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Obviously, this post will contain spoilers for Hellraiser.
This is the story of how a pissing match in a dorm lounge started a tradition I've kept in place for over a decade.
Every Valentine's day since 2009, I've gotten drunk and watched Hellraiser. It's usually a solitary exercise, I haven't had any want or desire for partnership since July of 2010*, but if anyone wished to join me, they would of course be welcome. It's been an annual tradition, usually involving the imbibing of several Dark and Stormys, a drink I became quite fond of at college, and since college is the whole reason I do this thing in the first place, it's a little bit of nostalgia and a small taste of a time I once called home. The rum may be better quality (ever since Captain Morgan changed the recipe on Private Stock it just hasn't been the same) and the ginger ale might be lower quality (It's difficult to get sugarcane colas at a goddamn Shop-Rite, okay?), but it's a connection to something important. And it's a way of striking back at people who tried to force their interpretation of love on to others, a way of showing that there are multiple forms of romance, and that even the darkest movies can be about painfully human subjects.
Even if I was, as this story kind of illustrates, a prick.
There are some books that command your undivided attention. That's the best way I can put it. There are simply books where having music on in the background or reading in a place where one could become distracted just isn't feasible. Sometimes it's because the material is dense, or the plot is heavily involved, or simply because the narrative style is just that immersive. In the case of Jottings from a Far Away Place, it's because Brendan Connell has written a book that's best contemplated and absorbed, and the best way to do that is without all that many distractions.
It's a book that does things to my head in the best way, a book where each section has its own unique rhythms and place, but that builds on the sections by featuring recurring characters and themes as it goes along. If nothing else, I have to say the closest thing I've ever read is either the Zhuangzi or the works of Ryu Murakami (with their own brand of meditative gorn), and Connell manages to distance himself from those works pretty thoroughly just by dint of being a lot more bizarre.
In the end, I'd suggest reading a little of this one to get familiar with it. While it's a fantastic book that gets inside your head in just the right way, it'll definitely take a little to get the rhythms down.
More, as always, below.
