Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.--H.P. Lovecraft, Polaris
I've written some dynamite paragraphs in my notes lately, but that Lovecraftian prose above makes the best I've done look like crap. Curse you, Lovecraft, for being so much better than me. *shakes fist*
Of course, all this Lovecraft is making me want to re-read The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams (imagine an amalgam of Lovecraft and C.S. Lewis.) It's a story of how an unimaginative man came to possess the very first (and thus most powerful) tarot deck, how his daughter's suitor desires it and eventually seeks to use it for his own ends, and the chaos the deck's power wreaks in their lives. The entire story is the Dance. It enthralls.
I studied Tarot extensively after I started reading that book, as I didn't totally understand everything. The history of it is rather interesting, especially when you compare the undocumented pseudo-history spouted by practitioners versus the documented history of the Tarot as a game, evangelical tool, and later, a tool for cartomancy. All the subject interest me, of course, but primarily the game itself.
Oh, right, Williams. Hmm, what of Many Dimensions or All Hallow's Eve, or perhaps War in Heaven? Ahh yes, detective Michael Calquhoun and the Graal. And the ointment. Who could forget the ointment?
There are many other books I should finish, first. But I do love me some Charles Williams. "Otherness and terror," and all that jazz. A writer of supernatural fiction, a former member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, mystic, and later a Christian; an acquaintance of Virginia Woolf and friend of T.S. Eliot's. It's a shame Tolkien and Lewis overshadow him. His prose is rather difficult to approach for most, however, hence his lesser status. C'est la vie.
As for Lovecraft, I can't find my books. I must have lent them out to someone. God knows who. So I suppose I'll have to buy news ones. I usually never again see books I lend out, which I don't mind all that much. I don't care about the books themselves or the money they cost, just the ideas inside. Generally I retain those well. It's only a minor annoyance when I want to read something and I realize I no longer have it. But that's why God gave us Amazon Prime Membership and free 2 day shipping.
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I put together a Sauder DVD shelf yesterday. I didn't realize I owned that many DVDs. The other shelf I have is squat, but wider, but there were DVDs stacked on top of it in a haphazard way. This one fits all of them without unnecessary stacking, but I don't have room for any more! Ahh well, I'll keep the other shelf as a backup, but I'll get a second shelf like this one soon, for symmetry. I'm weird like that.
I need bookshelves. Unfortunately, I don't really want them right now. I wasn't happy about the DVD thing. It sucks living in an upstairs apartment sometimes. My philosophy moving into the place was to own very little I would need help getting out. That's gone by the wayside as time dragged on, but I still cling to the concept whenever possible. If I can't carry it myself, I probably don't need it here. Not that I'd have any trouble finding people to help me move in future, but it's a matter of convenience and efficiency. If I had a house, that'd be different. Yes, I'm weird.
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