Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Character: the Protagonist
The Protagonist, or the Narrator, as I like to call him (and this is my damn novel so I'll do as I damn well please) is a young (mid twenties) caffeine addicted locksmith/philosopher who has been quite depressed lately.
Anyone who cares to suggest that the Narrator is a thinly disguised version of myself is sadly mistaken; he is about six inches taller and has a far cooler haircut.
Anyone who cares to suggest that the Narrator is a thinly disguised version of myself is sadly mistaken; he is about six inches taller and has a far cooler haircut.
Setting
I just found the greatest setting in all the city for my villian (a vampire) to hang out.
In Boro Park, on the corner of McDonald Avenue and Bay Parkway, there is A) Washington Cemetary and B) a huge Con Ed facility.
The cemetary is exactly as spooky as your average evil vampire would require, with lots of those stone house- looking grave things to sleep in during the day, but that isn't the creepiest part of that particular intersection.
The Con Ed building, relic of the Sixties when architechs thought that the outside of industrial buildings should look like the the packing crate an industrial-type machine would come in, is a seriously eldritch place in a post-modern Blade Runnerish way, as though the telephone company had a Ministry of Fear designed by Luis Kahn.
Did I just write a fifty-six word sentence? I'm never getting published. :-(
Anyway, this building right next door to the cemetary has a blank gray brick face decorated by these crinkly metal thingies that look like corrugated cardboard. There is a huge driveway, and all the entrances are in the back. The chain link gate is only seven feet high, with three strings of rusty barbed wire running along the top. There is a tiny sign affixed to the fence saying "Danger- High Voltage". There is one, count em one, video camera, and it faces the wrong way (ie, it faces the yard to watch the employees, not the front facing potential breakers-in and treaspassers). This level of security would hardly do for a lemonade stand in this section of Brooklyn, let alone a massive Con Ed facility pumping electricity to most of Brooklyn South (including this computer).
Why don't they get more break-ins? Indeed, this must be the only large building for fifty miles that is not covered in graffiti.
Two reasons. First, the sound emanting from the building. It is a deep rumbling sound, brrrmmmmm, brrrrmmmmm, brrrmmmmm, which is juuuust barely on the edge of human hearing. You can't really hear it. What you do is you feel it, deep down in your gut, and it tells you precisely how long it's been since the last time you visited the bathroom, and if you don't find another bathroom RIGHT NOW, it will just haver to make it's own arrangements.
Second reason, for those would be miscreants and grafitti artists with stronger GI tracts than mine, is the dead pigeons.
These really and truly make no sense. Yes, there are a zillion wires coming out of the building, but they all go the other way, and besides, why are all the dead pigeons about three feet away from the building, littering the sidewalk? What the hell is it about this building that kills pigeons?
That's what I love about living in Brooklyn, especially if you plan on writing dark spooky fiction. You don't have to wrack your brain coming up with atmosphere because you just have to loojk out your window or take a walk.
In Boro Park, on the corner of McDonald Avenue and Bay Parkway, there is A) Washington Cemetary and B) a huge Con Ed facility.
The cemetary is exactly as spooky as your average evil vampire would require, with lots of those stone house- looking grave things to sleep in during the day, but that isn't the creepiest part of that particular intersection.
The Con Ed building, relic of the Sixties when architechs thought that the outside of industrial buildings should look like the the packing crate an industrial-type machine would come in, is a seriously eldritch place in a post-modern Blade Runnerish way, as though the telephone company had a Ministry of Fear designed by Luis Kahn.
Did I just write a fifty-six word sentence? I'm never getting published. :-(
Anyway, this building right next door to the cemetary has a blank gray brick face decorated by these crinkly metal thingies that look like corrugated cardboard. There is a huge driveway, and all the entrances are in the back. The chain link gate is only seven feet high, with three strings of rusty barbed wire running along the top. There is a tiny sign affixed to the fence saying "Danger- High Voltage". There is one, count em one, video camera, and it faces the wrong way (ie, it faces the yard to watch the employees, not the front facing potential breakers-in and treaspassers). This level of security would hardly do for a lemonade stand in this section of Brooklyn, let alone a massive Con Ed facility pumping electricity to most of Brooklyn South (including this computer).
Why don't they get more break-ins? Indeed, this must be the only large building for fifty miles that is not covered in graffiti.
Two reasons. First, the sound emanting from the building. It is a deep rumbling sound, brrrmmmmm, brrrrmmmmm, brrrmmmmm, which is juuuust barely on the edge of human hearing. You can't really hear it. What you do is you feel it, deep down in your gut, and it tells you precisely how long it's been since the last time you visited the bathroom, and if you don't find another bathroom RIGHT NOW, it will just haver to make it's own arrangements.
Second reason, for those would be miscreants and grafitti artists with stronger GI tracts than mine, is the dead pigeons.
These really and truly make no sense. Yes, there are a zillion wires coming out of the building, but they all go the other way, and besides, why are all the dead pigeons about three feet away from the building, littering the sidewalk? What the hell is it about this building that kills pigeons?
That's what I love about living in Brooklyn, especially if you plan on writing dark spooky fiction. You don't have to wrack your brain coming up with atmosphere because you just have to loojk out your window or take a walk.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
The Title...
I'm thing Jewish Bloodsuckers. It's funny, see?
Ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha.
