Little Things and Connections

You feel like there's a very tiny spider, very gently, exploratorily, thrumming just five hairs on the back edge of your hand there on the mouse. You check. No spider. But for just an instant, before your eye is completely on the suspected area of space, you see it there, in all it's miniature shining predatory splendor.

In some interpretations of string theory physics there comes the hypothesis that yes, there are infinitely possible dimensions or universes out there, including one in which the spider is now really there. Seriously.

And now that it's out there, and surely others have had that feeling, if one of us wrote "like that tiniest of spiders you think you feel touching five hairs on the edge of your hand there on the mouse..." some readers would get it. Immediately. Others might have to imagine it for the first time and would then have a similar feeling as the memory and connection kicks in. Some never will. Can't speak to everybody.

Don't know that one? Okay, I got more. I can do this all day.

Probably.

The humming bird feeder.

Yes, probably that hummingbird feeder, the one hanging in your back yard. @karlaArcher posted some photos of a multi-camera setup they made to shoot their hummingbird feeder. Besides the fact that I heavily and shamelessly covet those cameras and that mounting system, right there in the middle of the photo, in front of "God and Everybody," was my bird-feeder. 

I've known Karla and @RandyArcher online for a couple of years now. We already had a pretty solid connection when I saw that posting.

Still, seeing that bird feeder brought a certain little "ping" moment of recognition of a real thing, common to me and them three thousand miles and whatever differences apart. It made it noticeably more familiar feeling, and I was eager for whatever came next.

Yes, in the end it will be the big connections that will make or break the story, but the little connections will help make ready the mind to tumble to the big connections, the big points perhaps, of what the story means.

There are a couple of things about this to note.

Quality of the connecting thing, observation, or insight---it matters.  

Connection: "He had that disconcerting  feeling you might get when you're picking your nose and realize you have a sharp nail."

Observation: "My God, you're a  Mess! Not only are you picking your nose but you've obviously got a bad manicure as well."

Insight: If you make a connection with that kind of observation, it's probably not going to get the reaction you were going for. Whatever that was. I mean, really...

Brevity.  Keep it short as so very many have said before. If it gets too involved, as many of mine tend to, left un-wrangled, then you will lose many people before you get the connection. That would be counter-productive, kinda like over-promoting your work to the spammy over-saturation level. The awkward moment when you realize that the other people in the room are listening to you talk about your new object of desire and looking at you like you're a stalker - which you're not, but people look at you that way with seemingly little or no provocation, just because you look, well, kinda Crazy sometimes. You know, that feeling? Oh. Yeah, me neither.

Don't push it. It's probably better if we don't announce to everyone what we're doing by shouting "Hey! You know that feeling? I wanna remind you of it so you'll feel just a little more connected to the character or situation, ok?"  Just better showmanship not to, innit? That also means I have to be careful about how often I throw those little connectors into the story. Sometimes, some of the best ones just seem to be integral to the scene, like they appeared fully formed within it. Those are the ones to keep.

Extra points - If you can make a unique and original observation or insight that is absolutely recognizable to many. Oh, and it's one that many have never consciously put to words, never defined in their own minds before and... ooh-ooh! And it's a ready-made analog to one of your themes or plot questions! Not as easy as it sounds.

Just some of what I've been thinking about small connecters in writing. 

Any favorite authors who you might've caught doing that? Any tricks you use to remember those kinds of moments or observations for later?

From Martin Scorcese's The Last Waltz - Joni Mitchell w/ The Band - "Coyote" 

In this song Joni makes it so you recognize the little observation vignettes she describes even if you've never had that

Some Things Endure - #FridayFlash story...

He had made it onto the Max train to go home again, carefully bringing his prize as he got on. He even got to have a seat, given up to him by a nice young woman on her way home from the Montessori school down by the river. They had talked on the train once before and she smiled now as she beckoned him to sit, even though she herself bore a large, heavy framed picture in her arms. He smiled back and thanked her in french, noting a few stares from the other passengers. 

Some were irritated at the extra space a large stained glass lamp and shade would take on the packed train. Others were amused that his combined load seemed half as large as he himself. Few grown adults existed now with a stature of only four-foot three since mandatory prenatal screening for "unfortunate abnormalities" started those many years ago. And then there was his age. Even with all the med-tech advances he would be considered very old, and not having had the common cosmetic treatments, he looked every bit of his age.

He couldn't blame them of course, people watching was an habitual pastime of his too, not being otherwise engaged by some sort of net gear as were most of them. He knew he was very fortunate, able to still be doing his work making and selling calligraphy and paintings down in his booth at Saturday Market. He was fortunate also to be allowed to maintain his own apartment while so many old people were warehoused, kept sedated and plugged into the net, out of sight and out of everyone else's minds. "Revered Artisan" status got him the apartment, basic necessities, and occasionally a free americano at Irah's Coffee Lounge, where the folk singers still played on Friday nights.

Mid winter in Portland might often seem bleak, damp, and relentlessly gray, but at least it was not so deadly freezing cold as it had been back in his home land. He wasn't even sure what they called that place now, so many changes of borders and titles had come and gone in the last handful of decades. This evening there was as usual a steady drizzle and the temperature was about thirty-four degrees. He could live with that. He could live, he had learned, with most things.

He watched as the train stops came and went. First was the old Goose Hollow platform, just down from the Suicide Bridge. He had almost been hit by a falling politician there once many years ago during the Corporate Rule turmoils. He cringed and sighed inwardly, recalling the unfortunate mess and the bad dreams he had for years, as though it had somehow been his fault, old as he was even then.

A couple of miles west was the Washington Park - Oregon Zoo station. He liked the educational pictographs of animals, some strange and mythical, some still to be found at the zoo. There was rarely anyone getting on or off there this time of evening.
Rolling out of there as the drizzle turned to snowflakes the size of  quarters it was all he could do not to smirk, thinking of his prize and sitting there comfortably instead of being forced to stand and sway, hoping for a spot at a grab rail. 

He wanted to dance with glee but there was definitely no room to be doing a Gene Kelley on the Blue Line. He thought that might have been a fitting reaction to the coup he counted in the deal he had made at the lamp store.  Two thousand new dollars for a vintage Tiffany Dragonfly Limited was very nearly criminal he knew.  But still, one didn't make those kind of dancing, cavorting displays on a mid winter's evening commuter train, not even in Portland. Especially one didn't if one had managed to attain the ripe old age of one hundred and twenty-nine.

Another nice young woman pushed the open doors button a couple of extra times for him as he unloaded himself and his cargo, though there were grumblings from within the train.  He retrieved his hemp net from a pocket of his oiled Gabriel Hounds parka and carefully placed the heavy lamp within it, hung it over his back and began his walk across the  parking lot to the apartment he had shared with Ava for ninety-five years. Of course the last thirty she had been a ghost.

He knew she would love the lamp, so like the one she had used to light her famous scrapbooks all those years ago.
Ava greeted him as always just inside his door, tilting her head that way she did, smiling silently. He took the lamp in and gently set it up on the stand between their two chairs, fitted the dragonfly shade, plugged it in, and turned it on.  He looked at Ava, did a quick little hop-step, bowed, and gestured at the lamp like a game show spokes-model. She giggled and clapped her hands soundlessly like a little girl.

As he sat down he pulled the old leather portfolio from beside his chair and opened it up, not to his own work, but to a half-dozen signed Disney animation cells, collected over a lifetime, and drew them out. Mickey, Donald, Minnie, Pluto. Goofy was, well, just too goofy.

"Remember when we got this one, Honey? It was while we were at the symposium in '99. That was a fine trip". In her chair on the other side of the lamp she smiled at him, transparent in the light,  and nodded, her scrapbook turned to that very page in her lap. It was good to be home.

Suzanne Vega - BOUND

Happy Birthday @SuzyV

Suzanne Vega's Birthday is today I hear.

 I have been a fan of her music for a long time. She has a great New York-Paris-folk music-with-a-jazz-twist kind of sound I find irresistible. 

And of course since it's her birthday I find it only fitting, if a bit cliche', that I link this video of hers: Birthday


And since I think we should get a  present on her birthday lets add this: Caramel


OK, just one more...with a twist - this is Blood Makes Noise , set to images by Red Riding, of Deviant Art: http://red-riding.deviantart.com/

Happy Birthday, Miss Vega!

Max train, mid winter, six pm

 
Tiny and bent old man, riding the Max train home

Yankees ball cap, frayed at the brim

Dark honey-toned skin,

deeply lined

A new lamp, sans shade, in his lap

 #Gogyohka #5Lines

Monday - Haiku, Do you?

In the House of  Doors

we wait, the train passes by

Old shadows, what was is

#Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga

80 years of Kit Cat clocks

Remember the Kit Cat clock?

Those searching eyes

The hypnotic tail that never stops

Spawned by the Allied Clock Company,

in Portland, Oregon, Nineteen Thirty Two 

I  don't remember where or when I first saw these, but I do remember there being one in a barbershop where I got my hair cut as a small boy. 

If we're playing "Kitch, Krap, or Klassic"  I'd come down as Klassic Kitch. 

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the timepieces. 

Still Manufactured in America on the western end of Route 66, by the California Clock Company, they remain as much a reminder of a cheery outlook as always.

You can still order one in a number of fetching colors, as well as parts, shirts, greeting cards, beach towels, etc. or read more about the history and culture of Kit Cat Clocks at the official company web site here.

Divinest Sense

So, I was reading some Emily Dickinson today - Hey, stop laughing, I can read Emily if I wanna...

Anyhow, I came across the following, which I like immensely. For one thing it resonates for me just as it stands, and for another I find it somewhat comforting to know that Emily entertained such thoughts. 

The book I was reading from has it listed as "XL" in the series on life. I have no idea what, if any, other titles it has:

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
in this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, - and you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain. - Emily Dickinson