Tad Williams

9/29/09

Belting this out between the demands of the day. Tad is entirely chained to his desk. He reminds me of Madonna in the ‘Express Yourself’ video – chained to her desire, as she once put it. Tad’s chained to his joy and he’s chained to his sins. I’m feeling rather Blakean today.

The house is quiet. Right now, sleeping, Tad is a great big heap of pillows and dogs, with just one arm visible, holding the lot in place. Somehow that makes me think, Tad is in his pit…

We are working like furies. There isn’t much space for anything else, since any energy left by mid-afternoon is taken up with kids coming home from school, and the ongoing Sophoclean drama of A Boy and His Homework.

I found a bookmark beneath the layers on my corkboard, and this is what it says ---

The Criteria of Emotional Maturity

* The ability to deal constructively with reality
* The capacity to adapt to change
* A relative freedom from symptoms that are produced by tensions and anxieties
* The capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than receiving
* The capacity to sublimate, to direct one’s instinctive hostile energy into creative and constructive outlets
* The capacity to love

William C Menninger, MD

Very cool. In a fairy tale I would wield my Galadriel-like powers and round up all the Haters we have now in the US. Then I would magically imprint their minds with “Sublimate,” as above.

One of our ‘Tragically Domestic’ snippets has me reading the below. It’s totally first draft and nothing more than an interesting bunch of connections to me. But since it’s about Haters, I thought I’d throw it in here.

Good Morning Haters

Good morning moon, good morning room.
Good morning coffee.

Good morning lamps, good morning cramps.
Good morning my old book of collectible stamps.

Good morning dead rat,
Good morning happy cat,
Good morning bloody papers on my desk sat.

Good morning stars
Good morning air
Good morning true believers* everywhere.

Good morning Haters.
Here’s some moon craters.
That’s where you belong,
Sooner, not laters.

* OK, I made a revision to what’s on the film – being partisan doesn’t cut it when it comes to meaning.

Mile by mile
It’s a trial,
But ---
Inch by inch,
It’s a cinch!

So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

Inch by inch
It’s hell
Mile by mile
Still hell

[ Written during the homework hell hour of the day ]

9/11/09
[ namaste the lost ones this day ]

[ In the past week I laughed at this ]
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx.

[ & have been working with Steve our film guy on opening & music for our upcoming web thing, Tragically Domestic ]
On Sep 8, 2009, at 2:51 PM, srmarra wrote:
File the following under “Humor the film guy”. Give a listen to the Animals Doing “pls don’t let me be mis understood”

--- On Wed, 9/9/09, Deborah Beale wrote:
Actually, that’s very Tad...

On Sep 9, 2009, at 2:01 PM, srmarra wrote:
perhaps it is National Anth. for all us male types...sm

[ & beat myself up over this glorious house ]

[ & pushed on with editing Adrian Brooks’ memoirs ]
what I am planning to do next is a mega-sesh where I write up a summary for you. It’s an editorial report plus a commentary on the material. You should be able to start work from that. I plan to do it early next week some time.

[ & have tried to be a mom big-time, what with back-to-school issues of all kinds and my little Girlfriend breaking her arm ]

[ & have been writing a lot without moving forward this week – but it’s also an interesting turn in my brain, occasioned by stronger & invisible writing skills ]

[ & life is full of anticipation, because relatives from England arrive in 2 days, hooray ]

[ & here’s a dopey picture of the dogs, from Tad’s Facebook page – they converged on him whilst he was writing, demanding food…. ]