The Awful Vista of the Year - the Fantod Pack of Edward Gorey

'Close your eyes,' said Davina.  'And hold out your hands.'
I'd only popped into Number Seven to buy a sympathy card.  It was the first time I'd been out the house (apart from going to the gym) for a week.  But my little halogen heater had broken (this one has lasted all of three months) and it was warmer out than in.
Anyhow. I duly held out my chillblained, frostbitten paws, and felt something being laid onto them. Well, a vague sensation approaching feeling.
Something rectangular, a slim box the size of a large playing card.  As my eyes focused, I recognised the drawing and yelped with excitement.

The Fantod Pack by Edward Gorey.

'Oh my God!' I squeaked.
'It's a present,' said Davina.  Yay! I love presents. Having a birthday at the fag-end of Christmas means I don't score high in the present-receiving stakes and, if I do, I tend to get fobbed off with everyone else's unwanted Christmas gifts.  So unexpected, unusual and hugely welcome ones like this are triply appreciated.

I love Edward Gorey. As in, ever so slightly obsessed.  Have been so ever since my brother gave me a desk diary with his illustrations way back in the 80s.

How could anyone not love them, I wonder?  Lugubrious, with a humour the shade of bruises.
Anyhow.  The Fantod Pack is Gorey's legendary (piss)take on tarot.  First published in a limited edition in 1995 and long out of print - it consists of 20 cards with odd arcana such as The Limb, The Effigy, The Insects, The Bundle and The Burning Head.
'Don't you want to know what dreadful things lie in wait for you?' it asks.  Of course!

Instructions for use:  'To read your fortune, first shuffle the pack and take it in your left hand. Stand in the centre of a sparsely furnished room and close your eyes.  Fling the pack into the air.  Keep your eyes closed. Pick up five cards from the floor, keeping them in order.'  And so on, and so forth. Okay, let's do it...

Right.  So it seems I have thwarted ambitions and foot trouble in my past (so true). My inner self is a waltzing mouse (morbid cravings, brawls, involuntary seclusion, vertigo and shrivelling) - scary true.  My outer world involves unstable furniture, paranoia and loss of money (aaagh, stop it, Gorey!).  And my future involves a forged letter, false arrest, anemia and loss of teeth.  Now how cheeering is that?

Want me to read your future?  Just say the word (Yes!) and I'll pluck a card for you from my floor.


Pics from lioninthesunps.com - apart from the one of my diary, obviously.

The A-Z of Depressed Words

What can I say? The school holidays have begun and parents everywhere are faced with the challenge of keeping children amused for ridiculous amount of time. 

When did this keeping amused malarkey begin?  At the risk of sounding like the proverbial ancient fart, I used to amuse myself quite happily. Yes, yes, in perfectly innocent ways. 

‘Yeah, but you did weird things,’ said James. A long pause and then two words spat in accusation. ‘You painted.’

‘It’s true,’ I replied meekly. ‘I did. And I made things.’

‘Weird things,’ he repeated, firmly.

I frowned. Were dinosaurs made out of chicken bones weird?  And felt trolls? 

‘But I made money out of it all,’ I said defensively.  ‘Like I had an art gallery one summer and flogged my paintings; and then I did a haunted house and charged admission.’

‘Weird things.’

This sort of malarkey has never washed with James.  He’s never been a child who likes his own company. Some people just don’t.  When he was little I spent hours trying to instill in him a love of the arts – books weren’t just read, they were play-acted; rolls of lining paper were stretched out on the kitchen floor and we hurled paint around together; we made godamn musical instruments for pity’s sake. 

Some of it rubbed off.  He loves music (just doesn’t particularly want to play it himself). He reads furiously (but sticks to auto/biographies mainly).  But he refuses point-blank to do art or drama (too much of that around in real-life, he says).

So I guess there will be X-Box. There will be a lot of cricket and squash and a helluva lot of loping and sighing and eye-rolling. 

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘We could always go back to some of the old games.’

‘Like what?’ he said suspiciously. 

‘Umm…A-Z?’

This was a game we used to play on long car journeys (alongside one word/clause/sentence stories and car number plate dramas).  You know the score – you pick a theme (countries, cars, fruit, breeds of dog, authors etc) and go round in a circle taking the next letter of the alphabet. Jeez, it wears thin. 

‘Oh for **** sake,’ he said. ‘How depressing is that?’

And so, for your despond, I give you…

The A-Z of depressed words

A is for Apathy

B is for Boredom

C is for Crestfallen

D is for Despond

E is for Entropy

F is for Forlorn

G is for Gloom

H is for Hopeless

I is for Inconsequential

J is for Jaded

K is for Kiss (of Death) – interesting one – no really gloomy words start with K (C is pretty tough too) – the sound is just too explosive and cutting.

L is for Lost

M is for Morose

N is for Nylon (yes, I know but really…it is depressing, right?)

O is for Oppressed

P is for Pitiful

Q is for Querulous

R is for Redundant

S is for Sluggish

T is for Torpor

U is for Unremitting

V is for Void

W is for Why?

Y is for Yawning (as in chasm)

Z is for Zero

Can you add any better ones?  To accompany I offer you the wondrousness that is Edward Gorey. You haven’t come across him?  Oh, you lucky, lucky people. Go seek.

Cold hands and chanting Buddhists

I am so cold that I am using my anti-SAD LitePod as a handwarmer. Seriously, it’s the only way to keep my hands warm enough to type. Dogs might be good foot-warmers but you can’t drape them around your hands. At least, not unless you turn them into gloves....

Tempting thought actually. The other day I discovered the SP putting the finishing touches to a large circular hole he had neatly chewed in my boot. Not just any boot. Not one of my many pairs of crappy, ancient falling to bits boots. No. He had carefully paw-picked the ONE decent pair; the one (relatively) expensive pair (four years old; still in their box; lovingly cherished). I wailed.

At the risk of sounding like (a minor league) Liz Jones, I want to be warm; I want nice things; I’m fed up of scrabbling. I want someone to say ‘yes’ for once. As in: ‘Yes, Jane. We LOVE your book and we want to give you a big fat advance (delivered in a Prada handbag) for it.’ Instead I get another rejection. A very ‘nice’ rejection as my lovely agent puts it, but a rejection nonetheless. I feel like Nicolo Festa. Who? EXACTLY.

Mind you, while the editors are shaking their heads, Samael is building up more and more of an unofficial fan club. Authonomy has brought in a new (hopefully more merit-based) system and the book has suddenly had a second wind and is marching purposefully up the chart, thanks to a new wave of fans. I now have two lovely Buddhists chanting for the book to get a deal. One of them is also an astrologer and he did my chart, saying firmly: “If Samael is not picked up, I’ll eat one of my many hats. You can quote me on that. And the waiting IS for a reason.’

Maybe it is. Maybe the right editor, the right publishing house, hasn’t seen it yet. Meanwhile another author on Authonomy urged me to get in touch with her editor at a major publishing house in New York. So, it’s not over yet.

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom either. We had friends to stay with their dog Captain (a dead ringer for Hairy MacLary). The SP was in seventh heaven and spent three days humping the poor creature. When Asbo joined in, the breakfast room looked like the set for a gay dog porn movie. Who’d have thought three dogs could be quite so inventive. Forget Soul Puppy – he’s now officially been renamed Shag Puppy (and his balls are SO coming off next week).

Blessings:

• Superdrug. Who knew they did such fabulous nail polish? Regular readers will know about my little addiction. I am currently sporting deep dark and fabulous Midnight Blue by GOSH. And soooo cheap.

• Midori. Okay, so I laughed at first. I tilted my nose and sniffed in a disapproving way. But, seriously, I’m hooked on the melon stuff.

• Edward Gorey. Have been re-reading/viewing his books and they are just SO wonderful. Might need an entire blog on this genius, actually.

• Leonard Cohen. My first ever musical love and the most enduring. Just can’t get Stranger Song out of my head these days. 

* Soul Savers.  My new musical love.  So gloomy, so maudlin, so perfect. Best track? You will miss me when I burn.