65 Comments

Wtf Chuck. Busy much?

Expand full comment
author

I WILL DO ANYTHING TO PUT OFF WRITING.

Expand full comment

No, that honor goes to me.

Expand full comment

I like the idea of flipping the script. I'll add that to my toolbelt.

I want to say reality is really timey-wimey, spacey-wasey? I think someone else said it better.

Expand full comment
founding

Very cool! Now little kids are going to want their parents to take them the long way home to see them.

p.s. I also have a thing for medieval architecture - castles and cathedrals. Can't see them enough when in Europe. Happy Holidays from the east coast which has yet to get snow.

Expand full comment

Really cool you do this and hilarious you’re this obsessive about something this small. I can for sure identify with that.

Expand full comment

Hide the murder victim under the Christmas lights! Let the cops drive by! You, Sir, are a genius.

Expand full comment
author

One night I was fixing some light from behind. The glare made me invisible from the road. Some poor guy stopped -- maybe it was eleven at night -- and walked over to take a picture. At that moment I stepped from between two panels. Just some menacing shape emerging from the forest. The guy almost pissed himself.

I felt like the witch in the gingerbread cottage and thought "this would be a great way to kill people..."

Expand full comment
founding

This made my day. Hehee.

Expand full comment

I get that same feeling at the fireworks during 4th of July. They'd slump over and the world would never know.

Expand full comment
author

"Gorky Park"

Expand full comment

And then after the guy stopped pissing, Chuck said, "Have you heard about The Pixie Project?"

Expand full comment

No wonder this driveway is such an inspiration for ‘the thing before the thing’.

Expand full comment

Looks great!! I applaud future you's style :)

Expand full comment

This is gorgeous! My dad made stained glass and I would study the glass for hours. When I went to the Winchester house of mystery I lost time in their Tiffany window display in the coach house. Part of me felt like I had always been there.

I think time is circular and different dimensions layer beneath it, like a circular lasagna, so we may exist in the same time as the crusades in some strange space where our realities overlap.

Expand full comment

Baldwin says, “The past is present. It’s not even past.” Same with the future. There’s a simultaneous interplay/overlap of past/present/future that I love about what you’re saying.

Expand full comment

I have a bad habit of taking things apart and not being able to put them back together again. Wonder what that says about me...

Expand full comment
author

You'd be a good editor. Just tell the writer to fix it.

Expand full comment

Really nice. This is something thats lacking in my generation. We're glued to our screens, and missing those physical experiences like these. I remember now when I was a kid, in 2nd or 3rd grade, the teacher told us to create something using household items. Me being a little pretender, and a liar ( to survive) since a very young age, I made a fake ID. I wanted to be someone else. And to think about it, its one of many reasons I'm drawn to writing and fiction in general. To live inside a character who isn't me. Not that I'm good at it though.. still trying.

Forgive me If I'm rambling.. I'm a little drunk, and on cloud 9 cause Morocco just beat Spain in the World Cup. Yay! 🥳

Expand full comment
founding

For a moment I thought you were going full Tralfamadorian mode there, Chuck.

May your future present always nudge you in the present past.

Expand full comment
author

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time...

Expand full comment

I sometimes worry that there is no free will, i.e., the future is already written.

Quantum theory gives me hope.

Expand full comment

I just had surgery recently, so putting up lights and taking them down will be a pain. I'm in Ohio, the weather is windy, rainy, warm, freezing, or snowing. We put up the bare minimum, and I feel like a failure this year. Thank you Chuck for being amazing!

Expand full comment
author

They make a small novelty "Lite Brite" based on the 70s toy. Send Dennis your address, and I'll send you one. You can decorate it.

https://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/contact

Expand full comment

You're so kind. Could I Send you a Christmas card?

Expand full comment
author

Send the address and get well.

Expand full comment

I did message Dennis! Thank you.

Expand full comment

Isn't Chuck such a giver?? So damn generous, he kills me lol

Expand full comment

He is. I just Had like 30 veins removed from both legs.. I appreciate anything. I have an amazing forearm tattoo of fight club too

Expand full comment
author

Hello Nia -- I'd planned to send the goods today but have gotten no address via Dennis. Can you rattle his cage? Thanks, chuck

Expand full comment
Comment removed
December 10, 2022
Comment removed
Expand full comment

I'll resend it. But I don't mind sharing here.. If that's ok

Expand full comment
founding

Those lights are super cool!

Never thought about thoughts of the future impacting the past or present in this way. Definitely will think on this one.

Expand full comment
founding

Beautiful work, Chuck. Has a sort of Rothko touch, without all the burnt umber.

Expand full comment
founding

Also going to try to get a local meet up study hall going. Met a few local writers at a gaming convention this weekend. If schedules align and we get something going, I will share info with folks here in the KS/KCMO area.

Expand full comment

I'm reminded of Christ Alexander's "Timeless Way of Building," an architecture book concerning mankind's search for the "quality without a name" and how this search expresses itself in art and architecture.

As if something touches you, then retreats into the stone slab, the blank page, or a set of lights, beckoning for you to give it shape.

Expand full comment