[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

I've done that same Google search looking for such pictures, and man, do I know your frustration.

And let me tell you, Monty, personally, that I love your writing. I pm'd you some time back asking for a thread. It was after reading "Dice at the Docks." I then read "Unfaithful Telling" and it made me cry. Very little writing, here or elsewhere, makes me cry. I cried when I read Moiraine's death in the Wheel of Time series. I think I got a little misty when Snape died and we saw his past memories in Harry Potter. I've cried when I do my own writing, particularly when I wrote my piece in the Maria's Memorial Monument thread. But its not very common that someone else's writing can make me cry.

Lots of people pm me asking for threads before I have had the chance to read theirs (the site is just so big, I don't get a chance to find people's work as often as I'd like). It makes me feel really good to see someone say they've enjoyed my writing and want a thread with me. I hope you felt just as good the first time I pm'd you asking for a thread.

Now, inspiration. I wish I had more to say on the subject. You'd think I would, what with closing in on 700 posts. But frankly I don't know where my inspiration comes from. I believe in Muses in a more concrete way than most modern people do. I think there's something beyond our understanding in the world, something that might be a religious or spiritual thing. I don't know. Where do dreams come from? Where does faith come from? Jung's collective subconscious? Gods? Spirits? No clue, I really don't know. But I know there is something beyond the human experience, something unquantifiable. Something intangible. And that something is what I feel feeds our ability for art, music, writing, anything. Some of us can tap into it easier than others. Some need a certain state of mind to do so. For you its boredom. For some musicians, its the psychadelic state achieved through mind altering drugs. For others it could be meditation or prayer. I don't know.

But there's something that inspires us to create. I call her my Muse, and she is a harsh taskmaster. Sometimes she wakes me up in the middle of the night and forces me to go write, no matter how exhausted I am. Sometimes she is mean and gives me a headache. Sometimes I'm not happy with her and after I write something I look at the page and want to kill it with fire. But she is what she is, and I accept her.

[Montaine]

My Second True Love So dear Eche graded No Goodbyes and again I must apologise for not sticking to the brief and kind of using the platform to do my own thing. Also for being cheeky and sticking in the pantheon's names, though to be fair I put two in accidentally before I realised what I had done. Monty now has an unreasonable number of status points, however I wangled it thusly for the sole purpose of spurring on Monty's current plot, that of dealing with a new class of people and comparing his own poverty-stricken upbringing to that of the rich and powerful. Right, thank-yous and apologies over with, I've wanted to talk about this topic for a while. Again, it's not related to Mizahar, but it is very important to me and I felt like sharing it. Now, regular visitors to my humble cellar will be well aware of my first true love, stories, and how it has essentially inspired my academic learning and choices towards the ultimate dream of publication, but now I shall take you back to the point where it could all have changed. Because, and I want to make this clear, it was truly a fifty-fifty thing which path I took. What actually is my second true love, I imagine you ask? Comedy. Specifically of a stand-up variety. Obviously I love all comedy but stand-up holds an unassailable position in my heart. Over the years I have only seen thirteen live performances, but I'm seeing four more when I head to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during the latter half of August. They're mostly British comedians, so I shan't bore you with the names, but I really cannot wait to go. Stand-up is a common love between me and my parents and so an appreciation for the medium has been drilled into me since I was young. There is just something about the sharpness, the quick wittedness of comedians that puts me in awe. They generally possess a certain verbal dexterity that never fails to impress me and, well, they make me laugh. Obviously it depends on the comedian. I cannot, for instance, understand anyone's fascination with the likes of Joan Rivers or Frankie Boyle, neither of whom appear to comprehend that just because you can say what you like it doesn't mean you should. There is a fine line between a joke and an insult and I fear the likes of them wander across a few too many times to warrant tolerance. Of course, it also very much depends on the audience. I cannot begrudge these people their questionable humour as evidently they can draw a crowd. My preferred styles are generally the highly intellectual, à la Dara Ó Briain, and curiously the somewhat surreal, à la Bill Bailey, depending on my mood. Now, I like to make people laugh. I can only assume that I am, to an extent, occasionally funny given that I have on more than one occasion caused people to spit out drinks. Always fun. My issue with stand-up, and perhaps this is why I opted for author over comedian as my dream career, is the sheer gall it must take to get up on stage. Any comedian worth his or her salt, any comedian famous enough to attract proper crowds, proper attention, any comedian will tell you that everybody dies. Everyone has bad nights when the jokes fall flat and the audience is sour and at the end you feel like a failure. I don't think I could cope with that. If there was simply a risk of it, perhaps I might. But every comedian, every comedian, dies on stage at one time or another. And frankly, I'm a massive coward. But don't fret Cellar dwellers, there is another way. I'm talking the panel show circuit. In Britain there are a whole string of television and radio shows for comedians and, more relevantly, writers to get together and essentially be funny for a half hour under the pretence of a game. My favourites, if you've heard of them, include Have I Got News For You, Just A Minute, QI, The News Quiz, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Mock the Week, though that last one went downhill rather swiftly after a few series. Someday, perhaps, just maybe, if I'm lucky and write a fairly well received sitcom or two, I might just be able to achieve both my childhood dreams, fulfil both my true loves, simultaneously. Maybe. Next time's titles: Would You Believe It?, The World of Tomorrow, Fear and Loathing. Word of the day: qursh, one twentieth of a Saudi Arabian riyal, because thanks to this word I managed to sextuple a Q in Scrabble. -Monty

[Cascade]

I thought your memorial post was very much on topic. I love my big bro but I don't agree with him on that statement. To each his own, I guess.

I think you'd make a wonderful comedian... and I spelled that correctly this time, jerk!

[Montaine]

To be fair, you spelled a word correctly last time, the only flaw was that a 'comedienne' is a very specific sort of comedian.

[Montaine]

All hail the adorable drawing talents of Cas:

My skills amount to text boxes in Paint. I'm a minimalist. :

Tif gave me the idea.


If you want it to be more cute and less depressing, replace the word 'miss' with 'like'.

[Phoenix]

I WANT ONE!!! CAN I HAS ONE?!

[Montaine]

No.

[Phoenix]

But.... Pweese?

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Cassy kicks so much ass.

Compare the one she did of Monty to the one she did of Tock: http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee496/equilibrate/20120512.png

One so adorable, the other one obviously up to no good. What a pair!

[Pash'nar]

No, you can't have that one. It's mine. :3