Dear word explorer,
Thank you, fresh readers of Splinister — plus a new paying subscriber — and welcome aboard my weekly lettership which sails across the electronic currents and docks in your inbox (unless lost in the spam becalmed seas).
I often ponder the magic of this enterprise, where I type words onto a laptop, which are transmitted over wires and airways to my subscribers across the world, to be received by your devices and read at your convenience. This is one of the closest equivalents humans have to telepathy (so far). Thank you for allocating my writing a place in your attention-queue!
Last week I launched my new fiction series, Moon Hook, which will be delivered every Thursday. It’s a weird mystery set on an island off the coast of Ireland, and I’m enjoying it so far. But, I’m in the honeymoon phase; check in on me after I deal with fraught arguments about who unloads the dishwasher or the sin of forgetting to restock the loo rolls in the bathroom. Will our passion survive the domestic realities of a creative schedule? Tune in every Thursday!
I watched a video clip today of three young Irish women who were glowing with excitement in anticipation of the arrival of Taylor Swift to our shores, as part of her juggernaut global ‘Eras’ tour which is the highest-grossing musical tour in history, having surpassed $1 billion in revenue.
Swift will be performing at the Aviva Stadium on Friday/Saturday/Sunday, but the merchandise stand is open from Thursday, even for those disappointed swifties who couldn’t get a ticket. On the Friday night Shania Twain will be on the stage in Malahide, plus this weekend Dublin Pride and the Longitude Music Festival will be happening, as well as the quarter finals of the GAA football1 All-Ireland senior championships. The city might lift off its foundations this weekend with excitement, but it may not be the best period to visit the Big Smoke unless you are booked into those events.
From what I’ve observed, the Eras concerts are happy, exuberant affairs with enraptured fans enjoying one hell of a show. It’s marvellous to see Swift devotees revelling in joy and shared musical tastes. Cynicism and causal cruelty is easy and abundant in this online world so it’s refreshing to witness this celebration.
Swift is an artist for whom I have huge respect. She takes risks, explores new musical influences, and knows how to tell a story. She has gained control over her creative work in a industry that notoriously chews people up, and now writes and directs her music videos. Last year’s video for ‘Anti-Hero’ has 3.4 million likes, and her work displays confidence and a sense of humour. Fans of genre fiction might notice how often Swift uses unusual and unsettling imagery in her songs along with science fiction elements.
In her recent song, ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’, from her 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift sings:
So I leap from the gallows
and I levitate down your street,
crash the party like a record scratch
as I scream:
"Who's afraid of little old me?"
You should be.
Swift’s appeal should not be surprising to anyone who has ever dealt with an intense emotional situation: be it a breakup, a happy relationship or a business betrayal. The characters in her songs feel things deeply. They might have muted those sentiments to deal with difficulty, but the pain usually erupts in some fashion by the last chord. She’s written many catchy tunes, but often her characters have made dubious choices and are dealing with mistakes. They are human beings whiplashed by life, figuring out ways to cope with this uneasy world.
Like most of the biggest artists in the music business Swift comes under intense scrutiny, pressure and adoration. Everything she writes is analysed and decoded. Of course there are elements of her life in her work — that’s what artists do. They discover their passions, irritations, and curiosities and they focus their work through the lens of their observations and experiences. But it’s a mistake to imagine events are mapped directly.
I often think of the painting, ‘The Treachery of Images’, by Belgian artist René Magritte. It’s a simple pun: the depiction of the pipe is not the pipe itself. It’s not even the most realistic version of an old-fashioned style of pipe. ‘La Trahison’ can be translated as ‘the treason’ or ‘the betrayal’, and along with word treachery indicates a breach of trust. Yet the piece is playful, not serious. We participate in the illusion, knowing it is false. To be surprised afterwards, is to pretend you were not pretending!
A sign of a good artist is when the viewer or listener is hit with a recognition in the fiction. It tugs us, surprises us, and allows us to ponder scenarios in our life. Scenes have heft. Characters are familiar. ‘It must be true,’ the reader considers. ‘Who is this based upon? It’s too real.’ Despite the doppelgangers and the giantess.
Stephen King said in his book, On Writing: ‘Fiction is the truth inside the lie’.
To accomplish that the artist must follow the maddening magnetic narrative pull around the wrecks, rocks and whirlpools, and to evoke your imagined world and characters in their best, truest, unreal life.2
The Gaelic Athletic Association is an Irish organisation focused on promoting Irish sports, which include the traditional games of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, Gaelic handball and rounders. The games are massively popular in Ireland.
Even the villains and ne'er-do-wells.
I don't really listen to Taylor Swift but from the sounds of it her 'characters ' aren't very different from the people I hear in the hard rock and metal I tend to listen to. Especially songs from bands like In This Moment and Slipknot. Guess we are all just trying to plug through our emotions and relationships and relationship fallouts when they drop out. I know I am. I'm happily married but I had a friendship end after 10 years of not so good times but also filled with a lot of good things too. It's hard when people find they have nothing in common with you anymore-- where does the love go? I hope no one is afraid of little Ole me, but as you mentioned... maybe they should be. Ha.
Great writing as always. ❤️
I am mildly obsessed with Tortured Poet's Department -- I listened to it three times in a row yesterday! I love that her songwriting is so confessional. As someone who knows as much as anyone that it's a dangerous game to try to tease what's real out of a story (because I use a lot from real life), I confess I still find myself googling which ex a certain song of hers is about 😆