots my ass up the zeitgeist to something more than a blip. Financially and culturally. So I need to be able to sell the book. To other artists, to family, to friends, to total strangers, to people who love fantasy, to people who hate it, to people who never read. But every time I approach the problem in my head, I feel this enormous lassitude. It feels wrong.

In my day job, I am a salesman. I’m extremely good at it. But the key seems to be my total lack of concern. Apathy towards the product, and disinterest in actually making the sale. It allows you to be dispassionate and objective — truly focused on reading the situation and the customer. But with the book, where I’m hopelessly invested in the product and emotionally overwraught in the sale – it’s much more difficult.

It doesn’t help that I’m specifically trying to find my own little niche in the genre. It feels cheap to say “Oh, it’s just like ‘X’ and nothing like ‘Y’, and if you like ‘Z’ then buy, buy, buy!” But when I try to pitch it on its own terms, it just sounds hollow and uninteresting.

There’s a guy, and he has a sword. And there’s a girl and she’s got magic. They don’t like each other, then some shit happens and then they do. Also: hi-jinks.

I could do a laundry list of the random things in the book.

Electric-Eel Powered Jukebox. Prescience. Dwarven ghosts. Lesbian bards. Sweaty wyverns. Hangovers. Friendship. Mailboxes. A devil-spawned assassin. Fairy tales. Horse euthanasia. Wizard duels. Mysterious backstories. Prophetic dreams. Cheese. Plot-holes. Garden plots. Sorcerer bondage. Magic swords. An ogre with red boots. A blue fish. A white bridge. A first kiss. A last breath. Hyper-intelligent frogs with steam-powered roller skates. Banter.

Okay, I wound up kind of liking that one.  But still, the problem remains. All that sounds fun, but I don’t know how convincing it is. Part of me wants to sell the book the same way that I wrote it. Honestly, with great love and with no artifice. Well, maybe a teensy bit of artifice.

This is important. This is true. This book is real. It matters. Or at the very least, I need it to matter.

So, yeah. Buy it or whatever.

Oh, my. This question is in bold. On WordPress, that’s like a Tumblr post dissing Doctor Who — it demands a response. What do you look for on the back of the book, or in a sales pitch for a book, when you’re considering reading something from an unknown author?

Oh Noetry Day

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment
Jonas Burgert. Deed Marked / Tat markiert, 2009.

The Ritual of Tears

Druid-born and wild-blood meet
In roots of stone beneath the feet
of Six-Branch tree and seal the pact
made in love at Eld World wrack.
Last of all, a true-hearted knight
Breaks sword of green, ends winter’s blight.
Now weep and wail, and keep the Word
Sorrow-song forgotten, but always heard.

 

[ Some flavor-text from my current Pathfinder campaign, Titan’s Wake. I’ll try to do some more substantive blogging soon — but, I’m editing, intrinsically lazy, and tearing my way through Homestuck…so….yeah…. and it’s National Poetry Day!]

 

 

 

One Last Glimpse Through the Dragon’s Eye III

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

“So you see, I would be a terrible captain.” Ballast concluded. “We’d all be drunk, dead and fucked — not necessarily in that order in a week. And we lost a good bit of the crew during the Symphony of Blood..we need someone level headed, cool under pressure, but someone that can scare the tar out of all the grunts on board.”

Mara picked up the strange wide brimmed hat, surmounted by long dangling rabbit ears. The gunslinger thumped one with her index finger. “Okay. But I’m not wearing this.”

“But, it’s traditional, Mara.” Ballast protested.

The red-haired woman pulled a hammer back on her revolver. “That’s Captain Flemay to you, squab.”

“Aye-aye, Captain!” the sinuous rogue snapped into a sarcastic salute. “You heard the captain!”

The crew of the Red Rabbit snapped to attention, including a scarred dark elf, wearing smoked goggles. A half-orc with bright green skin nudged her, and grumbled.

“I should’ve stayed in Pice, selling my hot dog sammiches. The new boss looks tough.”

“I don’t know.” a halfling with a wild tuft of hair crossed his arms confidently.. “She’s not too bad, and wait until she sees how I can control wind!”

He raised his hand, and a small gust of wind briefly tousled his hair.

“Pretty cool, right?” Mobius grinned proudly.

In a quiet corner of the world, a small tree sapling grows next to a lake. It’s leaves are a quiet green, but edged with black. The lake’s water is pure and clean, but the grass nearby has begun to twist and yellow.

The tree grows. The tree waits. The tree remembers.

The Keeper of the Grand Library in Carroway awoke, yawning. He felt a slight headache, and was surprised to look into the concerned eyes of his daughter.
“Father…you’re awake!” she said with relief.

“Well, of course I’m awake — that’s what people do in the morning.” he grumped.

“You don’t understand, Father — it’s been months. You contracted the extremely rare, but incredibly dangerous Plotzia Influenza Convenialus — the Convenient Coma Sickness! We weren’t sure how long you were going to be out, we feared for your life!”

“Listen, Alice. I have studied my entire life, and that sickness is pure superstitious poppycock. The idea that someone could be comatose for exactly as long as some larger narrative required — preposterous! As if disease gave a rip for plot. Now help me pack my things, I must make haste for the Library in Flenelle! The first Ritual must be completed!”

Alice sighed and gently pushed the old man down onto the edge of the bed. “Father…I think you need to hear a few things first.”

Through the Pages

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

There are some that say that Time is a river, flowing sedately in one direction…winding its way through the universe, steady and sedate.

There are some that say Time is a whirlwind, spinning and changing – a million directions at once. Every moment a new collision, hurling new dimensions of possibility into the ever-expanding storm.

There are some that say Time is a stone, graven and perfect — impossible to change or mar.

They may be right, or they may be wrong.

But for this now, this moment, this story — Time is a Book.

And the crew of the Lodestar fell through the pages.

They saw themselves in the throne room, the green skeleton with his fist full of golden fire. They saw the look between two friends, and then they pierce the page.

They see the room again, ten years earlier. A simple man in a brown cloak, laying his sword in the hands of the green skeleton. The page tears as they fall.

They see the boy fighting his way through dark streets full of rain and the unquiet dead.

They see the boy sneaking out of a broken down inn. They see a girl with white hair asleep in the hayloft.

They see the boy and the girl with white hair on top of a tall red tower.

The pages rip, faster and faster.

They see the boy and the girl in many places, in many days of glory and terror.

In the throne room again, the girl’s hair half-white, half-brown. The boy is in chains.

In the streets of a drab city, at a sumptuous banquet with plates piled high with lush, purple grapes.

On the edge of the sea, the girl sitting over a dead knight and the boy lumbering out of the ocean dripping and battered.

The pages of Time tear, and the crew of the Lodestar fall.

The boy on one knee with his sword flat in both hands, the girl on her face in a dank swamp, a turtle, a white bridge, an inn, a giant brass screw, a canyon of rain, a forest and night, the three moons shine and the boy and the girl meet in the dusty, dry soil of a forgotten town.

The book slams shut, and they see only darkness.

Putt-Putt Potential

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Two lines, drawn by mortal hand

drawn on a globe must perforce

intersect. No careful ink or

edge of steel can avoid this

casual truth, the imperfect

always converges.

 

So it was, and so it will be on

the street of elms, the street of

circumstance. Two forces,

winds of a bifurcate purpose

did meet in a way most spectacular

and strange.

 

A frog, a simple amphibian, making

its way from pond to leaf, unaware

and gullet full of river-minnow.

And a car, a humming mountain

of steel and motion.

 

In a pond, most plain

on the edge of a green field, filled o’er

with garish faces and spinning wheels,

and the quiet clink of metal against

white balls, slapping their way

down their predestined course.

 

The car jumped the curve, as the

frog jumped the leaf.

A collision most strange, even

though unremarked by most.

 

For the frog did not die, yet was spun

into the heavens by a black wheel

and came to rest on the gleaming

crimson hood of the car

goggle-eye staring into blank stare

of its pilot.

 

The frog and the man did not exchange

names, or titles or the

memories of the quiet little lives.

 

They both hopped away,  thankful

for their lives

and hopeful that their lines

would never again

intersect.

 

[Story on Demand for Jackie Jones. This is a weird one.]

Star Prophet II

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Cold walk, warm house. My uncle’s third knuckle on the right, potato-sack lumpy and his red voice and the fall of the Roman Empire. The stars were out, but I was in.

Humans do these things. They do these things to each other every day.

My face was bent. I rolled next to the couch and waited, while meteors impacted on the surface of Mars.

The press of headphones, the music and the moon  – I lay with the sheet over my head and lost myself. The rhymes, the words – the quick symmetry of the drum and the strange keen of the electronic flute.

I think about Star Prophet’s planets — about the songs he hears. The whirling slide of space and time, the spaces, empty – now full. Jupiter turns his face, and Saturn hula-hoops across the dance floor. The blood on my pillow is red. The rains of Mercury and Venus, the broken canyons hidden beneath the cotton-wool cloud.

[I’m really not happy with this section. I’m used to bla-bla-blahing my way, spitting out a few hundred words like it was nothing. This sucker’s fighting me. I’m going to keep working on SP in dribs and drabs, then do a massive revision when it’s all done. This is what I get for actually thinking about a story.]

Haiku on Demand?

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

The beard of pain falls.

A meteor ends the foul

bug-eyed shinobi.

 

 

The famous  red can

is my soul’s mate and lusty

metal sin. Chomp chomp!

 

 

 

 

 

[Kind of a cop-out, I know — but they’re haiku!  You have to like them, or you are disrespecting thousands of years of Japanese culture. With regrets for H.N. and Jeremy.]