Eye of limpid blue

Belly: Chapter One

Today, I begin my second serialized short story. It's an extensive re-write of a piece I first attempted many years ago. The story and character at the core of it have sat dormant but never left me, waiting for the proper moment to re-emerge. I believe that moment has come. All feedback is appreciated and will be amply rewarded with my undying gratitude.

Prologue: A Circular Journey Repeated
by Francis Scudellari

Jonah Tannin's too heavy head jumps skyward as if tugged by a puppeteer's ungraceful twitch. The force of the commuter train's unexpected stop punches his jaw backward; it pulls his mind from the murky depths of a dreamless sleep.

Eyes of limpid blue, framed by new-pried, black-lashed lids, strain against the sudden flood of pallid, yellow light. Ears, rudely reconnected, receive the crashing waves sent out as the mechanical beast slowly regains its stride: screech, rattle, and rumble. Nostrils, at first flared to gulp the fueling air, now spit back the pungent smell of perspiration mixed with wet wool.

"What time is it?"

Jonah's left arm, too long wedged against the wall, refuses the command to lift up. The right hand, eager to revive its mate, quickly heeds the master's call and leaps the lapped divide to massage the deadened flesh. Blood gradually returns and brings with it the prick of tiny needles. Jonah clenches the waking fingers into a tight fist and then stretches them outward. He repeats this exercise -- grasp, release, and grasp again at nothing -- until the dull ache subsides and the stubborn arm rises to its proper position.

His mind starts to catch up with his senses. Words, an idea, and old feelings follow in lockstep with the sighted abstraction of two silver strips spread like open scissors against the plain white disk.

"Seven o'clock again, but that can't be."

Time's usually steady gait had limped to a halt and then reversed path back to the moment icy winds ushered Jonah onto this circular route. Jonah taps the glass crystal, but it offers no sign of life.

He peers out the frosted train window, but his vision can't pierce the confounding darkness that blankets the world outside. The uniform, black cover conceals from him the objects whose outlines reveal clues to his place in this ever-repeated journey.

"It doesn't matter."

A willing captive, Jonah nestles back into his accustomed spot in the belly of the speeding beast. Suspended inanimate within its vibrating walls, he lets the wash of artificial light and heat coax him back to unconsciousness. The troubling city sprawled out below him fades further into the early winter morning. His once sharp calling recedes to the indistinct mumble of words spoken far away in a forgotten tongue.

Overcome again by sleep, Jonah's shoulders slump down and his head nods forward. His controlling strings are severed anew.

Eight questions: An unauthorized autobiography

I was tagged with a meme by Jane Doe at Insanity Personified. It's a pretty simple exercise: answer eight questions. So, here it goes ...


1) What was the best moment of your life?

I have a shocking confession to make. I am in fact a Tralfamadorian, and I don't really get the human conception of time that divides existence into past, present and future. To answer the question more directly, all I can say is that the best moment in my life will occur in approximately 1,661 days as measured from your today. I don't want to spoil the "future" for the rest of you, so I'll just leave it at that.

2) If you could pick a superpower what would it be?

I've actually been working pretty hard the past few years to cultivate one very specific power. I can best describe it as inter-dimensional travel, or a type of omnipresence. I'm not sure, however, if that's something one of the popular superheroes can do. It might be more the purview of minor deities, fictive computer operating systems, and Las Vegas magicians.

3) If there was one thing you could do, with no limits of any kind, what would it be?

I'd travel, hence the need to work on the superpower of question 2.

4) What's the weirdest dream you've ever had?

The dream that I'll always remember, and that I hope to one day write more about, occurred when I was a wee lad with a mind full of strange and scary ideas (the only change now being I'm not so wee). I'll give you the broadest sketch of the plot as I want to keep your appetite whetted for a possible future post. It involved the discovery that I had a colony of tiny insects living inside my body. The little buggers threatened to take control of my motor skills, like tiny little puppet masters.

5) What's the weirdest thing about you?

See the answer to question one. Next best weirdness: I cut my own hair.

6) What's your favorite self made philosophy?

I don't claim to have ever had an original thought, let alone a self-made philosophy, but I do hold dear an amalgam of strange borrowed ideas. One such concept is that we humans are unavoidably barreling ahead toward a technological singularity that will either prove to be the precipitate of our eventual downfall or the first step down a new evolutionary path.

7) What (if any) question has been the most annoying unanswered question of your life?

This one.

8) Why do you blog?

I blog to interact with the world, and I've been happy to discover that the world has an ample supply of smart, funny and creative bloggers willing to engage me in a continuing conversation. Speaking of which, I'll do my usual universal tag: if you're reading this and would like to play along, you're it.

A cryptic script: My answered exercise

It's time to reveal the inspiration behind my last drawing (see Interactive Exercise to catch up). I did my best to pick an obscure subject in order to provoke a wide range of responses, and the comments didn't disappoint. In fact, I like many of the suggested titles better than my own.

A couple weeks ago I received a very curious piece of mail. It arrived in a wax-sealed envelope, and consisted of a single small sheet with a message composed in an ancient script. Only after some Internet-based research was I able to identify the computer-generated font as a cuneiform alphabet. After several fruitless hours spent trying to translate it, I discovered by reading a few other blogs that it was most likely part of a promotion for an upcoming HBO series.

The drawing was my attempt to replicate in typically fractured style one of the letters found on that mysterious missive (you can see images of the four-different mailings that went out on this site named after the Japanese word for blood ... the one I received is on the far right). As it turned out, the words held much more sway over my imagination while their likely meaning and origin remained unkown, and I think that speaks on some level to the power of art, language and myth. I haven't pursued the mailing's meaning any further out of a desire to maintain some sense of lingering uncertainty.

I really appreciate all of the very creative titles offered up, and to show my gratitude I'll be writing a series of poems inspired by each participant's take on the drawing's meaning (with a fitting attribution and dedication to their authors). To get the ball rolling, here's the piece I built around the phrase initially on my mind.

A cryptic script

By Francis Scudellari

A cryptic script
By unknown hand
Knowingly penned

Aged symbols dusted,
New-pulled from yawning gaps
Of a bookish slumber

Inky smooth, slithering lines capped
With ever hungry heads, feeding
On preyed-upon partners' trailed ends

Intricately cut keys
Unchained, distance-scattered
From forgetting's locked vault

Treasured meaning
Now only found
In not knowing

Interactive Exercise

My last drawing (A votive extinguished) provoked some interesting interpretations, so Jena from Gewgaw Writings suggested that I let my readers name this next effort. Here's your chance to come up with a fitting moniker for my latest multi-colored, amorphous slab. After you've all had a go, I'll post the story behind the sketch, and we can compare my inspiration to your responses.

An apology, an update, and a poem

I apologize for the long lapse between posts, but sometimes real life and work can make greater demands on my time ... and from a financial perspective, that's a good thing.

Also, I've finally taken the plunge and bought my own domain. My hope is to turn the soon-to-be-unveiled, self-named site into a repository for my various creative endeavors. Once it's ready, this blog may revert to its original form as a place for personal essays and social commentary, but stay tuned.

In the mean time, here's the much-awaited (I hope) companion poem to the last drawing.

A ragged suitor

By Francis Scudellari

A ragged suitor dragged, by time not love,
To this altar, his waning flame carried
In crack-cupped hand, a shaky, blue-veined shield
Raised up against stillness dispelling drafts

A lack-clad minister re-called, he casts
Meager light into deep-throated darkness,
Among flickered shadows glimpses, not god,
Not man, an untried path hidden between

Unprotected, preyed on by sudden gust,
Musty air mingling with his own moist breath,
A last exhaled sigh, his votive extinguished,
Acrid black curls drift up from bent, singed wick

Trickled stream of pink wax, glacial flow, fills
Crevices of reflex-clutched hands, preserves,
In translucent shell, the now spent casing
His soul discards as, burned off, it leaps free

A votive extinguished

Very basically, this drawing is of a hand grasping a candle. Both dripping, the flesh and wax intermingle. All possible prayers have been spoken, and perhaps heard. Their separate flames are extinguished in one breath, and they harden into a single form.

Basking in my blogged biography

My dear friend and fellow thinker/artist/writer/blogger Hanna has done me the inestimable honor of presenting a short retrospective of my life and work on her site. For those of you who, like me, prefer to boil everything down to the bare essentials, this is the perfect way to get acquainted. It's a kind of Cliffs Notes to yours truly.

Get up to speed here: Ti presento un amico americano

Of course, you'll need to be able to read Italian to understand it, but I'm here to help translate anything you can't on your own ... just leave the troublesome passage in this post's comments. I'll return to my regular programming once I've finished basking in the glow of your attention.

Bodkin Between: Strange inspirations

It's been a while since I posted a poem, and this one may reveal the desperation of my sometimes searches for inspiration. The title comes from a reCAPTCHA prompt — one of those annoying but necessary little anti-spambot devices used to moderate blog comments. I actually like reCAPTCHA because it doubles as a way to leverage human eyes to help decipher bits of text computers have difficulty scanning.

The phrase in question — Bodkin Between — struck my fancy because of its Shakespearean overtones ("bare bodkin" appears in Hamlet's most famous soliloquy). I used the conceit of a heart as an indecisive dagger to build this verse. It obviously owes a small debt to the bard's great tragedy, although I hope you won't hold it up for inspection against the blinding light of those classic lines.

Bodkin Between
By Francis Scudellari

His heart borne as bated bodkin between,
Its once sharp edge, from youthful age hammered,
Dully cutting ever inward, kept close,
Not bared, buried in leathery layers

Awaiting a proper moment to strike
Out words, act, whether for anger or love,
From thickened air, carve himself a likeness,
But pausing, fear-full of blood stains, his knife

Rather stabs a path in pointed retreat,
Disused, each passing day withdraws deeper
Till embedded beyond his prying reach,
He casts without only his daggered stares

Dull cutting

This is a drawing that I may revisit. It didn't turn out quite the way I wanted. As you might be able to tell by the title's hint, it was inspired by a pair of scissors. It evolved into a squid-like creature.

Bloggers Unite For Human Rights: Get Up, Stand Up

Today, the social networking site BlogCatalog asks its members to participate in a blogosphere-wide event called Bloggers Unite for Human Rights.

Never one to refuse a blog challenge, especially one with a goal of building social awareness, I'll toss my conscious thoughts into the mix. I'm a bit out of practice with prosaic posts, so forgive me in advance for what may prove a long-winded and meandering screed.

This blog began its life as a device for me to use the act of writing to make sense of the varied cultural stimuli regularly cascading down on me. As I came to realize that others out there in the ether were doing a much better job of critically analyzing contemporary art, media and world events, I switched my focus to more personal writing, poetry and then drawing.

Reverting back to my blog's origins in order to serve today's cause, there are two streams of images haunting my mind as I type this. The first is the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. A local hangout, the Heartland Café, recently hosted an amazing touring exhibit entitled "The Children of Darfur" that features the work of renowned photographer Ron Haviv. It's impossible not to be moved by these revealing shots of the harrowed but defiant faces of West Darfur's youth as they go about their daily lives.

Unfortunately, I can't find any information on the web that indicates where this is headed next. I did find an older article detailing the show's opening at the UN headquarters: UNICEF launches photo exhibition dedicated to children of Darfur . And this one about its stop in New Orleans this past April: Amnesty International Brings 'The Children of Darfur' Photo Tour to New Orleans.

To keep apprised of all the latest developments regarding Darfur, be sure to regularly visit my friend Cooper's blog Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth. It's a great place for information and concrete ways to help solve the crisis, through both charitable assistance and political activism.

The second inconvenient monster gnawing at my conscience right now is the film When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee's amazing documentary about Hurricane Katrina. This is a must see for anyone who has fallen back into the complacency of believing, a few scant years removed from that disaster, that humanitarian crises can't happen here in the land of plenty. I see no evidence that we as a nation have done anything to redress the criminal neglect of the poor and disenfranchised left floating for days on those fetid floodwaters. Nor have we made any attempt to ensure that it never happens again.

And that brings me to the final point of this human-rights themed ramble: Building awareness is great, but it's only the first step in the journey toward real change. A planet full of aware individuals won't solve the many and persistent problems facing humanity. Awareness needs to be combined with political will and grass-roots organizing. After we inform ourselves, we need to share that information and collectively act on it. That's how social movements are born.

Another past feature of this blog was the posting of favorite song lyrics. Fully embracing the spectrum of its former being, I leave you with the video and words from a great Reggae call to action.



Get up, stand up
(Bob Marley / Peter Tosh)

Get up, stand up!
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight!

Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
Half the story has never been told:
So now you see the light
Stand up for your rights

Get up, stand up!
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight!

Most people think,
Great God will come from the sky,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights

Get up, stand up!
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (Life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (So we can't give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (Lord, lord!)
Get up, stand up! (Keep on struggling on!)
Don't give up the fight! (yeah!)

We sick an tired of the bs games -
Dyin' 'n goin' to heaven in-a Jesus name
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you cant fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do? ),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah!)

So you better:
Get up, stand up!
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight!

Doodle Week: Facing Madness

Doodle Week comes to a maddening close with the theme doodle mad. My drawing is a depiction of literal disorder, which is the state in which my thoughts inevitably find themselves. A special thanks to Claire and Laura for organizing Doodle Week and giving me a chance to share my peculiar brand of unbalanced indulgence with a wider audience.

Doodle Week: Figured Abstraction

The theme for Doodle Week's Day 6 is doodle abstract. Typically my abstracts start with a figure that I break down into unrecognizable twists and blobs. For example, the following drawing started out life as a dagger before succumbing to the inevitable deconstruction.

Doodle Week: Flight of Fancy

Doodle Week Day 5 dawns and I'm tasked with doodling a daydream. My imaginings often involve flight — real and metaphorical — so I offer up this drawing of a fantastic wing. I don't know if it will actually get me off the ground, but I'll look cool wearing it.

Doodle Week: Flowery

It's Doodle Week Day 4, and that necessitates a flowery drawing.

Doodle Week: Pet Project

For the Doodle Week Day 3 theme of doodle animal, I chose to sketch my pet pug Albert. Not that Albert would ever pose, but he let me examine his expressions long enough to capture that special look of sadness mixed with indignation. I'm not sure what happened to his right paw, but it seems to have swelled up on the journey between real life and my brain. Oh, and he's not really blue.

We interrupt these doodles: Check out my guest post

L.S. King invited me to do a guest post on her N*tranced blog about my most recent techno-fascination: The Technological Singularity. Here's a short excerpt ...

Both Vinge's bleak and Kurzweil's rosy interpretations are predicated on the "universal law" that knowledge undergoes exponential growth. Some dispute that, but it's hard to argue against the widespread feeling that we're being propelled into uncharted waters by a seemingly constant flow of innovations. As more and more advances occur, and apparently disparate fields (biology, genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, etc.) begin to converge, we could reach a tipping point after which rapid-paced changes cascade down on us.

If you'd like to take a break from the doodling, please check it out. And in keeping with Doodle Week, she even included my self-portrait doodle with the article.

Doodle Week: Monstrosities

It's day two of Doodle Week and the suggested theme is "doodle monster." I'm quite fond of drawing strange creatures, so I did a bonus sketch for the occasion. I think they're both pretty good natured monsters, but the first has a pretty ravenous appetite.

Doodle Week: Self Portrait

Doodle Week has officially begun, and here is my initial contribution in keeping with the first day's theme of "doodle you." It's not a very accurate or flattering self-portrait, but I'm still fond of it.

Firmly rooted

By Francis Scudellari

Firmly rooted, she hugs once wormy earth
A fine-creased face buried in pitch black soil
With twirled trunk of a tongue unfurled to taste
Minerals absorbed since first youth's feasting

Twelve twisted limbs intermingle, enfold,
Form fibrous knots, heaped in full-spread circle,
Each fingertip burrows toward droplets,
Tantalus fruit, seeming drawn to new depths

Her underbelly a clutch of gnarled veins
Red, blue, beating with unseasoned cycles,
Robust rhythms learned centuries ago,
Become broken, now faded to murmurs

Her slate-gray back of hardened bark, sharp ridged,
Exposed till parched, scaly, randomly splotched,
Pocked by lichens, leaching precious moisture,
A constant creeping coat that gives no warmth

Green fur filling intricate crevices,
Overtaking memory's hollow stores,
Nooks carved out with accumulated years,
Notched markers of a past too soon forgot

Her self-contained web finally ebbing
With each gulped breath, spirited essence launched
Into saturated sky, our progress,
Time's precipitate retreat to new life