notes & things | 11/16/2026
The colder and altogether darker part of fall has firmly settled in and I'm determined to deal with it by working steadily on the play script I wrote about earlier in the week, lighting candles at dusk, and trying to distract myself from the gloom of the sky outside and the toxicity of media, both news and social (and is there a difference anymore anyway?). It snowed earlier in the week, enough to stick around for a couple days and make sidewalks suitably messy. Luckily, most of our outings involved parking garages, or at the least, cleared sidewalks. They included tickets to see Frankenstein on the big screen at Alamo and Steppenwolf's Amadeus, perhaps the best creative frenemy story in history.
Frankenstein was, as expected beautiful. It felt very wholesome and Torro-esque in the vein of The Shape of Water or Crimson Peak, which strikes a notable comparison between what many expect of a Frankenstein remake--that it would be darker and more disturbing, akin to the earlier this year release of Nosferatu. Seeing it on a larger screen, even though we had to pay, allowed enjoyment of the vivid and delicious color and big cinematic shots that become art in and of themselves. With my own Frankenstein project waiting only half-realized in the wings--likely poems but, hell, at this point possibly prose or drama--it gave me some things to think about.
Today, I finally had some time to get a start on another in-the-works project--the anthology series I have been idly plotting for a couple years now, beginning with a call based on the idea of the ecogothic. The roots of wanting to do this go back to the focus topcs we used to host at the library, which typically manifested as exhibits, panels, readings, and resource guides. This puts a literary spin on them and allows me to explore the list of possible topics we were entertaining when I left. I've been working on formatting books on Amazon largely for this purpose--to make them more widely available and order than just the dgp shops small amount of traffic. I placed the official call earlier HERE and will be accepting work on a rolling basis as things come in. After the ecogothic, I am hoping to return to a half-realized project from a decade back (one which I overshot and conceived something way out of our budget in paper) but in this format, may finally be able to make happen. So stay tuned on news for that...
It feels like November is disappearing down the drain that leads into the holiday season, with Thanksgiving in just a mere two weeks. We'll be heading to my aunts day of and then staying in Rockford a couple days, but are having a friendsgiving with J cooking over at his mom's here in the city in the days before. J is working most of this weekend, but we do have some more theatre plans Sunday with some discounted tickets for The Taming of the Shrew (there is a lot going on with Shakespeare comedies over the next two months at various companies, so we are trying to squeeze in what we can afford of them without going too crazy.)
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