muse zine?

[kradeelav]

Playing with the idea of a zine specifically about Muses (creativity-ish but not strictly limited to creativity, more like, general spiritual?) and it being literally just jammed with direct quotes from people about how they see their Muse and interact with them.  No commentary, just folks from all walks of life. Some famous artists/authors, some near-anonymous comments, some oddball people from history that nonethenless spoke on the topic, some from kin-adjacent circles, some actual academic essays on the topic, etc.

I've kind of mentioned the interest once or twice on here before, and it's really interesting digging through related books/academic journals and see tantalizing hints here and there but there's no one "book" or something out there that respectfully combines thoughts from the actual people who interact with their Muses.

It's a fine needle to thread considering there's a load of clearly "make money off of the woo" articles out there ... plus the ones reaaaaaally into selling you their flavor of Xianity (yea nah thanks, already got a Muse, already been there bud) - but, but i find random-ass people like Ida Craddok who sounds amazingly fascinating for so many other reasons but who was very open about having a very real Muse to the point of writing pamphlets about it, and then "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" which is a mouthful of a book but what i'm kind of getting is an out-there-but-surprisingly-plausible theory of this phenomenon being entirely natural to the entire human evolution.

tbh it feels like a fabulous fit for a zine in that it's a) shorter than a book b) more about other people's words as a collection, b) with a very definite theme that's a bit too "woo" for most publishers, and d) I'd consider too personal pushing through traditional publishing routes, even self-pub.

anyway! I gotta read through some of these books and amass my quotes list but this is one .... I'm very interested in completing this year....

Comments

[draculard]

I swear I just read something fascinating about this... I have to check through my books to try and find it, because I know it touched upon the idea of a Muse being natural to human beings, but I can't remember exactly what it had to say. This sounds like a fantastic zine btw

[kradeelav]

Ahh thank you! <3 Would love it if you found the quote/line in the future (you've got an amazing bookshelf from the little i've been reading your DW), but absolutely don't expend the energy searching for it. <3

[draculard]

Alright, I never found exactly what I was looking for — I suspect it was just a conversation my brother and I had instead of something I read XD But I found these two muse-related quotes in the process.

From Margaret Atwood's essay Nine Beginnings: "A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The waste basket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse of Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection. She is the tenth muse, the one without whom none of the others can function. The gift she offers you is the freedom of the second chance. Or as many chances as you'll take."

And from an Oliver Sacks interview with Wired about his book Musicophilia: "Music doesn't represent any tangible, earthly reality. It represents things of the heart, feelings which are beyond description, beyond any experience one has had. The non-representational but indescribably vivid emotional quality is such as to make one think of an immaterial or spiritual world. I dislike both of those words, because for me, the so-called immaterial and spiritual is always vested in the fleshly — in "the holy and glorious flesh," as Dante said.

So if music is not directly representative of the world around us, then what's inspiring it? One has the feeling of the muse, and the muses are heavenly beings. This feeling is very, very strong with Cicoria, the surgeon in my book who was hit by a bolt of lightning. He felt that he was actually tuning in to the music of heaven — that he had God's phone number. I can't avoid that feeling myself when I listen to Mozart. I feel differently about Beethoven. I think of Beethoven as a sweating Prometheus, a terrestrial figure.

I intensely dislike any reference to supernaturalism, but I think there can be profound mystical feelings which do not have to call on fictitious agencies like angels and demons and deities. The whole natural world is bathed in wonder and beauty and mystery. The feeling of the holy, the sacred, the wonderful, the mystical, can be divorced from anything theological, and is conveyed very powerfully in music."

[kradeelav]

just wanted to circle back to you and say thank you for digging up those muse quotes. :> saved them in my doc of ideas there -and i love how they cover facets of the human experience more than I even thought this whole zine/research expedition would take.

[queenlua]

color me intrigued!

[kradeelav]

i am absolutely sending you like a stack of all my zines as they come lmao <3

[queenlua]

yessssss good *pumps fist*

[lukadian]

Ooooh this sounds fascinating, I'd love to contribute if you're collecting reflections and thoughts on muses! I also know several people in my RP community who could probably contribute some interesting stories and thoughts on relationships to their various personas, stories and sources of inspiration and how they intersect with personal magic, lifestyle and expression!

[kradeelav]

Yes please!! I was debating on opening a call out for writings of this phenomenon with the huge caveat that the writing "may not" be included in the zine (would prefer to retain the choice of curation if only for quality control), but i don't want to hurt anyone's feelings if their work isn't included ... having an unofficial call feels like a less stressful compromise. That being said - they'd be guaranteed anonymity and their words handled with respect, and I'm happy to send anyone a zine who's work "is" included (and probably will be sending out plenty of freebies anyway, this is a work of love. xD)

(hilariously - actually thought about Crim and her whole longstanding dynamic with Hojo, ngl. I can only observe from afar but it really feels like the kind of Muse-dynamic that I'd like to see more of, here.)