What A Charming House

A broken stained glass window in Père LaChaise for #FensterFreitag

Taken with the Rollei 3,5 on Kodak Tri-X

#BelieveInFilm

#MonochromeMonday house details.

Taken on Instax Mini film.

#SilentSunday

We have uncovered a frame from the lost silent film “The Kitty Cat of Doctor Caligari.”

#CatsOfMastodon

#ScribesAndMakers 25. What's something you feel you've gotten better at with your creative work this year?

Despite all appearances to the contrary, we have gotten a bit better at believing our work is good enough to overcome the immense executive-functioning challenges of putting it out there.

#ScribesAndMakers Jul 28: How difficult is it for you to write characters whose taste in art/books/music/television etc are vastly different from your own?

A: There are people in the book with vastly different decor/architectural tastes. They tend to get punished. You don’t mess with an old house.

As to TV, music, etc., it rarely comes up. I use cultural signifiers that I can dig into.

It would be too facile (maybe even unfair) to define a character by their love of, say, Lee Greenwood.

#ScribesAndMakers 27. Do you feel your creative work leans more towards reflecting life as it is or as you would like it to be?

A: Both. And a third option: a transmogrified version of how things sometimes appear.

These stories are rooted in the world that is: frequently unjust, confusing, built on human frailty, prejudiced.

But sometimes there is comeuppance. Sometimes characters find a possible way out — however temporary or illusionistic.

That is the grace the gothic can allow.

#ScribesAndMakers π26 If you were to metaphorically assign your non-culinary creative work a flavo(u)r, what would it be?

A: Thickness

(Welcome to synesthesia)

A very shadowy cat wishes you a sinister #Caturday.

#ScribesAndMakers 29 From soft to hard, where do your tastes fall on the Science Fiction scale?

A: Soft. Squishy. Pillow and cloud-like in its scientific rigor.

Who cares if you can grow potatoes from piss in red dirt? At least that’s what we think “The Martian” is about.

Definitely more into ideas than accuracy, as long as they adhere to the book’s internal logic.

#ScribesAndMakers 31: Were you able to accomplish the thing you were hoping to in the poll?

A: Mostly. Only a few relatively small revisions were made.

Relative to what?

How dare you ask such a question.

We’ve been going out and taking photos of houses for the special editions of the book. They’ll each have a unique #Polaroid tipped-on to the hardcover, unerneath the dust jacket.

#MonochromeMonday #BelieveInFilm

As #Doorsday gives way to #FensterFreitag, here’s a bit of both.

Pentax ME Super and Kodak TRI-X

#BelieveInFilm

#ScribesAndMakers 5: Have you ever worked with collage?

Why, yes, we have. We have notebooks and notebooks full of them. We do both pasted paper (and things) and solvent transfer to combine images.

They're a departure from writing (words can be so confining and rigid) but they can also inspire writing. In fact, we are putting out a small book of house art to go with our short stories.

Here are some spreads from "Bless This Art House"

We were thinking of Christo and Jeane Claude, and probably Eva Hesse, when we took this #Polaroid of a house in mid-renovation.

The owner came out and asked what we were doing. Not angry, just genuinely bewildered by what we found so photographable.

#Photography #BelieveInFilm

We made a little vignette with photos, sound recording, and some words. The text is not from our book, but resides in the same neighborhood.

The photos were taken in San Francisco with a #Holga, on Ilford 400. The vibes were recorded in West Seattle.

#BelieveInFilm #Bookstodon

#ScribesAndMakers

4th May 2026. How many songs are there where you know all the lyrics by heart?

A: Quite a few, particularly when the lyrical content is quite admirable and worth studying about, songs with real narrative and theme:

Lush Life
Me and Paul
Bring the Noise
What’s the Frequency Kenneth?
Are You Sure Hank Done it this Way?
Poncho and Lefty

More songs by Pulp and Taking Heads than are countable …

Perhaps no artist understood the strange visual experience of being in and seeing a room like Richard Hamilton. In “Berlin Interior” he combines multiple photographs in an etching to create a portrait of space in planes. And the dark pools on the floor by the open window make us think of painting or murder.

#ArtThisHouse recommends putting this one in the most ambiguous space in your home, perhaps in that atelier with the unfinished wall.

(Source: Artnet)

#Art #Photography #Printmaking