I'm Attempting Phoenix Action

Not the town, no. I'm talking about the mythological boid.

I’m crashing after my appointment with Doc Plotkin. I’m low energy and low inspiration. BUT look – I’m feeling better every day and have less back pain. Ya know what this means? YES – new paintings. I believe I’m up to the challenge of beginning a couple new babies.

Remember how I did a small series of Medusa portraits (two selfies and one of another person)? I’m thinking, this time, dragons.

Why? Well, this starts with John Gardner’s book Grendel – Beowulf told from the “monster’s” POV.

That one sentence treatment of “Grendel” suggests some unsustainable satire, valid for perhaps three pages of a college humor magazine. But John Gardner's “Grendel” is myth itself: permeated with revelation, with dark instincts, with swimming, riotous universals. (source)

I’m now reading Chandler Klang Smith’s The Sky is Yours. There be dragons and shit.

In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island (a loose interpretation of Manhattan), three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. (source)

I’m more than a hundred pages in and STILL the, naturally, fire breathing dragons are only viewed from a distance. They’re spoken of certainly but only in terms of how they mysteriously arrived one day, years past, and have set much of the city ablaze. So much so that the fire department finally just gave the fuck up.

Frustratingly, there’s been NO discussion of the dragon’s possible motivations. Could it be that they just really like Empire Island with its pleasant weather, good delis, nice skyscrapers for perch and meditate times? Could all the conflagrations simply be oopsies? I mean, rilly now, these ARE fire breathing dragons and all. Think – dogs gotta slobber, cats gotta scent mark, birds gotta poop (EVERY-damn-where) and dragons gotta burn. It’s just reality.

I suspect I’m never gonna find out what’s on these blaze breathing beasties minds. This isn’t Saint George’s tale told from his unnamed victim’s POV.

Ah well. So far I’m totes enjoying the book. Maybe I’ll hear from the dragons yet.

Meanwhile, I’m now inspired to do some paintings of me as a dragon. I’ll start with a few doodles – try and lay out a scope of ideas.

You may be wondering why I seem to identify with such fearsome creatures as Medusa and dragons. Have I mentioned that my default emotion is pissed off? I’m an angry old bee. I do my level best not to burn everything and everyone around me down to the ground. It's an ongoing evolutionary deal. If I were to have a gravestone, it’d say “A work no longer in progress." (I won’t have one. Fuck that shit. Bury my ashes under an apple tree or just throw my fresh corpse out to sea – shark snack bites)

So, Dragon Selfies – a good way, possibly, to distract myself from our current Stephen King/PK Dick/ /John Scalzi reality.