Issue 28, containing: Regarding Mountains, Sleeping in New Places, A New Locale, Working in New Places, the Humor of Editors, Commonplaces, &c.

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SOME EDITORIAL NOTES

I am, at this moment (but not, notably, this moment), writing from a small house in a small place in the middle of Vermont, a smallish state that borders my equally small commonwealth– but has mountains that (unlike the hulking New Hampshire peaks that sneak up close behind and threaten you lightly for your loose change) stand distant across wide valleys, like kings and queens of wardrobe worlds with considerably more concerns than me, in this small house in this small place with worries much smaller than whatever makes these mountains look quite like that.

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REGARDING MOUNTAINS

As a matter of policy, I prefer the cutthroats of my childhood. There’s an honesty to the assholes of the White Mountains, standing deliberately in front of your path regardless of whatever direction you want to go, and probably also smoking something cheap and foul while muttering about how we just don’t understand them, Mom.

These very regal Vermont mountains, with wide skirts spread down and out over the vast valleys, are deeply lovely, but, also, I’m pretty sure, probably too high in the in-step for the likes of humanity– and if your mountains aren’t out to kill you personally, then why even bother worshipping them?

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SLEEPING IN NEW PLACES: A SHORT LIST OF CONCERNS

1. Any monster that lives under your bed will travel with you to the new location.
2. Further: The years of painstaking siege tactics you’ve developed to maintain the sanctity of your feet against said monster will crumble in the face of Different Blankets.
3. Light switches are in the wrong places.
4. Bathrooms are also in the wrong places.
5. All silverware, glassware, and stoneware are, as you may have guessed by now, in the wrong places.
6. Further: The sheer number of things in the wrong places will suggest to you — correctly — that there is a malevolent force deliberately moving things when you’re not looking.
7. So far as you know, the malevolent force (a) is not the monster under your bed, and (b) apparently has reasonable electrician and plumbing skills, as the light switches and bathrooms, despite being in the wrong locations, nevertheless do seem to work.
8. The monster under your bed will quietly reassure you that the malevolent force is licensed.
9. But will follow that up very quickly by making a noise that sounds just like a draining pipe in a house that’s not your own–
10. So really the odds that there will be a malevolent force eager to take on your modest list of home repair tasks instead of, like, joining forces with the monster under your bed to do something truly distressing will be… slim.

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A NEW LOCALE

Since the above, I have returned home, and am no longer writing from a small house in a small state, et cetera.

Though, it should be noted, I am not at this moment (yes, indeed, this moment) in my humble abode. I have, through good fortune and odd connections found myself with a small shared studio space, which is a useful place to both work and store my various Arts and Crafts.

Behold:

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WORKING IN NEW PLACES: A SHORT LIST OF CONCERNS

1. Ostensibly a good thing: There is no bed here, and therefore the monster that lives under your bed has no easy method of hiding. This is less comforting than it should be.
2. The artists in the next bay over have some funny ideas about what sorts of paintings are nice to leave pointed directly at your desk.
3. Gas heating can be either a lovely and quiet modern convenience or one step up from the Victorian era of open flames and surprising psychological torture. You have one guess as to what your new work place has.
4. The rent is almost disturbingly low, and while this will make this venture an extremely reasonable method of giving you storage, workspace, and an excuse not to spend money at Starbucks while holding down a table, it does mean that there are. Compromises. That must be made.
5. Sometimes you will think fondly of your good old familiar monster. How you know all its rules. How it could negotiate with any malevolent forces around and about– and, for that matter, you miss the licensed and professional malevolent forces of the recent past, who would not, for instance, make you put up with this bathroom.
6. Ah, the bathroom. Past what the artist who has been here longest cheerfully refers to as “the creepy door.” Next to the room that is apparently being demolished as part of the landlord’s slow and uninterested hobby of owning big old factories and fixing them up when the spirit moves him. Down the hall that has a Mystery Lamp that is sometimes on, sometimes not, and is the only source of illumination at night.
7. For reasons that escape you, you will think it’s a good idea to work at night here. Consistently.
8. The artist who has been here longest has cheerfully let you know that while falling asleep at your desk is probably fine, it does get “spooky” at night. This has been evidenced by the fact that, at the moment you contemplate this memory, a strange noise has started up to your left and just behind you– which you comforted yourself for several moments was a train passing by until you remembered that, in fact, what’s immediately outside this building is a river.
9. The last time you spent any significant amount of time past midnight in this studio, the building groaned and a painting fell off the wall without warning.
10. So anyway, you are considering hauling a small cot up three flights purely so your own personal, preferred monster is around to poke at your shins, mutter about lap blankets, and cordially make friends with whatever else is… around.

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THE HUMOR OF EDITORS

We here at The Minor Hours and Small Thoughts Magazine of course were delighted to stay in Vermont and are equally delighted to be in an excellent and odd studio space. But we do so like our little jokes, and, incidentally, we are totally fine with the fact that the gas heater’s fan has abruptly stopped and left a stunning silence filled with nothing but our typing fingers and the, to be entirely fair, the dulcet tones of Anais Mitchell.

She is, notably, singing her cover of “Tam Lin,” which is less comforting than we would necessarily prefer, but it could be significantly worse. This playlist also has more than one murder ballad.

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COMMONPLACES

From The Classic Tradition In Japanese Architecture, by Teiji Itoh and Yukio Futagawa:

The word wabi (侘び) does not lend itself readily to translation, for it can mean a number of things: loneliness, desolation, rustic simplicity, quiet taste, a gentle affection for antique, unostentatious, and rather melancholy refinement.

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By Jarod K. Anderson, writing as twitter user The CryptoNaturalist:

I once wrote, “every memory is a ghost and the house they haunt is you.”  

The boy I was,
the boy who slept in maple trees and knew many plants by smell,
he has thoughtless understanding of things I must not forget.  

He holds them for me.
For us.  

Not all haunting is malicious.

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From “Start Here,” by Caitlyn Siehl:

When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

It is, perhaps, time to leave my esteemed work location. The music has turned to “The False Lady,” which is surely not auspicious.

If you would like to write a letter to be produced/answered in the magazine, please email me at minor.hours.magazine@gmail.com with the subject line:

Letter to the Magazine: [subject of letter as you would like to see it printed]

If you wish the letter to be anonymous or under a nom de plume, please state so in the body of the email; similarly, if you’d rather not be printed at all, please also state so in the body of the email. It will otherwise be assumed that mail sent to that address is intended for print.

Alternately, commenting on this post will get you a similar result, with much less fuss.

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-Until next week, be safe.