life rx 18 mar 24
a mummer’s dance
the five of wands, and a passage from Scott McClanahan’s Stories II: “So I didn't call. I turned off the computer and I didn't call because I'd caught the fever alright. I took down a sheet of paper and I started writing down what happened. And now at the end of writing this—I find that it's not an account I've been writing, but a note of some kind. This fever can be passed through a story too.”
the aleatory
Isn’t every party basically like this? Standing around in the woods with sticks over the body of the one designated the ceremonial fool? A kind of mummer’s dance? Every fashion evolved from the mask. You can’t take the Druid out of the dude—just look at all the hoodies. There are people who think that magic has fled, but the nasty truth is that it never goes anywhere. Even when you might like for it to leave you alone. Coca-Cola: the sigil.
the assignment
Please, let magic be real. (PS, magic is not always nice.)
writing prompt
Keep your eyes peeled for something that looks like an unmistakable omen. (Like: two identical cats in a window, a Mylar balloon tied to a bench.) Leave an omen for someone else to find. (All writing is essentially just the generation of omen.)
a chune
“Ptah, the El Daoud” by Alice Coltrane
One quintessential mood of my existence: getting into a rental car in the airport and immediately blasting a track one of an Alice Coltrane album.
credits:
tarot deck by Barbara Walker
Stories II by Scott McClanahan
Ptah, the El Daoud by Alice Coltrane
Dear diary, it is a classic run of events for me to 1) discover a new thing I like or like doing 2) get so excited that I do it every day 3) burn out on doing it every day 4) never do it again. It’s a version of scarcity, to imagine that the value of something I do comes from doing a lot of it. Or a side-effect of having process discipline. Having the will to execute and iterate is a crucial aspect of writing, but iteration is also a feedback mechanism. Or so I’m learning. Anyway! Nice to see you again. XS