If It Were Possible

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” 

 ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

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Dear Kate,

I haven't been writing to you lately, not here, but have been writing differently, as an Alice Munro story goes, putting pictures together, being cute and all, letting the words speak for themselves.  To you.

My new works - new words, are what we call in English "comic strip," or, most expository in Chinese, "sequential drawings" (連環畫).  A few I've done so far, housed in a new blog: Meneseteung.  I shall speak about the funny name later, but first let me explain myself (don't we all need to?)

David Constantine in his introduction to Goethe's novel Elective Affinities says: "The novelist is released from matter-of-fact, from what was biographically or autobiographically so, and produces the kind of truth which it is peculiarly his business to produce.  Had he not had the real experiences he would not have been equipped to produce that truth; but the truth he produces is other and more than those experiences."

Look at the drawings I posted here today.  I was bored at work, about twenty years ago when I had my first child and an atavistic moment to draw again, and started to doodle with my mouse on Microsoft Paint.  They were meant to be single panel comic, bare-threaded together (by what?) to go where the frayed fringes end.  That's all the explaining I want to do.  (Yes, I was parodying, "producing a humorously exaggerated imitation of," superhero stories.)

My new blog, as I said in its introduction, is inspired by and dedicated to the writing of Alice Munro.  The panels are simultaneously less and more wordy than anything I've done before.  In some pieces you will find a more direct access to their when and where (and possibly what); others you'll need to look a little bit deeper; some are downright confusing (but not if you are willing to ask questions).

And, yes, the weird name.

"Meneseteung" is a river in Ontario, perhaps the Chippewa term for the Maitland River, according to an Alice Munro story of the same name.  "Laughing water,” the sound of river running over rocks, is another possibility.  "Healing water” too.  The onset of menstrual flow (the menses), some associated and storied.  The Meneseteung river does not appear on any Ontario map.

Yours, Alex