Welcome, All the Octopuses!
Or is it Octopi? All cephalopods! Cephalopodlians? Squidgy, many-armed monsters?
Frankly, I like the word octopi, but, sadly, it seems not to be correct. Nonetheless, grammar aside (be still my English-teaching heart), why are we here?
This is Substack! Yes, lots of writers are signing up for Substack, and now here I am too. Some join because it can be a paid service, but that’s not what convinced me to switch from Mailchimp. Mailchimp has been fine. No shade.
In fact, Mailchimp has great templates that I think I’ll miss. Substack’s design is simple and uniform, which is a mixed blessing for an artist. Very mixed!
I spent hours, HOURS, designing every edition of my Mailchimp newsletter. A simplified format forces me to stop fussing about. But that isn’t why I’m here either.
The reason I’ve switched is that Substack makes it easier to share. Sharing is caring! Ha! But seriously, it’s time for a change.
So, here is a gift from me to you—twice a month, by the light of the stars, rises the Paper Octopus from the Internet seas with tokens of art and stories.
So, why Paper Octopus?
I shouldn’t even like cephalopods. They’re like giant squidgy, wet spiders, and I’m terrified of spiders. But cephalopods are intelligent and fascinating, elegant and monstrous. As you can see, I like drawing their ever-moving, spiraling arms.
Also, I like the metaphor of many arms. I want to reach for so many things! Many arms are needed.
But what is the goal, you may ask? Why be here?
Three of my favorite newsletters are CAFE ANNE, The Whippet, and Austin Kleon. They each share things that delight or surprise me. So, may the art and stories here delight or surprise you. And let you know about the mysterious, many-armed denizens of the deep. (Did you know an octopus has three hearts? Hmmm. There’s some art potential!)
If they do and you’d like such things in abundance, the world of Patreon awaits! And you can help feed the octopus so that there is always ink.
For this first edition, I’ll share a blackout poem from a while back.
Recent Reading
The Heroine with a 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar. Fans of fairy tales, Star Wars, myth, psychology, and story writing may be familiar with Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. I still remember watching Campbell’s interview with Bill Moyers. As insightful as those interviews and the book are, there’s more to say, and Tatar jumps right in. Frankly, this could be a series of books. She delves deep into some stories and skims the surface of others. With the vast universe of stories out there, that’s not a criticism. A writer can cover only so much in one book. The only criticism is, however, a glaring one. Tatar deadnames actor Elliot Page. It’s hard to tell if this is an oversight or otherwise. From the text, it seems as if the book as written in a short amount of time (she talks about writing it during the pandemic and that’s not even over), and the acting role Tatar references was from a long time ago. Maybe Tatar chose to use the name on the credits? Maybe she doesn’t know any better? It’s hard to believe her editor didn’t catch it, but it’s there, and that’s a shame.
Scheherazade may lack the mobility and appetites of male cultural heroes, but she transcends the narrow domestic space of the bedroom through her expansive narrative reach and embraces bold defiance as she sets about remaking the values of the culture she inhabits, using words alone. She not only arouses curiosity but also turns herself into a storytelling transvaluation machine, for she understands at the deepest level that words can change you. ~Maria Tatar