cue the endless edits & amendments & revisions

This phase of things shouldn't be too bad.  Usually, after completely scripting a book (Painless, Denizen, Azure Pantry), I'll go into reread & edit line by line; testing the rhythms of dialogue, the pace of exchange, and fix all the Real Obvious Fuckups.  Chop.  Fill in.  Until the thing has defined itself satisfactorily, when I really Hear the words spoken, without reading them aloud.  The persistent problem with this stage, I've found, is the abundance of really obvious mistakes spellcheck doesn't get-- where there's an automatic linefill, some kind of substitution situation where you didn't mangle the word, you just mistyped so the processor can't hang any red lace on it...  A completely nonsensical sentence will sit there for weeks of revision with a Bad Error which I can't see because my brain's glazed over with all the other work that must be attended to.  It's embarrassing and a real argument for having an independent editorial voice, a reader who isn't the author, but at this phase in my professional personality as an Artist I'm no longer interested in sharing unfinished work with others, and I certainly don't want to hear "I'm going to read it, I swear" used as an excuse by ANYone, let along a friend, so why put people through it?  I'm not using fucking AI to read my scripts, so it's down to me and my OCD to find all the goofs and fine-tune the troofs I wrote while wearing my SmArt Faggot hat.  I don't think this one's gonna be too much of a problem because if I fuck up continuity between chapters it's only going to enhance the final effect THE KILL HOUSE is going for.  Art house is where it's at, and aggressive unconcern with a reader's comfort only becomes more attractive to me as I grow ever further estranged from John & Karen Q. Public.  I like Refn movies with no dialogue, and 800-plus page books about imaginary cities written with the structural conceit of a geometrical puzzle, whose primary Plot is fucking and who does who where.  So this book shouldn't be any surprise to anyone familiar with my psyche.  It's more cluttered & up its own ass with theory than this blog.

"Down In Front!" - February 2o25

Twin Peaks: s1 e5-7 (1990) - directed by Tim Hunter, Lesli Linki Glatter, Caleb Descanel, & Mark Frost  [ you know what i think already.  i mean, i'm rewatching this stuff.  it's inexcusable, at my age, really.  but it's a fascinating bit of americana with a little 'a'.  i look at this and i think, yeah.  i know how we got here.  we trusted the fbi to take care of us.  and i think that's where lynch & frost were coming from, too.  to say so, on television, and to con an unsophisticated vast audience, purely by chance, during a writer's strike (i mean, isn't that why this hit the way it did?  because television SUCKED?) to con all those millions of viewers, for a little while, into being invested in solving a crime no-one really wanted solved--  least of all, lynch  --well.  like i said:  i think i know how we got here.  don't you? ]

Twin Peaks:  The Missing Pieces (1992) - dir. by David Lynch [ "Don't take the ring, Laura.  Don't. take. the. ring." ]

Twin Peaks: s2 e1 (1990) - dir. by David Lynch [ along with ronette, this cycle, i'm really watching andy.  circle brand indeed!  and madeline ferguson.  and bobby's relationship with his dad (& the white lodge: a dream, as distinct from a vision).  and audrey's unintentional playacting as laura palmer.  as well as donna's.  "I've told you: don't wear my STUFF!"  there's some real moving & shaking going on with the side cast, all touched by The Weirdness in subtle ways.  and while we're on the subject of moving & shaking, can i just say the dinner theatre at the hayward household gets more profoundly unbearable every time i watch it.  sarah palmer is crawling out of her skin in that scene in a way that prefigures her inevitable eruption as judy in s3.  best feature of the ep, of course, is gersten hayward wilding on piano in the credits.  finest closing jam you're liable to hear outside s3's roadhouse, buddy ]

Twin Peaks: s2 e2 (1990) - dir. by David Lynch [ with the introduction of the tremond/chalfonts, coop's trangic past, and the introduction of elder briggs to margaret lanterman, all the major pieces are in place.  "Just you / And I / Together / Forever."  i've always been a vibes guy on lynch.  i'm not into it for the plot logic of these things, or even the dream logic: but that stuff's totally there, if you do what the creator is asking of you, and dig for yourself.  and what twin peaks was doing from the very beginning was ripples.  little crests & troughs, ominous pitches of signal & noise, doppling  ]

Twin Peaks: s2 e3 (1990) - dir. by Lesli Linki Glatter [ peaks giveth, & taketh away.  lesli does her best to emulate lynch.  engels does his best to imitate frost.  we're gonna lose both for a while, after the harold arc ends.  so savoring the flavor while i can... ]

Twin Peaks: s2 e4 (1990) - dir. by Todd Holland [ royal dano!  ROYAL DANO!!!  you cannot convince me lynch didn't love 'messiah of evil', man... ]