Alexx's Patreon Update: May 2019

[alexxkay]

LOTS of productivity over the last two months!

• Major secondary passes on issues 1-4 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest. I was particularly happy to discover that Moore’s casting Prospero as the original agent 007 of Britain’s spies was actually founded in reality!
• Significant contributions to the recently-released penultimate issue of Tempest, #5. Possibly the most fun part of this was identifying all the various “Werewolves of London”, though it was also satisfying to track down a relevant Moore interview:<cut>
  • “Do I believe in fairies? Well, I believe in absolutely every creature that the human imagination has ever thrown up, in an ontological sense, in that the idea of fairies exists, and I believe that fairies are the idea of fairies, just as I believe that gods are the idea of gods, that these things exist in a world of ideas in which they are completely real, and you only have to look at the Victorian fairy painters, and how many of them ended up mad, you only have to look at Richard Dadd’s Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke to see that little figure of the old man with Richard Dadd’s face sitting there, looking really anxious, staring out of the picture at you, sitting there on his log, and I look at that, and I don’t think, “Oh, that’s Richard Dadd painting himself into his own, you know, miniature masterpiece,” I think, “That is Richard Dadd trapped in a painting. The fairies got him.” He was away with the fairies.”

  Also of note, that interview was by our own annotation team's Pádraig Ó Méalóid, and may be found in full in his collection of Moore interviews, Mud and Starlight.

• Minor contributions to Cinema Purgatorio #17. (Joe did the heavy lifting on this, as I was deep into LoEG annotating when it came out.)
• Moderate contributions to Cinema Purgatorio #18 – the final issue! -- including noting lots of past hints now made clear and a time-loops which has closed. I’m particularly proud of a closing note to Kieron Gillen’s Modded:
  • Gillen has chosen to put this message -- that gaming can be whatever you want it to be -- in the mouth of a young black female. While it was not part of the text of Modded, Gillen is certainly aware of the degree of racism and sexism that infect the "Old Men" of videogaming in our world. He seems to be suggesting that being welcoming to new types of audiences is the only way to break the dominant paradigm which seems to view "Guns AND conversation!" as some sort of innovation.
• Annotations for the cover art to the forthcoming Tempest hardcover.
• I finally got back to “Round the Bend”, and finished up the long-interrupted section dealing with the author’s cousin Audrey Vernall! This section also featured a surprise guest appearance by Bill Drummond of K Foundation Burn a Million Quid fame. A few favored entries:
  • “subloomly” – “Sublimely”, “sub loom lie” (referring to the weaving of the Fates).
  • “cantlostimes” – “Countless times”, “can’t lose times” (the fundamental message of Eternalism).
  • “containiwum” – “Continuum”, “contain I one” (I, alone, contain everything).
• Answering a Dragaeran continuity question from Steven Brust.
• The usual integration of cogent comments on the various annotation sites.

Prognosis for next time is more progress on “Round the Bend”. Only two sections remain! Though the next section is the longest one, so I may not get through it. And, of course, the final issue of Tempest might arrive, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was late.