Lyell Canyon, Yosemite

The John Muir Trail winds along the edge of the forest down Lyell Canyon which stretches some nine miles from Tuolumne Meadows (the direction we are looking) and then climbs up majestic craggy ridges to Donahue Pass at some 11,000+ feet (several miles distant behind this camera position).

Just before that steep rise begins, there is a tree graveyard (pictured here) where ancient gnarled branches and trunks are strewn across the end of the meadow as if they had fallen in some great battle.

The JMT runs about five feet behind this camera position, and I stepped off trail to shoot these trees over this particular branch which looked to me like the remnant antlers of some beast that had long since otherwise returned to the earth.

Lyell Canyon

Looking back toward Tuolumne Meadows from whence we started. As I recall, this was our 2004 expedition. We first backpacked in Yosemite in 2003, just Teresa and me together. The next year we took a different route up and over Donahue Pass with our dear departed friend, Bob, though he was not yet departed at the time. Doesn’t that conjure up an image? We skipped a year, then recreated that route with two other friends in 2006. After a six year hiatus we hike the same route yet again with my daughter and son-in-law. Then, after 7 years we struck out on a new route with Teresa’s high-school friend, Cliff, and spent 10 days in the back country, schlepping up steep switchbacks with fifty pound packs – more than I’d ever carried on trail before and, at age 66, not something I recommend. Cliff’s pack was 65 pounds. Don’t know how he did it. But I had him beat – I was 50 pounds over my ideal body weight at the time, something else I’ve never done before. Planning on continuing these expeditions until I drop (which could be next week, who knows?)

Dramatica: A New Theory Of Story

This is the book we wrote to unveil our theory of narrative structure to the world. Pretty pretentious, if not downright arrogant. But, we put all our ideas out there for folks to poke and prod. Almost 30 years later, the theory has never been refuted, so it is either likely true, or just so complicated and insignificant no one has bothered to prove it wrong. Judge for yourself…

Why For Art Thou?

I seem to be on a poetry bender this week. Here’s today’s effort:

Why For Art Thou?

By Melanie Anne Phillips

I don’t create for fortune,
If I did I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have , I’ve been derailed

Not for recognition,
On the vast historic shelf.
Others have oft told me
I should art just for myself.

Yet that is not from whence
My Muse arises – no!
Not from what I want to draw:
But that which draws me so.

I see a scene, I hear a thought,
That beckons to be known.
It chooses me to tell its tale,
“Right now, do not postpone!”

I have no choice, I have no voice
But that which I’ve been given.
I cannot rest a moment,
When I have so been driven.

The scene will set, the concept fade,
If not protected now.
It’s singular existence,
Depends upon my brow.

Furled in concentration,
Twisted in despair,
I squeeze the vice upon my mind,
And flail about midair.

The hour-glass runs empty,
The spirit sputters out.
But in that tragic moment,
My psyche wheels about.

And just before the vision
And the spirit it contains
Have vanished from the earth,
They transform within my brains.

I become an avatar,
A spokesman for the dead.
A poor and tawdry medium
Dim eyes and tongue of lead.

Yet through my swollen faculties,
Bruised and battered all,
A dark, imperfect image,
As I quietly recall,

The thing that once revealed itself,
Though now it is no more,
It lives again in oil or sound,
A window or a door.

Its fleeting spark departed,
But captured in its prime,
It’s meaning not forgotten,
Shining bright in prose or rhyme.

I don’t create for fortune,
If I did, I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have, I’ve been derailed.

I don’t create for others,
And never for my heart,
I do it for the spirits,
So they live on in art.

Brother’s Keeper

I must be in a poetic mood. Here is another short (two-stanza) poem I penned yesterday:

Brother’s Keeper

My mouth bespeaks my silent voice,
Muffled in my mind:
An unrelinquished insight
Strangled, choked, and left behind.

So help not spoken was not heard,
Hidden by my fears:
You’ve done it now, you sinner.
Quoth the ringing in my ears.

Phantasia

Phantasia

(Latin definition: imagination ; Greek: apparition)

By Melanie Anne Phillips

I saw a shadow in my house
And then it disappeared.
But in that moment, manifest,
Was that which I most feared.

For reaching deep within the folds
That house my spectral mind,
The shadow cast a ghastly light,
On self-awareness, blind.

And suddenly before myself,
I played the role I lived.
As to this captive audience,
My inner self was sieved.

My real motivations now,
Stepped forth to center stage:
The false pretense of kind concern,
The hidden selfish rage.

This horrid confrontation play,
Scorched blisters on my soul,
The ashes are my true estate,
My spirit dark as coal.

And smothered by the smoldering,
A Phoenix without wings.
It formed an embryonic id:
Most innocent of beings.

Flightless, as it lays there writhing,
Beneath the angry sky,
Yet through rejuvenation,
It cannot hope to die.

A miracle, a manacle,
A never-forming shape.
My life behind; my life ahead
The common noble ape.

At risk of all eternity,
In fear of none at all,
I saw the shadow reappear,
And heard its plaintiff call:

“The choice is yours; the choice is ours
To change or stay the same.”
Hearing now between its words,
I knew its Holy name.

Familiar spirit, that was it,
A near and distant elf,
A sprite I seldom see full on:
My inner shadow self.

Our lives are long, our time is short,
The end is always nigh.
May you be blessed, as I was blessed,
To live before you die.

Spider On The Wall

This is an audio of my mom, my best friend Bill, and me trying to record a musical comedy routine we had worked out back in 1970, 71 or thereabouts. My mom had been in Little Theater and dreamed of being an actress, and Bill and me were teenage jokers, so you can imagine things didn’t go quite as expected…

Dramatica Theory Graphic Novel

The image below is the cover of a 32 page graphic novel style comic book explaining the key concepts in the Dramatica Theory of Narrative Structure I co-developed with my partner, Chris Huntley. So, although I didn’t create the comic book, I am responsible for a lot of the ideas in it and half-responsible for others, so here it is for your considereation. You can download the entire comic in PDF for free at http://storymind.com/free-downloads/dramaticomic.pdf.