Scan Arcana No 3

I've been so totally absorbed with finishing up the latest serial over at Vault of Story that things have been a little thin content-wise here at the Center for a Better Yesterday AKA zeitheist. Let's address that little situation with some more pages from the Offline Archive AKA my diary.

There was a time when I daily devoured the New York Times, and every once in awhile a headline would stand out incongruously from the others. Does a tiger lurk in fearful symmetry? is the kind of rhetoric that summons poetic imagery and well-balanced felines, not what you usually expect from mainstream media. My response to these encounters is to bust out the scissors and arrange the phrase in seemingly haphazard fashion across the pages of my journal, using it as a centerpiece against which related images can be juxtaposed. That's about as close to method as I get.

Something for years now has obsessed me about the image of Morpheus (of Matrix fame) with katana in hand after he has eviscerated a SUV. Wish-Fulfillment 101! The scene is from Matrix Reloaded, a regrettable sequel that has moments of glory like the standoff between Mr Leather Trenchcoat and a hurtling sports utility vehicle (remember those?). In true torero style, Morpheus steps aside at the last second and rakes his sword across the side of the truck, leaving a deep gash that flips the vehicle on its side. The action plays out so gracefully, it's balletic.

Okay, now I'm proud of myself for using the word "balletic" in a sentence.

Cassettes show up all over the place, like paperclips on a Word doc, and if I had a thousand blog posts they wouldn't begin to cover my lifelong love of mixtapes.

This speaks for itself. Life will always trump fiction.