Juvenila

1987

1987

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1986

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The. Big. Film. Is. Driving. Me. Nuts.

Girl on a Stick

(image still from The Wonderful Thing)

In other news, I got this today!


"Hi Kathleen - hope you're well. I've been inspired by GoaS - on the rare occasions I'm in london I've started scribbling my ire in Metro &c. In fact - i've been scribbling "GIRL ON A STICK!" over pictures of vacant, pouting "babes". MAkes me feel better and hope this generates some buzz too - can you get your other London mates to do the same?

Big love

Em x

Serious site: | http://www.uclmail.net/users/e.byrne
Silly site:D http://emmalouise99.blogspot.com"

I couldn't ask for any better tribute. I think Clementine would be proud.

The Date.

I feel strangely numbed to September 11th. Everything my country has done since has been a spit in the face to those who love life, including all those who deplore the murders that occured on September 11th.

The murders of September 11th were wrong.

The resultant two invasions by the U.S. and murdering of 700,000+ Iraqi civilians was and is wrong.

The Patriot Act and tearing apart of the U.S. Consitution was and is wrong.

Extraordinary rendition and Guantanomo Bay detainments were and are wrong.

The horrific events of September 11th marked the start of a terrible period in the history of the U.S. and the rest of the world, indeed.

I want this.

My maternal grandfather, Gerald Desmond, died four years before I was born, but his legacy lived on through his collection of Charles Addams cartoon books that lived in my grandparents' study. All three of my siblings and all ten of my first cousins on that side of the family (and I) spent many Christmas and Thanksgiving hours visiting Grandma and delighting in the pitch-dark humor of Mr. Addams. All fourteen of us grandchildren have a taste in humor that could be described gently as "dry" and less gently as "sick", though it probably evens out to "reasonably dark". My grandpa also had several photographic books of so-called "freaks", so at an early age I enjoyed looking at pictures of bearded ladies, real-life wolfmen, conjoined twins and women with three legs (a particular favorite, and even now I am not certain why). One of my cousins has a huge tattoo of the Addams family house on her leg, and was featured on one of those Wacky Weddings programs when she got married in a rather gothic ceremony. The Charles Addams cartoons, though, are always relentlessly cheerful in a way. It's gallows humor, but it's damn happy gallows humor. Reading Charles Addams cartoons always cheers me up the same way reading Douglas Adams (whoa! I didn't notice that until now, typing!) books always cheers me up.

I recently wrote a short story about that room where the Addams cartoon books were to be found and about living with my grandmother one spring and summer when I was 23 and she was recovering from a head injury (she had fallen off a ladder). My grandma died nearly two years ago, and her house was recently sold. She had one of the most beautiful persimmon trees in her garden, but it was chopped down for some reason by the new buyers. She was quite an amazing woman - an atheist (or "heathen", as she put it) who raised five children as Catholics, a librarian, a woman who studied law at Stanford way back in the 1930s, a woman of extremely sharp wit and tongue, someone who loved life, someone you'd always want at your dinner parties, but were always a little bit afraid of. She would come visit us up in Alaska and tell my mom that we four kids were getting spoiled (which would make us (the kids) seethe), and that we weren't using our "ly"-endings properly with our adverbs, a slur my mother found worse. Grandma was probably right, but at least I wrote "properly" in the sentence preceding this one. That's hardly Grandma's only legacy, and I doubt that the dark sense of humor was my grandfather's only bequest; it was only the most tangible one. We knew he had touched those glossy pages and chuckled too. I think that made us laugh louder, to prove something to him, our invisible dead grandfather, and to us, who wanted to know him better.

Here is a bridge named after my grandfather. You can follow it to the ultimate in 1950s glamor ships, the Queen Mary.

P.S. I just read that Ewan McGregor ran over the bridge in the film The Island and I think that's pretty damn cool, mainly because Ewan is pretty damn cute.

It was a Cool, Cool Summer

One day a skywriter flew past our house. We were sitting on the porch drinking beer and cava with our friend Stacy. I had to lie on my back to get this shot, but it was worth it.



The tall and beautiful Emma and Simone in the long grass of the sand dunes.



David and Simone appearing *very* excited about the cheese samples at the Tillamook cheese factory. (Photo courtesy of Emma Byrne)



Making drip castles the traditional Desmond way, a skill passed down to me by my mother. (Photo courtesy of Emma Byrne)



A squirrel captured on weird trunk limbs whilst we were camping.



Megan's son T goes on a treasure hunt while camping.



The female pirates of yore, post-treasure hunt. Yo-ho-ho!



20-million-year-old fossils at Beverly Beach.

So close

Everything feels so close. The film within six-eight weeks of completion. The mainstream book deal ever hovering but with the right people at the right publishing company (c'mon, guys, give a girl a break here; you know it's brilliant and a sure-seller!). Girl on a Stick mere days from being officially released at last.

On the also-bright side, I got a job teaching screenwriting and filmmaking, starting in January.

So close. I can taste it. I can almost taste it.

Isn't it time?

I'd Forgotten

I'd forgotten I ever commented on this; that whole time feels very numbed. I stand by what I said at the time, though:

Vox Pop: War in America
25 September 2001

Four American RainbowNetwork readers give their side of the story following the terrorist attacks, the media frenzy surrounding the events, and the possibility of American retaliation in the Middle East.

• I think the media, both British and American, has been very irresponsible in their reportage of the situation: the constant repetition of celebrating Palestinians; the repeated comments of such reactionary U.S. politicians such as Hatch and Baker. I don`t understand where the BBC and Channel 4 are pulling all these right-wing U.S. speakers from to make their so-called considered comments, including some of the American ex-pats they`ve been quoting on the British TV networks. I wish they`d interviewed me. When I talk to my family and friends in the U.S., I have heard nothing but distress and shock, fear of war, abhorrence of the possibility of bombing and hopes for peace. This is a viewpoint that has not been publicised; with typical sterotyping, the British media prefers to show an America that exhibits knee-jerk jingoism.
Kathleen Bryson, writer and editor, London

From an article by Charlotte Cooper

New Review

(^this was one of the pictures that was published with the article)

I had a great new review (article, really) for Girl on a Stick in Just Out magazine today:

“Able to move with ease between mediums, Kathleen Bryson is one of those multifarious talents that Portland attracts like moths to a benevolent flame. She is binational, bisexual and bilingual, and she is or has been an author, editor, actor, director, painter, riot grrrl, model, anthropologist, linguist and abundant storehouse of arcane information. (A few days after I interviewed her for this article, she joined my little crew for the filming of a short movie at the Washougal River; during the course of the day she cursed in Finnish, discussed the finer points of Neanderthal cranial formation with my male lead, and took off her high heels to scuffle barefoot down a steep rocky slope.)...

Girl on a Stick is subversive in that it's a love story in which the couple's ultimate break-up is the happy ending. Equally intriguing are the novel's stylistic innovations… There is extensive, semi-Joycean wordplay, and the text is enlivened with drawings, diagrams and crosswords that drive home the interconnectedness of its themes and the fact, alternately depressing and liberating, that our childhood remains with us forever.”

(article by Tony LeTigre - here in its entirety)

Kenai, Alaska: My Class Reunion Was Great

My old kindergarten pals Cathy and Matthew and, below, Matthew, Matthew's partner Ray and myself. It was a blast, to use some appropriately 1980s slang - I was so glad I went. Everything good-spirited; saw old friends like David Oberg and Dean Carignan and the Wagoner Twins and Rob Innes, all of whom I've known since we were all 3 years old (!) - okay, I've only known Rob since we were 7 - and nearly all of whom are in the first picture, where we're looking at our kindergarten class picture. There's such a real warmth that connects you to people you've known that long - it was wonderful to feel that link after not seeing people for so many years.

New Publication

I just had a short story, "So Cool" published (and let me tell you, I really needed that $50 check that arrived for the story this week).

Devilish pictures for those so inclined.

Eden II: Strange Fruit 1996 (print exhibited)


Succubus 1995 (original exhibited)


Upside-Down Eden 1994/1997 (original exhibited)


Little Devil 1994/1997 (original exhibited)


The Fall 1994 (original exhibited)


Dreamy 1996 (original exhibited)


O my demons.

I am feeling better now. But I still think a 15-16 year slog as an artist is a loooonnng time. It is hard not to be envious of those handed artistic freedom/money/prestige on a platter. And I have simple tastes. I am not talking a $500,000 book deal or a show at the Guggenheim. I am talking regular exhibition space; a steady relationship with a reputable publishing house.

Your Score: N-S-R

You scored 66% Non-Reductionism, 22% Epistemological Absolutism, and 33% Moral Objectivism!

You are an N-S-R: a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Skeptic, and a moral Relativist.

Link: The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Struggle

I want a book deal for The Matchbox. Is that so wrong? I want Girl on a Stick officially out, I want the film finished. I am so tired of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

I am probably in a different situation than most whining authors - Girl on a Stick *has* a publisher, will be published (soon); I *have* a lovely agent who is repping The Matchbox, and big-deal publishers *are* currently interested in it. The film is *nearly* finished, after five years. Almost. And yet, and yet, I made $8,000 last year. There is no real publishing industry in this town, so employment is, er "frustrating". I am way below poverty-line, and I am tired of struggling. I am tired of struggling as an author, painter, filmmaker. I have been struggling, not to "make it", but just to have a voice, since I was 22. That is 15 years of struggle, and it has worn me down.

I also find it hard to retain optimism in this difficult world.

15 years of graft; I know if I just hang on a little longer, but I am really tired. Really tired. And all I've done, all the paintings, short films I've acted in, films I've created, books I've written, ALL of those I have done while working full-time, as a publisher, editor, waitress, envelope-stuffer, persimmon-polisher, you name it. I am not a privileged artist. I'm just so fucking tired.

The Jetstones

Here.

I Just Can't Stop.

The Witch and the Princess.

Breakfast

Over here.

Wokka Wokka Nutta Butta

Over here.

Dream in Alaska

An old one but one of my favorites.

I am making a short DIY film about a ship's figurehead who falls in love with a mermaid.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbhPtUqcug0

I Love You, Dorrie

I was reading a book to my niece yesterday that was one of my very, very favourites when I was a kid called Dorrie and the Blue Witch. Now, Dorrie was a little child witch herself with mis-matched stockings and I always related to her. But I was truly shocked to discover that there were blue sparks everywhere in the illustrations, and also the omnipresent, evil association with the colour blue (my favourite colour even now), and also spells sprayed on by a perfume atomizer, all elements of which can be found in a certain film called The Viva Voce Virus. I was very insistent that there be blue sparks everywhere in the film this year, and now I know where I first saw them, which is really cool.



I always thought it was the Disney film The Sorcerer's Apprentice (which, of course, I've always loved as well).





Other realizations I've had recently are that the puddle in VVV where Ronnie throws her latte on Jesper is a direct homage to The Wizard Oz, and I suspect the double Glorias meeting up are influenced from one of my favourite time-traveling adolescent books, A Wrinkle in Time. I loved the Dorrie books, even more than the Pippi books.

(double-posted to The Viva Voce Virus blog as well)

Fairy Tales

Hackney Marshes

Someone asked me recently what I was like as a kid. I was a mix between girlie and tomboy. I still am, though I have always been visually very femme, and that has nothing to do with "femme" sexuality in that sense. I also wear no makeup at all, occasionally, and anyone who knows me well also knows that I can pull my own and work physically hard, climb trees, gut fish, eschew cleaning, usually much better than self-professed tomboys or even boys. Having said that, it's all about the glitter (not so much the feathers) for me. It's such a damn pity that little girls aren't allowed to be camp without preciousness seeping in - we can be pretty princesses. It's not enough. We should get to be artists - aficionados - too.

Men are allowed, as particular kinds of adults, to love musicals, bitchy wit, high drama. Men are allowed to cry when John Barrowman sings "I Am What I Am" on YouTube. Little girls and big girls, on the other hand, become mere appendages - faghags, everything seen through a male lens. There are those of us who are girls whose hearts soar when we hear the opening, Busby Berkeley-esque strains of "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" (yes!) as well. But we're not allowed to do this - we can be divas (the objects of male admiration), but never connoisseurs. We have to be Liza.

I was watching a great burlesque performance this weekend where the performer threw a pocket's worth of glitter in the air as "rain". It was so fucking beautiful to see the air sparkle like that. I could describe myself as faggy, the stereotype of which might sort of cover my sensibilities, but I always associate fags as admirable angry young male Queer Nation activists and although, gender aside, that was me at one time, it's not truly my word to use. Indeed, an ex-gf recently described me as "a bit of a trouble maker, a bit faggy, and sharp as a tack". I like that one, but even "faggy" makes me feel like I don't get to be me without a male context to explain me. Our society has taken even femininity away from the girls and given it to the men. It was never ours in the first place. I'm still figuring this one out.

And by recent book reviews, I mean...

"Sassy, clever, bright, dark, true, and, most importantly, alive. A huge book, and full of goodness." - Ali Smith, author of Booker Prize-shortlisted novels Hotel World and The Accidental

"At once boldly epic and profoundly personal, Kathleen Bryson's Girl on A Stick is a lyrical exploration of love, loss, and the exquisite joys (and pre-fab idiocies) of contemporary culture." - Jennifer Natalya Fink, author of Burn

"RENAISSANCE WOMAN Bryson continues to push the envelope... [Girl on a Stick] is a book that gets right into the blood and guts of a relationship with language that, like its central character, is sassy, knowing, vulnerable and often damn funny... Perhaps it's time too that those who hadn't previously heard of Bryson woke up to this delicious American talent." - GCN magazine

"Bryson uses word puzzles, illustrations, newspaper clippings, and worsening hallucinations to lament the politics of war and to wax lyrical about the best/worst of London's streets. An intelligent, often experimental book from a unique voice ." (four stars) - DIVA magazine

"A furious pace... as twisted as a Rubik's Cube." - GLT (San Diego)