Cecil Vortex

The Pale Fire Deathmarch, Week 3

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Pale Fire Peoples!
Welcome to Week 3. It’s very special week for me, because this is the first week when I’m officially a little bit behind, which means we’re really rollin’ now. I’ve been savouring it a bit too much methinks.
But enough about me — how are you doing out there? And more to the point, have you checked out the Palefire Deathmarch Wiki yet, for the demystification of tricky vocab? (Created some say by “Cort,” others say by “DavidG.” But in such murky matters can the truth ere truly be known?)
Speaking of “Cort,” don’t miss his exhortation to write frothy heroic bather-verse (wiki-style, no less) at the tail end of the thread for Week 2. I could be wrong here, but I think he’s talking to you.
Next week: Let’s meet back up just past “the adjacent position of these rhymes,” which is to say, right after the commentary on Lines 367-370, also known as page 149 in the Everyman’s Library.

Shouty

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As I walk out into the street
somebody's shouting at me
shouting in my face
with his teeth near my face.
He asks me if I'm scared of him
I say no
he says I should be. He shouts I should be.
I say I'm harmless.
He shouts some more and then
someone else shouts over at him
-- someone somewhere -- I don't know -- across the street
not at me this time more like for me.
And it sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car.
And I don't lock the door cuz I don't lock the door
and now I'm speeding away
curving away
sliding out into
the shouty night
and I'm twisting back
over my tight right shoulder thinking:
  if I have to
if I have to
if I really really have to
I can always run him over.

Shouty

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As I walk out onto the street
just the very second I leave the coffe shop
somebody’s shouting at me
shouting in my face
with his teeth
near my face.
He asks me if I’m scared of him
and I say no and he says I should be.
He shouts I should be. I say I’m harmless.
He shouts at me some more
and then from across the street
someone else shouts over at him
not at me this time
more like for me
and I’m grateful.
It sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car
and I don’t lock the door cuz I don’t lock the door
and now I’m speeding out into the shouty night
thinking if I have to, if I really have to
I guess I can run him over.

The Palefire Deathmarch, Week 2

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Pale Fire Peoples!
Looks like we’re off to an excellent start. Lotsa folks on the march, with fully 20 posts so far on last week’s thread, including an excellent bit o’ background on the Zemlya of it all, filed just last night by so-called “Cort.” Good stuff!
This week is a bit of a paradox. We’ve now read the poem, so this would be an appropriate week for commentary on the poem before we read the, er, commmentary. On the poem. It’s sorta like a thin crack into which our world may whisper out. So, you know, stay frosty out there.
Me, I was surprised by how flat-out funny the foreword was — with occasional fore-shades of my beloved “Cruel Shoes” — and then again at how sad the poem sometimes dips, especially Canto 2, as Other Dan noted in last week’s thread. It’s a regular Pale Fire Emotional Death Roller Coaster March is what it is.
What’d you think?
Next week: Let’s dive into to the madness of King Kinbote and then meet up at page 105 in the Everyman’s Library, which is to say, the end of the comentary on Lines 130, in other words somewheres round about a passing reference to “the interesting note to Line 149.”

Great-great-grand-pop

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Great-great-grandparents Googling me
just checking in
cork thick-thumbed after
After Life.
Pop.
And every time they’d Google me
a bell would go off.
Some bright blue bell,
that would hover right behind my head.
It’d be like “g,” and then they’d go to the bathroom.
The After Life bathroom.
And then “o” and they’d go to the bathroom again.
So for the whole thing
there’d be three weeks maybe even four weeks
in between bright blue bells.
And that’s how it all went down from start to finish.
Only with some work stuff thrown in that I left out here
and a biplane explosion with my uncle on the plane.
He walked away unscathed, heroic smile
and the flames still ripping at the tarmac.
He gave me a heroic hug
but that’s not the crazy thing.
That’s not even close to being the crazy thing.
The crazy thing is: I don’t even have an uncle.

The Palefire Deathmarch, Week 1

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Welcome Pale Fire Peoples! Today is the first day of the rest of your Deathmarch. By my (very rough) count, we have around 20-30 folks on board — this should be fun.
For them what’re new to Deathmarching, here’s how it works: we’ll tackle the book in 40-50 pages/week chunks. Don’t sweat it too much if you fall a little behind — most folks do at some point. Try to resist racing ahead so as to exentuate the commonality of referential data.
Every Tuesday, I’ll post a thread right chere on cecilvortex.com. Use that thread for comments, which can be as low-key as “Hello Pale Fire Peoples!” or as erudite as [very erudite example here]. One request: If you’re re-reading the book, do yer best to avoid spoilers.
And that’s it. The entire sheebang.
Thanks much for making the ‘march. The book’s entirely new to me and I’m really looking forward to tackling page 1. The first two words appear to be “Pale” and “Fire,” which are words I already know, so I’m feeling pretty good.
Let’s hit the Foreword and the poem this week. Depending on the edition, that appears to add up to around 40-50 pages of actual text.
Next week: See ya at the start of the Commentary (page 57 in the el [everyman’s library], 73 in vi [vintage international]).