(Dancing the Wild cont., page 2)
Tolian’s
Most
Recent
Work
Rear Window ©2004 Ingrid Swillens
“Gasoline
and
Perfume,”
set
in
the
rich
multicultural
mix
of
Chicago,
is
an
evocation
of
Tolian’s
views
about
life
that
is
set
to
a
jazz
backbeat
of
music,
passion
and
sensuality.
It
is
the
story
of
a
sometimes
tense
and
often
passionate
night
in
Chicago
by
the
fictional
(perhaps)
Tolian
and
an
older
woman
who
is
more
educated
and
appears
to
have
a
higher
socio-economic
status
than
the
writer.
Tolian
portrays
his
own
blue-collar
roots
and
life
in
this
story,
and
echoes
his
signature
theme
that
action
and
passion
are
the
meaning
of
being
alive.
The
real-life
Tolian
defies
the
stereotype
of
a
hip
urban
writer.
He
got
married
and
had
a
daughter
at
age
18,
and
began
to
work
at
a
series
of
factory
jobs.
He
finally
got
tired
of
making
tractor
parts,
got
divorced
and
raised
the
child
himself,
trained
to
be
a
firefighter
and
then
was
told
that
single
parents
were
not
hired
for
this
job.
He
got
remarried
and
took
a
job
as
“a
glorified
mechanic”
at
a
federal
facility
near
Chicago
that
does
research
into
pure
physics
and
does
not
do
weapons
work
(this
is
important
to
Tolian).
This
job
gives
him
good
pay
and
the
stability
to
raise
a
family
that
now
includes
a
wife
and
four
daughters,
but
towing
the
line
does
not
come
easily
for
him.
He
still
sees
music
and
writing
as
“who
I
really
am.
My
job
is
who
I
need
to
be
to
support
my
girls.
(If)
I
could
do
it
through
writing
or
music…I’d
do
it
in
a
heartbeat.”
Tolian
also
is
an
accomplished
musician
(guitar
and
trumpet)
who
now
is
working
with
his
sister-in-law
(a
vocalist
and
pianist)
on
a
series
of
“trippy
blues/funk
stuff”
for
a
possible
recording.
In
addition,
he
has
gone
back
to
college
to
study
engineering. In
“Gasoline
and
Perfume,”
Tolian
and
the
woman
(who
is
not
given
a
name
in
the
story)
often
spar
about
his
blue
collar
life
and
values.
After
leaving
a
Thai
restaurant
at
the
beginning
of
the
story,
they
see
a
mixture
of
rich
and
poor
people
buying
used
clothing
at
a
Salvation
Army
store.
The
poor
buy
used
clothes
because
they
have
no
choice,
but
the
well-off
and
trendy
buy
“secondhand
so
they
don’t
have
to
bother
putting
any
life
into
it.
The
trendy
buy
their
readymade
character,
built-in
memories.”
The
woman
calls
him
“pompous,”
and
then
laughs,
“spitting
tiny
diamonds
into
the
night
air.”
Later,
they
drive
through
hip
sections
of
the
city
with
clubs
that
have
campy
names,
drive
through
wealthy
neighborhoods
and
impoverished
public
housing
projects,
and
end
up
at
a
bar
named
“Danny’s”
in
a
working
class
section
of
the
city.
Her
hands
are
delicate
and
clean,
while
his
hands
are
dirty,
calloused,
scarred,
scraped
and
stained
with
oil
from
factory
work.
The
woman
complains
of
frustration
and
needing
to
find
answers.
She
asks
Tolian’s
advice,
and
then
brushes
him
off.
He
fires
back
that
she
must
think
he
is
too
ignorant
and
stupid
to
understand,
because
of
his
blue-collar
life,
and
she
calls
him
a
prick.
Finally
they
make
peace. Despite
the
harshness
of
their
sparring,
Tolian
found
her
attractive
from
the
beginning.
It
is
in
her
eyes,
to
him:
in
her
eyes
that
sparkle
and
glow,
and
also
reflect
her
spirit
and
the
life
she
has
lived.
When
they
finally
make
peace,
she
tells
him
that
she
gets
scared
of
being
alone.
He
begins
to
answer
that
her
life
has
been
full,
and
she
fires
back
sarcasm.
He
then
paraphrases
rebels
and
anarchists
whom
she
admires:
“You
have
to
experience
it
all.
Truth
is
nothing
without
experience,
right?
Just
words.
And
words
are
hollow.”
Then
he
catches
himself,
and
realize
he
has
grown
beyond
“such
grand
ideas”
that
are
meaningless
“without
action
to
back
them
up.”
He
talks
of
needing
“a
mad
wild
rush
into
it
all.”
She
says
that
is
“all
a
myth,”
and
he
tells
her
to
follow
him
(adding
to
himself
that
“ideas
follow
action”).
Thus
begins
their
evening
together. They
walk
through
the
pulsing
industrial
heartbeat
of
the
city,
and
Tolian
defines
to
himself
what
he
wants
to
show
her:
“There
is
happiness
to
be
found
in
the
moment.
In
experience.
In
action.
The
doing
of
life.”
But
he
also
questions
the
reality
of
his
own
beliefs.
Music
becomes
the
“ambrosia”
that
takes
them
beyond
grand
ideas
and
into
life.
They
go
into
a
club
where
the
music
is
an
ecstatic
mixture
of
many
different
traditions
that
“sings
out
a
universal
praise
of
humanity…Seduction,
arousal
and
climax
over
and
over
and
over.”
They
listen
from
a
dark
alcove,
and
she
is
entranced.
He
reaches
for
her,
and
they
collide
in
passion
and
hunger.
They
are
led
by
the
music
and,
he
writes,
“the
world
fades
and
all
we
are
is
in
the
moment…Here
is
my
body
(and)
it
is
yours
ours
mine.”
They
make
love
and
he
knows
that
he
has
“kissed
the
face
of
a
god
and
lain
naked
in
the
arms
of
heaven.”
He
tells
her
that
all
things
in
life
–
the
good
and
the
bad
–
add
up
to
a
person’s
identity,
and
that
to
take
anything
out
would
be
to
make
someone
less
of
a
person.
People
who
deny
parts
of
themselves
become
lifeless,
shades
of
gray,
and
suddenly
life
becomes
not
worth
living.
“Then
all
that
suicide
bullshit
makes
sense…Fuck
yourself
and
everybody
that
loves
you,”
he
said.,
adding
that
“that
spark,
the
fire,”
probably
was
never
there
in
the
first
place.
She
also
feels
the
intensity
of
the
moment,
and
they
share
a
silent
understanding. But
the
closeness
almost
collapses
again,
when
she
asks
him
why
he
works
in
a
factory
when
he
is
“smart
enough
to
be
something
bigger.”
He
tells
her
that
his
work
is
not
his
passion,
but
adds
that
he
takes
pride
in
it
and
feels
good
about
seeing
what
he
has
made
at
the
end
of
the
day.
Her
eyes
narrow
dangerously,
and
she
asks
him
to
name
what
makes
him
feel
passion.
Tolian’s
spirits
crash,
as
he
feels
like
she
is
going
to
take
away
what
happened
between
them
when
their
closeness
and
lovemaking
“gave
me
the
world…gave
me
life.”
Instead,
she
sees
that
she
has
pushed
too
far
and
they
go
outside
into
an
autumn
storm
tasting
of
winter.
They
go
to
his
apartment,
but
Tolian’s
despair
turns
to
anger
and
he
asks
her
to
leave. Soon,
however,
she
returns.
Tolian
opens
the
door,
and
they
embrace.
She
tells
him
that
she
understands,
and
he
strokes
her
hair.
She
leaves
again,
but
makes
sure
Tolian
promises
to
call
her.
He
phones
her
answering
machine
immediately
and
leaves
a
message
for
her
to
please
come
back
immediately,
because
he
never
wanted
her
to
go. Beautiful
Crazy
“Beautiful
Crazy”
begins
in
sheer
despair
and
ends
with
the
possibility
of
redemption.
There
is
much
beauty
in
this
story
and
it
has
great
merit
in
this
regard
alone.
But
it
presents
a
further
dimension
of
being
truly
experimental
writing
that
is
wholly
modern,
while
at
the
same
time
being
utterly
human.
It
does
not
share
the
emotional
distance
and
sterile,
pointless
abstraction
that
characterizes
most
experimental
writing
today.
Tolian
never
forgets
that
being
human
–
alive
and
walking
the
Earth
–
is
a
worthy
value
in
and
of
itself,
and
he
writes
with
honest
compassion
for
his
characters
that
can
only
be
called
love. This
story
carries
out
stylistic
and
structural
elements
that
are
present,
but
less
evolved,
in
his
other
work.
Much
of
the
writing
is
surreal
and
often
borders
on
hallucinogenic,
and
Tolian
warps
time
away
from
the
linear
mode
and
into
a
spiral
of
different
dimensions.
He
mixes
interior
and
exterior
monologues,
and
interior
monologues
with
dialog,
description
and
movement.
The
result
is
complex,
but
it
also
is
very
comprehensible.
It
is
not
an
intellectual
exercise.
It
is
not
a
game
for
smart
people
to
play.
Tolian’s
use
of
experimental
form
and
style
completely
fit
the
subject,
which
is
a
man
(as
always,
Tolian)
who
has
hit
the
absolute
bottom
of
despair
that
can
result
only
in
suicide
unless
he
is
able
to
lift
himself
toward
the
surface.
The
style
is
fitting,
and
also
very
real.
It
is
completely
believable.
If
one
seeks
to
place
this
style
in
a
literary
context,
it
could
be
seen
as
a
greatly
matured,
polished
and
expanded
version
of
what
Jack
Kerouac
and
Neal
Cassidy
began
during
the
Beat
era. “Beautiful
Crazy”
begins
in
a
stark
atmosphere
of
a
club
playing
post-industrial
hip-hop
music,
“a
fine
and
private
place
among
strangers’
shattered
dreams
and
dying
angels.”
Tolian
sees
a
“beautiful
crazy”
red-haired
girl
talking
and
gesturing
in
rage,
frustration
or
remembered
pain.
“Perhaps
I
could
love
her,”
he
tells
himself,
but
adds,
“she
and
I
would
destroy
each
other.”
The
red-headed
girl
walks
to
an
open
microphone
and
begins
a
pained
but
strangely
beautiful
monologue
about
dreams
that
take
shape
and
walk
the
Earth.
The
dreams
sometimes
are
a
marching
“army
of
terror
to
rip
apart
our
lives
and
our
minds.”
At
other
times,
however,
dreams
allow
us
to
be
“lifted
from
the
pain
and
hatred
and
allowed
to
glimpse
beauty
so
unimaginable
that
we
can
do
nothing
but
weep
in
joy.”
Functioning
almost
as
a
Greek
Chorus,
or
a
herald,
the
girl’s
words
are
a
prophetic
foretelling
of
the
story
itself,
when
Tolian
is
visited
by
a
series
of
demons
and
angels
that
appear
as
if
of
the
flesh. Tolian,
who
is
almost
incoherently
drunk
in
the
story,
is
beset
by
“screaming…monsters”
that
release
repressed
feelings
of
guilt
for
things
(that
are
never
specified)
he
feels
are
his
fault.
He
is
unable
to
run
away
from
these
terrible
visions,
or
to
find
a
way
to
fight
them.
They
possess
him
completely,
and
are
heedless
when
he
begs
them
to
stop. He
is
visited
by
a
vision
of
two
women
caressing
each
other,
without
inhibitions,
openly
and
with
honesty,
but
curses
their
innocence
for
mocking
the
terrors
that
beset
him.
The
harsh
rhythms
of
industrial
music
sound
like
“a
million
voices
screaming
with
the
pathos
of
all
who
have
felt
or
seen
pain
unremoved
by
the
artificial
distance
of
our
glimmering
television
screens
and
modern
detachment.” A
little
girl
is
his
next
visitor.
She
sits
on
a
floor,
huddled
and
dirty,
holding
a
naked
doll
and
promising
it
that
no
one
would
hurt
it
ever
again.
Tolian
tries
to
talk
to
her,
to
comfort
her,
but
she
doesn’t
hear
him.
He
reels
and
staggers,
and
a
woman’s
loving
hand
reaches
out
to
stroke
his
cheek.
He
screams
that
he
can’t
accept
her
touch,
but
the
healing
scents
of
lipstick
and
cinnamon,
sweat
and
perfume,
and
the
heat
of
a
woman’s
body
draws
him
away
from
insanity
like
a
holy
incantation.
There
are
two
women,
twins,
and
he
joins
with
one
of
them
in
passion
and
lust,
while
the
other
urges
him
to
accept
this
as
reality
and
empty
himself
into
it
in
wild
fuck
and
screaming
rage. “Let
this
be
the
definition
of
yourself
right
now,”
one
twin
says.
“This
is
real.
Let
her
(the
other
twin)
know
your
hurt,
your
pain.
Anger
and
confusion.
Guilt…Guilt
is
the
worst
of
all,
isn’t
it?” Tolian
finally
breaks
through
his
pain
and
smashes
the
last
stone
that
has
walled
in
his
emotions.
He
lets
his
inhibitions
go,
and
he
and
his
dream
lover
collapse
to
the
floor,
“reeking
of
sex
and
sweat….Screams
and
curses
and
tears
well
up,
flooding
my
mind
now
that
there
is
no
wall
to
hide
behind.”
Tolian
now
can
see
his
guilt
“for
what
I
should
have
done,
what
I
have
done.
Guilt
for
living
and
the
pain
of
others.
Slowly
making
me
cold
and
ugly.
Little
emotional
suicides
for
those
of
us
too
chickenshit
for
a
gun.
I
tell
them
(the
twins)
everything,
every
dark
little
secret.”
Later,,
the
demons
appear
and
he
sees
the
torturer
as
“almost
human.
Almost
God.
Not
really
either.”
He
pulls
the
trigger
and
the
mirror
shatters.
Later,
he
finds
that
he
is
empty
of
pain,
rage
and
guilt. “Remember
the
survivors,”
a
dream
visitor
tells
him.
Again,
he
sees
the
little
girl.
He
offers
her
his
hand,
and
she
takes
it. Tolian’s
Other
Writing
“Sweetwater’s
Godrush,”
published
in
the
February,
2004,
edition
of
The
Divine
Animal,
was
Tolian’s
last
attempt
at
genre
writing.
He
started
out
writing
an
imitative
Beat
piece
in
jazz
time,
but
from
the
beginning
it
abandoned
any
pretense
of
slick,
commercial
writing.
As
a
genre
piece,
it
was
a
complete
failure:
because
it
wasn’t
a
genre
piece.
Although
it
started
and
ended
in
imitation
of
the
style
of
Neal
Cassidy,
the
middle
90
percent
was
pure
Tolian.
As
a
story,
it
is
100
percent
worthwhile.
It
succeeded
in
spite
of
itself.
It
was
reminiscent
of
an
early
story
by
Ayn
Rand
(“The
Simplest
Thing
in
the
World”)
about
a
writer
who
was
sick
of
not
getting
published
and
tried
every
day
to
sell
out,
but
found
he
couldn’t;
he
never
could
repress
his
true
voice.
He
could
not
sell
his
soul.
When
I
first
read
“Sweetwater’s
Godrush,”
I
grinned
at
my
own
very
bad
joke
that
it
proved
conclusively
that
Tolian
makes
a
piss
poor
whore.
That’s
a
rather
valuable
lesson
for
a
good
writer
to
learn,
and
the
sooner
the
better. It
is
a
very
good
story,
actually,
of
an
amazing
freeform
dance
of
love
and
passion.
Sweetwater
was
wild,
a
“popgoth
fairy”
who
swept
Tolian
off
of
his
feet
and
into
the
surging
stream
of
life.
She
stilled
his
terrors,
and
blessed
him
and
burned
him
pure
in
searing
flame.
Their
lovemaking
was
hard
and
wild,
hophead
crazy
and
laden
with
opiates,
and
carried
them
into
a
realm
of
“grace
and
faith
and
delirious
divine
incantation.”
In
the
end,
however,
she
flies
away
on
invisible
junkie
angel
wings
and
leaves
him
to
scream
in
rage
and
pain,
drowning
in
the
bliss
of
her
memory. “La
Musica,”
which
also
appears
in
the
current
issue
of
The
Divine
Animal,
is
an
attempt
at
fantasy
writing
that
succeeds
as
excellent
literature,
extending
far
beyond
the
usual
limitations
and
stereotypes
of
that
genre.
In
some
ways
it
is
reminiscent
of
the
best
work
of
Charles
de
Lint,
but
it
is
fantasy
solidly
grounded
in
reality
and
the
human
condition.
Unlike
de
Lint,
Tolian
does
not
rely
on
symbolism
or
magic
to
move
the
plot
forward,
but
builds
upon
explicable
human
motivations
and
emotions.
This
adds
a
considerable
dose
of
realism
to
fantasy.
Tolian
also
uses
this
story
to
evoke
some
of
his
own
inner
conflicts
and
dreams,
and
to
define
his
temptation
to
abandon
responsibilities
and
follow
his
own
muse. It
is
the
story
of
a
young
man
being
seduced
by
his
muse
at
a
Carnival-like
gathering
of
Gypsies
who
perform
music
and
act
out
surrealistic
fantasies.
He
is
not
sexually
seduced
(although
erotic
dynamics
are
evident),
but
is
seduced
into
allowing
his
own
nature
to
break
free
of
its
chains.
He
hears
the
kind
of
primal
music
that
he
has
always
longed
to
hear,
always
longed
to
play,
always
felt
in
his
bones
without
knowing
it
actually
exists.
A
woman
violinist
beckons
to
him,
and
he
joins
her
on
stage
in
a
violent
yet
wholly
life-affirming
performance
of
the
deepest
echoes
within
his
own
heart.
They
chord
a
wild
dance
of
carnal
lunges,
and
“divine
savagery
bursts
forth
to
be
swallowed
by
such
beauty.”
An
old
man
confesses
to
young
man
that
he
also
heard
this
muse
and
followed
her
many
years
ago,
and
has
been
torn
and
ripped
and
bled
by
her
ever
since.
“Is
this
what
you
want,
boy?”
he
asks.
The
young
man
knows
that
this
terrible
muse
is
his
calling.
Music
becomes
life
for
the
man,
becomes
holy,
but
the
price
of
virtuosity
is
an
all-consuming
madness:
Divine
madness,
perhaps,
but
madness
nonetheless. While
Tolian
admits
that
he
often
is
baffled
by
poetry
(much
of
what
he
reads
seems
incomprehensible
and
overly
abstracted
to
him),
he
does
appreciate
some
poetry
and
recently
completed
his
first
poem,
“Dead
Language.”
The
poem
evokes
the
language
of
the
human
body,
which
is
beauty
written
in
DNA
that
is
older
that
Christ,
Gaia
or
The
Great
Father.
This
language
is
“music
without
melody
of
rhythm”
that
weaves
a
song
of
angels
and
hipster
chants,
and
messianic
dreams,
from
a
time
before
concepts
like
right,
wrong
or
guilt,
“when
all
was
one
single
pulsing
obliterating
swirl
of
divine.”
He
calls
the
language
of
the
body
a
song
of
faith,
beauty
and
sweet
grace.
While
this
poem
does
not
forge
a
cohesive
form,
its
imagery
is
compelling
and
evocative. Tolian
has
three
novels
in
various
stages
of
progress,
but
seems
to
be
concentrating
on
one
with
a
working
title
of
Haunt
You
Like
Music.
The
first
few
pages
of
it
(which
were
made
available
to
this
writer)
are
similar
in
overall
feeling
to
some
of
his
later
short
stories,
and
it
appears
that
Tolian
is
trying
to
expand
on
the
ideas,
emotions,
form,
style
and
uses
of
language
that
he
has
honed
in
his
shorter
work.
It
begins
with
a
prelude:
“There
is
a
music
to
love
and
life.
A
sacred
passion.
A
dangerous,
raging
thing
that
can
tear
through
heaven
and
on
into
transcendence…(but
at
other
times)
this
mad
wild
dance
comes
screaming
through
the
divine
poetics
of
the
body….”
The
emerging
story
appears
to
be
about
a
man
and
a
woman
who
have
known
and
loved
each
other
since
they
were
teen-agers,
but
who
often
split
apart
and
come
back
together
again.
It
is
a
story
about
obsession
and
a
woman
who
haunts
Tolian,
like
captivating
music,
for
many
years.
The
challenge
for
Tolian
will
be
to
carry
out
this
story
and
his
style
in
a
way
that
holds
the
reader
in
a
novel-length
work,
without
falling
into
the
kind
of
endless
interior
landscapes
that
made
much
of
Anais
Nin’s
fiction
tedious
to
read.
To
pull
it
off,
Tolian
will
have
to
live
up
to
his
own
creed
of
taking
action,
and
allowing
those
actions
to
speak
louder
than
words
in
the
novel. Clean
Sheets,
a
magazine
of
erotic
writing,
gave
Tolian
his
first
publishing
credits
in
2003.
Two
short
pieces
of
fiction
–
“Mocha
Jazz”
and
“Healing
(Sex
Magic)”
–
appeared
in
this
magazine.
In
both
stories,
Tolian’s
trademark
themes
are
expressed
clearly,
but
in
the
form
of
small
capsules
of
life
that
are
not
fully
developed.
Likewise,
his
style
and
use
of
language
were
reminiscent
of
his
later
work,
but
less
evolved
and
polished.
“Mocha
Jazz”
is
the
story
of
a
jazz
trumpet
player
and
a
singer
who
come
together
during
an
intermission
between
two
sets.
They
had
sex
that
was
a
natural
extension
of
the
heat
and
energy
of
the
music
they
played
together.
“Healing
(Sex
Magic)”
was
the
story
of
lovemaking
between
a
man
and
a
woman
who
is
an
artist
and
healer.
The
lovemaking
starts
with
the
woman
slicing
the
man’s
arm
with
a
knife,
in
a
ceremony
of
healing
and
eros
that
washes
away
all
traces
of
“the
familiar
pain,
silent
death.” He also wrote several early genre pieces that have not been published, and probably should not be. They have value in Tolian’s development as a writer, but are not really finished works in their present form. “(Cut Me) Honey Red” is a rather innovative example of horror writing, but lacks the tightly structured plot that is common to this genre. One can see the development of Tolian’s sense of structure, language and especially surrealism in this story. It is a story about a tortured woman who carves a wooden doll in the shape of a man and gives him life with her own blood and hand, but whose endless carving and shaping bleeds him past ecstasy and into the realm of death. A science fiction story, “Rusted Light,” also uses the metaphor of cutting in a future (and, arguably, also contemporary) world where people have become like the machines they have made. When they find they are not like machines, on some level, but also are not able to regain their humanity, they ceremonially slice their veins to commit suicide. “Rusted Light,” while not particularly effective as science fiction, rings true to the human condition also gave Tolian a chance to hone his language and style, and to humanize surrealistic imagery. “Strange Peace Among the Wild Things” is a fantasy that continues a popular modern children’s fable into the realm of terror and despair. “The Three Sadnesses” is a somewhat didactic fable of characters’ whose names and natures act out the elements of destroyed self-esteem before a child named “Innocence.” In
Conclusion
|
The
Divine
Animal
A
writer’s
true
stature
takes
a
lifetime
to
develop,
and
Tolian
is
at
the
beginning
of
this
journey.
It
is
a
place
where
all
writers
must
start,
but
from
which
few
writers
are
able
to
move
beyond.
Most
do
not
have
the
ability,
insight
or
vision
for
the
task.
Tolian,
however,
is
gifted
with
all
three
of
those
attributes
that
have
the
potential
to
propel
him
to
the
forefront
of
contemporary
fiction,
and
perhaps
to
still
higher
planes.
At
the
beginning
of
his
path
of
following
his
muse,
he
has
achieved
the
kind
of
maturity,
purpose
and
style
that
elude
most
writers
who
have
achieved
fame,
recognition
and
critical
acclaim.
What
remains
to
be
seen
is
whether
he
will
be
able
to
sustain
the
courage,
toughness
and
resiliency
to
see
him
through
the
painful
and
lonely
times
when
he
must
survive
rejection
by
the
literary
establishment,
or
whether
the
rewards
simply
won’t
seem
to
be
worth
the
price.
To
survive
that
gauntlet,
without
ripping
himself
apart,
Tolian
also
must
find
a
way
to
reconcile
his
personal
responsibilities
with
his
responsibilities
to
himself
and
his
art.
He
also
will
have
to
find
the
inspiration
needed
to
carry
his
gifts
for
short
fiction
into
novel-length
works.
The
journey
he
faces
is
perilous
indeed,
but
Tolian
has
everything
it
takes
to
write
fiction
that
speaks
to
our
hearts
and
redefines
the
essence
and
style
of
contemporary
literature.
I
hope
like
hell
that
he
makes
it.