{"id":430,"date":"2007-08-08T14:29:53","date_gmt":"2007-08-08T22:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/08\/postsingular-triptych-part-2\/"},"modified":"2007-08-10T08:12:56","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T16:12:56","slug":"postsingular-triptych-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/08\/postsingular-triptych-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Postsingular Triptych, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working on the second panel of my Postsingular <\/a><\/em>triptych. My new picture is based on a particular oak tree that I\u2019ve been looking at for twenty years. It\u2019s on the edge of a gully on St. Joseph\u2019s hill. I used to think it was about to fall down, but it seems pretty stable. This is a photo patched together from two shots, but there\u2019s nothing fake about it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the current state of the painting I came up with; it\u2019s called Postsingular<\/em>. That\u2019s my character Thuy Nguyen there with the pigtails, looking down off the cliff at the nanomachines and at some demonic dancing subdimensional subbies. Need I say that I\u2019ve been studying my Hieronymus Bosch of late?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The central painting of the triptych is Hylozoic<\/em>, I did that one at the painting workshop in France<\/a>. When I stretched it, I lost a little of Thuy\u2019s neck, but I\u2019ve gotten used to that. She\u2019s looking at a Hrull flying manta ray with Chu riding inside the ray. I\u2019m not sure who the artist is. Either Bosch, the character Jayjay, or me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although the book Postsingular<\/em> is volume one of my trilogy in progress, and the book Hylozoic <\/em>is volume two, I\u2019m going to hang the \u201cearlier\u201d\u009d one on the right of the \u201clater\u201d\u009d one because the patterns match better that way. So you read it right to left, fine. And what goes on the left? That\u2019s gonna be a painting called Transfinite<\/em>, which will be based on my plans for volume three.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll probably base the third one on this painting by Hieronymus Bosch, The Ascent of the Blessed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Most scholars think Bosch modeled his image of Heaven\u2019s gate on the reflection of one of the numerous arches on the Binnendieze river in s\u2019Hertogenbosch — which did double duty as a sewer in our man’s heyday, right around 1492 or 1505.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m painting these days as I\u2019m hung-up figuring out the rest of the plot of my novel Hylozoic<\/em>. I have the upcoming Bosch chapter pretty well sketched out. But that damned pitchfork<\/a>—it\u2019s got me confused. What\u2019s it up to?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking maybe it\u2019s not so evil. It\u2019s pals with the harp. But why are these higher beings screwing with our world? I\u2019m looking ahead at the story, figuring out what I\u2019m gonna need to jettison to pull it together. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Zonnnnnngggggg<\/em>. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m at that frightening black point that I always reach in the middle of a novel. Confusion and despair. I fantasize that I can stave this off by outlining, but the black point crops up anyway, heedless as a meteorite. It\u2019s where reality meets dream, where the rubber hits the road.<\/p>\n

As Dante puts it in La Commedia Divina<\/em>,<\/p>\n

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
\nmi retrovai per una selva oscura,
\nche la diritta via era smarrita.<\/em><\/p>\n

I found an interesting web page exploring lots of ways to translate <\/a>this. One version reads as follows:<\/p>\n

Midway in life\u2019s journey
\nI found myself in a dark wood,
\nand the straight way was lost.<\/em><\/p>\n

Another translation might be:<\/p>\n

Halfway through my novel
\nI know I don’t know
\nWhat the hell I’m doing.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What the hey, I\u2019m going to the beach. Sooner or later, the Muse is bound to show up and extricate me. She always does. It’s probably just a matter of dropping a few of the candies I’m holding in my greedy monkey-fist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been working on the second panel of my Postsingular triptych. My new picture is based on a particular oak tree that I\u2019ve been looking at for twenty years. It\u2019s on the edge of a gully on St. Joseph\u2019s hill. I used to think it was about to fall down, but it seems pretty stable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}