All Hallows Eve of NaNoWriMo

Halloween or "Samhain" in Celtic lore, according to Mike Nichols, is a night that exists outside of time and , hence, it may be used to view any point in time. At no other holiday is a tarot card reading, crystal reading, or tea leaf reading so likely to succeed. What about the novels all of us are about to create?

Is it coincidence, then, that NaNoWriMo Eve is also the same night as All Hallows Eve?

Meditation leads me to believe not.

Bobbing for apples may well represent the remnants of a Pagan "baptism" night call seining. The water-filled tub is a latter day Cauldron of Regeneration into which the novice's head is immersed. The fact that the participant in the folk game was usually blindfolded with hands tied behind his back also puts one in mind of a traditional Craft initiation ceremony. Also according to Mike Nichol's research.

What better initiation into the craft of novel writing then having it occur on All Hallows Eve? And don't we go into it with our eyes blindfolded? Without prior preparation? Not knowing in what direction we may be headed? We fiction writers are symbolically baptized into our own Cauldron of Regeneration, and creation, during a night that exists outside of time, when our inspiration is about to be brought into time during the month of November with a higher likelihood of succeeding.

Ponder also the oft debated: whether a man can write from a woman's point of view and vice versa. In Scotland, at least, the tradition of dressing in costume on All Hallows Eve consisted almost exclusively of cross-dressing (i.e. men dressing as women, and women as men). It seems as though ancient societies provided an opportunity for people to "try on" the role of the opposite gender for one night of the year.

So my NaNoWriMo friends, feel free to write from whatever point of view you wish! We are beginning during an auspicious time indeed. And the above are only a few of the links NaNoWriMo Eve has with All Hallows Eve.

Feel free to research further, and you will see that we are all truly blessed to begin our work on All Saints Day.

Pope John Paul II said in his letter to artists: Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul...artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption.

Thank you PJP-II for believing in La Perduta Gente!

They're back.

Maybe it's the RaspbeRRy SeltZer that fizzes my brain. I don't know. Several days ago I thought I put the bearded ladies idea to rest for a while. I did come up with two very lovely pictures, didn't I? The text wasn't so bad either. Yeah, it was time to move on to other subjects, whims, and obsessions. What better way to forget the ladies con le barbe then to read some short stories. I picked up an anthology by Ryan Boudinot, which I'd bought several months ago, but hadn't had time to consider.
The third story is entitled Bee Beard. I was hoping it was about a man. But the first paragraph confirmed my fears:
Bette wore the bee beard to work on a Tuesday...At first I mistook the low buzzing for ambient noise from my computer monitor or a fluorescent light fixture...Bette wore what I had come to secretly call her Star Trek uniform, a hideous white suit jacket with too-pointy collars. From her face hung a beard of bees..."You like?" she said, standing, pivoting in a circle.
"Aren't they going to miss the hive?" I said.
"Yeah, they'll want to eat, so I brought plenty of honey," Bette said.
Now this story continues: Bette and Scott go to an up-scale restaurant, and while, eating, one of the bees from Bette's beard flies across the table, bites Scott, who goes into anaphylactic shock and has to be rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.
That prevents Scott from sleeping with Bette who's about to become his boss. The next morning his co-worker Dan arrives at work saying: "I'm a little out of it this morning. Late night, if you know what I mean," Dan says, his face dripping with bees.

Does anyone need further proof of the power of the bearded lady? With hair or bees. Oy. What a world, what a world.

The Kirk (Us) Reviews

I believe blogs are part of The Aquarian Age. Ego plays no part. Or shouldn't. So, when I come upon another blog site with relevant information, I will be the first to recommend it. It is necessary for all of you currently visiting my site to immediately blog out to Another Hundred Crimes blog site and read the reviews of Kirk Davis from Amazon.com. Then, after reading them, you also have to write to Kirk urging him to quit his current job and permanently compose reviews, so that all of us will feel a little less lost in this confusing consumer-oriented society. If you believe, as I do, that it is everyone's mission to transform the lost people (including ourselves), then you will heed my advice to go straight to the Amazon.com reviews and spare yourself a few thousand years in Hell. Laughter is antidote to anything diabolical. Thank you Kirk(us) for your reviews, and for allowing us to work off serious karma.

One of a thousand admirers

Bearded Ladies

Before I get to the topic at hand, the topic at chin, I want to take a sip of Ritz brand RaspBeRRy SeltZer. For those of you not so fortunate to be living in this small segment of the west coast of Florida, you may have to start with a more well-known seltzer

such as Poland Springs in New England or Perrier in France. The seltzer is a preface to submersion into this whirlpool of consideration: Bearded Ladies. A topic not often explored. A topic heretofore of circus sideshows and the like. Here we are delving into the very soul of the bearded lady. The psyche, if you will. The hirsute history of the most bending of genders. This is both a tantalizing preview and a warning. The topic is not for the weak hearted or feeble minded. It is a bracing endeavor. It is looking at something intriguing without flinching, without allowing the mind-as-censor to overtake your interest and further investigation. Think of me as your ring master, your intellectual ring master: one who calls your attention to the center ring where the bearded ladies are spotlighted. Not as freaks. Not as sideshow. But as the Main Attraction. As Boris Karloff used to say on one of those old T.V. shows: "As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, THIS is a Thriller!"

For those of you who are still reading, still hungry for the information promised: I refer you to the upcoming production of the musical LaBarba. Never in musical theater has a subject been explored with such depth. The music has been called brilliant, but it is the book of the musical that is also without equal in the annals of modern, or for that matter, ancient theater.

In two or three acts the musical examines the life of one woman who desires the beard, obsesses over the beard, dons the beard, and faces the consequences, both expected and unintended.

We witness the transformation both literally and internally (and cosmically, I might add) of what it means for the female to deliberately defy natural law (and one might also argue God), cut and paste the beard (not only on her computer screen, but on her flesh) and then ultimately find the magic potion that enables her to actually grow the beard that takes her to the existential and intrinsic elements of the human condition.

We witness it all: the longing (wonderful arias), the defiance of social mores (exquisite soliloquies), the beard worn in private (facing the shame and overcoming it), and finally the exit from the closet into the sunlight, the world (unforgettable arias, duets, production numbers, and tragic recitativo.)

And we know that, as before, for now and ever there will be bearded ladies in our midst. Never again will you view your mother, your wife, your sister, your aunt, any woman again without wondering: does she don? You will sing the appropriate section of the opera and fully know what the beard means to some women. And life will never be the same. (Act Two: La Vita transforma from La Barba.)