Praise to My Amazing Headache

I have a most skilled and talented Headache. It has the uncanny ability to beat, pound and drum in exceedingly and increasingly rhythmic patterns, demonstrating a high degree of skill and musicality. Indeed, when it engages both sides of my brain, playing one tattoo on one side and a contradicting, almost comical reply on the other, I dare to compare it to the best percussion sections of any classical orchestra. My Headache’s talent and creativity is so great that it is capable of soaring to bombastic heights, as loud as canon fire and as inspiring as the fastest march, and yet it is also sensitive and emotional to a fault, so that it can perform the softest and most emotive passages in its symphonic scores. Over and over it resounds, with crescendos and diminuendos, with heart and spirit and power; its lyrical quality, its poetry, its raw talent to covey pain, hurt, and suffering are truly beyond compare. How fortunate I am, how privileged, to be gifted thus with such a skillful, creative, most unique Headache!

My love, my anger, and all my sorrow,

AR

PS. points to you if you know where that quote comes from 😉

Poetry Can Make Anything Beautiful – Another Serrat/Simon Lesson

I like to pretend that I am a poet, but even in my playacting I have to defer to those poets who have so much creativity and raw talent that they can make a touching poem out of the most mundane things. Today I ‘submit for your consideration’, two songs, one whose subject is graffiti and the other whose subject is flies. I should point out that while I have states ‘Serrat and Simon’ in the title of this entry, one of the songs is not truly Serrat’s, but is instead a poem by Antonio Machado (one of the greatest poets of the ‘Generación del ’98’). Serrat took several of Machado’s poems and put them to music in his 1969 album dedicated to the poet. Thus, while I learned the song thanks to Serrat, it really belongs to this great Spanish poet. [links to the songs at the bottom]

The first song, which is indeed by Paul Simon, is ‘A Poem on the Underground Wall’, which describes an act of vandalism on the Underground:

The last train is nearly due,
The underground is closing soon,
And in the dark deserted station,
Restless in anticipation,
A man waits in the shadows.

His restless eyes leap and scratch,
At all that they can touch or catch,
And hidden deep within his pocket,
Safe within it’s silent socket,
He holds a colored crayon.

Now from the tunnel’s stony womb,
The carriage rides to meet the groom,
And opens wide and welcome doors,
But he hesitates, then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows.

And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany,
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand.

Now from his pocket quick he flashes,
The crayon on the wall he slashes,
Deep upon the advertising,
A single worded poem comprised
Of four letters.

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.

The story behind the song actually harkens back to Simon and Garfunkel’s first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., (1964) whose cover features the two singers leaning against a pillar in the Underground. The story goes that several hundred pictures were taken of them in the Underground, but that most were unusable because of the myriad rude words written on the walls. It wouldn’t be until 1966 that ‘A Poem on the Underground Wall’ would be written for the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Without a doubt, one of the most lyrical and poetic descriptions of graffiti I have ever read or heard. Simon’s lyrics romanticize everything from the man committing the crime, the rumble of the train, the marker (spray can?) an even the rude word written. He captures the excitement, thrill and even fear behind the act, describing the man’s state of mind, his frenetic scratching and slashing, his elation as he runs off.  Simon even beatifies the ‘crayon’ by calling it a ‘rosary’, implying an almost religious connection between the man and his graffiti, and then goes as far as to call the swear word written (which four lettered word, we can only imagine) ‘a poem’.

The second song I will share today is, as I said, technically a poem by Antonio Machado, however I will post Serrat’s version instead. It is called ‘The Flies’ (‘Las Moscas’):

Vosotras las familiares,            | You, the familiar
inevitables, golosas,                  | inevitably gluttonous
vosotras moscas vulgares        | you vulgar flies
me evocáis todas las cosas.     | remind me of everything [here the Spanish is more poetic, saying ‘you evoke me everything’, meaning, you make me remember everything]

¡Oh viejas moscas voraces      | Oh, old voracious flies
como abejas en abril,               | like bees in April
viejas moscas pertinaces         | old persistent flies
sobre mi calva infantil!            | upon my infant head

Moscas de todas las horas,     | Flies from every hour
de infancia y adolescencia,     | from childhood and adolescence
de mi juventud dorada,           | from my golden youth
de esta segunda inocencia      | from this second innocence
quedando creer en nada,        | accepting to believe in nothing
en nada.                                      | in nothing

Moscas del primer hastío       | Flies of the first ennui
en el salón familiar,                 | in the family room
las claras noches de estío       | the clear summer nights
en que yo empecé a soñar.     | on which I began to dream

Y en la aborrecida escuela     | And in the abhorred school
raudas moscas divertidas,     | swift flies amused,
perseguidas, perseguidas,     | chased, chased
por amor de lo que vuela.      | for love of that which flies

Yo sé que os habéis posado   | I know you have landed
sobre el juguete encantado,   | upon the enchanted toy
sobre el librote cerrado,         | upon the closed volume
sobre la carta de amor,           | upon the love letter
sobre los párpados yertos      | upon the stiff eyelids
de los muertos.                         | of the dead

Inevitables golosas,                 | Inevitably gluttonous
que ni labráis como abejas     | who neither labor like bees
ni brilláis cual mariposas,      | nor shine like butterflies
pequeñitas, revoltosas,           | tiny, unruly
vosotras amigas viejas,           | you old friends,
me evocáis todas las cosas.    | remind me of everything

Who writes about flies? Machado, evidently, and with what imagery! He transforms a normally disgusting and revolting insect into an object of memory and nostalgia; into old friends whom one remembers fondly, and whose intrusions upon one’s every day existence mark  the precious or important events in one’s life. Are they a metaphor for the more ‘unwanted’ elements in life, and how they are just as significant as the ‘good’ ones? Is it simply a literal song about befriending flies? I do not know, nor do I know is particularly important which one you prefer. Both interpretations still carry the meaning about looking at things in a different way.

If anything that probably sums up both of these songs/poems; the notion of looking at things from a different angle, for one never knows where beauty, art, and nostalgia might pop up. Does this mean that everything is art? No, of course not. I don’t care how postmodern we become, not everything can be passed out as art. Can anything become art? Probably, with the right about of talent, dedication and skill, and also, by looking at things slightly differently.

AR

—

Antonio Machado, ‘Las Moscas’, Poesías Completas (Madrid: Colección Austral, 1936) (Original 1917).

Joan Manuel Serrat, ‘Las Moscas’, Dedicado a Antonio Machado (album 1969) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hKGvAQjSlc&gt;

Paul Simon, ‘A Poem on the Underground Wall’, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (album 1966) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEEQWPfjv1U&gt;

Wicker Chairs and Memories

[Another entry from my old files, this one an internal exploration of a line from a song I’ve loved since I was very young, and its effect on my memories and nostalgia.]

We don’t often think about the significance of certain objects until we realize that they are no longer there, or that their meaning has been altered. This happens frequently with objects from our childhoods, for as children we take everything for granted, but as adults we look to the past and, remembering, we are able to analyze the weight those objects carried in our minds, hearts and memories.

It usually happens that you will be thinking of something completely innocuous, and suddenly, like a tune half-remembered, or a scent that transports you to a location in your distant past, you will encounter a picture, or a word or another object that will propel by force the memories of that one thing that had become lost in the corners of your mind, and at that point you will be flooded with memories and sudden understanding for the meaning the object truly held.

This happened to me not a few minutes ago. I was humming a tune from my childhood softly in an under voice so as not to disturb my roommate who is still asleep at this early time in the morning. The tune is one I have listened to and sung several times; it is a song by Joan Manuel Serrat, probably the most famous Spanish singer of the last fifty years. Ever since my father introduced me to Serrat when I was a child on one of those hot and slow summer days that is always illuminated in soft yellow light in my memories, I have been utterly fascinated by the poetry of his songs. He is undoubtedly one of our great modern poets; the man simply has the gift of the muses in ways the rest of us can only wish to have but an ounce.

It is not surprising then that whenever I am feeling bored, lonely, sad or simply nostalgic I will break out humming or outright belting out one of his tunes. On this occasion it was the song ‘Si la muerte pisa mi huerto’ (If death treads on my garden); a haunting lovely melody about dying and what will happen upon the death of a person. It’s not nearly as macabre as it sounds; rather it is an exercise in hypothetical, and in contemplation of that which man leaves behind.  As I softly murmured the song, while dressing and gathering my things for the day (a task I have stopped for a moment as I write this), I came across one of the lines in the song that has always held a particular poetic quality to me.

Have you noticed this with songs? That there can be one specific line which strikes at you far more than the rest of the song and fills you with a sense of understanding of the very universe; as though the cosmos was contained within that one phrase and all its mysteries could suddenly be revealed. As though that line transcended the rest of the poem/song and became an axiom itself. For me, there are several lines from different songs which have this effect on me and I wonder if they carry the same feeling for other people or if these lines affect only my own soul. One such line is from Simon and Garfunkel’s song ‘America’, which is in itself a very sad and wise tune about the fall of the American dream. The line says ‘And the moon rose over and open field’. The visual imagery combined with the soft voice of the singer create in me a sense of thrilling sadness. Another such line is the ‘the church bells all were broken’ verse from ‘American Pie’. It always fills me with the illusion that I suddenly understand something beyond my own existence, even if I cannot entirely pinpoint what that is.

In the particular Serrat song I was singing today, the line that always does it for me is one that says: ‘quién sera el nuevo dueño de mi casa y mis sueños, y mi sillón de mimbre?’ (who will be the new owner of my house and my dreams, and my wicker chair?). This line has long remained in my mind for its curious imagery. The song is about a man wondering who will own his possessions after he has died. In this line he wonders about his house (something normal that will be passed on to someone else), but then he wonders who will own his dreams. It sets me to wondering about the nature of dreams, and whether they can be owned by another person, or in fact whether dreams can be owned by the dreamer themselves. I am aware that this is a very fanciful notion, about the nature of dreams, but it makes for an interesting subject.

However, the part that I think brings the whole line together and transcends it, is the inclusion of a wicker chair. Taking a page from William Carlos Williams’ book, ‘how much depends upon’ a wicker chair? Why should Serrat have mentioned such an object? What value does it hold? What does it mean? Certainly it is an object which would be passed on to a new owner in the event of the previous one’s demise, but why would that carry the same nostalgic value as houses and dreams?

Nonetheless, I realize that any object can have more nostalgic value than houses and dreams, because nostalgic value is not something we choose for ourselves, but instead something that becomes a part of ourselves without us realizing it. In the case of a wicker chair, how many memories might it hold? How many moments? These moments and memories cannot be passed down to a new owner. This means that all that a wicker chair represents to one person and cannot be conveyed to another, is lost. A house can be passed down, but equally, it carries with it so much more than just walls, roof and floors. And dreams, well, a dream might be passed on, but can it have the same connotation, the same value?

For me, it is the inclusion of the wicker chair which brings meaning to the other two objects, and examines the hidden meanings objects carry. However what surprises me the most it that as I was thinking this, I realized that the image of a wicker chair had particular value to me as well. I then retrieved a memory that I had not thought of for many, many years. For as long as I have heard the song, I have associated it with the wicker rocking chair at my house; the one where my mother used to rock us children to sleep. Yet today I suddenly remembered another wicker chair, one whose nostalgic value I had thought lost, or rather I had never completely realized.

There was another rocking chair in my childhood. Two more to be exact, in my paternal grandmother’s house – a regular sized one (like the one in my house) where my grandmother, small and wizened would sit and rock back and forth as she recited her half-remembered songs and narrated strange half-remembered stories from her own childhood, and a tiny one, where I would sit and listen. The small rocking chair was an exact replica of the big one, and I have since seen such midget chairs for children, although I had not thought of that chair for years; I had not thought of all that it represented:

A simpler time; a little girl whose feet barely touched the ground, even in that tiny chair, as she rocked slowly back and forth listening to tales of country houses and large open fields, and of superstitions and the supernatural, of pranks and loves and deaths and life. How much was that child absorbing, how much of what she heard is part of who I am? I remember swaying back and forth, back and forth, imitating the rhythm my grandmother set with her own rocking motion, rocking in tandem to the intensity of her stories, or in tune with whatever song she sang. As I sit here and ponder these things, I am filled with both happiness and nostalgia and a sudden longing for that little wicker chair whose value I hadn’t realized even after years of listening to that old Serrat song., and I ask: where is my wicker chair? Who owns it now? And when they sit on it and rock back and forth listening to stories and songs of old, do they also dream? I wonder.

 

AR

The Falsehoods of View Stats

I’ve just added the ‘Blog Stats’ widget to my page and I can’t help but wonder whether it is something I really want to do. Do I want to know how many hits I’ve gotten? Do I want other people to know this? What do they mean, and why should I care about them?

This is something I have noticed for a long time, not only in wordpress but in almost every other website; this idea of keeping count of how many people visit your page. Somehow it strikes me as both narcissistic and masochistic, for I simultaneously seem to shouting ‘Look at me, look at me! People like me!’ and crying ‘Boohoo me, people don’t like me’. If I get ‘high’ numbers (and what is high, and how does one determine this in relation to ‘the world’ anyways?) then having a counter that proudly displays it makes it seem like I’m bragging, and yet if I don’t get many numbers, does that mean I am unpopular? Should I be worried? And once again, should I care?

The problem, I suppose, is that there is no one to compare oneself with, but if there was then one would be forced into, what seems to me, a very unhealthy race for popularity and power. It’s like school all over again with people judging each other based on the number of friends in their little group. The worst part is that I cannot help myself from looking at the stupid stats and ascribing some level of importance to them. I look at the 31,200 hits on my fanfiction stories and grin, slightly smile at the pathetic 841 hits on my YT vids, and scratch my head at the 300+ hits here (seriously, with no basis for comparison, I am just mildly confused and entertained by this number), and yet deep down inside I utterly HATE myself for it.

I dislike the idea of competing against others; it’s a waste of time and effort and I would much rather ‘do the things I do’ for the pleasure of doing them, not for any recognition. Nonetheless, it is still there, that inkling of pleasure drawn from a set of meaningless numbers that in no way reflect anything relevant at all. They do not validate what I do, neither do they condone it. Instead, all they do is produce in me a false sense of either ‘accomplishment’ or ‘failure’ that should not be the motivation behind my actions.

This is why I’ve written it down. If I express my feelings (whenever I can identify their strange presence) and thoughts I force them to submit to my will and thus control them (laughs maniacally). By throwing them into the world I take away their power over me. So what if I look at the stats and get a happy or sad feeling?, they are meaningless and I have stated them to be so; take THAT stats! I bet you weren’t expecting that! Na-na-na-na-na-nah, and a good dose of snobbish disdain to be sure. I have rendered that which is meaningless even more meaningless. Have I accomplished something? No. This makes me happy.

With all my indifference,

AR ^_^

“Borges and I” by Jorge Luis Borges

[I just read this magnificent piece which reminded me of the entry I wrote sometime last week, although to be fair, Borges does it so much better. Still, the sentiment, I think, is the same, and I understand what Borges means by being aware of not being the same person as that who writes and pretends. *I* am only a spectator of what someone with my name does. Here’s Borges’  short story:]

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.

Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.

I do not know which of us has written this page.

Raise the Curtain

Sometimes I feel as though I am only a spectator, watching the play of my life unfold; a caricature of myself parades bizarrely upon the stage. Who is it, at that moment, that plays my character? Who portrays me when I’m not myself upon the stage? And who, more importantly, directs them thus?

Give Me the Old, the Old Horses of the Merry-Go-Round

I was looking up the etymology of the Spanish word ‘tiovivo’, which is another word for carousel, and I suddenly remembered this line ‘Dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo’. Instantly I looked it up on Google, and I came across a story by Pío Baroja which I had not read in many, many years, perhaps not since elementary school. It is so full of nostalgia and the past that I just had to share it.

I have translated the original Spanish version (I don’t know whether there is an English version somewhere, but I don’t care. It seemed more intimate and personal to translate it myself), and I present it here. A few notes on the translation; I have translated ‘tiovivo’ as ‘merry-go-round’ instead of as ‘carousel’ given that the word carrusel is the alternative (and more common) word in Spanish. I like the childlike simplicity of ‘merry-go-round’ for the same reasons I prefer ‘tiovivo’. Also, I translated the phrase ‘A mí dadme los viejos…’ as ‘To me, give me the old…’, although it could easily also be translated as ‘For me, give me the old…’, or the first prepositional phrase could even have been removed altogether.

Without further ado, here is first the Spanish version, and following that, the English translation. I hope you enjoy this lovely short story, and that it makes you reminisce upon your own childhood.

Elogio de los Viejos Caballos del Tiovivo — de Pío Baroja

A mí dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo. No, no me entusiasman esas ferias elegantes, con sus cinematógrafos y sus barracas espléndidas y lujosas. No me encantan esos orquestiones, grandes como retablos de iglesia, pintados, dorados, charolados. Son exageradamente científicos. Mirad esas columnas salomónicas que se retuercen como lombrices; mirad esas figuras de señoritas de casaca y calzón corto que llevan el compás dando con un martillito en una campana, mientras mueven la cabeza con coquetería; mirad esas bailarinas que dan vueltas graciosas sobre un pie, con una guirnalda entre las manos. Oíd la música, chillona, estrepitosa, complicada de platillos, flautas, bombos, que sale del interior del aparato. Yo no quiero quitarles su mérito, pero…A mí dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo.

No son mis predilectos esos tiovivos modernistas, movidos a vapor, atestados de espejos, de luces, de arcos voltaicos, que giran arrastrando coches llenos de adornos, elefantes con la trompa erguida, y cerdos blancos y desvergonzados que suben y bajan con un movimiento cínico y burlesco. No les niego el mérito a esas montañas rusas cuyo vagón pasa vertiginosamente, con un estrépito de hierro y una algarabía de chillidos de mujer, pero…A mí dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo.

Dadme el tiovivo clásico, el tiovivo con que se sueña en la infancia, aquel que veíamos entre la barraca de la Mujer-Cañón y la de las figuras de cera. Diréis que es feo, que sus caballos azules, encarnados, amarillos, no tienen color de caballo; pero eso ¿qué importa, si la imaginación infantil lo suple todo? Contemplad la actitud de estos buenos, de estos nobles caballos de cartón. Son tripudos, es verdad, pero fieros y gallardos como pocos. Llevan la cabeza levantada, sin falso orgullo; miran con sus ojos vivos y permanecen aguardando a que se les monte en una postura elegantemente incómoda. Diréis que no suben y bajan, que no tienen grandes habilidades, pero…A mí dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo.

¡Oh nobles caballos! ¡Amables y honrados caballos! Os quieren los chicos, las niñeras, los soldados. ¿Quién puede aborreceros si bajo el manto de vuestra fiereza se esconde vuestro buen corazón? Allí donde vais reina la alegría. Cuando aparecéis por los pueblos, formados en círculo, colgando por una barra del chirriante aparato, todo el mundo sonríe, todo el mundo se regocija. Y, sin embargo, vuestro sino es cruel; cruel, porque, lo mismo que los hombres, corréis, corréis desesperadamente y sin descanso, y lo mismo que los hombres corréis sin objeto y sin fin…A mí dadme los viejos, los viejos caballos del tiovivo.

Fin

—

Tribute to the Old Horses of the Merry-go-Round by Pio Baroja, translated by AR.

To me, give me the old, the old horses of the merry-go-round. No, those elegant fairs with their cinemas and their splendid and luxurious tents do not excite me. I do not fancy those orchestrions, large as church altar-pieces, painted, gilded, varnished. They are overly scientific. See those solomonic columns that twist like earthworms; see those figurines of ladies in dress coats and short skirts that keep time by hitting a little hammer on a bell, while they move their head flirtingly; see those ballerinas that spin gracefully on one foot with a garland in their hands. Hear the music, shrill, deafening, complex of cymbals, flutes, drums, that emerges from the interior of the device. I do not want to take away their merit, but… to me, give me the old, the old horses of the merry-go-round.

Those modernist merry-go-rounds are not my favorites, those powered by steam, packed full of mirrors, of lights, of voltaic arcs, that spin dragging cars full of decorations, elephants with their trunks raised, white shameless pigs that rise and fall with a cynical and burlesque movement. I do not deny the merit of those rollercoasters whose cart passes swiftly with a clatter of iron and a cacophony of female shrills, but… to me, give me the old, the old horses of the merry-go-round.

Give me the classic merry-go-round, the one dreamt of in childhood, that one we saw between the tent of the Canon-Woman and the wax figures. You might say it is ugly, that its horses, blue ones, red ones, yellow ones, do not have the color of horses; but that, what does it matter, if childhood imagination supplies everything? Behold the posture of those good, those noble cardboard horses. They are fat, that’s true, but fierce and dashing like so few are. They hold their heads high, without false pride; they see with their living eyes and remain waiting for someone to mount them in some elegantly uncomfortable posture. You might say they don’t go up and down, that they have no great skills, but… to me, give me the old, the old horses of the merry-go-round.

Oh noble horses! Gentle and honored horses! The small ones, the nannies and the soldiers love you. Who can abhor you if underneath the mantle of your fierceness hides your good heart? Wherever you go reigns happiness. When you arrive at towns, formed in a circle, hanging from a bar of the noisy device, everyone smiles, everyone rejoices. And yet, you are also cruel; cruel because, like men, you run, run desperately and without rest, and like men you run aimlessly and endlessly… to me, give me the old, the old horses of the merry-go-round.

Fin

—

Final note: The picture is of the Carousel of Ponce, which used to be in ‘Plaza del Caribe’ (a shopping mall) but was taken to Guayanilla because Plaza couldn’t afford it any more. It is one of my (and every person who grew up in the south in PR) fondest memories, and although it probably is the type of merry-go-round that Baroja criticizes, it is the one I think of whenever I read this story. It’s ‘my’ merry-go-round, and it still holds my childhood and all my half-formed illusions.

Fanfiction Study

This is a quick study I conducted between yesterday and today. For referential purposes I should probably say this study was conducted in April/May 2012

As I mentioned in a past entry, I have been reading fanfiction for about ten years now, since 2001 or 2002, I can’t quite pinpoint it anymore. During that time I have read hundreds upon hundreds of stories, from anime, literature, to film and television series (and even once or twice to game and comic book). Through my experience in different fandoms I came to form a mentality for the kind of people who read and write fanfiction, and through experience alone I formed assumptions about it. For example, the assumption that almost everyone who writes fanfiction is a girl may not be entirely accurate. I have heard of plenty of guys who write it as well, although I will still maintain that it is mostly pre-16 year old girls and post-40 year old women.

Yesterday I discovered that another of my assumptions regarding fanfiction was not only incorrect but surprisingly quite wrong. For a long time I believed that the most prolific genre was that of ‘hurt/comfort’, a genre which, as the name suggests, is about hurting a character or characters and having other characters comfort them. I had always noticed that there seemed to be an incredible amount of this genre in every fandom I explored, and I arrived at the conclusion that we are all (readers and writers alike) a bunch of sadistic weirdoes.

I decided to conduct a study of the number of fics written for each genre in order to determine concretely which genres are the most popular after all, and whether I am correct in stating that ‘hurt/comfort’ is the most written for genre. It turns out, however, that this genre is actually a small percentage of the total amount of fanfiction written, which has made me have to reconsider some conclusion about myself and the people I read.

Knowing that statistics might not be the same across different fandoms, I performed my study across four different fandoms, namely: Harry Potter, House M.D., Stargate SG1 and Sherlock. There are two reasons for my choices. The first is that I also did an overview of the most prolific fandoms in the categories of ‘Books’ and ‘TV Series’ in order to determine which fandoms are the most popular. I selected only these two categories for convenience sake, and if I ever take this study to a large scale I would of course make it across all categories. The fifteen most popular books and tv series in Fanfiction.net are:

Books                                                        TV Series

Harry Potter 591,149                              Glee 70,683

Twilight 199,469                                            Supernatural 61,251

Lord of the Rings 46,297                             Buffy 44,181

Percy Jackson 25,613                                   Doctor Who 37,071

Hunger Games 17,307                                  NCIS 30,550

Maximum Ride 15,746                                 CSI 26,253

Warriors 12,550                                          Stargate: SG-1 25,767

Phantom of the Opera 10,273                   House M.D. 20,499

Song of the Lioness 8,109                           Bones 18,149

Outsiders 6,937                                             Stargate: Atlantis 17,796

Vampire Academy 5,952                             Gilmore Girls 16,099

Mortal Instruments 5,281                           Vampire Diaries 15,313

Inheritance Cycle 5,080                            Sherlock 14,719

Animorphs 4,837                                          Degrassi 14,238

Artemis Fowl 4,761                                       Power Rangers 14,050

It can easily be seen that my choices are among the top fandoms for amount of stories written, which justifies studying them as they are clearly popular. The second reason for my four specific choices is that I have read many fics in these particular fandoms, and had based my generalized assumptions on them. I have, of course, read fics from many of these other fandoms, as well as from other categories (most notably anime), but I will stick to only these four for now.

The genres provided by Fanfiction.net are the following: adventure, angst, crime, drama, family, fantasy, friendship, general, horror, humor, hurt/comfort (h/c), mystery, parody, poetry, romance, sci-fi, spiritual, supernatural, suspense, tragedy, and western.

Here are the results of my study:

As can be seen, the most popular genre, to my utter surprise, is ‘romance’, followed by ‘general’ in all fandoms. Hurt/Comfort, the genre I thought would come on top, actually places between fifth and eighth, comprising only between 2.75% and 9.29% of the fanfiction written, compared to the 22.10% to 31.48% of romance, and the 16.87% to 20.04% of general. Even humor, drama and friendship placed higher than h/c (except in Sherlock where drama ranked one percentage lower, and in House M.D. where friendship was under h/c by two percent). Only adding the percentages for hurt/comfort, angst and tragedy do we get closer to my previous conclusion. In that case, fics of ‘general unwellness’ would rank around 12%, 19%, 16% and 17% respectively. However, if we were to do this, we would also have to merge the results for ‘humor’ and ‘parody’ for example, which would still make h/c rank relatively low among the more popular genres.

Overall, a most interesting study which proves that:

1)      You should not make assumptions without all the data, no matter how many years of experience you think you have.

2)      People are much more romantic than I gave them credit for, although this also lowers my respect for the medium in general.

3)      Once again, thanks to my weirdness, I rank between fifth and eighth on the ‘normal-meter’, to which I can only say ‘at least I don’t read/write westerns’.

One confused ff-writer/reader signing off,

AR

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All data accurate as of 1 May 2012 for the database of Fanfiction.net.

Additional footnote: It should be noted that most stories have two genre categories which is why, for instance, there are 591,149 fics written for Harry Potter, but the sum of all the ‘individual’ entries for each separate genre produces a much higher number of 1,025,313. This does not affect the results at all, since they are percentages.

Cat Tales: A Rambling on Superstition Written in Under 3 Hours

What is it about ‘cats’ that is so mysterious and compelling? Needless to say, they’ve been the object of contemplation, poetry, literature, philosophy, and even worship for thousands of years. We are all familiar with the stories of Bastet, the Egyptian feline goddess, as well as the stories of cats as witches’ familiars. It might be because of their perceived haughtiness, their apparent self-sufficiency, the manner in which they stare and stand so still at times, and their supposed cruelty that seems to convince us that they are ‘up to something’. Of course, rational thought will demonstrate that cats are not anymore mysterious or strange from any other animal (or rather from any other pet). Indeed, dogs, which are usually regarded as ‘opposite’ of cats, can be just as ‘moody’ and self sufficient as any cat. Moreover, many a time I have seen a pack of stray dogs ‘cruelly’ attack another dog (or cat or bird) with as much viciousness as any cat might. Likewise, on many occasions I have seen cats demonstrate affection to their ‘owners’ (yes, I am aware of the phrase ‘Dogs have owners, Cats have slaves’) as well as hyperactive playful antics.

Yet superstition regarding the ‘mysteriousness’ of cats persists, and I wonder whether it is a product of ‘story’ rather than any demonstrable ‘real-life’ facts. In other words, is the sheer amount of stories about evil/supernatural felines the reason we continue to hold this notion of the ‘power of cats’. Rather than any actual quality in them, it is the perpetuation of the superstition through fiction that puts us in this metal state.

I put forth as examples four short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Neil Gaiman. While there have certainly been many more stories about supernatural cats (not even considering films and television), I will focus on only these four mostly for reasons of convenience (they’re short, succinct, and I’ve read them), as well as because historically they mark a direct progression. By this I mean, Poe inspired Lovecraft and both inspired Gaiman. It has a nice linearity to it.

Poe’s story is, of course, ‘The Black Cat’, which was first published in 1843 in an edition of The Saturday Evening Post. As its Wikipedia entry rightly suggests, it is “a study of the psychology of guilt” in which “a murderer carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt.” Because the narrator is unreliable, we cannot be certain whether the cat that returns is truly the cat he killed (Pluto) or whether it is simply another cat (which is really the more logical explanation). Whatever supernatural aspects the cat seems to possess are entirely attributed by the unhinged narrator, and yet the reader’s own awareness of the superstitions surrounding cats fuels their slight sliver of doubt and induces terror.

Lovecraft’s story, ‘The Cats of Ulthar’ (1920) is equally vague; leaving it up to the reader to believe whether the cats have supernatural powers or not. In the story, an old couple from the town of Ulthar delight in torturing and violently killing cats, but the townspeople are too frightened to do anything about it. One day a caravan arrives in town with a young orphan boy who owns a small kitten. The kitten disappears one day, and the child learns the story of the old couple. That night he offers a prayer, and the following day all the cats in Ulthar disappear. After the caravan leaves, the townspeople discover that the cats have returned, but the old couple have vanished, and upon searching for them, they discover their skeletons, picked clean, in their house. From that day on, the town of Ulthar decrees that no person may ever kill a cat again.

At no point in the story does the narration out rightly say that it was the cats who did it (indeed, it might have been other people from the caravan revenging the orphan boy), and yet the townspeople of Ulthar, like the main character from ‘The Black Cat’, believe the superstition. Similarly, the reader readily accepts this proposition eagerly, agreeing in the mysterious power of the cats.

Gaiman’s stories, interestingly, leave no room for doubt with regards to the supernatural element. This is curious because one would have thought that the 1843 and 1920 stories would be more accepting of the supernatural than a more contemporary story. On the other hand, perhaps now we are less superstitious and therefore more eager to read blatantly fantastic stories. On the other other hand (of this Lovecraftian beast), I don’t believe the 19^th and early 20^th centuries were particularly superstitious, so this theory might be completely inaccurate.

The first Gaiman story is ‘A Dream of a Thousand Cats’ (1991) from the Dream Country collection of The Sandman. In the story, a cat discovers that cats ruled the world once before humans discovered that dreams shaped the world, and thus dreamt themselves into being the dominant species on the planet. She decides to go around the world, preaching to other cats, to convince them all to dream of a world where cats are once again the dominant species.

It is not surprising that in Gaiman’s story cats talk with each other and share their stories and dreams, particularly considering all the other supernatural elements and characters that appear in The Sandman. What I find interesting, however, is my own reaction to it, that out of all the ‘impossible’ things that happen in The Sandman, cats who were once the dominant species and are now dreaming to regain that power is one of the least ‘weird’ ones. Storywise, considering the mythology and superstition surrounding cats, it seems perfectly reasonable to imagine such a story.

Nonetheless, it might be argued that because no human sees the cats’ meeting or hear their revolutionary call, that it might all be a matter of perspective and a way of anthropomorphizing feline behaviour.

The final story, also a Gaiman one, is ‘The Price’ (1998), in which a man finds a cat who comes every day to his house covered in bruises and cuts. Every night he hears hellish noises coming from the front of his house, and one night he decides to stay up on the porch to see what happens. He discovers that each night the devil comes to his house, and the cat battles him, so that the man and his family might live in peace.

This story seems to be a purpose reversal of the classic ‘cat’s might be evil/dangerous’ trope (it even refers to the cat as ‘the Black Cat’). Instead of the vague possibility of a cat that comes back to haunt a guilty man, or take revenge upon an old evil couple, or even to dream change into the world, in this story the cat clearly has supernatural abilities and is clearly ‘good’. There is little doubt for the reader to question the cat’s nature, other than to say that the narrator is crazy. However, unlike in ‘The Black Cat’, the narrator does not appear to be mentally unstable, so there is little reason to question his story.

I am not certain what these various narratives mean, other than the fact that they clearly draw on older myths and superstitions and that they rely on the reader’s knowledge and interpretation. They all seem to challenge the views on superstition (whether they are the product of a mad person’s paranoia, or a town’s superstition) as well as the reader’s own views. They, however, do not entirely answer the question of why we find cats to be mysterious. On the other hand, the answer may simply be that it does not matter when it started or where it comes from, but rather that it is a part of our culture, and that it enables us to reflect different aspects of our own psyche.

 

From the deepest caverns of Delapore family mansion, I bid thee adieu,

AR

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References

Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Black Cat’ (1843). http://www.online-literature.com/poe/24/

H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Cats of Ulthar’ (1920). http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cu.asp

Neil Gaiman, ‘A Dream of a Thousand Cats’, Dream Country, 18 (1991).

Neil Gaiman, ‘The Price’, Smoke and Mirrors (New York: Avon Books, 2005). http://www.bitchwick.com/amacker/bean/price.html

‘The Black Cat’ Wikipedia Entry, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cat_%28short_story%29&gt; [accessed 1 May 2012]