Here we go, another issue of Arcane Arts. Today I’m bringing you the usual dose: sword-and-sorcery, heavy metal memoir updates, and three videos I find interesting—and suspect you might as well.
Revisiting Queen of the Black Coast
My reading tends to follow a stress-relax pattern. I alternate between non-fiction and fiction, difficult works of fiction I feel obligated to read followed by page-turning adventure in which I just want to be swept up, and new reads followed by re-reads of old favorites.
For example, I recently read The Romance of the Grail (non-fiction) followed by The Last Viking (historical adventure). I read Crime and Punishment (challenging), followed by The Stand (page turner). Now I’ve returned to some Conan.
I’m currently enjoying The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, the first of the Del Rey volumes with the original unedited Howard stories. And I can say this: “Queen of the Black Coast” might have the most compelling first act of any story I’ve ever read.
Not just Howard stories. Any story.
“Queen of the Black Coast” (1934) is effortless and wildly engaging, one “what the fuck did I just read” moment after the next. Mainlined adventure but told in prose-poetry, absolutely inspired style from Howard.
In the first eight pages Conan 1) kills a judge, 2) rides to a wharf to outrun his pursuers, 3) commands the skeptical captain of the Argus to shove off, 4) commits to a sea-voyage to Kush, 5) is caught along with the rest of the crew by Bêlit and the Tigress, 6) is the sole survivor of the subsequent pitched sea-battle, hacking the limbs off several of Bêlit’s crew, 7) wins Bêlit’s heart, 8) watches her dance “like the spin of a desert whirlwind, like the leaping of a quenchless flame, like the urge of creation and the urge of death,” as his wounds are tended, and finally, 9) crushes the Queen of the Black Coast against the black plates of his corseleted breast.
"Look at me, Conan!" She threw wide her arms. "I am Bêlit, queen of the black coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowy mountains which bred you. Take me and crush me with your fierce love! Go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter — be thou my king!"
That’s how you open a story.
And then, to start part 2, Howard describes the union of Conan and Bêlit and the red harvest they reap on the seas, with this:
… and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
Damn.
Something about this story… “Queen of the Black Coast” might not be Howard’s best Conan tale (it’s in the running), but his writing is absolutely possessed here, on fire.
Metal, 36 years before heavy metal was invented.
I feel scene
The metal memoir edit continues. Yesterday was a nightmare… I lost 90 minutes of good work due to a local internet outage. The file I thought was saved on the local server did not take. After 5 minutes of despair and rage and pounding my fist, a short but powerful cycle of Kübler-Ross (denial, anger, bargaining, depression), I closed with acceptance: my edits were gone. I was going to have to re-do the work.
Which I did, but am not convinced it was as good as what I’d done prior.
My memoir’s greatest weakness, and one my editor keeps pointing out, is my tendency to summarize rather than engage. I’m telling, rather than showing.
If you are considering writing a memoir my highest recommendation is to start by reading this book: Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir.
A memoir must be comprised of a series of powerful scenes that grip the reader, not a recitation of facts. So that’s what I’m doing … in between internet outages. But I’m loving how the book is shaping up.
A trio of videos
As I’ve noted previously I hate AI in the arts—but not AI in general.
If you offload writing because it is hard, or ask AI to summarize articles for you and turn them into your teacher because reading creates mental strain, you are a potato. Effectively a zero, having learned nothing.
This is happening, pushing us ever closer to making Wall-e a reality.
This video does a great job of explaining why its use as a writing crutch is toxic and making us dumber.
Great analogy: Do you bring a forklift to a gym so you can lift more weight? Hopefully not, because the machine is lifting the weight, not you.
And yet AI is not a simple good guy/bad guy morality play.
AI as an aid in detection of pancreatic cancer is a universal good. I support that.
But cheating at scale, to earn fake valor, all while potentially ruining a generation of students, is a terrible downside of the tech.
In short, we need regulation and frameworks and human beings steering this powerful tool, NOT the other way around. The last I checked we’re still autonomous creatures in control, flawed as we are.
We don’t need faster publishing. We need more thoughtful, slower, better, and above all, more human books.
If the last video pissed me off the next one makes me incredibly happy; a fantastic interview of one of my favorite musicians, Geddy Lee, by one of my favorite YouTubers, Rick Beato.
As someone said in the comments its one of those videos that you stop whatever you’re doing and just watch.
Some terrific discussion on how the early Rush albums were written, relearning old songs, Geddy’s equipment, hovering on the edge of unemployment until 2112, the current tour and honoring Neil, and much more. Geddy riffs around quite a bit on the bass, to Beato’s delight.
Finally there’s this. Haven’t watched it yet. Plan to, for obvious reasons; I am this algorithm.
Did this issue bear crimson fruit from a bitter tree?
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