Aged Out? [There is Nothing Left to Say (On The Invisibles)]

It’s funny to me, in The Invisibles, how often the parallels of “goodies” and “baddies” slip us by. They’re fairie/clown-like weirdos who talk nonsense. They’re dark-humor hardasses. They’re in isolation tanks.

One of the first time we encounter Myrmidons, the brainwashed isolation-tank-trained soldiers of the enemy, they talk silliness in the past, but in the present, they are just guys. They time travel. They are on missions.

Ragged Robin? Our goodie of goodies? Our Babalon? Our darling? Our re-author? Awkward. Just off. Trained in isolation tanks. Nonsense-talker. Time traveler.

Hey, Good Lookin’. Look up.

We all talk a lot of shit in somebody’s time.

There is Nothing Left to Say (On The Invisibles)
3.02
Aged Out?

This week’s chapter of There is Nothing Left to Say (On The Invisibles) is not about that, but it is. Neither first nor last of our faerie chapters (here is a long Beryl meditation upcoming; everything somebody wanted elliptically implied about Queen Mab and therapy rocks), this one is short, unsweet, and about the feeling of being ready to be phased out.

It is not too important if I think the character of Edith is “old,” or Miles or Tom or Orlando or Beryl. It does not really matter if I think Edith could be Ariel to one or four Duke Prosperos. There’s that bit in the Bob Dylan movie, Masked & Anonymous, wherein Dylan, as Jack Fate, muses that, “Sometimes we need to understand what things don’t mean.”

Ryan Claringbole, at Library Journal, calls the world of The Invisibles a dystopia, twice, in one 244-word review. I don’t think it is even as bad as ours.

Grant Morrison probably never intended Edith’s email service to become a metaphor for being pushed out, aged over, done. It still is one.

I know we might lose readers when I dive into the badness of Tom O’Bedlam, beloved old grandfathery Tom. Or, when we extend some empathy to Orlando or Sir Miles. It is a tough road to hoe, being forgiving, or being patient, and being honest, earnest, and coming clean. Tougher than hoeing a row. Macadam.

Acknowledging privilege when it does not get you, specifically, direct benefits, is a thing we probably all avoid. When it costs us, oh, we do, we do. Avoid it like hell. “Eat the rich,” but not our rich. ACAB, but not our As, Bs, or Cs.

If there is a way for human beings to become dross and outdated, that is it; locking ourself into a prison of refusal to admit. Like the stand up routine in Grant Morrison and Duncan Fegredo’s Kid Eternity asking a rhetorical Satan if he jumped or fell. Like the opening of Coonskin, they opt for the vaudeville gag.

We are all pushed into something, right? But we went.

Bob Dylan. Ralph Bakshi. John Loudon McAdam. Duncan Fegredo (who drew the Invisibles preview short, Hexy).

Nobody feels your guilt, except you. No one knows your judgment like you do.