tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15589174280216626612024-02-06T19:58:53.628-08:00Kittens in TiesKittens, ties, fine literature ... the perfect blog to read while sipping tea and watching old Nickelodeon Cartoons.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-61130195603804185362013-07-20T23:26:00.000-07:002013-07-20T23:26:17.147-07:00Speck<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was a child when I saw myself
through the lens of a <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">telescope. Mr. Bowman had the
image, captured by satellite,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">on his desk. <i>Beyond imagination</i>, he’d muse. Even then<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was asking myself whether I was
inconsequential or a<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">functioning part of some grand
design—wondering what part<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of that speck was my tiny,
rundown home. That same day</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was tossing stones at a three-story
behemoth at the end<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of my street, make-believing that
it was Goliath and I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">was the young shepherd boy who
was soon to be king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvH4tNrq5tEH6t2R95BVQ_0Bbu8i6ZokU9g5q_msZP97ZAY2kBQFtwXLZzDF9QOW_XUHSGR26_Kd-1mJb281CIju9H5nNKxngg03Jic2xL5miFNrFhYBpELfCl099uVnSkXhDU7GFVIZM/s1600/speck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvH4tNrq5tEH6t2R95BVQ_0Bbu8i6ZokU9g5q_msZP97ZAY2kBQFtwXLZzDF9QOW_XUHSGR26_Kd-1mJb281CIju9H5nNKxngg03Jic2xL5miFNrFhYBpELfCl099uVnSkXhDU7GFVIZM/s200/speck.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The fifth stone went through a
window and made a<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">haven for shards of broken glass
out of the clean, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">burgundy carpet and my father
snatched me out of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">grandeur and set me down in a
state of disillusion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was a decade older and a
quarter of decade wiser when<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the telescope returned to me, and
I knew then that It was<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God and I was Its forsaken son,
dying for no sin at all<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I shouted into the heavens as if
space were not the emptiness <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">around me but instead was an
entity that was as tangible as the <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">earth, itself, and when I touched
it, I knew for certain that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was lost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-81705727893777925892013-05-28T12:23:00.000-07:002013-05-28T12:25:03.657-07:00 A Fictionalized Account of Sean Enfield’s Hubris Following His Feature on NPR’s All Things Considered<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>For those of you who don't know, I was featured on NPR's All Things Considered as a part of their Three Minute Fiction contest. They read an excerpt of my entry over the airwaves this past Sunday. You can read it <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/26/186321055/claudia-who-found-the-f" target="_blank">here</a>. </i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">INT. HALLWAY – AFTERNOON</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /><br />SEAN ENFIELD paces around the hallway of the International School where his church is held. Sean does not appear to be the confident writer that he thought he’d be upon the public broadcasting of his text; rather, he appears nervous as though he were waiting on a doctor to deliver test results confirming the presence of some terminal disease flowing alongside his blood. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JACKIE LEIGHTON is rattling on about something or other. Sean is not listening. He cannot. The words all pass through him, “wah wah wah wah,” as he creeps up and down the hall. The static of the radio sings to him. It is the only noise in the world, nay, the universe. Finally, the moment arrives. <br /></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JACKIE</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
We’re back reading excerpts from Round 11 of our Three Minute Fiction Contest …</div>
<br />The words turn to inarticulate sound effects again. ZOOM IN: on Sean Enfield—his sweaty palms and face (and not just because of the heat nor just because he is a generally clammy person), his aimless stare, the nervous way he glances down at his phone to see if anyone else is listening and waiting to congratulate him, his tired eyes, his groomed moustache and carefully chosen tie-and-shirt-combination (though he would not be seen for this momentous occasion). He tunes out. The scene turns black. He does not hear the story before his. He doesn’t even hear his story being read.<br /><br />When he comes to, he hears this and only this … <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
JACKIE</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sean Enfield of Denton, TX<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/05/23/istock_000006306055small_sq-f608ec8fa089e228749828cd952ad91359006e79-s3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/05/23/istock_000006306055small_sq-f608ec8fa089e228749828cd952ad91359006e79-s3.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">yes, this is the same stock photo. I like it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br />He leaps into the air … like Mario, like a freeze-frame shot of an 80s flick, like Jordan at the buzzer beater, like an Olympic hurdler over that last hurdle, like a distraught man on the side of the Golden Gate Bridge, like you might jump when the person you love calls your name for the first time and you fall into their arms. Sean lands. His alone in the hallway. Everything goes silent.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Am I … famous now?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
JUMP CUT.</div>
<a name='more'></a>INT. PAPA MURPHY’S – EVENING<br /><br />A day has gone by since SEAN’s name was said over the airwaves, a day of constant refreshing NPR’s website to read the comments on his piece. It’s unhealthy living like this, but he is not one to worry about health. Yesterday, he consumed two bowls chili and mashed potatoes that were garnished with three kinds of cheese, sour cream, and something he thinks was bacon. <br /><br />Now, he stands in the back room of Papa Murphy’s, tying his apron around his waist and dreading the act of tying his hair back into what he refuses to call a “ponytail” but is, in fact, a ponytail. How demeaning for an accomplished writer, a writer who, according to a Diana on Facebook, is capable of “[taking one] to that magical place Where Good Writing Takes You.” <br /><br />He ties his hair into the “not ponytail.”<br /><br />His team lead walks into the room. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
TEAM LEAD</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Can you man the front line?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN (Saluting)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Aye aye Captain!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
TEAM LEAD</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
What?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yes</div>
<br />Sean scurries to the front of the store and stands behind the pizza assembly line. The ingredients stare back at him. The mushrooms appear to recognize his grandeur, the pepperonis seem spiteful, and everything else is just ambivalent. He is taunting the pepperonis when A CUSTOMER walks into the store. The customer can be whoever you’d like, but if accuracy, truth, or the like, is your aim, then the customer should probably be Caucasian and in their mid-30s. He or she can be male or female, can have a child or two in tow, is probably a little dejected but still somewhat pleasant. Again, this does not matter. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hello. Welcome to Papa Murphy’s.</div>
<br />A silence comes over the restaurant as the customer peruses the menu. Sean stares, some might say awkwardly, but he was certain that he could see into that man or woman’s soul. <br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN (mumbling)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I was on the radio.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CUSTOMER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
What’s that?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Uh, what do you like? Meaning pizzas, I mean. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CUSTOMER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I’m not sure.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Well, people liked the stuffed ones … pizzas, I mean, again.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There is a pause. PAN AROUND: the restaurant, let’s see it, why not?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I was on the radio.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CUSTOMER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That’s nice.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
NPR, uh, All Things Considered … that’s national, you know.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CUSTOMER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yeah, uh, that’s the N.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yeah … </div>
<br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<strike>FADE.Soft Dissolve.SMASH CUT.</strike>WASH OUT.</div>
</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">INT. SEAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /><br />SEAN is sitting at his desk, staring into light of his computer screen, Googling himself. This sounds dirty, yes, but we all know it is not. He is actually Googling himself. Sad, yes. Dirty, not really. <br /><br />A WOMAN enters. It should be noted that this woman is not real. She is not particularly imagined either. She is something of a literary devices, someone to get Sean talking rather than just staring at a long list of nothing whatsoever. This encounter never occurred. Not really. Here it is nonetheless. We will call the woman CLAUDIA. She is pretty, ugly, and in between. She is fat, skinny, and in between. She is dumb, intelligent, and in between. She is thoughtful, neglectful, and in between. She is passionate, callous, and in between. By now, you get the picture. <br /><br />She is not real.<br /><br />She walks over to Sean and places a hand on his shoulder.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
What’re you doing?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Googling myself.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You’ll go blind.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I think I made that joke already.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
What’d you find?</div>
<br />Sean turns to her. There’s a solemnity in his eyes. And bags. There are bags underneath them. He thinks. He cannot see and does not check the mirror. How late has it gotten? Has he slept?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I died.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You died?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Well, not me, but another Sean Enfield. He was forty-three, married with two kids. Lacee and Devin. He had a brother named Mickey Joe. Mickey Joe. Isn’t that awesome? Apparently, his death was unexpected, but it doesn’t say how. The picture of him, the one on the obituary page, has him in the woods, hunting presumably. Maybe, he accidentally got shot or had a sudden heart attack or the deer’s family decided to take revenge. It says his kids will miss him. I’d like to think so too. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But he’s not you?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It’s the first result when you Google my name. Google even suggests, “Did you mean Sean Enfield death?”</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Strange…</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yes. The NPR article is on the second page.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
CLAUDIA</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Are you trying to find some meaning in this?</div>
<br />Sean rises from his chair and pushes past Claudia. He removes his shirt and pants and lies down on his mattress. The white ceiling stares back at him. It appears just as ambivalent as the green peppers, and the mozzarella, and the sauce, and the olives, and even the pineapples. <br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
SEAN</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Not this time. </div>
<br />Sean falls asleep.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<strike>FADE TO BLACK.CUT TO BLACK.SOFT DISSOLVE OUT.</strike></div>
<br /> </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-57704713819163100442013-04-19T17:11:00.000-07:002013-06-08T21:22:14.850-07:00From "Natalie Schervo Speaking" <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<i>This is an excerpt from a larger work. Perhaps a forthcoming larger work. Perhaps not. Only time and all that ... </i><br />
<br />
After the phone call, she had begun to wonder if her mother had always carried that insanity with her or if it had come upon her suddenly, like a fever, a rush of blood to the head, just a momentary lapse in judgment. <br />
<br />
“She burned her home down,” the man said, so matter-of-factly, so lifelessly, as if crazy women had been burning their own homes down since the dawn of time, “We’re going to need to you to come down here and answer some questions for us.”<br />
<br />
Well, could answer some questions for me? she thought. She thought but didn’t say. Her outbursts had gotten her in trouble before. Typically, the problems arose when she was in high school, like the time she shouted at Mrs. Mitchell, her history teacher, who insinuated that Natalie might have been a house slave, a product of rape, during the early nineteenth century. Since then, she had undergone counseling and could now repress the urge to shout, how about I burn your house down, when the man-robot asked her to drive down to her mother’s home, asking if she needed the address as if she hadn’t been stepping through those doors for more than twenty years of her life. Instead, she walked to Tim’s office, politely explained why she needed to leave early today, and hopped into her beat up Pontiac Sunfire, staring at the Real Girls Hotline office building as if it might suddenly combust. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The whole drive toward the house, that now distant memory turned to ash, she kept drifting into her thoughts. She saw herself driving that same road, her mother in the passenger seat. Her mother had balled the funeral program into a sweaty, papery mess. Through those fists, Natalie’s father peered up at her, that black and white printing giving him the visage of a specter. Eventually they arrived, the two of them walking side-by-side through the front door of her mother’s home, once her home too, walking past the vomit green walls and the shit brown drapes, walking past that photograph resting atop a shelf in the hallway, the one of her father and mother embracing at their wedding, the one in which his dark black figure hovered over her mother with the foreboding nature of a raincloud. Every time she saw that portrait, she reflected upon the white casket in which her mother had chosen to bury him. “An oreo,” her mother called him, “my oreo,” and with the last joke the couple would ever share, she sent him to the earth as the inverse of his once-cute-now-morbid pet name.<br />
<br />
Her mother shuffled to her usual place, sitting in the recliner at the back of the living room, staring at blank television screen with the utmost focus, humming. So many lives had passed through those middle aged bones, so many years gone by, aging in multiples of seven like some say dogs do. All those years dwelled in two dissonant, ocean blue pupils that peered into the emptiness of space. <br />
<br />
“I don’t think you should take that job,” her mother said, mumbling, as Natalie walked into the room.<br />
<br />
“I’ve already taken the job.”<br />
<br />
“Well, I don’t think you should.” Her mother turned from the TV, and her dead eyes now blinked incessantly against Natalie’s soul.<br />
<br />
“Mom, you don’t understand, I took the job two years ago. It’s a little late for this protest.”<br />
<br />
“I don’t think a Schervo woman should be objectified like that. I don’t think your father would approve. What about your art, dear? Your poetry, why can’t you do something with that?”<br />
<br />
Try though she might, Natalie could not convince her mother that her poetry was shit, just a joke for the other “objectified” women in the office to share. Her mother insisted that Natalie was an artist, had an artist’s creed, an artist’s soul, and an artist’s heart. After a while, Natalie decided to stop having the argument with her all together. “I’ll try mom,” she said, “For now, I need money.”<br />
<br />
“I think you should tell those people, ‘no.’ You shouldn’t work for them. They’ll objectify you. They will, and they won’t care. They won’t even care.”<br />
<br />
“You’re too young to be this senile, mom.”<br />
<br />
“I’m not senile!” her mother shot out of her recliner, sprung out of the dormant volcano of grief in the form of hot, molten lava. It all came pouring down on Natalie, the red and viscous liquid dripping off her body, melting off skin along the way.<br />
<br />
“Calm down, calm down. It was just a joke.”<br />
<br />
“I’m not old! And I’m not senile! I’m forty! …forty one… I’m not old, damn it! And I’m not senile!”<br />
<br />
“Of course not, of course not, you don’t look a day over twenty five, mom.”<br />
<br />
Her mother fell back into her chair. The leather cushion released its song when she did—the short, high-pitched, “bloooooop,” that dissipated into silence. “I’m not old,” she started mumbling, “I’m not old.”<br />
<br />
Natalie trotted over to her mother, almost prancing, feeling young again in her presence. She did not feel young in the nostalgic sense, as old women often felt young when flipping through their scrapbooks. She felt young in the inferior sense. She felt reduced to the childish action of skipping up to her mother like little Cindy Lou Who, curtseying in the presence of her mother with the Shirley Temple grace and the big sad, orphan eyes of Annie. It was a ritual that had begun when she was a little less than three years old. Whenever she angered her mother, Natalie would skip over to her mother, innocently, and mutter, “I nose you, momma.” Her mother would reply with an, “I nose you too,” and they would hug, momentarily resolving all conflicts.<br />
<br />
“I nose you, momma,” Natalie mumbled, trying not to roll her eyes.<br />
<br />
Susan Schervo let silence take the room, just for a moment, before replying, “I nose you too.” <br />
<br />
Natalie crouched beside the chair and wrapped her arms around momma Schervo. Her mother did not hug back. She just let her daughter hang there, the warmth of two bodies filling the room—this was love, their kind of love. <br />
<br />
Natalie looked over to the passenger seat, empty, and heard that man’s cold voice, “She burnt her house down. Susan Schervo burned her house down.” How solitary did that road appear then.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-4969809229071879952013-04-13T16:28:00.000-07:002013-04-13T16:28:29.552-07:00All the Ways to Say Goodbye"<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">L</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">isten to the end, dear.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> I can feel your heart pounding; yes,
I can. I can hear the thud, thud, thud beating against my face and shaking the
very core of my being. I know that you keep your phone tucked beside your
breast, often having a difficult time freeing it from your chest’s viper-like
grip once the vibration starts and you, too, begin to feel the cadence of my
heart mingling with yours. I can feel your heart pounding, dancing with the
maniacal rhythm of a third grader with a metal can strapped to his chest and a
piece of wood in either hand, and the song gives me pause, beckons me back to
days when the sun was just a little higher in the sky and the moon, just a
little lower.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Do not ask how you know me. There
isn’t enough time. Let the rhythm take you instead. Let it move you as those
old pop songs of the eighties and nineties once commanded. Yes, dear, let it
free your mind, for what I have to tell you may not sit well if not properly
prepared.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Tonight, you will die. Do not ask me
how I know this. There isn’t enough time, but know that the very heart whose
rhythm enthralls me now will soon grant access to the reaper and the time for
asking questions will have long since passed. So do not ask them. Do not bother
with inquiry. Live, dear, live as only women can. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> I cannot tell you how to go about
this or how to take this news or anything of the sort, but I can tell you that
it’s coming to me too. I can tell you that I’ve started to disappear, inch by
inch, that I won’t hang up so much as I will vanish into the dial tone and drop
to the ground like forgotten coin, lost amongst the grass and the dirt and the
flowers. I can tell you that we could spend this final night together, that, as
your heart beats its final song and my body disintegrates into the atmosphere,
we could go as far out as Pluto, admiring all the sights and sounds along the
way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Can you feel the heartbeat—the pulse
of the earth pounding in your chest, pounding against your ribcage with reckless
abandon? Is it in you now or have you begun to surrender to the things you
haven’t done and the things you’ll never get to do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Well, I know you’ve seen the Grand
Canyon in all its splendor. I know you’ve raised two precious sons into two
grown men, have watched them learn to walk, learn to shit, learn to speak,
learn to learn. You have watched them wed and have watched them divorce. I know
you never married, and I know you and your children saw Venice, took a Gondola
throughout the town and sent a postcard back to your mother only to learn it
found her dead in the bathtub, her heart having surrendered too. I know you
have smelled the salty sea from the comfort of several warm beaches, and I know
the sand still lingers in your favorite pair of sneakers, and I know you will
never throw them out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> I, too, have seen great things, have
watched children grow grey hairs and spawn more children, children that look less
and less like me, have stood at inaugurations, have seen the ball drop year
after blessed year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Do you feel it? It is not too soon.
It is just the right time." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-9849872398294647262013-03-26T13:25:00.000-07:002013-03-26T13:41:11.195-07:00A review of Team Tomb's Team Tomb by me's me <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>Welcome back to Kittens in Ties, loyal reader. For this brief instant, we (meaning I) have slipped into the guise of music reviewer. If you like Pitchfork reviews, pretend I gave the album a 8.125 and a BNM tag or whatever it is they are doing over there nowadays. And listen to it <a href="http://teamtomb.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">here</a>, and make up your own mind, knowing, however, that if your opinion isn't mine it is wrong. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><a href="http://cokemachineglow.com/records/foals-holyfire-2013/" target="_blank">In a review of the new Foals record</a>, David Goldstein wrote, “What’s a telltale sign that a
young British band thinks they’re hot shit? When they open their album with an
instrumental,” and while I don’t know if Team Tomb thinks they are “hot shit,” I
can say they sound pretty damn sure of themselves. After about thirty seconds
of rhythm-less guitar noodling, the hi-hat comes in and clicks the intro track
into a somber groove, the kind of groove the comprises the majority of the
album. It’s something of a statement, though not made with any words. By the
time the falsetto vocals slip into the mix you are already well aware of what
kind of band you’re listening to. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<a href="http://f0.bcbits.com/z/29/81/2981581537-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://f0.bcbits.com/z/29/81/2981581537-1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For the most
part, Team Tomb rides a mellow intensity throughout the album. The guitar licks,
performed by Caleb Ian Campbell (formerly of the Polycorns), are graceful,
sometimes biting, but never reaching beyond the slinky pop rhythms the band has
carved out for itself. In that same vein, the drums drive and propel the tunes
with a sort of rhythmic certainty but never really crescendo. Behind it all,
simple keyboard lines complete the aesthetic. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Simmer
down/Show your teeth,” sings Campbell on “Skin and Teeth,” suggesting an awareness of
the subdued force underlying the album. It’s sentiments like these as well as
the band’s ability and willingness to dip in and out of tempos that keep this modest
album interesting. There’s something creepily sexy about these tunes. Think
Radiohead’s “House of Cards” or, if you’re so inclined, Michael Jackson’s
chorus on Rockwell’s “Somebody Watching Me.” The organ opening on “For Your Own
Good” even recalls the Brooklyn band, Beach House, another group who has found
and locked into its own brand of undemonstrative rhythm (the guitar line on
that song is also reminiscent of Alex Scally’s work in the same band). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">What sets the
band apart is how well it blends all these components. It does so with
restraint, and it does so with an eerie confidence. On first listen you
probably wouldn’t assume that this was the band’s debut album. While some of
the songs often get mired in their own gleeful restraint, particularly “For
Your Own Good,” whose aforementioned Beach House sound feels somewhat out of
place, the album manages to keep its cool up until the very end (though the
concluding interlude feels like an excuse to make this already short album nine
tracks instead of eight). That being said, most bands don’t find a signature
sound until several EPs and LPs into a career; whereas, Team Tomb seems on the
edge of doing just that on their first full-length. I guess that makes them “hot
shit.” </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-78638339827396862392013-02-16T08:51:00.004-08:002013-02-16T08:51:47.613-08:00Poem Written in a Gas Station BathroomCheck out the Vine Leaves Literary Journal. They are a great publication, and I am honored to be featured in <a href="http://www.vineleavesliteraryjournal.com/issue-05-jan-2013.html" target="_blank">issue 5</a> of their publication.<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-19262098314741769022013-01-27T16:28:00.001-08:002013-01-27T16:36:55.995-08:00The Lost Messiahs of Rock and also RollIt's purely by coincidence that these two happened to drop by Dallas within a week of each other, and by obsession that I made sure that I saw both. These two men are both titans of a so-called "indie music scene," both often appearing in headlines on Pitchfork, both musicians with adoring fan bases, both Caucasian males.<br />
<br />
And that is where the similarities end. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMz3W5Zvhf11sop1ThV9s9-W8SH7Ly8MgxVTcEUdBvUKfJ8EBsNvbn1kae-BU-hmsiBkyL2bBj5yOE9Kzt_wNDKuvnLYAyPUUcdnYT5CmL3MQXRFoP9J3bJkuTBKysQmXVxgNGoBInikb/s1600/mangum.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMz3W5Zvhf11sop1ThV9s9-W8SH7Ly8MgxVTcEUdBvUKfJ8EBsNvbn1kae-BU-hmsiBkyL2bBj5yOE9Kzt_wNDKuvnLYAyPUUcdnYT5CmL3MQXRFoP9J3bJkuTBKysQmXVxgNGoBInikb/s320/mangum.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeff Mangum at one of his recent solo shows</td></tr>
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Jeff Mangum is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery pancaked between a couple of Hardy Boys books, the kind of guy who writes lyrics such as, "<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iipO9Tvk1EI" target="_blank">Your father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies</a>,</span><span style="font-family: DroidSansRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">" </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">and issues press releases with <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">"</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">from a thoracopagus dovecote of comets" in the closing line.</span></span><span style="font-family: DroidSansRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span>He is a relic of the last decade in which larger-than-life personalities could grip the nation as a whole (at least as a perceived whole), a decade in which the mythic aspects of rock and roll was alive and well though threatening to follow Kurt Cobain into the grave. And it did. Eventually. In its wake, several years later, Ty Segall came on the scene, with his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek55T19hxmQ" target="_blank">John Lennon-esc falsetto</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCMSYRgRdAo" target="_blank">his finger-blistering solos</a> (shredding, if you will).<br />
<br />
Yes, Rock 'n Roll is dead, and not in the way your grandfather or your father might say it's dead because they no longer play Zeppelin on the Top 40 stations and because kids these days wear pants that don't fit. Dead in the sense that it's principal philosophy no longer applies to those still touring the nation with guitars and drums in the back of their vans. Gone are the pervasive cultural icons of yesteryear, the titans of Rock who took the nation by storm and gripped the youth of that time so that they would grow up and write Rolling Stone articles celebrating the good ol' days.<br />
<br />
Our cultural icons today don't seem to have the staying powers of those in the past. They appear to come in fads, fads that appeal to a certain demographic of people and very few outside of that target audience.<br />
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I don't mean to associate Segall and Mangum with that notion of "fads," but there is something ephemeral about the music they play.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWzus9ABFKnR0_ASFB5oWl1qzcnIhZ3cziUm402YBfIpQeXUsSDjJgmuv-lWK65u4jVNpcUEccR450ngJX2nJQM8sl12im5dmr4EwTZWow2O7R8UhbtVET-EpeCgLZAyPJgzqFumu_gFl/s1600/ty+segall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWzus9ABFKnR0_ASFB5oWl1qzcnIhZ3cziUm402YBfIpQeXUsSDjJgmuv-lWK65u4jVNpcUEccR450ngJX2nJQM8sl12im5dmr4EwTZWow2O7R8UhbtVET-EpeCgLZAyPJgzqFumu_gFl/s320/ty+segall.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ty Segall</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"We've come down with the plague," says a sick Segall, periodically squirting a bottle of cough syrup in his throat, "So let's get weird." And for one loose, loud hour we did get weird. Very weird. So weird, in fact, that one couple used the dance floor as a place to get their "freak" on, coming up mid-song having lost their shirts and their tact.<br />
<br />
We all lost our tact for that brief hour, and when the last chord washed over the packed club, we staggered to our respective cars and lives, having jobs and obligations to tend to in the morning.<br />
<br />
Mangum starts his set without words, launching straight into "Oh, Comely" after trotting onto the stage. "Are you going to sing with me?" he asks once the song is finished, knowing the answer before the rapturous applause sounds in reply. The crowd, at first reverent and silent, knows every word and bellows them out without hesitation. His voice seems untainted by the decade of reclusive-ness, perhaps even better. So much so, that as he roars through <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCxEWPLDg5c" target="_blank">"Two-Headed Boy"</a> you can watch the tears stream down the face of the person beside (though not yours truly, too manly to be moved).<br />
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These men attract adoring crowds, perhaps not The-Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan level of adoration, but from the crying spectators (again not yours truly) at Mangum to the boisterous crowd at Segall, there is no doubt they've garnered their own brand of affection. We're too close to these moments to judge their historical context and cultural perseverance (if they'll even have any). Still, they carry on a new breed of "rock 'n roll," and it just may follow us into the future if we bring it with us.<br />
<br />
Yes, in a few years time, we may have our pants waist-high trying to force our children to listen to our Neutral Milk Hotel albums and scoffing when they don't appreciate it like we do. These are the things I dream of. As well as flying...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-3065907128687622372012-12-22T16:49:00.002-08:002012-12-22T19:13:34.225-08:00Why Fiona Apple's "The Idler Wheel..." was the Best Thing in 2012 and Other Stuff that Doesn't Suck<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUkY1O9U0pLjyV6i6Vl0RpOEfXmyJzHHnEWjD-o1861A2xDNKR6NY9biW9gzLYHJNAERO8W8eWo6XvE6aHlhrqZrxJn7IO5zp3Veui8C72fPxXYs9dD80t-uZ34JwnnTeSDaT_wxrxfmoo/s1600/Fiona-Apple-The-Idler-Wheel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUkY1O9U0pLjyV6i6Vl0RpOEfXmyJzHHnEWjD-o1861A2xDNKR6NY9biW9gzLYHJNAERO8W8eWo6XvE6aHlhrqZrxJn7IO5zp3Veui8C72fPxXYs9dD80t-uZ34JwnnTeSDaT_wxrxfmoo/s320/Fiona-Apple-The-Idler-Wheel.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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1. <i>The Idler Wheel is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do </i>- Fiona Apple<br />
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In an age where every statement is clouded with layers upon layers of irony and meta-text, where the very notion of social media masks every action with pretense, forcing even the most bland of us into a life of performance art, the existence of Fiona Apple comforts me. In her, we have an artist who disappeared from the public eye for almost a decade and returned with a record so earnest and revealing that it forces us to remember what real emotions feel like. My Fiona Apple fandom is <a href="http://kittensinties.blogspot.com/2012/09/fiona-apple-at-winstar-this-is-not.html" target="_blank">well-documented</a>, so perhaps I'm exaggerating or gushing or whatever you want to call it. Still, the jittery, stripped down music presented to us on <i>The Idler Wheel... </i>coincides perfectly with the persona on the stage, and I can 't help but believe (maybe I need to believe) that in Apple is not only a genuine artist but a genuine person as well.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIlLq4BqGdg" target="_blank">Every Single Night</a>,<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBrDONDeQIM" target="_blank"> Left Alone</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fby632bPn0E" target="_blank">Werewolf</a><br />
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2. <i>The Master </i>- Paul Thomas Anderson<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3W9uldfOrtrzjT11w5XsAqvY22rPyh3Gs_X0jFbbK0ZYG71SUxSOXu584GUC7arCxIcLXOj781QkDkruUJxaVD3WBebql4L4iFU8gHLVgw5m5q2FAPAmTV6x6KPNKitqQZ1xzfIUwQb4E/s1600/the-master-hoffman-phoenix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3W9uldfOrtrzjT11w5XsAqvY22rPyh3Gs_X0jFbbK0ZYG71SUxSOXu584GUC7arCxIcLXOj781QkDkruUJxaVD3WBebql4L4iFU8gHLVgw5m5q2FAPAmTV6x6KPNKitqQZ1xzfIUwQb4E/s200/the-master-hoffman-phoenix.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Pretty much everything that can be said about PTA's <i>The Master </i>comes out in the film's first "processing" scene. As a movie that deals with Scientology through obfuscation, <i>The Master </i>seems almost elusive in its aim, a cult in and of itself. Yet in that first "processing" scene, we see a disheveled, alcoholic veteran in Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell find something in Lancaster Dodd's (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) "Cause" that seems to speak to the inner turmoil within hi,. Freddie is erratic, prone to outbursts, and highly susceptible to suggest--the perfect candidate for a disciple--and the procession of Dodd's "processing" technique and the repetition of simple questions ("What's your name?") into more probing questions about Quell's "past failures" leads the two into an emotional crescendo before dissipating into the lull of post-baptism. The films builds in much the same manner and washes out into the silence and emptiness of a cult's many promises.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pALMMIoxTzY" target="_blank">Theatrical Trailer</a><br />
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<i>Note: The next two entries actually do suck, but I want to right about them anyway. So here we go...</i><br />
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3. The End of the World<br />
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This didn't happen. Now Roland Emmerich's apocalypse blockbuster, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">2012</a></i>, is absent of its "historical context," and the world continues to confuse and baffle its inhabitants like the fickle bitch she is. I can only hope next year's apocalypse involves Sand Kittens somehow because hearing about it over and over wouldn't be so bad (and rather adorable actually).<br />
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4. Taco Bell's Dorito Tacos<br />
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If you ever found yourself wishing that tacos had the faint hint of Dortio flavoring and left your fingers a little dirtier after consumption, then Taco Bell is looking out for your best interests. Since its inception, I've eaten two Dorito Tacos--1) because of curiosity and 2) because I was near a Taco Bell, had a couple of bucks in my pocket and lack self-control. I don't remember much of either event. Much like stubbing your toe, eating a Dorito Taco is a sharp sensation that flees from you almost immediately and all that you're left with is the fleeting memory that you once hurt and might someday hurt again.<br />
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5. Frank Ocean's Letter/<i>Channel Orange</i><br />
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After listening to last year's <i>Nostalgia, Ultra</i>, I would have never guessed where Frank Ocean would end up. It was a great mixtape, but it hardly signified the eventual 6-Grammy Nomination, <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/frank-ocean-may-just-write-a-bestselling-novel-and,89972/" target="_blank">future book writing</a> success that was about to define Ocean's 2012. And it all started with a very heartfelt post on his tumblr about how he had fallen in love with a man. Hip-Hop, and Odd Future (the hip-hop collective of which Ocean is a member) especially, is often criticized as a genre that promotes misogyny and homophobia, so I don't have to tell you that Ocean's letter was brave. But outside of it, pretending he never wrote anything prior to the release, <i>Channel Orange </i>is still a great record, with at least three of the year's best songs.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSPybTFYHU" target="_blank">Bad Religion (Live on Jimmy Fallon)</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEHAlW4OnQ0" target="_blank">Pyramids</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15IjgyHd60" target="_blank">Thinking About You </a><br />
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6. <i>Home - </i>Toni Morrison<br />
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People still write books, you know, and they aren't all Twilight and the Hunger Games. Toni Morrison is among those people, and she's still cranking out great books at that. <i>Home </i>is an Odyssey-esc novel about a traumatized soldier's return from the Korean War to his segregated hometown in Georgia packed into a slim but poetic 160 pages.<br />
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<i>7. Saga </i>- Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples<br />
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I've only just caught up with <i>Saga</i>, and now, all I can do is wait and wait and wait until the next issue drops. And it hurts. It hurts with more longevity than Dorito Taco hurts, but the first 6 issues have been collected into a <a href="http://comicalmusings.com/what-the-bleep-makes-a-graphic-novel-a-graphic-novel-a-sort-of-review-of-essex-county/" target="_blank">graphic novel</a> so that you to may join me in following BKV's new space opera. Drawing elements from <i>Star Wars, Romeo and Juliet, Flash Gordon, </i>and various fantasy novels (<i>LotR </i>and <i>Game of Thrones </i>included), one might assume <i>Saga </i>to be derivative, but Vaughan has enough tricks up his sleeves to create a new and compelling universe by borrowing from the old. Plus, Fiona Staples' art is beautifully and digitally rendered.<br />
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8. <i>Moonrise Kingdom - </i>Wes Anderson<br />
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The most Wes Anderson-y of Wes Anderson films. I don't really know what that means.<br />
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9. <i>good kid, m.A.A.d city - </i>Kendrick Lamar and <i>R.A.P. Music </i>- Killer Mike<br />
<br />
I spent my teenage years in suburbia, so I heard many of my peers dismiss Hip-Hop as a genre for the brain dead. I won't attribute their dismissal to latent racism because that's too easy. Instead, I'll just simply suggest that if you believe that you might want to check these two records out. Kendrick Lamar is as adept at storytelling as Tom Waits, and Killer Mike can make a track as politically biting as an of Bob Dylan's best protest songs. Sure, hip-hop has it's bad commercial songs, but Hoobastank still makes music and we don't dismiss the entire rock genre.<br />
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10. A Bunch of Other Music<br />
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Grimes' <i>Vision, </i>Tame Impala's <i>Lonerism</i>, Chairlift's <i>Something</i>, Miguel's <i>Kaleidoscope Dream</i>, Flying Lotus' <i>Until the Quiet Comes, </i>and Beach House's <i>Bloom </i>have almost nothing in common other than being released in the same year, but I don't have time to write about all of them individually. Well, I do, but that's not the point. These albums have all been touted by various indie blogs over the course of the year, and I'll join the rest of them and say that you should listen to each of these records if you haven't.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH-q0I1fJY" target="_blank">Grimes - Genesis</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wycjnCCgUes" target="_blank">Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_aTOyFRwJ0" target="_blank">Chairlift - I Belong in Your Arms</a>, <a href="http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2012/11/15/miguel-x-yours-truly-the-thrill/" target="_blank">Miguel - The Thrill (live)</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVHC1DXQ7U" target="_blank">FlyLo</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuvWc3ToDHg" target="_blank">Beach House - Myth</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQEGlKeztxPy2lDRIdf7MMRR9D12AI6Y2N88KnrCIzXBDwQWmZYkd90jc7aBgZOJxprUPG3OKJBw9PfEdS0ZTesDt-jS98ZAHDuyrJC7cZhB5gLVhY-7Qg7l2mqcegBvtFYrohnMrT2K8/s1600/kanye-west-american-idol-feature.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQEGlKeztxPy2lDRIdf7MMRR9D12AI6Y2N88KnrCIzXBDwQWmZYkd90jc7aBgZOJxprUPG3OKJBw9PfEdS0ZTesDt-jS98ZAHDuyrJC7cZhB5gLVhY-7Qg7l2mqcegBvtFYrohnMrT2K8/s200/kanye-west-american-idol-feature.jpg" width="200" /></a>11. <i>The Fault in Our Stars - </i>John Green<br />
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something something nerdfighter something something read this book<br />
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12. Kanye West Released an Album and Nobody Cared<br />
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Every rapper declares himself the greatest. They just have to. I know a six year old that raps over Wiggles songs, and even he makes these sorts of claims. Yet when Jay-Z and Kanye West laid claim to the crown with last year's <i>Watch the Throne</i>, it's hard to argue they hadn't earned it. So when Ye dropped G.O.O.D. Music's <i>Cruel Summer </i>this year to little to no fanfare, it was a peculiar incident indeed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-25949935038177844862012-12-15T20:30:00.001-08:002012-12-15T20:30:56.727-08:00To Fish<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">sean enfield is an asshole</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">who has taught three people<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">how to fish. one of them died<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">two years ago of starvation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">while the other two live<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">impoverished in the slums<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of houston waiting for fish<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">to hook themselves on the end<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of one of their lines so that
they</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">may eat and thrive and live and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">continue working toward their<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ultimate goal of finding the
strength<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">to stab sean enfield in the heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-52897874993503026302012-12-04T18:54:00.001-08:002013-04-13T00:08:04.357-07:00Mark Twain and a Kitten: An Ode<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When this image was<a href="http://www.flavorwire.com/350238/adorable-pictures-of-famous-writers-and-their-pets?all=1" target="_blank"> first brought to my attention</a>, it seemed me that metaphorical stars were metaphorically aligning, and my documentative instincts immediately led to a trance of reflection. It's a horrible way to live, but we make due, don't we?<br />
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Anyway, I couldn't help but feel as though Twain was reaching out to me from beyond the grave via the medium of another literature enthusiast's blog. “Some people scorn a cat and think it not essential; but the Clemens tribe are not of these.” We, Enfields, are with you, Sam--undoubtedly, we are with you.<br />
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I was in Junior High when a teacher first introduced me to Mr. Clemens, the same year a balding football coach, through a class dubbed "Health Class," introduced me to intricacies of my then-changing body. In fifth period, we read Huck Finn aloud, several timid white children tip-toeing around the word "nigger" as though it were poison ivy or a land mine or something of that sort whilst looking in my direction to make sure the ethnic half of me hadn't taken offense, and in sixth, we watched a fifteen minute illustrating both the birds and the bees in unwanted detail, which was I how I saw the first vagina I'd ever see, crowning head and all. I had already developed a self-consciousness about my weight and my plump, perpetually-dry lips and my clammy, perpetually-moist palms. I tried to hold hands with the girl who had asked for my help on the Huck Finn paper, but she was not a fan of the nervous sweat dripping from our shared grasp.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>My first girlfriend came in the 11th grade, and we kissed only once during our two-day long relationship. Once our lips had separated, she gave me a look that indicated I had done something wrong. To which, I retorted with an apologetic, puppy dog-esc stare, hoping that perhaps such a pathetic (dare I say, adorable) face might lend itself to at least a second chance. We broke up the next day.<br />
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I revisited Huck Finn for the first time soon after. It was my bowl of ice cream, my means of coping with what was then the most palpable tragedy of my life. There was a discourse between Huck and I, an exchanging of ideas generally reserved only for two living and real human beings, yet somehow, I could hear the voice of a century old country boy telling me that no matter how screwed up there's a place for everyone along the proverbial Mississippi River. It occurred to me then that this man, no matter how dead, and his work were my best friends. This initially struck me as rather sad, but I've now come to realize that it isn't sad in the slightest.<br />
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My best friend is a dead alcoholic who made a number of poor investments during his time and wrote a number of great books. If he were alive, if he could read this in any manner, I'd just want him to know that he is one of the most mis-quoted figures on the internet.<br />
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To which, he'd reply, "What the hell is an internet?" - Mark Twain. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-37244405032033517832012-11-15T15:00:00.000-08:002012-11-19T11:16:23.695-08:00The Always Inevitable and Untimely Demise of the Bond Girl<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585"><span style="font-size: x-large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">F</span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or the first ten years of my life, I was convinced that my father was Sean Connery, though that was not the name by which I knew him. My real father (depending on what unit you use to measure authenticity) was present, affectionate even--offered encouraging words in times of emotional distress, watched basketball games with me, cheering when I cheered and shouting angrily when I shouted angrily, was concerned about my grades, about my future, about my general well-being--but he was tangible, thereby lacking the mystique of my real real father. I had his nose, his tendency to stand with arms hidden behind the back and to sit leaning backward, crossing legs, his gut, protruding but not too much so, his passive-aggressive manners, but that, to me, meant as much as it might mean to you if I were to tell you that that man, any man, strange in just how normal they seemed, was your father too. As a child who watched his VCR copy of </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lion King </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">into oblivion, I expected a father to be the wise sage in the clouds, James Earl Jones, someone suave who could in one breath offer wisdom and in the next disappear. I grew up watching my mother swoon over Mr. Bond as well and so the two entities blurred in my mind. There was a brief period where her affections switched to Roger Moore’s incarnation of the character that confused me, but she found her way back to the true father and all was made well. </span></b></b></span><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; white-space: pre;"></span></span></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My father, 007 as you know him, was a man who could win the affection of any woman with a look and a one-liner. This was a characteristic that became more potent as I enrolled in Junior High School, subsequently turning too old to harbor a fantasy that I was the brood of Britain’s greatest secret agent. It was a characteristic that I hoped had found its way into the gene pool, and it was not one I could learn from my real father. He had only ever dated one woman, kissed one woman, did-things-sons-tend-not-to-consider-when-it-involves-their-parents with one woman, and I called her mom. The stars must have aligned so that my father, a man who stammered and got nervous ordering his meal at McDonald’s, could win the affection of a woman so enamored with Bond, but I did not wish for an act of fate to act in my favor. I wanted the gift, the look, the wit, the wry smile and all that entailed. </span></b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Is this not how you imagined yourself as a child?</span></td></tr>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, I knew the girls Bond wooed never fared well. Tatiana Romanova is tossed into the ocean in </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From Russia with Love</span><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Goldfinger suffocates the lovely Jill Masterson with gold paint, her naked body draped over the bed, serene. Jill’s sister, Tilly, meets her demise at the hand of Oddjob, joining her sister in eternity. There is Aki who is poisoned while in bed with our hero, and my father, in </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Only Live Twice</span><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, though, as far as I could tell, she only lived once. One woman is fed to piranhas and another is chased down by a pack of vicious dogs. Sure, there are those Bond Girls with which he rides off into the sunset, having once again saved the world, but they vanish by the time the next film is released, no eulogies given on their behalf, simply gone and never coming back. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Only Bond gets the desirable conclusion, the happy-ending; Bond and the world he has saved yet again. The rest of us, even his children, drift about in awe, waiting for death, though for a brief moment we are Bond, aren’t we? That is why we watch the movies. Describing why one enjoys a Bond movie is a bit like playing a game of “Cops and Robbers” with oneself. There is no analysis of its metaphors, no search for what it says of the human condition, no discourse to be had at all. Instead, you form your hands into the shape of a pistol, point it straight ahead, creep around hallways as you hum that insatiable theme, acting out scenes with vague descriptions and ill-advised sound effects, pretending every “Q Branch” gadget is something you could purchase at a Toys-R-Us if you could remember just what the fuck happened to Toys-R-Us, strutting around with a pseudo-confidence you wouldn’t ordinarily display; for one brief moment, you are who you think you are, not who others say you are. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">And as someone who earnestly believed he was James Bond's son, I was a Junior High Student with few inhibitions when it came to approaching other Junior High girls. Although, that confidence came only after viewing an old Bond film (Connery mostly, sometimes Moore, rarely Dalton, and never Brosnan). I had just watched </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diamonds Are Forever </span><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when I approached Plenty O’Toole, as she will be known in the context of this essay. She was standing at her locker in between third period and lunch as she did often. She didn’t browse through her locker. She just stood there, leaning against it, staring down the hall, perhaps eyeing those who passed by. There’s no doubt that she spotted me. I had my darkest sunglasses on, the ones that made people curious. </span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where are his eyes? Why is he wearing sunglasses inside? Who is this enigmatic fellow? </span><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She would have approached me if not for the call of the locker, the magnetism of it that drew her near and kept her locked to its form for the entirety of the passing period. I strutted over to her instead, walking with a sort-of-limp-sort-of-hobble-sort-of-awkward-series-of-consecutive-tripping-over-my-own-feet, trying to decide whether I should or should not address her with a British accent. I hadn’t decided by the time I slapped my right hand against the locker beside hers, stretched my arm out, leaning over her in an endearing but daunting manner, so I spoke first with a British accent, then turned Irish as I navigated my way back to my normal mode of speech, then concluded with something that half resembled my actual voice and half resembled the voice of Bobcat Goldthwait. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Hey Plenty, how are you doing? You want to sit together for lunch.”</span><br /><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">I was smooth still, the curious blending of accents aside. I tipped my sunglasses down to the end of my nose so she could catch a glimpse of my eyes, hazel, rather average, but still rather intriguing and mysterious if only because the sunglasses they hid behind.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She made no mention of my eyes though, despite my attempt to introduce them as a conversational topic. She made no inclination that she was intrigued by me at all. Instead, she clinched her nose, turned her head in the opposite direction, and shouted, “Eww! Why do you smell so bad?” and sprinted away into the distance, the draw of the locker no longer keeping her captive. It never occurred to me, the stench of James Bond, though I suspect it would be a mix of liquor and cologne. My own stench never crossed my mind either, though I suspected it too was a mix of liquor and cologne. It also never occurred to me that I was neither Bond nor his son in this particular scenario. I never considered that I would carry deodorant with me everywhere for the rest of my life. (Although, I would do just that partly because I reasoned that I was “a sweaty person” and partly because this instance had carved itself onto my psyche, though, for the sake of sanity, I pretend it meant and means nothing.) </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.14924669452011585" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, I was not Bond then and she was not Plenty O’Toole. She was Bond. Jennifer Bond. I guess that makes me Octopussy. </span></b></span><br />
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</b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-44166832798405139862012-11-01T20:30:00.000-07:002013-04-23T10:15:28.311-07:00Brief Moments of Honesty from Otherwise Dishonest People<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Your
band sucks. </i>Even through cell phone speakers, barely audible in a crowded
bar, she realizes this truth, but her mouth is bound by courtesy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Your band is fucking terrible. </i>It’s all
she can think, anticipating the moment when the timer on his iPhone playlist
reaches 0:00. She no longer notices the smell of sweat, the distressing and
dank atmosphere of her surroundings, the heat, the discomfort of the wooden
stool beneath her. All other senses are overridden by the noise, the clamor of
countless other conversations around her and the I-IV-V chord progression
playing faintly underneath them. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is he
bobbing his head to his own song? He can’t be … <br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i>“What do you think”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What do I think?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Of the song?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I can’t really hear it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Do you like it?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s good.”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a> “What do you think of this solo?”<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“This is a solo?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Well, it’s more like a bridge
section, I guess.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“A bridge… it’s, uh, well, you
couldn’t walk on it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s good?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What’s good?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“This solo?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Sure.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Do you, uh,
like music?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Of course. I
was in my high school’s choir.”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><br />
“Yeah, I’ve been doing this band since before I can remember.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“In the womb?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Were you in the
band as a fetus?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t think
that’s possible.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It was a joke.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Oh, that’s
funny.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
want to have sex with you. Dirty, violent, unconstitutional sex. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">His eyes fight
dignity so that they may stare at her cleavage, but he manages to hold strong,
looking directly into her pupils—perhaps, creepily so. He peers through her,
the image of her breasts pasted over her face with same level of class that a
junior high student demonstrates when he spray paints a penis on the side of a
building. The world need not remind him of his indecency. He reminds himself
with each passing thought. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So lonely … so
very lonely …</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">She searches for an out, hoping a
bomb might explode in the corner of the bar, but luck never acts in her favor.
Soon, silence takes control. She wishes he would just stare at her tits,
ejaculate into a napkin and leave, but he seems determined to impress her, to
earn something more at the end of the night. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I better say something before he starts talking about his band again. </i><br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Do you come here often?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He had spent every Friday and
Saturday night here over the last two years. Not expecting to score, mind you.
He knows this place too well to have that kind of hope. Of course, he tells
her, “I’ve been here once or twice before.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“My father brought me here once
when I was 13. Oddly enough, I was hit on then too,” she notices him blush and
moves on, “He died recently, so I’m on a sort of spiritual walkabout.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m sorry for your loss.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Why?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I think I’m supposed to be.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You might have met him. I think
he had a cot here. Charles Robinson, though he went by Charlie. I called him
Charles out of spite, of course.”<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh! Charlie! He tried to
strangle me in the men’s room once,” he pauses, “He was a, uh, good man.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Thanks, I know he wasn’t. He did
have a thing for choking though. When I was young, he would wake me up some
mornings by smothering me with a pillow. Only when I was just about to run out
of air did he stop. He got such a kick out of seeing me gasp.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yeah, My father was kind of
asshole too. I wrote a song ab—”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Mom always had these weird, red
marks on her neck. I never asked about them, but I started to figure it out of
course…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What are you trying to find?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Excuse me?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“On your walkabout.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t know. Validation about
my father’s choking fetish?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You think he got off while he
was strangling me?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Nothing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He probably did.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Maybe, I can accompany you on
your walkabout.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’d rather you didn’t.”<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s not you. It’s, y’know, a
personal journey.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Of course, of course.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well, I’ve got to go see a man
about a coffin.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Me too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You too?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t know why I said that.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well, goodbye …” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shit, he said his name, didn’t he? Mark? </i>“Mark.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Michael, actually. I’ll see you
around.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He watches as she walks away,
peeling the label off his beer bottle. It had taken him two of those and a
self-inflicted punch to the groin to muster the courage to approach her. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That went well. </i>His right hand would be
Julie tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-73121487325822456482012-10-17T12:32:00.001-07:002012-10-17T12:34:46.609-07:00How Thoreau Might Have Behaved on ChatRoulette <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">R</b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">eading your</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> own work as writer is like masturbating, though for him it was a little less messy, a little less fulfilling, a little more obvious. He wondered if this was how the greats might have felt, if there was some sort of singularity between the writing experiences of all writers. Then, he drifted through them, inhabiting their flesh, reading their words, metaphysical sticking his hands down their (and his) metaphysical pants and underpants. </span><br />
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It was all very odd, strange indeed. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">When he returned to the present, returned to the computer screen before him, there was a lull about the room. Grandeur swept through, carried him away on the wings of angels. In swooped the chariots. Loud were the trumpets. Who's to say when the orgasm took place? If there was one at all or if it was prolonged, fluctuating, heightening with each climax of the piece? </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Surely, there must be singularity. Surely, Whitman must have felt this</span><span style="font-size: small;">—</span><span style="font-size: small;">Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, too. The greats. Real American heroes. He wondered if through him they felt the rise of the digital age, if Hemingway (shotgun-induced crater still bleeding on the back of his head) could experience the internet through his fingertips, his eyes, his brain. And if so, could he see 1922 as Gatsby and Nick might have seen it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The rising, the falling, the ever-warping sensation of time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Before long, he would notice a mistake</span><span style="font-size: small;">—</span><span style="font-size: small;">a misplaced coma or sentence fragment not intended to be a sentence fragment or an incomprehensible idea being expressed or a passage hinged around awkward exposition or philosophical ruminations, such as singularity between authors of different generations in the form of a masturbation metaphor, that lead nowhere</span><span style="font-size: small;">—and would lose the feeling, would drift into self-deprecation, quit and call himself an accountant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Was there a singularity among accounts?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-90959887885391072022012-10-10T21:52:00.000-07:002012-10-10T21:52:50.344-07:00I'd Like to Run A Food TruckI'd like to run a food truck, though I cannot cook. My greatest culinary achievement to this date is an omelet that I managed to flip with only a slight crack in its structural integrity. It was a damn good omelet too. Still, I'd like to run a food truck. I'd like to drive through each and every major city, watch as the people there get fat off my delicious cuisine, smile and come back for more, then move on so that I can experience it all again. Now, I don't know what I'd serve, but I know the local papers would rave about it. I know the reviews on Yelp would be too flattering to even read. I know my truck would become a national sensation. Cities would desperately anticipate its arrival. The McRib. My truck would be the McRib of food trucks.<br />
<br />
I'd like to have a family too. An average family--a wife, a daughter, a son, two dogs, a cat and three fish. We would try not to travel when the kids were in school. They would make friends. They would lead normal lives. They would have a home base. Then, come winter or summer break, they would set sail onto the metaphorical seven seas. They would see parts of America most kids only read about in Geography courses. They would be contributing members of the best damn food truck in the world. And I would be there father.<br />
<br />
I'd like to ride horses into the sunset. I'd like to be the hero. Like in the movies. I call myself The Man with No Name; I snarl like Clint Eastwood. It's sad, yes, but in the funniest way possible.<br />
<br />
I sing songs to myself. I pretend I'm on the stage. There are audiences everywhere I go. You are in the crowd ... and you and you and you and, yes, even you. I interview myself. Ask the most intuitive of questions and respond with the wittiest of retorts. There are people, imaginary people, who kill for my autographs. You can have one. At the moment, they are free.<br />
<br />
I'd like to run a food truck. I'd like to drive into the sea. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-19035358136360351612012-09-26T19:53:00.001-07:002012-09-26T19:59:27.483-07:00Fiona Apple at the Winstar: this is not about hash<a href="http://www.dfw.com/2012/09/23/685523/review-fiona-apple-at-winstar.html" target="_blank">"Fiona Apple doesn't perform her songs -- they escape. "</a><br />
<br />
That is the prevailing rhetoric surrounding Fiona Apple's current <i>Idler Wheel </i>tour, recent arrest notwithstanding. And it's a fitting sentiment, one that Apple perpetuates in each of her performances thus far, and it's a telling one, too, that she has reached a point as a performer that critics are no longer labeling her performance as performances. No, they go to the top shelf of their vocabulary when Fiona comes through town. But it fits. She is an enigma, disappearing from the scene and emerging seven years later with a heart-wrenching album of raw and intimate songs. <br />
<br />
When she stands behind the mic, you can hear the intensity in her voice, see it in her thin body as pounds at her chest during a verse, feel it as she crouches down on the stage, contemplating or what-have-you during a interlude. Her fingers fly and bounce atop the keys of the piano.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>This was most certainly an event built upon catharsis.<br />
<br />
And while the most recent album is very intimate and strange, most songs featuring just Apple, a piano, and percussion, the new material erupts just a bit on stage. Part of that is in Apple's electrifying presence and part of that is in her air-tight backing band. The quartet and Apple work through the singer's entire catalog, reworking some tunes to great effect. During <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOUyoKFksI" target="_blank">Daredevil</a>, Fiona even toyed with a drum set up by her piano during an extended outro, pounding on it with a pair of mallets and with the same ferocity with which she clutches at her chest when she sings.<br />
<br />
There was not much in the way of stage banter. Toward the end of the show, however, a few members of the adoring crowd shouted, "We love you, Fiona!" To which, she retorted, "I fucking need you." And maybe she does need us, and we need her as well. There is a give-and-take between artist and audience, and Fiona Apple understands that better than anyone. <br />
<br />
After a beautiful rendition of Conway Twitty's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-9xoKGN7bg" target="_blank">"It's Only Make Believe"</a>, Apple grabbed something from the stage, made her arms into wings, and flew off stage without an encore. For a singer so in tune with emotional distress, it was a beautiful moment and wonderful conclusion to an excellent night. <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-23858628741651255472012-06-13T10:21:00.000-07:002012-06-13T10:59:49.992-07:00Basketball for the Heavy SetHe had this dream, this beautiful dream. In it, he and Dirk Nowitzki were paired in a 2v2 game against Mark Burrows, the boy who used to throw mashed potatoes at him during freshman lunch, and Michael West, the boy who used to supply Mark with the potato ammunition. The rules were simple: the first to twenty-one points won, and the winning team got to watch as the losers groveled at their feet before ritually committing suicide with the blade of their choice (this being a civilized society). Even in his dreams, he played the role of sidekick, choosing to take the backseat as Dirk leveled point after point onto the opposition. He could pass well enough that he felt his contribution adequate, though he wished he could nail a jump shot, could drive to the rim, could shoot threes with the confidence of a young Larry Bird, but that would never be the case, not even when his imagination was unhindered. Still, he delighted in the demise of his enemies. He took a devious sort of pleasure in watching Dirk do his bidding and even darker brand of pleasure in watching the blades protrude from the backs of those, to him, perpetually thirteen year old monstrosities.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
This dream, a day dream, arose only in moments of stress, a means of shutting down and tuning out, allowing him to forgo the pressure around him and take solace in the imagined demises of others. It was his means of imagining the audience in their underwear, a coping mechanism in a life in desperate need of coping mechanisms. Lately, it seemed he was in a constant state of mourning, always grieving over some loss or another. Not a loss of people, rather, he found himself grieving over the loss of dreams and ideals--existential mourning--the sort of mourning that made his company dreadful. <br />
<br />
Still, as easy as it was for him to drive away friends (leaving him mourning the loss of relationships), he could not rid himself of Samuel Hess. As he watched his dreams fade away ... his longing to play for the Mavericks, his dream of romancing Annie Stone, his hope for a socialist society, his vision of a currency-less economy, his plan to write the next great American novel, his desire for two twin boys and a daughter with whom he could play games and share his perpetually dissolving dreams ... Samuel Hess stood by his side, his only friend, and he hated him. He found him abhorrent, annoying, the sort of person who should have been his arch-nemesis if this were a comic book. Samuel was everything he was not--optimistic, charismatic, arrogant. In fact, Samuel hated him too. They were united in a mutual disdain, friends more likened to enemies.<br />
<br />
As such, they often engaged in antagonistic activities when they got together. Battleship, Connect Four, Street Fighter, Call of Duty, Rock/Paper/Scissors, tic-tac-toe, various card games, Risk, Monopoly, a game they had invented called "Punch" (it is exactly what it sounds like), but their favorite medium of competition was basketball. Through it, he, though fatter and slower and, by extension, less athletically gifted than Samuel, could prove he was both smarter and more of a man that his best friend. He could best him with skill, with pure masculinity and strength, with wit, with the endurance of a much more driven man.<br />
<br />
Of course, he had never actually done so but hence the dream. It was the last of his dreams--the rest all buried in ash. Even the dream of Dirk and he decimating his childhood villains had begun to wane. He recognized it for the fantasy that was and was beginning to have difficulty finding solace in it as he once had. No, he wanted to achieve of his own merit, of his own strength, and he had begun to feel he had little of both. <br />
<br />
How he wanted to take Samuel to the lane, to drive to the rim and force his best friend to the pavement, skidding his knees to where the blood poured forth like faucet, to slam that basketball through the net, home. He used the dream as inspiration, picturing Dirk with each succession of his own dribbling. The eyes of Michael and Mark stared at him, through him--Michael's in Samuel's left eye and Mark's in the right. The score was 19-19, and the game was Twenty-One. He no longer believed he had legs. Instead, he was convinced that they had dissipated beneath him, no longer able to bear the toil of the game. Now, he stood diminished, a torso and arms, with Samuel towering over him. He had the ball in hand, trying to maintain a steady dribble, but he felt his arms beginning to disintegrate as well. The hoop before him, victory near, he watched as Dirk took the game winning shot, the fade away, the buzzer beater. You just knew it would go in. You knew you could count on the German.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-34833021125054239972012-05-24T16:58:00.000-07:002012-05-24T16:58:00.243-07:00Of a KindShe fancied herself a shitty poet, for she had come to believe that those were the most earnest. The talented poets, those who gazed upon the world and saw Truth, could transcribe their vision in a manner with which only other poets could comprehend. Poets of her breed, however, those who gazed upon the world and saw the world, wrote with an identifiable ease. They brought no new light, opened no eyes, moved no hearts, challenged no minds, but what they lacked in poignancy, they made up for in accessibility--in that notion they found transcendence. Like the talented, their audience was broad, though far less analytical and far more modern. They were of an age, a brief moment in time, a whisper into the very ears of God, vanished into the vast plane of history. No one would fight to keep their works in print, nor would anyone attempt to retrieve any lost publications of these truly awful few. When they work ended, so concluded their legacy. They were of a generation, that generation's chief voice as far as sales were concerned, and she was chief among them."Miss Emily Meyers," read everyone of her book jackets, "Shit Poet," and she delighted in the title.<br />
<br />
This morning, she did not know delight, however. She knew frustration instead. It crept through her like a rat through the walls. The mini-van reeked of puberty sweat, her twin boys hitting each other in the back seats, her daughter pouting in the front. So much shitty poetry pouring through her and no pen to record it with, no surface to record it on. Did her kids not understand her status--queen of the shit poets, goddess of shitty poetry? <br />
<br />
There is, of course, a distinction between the shitty poets and the shittiest poets. Shitty poets were those with mass appeal; whereas the shittiest poets were just shitty poets. The shittiest poets wrote in isolation, dreaming to ascend the ranks, believing that they would one day achieve the status of Yeats or Eliot or Dickinson or what have you, unaware of the majesty that accompanies the shitty poets once their shitty poetry saw sunlight. The only qualm Emily had, and it was a minor one at that, was with the word "shit," but she did not coin that particular part of the phrase anyway. Her brother, not one to censor himself and unfamiliar with concept of tact, provided the inspiration.<br />
<br />
"What a shitty poem!" he declared upon finishing what she considered to be her magnum opus, and the words struck her. <i>Shit. shit shit shit shit </i>How vile, how unpoetic. She loved it ... sort of ... she hated it too. Rather, she understood it, realized its function in art, its appeal. This was the role she was born for. Rarely does one get the privilege to look into the mirror and lay eyes upon their purpose, knowing without any semblance of doubt why The Stork delivered your fetus to your mother's womb, but she, Miss Emily Meyers, saw exactly that on a piece of paper, informing her of her first publication.<i> She was a shit poet</i>.<br />
<br />
That was her mantra, repeated whenever she sat down to write, and she could not stop writing. Her brain leaked shitty ideas for shitty poems everywhere she went. She wrote about love--all the best shitty poets wrote about love--and she wrote every night. Once she finished a collection, she started another. It was her livelihood, how she fed her kids, paid the rent, kept her dog supplied in the higher-scale brand of dog food for which he had developed an exclusive taste.<br />
<br />
Her hand never ached. She did not comprehend "writers block." There were so many things to say, none of them vital, but all of them were said regardless. <br />
<br />
That night, she found herself caught by a fever. She never felt this way. When she wrote, she wrote calmly, the words flowing out of her with the ease and steadiness of a running faucet, but tonight, the words pressed against her, forcing their way out. Tremors shot up and down her spine. She was a nine on the Richter scale, a code red threat level, ready to blow at any second. The lights were dim in her room--the pitter patter of little feet on the floor downstairs provided the soundtrack. Every now and then, she would hear an "ouch," and she would mutter a brief prayer that her sons had not killed each other in whatever ill-conceived game they immersed themselves in and that her daughter would not play the role of collateral damage. She would tend to them if she could, but her work had consumed her, had seized her brain, had made her a prisoner to some unknown warden. It occurred to her that she was excreting poetry. She, the shittiest of the shitty poets, for the first time in her career, was excreting her first shitty poem. The others, as shitty as they were, did not come with such toil. They came not from the ass but from the mind, with complete comprehension of their creation. She could not even read the words of this current monstrosity, did not believe she would understand them if she could. This was a chemical reaction, an explosion of thought, volatile. She feared she would never write again, would be incapable, rendered useless by one malicious shitty poem shitted maliciously.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh God oh no it can't be </i>She sat back, the words no longer pushing through her. A restoration of clarity overwhelmed her, forced her backwards through time and space. She read it then read it again then read it a third time. <i>no no no </i>She e-mailed her to her brother, waited anxiously at the computer, her daughter crying downstairs while the boys sprinted to their hiding places. <i>no no no </i><br />
<br />
When his response arrived, her worst fears were realized. Miss Emily Meyers, shitty poet extraordinaire, had written a good, nay, a great poem. All hope was lost. <i> </i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-48216850534806886812012-05-21T16:33:00.000-07:002012-05-21T16:33:06.935-07:00The Indisputable Divinity of Ray Allen as Jesus Shuttlesworth and His Father DenzelI <i>had </i>written you, yes you, a wonderful short story for this particular post. Irreverent, sure. Blasphemous, maybe. Wonderful, most definitely. But as you can see from my italicized used of the past tense, that tale is no more. It has gone the way of my pens, my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, my iPod, I think maybe a dog or two of mine, and it is now lost. This is the penance I pay for scribbling my short stories on whatever random piece of paper I find laying around and shoving the results into my pockets without any semblance of a thought. My organization has always been ... well, I have none, but so far, it has never brought upon a tragedy of this magnitude.<br />
<br />
GONE! My work all gone, and all I have to show for it is this self-deprecating blog post and the pocket lint I retrieved from my pocket instead of my story notes. I could recall only the title, those words forever engrained onto my skull, and a sentence that began, "As he stared into the bear's eyes, convinced that this creature was convinced of his edibility, Jesus raised the basketball..."<br />
<br />
The rest is fog, indiscernible and maddening.<br />
<a name='more'></a>I tried ... oh, how I tried to rekindle that initial creative spark, but I had only ash, the remains of what was once a fire, detectable from galaxies separated by light years.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
"Jesus Shuttlesworth liked to play basketball. His dad <strike>Denzel</strike> Jake ... well, he is going to end up being a metaphor for God in this story. Because Jesus ... his name is Jesus. That's the joke. <i>He Got Game </i>might be, just might be, an outdated reference, but uh, we're off track. I'm off track. Jesus Shuttlesworth liked to play basketball. There was the dribbling. He was fond of the dribbling, even fonder of the shooting and the passing. The swoosh of the net was the soundtrack ... not the soundtrack .. . the swoosh of the net was like the rattling of a train; he could feel it in his bones. No, he could feel it in his heart. no no no he couldn't feel it. It felt him. <br />
<br />
damn it"</blockquote>Here's a picture of my cat in a tie. I hope it eases the pain if such a thing is possible.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ai83krOO6NgOJAESpit3oJkvr5lkJyRGh5pKeGJ7Xc46sbYDRX_DgSTUhxWzC9Pu8zDL_k2rYjg-J4BZG8nKl7Yv1_hyEG9m6BHJUtpq1PzxtYY2iS-O3l-0R8G0YLYDeHpexIlt8Tyf/s1600/V__B080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ai83krOO6NgOJAESpit3oJkvr5lkJyRGh5pKeGJ7Xc46sbYDRX_DgSTUhxWzC9Pu8zDL_k2rYjg-J4BZG8nKl7Yv1_hyEG9m6BHJUtpq1PzxtYY2iS-O3l-0R8G0YLYDeHpexIlt8Tyf/s320/V__B080.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-24867986104974755342012-05-12T12:45:00.000-07:002012-05-12T12:45:56.321-07:00Letter to My Black Half: A RebuttalDear <strike>Colored</strike> African-American Self,<br />
<br />
I received your letter, and it only furthers the point I've been making since 2008: Obama's election has given you an unbearable sense of pride. All of a sudden, we're listening to Outkast, we're watching Spike Lee films, we're seeking out Cornel West interviews on NPR. Where was all this black pride in high school? When you were listening to <i>Pinkerton </i>and crying about girls on full blast instead of Bun B and crying about girls? I apologize for the attempts on your life ... that was perhaps a little too far and unwarranted, but the ego has gotten to be a little much. Your civil rights aren't even a century old yet, and already they're being shoved in my face. Need I remind you that, without me, we wouldn't be half as employable.<br />
<a name='more'></a>If only you'd cut that damn hair ... and while we're on the subject, I have never approved of the black pride pick. Quite frankly, it offends me. Can't we chose a more race-neutral means of styling our hair? The way we, or rather you, have it now, every one else is forced to think, "BLACK!" I'd like a little recognition too. <br />
<br />
For once, I'd like a person to see us walking down the street and say, "Look at that tanned, handsome white guy over there," but that has never, and will never, be the case. Yet you insist on making new demands all because of a few, admittedly, rash attempts to lynch you in our own backyard. But it all stems from jealousy. All my hatred is bred from love. You get to be the cool one, the token one, the dash of ethnic spice in whatever white-washed group of friends you decide to join. I'll always be the "white half," the half that wishes we wore more scarves and sweaters, the half that decided to pursue a liberal arts degree while you get to be the cool half that makes fun of all those aspects.<br />
<br />
What group needs a token white guy out here in the suburbs?<br />
<br />
Also, we can stop playing Ultimate Frisbee. It even makes me feel like an asshole.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Forever Lame,<br />
White Devil</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">P.S. Am I allowed to say the N-word?</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-43694500435827658372012-05-11T11:43:00.000-07:002012-05-11T11:43:36.149-07:00Letter to My White HalfDear Self of the Honkie Variety,<br />
<br />
Listen. We need to talk. Don't worry; we aren't splitting up. Unfortunately, that is not an option for us--I have consulted a number of specialist. No, our burden remains to carry on, to deal with each other's faults as Dr. King would have wanted, and that is why I have chosen to write you.<br />
<br />
It's the racism, Sean. At first, you would just crack the occasional joke about whatever stereotype you happened to conjure. A "I bet you want some of that fried chicken" or "Shouldn't you be able to dunk" or perhaps even "Use your magic negro powers," which I did not even know was a stereotype until you brought it up, would come gallivanting out of you mouth whenever the situation was "appropriate," and I could live with that ... if it had ceased there. But then came the attempted lynchings. After the first, I thought, surely this was another joke. Then twice ... three times ... four! and I got suspicious. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>As a result, I'd like to renegotiate out contract as I deem your actions dangerous and irresponsible as well as a breach of our original deal. I promised I would no longer attend my militant Panther rallies if you would stop wearing that (dare I say tacky) Confederate flag shirt, and while you have so far obliged, I think I'd prefer the shirt to the hangings. Furthermore, no more hockey and no more golf. We are henceforth a Basketball/Football/Baseball family. Tiger is no longer the golfer he used to be when we made that compromise, and I feel that it's fair that we reassess that part of the contract.<br />
<br />
Also, I'd like the bulk of the week. We agreed that you would get Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, but since you seem incapable of using your time adequately (i.e. without prejudice), I think a switch is in order, though I still want Saturdays. You can keep Wednesday.<br />
<br />
No more watching <i>Friends</i>, <i>Fraiser</i> or <i>Seinfeld</i> reruns either ... I can't take it. It just perpetuates your neuroticism and provides unmerited relevancy to your meager problems. You must, however, watch at least two hours of <i>Roots</i> as I find your amount of "White Guilt" insufficient. <br />
<br />
Finally, good call on listening to the Wu Tang Clan again.<br />
<br />
With Love,<br />
My NiggahAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-11293349541749977182012-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:002012-05-08T18:51:42.140-07:00Screamales: A Hazy Retrospective<i>Hello all. I've decided to try something new within the established Kittens in Ties format. The goal is to write reviews on things ... all sorts of things ... in the form of flash fiction based on my memories of said thing. This week's review is of a concert I recently experienced: <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2012/05/weekend_roundup_sarah_jaffe_sc.php" target="_blank">Screaming Females at Queen City Hall</a>. We'll see how this goes ... </i><br />
<br />
Power chords ran through his veins like demented gerbils psyched out on pharmaceuticals running through an infinite loop of tunnels encased in a glass cage. He could feel the dissonance of the guitar solo inching up his spine, and it was only 7:30, several hours before the show would even start. These were feelings drawn by expectations, already bobbing his head up and down amidst the rhythmless soundtrack of street noise. It would do for now. He knew the songs well enough that he didn't need musical accompaniment to get amped up. Instead, he needed only silence ... his mind would provide the rest.<br />
<br />
Of course, now was not the time for premature headbanging. Now was a time for action.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"Where is it?"<br />
"I'm not sure. I've never been before."<br />
"Queen City Tattoo, right?"<br />
"Queen City <i>Hall</i>."<br />
"Well, there's a Queen City Tattoo. Maybe, that's it."<br />
"Let me ask someone."<br />
<br />
Who to ask? He couldn't be sure which of the people around could speak English or which might attempt to stab him. Come now, don't be racist. Could a black man be racist? ...he felt racist even posing the question.<br />
<br />
"I'll just go check out the tattoo place."<i></i><i> </i><br />
"Let me just ask someone."<br />
<br />
Him? No, too dirty ... her? She looks dressed for a punk show ...<br />
<br />
"Found it," there's a silence, "I told you so."<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg0rTTw2qzh3FbObN27tRHDXxH7BqgWsCW3Dc0Ng5aCILv0GG8a1ikvPj1dyX3pxREQBuptBjlGWgpVBrSOkHVh-DuDTkr30zxtaTzX2NdG0b6jQbK6AaGvRl9Wc_yyp26cZ1p3Nm_Wqlt/s1600/screaming+females.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg0rTTw2qzh3FbObN27tRHDXxH7BqgWsCW3Dc0Ng5aCILv0GG8a1ikvPj1dyX3pxREQBuptBjlGWgpVBrSOkHVh-DuDTkr30zxtaTzX2NdG0b6jQbK6AaGvRl9Wc_yyp26cZ1p3Nm_Wqlt/s320/screaming+females.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Courtesy of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dallas.distortion" target="_blank">Dallas Distortion Music</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Fast forward, past the Beastie Boy house music playlist that made him tear up, past the awkward fumbling around the venue trying to get a feel for this new location, past even the local band that prepared him for aural assault ahead; fast forward to that opening drum fill into that first riff, to the first time he bobbed his head to <i> </i>physically present music that evening. He could hold her in his hand, separated only by a mic stand and the music, yet the shredding ... don't use "shredding" like some sort of jackass ... but the way she played that guitar, as if no one else could, not like she could, overshadowed her diminutive stature, and her voice, that voice, tearing through his soul. There was no choice but to dance. Were the others dancing? The woman in the wheelchair beside him bounced around, and the drunk dudes beside her did the same--with, perhaps, a little more energy. Fist pumping abounded!<br />
<br />
This was not a time for social anxiety, for an acute sense of self-awareness. No, this was a time to shed one's neurosis and let the drive of the rhythm section move you. He was moved ... there was movement ... he could still feel it on the ride home, the ringing in his ears. He'd invest in ear plugs if he weren't so adamantly opposed to a purchase so unpunk, choosing--from here on out--to living as punk a life as possible.<br />
<br />
On the way home, he ran a stop sign. Baby steps. <br />
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<i>Check out the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC-iNFvhdGs" target="_blank">Screaming Females</a>.</i> <i> </i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-90777436452735683602012-05-02T12:58:00.001-07:002012-05-02T12:58:49.473-07:00A Doodle of the Devil Blowing Bubbles<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>E</b></span></span>very picture needed horns, and he wanted to be the hand that distributed them. He realized his realm of influence in that regard had its limitations, but his elementary school made a habit of telling children that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to--no matter how improbable. As a result, he earnestly believed he could sketch horns onto every political figure in every textbook, onto every portrait of every composer reprinted in every program for every concert band performance, onto every smiling child on every box of girl scouts cookies, onto every author's photograph on every book jacket wrapped around every book in every library or bookstore, onto every poorly sketched stick figure in every bathroom stall in every truck stop across the country. For now, he would have to settle with this particular program, content with defacing this idle giant as that gentle beast gazed over a landscape somehow meant to signify the accompanying piece, but eventually he would need to expand, would need not to regulate his art as a means of contending with boredom but as a militant expression of disdain for a horn-less society. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>He could not recall how far back his art went. Possibly, it stretched all the way back to his disinterest with junior high text books, but it was revitalized recently with each successive band performance he had been forced to sit through in the name of love.<br />
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How little he cared for Bach! How much malice he bore for Haydn! They, too, needed horns, but their pictures had not been provided in this program. Only the solitary giant--tranquil--overlooking an empty field, dejected. No, not dejected ... but seemingly so. He could hear the music as well, felt the strings slipping underneath his thick skin and holding his body captive. Bach would not let this poor beast escape. As he filled the horns with the blackness of his pen, he could see that German bastard laughing in hell as the giant sat upon that cliff, eyes filled with longing. He found himself bothered by how much he related to this monster--not monster--this giant man. Guilt swelled in him. Such a lonely creature, a solemn man such as this, did not deserve horns nor did he deserve the flames also sketched behind him. He deserved fun, something to pass these lonely hours until the field was filled with life again, and she came running from backstage, wrapping her arms around his neck and asking anxiously,<br />
<br />
"How did I do?"<br />
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As the band reached the coda, he sketched bubbles around the man, drifting through that solemn air and up toward God, Himself. How pleasant, then, did that giant seem--horn, fire, and all.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-78225701523213797392012-04-16T15:00:00.001-07:002012-04-16T21:24:33.572-07:00A Rough Sketch of Cowboys and Indians and Zombies<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With his index finger and his thumb, Martin Zipper turned his hand into what an adult would consider an “L” turned sideways but what he knew was actually a six shooter, the likes of which John Wayne once used to rule the West. He could still recall the films, could still smell the weird stench that plagued his grandparent’s trailer home, could still hear his grandfather quoting each and every line, could still quote the lines himself. It was hot then; it was hot now, the trailer serving as a metal can that concealed the intolerable Arizona heat with them and the insects that flew in from the open windows. “Bang!” he shouted, “Bang! Bang! I know you’re back there, Johnny!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Your bullets can’t go through walls!” a faint voice retorted, failing to even project at the necessary volume.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Yes, they can!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“No, only Phil’s can! You already have invisibility!”</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Indeed, it was that very ability that allowed him to stand so blatantly out in the open despite the chaos in progress. He had only one boy left to kill, and with his poncho of invisibility, Martin could not be seen unless he said he could be seen, so he took to the streets, seeking out his hidden Indian adversaries and letting loose a hail of imaginary gunfire whenever he stumbled across one. They would clutch at their hearts and head—he always aimed for the heart and head—and fall to the pavement and play dead until Martin called for a “reset,” something he only did when he had killed everyone (fellow cowboys included) or when there was a particularly annoying boy he could not find. As a result, the game had lost its appeal for the other children of East Cooper Street, but Martin wanted to play regardless. He was a child of legend, Martin, one who could not be refused and one whose very presence struck fear in the hearts of all other nine year olds. “Martin the great,” his peers had dubbed him, “Principal slayer.” Yes, you may have heard the story already but allow me to reiterate. Martin Zipper killed Sheriff Williams … or, rather, was present when Sheriff Williams died. It was a normal Tuesday in the dusty old ghost town of West Elementary, but it wouldn’t end a normal Tuesday, not for Martin Zipper. According to some, Deputy Lawson had turned Martin over to the Sheriff after a brief altercation during which Martin had called the deputy a “big fat bitch” and the deputy had scolded Martin for using such language and threatened to lock him up in the county jail for the rest of his life if he could not improve his attitude. He admitted none of that to Sheriff Williams. Instead, he chose to remain silent, playing with the ends of his sleeves and staring down at his feet. Some say there was a duel, that Martin drew his pistol in a fraction of a second and struck Williams through his right eye. Everyone knew of Martin’s quick hand. In an instant he could turn it into a pistol, and in that same instant you would have to collapse to the pavement and experience the tireless boredom of death until the game restarted. Others say that the very thought of facing Martin’s pistol terrified the Sheriff, and his old heart elected to save Martin a bullet. Martin’s peers saw only the black body bag, that reminded most of the trash their parents required them to dump every Thursday night, and the ambulance it was loaded into, but Martin had seen it unzipped. He had been in the office when it occurred, when a tyrant fell, when the west was truly won. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">No one saw Martin for a couple of weeks. It was just him and grandma Zipper alone in the trailer, watching old John Wayne films and pretending nothing had ever happened. And when he did return, the poncho was draped over his shoulders. It swallowed him, his feet peeking out from underneath. He had an eerie confidence about him that day, the sort of confidence that hides behind the empty eyes of adults. With that confidence, he stood atop the playground and looked over the earth, hands on hips and head held high. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“It is I! I slayed Principal Williams!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There was a pervasive silence about the scene. The silence that hung over the street just a year later as Martin approached the cowering Bobby, his pistol-fingers loaded and aimed ahead. That confidence seeped from him. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“You’re dead!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“No, I’m not!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Yes, you are!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And so it went, on and on and on and on, an endless debate consisting of no more than five words repeated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ad nauseam</i>. Martin could feel it swelling inside of him. The heat of the summer sun began to drain him—the poncho did not help. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“You’re dead!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He clutched at the poncho in the area of his heart, the sweat beading down his face flooding the pavement. Meanwhile, Phil came around the corner of the Erickson’s home. He had been shot and revived by the magic whisk. Given the circumstances of his resurrection, he had to walk with a stagger, moaning with the dreariness of the undead. Martin did not notice him. He had only Johnny’s demise and the heat on his mind. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was swelling in him. He clutched at the poncho, and he pulled it up over his head, the heat still pressing against his pale neck, the silence lingering between shouts. Phil crept up behind him, still moaning, and bit his naked arm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“You’re dead,” the boy laughed, “you’re a zombie now.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The poncho fell onto the pavement and burnt up in the summer heat. Martin collapsed into the ashes, his knees scratched and bleeding, and he began to cry. The other boys knew only to walk away—they would not play again. </span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-848453069428067582012-04-14T13:01:00.002-07:002012-04-16T21:24:17.800-07:00Out of Context Spencer Krug LyricsI think over the course of this blog that we have established two things.<br />
<br />
1) It primarily contains my award-winning [citation needed] fiction.<br />
2) It allows me to communicate with you, the readers.<br />
3) I can do whatever I want.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cow_2011.08_moonface_550.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>Today, I want to post out of context lyrics from various songs penned by musician and mythical figure, Spencer Krug.Why? Because it's poetry or lyrics which inspires my craft or whatever and I'm analyzing them or, you know, not. It's my blog ... that's thing number four that I've establish so far, and as such, I'm allowed to break the rules. And there are no rules. <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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Look, I don't have to explain myself to you. I'm the author! The artist! My word is law. Yes, I am drunk with power, and it feels glorious. Enjoy the lyrics!<br />
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<i>"</i>‘Cause you’re the one who’s riding around on a leopard/You’re the one who’s throwing dead birds in the air."<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i>Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days </i>- Sunset Rubdown</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"I had a vision of a gorilla/and he was a killer/A killer!"</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Cave-O-Sapien</i> - Wolf Parade</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You held your cup in the air and you called it a guitar"</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Kissing the Beehive </i>- Wolf Parade</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"If you are sharpening your scissors/I am sharpening my scissors"</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Dragon's Lair </i>- Sunset Rubdown</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Teary eyes and bloody lips/Make you look like Stevie Nicks"</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips </i>- Moonface</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1558917428021662661.post-76534115569365778972012-04-12T11:58:00.002-07:002012-04-16T21:23:46.975-07:00Books You Should Read<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> We interrupt your sporadically scheduled short fiction to bring you this brief message. If you are looking for something to read that does not have "the" "hunger" or "games" in the title, then here are two things that I've read recently that you might enjoy. Enjoy! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Basic Training - </i><b>Kurt Vonnegut</b> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/phillyburbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/3d/73d04352-74e7-11e1-9f15-001a4bcf6878/4f6c72e423ea1.preview-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/phillyburbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/3d/73d04352-74e7-11e1-9f15-001a4bcf6878/4f6c72e423ea1.preview-300.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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Do I really need to explain to you why you need to read Vonnegut? By now, you've likely already formed an opinion on him. And if you haven't, go read <i>Breakfast of Champions </i>right now. What are you still doing here? Go! For those of you left, here's a new book of Vonnegut's that someone found in the archives. You should read it. And considering <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/02/newly-published-kurt-vonnegut-novella" target="_blank">this</a>, maybe you have. Get it on your <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Training-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B007MQZ9J2/ref=zg_bsnr_17_59" target="_blank">kindle</a>, or whatever. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><i>I Kill Giants - </i><b>Joe Kelly</b> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://therealscratchpad.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/i-kill-giants1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://therealscratchpad.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/i-kill-giants1.jpg" width="147" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> Great Scott! A picture book! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Yes, and a very good one at that. <i>I Kill Giants </i>is an indie comic book published by Image in 2009. The titular giants are, of course, metaphors ... this being an indie book and all, but don't let its lack of non-metaphorical giants stop you from checking it out. This book tells the touching story of somewhat crazy, somewhat irritable, and remarkably likeable Barbara Thorson. She has family issues and a hyper active imagination. She's everything you want in a protagonist. Get it in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/I-Kill-Giants-Joe-Kelly/dp/1607060922/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334255829&sr=1-1" target="_blank">paperback form</a>, or whatever. </div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456809483740270080noreply@blogger.com0