The Last Walk of 2022

 

It was likely the last walk of the year on Thursday and the weather was ideal. Temperatures were in the lower sixties and the sun hung brightly with a couple hours of daylight left. North Georgia thawed after several days of cold with the lowest temperature of the period recorded at my house of seven degrees. There was a night of snow flurries earlier in the week and you could not have asked for finer weather over Christmas, if you like cold.

Ice covers a swamp. Photo by me. December 2022.

Many of the creeks, ponds and swamps in the shaded areas of the wooded ridges remained iced over. It was a cold snap to remember. Winter walks are the best walks of that I am certain.

Photo by me. December 2022.

Photo by me. December 2022.

Several deer were spotted roaming and foraging along the creeks and trails.

Photo by me. December 2022.

 

Photo by me. December 2022.

Photo by me. December 2022.

 

The geese landed as the day faded from afternoon to evening. 

I had plenty on my mind and I walked six miles over the hills and through the shadows of early winter. I wonder what readers thought of Uncivil X, I thought about the next novel and when it takes place and I thought about a project that I really would like to tackle, but I was uncertain if there would be any interest in it. My mind filled with hesitancy and uncertainty as 2022 ends. It was a long year and I put in a lot of work that I am unsure of and there was plenty of frustration at times. Futility seemed to sit on my shoulders, but better that than complacency and cowardice.

December 2022.

Onward to 2023. I hope it to be less frustrating and containing more happiness, patience and better conversations.

Thank you for reading.

The Christmas of 1983

My family in 1983 at a Christmas party on my mother's side of the family held before the cold arrived. I'm wearing a Levi Garrett hat that a certain “bird” gave me. We were good at pretending for the cameras.

The cold outbreak this Christmas is eerily similar to the one during Christmas 1983 when I was ten years old. It is near certain 1983 will remain colder than the Christmas of 2022. We survived then without the fear mongering and media hype and we will survive again.

 

When the media misleads, hypes, uses hyperbole or blatantly lies then we end up with a populace that lives in fear, believes everything or believes nothing. The lack of trust that the media suffers is of their own doing for their fictions. Facts matter in news and weather reporting.

 

From the NOAA Library. The weather map for December 24, 1983.

The cold came on Christmas Eve in 1983 and I vividly remember it. The front passed through on the 24th with snow flurries, it was nothing more than car topping snow. The high in Dallas (Paulding County) National Weather Service Station was forty-once degrees and dropped steadily throughout the day to a low by midnight of thirteen degrees. 

 

My family was at the annual Vise Christmas party at my grandparents that evening and night. We went in my father's Cadillac, which was a diesel and the fuel had water in it. The fuel froze and it would not turn over from the frozen water so we walked home in the bitter cold. My father was irate and this messed up his plans for the holidays. He had to spend Christmas with his family, instead of doing what he had rather be doing.

 

From the NOAA Library. The weather map Christmas Day 1983.

On Christmas Day, it was colder as is the standard that the second day after a cold front is colder. Cold air is more dense and the molecules move at a slower rate than warm air. Also, as is standard on day two the wind relaxes allowing the atmosphere to stop mixing so the air molecules slow and cool. 

 

The high on Christmas day was sixteen degrees after a low of two degrees below zero. Our dogs, which were outside dogs, were brought into the house and stayed in our laundry room – so it was damn cold for that happen. My father still could not thaw out the Cadillac and fumed all day. He remained stuck with us. My house was on well water and the pump froze. My father thawed it with a hair dryer.

On December 26^th, the high again was sixteen degrees after a low of one below zero. For the first time ever, the creek behind our house froze solid. We jumped on it, slid across it, tried to bust it with rocks, sticks and a shovel, but no luck – that thing was concrete. I was a kid and had to find a way to enjoy the unique weather. My father remained stranded with us.

On December 27^th, the high was twenty-six degrees after a low of one below zero. The creek remained solid and even my father's temper could not thaw the Cadillac.

 

As with most severe cold outbreaks in The South, the cold can only sustain for two or three days before it warms. On December 28^th, the high climbed to thirty-six degrees after a low of twenty-three degrees. The warming brought a mixed bag of weather with sleet, snow and rain. It was mostly rain, over two inches in Dallas. My father sensed freedom from his family, had the Cadillac running by noon and was gone faster than you can say Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer.

It will be a cold Christmas and I am not complaining about that. However, this is not "once in a generation cold." As I write this, it is sunny and sixteen degrees outside Whisper Hall. The wind is howling with gusts near thirty miles per hour and the windchill is at times, two below zero. It is cold, but what can be done about it? You can stay warm indoors and read a book or you can embrace it and go out and live life.

The Winter Solstice 2022

 

The faint afternoon light in the backyard. December 2022. Photo by me.

Today marks the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun set at five-thirty-two.

 

It looked and felt like winter here at Whisper Hall and it has for the past two weeks with days of rain, fog and unseasonably chilly weather. I have enjoyed it. It was not much different today with an east wind and temperatures rising to the upper forties. The rain returns tonight with sleet ahead of the coldest weather we have seen in a few years. Temperatures are forecast to reach the single digits for lows and with highs only in the teens and twenties over the Christmas weekend. It is spectacular weather. 

A snowy, ice rose at Whisper Hall. January 2022. Photo by me.

 

There might be a little snow over the Christmas weekend, but I am not expecting much. We have not had a snowfall since the middle of January when it snowed approximately three inches.

 

Whisper Hall. December 2022. Photo by me.

 

I lit a candle in the den to mark the occasion of the solstice. The fireplace is likely going to get some use over the next few days too.

 

Black Christmas (1974)

Last night, I watched the first Christmas movie that I have seen this year. It was new to me, even though it was released in 1974. I might have seen it as a child, but I do not remember.

 

The movie is considered by some to be a horror movie, but I thought it was more of a suspense/mystery movie compared to what is considered a horror movie by modern standards. It is not a movie with gore, jump scares, quick edits and CGI and that makes it a good movie. I love watching movies from when I was alive and there is an absence of modern technology such as computers and cell phones. It is possible to feel the silence that we enjoyed back then without the constant chiming and buzzing of today. Every year it seems humans invent new ways to make more noise and intrude on our natural environment.

Margot Kidder in Black Christmas 1974.

Black Christmas, filmed in Toronto, is about a series of murders that occur in a sorority house over the Christmas holiday period. The sorority house is one of those older homes built to last with dark wood interiors and a handsome staircase. The snow and the glow of the Christmas tree lights make for an unusual, but nice and cozy change, for a murder mystery. There is good acting in this film, pleasant cinematography, some creepy scenes and Margot Kidder gives an excellent performance. If you are seeking something different from the standard Christmas movies or enjoy 1970s movies, like I do; this might be for you.

Merry Christmas 2022

 

Birds gather in the backyard before a storm. December 2022. Photo by me.

 

The other morning I looked out on the front lawn and much to my surprise was a large buck eating the red winter berries. The deer was taller than me and muscular. I have seen many deer in my life, but this deer was the biggest I had ever seen. Unfortunately, I spooked it as I opened the front door to take a photo and it ran away.

 

I was twenty when I first read Thoreau's Walden. It was appealing to me at that age and where my head was then. A life in solitude among nature seemed the ideal. I lived similarly growing up and into my early twenties. It was impractical in some ways and unhealthy in others, but I was present among society enough with work, school and life that I was not in complete isolation. As it turns out, Thoreau was also not living in isolation either as he did leave Walden to enjoy the company of others and to take trips into town.

 

That life, in isolation, was beneficial too as it made me self-reliant on my own company, disciplined, strengthened my concentration skills and provided plenty of time for my thoughts and whims without distraction. I had my much-valued privacy too.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations."

-Henry David Thoreau

I lost my copy of Walden almost twenty years ago in a flooded basement. Nature, by way of a tropical storm, came for my copy and most of my book collection that I had amassed through my life at that time. Gone too were the leather bound copies of Great Expectations, Leaves of Grass and other books that I cherished. I spent a fair amount of money on books that dated back to the late 1800s. I would not have called myself a collector, but a semi-serious one.

 

Thursday, I ordered a new hardback copy of Walden as I desired to read it again in my hands. My library smaller than it was, grows again. I want to read Walden again in a comfortable chair, in my backyard, on a rock in the woods or wherever I choose. 

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives with in us. -Henry David Thoreau

Living outside the city again, on a hill, over a river and through the woods I have my solitude and my head returns to where it was nearly thirty years ago. Gone are the years of thundering nights on the dancefloor under a mirrorball, the parties until nine in the morning and all of the glitz and decadence - I regret none of that as I do not regret the quieter life now.  It was one fabulous experience that had its place, purpose and time.

Raking leaves. December 2022. Photo by me.

I cherish my peace at my own Walden more than any book in hand or on a shelf. I rake my birch, water oak and maple leaves (there's not a single pine on my property), enjoy the smell of them and the manual labor. It is one way of many to enjoy the season. 

The Christmas tree at my house. Photo by me December 2022.

This winter, I am writing the first draft of my next novel. I am also thinking over my poetry book which contains my poems from the 1990s. I am hesitant about publishing them due to their nature, but I may come spring. If you would like to know when I publish my next book, you may subscribe to my mailing list (I do not spam, sell or share my subscriber information).

Thank you for reading.

Me at my grandparent's Christmas party at their New Hope house in the 1980s.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

 

 

Influences For Uncivil X

With any work, whether writing, music, painting or other art forms there are outside cultural influences that inspire or shape it or the person creating it. This is about acknowledging the places, artists and works that inspired me in the period written about during Uncivil X and still do today.

Listed below are some of the artists, works, figures, events and places mentioned in Uncivil X or had an influence on me and it.  The list is very much a mixture of high, pop and underground culture.

This is written in a way that it does not give away any of the plot.

Nirvana

Nirvana

I will begin with the obvious choice.  The rise of Nevermind in the fall of 1991 was so unexpected and overwhelming. It came out of nowhere and changed the rock musical landscape. They were my favorite band at the time. I related to Cobain's lyrics. Lithium and Come As You Are were my two favorite songs. Their music was a life changer for me.

 

Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

French poet in the mid to late 1800s that died at age 37. His life story and writing were a huge influence on me. I begin the book with a selection from After The Flood. His influence resides throughout this book and I also mention his poem The Stolen Heart and the story behind it.

 

Death In Venice

The book and film were a part of my life from the time I was a little boy. I lived a similar scenario with a person known as English Stan in the 1990s.

Also from that film, is the inspiration of Gustav Mahler's Symphony 5, Adagietto. Leonard Bernstein's conducting is mentioned in the book. He conducted Adagietto at the funeral in New York for Bobby Kennedy in 1968.
Mahler was also an inspiration on me for his life in exile.

 

River Phoenix

River in My Own Private Idaho

Aside from being adorably handsome, River Phoenix was the best young actor of Generation X at the time. I had first noticed him in the 1985 film Explorers. His best roles were in Running On Empty and My Own Private Idaho. His death in 1993 was more shocking to me than Cobain's.

Resonant Frequency

Resonant Frequency is an aspect of the novel for those doing a close reading. The main character vibrates at certain points and that behavior is based on resonant frequency.

A Boy's Own Story

This is my copy of the book from the period of Uncivil X.

It is the classic gay, coming of age story. It was the first gay book of any kind that I read. I read it two or three times. Also mentioned in the book is Edmund White's, The Beautiful Room is Empty. I was not brave enough to buy gay books in person and they were not available in Paulding County, so I ordered through the Barnes & Noble catalog.

 

Doing Time On Maple Drive

Doing Time on Maple Drive cast. Yes, that's Jim Carrey.

Growing up I had seen many gay movies on cable television. My all-time favorite would be Parting Glances from 1986. In 1992 there was a made for television movie on Fox that was much more relatable called Doing Time On Maple Drive. It featured a gay male character that was the same age as I was that grew up in a dysfunctional household. The character was deeply into the closet and attempts suicide. His relationship with the character Kyle was heartbreaking. I taped that movie and watched it many times in the early 90s. 

 

Egon Schiele

Schiele self portrait.

Some of his trees.

The first time I ever saw any of his work, I fell in love with it. I explain why in Uncivil X. He was an Austrian painter that died at the age of twenty-eight.
There are other painters mentioned in Uncivil X: Kandinsky (my favorite), Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly.

Tacheles

Tacheles. Courtesy Wikipedia

 

Tacheles was a legendary Berlin squat and artist collective in the former East German side of the city. Berlin was known for its long history of squats in abandoned buildings. I have been fascinated by Berlin, the GDR and the Berlin Wall since I was a small child. After German reunification in 1990, Berlin was a popular place for Americans my age looking for an adventure.

The Goat Farm Atlanta. Photo by me.

The closest similar place that existed in Atlanta in the 90s was the Goat Farm. The Goat Farm appeared in the 1989 video for the Indigo Girls' Closer to Fine and has since appeared in movies. That video is a wonderful time capsule of Atlanta's decay in the late 80s and early 90s that I loved. Some of the other spots are the Bankhead Bridge to nowhere (which was still in use at that time), outside what is now the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Boulevard tunnel and too many other places to mention. How Atlanta is portrayed in modern pop culture and media, is not what it really is or was, but that is a topic for another day.

The Unanswered Question

 
Music from Charles Ives that made me think about life. Leonard Bernstein explains it.

 

Red Hot + Blue

 

 
Red Hot is an organization that was popular in the early 90s for its fundraising, campaigning and fight against AIDS. It was mostly known for putting out compilation albums composed of popular artists such as George Michael, Lisa Stansfield, Seal and many others. Their campaigns featured the art work of gay artist Keith Haring, who died of AIDS; among others.

Chess

The feud between Karpov and Korchnoi. Their story is a fascinating one.

The Red Balloon

 

The Red Balloon is a 1950s French short film about a boy chasing a red balloon through the streets of Paris. This was shown in school when I was growing up and I likely saw it again on public television. This film has stayed with me throughout my life and I am very fond of it. 

Zines

A 90s gay zine.

Zines were not something you could find in Paulding County and so you either found them in Atlanta or ordered them,as most did, through the mail. Zines were small, independent magazines often run by one person made on a photocopier. They were at their peak in cultural relevance in the 1990s. Zine creators often wrote about everything and anything imaginable. I knew a person in Atlanta that had a zine and I sometimes read other zines.

 

Ford Factory 

Photo courtesy Georgia State University.

This is the former factory where I lived in Atlanta with my loft circled in red. Most of Uncivil X is set in Paulding County, but the last few chapters are more Atlanta oriented and some of it is set in the factory.

I actually had two lofts there, but I simplified it to one for Uncivil X. The above photo is from 1988 before the Murder Kroger was built next door and the abandoned factory was converted into living space. When I lived there parts of the building were abandoned and decaying. We would sneak into those areas and up on the roof.

Today, that is the gentrified Ponce City Market next door in the background. When I lived there it was City Hall East and the neighborhood was FAR from gentrified in the 90s. The Masquerade was behind us on North Avenue and it made for a lively scene between that and the general sleaze that made Ponce so interesting.

Model-T factory from another vantage point. Photo by me.

The building in 2013 from the bridge over Ponce which now carries the Beltline. When I lived there that was a sometimes active rail line. Otherwise those tracks were a shortcut to Piedmont Park and people would engage in sex on the tracks between our building and City Hall East.

I had a large rainbow flag for all of Ponce to see. Taken from a video of mine 1995.

I had a great view of the Clermont. Taken from a video of mine 1995.

I wish I still had those metal candle holders. They were so heavy and well made. Taken from a video of mine 1995.

 

Living there, along with the stone house at Rhodes Hill, was the catalyst for my love of architecture and old buildings. I already loved antiques and unfortunately one of the stories that had to be cut from Uncivil X for word count reasons; was about the time my father and I bought an entire house of Art Deco antiques when we redecorated the house at Aviary Hill in the early 90s.

Totally Fucked Up

This film was my introduction to Gregg Araki films and independent, gay underground cinema. Aside from Totally Fucked Up, I very much enjoyed The Living End. I mention the opening scene and other parts of the movie in Uncivil X.

 

Barnsley Gardens

Barnsley Manor. Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Though Uncivil X is approximately 98% true, sometimes I had to change minor details to make for a better story or to avoid some other type of issue. Barnsley Gardens is the inspiration for Addison Manor in the book. I wanted to change parts of the history of the house to tell my story in a more effective way. It is true that I visited Barnsley with those particular characters on a drizzly, lonely late fall day in the early 90s. The place was also very different from what it is today. There was no resort and it was only the ruins of the manor house.

Visetown & Vise Landing, Tennessee - Decatur County

Video still from a VHS of mine in the mid 1990s looking toward the Tennessee River.

 

 

A newspaper mention of Visetown.

A newspaper mention, among many, of Visetown from 1939.

Rhodes Hill in Decatur County is very much based on a real place and has appeared in all three of my books. It is a place that barely exists today on any map; known as Visetown in the family and by map makers as Vise Landing. The stone house, mercantile, other buildings, barns and farm are very real and built by my ancestors. The stone house at Visetown was one of my favorite places in the world and has inspired me many times over. 

Though I spent a lot of time in Decatur County in the 90s, very little of it is in Uncivil X as I wrote about it so much in Dweller On The Boundary and Terminal Wake.

The area around Visetown has changed some over the decades with a country club and marina now located where we swam as kids in the Tennessee River.

 

Me at Lost Creek in the mid 80s.

 

The Beech River at Lost Creek 2004. Photo by me.

Another location in Decatur County, Lost Creek, is also a very real place and the stories from there are true. The real name is Lost Creek and my family maintained a presence there well into the 2000s. Along with my grandparents and my grandmother's second husband's properties; my father also owned a house there. My father in the 2000s simultaneously owned a house at Lost Creek, in Parsons and a house with a lot of acreage in neighboring Perry County.

Vise Pharmacy, Decaturville, Tn. Photo by me 2004.

Some random Vise presence in Decatur County. Having such an uncommon name where I grew up in Georgia, it was always strange to see my last name on so many businesses in Decatur County. That never got old.

Aviary Hill

Aviary Hill in 1990 when the house became white. Photo by me.

Of course, there is no way to neglect the house and hill that I grew up, as it is the most common location in all of my books to this point. The house is located in New Hope, Georgia. It was the single most important place in my life and shaped me in countless ways.

Blackout Log would be to the right and behind me in that photo, fifty yards away.

The photo above is a foot bridge my father and I built over the creek behind my house. The land influenced me as much as the house and I loved growing up there. I would not have wanted to have grown up anywhere else.

Photo by me mid 1980s. Photo by me.

Newcomers to Paulding County in the last twenty to thirty years can not grasp how rural it once was. Paulding County was well known for moonshine through the 1960s and 1970s. The moonshine still above was one that was on our property. There were probably a dozen behind my house as you went deeper into the woods towards Elsberry Mountain, though none of them were in use.

Elsberry Mountain

Looking toward Atlanta from the top of Elsberry Mountain in the late 1980s. Photo by me.

Elsberry Mountain. Photo by me late 80s.

Though Elsberry Mountain is only casually mentioned in Uncivil X, it was a common location in my other previous books and I thought I would include it. It is located maybe a mile behind Aviary Hill. It was a regular place I walked or rode my ATV growing up, probably once a week or more. I knew every inch of that mountain on every face. 

 

Legendary Georgia Tech football coach, Bobby Dodd, had a compound at the base of the mountain. I never knew who he was until much later in life. I met him once when I was about twelve years old. I was walking the dirt road with my dog and came across this elderly man, it was a strange sight as I never ran into people out there as it was so isolated. He introduced himself and asked who I was. He told me to be careful.

My Next Novel

 

© 2022 Chris M. Vise

I have had little to say about what is written in my next novel. I enjoy surprising readers and will refrain from saying more about it until publication nears. For now, this is the only tease I have to offer along with a mock interview in which I discuss a few more details here.

 

This is the cover of my next novel. The cover features Orion on the ceiling of Grand Central Station in Manhattan.

This novel spans 1991 to 1995 and picks up the story where Dweller On The Boundary left off. This is the second novel of the planned trilogy which will conclude in 2004.

I am not finished with New Hope or Paulding County and there are plenty more secrets to reveal underneath the pines. If you do not know the story, I kindly ask you to read my first two books and if you did, thank you. If you have read them and thought that was the entire story then I ask you to understand that it was not - it gets worse.

 

The tentative release date is November of 2022.

Me in the 1990s.

There are plenty of musical hints in this playlist.