Arisugawa Park — Prologue
Hiro-o 9:53 am — March 2007
What is a late-stage cloud novel? It is a work that is being revised, sometimes extensively and sometimes not at all. Click around the links below for permutations of several cloud novels — and witness the process of becoming.
For the musical side check fabric — Summon These Days
Dressed in khakis and light sweater, the man walked along the deserted, rain flecked street at the edge of Arisugawa Park and turned in through old, iron-wrought gates. In the right light in early morning the oppressively compact city melted away into a tableau worthy of Edward Gorey — pond, brook, and trees still emanating the secretive presence of a childless branch of the royal family.
The man stopped and gazed for a moment at a pond encircled by lone souls on benches, fishing along its banks, nestled into the contours of the hill in gnomic fixation on barely perceptible ripples. Picking his way along worn stone steps, attempts at the sun to break free from persistent clouds veered into a tangle of shafts, pale light flickering through the branches. This could be anywhere. The patch of sky widened as he emerged from trees into a clearing at the top of the hill.
He found a bench and settled in. Beneath the call and response of watchful crows there was a faint chirp that registered as a first sign of spring. Eyes coming to focus amid thoughts of needless pain inflicted on others, he took in two children playing in a still barren flowerbed at the center of the circle. They had shed their jackets and were digging around in the dirt with sticks. Above, a statue of a Meiji-era hero on a horse, stiff in 19th-century Western fittings. The man’s gaze trailed past the statue. Two mothers sat on a bench on the far side talking. He caught a few words — a malfunctioning refrigerator, the cost of daycare… his eyes flickered back to the children. The boy was still digging, the girl brushing off flower bulbs, arranging them carefully along the low brick border. One of the mothers glanced over in the kids’ direction and let loose a torrent. “Get out of the dirt! Put on your coats — you’ll catch cold.” The two exchanged glances and brushed their hands off on their pants. They picked up their jackets and trudged over to their mothers, stern voices still chiming in edgy syncopation.
As the voices trailed off down the path toward the pond, something buzzed in the man’s jacket. He took out his cell phone and leaned forward, elbow on knee, listening intently. There was nothing to say, it had been done. Hai. Wakarimashita. As he ended the conversation, he lowered his head with a slight, reflexive bow. It was over, he was free. Wiping the sweat from his brow. This could be anywhere. It could have been anyone.
The man’s gaze drifted to the bulbs left exposed on the low brick wall. He stood up and walked unsteadily to the flower bed, letting one knee sink in upturned earth. Picking each bulb and placing it firmly into winter hardened ground, he brushed soil over and patted lightly down. When he finally stood up his hands and khakis were creased with dirt. This could be anywhere. It could have been anyone. The sky through the branches constricted and he felt a hint of rain. I did it. It was me. The song came to him, with its melodic uplift And I will never be free, I will never be free.
Next — Evena Falls
Fabric — SERIES on MEDIUM
Clicking on the indexed links below gets you to 1) the first entry in the series, which includes a 2) series-specific contents list, like the one for Arisugawa Park below. Think of these links as a blog contents page that allows the entire ecosystem of Damon Arvid writing to be searched in seconds. A workaround necessary on a platform designed for feed, rather than author-specific searches.
All my content is real writing, of a level that was repped to the big publishers, who passed, because, well… Robert Johnson, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe and so many unsung who never got the official nod and made often better art as a result.
- Arisugawa Park (late-stage cloud novel)
- fabric - concept + platform + system
- What I Learned on the Internet (WILOTI)
- Great Pacific Garbage Patch ( film)
- EVEN (cloud novel)
- Cowachunga (early-stage cloud novel)
- The Bearded Man and the Muse (ditto)
- Medium and the Missing….
- Music (aMuse)
Arisugawa Park — Contents
Chapter 1
1.1 — Evena Falls
1.2 — Window Seat
1.3 — Apparition
1.4 — Ridealong
1.5 — Rock Garden
1.6 — Steve’s Notebook
1.7 — Projector
1.8 — Alive
1.9 — Ramen Shop
1.10 — Husk
1.11 — Paperweight
1.12 — Scissor’s Flash
1.13 — Empathy
1.14 — Pops & Crackles
1.15 — Kitchen Table
Chapter 2
2.1 — Evena Wakes
2.2 — Landing
2.3 — Purpose
2.4 — Confession
2.5 — Notes on a Desk
2.6 — Backside Entry
2.7 — Small Mercies
2.8 — Backside Exit
2.9 — Double Rainbow Gambit
Chapter 3
3.1 — Undertow
3.2 — Frustration
3.3 — Subterranean Journey
3.4 — Pocket Lint
3.5 — Crossing the Rubicon
3.6 — Tectonic
3.7 — Furtive Karma
Arisugawa Explained
2. Another Way of Saying Writer’s Block
Copyright © Damon Arvid 2018
With an equal focus on the visual, auditory, and written, Damon Arvid is an artist who has shared bits and pieces of the total vision on various skins and mediums. This is the current public skin, along with the Youtube playlist Fabric — Summon These Days.
STOP clicking. Relax. Listen very closely, something is being said. Organic, loosely tied to the future, based on a coherent ecosystem of sound + content.
A toast… for the fabric music that melds musicians learning and composing on the spot with painstaking arrangements of sounds that are… original, not copyied or altered beats, rhythms, and chords.
A toast… for doodles that uncover new tomorrows and only afterward self-evident truths.
A toast… for the cloud novel ecosystem that manifests in several works that lead to life on Mars.
Endurancewriter blog defunct and discontinued. My apologies. 20,000 views a month and no payoff, no human anything. Rap-a-tap… but Arisugawa Park, Cowachunga, et al. continue.
Medium is simply a ledgered host for the material, a month’s earnings were .02 cents — ultimately this material will be exported to a platform that values original content in a curated and rationally compensated way. IP is getting there, because…
All for one and one for… fabric.
