If you’ve spent any time with me in the past year you’ll know that I’m preoccupied with villains.
In the waiting room at the eye doctor recently I jotted down this conversation I had with Dick. His response was inflected like a question…
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Roz’s Preoccupation with Villainy
September 27, 2019
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He really gets you, doesn’t he?
Is that a question? I felt it should have a question mark. It’s like our Canadian “eh?” which has a questioning inflection. It does seem to invite a response of some kind. Hope you and Dick have a good weekend – house hunting perhaps.
I totally get the villain thing – sometimes I worry about how many books I read about murder and mayhem – good thing I balance it out everyday with good, wholesome sketching!
Christine, I don’t edit my journals. Just like the sketches, if something doesn’t get done in that moment it doesn’t get done. They aren’t, after all for general consumption.
If I had not right at that moment of writing been interrupted by the tech I may have put a question mark at the end of the line, but instead I hurried to write context below while not holding up the transfer into the treatment room. And then when we returned to the waiting room, just before my eyes dilated. I was interested in getting down the instigation—the knocking of my boots. (and writing that time down)
So for me, the way I keep my journals is about those moments and not something that is readable by someone else—which is why I provided reading instructions in the blog post.
I think pretty much Dick gets me. More than anyone else except two of my mentors. But unlike them, because he lives with me and is married to me he has a different understanding too.
He admits he doesn’t get the villain preoccupation. He gets the act of preoccupation which is so common to me, and he gets me enough that he knows to get out of my way.
That’s really what’s happening here, that and the acknowlegement by him that my feet really are intrinsically cute when in footwear.
I think many people in my life right now are a bit worried about my preoccupation with villains because they know how dark I can go.
I haven’t ever worried about the many books and films I digest about murder and mayhem. If anything I think they have been helpful in getting me to think philosophically and ethically about the things that have happened in my life, the things I’ve seen. They also provide a way to have that narrative release that man has always craved since the establishment and acknowledgment of our craving for three act structure.
Painting won’t necessarily be wholesome and balance one—just off the top of my head there’s at least one villain I can think of in Marvel who paints. And I’m sure there are others just not coming to mind. (It seems something that a villain played by James Mason would do, but as the villain in “North by Northwest” he collects art and people (as objects). I don’t remember him painting. But I’m sure there are some painting villains, and that painting tells us something about them the story teller wanted to get across.
All painting tells us something about the artist after all.
I meant my first sentence after “doesn’t he”.
You could say it with a downward inflection so it wouldn’t sound like a question.
Anyway! Thanks for your thoughtful and entertaining response. It made my day.