Monday, September 13, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Fairy Funny
It’s one of the great jokes in the universe, and the only one played specifically on humans. Live any planetarily hegemonic species, humans think most of the jokes of the universe are directed at them (and aren’t jokes), but it’s only the faeries that really care to prank earth. Just beyond the veil of perception is an infinity of faeries, a great commune that grabs all physical objects and moves them around. The faeries have strict government and policies about the motion of objects, keeping certain bodies at simulated, while others remain in motion unless perturbed, and things float or fall appropriately. It is all a conspiracy of pixies to make it seem to dimwitted sentient life that the bodies of the universe have order. Humans call it gravity, and they put a lot of stock in it. They have so much faith in gravity that they peg it to the hundred thousandths place – but this isn’t actually a testament to the attraction between two masses, only the rigor of winged entities that don’t like talking to humans. Every so often a fairy will tell a human how it all works, and this accounts for about one fifth of the physicists who go insane any given year. The faeries are seldom so malicious, though. They’re doing it to illustrate a point about science – one you can’t understand, because otherwise it wouldn’t be funny.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: A Presidential Offer
There is an audio edition of this monologue. To hear John read it, either click on the triangle to the left to begin the stream, or click this text to download the MP3.
I don't mean to offend when I tell you, but you're going to buy this interview. It's the only one. Millions of people who don't care about your show will tune in to watch it. They will TiVo. It will be all over Youtube, and while that doesn't give you ad dollars, it will be you on all those computer screens sitting across from the former president.
It's the only one. His book will be out in six months. It is 1,600 pages long, overpriced, and says everything he wants to say. Breaking Wall Street. Invading Israel and Palestine. Nuclear power after the California meltdown. The shadow prisons. The oil refinery sabotage. He clears his conscience, justifies everything, and everyone will buy it. They can publish a diet that cures cancer. They can have God write His own rebuttal to string theory. The president's is the book everyone will buy, no matter what he charges, hardcover and Kindle alike. A few will read it to agree with him. Most will read it for the catharsis of hating him. A multi-million-person group will buy it just to try and understand him. He will have his say as he likes it before the entire world, and then he'll go home.
He's not going to do the Today Show or Fox & Friends. Jon Stewart is not going to lure him into a debate on Comedy Central. Every show, site and magazine is going to cover his book for free because it will be the news. Not news - the news. If they don't cover it, people will find another channel that does. You will pay us and become the only source.
So you're going to buy this interview. Six months after his presidency, six months before his book arrives, you will have the only sitdown with the president. And he is the president. Someone else will be called greater or kinder or cuddlier, but it's his face they'll think of when they hear "President."
So you're going to buy this interview. I don't care if it costs more than they pay you - you will find the money. You will agree to the terms and off-limits topics. The president does not care if you find them unfair. You will realize very quickly that you don't care, either. Not when you realize how many people will watch you for the first time in your life.
I don't mean to offend when I tell you, but you're going to buy this interview. It's the only one. Millions of people who don't care about your show will tune in to watch it. They will TiVo. It will be all over Youtube, and while that doesn't give you ad dollars, it will be you on all those computer screens sitting across from the former president.
It's the only one. His book will be out in six months. It is 1,600 pages long, overpriced, and says everything he wants to say. Breaking Wall Street. Invading Israel and Palestine. Nuclear power after the California meltdown. The shadow prisons. The oil refinery sabotage. He clears his conscience, justifies everything, and everyone will buy it. They can publish a diet that cures cancer. They can have God write His own rebuttal to string theory. The president's is the book everyone will buy, no matter what he charges, hardcover and Kindle alike. A few will read it to agree with him. Most will read it for the catharsis of hating him. A multi-million-person group will buy it just to try and understand him. He will have his say as he likes it before the entire world, and then he'll go home.
He's not going to do the Today Show or Fox & Friends. Jon Stewart is not going to lure him into a debate on Comedy Central. Every show, site and magazine is going to cover his book for free because it will be the news. Not news - the news. If they don't cover it, people will find another channel that does. You will pay us and become the only source.
So you're going to buy this interview. Six months after his presidency, six months before his book arrives, you will have the only sitdown with the president. And he is the president. Someone else will be called greater or kinder or cuddlier, but it's his face they'll think of when they hear "President."
So you're going to buy this interview. I don't care if it costs more than they pay you - you will find the money. You will agree to the terms and off-limits topics. The president does not care if you find them unfair. You will realize very quickly that you don't care, either. Not when you realize how many people will watch you for the first time in your life.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Skeletons in the Closet
Chatty undead took work at mortuaries. It was comfortable; people there expected skeletons in the closet.
I apologize for nothing.
I apologize for nothing.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Viewers Like You
The broadcast representative led him down the hall. Sammy was in awe of the stainless steel walls, dotted with their thousands of viewing windows. Each led to a tiny room that was bathed in a yellow glow, like the light of an incubator.
“We’ve always been sustained by donations. Sometimes they came from corporations, but even in our most shameless years, PBS has always been supported by viewers like you.”
Sammy had yet to see a television in his life, but the mere mention of PBS made him ache to sit down and watch something. He settled for listening to the rep.
“Not viewers precisely like you. They had two eyes, two legs and all that, but they were unreliable. Do you know how few viewers donated even once, let alone a second time? Many an unpaid intern was left in tears during the telethons, when some callous viewer barked to stop calling. Scandalous. All the interns were doing was trying to fund the best educational and cultural programming in the country. Plus the call list was opt-in.”
They neared the door at the end of the walls. There was another yellow light beyond it, this one not so much like an incubator. This light was like the sun, which Sammy was pre-programmed to recognize. He looked forward to seeing the sun.
“We almost went out of business. Telethons were futile. The internet only brought us more viewers who wanted everything for free. We had to take advertising from truly evil corporations. Our news anchors had to admit, in full disclosure, that the monsters we’d just done a story about paid for the show. All of it and we were still on the verge of insolvency. That was, until we got one saintly donor.”
The rep paused by the viewing window closest to the door. A naked man slept inside. Sammy looked in with the rep. He saw himself for the first time in his brief life, reflected in the window. He had the same face as the sleeping man.
“Samuel P. Lancaster was a viewer exactly like you, minus some epigenetics. He realized to keep our station afloat, we didn’t need a social network or a celebrity endorsements. We just needed several thousand more viewers just like you.”
The broadcast representative clapped Sammy on the shoulder. He beamed in the photogenic way all media people were designed to in this age.
“You’re free to live a life, Sammy. Get whatever job you like. Get married, get a car, get a penthouse – all we ask is you and everyone like you donate a certain minimum amount every year. Exceed it and we’ll send you a handsome tote bag.”
“Thank you,” were the first words of Sammy’s life.
“You’re welcome.”
He stepped aside and let Sammy walk into the light.
“Do us proud, Sammy! We’d hate to have to curtail programming.”
“We’ve always been sustained by donations. Sometimes they came from corporations, but even in our most shameless years, PBS has always been supported by viewers like you.”
Sammy had yet to see a television in his life, but the mere mention of PBS made him ache to sit down and watch something. He settled for listening to the rep.
“Not viewers precisely like you. They had two eyes, two legs and all that, but they were unreliable. Do you know how few viewers donated even once, let alone a second time? Many an unpaid intern was left in tears during the telethons, when some callous viewer barked to stop calling. Scandalous. All the interns were doing was trying to fund the best educational and cultural programming in the country. Plus the call list was opt-in.”
They neared the door at the end of the walls. There was another yellow light beyond it, this one not so much like an incubator. This light was like the sun, which Sammy was pre-programmed to recognize. He looked forward to seeing the sun.
“We almost went out of business. Telethons were futile. The internet only brought us more viewers who wanted everything for free. We had to take advertising from truly evil corporations. Our news anchors had to admit, in full disclosure, that the monsters we’d just done a story about paid for the show. All of it and we were still on the verge of insolvency. That was, until we got one saintly donor.”
The rep paused by the viewing window closest to the door. A naked man slept inside. Sammy looked in with the rep. He saw himself for the first time in his brief life, reflected in the window. He had the same face as the sleeping man.
“Samuel P. Lancaster was a viewer exactly like you, minus some epigenetics. He realized to keep our station afloat, we didn’t need a social network or a celebrity endorsements. We just needed several thousand more viewers just like you.”
The broadcast representative clapped Sammy on the shoulder. He beamed in the photogenic way all media people were designed to in this age.
“You’re free to live a life, Sammy. Get whatever job you like. Get married, get a car, get a penthouse – all we ask is you and everyone like you donate a certain minimum amount every year. Exceed it and we’ll send you a handsome tote bag.”
“Thank you,” were the first words of Sammy’s life.
“You’re welcome.”
He stepped aside and let Sammy walk into the light.
“Do us proud, Sammy! We’d hate to have to curtail programming.”
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Task of Waverly Mothers
"Waverly mothers have a task. Others may live meaningless or ambling parenthoods, but Waverly have tact and strong breeding. We survive into the teens of our grandchildren, and that's where the mission comes from. That child will be full of hormones, new hair and the soil of existentialism. A mother's task is to get that child firm early. Teach it what is right and when to stand still. The loss of a grandmother will be the first real death it comes in contact with, and if the Waverly mother has done her job, the child will weather it fine. It will know that death is a part of life we're all guaranteed, and not something to fall apart over. If it falls apart, the mother is failing at her job and needs to catch up. I expect you've been doing right by your young, Darleen. I have faith in you because you didn't crack when your Nana passed, and you should have learned all you needed from that, and me. The doctors say I'll tip over in the next two weeks and we'll know. I hope you're prepared for the consequences."
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Bombs Away
The educator tapped his prompter and shifted holograms. The room when blue for two seconds before loading the image of a 1950’s classroom. Windows appeared with nearly authentic views of a green vista. Hardlight images popped up around the room: an archaic flag hung over the door, colorful representations of the alphabet lined the walls, and the floor was filled up with rows of uncomfortable devices consisted of four metal rods supporting a flat wooden square. A few of the educator’s pupils went directly into their Pads to look up what such furniture was called.
“Americans of the 1950’s were an emotionally coherent bunch. Take the typical classroom scene,” the educator said, sweeping an arm around the place. “Students spent hours a day in such environments, sitting at desks and completing tasks to learn and test their learning. In case of an atomic bomb attack, they were instructed to climb under the desk.”
The educator got down on all fours and climbed under the nearest one. His students stared at his age-addled backside, wobbling as he tried to position himself under furniture designed for a child. His head poked out the other end with a question.
“Question: Why would they do this?”
Liu, one of the class leaders, proffered, “Answer: Safety.”
“Nonsense. An atomic bomb would destroy the entire building. This flimsy structure wouldn’t preserve you a moment.”
Yun smirked at Liu, then proffered, “Answer: If they were on the periphery of the explosion, caught only in a debris cloud, it might shield them from flying bricks.”
“Nice rationalization, Yun, but try again.”
No one tried again. The educator climbed out from his desk and assumed a spot in their ranks. He gestured out to the see of seats.
“Imagine the bomb siren goes off. Everyone is told they will be fine if they duck under their desks. Instead of overturning the classroom and fighting amongst each other for a futile escape, each student assumes a passive position. They believe they will be safe. What American educators did was assure the last moments of children’s lives would be peaceful. They were ensuring mental well-being even in the worst possible case.”
The students nodded somberly and starred that particular bit of audio. With that much emphasis, it would probably be an exam answer.
“Now let’s skip ahead a little and see the classroom when schools tried to do away with teachers. Five points to the first one of you who answers why that failed.”
“Americans of the 1950’s were an emotionally coherent bunch. Take the typical classroom scene,” the educator said, sweeping an arm around the place. “Students spent hours a day in such environments, sitting at desks and completing tasks to learn and test their learning. In case of an atomic bomb attack, they were instructed to climb under the desk.”
The educator got down on all fours and climbed under the nearest one. His students stared at his age-addled backside, wobbling as he tried to position himself under furniture designed for a child. His head poked out the other end with a question.
“Question: Why would they do this?”
Liu, one of the class leaders, proffered, “Answer: Safety.”
“Nonsense. An atomic bomb would destroy the entire building. This flimsy structure wouldn’t preserve you a moment.”
Yun smirked at Liu, then proffered, “Answer: If they were on the periphery of the explosion, caught only in a debris cloud, it might shield them from flying bricks.”
“Nice rationalization, Yun, but try again.”
No one tried again. The educator climbed out from his desk and assumed a spot in their ranks. He gestured out to the see of seats.
“Imagine the bomb siren goes off. Everyone is told they will be fine if they duck under their desks. Instead of overturning the classroom and fighting amongst each other for a futile escape, each student assumes a passive position. They believe they will be safe. What American educators did was assure the last moments of children’s lives would be peaceful. They were ensuring mental well-being even in the worst possible case.”
The students nodded somberly and starred that particular bit of audio. With that much emphasis, it would probably be an exam answer.
“Now let’s skip ahead a little and see the classroom when schools tried to do away with teachers. Five points to the first one of you who answers why that failed.”
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Flaccid Floods
Every spring they offer aphrodisiacs to the River Queen. They reap the deepest wheat and darkest grain, set it all in burning boats and let them drift down her sacred channels. They do it not for her, but for her husband. The River King is amorous only at the beginning of the season. If his lusts go unmet, he loses his erection and pisses into the river until it overflows. Entire harvests are ruined when the couple does not lie together. Not believing in conventional prayer, they can’t beseech their gods directly and explain how their love life controls humanity’s supper. All they can do is try to help a brother out.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Interview at the Other Side
This weekend I was interviewed by Deanna Schrayer. We covered the dozen ways I started writing, how writers block is a luxury, where my ideas come from and other topics. Feel free to tell me I'm nuts and that's not how writing works.
You can read the full interview by clicking here. Comments or additional questions can go either on the Other Side or right on this post. Thanks for reading!
You can read the full interview by clicking here. Comments or additional questions can go either on the Other Side or right on this post. Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
True Stories of John, 2 - Response to Bracknell
To hear John read today's story simply click the triangle on the left to begin streaming or click this text to download the MP3.
“I’ve always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing. Which do you know?” –Lady Bracknell from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
I came upon Lady Bracknell interrogating her daughter’s suitor. Being written by Oscar Wilde, she was a bit of a cock. I took the abuse with him until she asked his age. He said he was twenty-nine. I’d turn twenty-nine tomorrow. She said that was a good age at which for a man to marry.
Then she asked, “I’ve always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing. Which do you know?”
I did the only sensible thing. I got up, carried the play into the bathroom, and responded to the page. It made an unhandsome woman, but it’s seldom you like your in-laws.
“A little of both, madame. The first inclination is to play Socrates and say that I know nothing, but that plea still got him killed. The second inclination is to impress you by claiming omniscience, but any question you should pull from your pocketbook will puncture it. Thus I’m reduced to being earnest. Everything or nothing? I know a little of both. Raise any subject and I can tell you everything I know about it. Just as true, raise any subject and I will tell you far less than the whole of it. In my reply I’ll say a little bit of everything, leaving around it a gaping periphery of what I’ve missed. It’s quite a nothing to be pursued by. It haunts me. The only solace will be when I’m wed to your daughter. There is nothing like a wife to educate a man on how he knows nothing, while she can know everything for him.”
I don’t think she liked me. The suitor answered, too, and the Lady Bracknell replied to him instead. So I turned 29 a bachelor.
“I’ve always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing. Which do you know?” –Lady Bracknell from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
I came upon Lady Bracknell interrogating her daughter’s suitor. Being written by Oscar Wilde, she was a bit of a cock. I took the abuse with him until she asked his age. He said he was twenty-nine. I’d turn twenty-nine tomorrow. She said that was a good age at which for a man to marry.
Then she asked, “I’ve always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing. Which do you know?”
I did the only sensible thing. I got up, carried the play into the bathroom, and responded to the page. It made an unhandsome woman, but it’s seldom you like your in-laws.
“A little of both, madame. The first inclination is to play Socrates and say that I know nothing, but that plea still got him killed. The second inclination is to impress you by claiming omniscience, but any question you should pull from your pocketbook will puncture it. Thus I’m reduced to being earnest. Everything or nothing? I know a little of both. Raise any subject and I can tell you everything I know about it. Just as true, raise any subject and I will tell you far less than the whole of it. In my reply I’ll say a little bit of everything, leaving around it a gaping periphery of what I’ve missed. It’s quite a nothing to be pursued by. It haunts me. The only solace will be when I’m wed to your daughter. There is nothing like a wife to educate a man on how he knows nothing, while she can know everything for him.”
I don’t think she liked me. The suitor answered, too, and the Lady Bracknell replied to him instead. So I turned 29 a bachelor.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
R.A.Q. 2010 Edition
There are many FAQs across the internet. But what about Rarely Asked Questions? Who is going to answer them? I am.
Michelle Ann-Flemming asked: "Who would win in a fight: Batman or Monkey?"
---If the Americans were writing, Batman. If the Chinese were writing, Monkey. If, as I currently suspect, a consortium of India and Brazil usurps the world economy from underneath both of us, they’ll be lucky to show up on the undercard, let alone have a headlining fight.
Erin Cole asked: "We the people or politicians?"
---Politicians. I've been a person my whole life and would enjoy the change.
Anthony Venutolo asked: "What's more important: Divine Providence or Manifest Destiny?"
---Destiny always manifests, but when the divine provides, the author of that manifest shows up. That’s when I get out the good silverware.
Linda Wastilla asked: "I am very curious -- do you really write in your bathroom? and if so, where exactly?"
---I compose most of what you read on this site in the bathroom. These answers I’m writing at my computer because otherwise I couldn’t read what you’re saying. If you want I’ll go sit in the bathtub now, imagine a question from you and answer that instead. I’m serious. It’s my birthday. I have the time and who’s going to stop me?
Anonymous asked: "If you were in charge of an alien economy that had no knowledge of, understanding of, or expectations for Earth, what would the price be for a one pound block of Vermont cheddar?"
---If we have no knowledge, understanding or interactions with earth, then Vermont cheddar must not be on the galactic market. Therefore I assume you're asking how much the cheddar would be on earth, outside my jurisdiction. A good pound of sharp cheddar should run you twelve earth dollars.
Cassie Nichols asked: "Of the stories and worlds you've written about, is there one in particular you'd like to visit? Is there one where you'd like to live?"
---Old Teioh. The subject of at least two stories so far (arguably more – I’ll leave it up to readers to do the arguing, if they’re ever of such a desire), it’s my favorite setting. It’s empty of people, can provide food, shelter, sun and peace. I’d only be nervous that, if I showed up there, someone else was writing the story and intended it to reject me in some horrible way. But then, you said the worlds I’ve written about, so I’m saying I get to write my stay there. In that case, really, any place is equally as good as the next since I’ll edit the heck out of it until it’s air conditioned and has good barbecue.
Cassie Nichols also asked: “Who would win in a fight, Vineguard or Lo?”
---Ninx won’t let Vineguard kill anyone, and Lo is restrained by the Cacoas Bonds, and neither of them is terribly accurate at throwing pies. Also, no one knows what we’re talking about.
Rachel Welton asked: “Would you like to write one of your Norse Pantheon stories for publication in a pagan magazine?”
---I haven’t written many stories about or emerging from the Norse Pantheon. Usually it’s just Odin hanging out with his inter-faith poker group. But sure, the P.P.G. is pagan-friendly. Have one in mind?
Cathy Oliffe asked: “What’s your love life like?”
---I have had a very pleasant off-and-on relationship with an imaginary girl since eighth grade. She's leggy (odd, since I'm not a leg man), a splendid cook and has a knack for getting through my BS without even trying. I’ve tried to convince her she’s too good for me, but she doesn’t listen.
Cathy Oliffe also asked: “why is there a little handicapped symbol beside the word verification box on everyone's blog comment page?”
---Because the internet is handicap accessible. Don’t be insensitive.
Deanna Schrayer asked: "What is the color of barnacles?"
---Most barnacles I've ever seen were white with black on the interior. Those, my nautical friends said were quite nutritious if you were starving. But they can also come in mossy green, black or yellow varieties.
Danielle La Paglia asked: "Wonder Woman or Cat Woman?"
---Whoever's free, honestly.
Marisa Birns asked: "Do you make fun of us behind our backs?"
---No. I've never been behind your back.
Ian in Japan asked: “Which of these questions took the longest to answer?”
---Rachel Welton’s, because I had to go through my archives looking for stories about Norse deities. It will take substantially longer if I write a story about Odin, Raven and the rest of the poker group vacationing in Iceland.
Michelle Ann-Flemming asked: "Who would win in a fight: Batman or Monkey?"
---If the Americans were writing, Batman. If the Chinese were writing, Monkey. If, as I currently suspect, a consortium of India and Brazil usurps the world economy from underneath both of us, they’ll be lucky to show up on the undercard, let alone have a headlining fight.
Erin Cole asked: "We the people or politicians?"
---Politicians. I've been a person my whole life and would enjoy the change.
Anthony Venutolo asked: "What's more important: Divine Providence or Manifest Destiny?"
---Destiny always manifests, but when the divine provides, the author of that manifest shows up. That’s when I get out the good silverware.
Linda Wastilla asked: "I am very curious -- do you really write in your bathroom? and if so, where exactly?"
---I compose most of what you read on this site in the bathroom. These answers I’m writing at my computer because otherwise I couldn’t read what you’re saying. If you want I’ll go sit in the bathtub now, imagine a question from you and answer that instead. I’m serious. It’s my birthday. I have the time and who’s going to stop me?
Anonymous asked: "If you were in charge of an alien economy that had no knowledge of, understanding of, or expectations for Earth, what would the price be for a one pound block of Vermont cheddar?"
---If we have no knowledge, understanding or interactions with earth, then Vermont cheddar must not be on the galactic market. Therefore I assume you're asking how much the cheddar would be on earth, outside my jurisdiction. A good pound of sharp cheddar should run you twelve earth dollars.
Cassie Nichols asked: "Of the stories and worlds you've written about, is there one in particular you'd like to visit? Is there one where you'd like to live?"
---Old Teioh. The subject of at least two stories so far (arguably more – I’ll leave it up to readers to do the arguing, if they’re ever of such a desire), it’s my favorite setting. It’s empty of people, can provide food, shelter, sun and peace. I’d only be nervous that, if I showed up there, someone else was writing the story and intended it to reject me in some horrible way. But then, you said the worlds I’ve written about, so I’m saying I get to write my stay there. In that case, really, any place is equally as good as the next since I’ll edit the heck out of it until it’s air conditioned and has good barbecue.
Cassie Nichols also asked: “Who would win in a fight, Vineguard or Lo?”
---Ninx won’t let Vineguard kill anyone, and Lo is restrained by the Cacoas Bonds, and neither of them is terribly accurate at throwing pies. Also, no one knows what we’re talking about.
Rachel Welton asked: “Would you like to write one of your Norse Pantheon stories for publication in a pagan magazine?”
---I haven’t written many stories about or emerging from the Norse Pantheon. Usually it’s just Odin hanging out with his inter-faith poker group. But sure, the P.P.G. is pagan-friendly. Have one in mind?
Cathy Oliffe asked: “What’s your love life like?”
---I have had a very pleasant off-and-on relationship with an imaginary girl since eighth grade. She's leggy (odd, since I'm not a leg man), a splendid cook and has a knack for getting through my BS without even trying. I’ve tried to convince her she’s too good for me, but she doesn’t listen.
Cathy Oliffe also asked: “why is there a little handicapped symbol beside the word verification box on everyone's blog comment page?”
---Because the internet is handicap accessible. Don’t be insensitive.
Deanna Schrayer asked: "What is the color of barnacles?"
---Most barnacles I've ever seen were white with black on the interior. Those, my nautical friends said were quite nutritious if you were starving. But they can also come in mossy green, black or yellow varieties.
Danielle La Paglia asked: "Wonder Woman or Cat Woman?"
---Whoever's free, honestly.
Marisa Birns asked: "Do you make fun of us behind our backs?"
---No. I've never been behind your back.
Ian in Japan asked: “Which of these questions took the longest to answer?”
---Rachel Welton’s, because I had to go through my archives looking for stories about Norse deities. It will take substantially longer if I write a story about Odin, Raven and the rest of the poker group vacationing in Iceland.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Man is the Master of His Own Home
“Man is the master of his own home,” Douglas told himself. He didn’t know where he’d heard it first, but it comforted him hearing it now. Lord knew he needed to feel comfortable.
He undid his fly. It was the only kind of rebellion he could think of, and he buttoned it back up shortly thereafter. He paced around the living room carpet like a panther. He paced in socks, then remembered how Cheryl hated bare feet on the carpet, took them off. He scrunched his toes into the fabric and grinned like a big cat who knew his prey was somewhere.
“My living room,” he told himself. “Nobody else’s.”
Nobody else’s as of Tuesday when he and Cheryl signed the papers. She got the Manhattan place and he got this. A two-bedroom with goldenrod carpets he’d never wanted and echoes of her criticisms.
“Incapable of spontaneity!” he repeated and undid his fly again. He did it back up before anyone might see him through the window. He tugged on his jeans. They sunk half an inch, then snagged on several years of fast food.
“Surprising you with Arby’s that one time was spontaneous.”
He strolled to her faux-Persian drapes. No one was outside. No one would be up here for weeks, barring the occasional caretaker. This was a summer community.
Douglas remained at the window, watching nobody go by. No caretaker. No ex-wives with hideous red dyejobs. When he released the drapes, his hand wandered back to his crotch.
“Incapable,” he snarled. He undid his fly, moved to re-do it, and stripped off his damned pants before civility could succeed. Let a caretaker see it.
“Incapable.”
He threw the legs of his jeans around his neck like a scarf. He stormed into the kitchen that way, grabbing the phone book and opening the refrigerator door.
“Is it spontaneous to order take-out while looking in your own pantry?” he asked the lettuce. He dialed. As it rang he wandered over to the biggest carpet – the one Cheryl would likely send for in a week, when she realized it wasn’t explicitly in the papers. He sat on it, boxers and toes defiling her awful taste. He wondered if the delivery guy would take a photo of him posed like this so he could send it to his ex.
“No. I thought about it in advance – not spontaneous. I’ll have to come up with something else before he gets here.”
A vaguely Asian voice on the line asked, “Excuse me?”
“Oh, hi. What kind of food do you folks sell?”
“Only Thai, buddy.”
“Oh, that’s great. I hate Thai food. What’s expensive?”
That was spontaneous! And his joint account with Cheryl wasn’t closed yet. As the order-taker listed dishes, he flipped the pages over to Interior Decorators. He circled a number and farted into the carpet.
He undid his fly. It was the only kind of rebellion he could think of, and he buttoned it back up shortly thereafter. He paced around the living room carpet like a panther. He paced in socks, then remembered how Cheryl hated bare feet on the carpet, took them off. He scrunched his toes into the fabric and grinned like a big cat who knew his prey was somewhere.
“My living room,” he told himself. “Nobody else’s.”
Nobody else’s as of Tuesday when he and Cheryl signed the papers. She got the Manhattan place and he got this. A two-bedroom with goldenrod carpets he’d never wanted and echoes of her criticisms.
“Incapable of spontaneity!” he repeated and undid his fly again. He did it back up before anyone might see him through the window. He tugged on his jeans. They sunk half an inch, then snagged on several years of fast food.
“Surprising you with Arby’s that one time was spontaneous.”
He strolled to her faux-Persian drapes. No one was outside. No one would be up here for weeks, barring the occasional caretaker. This was a summer community.
Douglas remained at the window, watching nobody go by. No caretaker. No ex-wives with hideous red dyejobs. When he released the drapes, his hand wandered back to his crotch.
“Incapable,” he snarled. He undid his fly, moved to re-do it, and stripped off his damned pants before civility could succeed. Let a caretaker see it.
“Incapable.”
He threw the legs of his jeans around his neck like a scarf. He stormed into the kitchen that way, grabbing the phone book and opening the refrigerator door.
“Is it spontaneous to order take-out while looking in your own pantry?” he asked the lettuce. He dialed. As it rang he wandered over to the biggest carpet – the one Cheryl would likely send for in a week, when she realized it wasn’t explicitly in the papers. He sat on it, boxers and toes defiling her awful taste. He wondered if the delivery guy would take a photo of him posed like this so he could send it to his ex.
“No. I thought about it in advance – not spontaneous. I’ll have to come up with something else before he gets here.”
A vaguely Asian voice on the line asked, “Excuse me?”
“Oh, hi. What kind of food do you folks sell?”
“Only Thai, buddy.”
“Oh, that’s great. I hate Thai food. What’s expensive?”
That was spontaneous! And his joint account with Cheryl wasn’t closed yet. As the order-taker listed dishes, he flipped the pages over to Interior Decorators. He circled a number and farted into the carpet.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Liner Notes for "Non-Starter"
This album is the greatest project of my entire career. In twenty-two years I’d never harmonized so many tracks and themes. It was supposed to come out in 2002, but I got a little carried away researching in India and Pakistan. I wound up composing more material for this than any other project in my life. The big stumbling point was figuring out which track should open the album. The first one I wrote is more middle-material, and there are eleven tracks that really could start the thing off. Finally this summer I decided – screw it, the album will have no beginning. The songs are so intertwined that the only justice is giving no way to start it. That may be too existential for some listeners, but I think a 31-track album that you can’t begin listening to is just what the industry needs. Fuck Hollywood and it’s anti-endings; this is the anti-beginning. Hit play and enjoy it anywhere – the car, subway, airport, club or church. I guarantee it’ll be the same unexperience everywhere.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: What You Want
"They're ugly,” I smirk as our car passes the girls. “They're all lesbians."
My aunt gawks at me in her flannel. I’ve never teased her about this subject before.
"Hey. There are beautiful lesbians."
"Ah, they're all hags."
If she wasn’t a pacifist, she would have slugged me.
"Sorry," I said without a trace of sorrow. "But you know what they say: you don't want what you can't have."
"God, and you’re in college. It's 'you want what you can't have.'"
"Why would you want what you can't have? That'd be moronic. You want what you can have. That way you get it and you're happy."
She turned us off the campus road, towards where there are clean restaurants and other places you’d visit with an aunt. "Not being able to have it is what makes it attractive."
"So if I go jogging for an hour,” I say, pointing to the side of the road, “I'll only want a bottle of water if I can't have one? It's a dollar at the college store. I’ve got a dollar."
“But the things you really want are what you can’t have.”
“I’m going to college. This is, what? Thirty thousand a year? If there was something else I really wanted, I could probably swing the loans.”
“You’ll get it when you’re older.”
“And when I do? I’ll have wanted it.”
An hour later, I paid for lunch. Eleven years later I finished paying off my loans. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have mouthed off to my only rich relative like that.
My aunt gawks at me in her flannel. I’ve never teased her about this subject before.
"Hey. There are beautiful lesbians."
"Ah, they're all hags."
If she wasn’t a pacifist, she would have slugged me.
"Sorry," I said without a trace of sorrow. "But you know what they say: you don't want what you can't have."
"God, and you’re in college. It's 'you want what you can't have.'"
"Why would you want what you can't have? That'd be moronic. You want what you can have. That way you get it and you're happy."
She turned us off the campus road, towards where there are clean restaurants and other places you’d visit with an aunt. "Not being able to have it is what makes it attractive."
"So if I go jogging for an hour,” I say, pointing to the side of the road, “I'll only want a bottle of water if I can't have one? It's a dollar at the college store. I’ve got a dollar."
“But the things you really want are what you can’t have.”
“I’m going to college. This is, what? Thirty thousand a year? If there was something else I really wanted, I could probably swing the loans.”
“You’ll get it when you’re older.”
“And when I do? I’ll have wanted it.”
An hour later, I paid for lunch. Eleven years later I finished paying off my loans. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have mouthed off to my only rich relative like that.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Seven Somethings, Thanks Anthony
Anthony Venutolo recently handed me this little award.
The rules of the game are to provide seven outrageous facts about yourself. Six are to be lies and one is to be true, or alternatively six are true and one is a lie. I leave it up to you, constant readers, to guess whether most of these are truth or fiction, and guess which is the one that's not like the others. Is only one true, or false?
1. At age nine I turned down the opportunity to co-author a book about dinosaurs with a published author because I was, in my words, “busy working on other projects.”
2. I once took Dante’s Inferno out into the middle of a soccer field during a thunderstorm to see how it would read there.
3. I took a Jane Austen intensive at college because I thought it would be nice to get some of my reading done in the bathtub. Confessing this was probably the first, but far from the last reason that professor hated me.
4. Assigned to recite ten lines of Chaucer and completely unable to cognize Middle English pronunciation, I re-wrote a passage from The Miller’s Tale phonetically and practiced it over fifty times. I wound up doing the entire page, my accent swinging from New Jersey to Latin. I received an ovation.
5. Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene convinced me that there was a God (at least one).
6. I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground while bedridden and alone on Easter weekend. I was alternately unimpressed and bemused, and have since felt its influence on literature is because too many healthy people read.
7. The last movie I cried at was Rambo: First Blood Part 2.
Any guesses? Leave them in the Comments section.
Any questions? Why not send them to my RAQ?
Now this award is also supposed to be forwarded on. I'll take a cue from Anthony and distribute it to just three twisted folk.
1. T.S. Bazelli springs to mind. She's been charting what constitutes weird fiction in her blog glossary, from Cyberpunk to Dark Fantasy to Urban Fiction. She's just started a Genre serial, so you can get on at the ground floor.
2. G.P. Ching won this award largely because her name is the most fun to say of any in the modern world. G.P. Ching. G.P. Ching. Say it fast enough and it sounds like you turned "Jeep" into a verb. She also won it because she's got a delightful take on the weird, like god parties and meeting your alien soul mate in the produce aisle.
3. Last is one of my favorite recent discoveries in #fridayflash. Rachel Blackbirdsong meditates on the macabre in ways that don't tick me off. That's hard these days.
The rules of the game are to provide seven outrageous facts about yourself. Six are to be lies and one is to be true, or alternatively six are true and one is a lie. I leave it up to you, constant readers, to guess whether most of these are truth or fiction, and guess which is the one that's not like the others. Is only one true, or false?
1. At age nine I turned down the opportunity to co-author a book about dinosaurs with a published author because I was, in my words, “busy working on other projects.”
2. I once took Dante’s Inferno out into the middle of a soccer field during a thunderstorm to see how it would read there.
3. I took a Jane Austen intensive at college because I thought it would be nice to get some of my reading done in the bathtub. Confessing this was probably the first, but far from the last reason that professor hated me.
4. Assigned to recite ten lines of Chaucer and completely unable to cognize Middle English pronunciation, I re-wrote a passage from The Miller’s Tale phonetically and practiced it over fifty times. I wound up doing the entire page, my accent swinging from New Jersey to Latin. I received an ovation.
5. Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene convinced me that there was a God (at least one).
6. I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground while bedridden and alone on Easter weekend. I was alternately unimpressed and bemused, and have since felt its influence on literature is because too many healthy people read.
7. The last movie I cried at was Rambo: First Blood Part 2.
Any guesses? Leave them in the Comments section.
Any questions? Why not send them to my RAQ?
Now this award is also supposed to be forwarded on. I'll take a cue from Anthony and distribute it to just three twisted folk.
1. T.S. Bazelli springs to mind. She's been charting what constitutes weird fiction in her blog glossary, from Cyberpunk to Dark Fantasy to Urban Fiction. She's just started a Genre serial, so you can get on at the ground floor.
2. G.P. Ching won this award largely because her name is the most fun to say of any in the modern world. G.P. Ching. G.P. Ching. Say it fast enough and it sounds like you turned "Jeep" into a verb. She also won it because she's got a delightful take on the weird, like god parties and meeting your alien soul mate in the produce aisle.
3. Last is one of my favorite recent discoveries in #fridayflash. Rachel Blackbirdsong meditates on the macabre in ways that don't tick me off. That's hard these days.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Invincible and The Endless
Who is more frightening: the juggernaut or the endless?
The invincible man you cannot knock down. Throw yourself at him two or three times and he does not budge. Shoot him. Throw acid. Bombs. Surely you find his force intimidating.
But the endless man you can thrash. Strike him in the chin and watch him crumple. Throw him across the room. Hang him and snap his neck: he wriggles, drops, stops, then wriggles again. He is the more frightening sight, for in the invincible man is something you can only lose against. You will resign yourself to it. But against the endless you will hope, in overpowering him time and time again, that some hour he will stay still. The truth? Some hour you will tire and be unable to harm him further, and at that hour he will sit up again. He is so much more fearsome than his betters.
The invincible man you cannot knock down. Throw yourself at him two or three times and he does not budge. Shoot him. Throw acid. Bombs. Surely you find his force intimidating.
But the endless man you can thrash. Strike him in the chin and watch him crumple. Throw him across the room. Hang him and snap his neck: he wriggles, drops, stops, then wriggles again. He is the more frightening sight, for in the invincible man is something you can only lose against. You will resign yourself to it. But against the endless you will hope, in overpowering him time and time again, that some hour he will stay still. The truth? Some hour you will tire and be unable to harm him further, and at that hour he will sit up again. He is so much more fearsome than his betters.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: True Stories of John 1, A Dream
Want to hear John read this story? Click the triangle to stream it, or click this text to download the MP3.
It was the morning of August 20, not that I knew it. I was asleep, sitting in a giant open-air cafeteria. God sat at the first table. Several thousand people with very respectable questions sat at the others, having turned the dining tables into a queue to go ask your query.
I think I sat at a table with a featherless velociraptor and his wife, a bottle of ginger ale. She was in a green wine bottle, but he insisted she was ginger ale. I can’t say for certain that I sat with them because I was invisible and the dream was in third person. I may not even have been in it, and only imagined an invisible me there.
The dinosaur and bottle ducked into a bathroom after a few days. It was several years before the queue moved up and I got to sit at God’s table. He was drinking chicken noodle soup from a tea cup. He looked like a man, though I couldn’t figure out just which man because He sat tilted fifteen degrees to the right. Even turning that way made it no more possible to recognize him. In retrospect, I think it was James Woods.
He was a unique conversationalist, lips moving soundlessly. Instead of a voice, words stream over His head like the news ticker in Time Square. Nerves got me. We spent an eon and a half in small talk, on the weather and Crusades. Something about His smile suggested that He liked hearing Himself talk, and more, liked talking about the wrong thing when He knew I didn’t have the guts to ask my query.
Clouds broke overhead and the cafeteria lightened. I did nothing, said nothing that I noticed saying, but God replied, “Alright, you want the meaning of life explained? I’ll tell you.”
He paused for a moment. I didn’t know what we were waiting for.
In my bedroom, the phone rang. It’s a terribly loud ring and any time it wakes me up I get quite a fright. I shot half upright and looked at it.
No, I decided, that probably wasn’t God. So I closed my eyes and lay back down. It rang three times like it always does before the answering machine picks up. It did, and a disconnect signal blared out of the speaker. I had to pick up the phone to quell it.
I could not get back to sleep after that.
It was the morning of August 20, not that I knew it. I was asleep, sitting in a giant open-air cafeteria. God sat at the first table. Several thousand people with very respectable questions sat at the others, having turned the dining tables into a queue to go ask your query.
I think I sat at a table with a featherless velociraptor and his wife, a bottle of ginger ale. She was in a green wine bottle, but he insisted she was ginger ale. I can’t say for certain that I sat with them because I was invisible and the dream was in third person. I may not even have been in it, and only imagined an invisible me there.
The dinosaur and bottle ducked into a bathroom after a few days. It was several years before the queue moved up and I got to sit at God’s table. He was drinking chicken noodle soup from a tea cup. He looked like a man, though I couldn’t figure out just which man because He sat tilted fifteen degrees to the right. Even turning that way made it no more possible to recognize him. In retrospect, I think it was James Woods.
He was a unique conversationalist, lips moving soundlessly. Instead of a voice, words stream over His head like the news ticker in Time Square. Nerves got me. We spent an eon and a half in small talk, on the weather and Crusades. Something about His smile suggested that He liked hearing Himself talk, and more, liked talking about the wrong thing when He knew I didn’t have the guts to ask my query.
Clouds broke overhead and the cafeteria lightened. I did nothing, said nothing that I noticed saying, but God replied, “Alright, you want the meaning of life explained? I’ll tell you.”
He paused for a moment. I didn’t know what we were waiting for.
In my bedroom, the phone rang. It’s a terribly loud ring and any time it wakes me up I get quite a fright. I shot half upright and looked at it.
No, I decided, that probably wasn’t God. So I closed my eyes and lay back down. It rang three times like it always does before the answering machine picks up. It did, and a disconnect signal blared out of the speaker. I had to pick up the phone to quell it.
I could not get back to sleep after that.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: One Million Words
"They say you have to write a million words to get really good at writing. I don’t know who “they” are – I’ve tried to avoid learning it, because learning the “they” behind any such claim tends to deflate it. Now I’ve focused and picked my word. It’s the master word: “word.” All the other ones tumble out of it, you see. So I’ll write it a million times, but not all at once. My hand would cramp. Instead I write it a hundred times a day. That’s 3,000 words a month, and 36,500 a year. In a couple months I’ll pick up the pace, when a measly hundred words gets dull. The target is a thousand a day – that’s 365,000 a year, which means in just three years I’ll be passed a million and hanging with Gore Vidal or some shit. I’m on a good roll so far. Get distracted now and then, wanting to write another word. Maybe a shorter word. Sometimes I want to write full sentences or ideas. I have a separate notebook for that – the garbage stuff, not the million-word craft. After I’m famous I’ll revisit these vanity notebooks with their dialogues and stories and see if they were worth anything. I imagine, one million words along, they’ll all look like kiddy crap. Nothing you’d learn from."
Friday, August 27, 2010
RAQ Questions for 2010
It's that time of year when I have the excuse to ask,
"Have you seen my rack?"
It's actually "RAQ." I pronounce it that way because people make amusing faces.
Rarely Asked Questions is my birthday tradition at The Bathroom Monologues. Until Friday night, September 3rd, I'm requesting all readers leave questions they don't normally ask anyone. They can be questions about me, my writing, or anything entirely unrelated.
-What's the boiling point of Tungsten?
-What does my mother's snore remind you of?
-If he wants to avoid the conductor and skip the fare, what is the best time for a Mummy to hop the Baltimore light rail?
Your questions are entirely up to you. I'll compile them and answer at least one question per person on September 4th - my birthday. That's how I celebrate. With my big RAQ.
Please leave your mysteries and queries in the Comments section of this post.
"Have you seen my rack?"
It's actually "RAQ." I pronounce it that way because people make amusing faces.
Rarely Asked Questions is my birthday tradition at The Bathroom Monologues. Until Friday night, September 3rd, I'm requesting all readers leave questions they don't normally ask anyone. They can be questions about me, my writing, or anything entirely unrelated.
-What's the boiling point of Tungsten?
-What does my mother's snore remind you of?
-If he wants to avoid the conductor and skip the fare, what is the best time for a Mummy to hop the Baltimore light rail?
Your questions are entirely up to you. I'll compile them and answer at least one question per person on September 4th - my birthday. That's how I celebrate. With my big RAQ.
Please leave your mysteries and queries in the Comments section of this post.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: $600,000,000 Man
The scream made him drop his magazine. It was from the suite. Lo leapt over the table and hurtled down the hall. He was about to barge shoulder first into the door when it opened inward.
Out stepped Yul. The goblin carried what looked like laundry bundled in his arms.
"Hey Lo," Yul greeted. "Remember how you said the guy is worth six hundred mil?"
Lo tried to get around him. For a little guy, Yul was brilliant at getting in the way.
“Yeah? What’s going on in there? Is he safe?”
Yul lifted his bundle. A limp hand fell out of one sleeve.
Lo looked down at it, eyes going wider, then narrower in realization.
"Well this is at least 15% of his body mass. Nuts to bodyguarding, we're set for life."
"Yul! Human arms don't grow back!"
"What?"
"They don't grow back, you moron goblin." He pulled up his sleeve to show leaf patterns of scars. "Fell on glass when I was a kid. Still have nerve damage."
"What kind of budget immune system do you people have?" Yul shook his prize arm at Lo, extending their client’s index finger and wagging it shamelessly. "Well I'm not giving it back. He's rich. Let him buy another arm. I'll call you after I pawn it."
Before Lo could tackle him, the goblin ducked and charged between his legs and fled for the stairs. Lo sighed slowly and tried to calculate an apology that would save his job. Hopefully the blood loss would leave his employer more amenable.
Out stepped Yul. The goblin carried what looked like laundry bundled in his arms.
"Hey Lo," Yul greeted. "Remember how you said the guy is worth six hundred mil?"
Lo tried to get around him. For a little guy, Yul was brilliant at getting in the way.
“Yeah? What’s going on in there? Is he safe?”
Yul lifted his bundle. A limp hand fell out of one sleeve.
Lo looked down at it, eyes going wider, then narrower in realization.
"Well this is at least 15% of his body mass. Nuts to bodyguarding, we're set for life."
"Yul! Human arms don't grow back!"
"What?"
"They don't grow back, you moron goblin." He pulled up his sleeve to show leaf patterns of scars. "Fell on glass when I was a kid. Still have nerve damage."
"What kind of budget immune system do you people have?" Yul shook his prize arm at Lo, extending their client’s index finger and wagging it shamelessly. "Well I'm not giving it back. He's rich. Let him buy another arm. I'll call you after I pawn it."
Before Lo could tackle him, the goblin ducked and charged between his legs and fled for the stairs. Lo sighed slowly and tried to calculate an apology that would save his job. Hopefully the blood loss would leave his employer more amenable.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: A Little Bit of Alright
There is an audio version of this monologue. Click the triangle on the left to listen, or this text to download the MP3.
It's often quoted and seldom understood, but to be called "a little bit of Allright" is high praise. Allright is not sold outside of certain alleys in Europe, and thus the expression's global unpopularity is understandable. Nonetheless, a little bit of Allright is a fine thing to be called and a finer thing to be given. It will thicken stew, mend your bones and make you appreciate that kid of yours who shows no tangible potential.
Allright is highly valuable and often ripped off, but generic brands are to be avoided. AllLeft is next to useless, as even the maddest liberal has some policy or aspect of humanity he would conserve (perhaps at the expense of all the others). AllRight, with the capital ‘R,’ is no better. It’s distilled from a conservativism so thick that its points of origin are waiting for miracles, not causing them.
If you’re confused, check the label. The Ingredients should read: “Ingredients: Inexplicable.” Then below, in yellow text, it ought to read, “EXTRACTED FROM CENTER OF THE EARTH.” Knock-offs will claim to come from a trendy beach somewhere. True Allright can only be harvested at the earth’s molten core, where all unfulfilled hopes have descended, dropped from well-meaning hands. They are thought a foul thing, unfulfilled, empty, the disappointments of their owners. It seldom comes to mind when you’re purchasing a tin of Allright, but you’re likely buying back some of your own shortcomings. It’s something to muse on while you spread it on your toast or toss it in the air at weddings. My, how pigeons love it.
It's often quoted and seldom understood, but to be called "a little bit of Allright" is high praise. Allright is not sold outside of certain alleys in Europe, and thus the expression's global unpopularity is understandable. Nonetheless, a little bit of Allright is a fine thing to be called and a finer thing to be given. It will thicken stew, mend your bones and make you appreciate that kid of yours who shows no tangible potential.
Allright is highly valuable and often ripped off, but generic brands are to be avoided. AllLeft is next to useless, as even the maddest liberal has some policy or aspect of humanity he would conserve (perhaps at the expense of all the others). AllRight, with the capital ‘R,’ is no better. It’s distilled from a conservativism so thick that its points of origin are waiting for miracles, not causing them.
If you’re confused, check the label. The Ingredients should read: “Ingredients: Inexplicable.” Then below, in yellow text, it ought to read, “EXTRACTED FROM CENTER OF THE EARTH.” Knock-offs will claim to come from a trendy beach somewhere. True Allright can only be harvested at the earth’s molten core, where all unfulfilled hopes have descended, dropped from well-meaning hands. They are thought a foul thing, unfulfilled, empty, the disappointments of their owners. It seldom comes to mind when you’re purchasing a tin of Allright, but you’re likely buying back some of your own shortcomings. It’s something to muse on while you spread it on your toast or toss it in the air at weddings. My, how pigeons love it.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Killing To Kill a Mockingbird
It’s been an interesting 50th anniversary for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It was to be the next in a string of arbitrary holidays, like celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday or J.D. Salinger’s death – the subject isn’t invited, but is celebrated by renewed praise and the feeling you should go read that thing they did. We were going to throw such a casual festivities for Ms. Lee’s book of childhood lessons, but an unusual thing happened: party crashers.
Last August, Malcolm Gladwell took to the pages of The New Yorker with a befuddling argument. He began with a history lesson of the real politics in the Deep South, suggesting things were more optimistic than how Lee portrayed them by describing racial progressive James Folsom. Yet paragraphs later Gladwell trumpeted lynching and the power of the KKK. He panned Lee’s “hearts and minds” approach to change. He demanded a political approach, though he failed to explain why that would be better and tenuously ignored that political changes often come through winning hearts and minds.
Gladwell closed by comparing Lee’s approach to George Orwell’s criticism of Charles Dickens: that Dickens pointed out problems without fixing them. But he had forgotten his earlier complaint. Lee gave us the solution: change as people and the systems made up of those people can work for good. Her solution was “hearts and minds.” It was an initiative still hailed today by millions of people who recall having their views changed or emboldened by the book. His criticism was typical Gladwell: a startling premise, entertaining research, and unconvincing logic.
Since then several prominent papers have published broadsides. The most interesting one came in June of this year, from Allen Barra of the Wall Street Journal. Barra was rebuffed for primarily being a sports writer. As someone who is pro-Lee and who has written about rednecks experimenting to see if shit would literally roll downhill, I hope to neutralize that sad ad hominem argument.
Instead, let us deal with Barra’s grievance. He claimed To Kill a Mockingbird was not intellectually open-ended. “In all great novels,” he wrote, “there is some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained.” It rings somewhat true. Certainly college kids can stay up late arguing Homer’s opinions on the divine, or the thesis of Candide, or why Tom Sawyer returned at the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
But it only rings somewhat true. Most of Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain’s social satires can be grasped in seconds; it’s not their ambiguity or complexity that impresses us. And Barra’s ideal disqualifies all the dystopian classics: George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are pretty obvious about everything they’re jabbing at. Every canto of Dante’s The Divine Comedy is easily grasped; we analyze it for autobiographical and cultural details, but such avenues are still open with Harper Lee as well.
There are ways in which the obviousness of intent can make us reject art. Repugnance of intent might stir us to hypocritical rejections; State of Fear's anti-global warming agenda turned the SciFi community against Michael Crichton. When theme overrides fiction, it can break the deal; Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy gets too preachy even for many atheists. But To Kill a Mockingbird is about Scout growing up under a father figure she never quite clicked with, and his attempts at lessons and paternal authority are entirely germane to the plot. If the novel's anti-racism fills up Barra’s memory, he misses that while it is the theme of the final act, it is not the entire book. The book is about the life of children in a small Alabama town and Scout's relationship to her passive father.
The prodding of To Kill a Mockingbird continues. There is some iconoclasm to it; editors probably didn’t mind getting more clicks and attention. Flannery O’Connor’s insult that it was only a children’s book was quoted over and over; and a dozen called it a collection of aphorisms (Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw’s best features are quotability, but okay). There were callow complaints that it was too liberal, or its perceived liberalism was too flimsy.
The novel's liberalism has taken a particularly half-hearted beating. Nobody wants to support Jim Crow. The mantra of these critics is that the novel exposes the “limits of liberalism.” No writer has yet explained this one very well. It’s a self-effacing throwaway, written by liberals who should (and probably do) know better. Liberalism, especially the touchy-feely-make-life-better variety, has no limits. It’s responsible for a chunk of the U.S.’s trillion-dollar-deficit and, if you ever think liberalism can’t fail any worse, turn on Fox Radio to hear their next nightmare scenario. To avoid wasting anymore time, here’s one more sentence about whatever "limits of liberalism" might have to do with this novel:
A nice guy (not a patented liberal idea) takes a case for a minority (more of a liberal thing) and shows his daughter an ideal of bravery (not a patented liberal thing) and staunch moralism (sort of a conservative thing), before the book ends without him running for mayor, governor, senator or president (the sorts of offices where the powers of liberalism are tested closer to levels one might consider limits), and with no legal policy changing (absence of liberalism).
There was also iconoclasm in defending To Kill a Mockingbird, and its defenders could be equally baffling. For instance, Jesse Kornbluth at The Huffington Post cried feminism. Harper Lee is a woman and so may be targeted for more mistreatment than her male peers. There is anti-femininity in some of literary academia; accusations that Truman Capote had to write this book for her certainly feel tinged with chauvinism. Yet there is something inauthentic to the anti-female defense. Fellow southern ladies Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor never had their classic status attacked with the vehemence Lee is seeing. Alice Munro is treated as one of the foremost living short story writers, and the offbeat critics are just as fond of Lydia Davis. Women are very accepted in best-selling mainstream fiction, with representatives like Anna Quindlen, Patricia Cornwall, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer. At its most plausible, an anti-feminine bias would leave Lee more likely to be criticized, but not to cause this criticism.
Kornbluth also asserted that Atticus Finch was “a feminized man.” His personality appeared tempered by the better angels of feminism: in touch with idealism and feelings, willing to stand up for the right thing. If it seems messed up to you that those items are thought essentially feminine instead of human, well, you’re right and I agree with you. Yet post-feminism in America, it is marginally more acceptable for men to be in touch with our feelings, and post-cynicism, we’re told to shelve our ideals for pragmatism. These conflict, and so the feminized Atticus Finch would rile even more people.
That feels incomplete. We have popular idealist characters even in today’s post-cynical media. It may be less the feminized component to his ideals, and more the geographical. To Kill a Mockingbird is small town, Middle America and Deep South all at once. Many people on the coasts bear an irrational hatred for such locales. No number of megachurches in New York City and Los Angeles dissuade them from bashing the South’s religiosity. Iowa can legalize gay marriage before New York and the stigma stays. Harper Lee can write a novel where a white guy defends a black guy, and he’s dismissed as “folksy” and “down-home.” The same month, we watched race riots in Oakland. Atticus Finch’s problem isn’t that he’s feminized. It’s his accent. He’s affirming Sarah Palin’s notion of a Southern parent who knows what’s right. Never mind that he was invented fifty years ago, his creation had nothing to do with the current culture war, and that his existence in no way suggests people from other regions can’t be deeply moral (a proposal Finch would probably find mortifying). It is not an all-conquering bias, or else millions of people on the coasts would not love the book as they do, but it is there.
Something else is there. The more you read of this debate, the more you sense the essence of most debates. A lot of people read a book that affected them deeply. Other people weren’t affected that way. Both groups clad themselves in the aesthetic of reason to defend how they felt. When it becomes difficult to substantiate their position, they attacked the other (heck, I nearly damned my home state a paragraph ago). The only people likely to change sides are those who were utterly oblivious that there were any other sides at all, and in their surprise, trip over the line. We’ll see how things shape up for the 75th anniversary, or whenever Harper Lee passes away – whichever bizarre holiday falls first.
Last August, Malcolm Gladwell took to the pages of The New Yorker with a befuddling argument. He began with a history lesson of the real politics in the Deep South, suggesting things were more optimistic than how Lee portrayed them by describing racial progressive James Folsom. Yet paragraphs later Gladwell trumpeted lynching and the power of the KKK. He panned Lee’s “hearts and minds” approach to change. He demanded a political approach, though he failed to explain why that would be better and tenuously ignored that political changes often come through winning hearts and minds.
Gladwell closed by comparing Lee’s approach to George Orwell’s criticism of Charles Dickens: that Dickens pointed out problems without fixing them. But he had forgotten his earlier complaint. Lee gave us the solution: change as people and the systems made up of those people can work for good. Her solution was “hearts and minds.” It was an initiative still hailed today by millions of people who recall having their views changed or emboldened by the book. His criticism was typical Gladwell: a startling premise, entertaining research, and unconvincing logic.
Since then several prominent papers have published broadsides. The most interesting one came in June of this year, from Allen Barra of the Wall Street Journal. Barra was rebuffed for primarily being a sports writer. As someone who is pro-Lee and who has written about rednecks experimenting to see if shit would literally roll downhill, I hope to neutralize that sad ad hominem argument.
Instead, let us deal with Barra’s grievance. He claimed To Kill a Mockingbird was not intellectually open-ended. “In all great novels,” he wrote, “there is some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained.” It rings somewhat true. Certainly college kids can stay up late arguing Homer’s opinions on the divine, or the thesis of Candide, or why Tom Sawyer returned at the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
But it only rings somewhat true. Most of Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain’s social satires can be grasped in seconds; it’s not their ambiguity or complexity that impresses us. And Barra’s ideal disqualifies all the dystopian classics: George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are pretty obvious about everything they’re jabbing at. Every canto of Dante’s The Divine Comedy is easily grasped; we analyze it for autobiographical and cultural details, but such avenues are still open with Harper Lee as well.
There are ways in which the obviousness of intent can make us reject art. Repugnance of intent might stir us to hypocritical rejections; State of Fear's anti-global warming agenda turned the SciFi community against Michael Crichton. When theme overrides fiction, it can break the deal; Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy gets too preachy even for many atheists. But To Kill a Mockingbird is about Scout growing up under a father figure she never quite clicked with, and his attempts at lessons and paternal authority are entirely germane to the plot. If the novel's anti-racism fills up Barra’s memory, he misses that while it is the theme of the final act, it is not the entire book. The book is about the life of children in a small Alabama town and Scout's relationship to her passive father.
The prodding of To Kill a Mockingbird continues. There is some iconoclasm to it; editors probably didn’t mind getting more clicks and attention. Flannery O’Connor’s insult that it was only a children’s book was quoted over and over; and a dozen called it a collection of aphorisms (Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw’s best features are quotability, but okay). There were callow complaints that it was too liberal, or its perceived liberalism was too flimsy.
The novel's liberalism has taken a particularly half-hearted beating. Nobody wants to support Jim Crow. The mantra of these critics is that the novel exposes the “limits of liberalism.” No writer has yet explained this one very well. It’s a self-effacing throwaway, written by liberals who should (and probably do) know better. Liberalism, especially the touchy-feely-make-life-better variety, has no limits. It’s responsible for a chunk of the U.S.’s trillion-dollar-deficit and, if you ever think liberalism can’t fail any worse, turn on Fox Radio to hear their next nightmare scenario. To avoid wasting anymore time, here’s one more sentence about whatever "limits of liberalism" might have to do with this novel:
A nice guy (not a patented liberal idea) takes a case for a minority (more of a liberal thing) and shows his daughter an ideal of bravery (not a patented liberal thing) and staunch moralism (sort of a conservative thing), before the book ends without him running for mayor, governor, senator or president (the sorts of offices where the powers of liberalism are tested closer to levels one might consider limits), and with no legal policy changing (absence of liberalism).
There was also iconoclasm in defending To Kill a Mockingbird, and its defenders could be equally baffling. For instance, Jesse Kornbluth at The Huffington Post cried feminism. Harper Lee is a woman and so may be targeted for more mistreatment than her male peers. There is anti-femininity in some of literary academia; accusations that Truman Capote had to write this book for her certainly feel tinged with chauvinism. Yet there is something inauthentic to the anti-female defense. Fellow southern ladies Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor never had their classic status attacked with the vehemence Lee is seeing. Alice Munro is treated as one of the foremost living short story writers, and the offbeat critics are just as fond of Lydia Davis. Women are very accepted in best-selling mainstream fiction, with representatives like Anna Quindlen, Patricia Cornwall, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer. At its most plausible, an anti-feminine bias would leave Lee more likely to be criticized, but not to cause this criticism.
Kornbluth also asserted that Atticus Finch was “a feminized man.” His personality appeared tempered by the better angels of feminism: in touch with idealism and feelings, willing to stand up for the right thing. If it seems messed up to you that those items are thought essentially feminine instead of human, well, you’re right and I agree with you. Yet post-feminism in America, it is marginally more acceptable for men to be in touch with our feelings, and post-cynicism, we’re told to shelve our ideals for pragmatism. These conflict, and so the feminized Atticus Finch would rile even more people.
That feels incomplete. We have popular idealist characters even in today’s post-cynical media. It may be less the feminized component to his ideals, and more the geographical. To Kill a Mockingbird is small town, Middle America and Deep South all at once. Many people on the coasts bear an irrational hatred for such locales. No number of megachurches in New York City and Los Angeles dissuade them from bashing the South’s religiosity. Iowa can legalize gay marriage before New York and the stigma stays. Harper Lee can write a novel where a white guy defends a black guy, and he’s dismissed as “folksy” and “down-home.” The same month, we watched race riots in Oakland. Atticus Finch’s problem isn’t that he’s feminized. It’s his accent. He’s affirming Sarah Palin’s notion of a Southern parent who knows what’s right. Never mind that he was invented fifty years ago, his creation had nothing to do with the current culture war, and that his existence in no way suggests people from other regions can’t be deeply moral (a proposal Finch would probably find mortifying). It is not an all-conquering bias, or else millions of people on the coasts would not love the book as they do, but it is there.
Something else is there. The more you read of this debate, the more you sense the essence of most debates. A lot of people read a book that affected them deeply. Other people weren’t affected that way. Both groups clad themselves in the aesthetic of reason to defend how they felt. When it becomes difficult to substantiate their position, they attacked the other (heck, I nearly damned my home state a paragraph ago). The only people likely to change sides are those who were utterly oblivious that there were any other sides at all, and in their surprise, trip over the line. We’ll see how things shape up for the 75th anniversary, or whenever Harper Lee passes away – whichever bizarre holiday falls first.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: His People’s Story, OR, Listening to Desmond Tutu does this to me, and I’d like to apologize to him
Right? So God wakes up from this fantastic Technicolor dream full of ideas. Peace. Velocity being distance traveled divided by time. Angels and comets and waves that are simultaneously particles. Things that make no sense in the real world but are so coherent in sleep.
God really likes this dream, so He makes people and tells them what they did in the dream. He sends angels and comets across the sky and lets light illuminate them. Whole universe, constantly expanding just like in that dream.
People have all this overhead and in their heads. Peace. Velocity being distance traveled divided by time. Tolerance and witch-burning. But the people can’t even understand their own dreams, let alone those above. Soon they’re tugging on each other’s scalps and setting things on fire, always yelling, “Why God, why?”
God comes over and asks what the fuss is about. One little human goes, “Why did you make the warlord kill my brother?”
God goes, “Don’t give me nonsense. I was out giving Saturn rings.”
They say He filled the world with evil, so God takes all the humans over to a rainbow. He points at it, names all the colors and says, “See? Very nice.”
The people look at it a while, develop a theory of optics and say, “See, God? It’s just a trick of the light. It’s not really there.”
And He says, “Yes, just like in the dream.”
They don’t get it, kill each other some more and blame Him. God thinks what from the dream would fix this, and goes, “Ah-ha!” And He goes to bed.
That’s how the creation story goes with my people. I like it better than yours, but that may just be the familiarity.
God really likes this dream, so He makes people and tells them what they did in the dream. He sends angels and comets across the sky and lets light illuminate them. Whole universe, constantly expanding just like in that dream.
People have all this overhead and in their heads. Peace. Velocity being distance traveled divided by time. Tolerance and witch-burning. But the people can’t even understand their own dreams, let alone those above. Soon they’re tugging on each other’s scalps and setting things on fire, always yelling, “Why God, why?”
God comes over and asks what the fuss is about. One little human goes, “Why did you make the warlord kill my brother?”
God goes, “Don’t give me nonsense. I was out giving Saturn rings.”
They say He filled the world with evil, so God takes all the humans over to a rainbow. He points at it, names all the colors and says, “See? Very nice.”
The people look at it a while, develop a theory of optics and say, “See, God? It’s just a trick of the light. It’s not really there.”
And He says, “Yes, just like in the dream.”
They don’t get it, kill each other some more and blame Him. God thinks what from the dream would fix this, and goes, “Ah-ha!” And He goes to bed.
That’s how the creation story goes with my people. I like it better than yours, but that may just be the familiarity.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Exaggeration
Nobody has headaches; they have migraines.
Nobody throws fits; they have nervous breakdowns.
Nobody has ideas; they have revelations.
Nobody’s smart; they’re geniuses.
Soldiers went from shellshock to post traumatic stress disorder
Wars became foreign conflicts
Deaths became collateral damage
Yet every new Apple product is a Gutenberg Moment.
Every long movie is an epic.
Every crime is the worst act in the history of its context.
It’s a hyperbolic curve of thought.
Nobody throws fits; they have nervous breakdowns.
Nobody has ideas; they have revelations.
Nobody’s smart; they’re geniuses.
Soldiers went from shellshock to post traumatic stress disorder
Wars became foreign conflicts
Deaths became collateral damage
Yet every new Apple product is a Gutenberg Moment.
Every long movie is an epic.
Every crime is the worst act in the history of its context.
It’s a hyperbolic curve of thought.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Bathroom Art Challenge
A couple months ago I shared the description of a painting. I asked if this description could be a story in itself. I also asked people to draw up what they imagined, using any visual medium they pleased. Crayons, inks, computer software, posed photography - anything. Most people were intimidated. I can sympathize; I'm terrible at drawing. But three people were bold enough to give it a shot. Here is their work. If you like it, please leave a comment and check out their sites.
Artist: Sam Roman
Title: Kiss
Home: Facebook
Artist: Tony Noland
Title: From Land to Landless
Link: Landless
Artist: Red
Title: What happens when you can't render water
URL: http://redisdrunk.deviantart.com
Artist: Sam Roman
Title: Kiss
Home: Facebook
Artist: Tony Noland
Title: From Land to Landless
Link: Landless
Artist: Red
Title: What happens when you can't render water
URL: http://redisdrunk.deviantart.com
Friday, August 20, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Kill Mommy
An audio version of this story is available. Click on the triangle on the left to begin listening, or click on this text to download the MP3.
Five minutes into the first quarter, Bob heard something behind him. He looked behind the sofa and saw his son trudging towards the stairs. He wore his cowboy hat and cap gun belt.
“What did Mom say about wearing that stuff inside, Junior?”
The boy didn’t look at him. He said, in a pathetic John Wayne impression, “I’ve come to kill Mom.”
“Well she’s not upstairs. She’s out picking up dinner. Take that off and come watch the game.”
Junior did not take off his gear, but he did come sit on the sofa. He ate a Frito and glared at the Dallas defense. He stroked his plastic gun in the holster.
After a few disappointing downs, Bob examined the boy.
“You know that thing doesn’t shoot real bullets. This plan's not liable to work out for you.”
“I couldn’t find a real one, and this is loud. Loud noises give old people heart attack sometimes.”
“She’ll love to hear that.”
Dallas fumbled for the first, but likely not last time today.
“Why are you going to kill her?”
Junior talked at the screen, like the play-by-play analysts already knew and commiserated on this.
“She told Linda Waldemaar that I like her.”
“Sharing feelings.” Bob ate a Frito. “Vile.”
“Now everyone at school knows. They made fun of me. I’ll be unpopular forever.”
“That is how it rolls. A girl found out I liked her in the second grade and no one has liked me since. I only got your mother through elaborate negotiation and bear traps.”
“When she comes home, I’m going to kill her. Then I’ll probably kill myself.”
“Well the cap gun is half-assing it. You’re getting big. You can wield a bludgeon.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you still have that baseball bat we got for your birthday? That’s one.”
Junior wandered out through the patio. He returned with no cowboy hat, the bat in both hands. He held it up for approval.
“Yeah,” assured his father. “That’s a strong bat. Louisville wood. Your mother picked it out.”
Junior grimaced. He slid his hands down to the grip and wound up, perhaps imagining his mother’s face being pitched down the plate at sixty miles an hour. It looked like he bunted.
“I’m going to use it to kill her.”
“It’ll hurt. But on second thought,” Bob deliberated, looking to the fire place, “what about those pokers? They’re metal, swing easier, and pointed at the end. You could really hurt someone with that.”
Junior looked at the rack of fireplace tools. When he didn't take one, Bob got up, selected the cast iron poker and tossed it to him. Junior barely caught it.
“Go on outside and whack a couple trees. Get the feel for it.”
Junior exited via the patio again. Bob sipped his beer as the Dallas defense continued to give up first down after first down.
At the twenty yard line, he heard a clang and a yelp from outside. He stuck his head out the glass door and saw Junior standing by a tree, clutching his fingers. The poker lay in the grass.
“That’s no good,” Bob chastised. “How can you kill a full grown woman if you can barely assault an overgrown plant? Imagine your mother lying there on the dirt, blood oozing from her cheek, the job unfinished. How disappointed she’d be in you.”
Junior pouted furiously down at the poker.
“Why did she have to tell Linda Waldeamaar?”
Bob collected the poker. He brushed the dirt off and asked, “Is this the Linda you’ve been pining over all year?”
“Sort of.”
“You keep writing her notes and not sending them? You go down to her bus stop but never say hi? Keep sitting behind her in class?”
“Sort of.”
“Junior, do you know what a stalker is?”
“No?”
“Well Linda's got the internet and she does. She and Mrs. Waldemaar started thinking you were one, and your mother talked to Mrs. Waldemaar to keep them from doing anything drastic. Linda probably found out that way, when her own mother tattled.”
Junior kept pouting at the ground where the poker had been. He reached to his holster, cap gun still hanging there in full loyalty.
“I probably shouldn’t kill her for that.”
“Use your better judgment. But before she gets home, how about you put this poker and that gun away, and go call Linda? If she already thinks you’re a weirdo then you’re free to say whatever you want. Tell her how you feel. Can’t take more guts than killing your mother.”
Junior took the poker and waddled off on his duties. Bob took another beer and resumed his life in front of the television. Dallas took the ball eighty-three yards and kicked a field goal.
Junior grabbed the cordless and started up the stairs, for the privacy of his room. He paused on the third step.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry nobody likes you.”
Bob frowned at the screen. This kickoff was important.
“I get by.”
The audio version of this monologue was made possible by two fine guys. Max Cantor created the audio player and provided the bandwidth. Andreas Sundgren helped get me a new microphone so I can start recording again. I'd like to thank both of them.
Five minutes into the first quarter, Bob heard something behind him. He looked behind the sofa and saw his son trudging towards the stairs. He wore his cowboy hat and cap gun belt.
“What did Mom say about wearing that stuff inside, Junior?”
The boy didn’t look at him. He said, in a pathetic John Wayne impression, “I’ve come to kill Mom.”
“Well she’s not upstairs. She’s out picking up dinner. Take that off and come watch the game.”
Junior did not take off his gear, but he did come sit on the sofa. He ate a Frito and glared at the Dallas defense. He stroked his plastic gun in the holster.
After a few disappointing downs, Bob examined the boy.
“You know that thing doesn’t shoot real bullets. This plan's not liable to work out for you.”
“I couldn’t find a real one, and this is loud. Loud noises give old people heart attack sometimes.”
“She’ll love to hear that.”
Dallas fumbled for the first, but likely not last time today.
“Why are you going to kill her?”
Junior talked at the screen, like the play-by-play analysts already knew and commiserated on this.
“She told Linda Waldemaar that I like her.”
“Sharing feelings.” Bob ate a Frito. “Vile.”
“Now everyone at school knows. They made fun of me. I’ll be unpopular forever.”
“That is how it rolls. A girl found out I liked her in the second grade and no one has liked me since. I only got your mother through elaborate negotiation and bear traps.”
“When she comes home, I’m going to kill her. Then I’ll probably kill myself.”
“Well the cap gun is half-assing it. You’re getting big. You can wield a bludgeon.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you still have that baseball bat we got for your birthday? That’s one.”
Junior wandered out through the patio. He returned with no cowboy hat, the bat in both hands. He held it up for approval.
“Yeah,” assured his father. “That’s a strong bat. Louisville wood. Your mother picked it out.”
Junior grimaced. He slid his hands down to the grip and wound up, perhaps imagining his mother’s face being pitched down the plate at sixty miles an hour. It looked like he bunted.
“I’m going to use it to kill her.”
“It’ll hurt. But on second thought,” Bob deliberated, looking to the fire place, “what about those pokers? They’re metal, swing easier, and pointed at the end. You could really hurt someone with that.”
Junior looked at the rack of fireplace tools. When he didn't take one, Bob got up, selected the cast iron poker and tossed it to him. Junior barely caught it.
“Go on outside and whack a couple trees. Get the feel for it.”
Junior exited via the patio again. Bob sipped his beer as the Dallas defense continued to give up first down after first down.
At the twenty yard line, he heard a clang and a yelp from outside. He stuck his head out the glass door and saw Junior standing by a tree, clutching his fingers. The poker lay in the grass.
“That’s no good,” Bob chastised. “How can you kill a full grown woman if you can barely assault an overgrown plant? Imagine your mother lying there on the dirt, blood oozing from her cheek, the job unfinished. How disappointed she’d be in you.”
Junior pouted furiously down at the poker.
“Why did she have to tell Linda Waldeamaar?”
Bob collected the poker. He brushed the dirt off and asked, “Is this the Linda you’ve been pining over all year?”
“Sort of.”
“You keep writing her notes and not sending them? You go down to her bus stop but never say hi? Keep sitting behind her in class?”
“Sort of.”
“Junior, do you know what a stalker is?”
“No?”
“Well Linda's got the internet and she does. She and Mrs. Waldemaar started thinking you were one, and your mother talked to Mrs. Waldemaar to keep them from doing anything drastic. Linda probably found out that way, when her own mother tattled.”
Junior kept pouting at the ground where the poker had been. He reached to his holster, cap gun still hanging there in full loyalty.
“I probably shouldn’t kill her for that.”
“Use your better judgment. But before she gets home, how about you put this poker and that gun away, and go call Linda? If she already thinks you’re a weirdo then you’re free to say whatever you want. Tell her how you feel. Can’t take more guts than killing your mother.”
Junior took the poker and waddled off on his duties. Bob took another beer and resumed his life in front of the television. Dallas took the ball eighty-three yards and kicked a field goal.
Junior grabbed the cordless and started up the stairs, for the privacy of his room. He paused on the third step.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry nobody likes you.”
Bob frowned at the screen. This kickoff was important.
“I get by.”
The audio version of this monologue was made possible by two fine guys. Max Cantor created the audio player and provided the bandwidth. Andreas Sundgren helped get me a new microphone so I can start recording again. I'd like to thank both of them.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Fate of Arthur
When Le Fay saw Arthur stir, she grabbed his magic scabbard and fled from the tents. One nurse pursued her, but the other two remained with the wounded king. Without their help, he was sure to--
Ahem. Arthur summoned Gawain. He clasped his hand firmly and said, "You are the last loyal man in my house. If this wound takes my life, let me slip into tranquil lake. One day, in England's greatest hour of need--"
Ahem. So Gawain made Le Fay give him back his scabbard. Arthur hugged her and they took a carriage ride over to Guinevere’s, where they picked her and Lancelot up. The five of them went down to the country, far away from battle, and found a really nice farm with rolling hills and lush fields. Arthur ran out of the carriage and frolicked with all the other legendary heroes. Merlin was there, and Achilles, and Dido, all having ice cream. That’s where he is now, I swear. Now stop crying.
Ahem. Arthur summoned Gawain. He clasped his hand firmly and said, "You are the last loyal man in my house. If this wound takes my life, let me slip into tranquil lake. One day, in England's greatest hour of need--"
Ahem. So Gawain made Le Fay give him back his scabbard. Arthur hugged her and they took a carriage ride over to Guinevere’s, where they picked her and Lancelot up. The five of them went down to the country, far away from battle, and found a really nice farm with rolling hills and lush fields. Arthur ran out of the carriage and frolicked with all the other legendary heroes. Merlin was there, and Achilles, and Dido, all having ice cream. That’s where he is now, I swear. Now stop crying.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Sky Reader Meets Skeptic
Her advert claimed she’d read your future in the sky. Not mere astrology, but the specific stars above your head tonight. One skeptic called her bluff. One part fate and one part mockery, they met on Friday the 13th. One part her embarrassment and one part his, it was overcast. They tried again one Monday. It rained. He joked this meant he'd die; she was serious that she didn't know. She tracked down his work place and loitered until he got out that night. 'Fine,' he said, telling her to get the scam over with. But she pointed up. Clouds had rolled in thick and tall since sundown. The sky reader worried of gods gone blind; the skeptic shrugged off barometric pressure. She wanted to pursue. He wanted to make his meeting in Seattle. She didn’t hear from him again for a week. Then she got the paper. Sitting under a full moon and clear sky, she read about his flight passing through an electrical storm.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Inception's Secret
There has been considerable debate over Inception. Was Mal real? How many dreams were going on? How come I dream about Mom struggling to open peanut jars instead of skiing down sniper-infested mountains? I have a theory that can answer these questions and more.
At the outset Cobb is within Saito’s dream, which is secretly within another architect’s dream. If you follow Cobb carefully through this dream mansion you’ll notice something about the glass doors on the upper floor.
The molding is intricate and familiar. Upon review, it is almost identical to the Legendary Pictures logo. Legendary Pictures is a film company established in 2005.
We follow Cobb out this window and through the next two levels of dreams until Saito hires him to “incept” Robert Fischer. Fischer also seems familiar. At first I couldn’t place him– I don’t know many pretty boys who inherited billion-dollar companies. It only hit midway, when a bag is thrown over his head and chemicals dumped onto his face.
The head-bag is highly reminiscent of The Scarecrow in Batman Begins. The chemicals are a clue; Scarecrow used gases to induce mental states in his victims.
You’ll say these are coincidences. So a door in a dream looks like a symbol. So Fischer really reminds me of a supervillain. But before you close this article, ask yourself: have you really looked at Cobb?
That jawline. That face, desperately squinting to appear young and old at the same time. Haven’t you seen all his mannerisms somewhere before?
You have. According to its profits, you and everyone else on earth has seen Titanic, which features one “Jack Dawson.” The resemblance is uncanny, and becomes frightening if you watch Titanic all the way to the end and realize Dawson isn’t real.
This will seem insane to some, but I believe Cobb and Dawson are the same person. Further, I believe Fischer and Scarecrow are the same person, and that nearly everyone else in Inception is some kind of pretender. The reason you don’t understand Inception is not that it was all Mal’s dream, or five dreams within dreams, or psychic backwash from limbo. It is actually more bizarre than any existing explanation: some plotted concoction, complete with mass human conspiracy, dynamic lighting and artificial orchestra, the whole thing either given too little external construction such that elements fail to make sense, or given so much thought that we can’t grasp it. You might call it “a movie.”
All of the above images are the property of their related studios and filmmakers - if you believe they are from films.
At the outset Cobb is within Saito’s dream, which is secretly within another architect’s dream. If you follow Cobb carefully through this dream mansion you’ll notice something about the glass doors on the upper floor.
The molding is intricate and familiar. Upon review, it is almost identical to the Legendary Pictures logo. Legendary Pictures is a film company established in 2005.
We follow Cobb out this window and through the next two levels of dreams until Saito hires him to “incept” Robert Fischer. Fischer also seems familiar. At first I couldn’t place him– I don’t know many pretty boys who inherited billion-dollar companies. It only hit midway, when a bag is thrown over his head and chemicals dumped onto his face.
The head-bag is highly reminiscent of The Scarecrow in Batman Begins. The chemicals are a clue; Scarecrow used gases to induce mental states in his victims.
You’ll say these are coincidences. So a door in a dream looks like a symbol. So Fischer really reminds me of a supervillain. But before you close this article, ask yourself: have you really looked at Cobb?
That jawline. That face, desperately squinting to appear young and old at the same time. Haven’t you seen all his mannerisms somewhere before?
You have. According to its profits, you and everyone else on earth has seen Titanic, which features one “Jack Dawson.” The resemblance is uncanny, and becomes frightening if you watch Titanic all the way to the end and realize Dawson isn’t real.
This will seem insane to some, but I believe Cobb and Dawson are the same person. Further, I believe Fischer and Scarecrow are the same person, and that nearly everyone else in Inception is some kind of pretender. The reason you don’t understand Inception is not that it was all Mal’s dream, or five dreams within dreams, or psychic backwash from limbo. It is actually more bizarre than any existing explanation: some plotted concoction, complete with mass human conspiracy, dynamic lighting and artificial orchestra, the whole thing either given too little external construction such that elements fail to make sense, or given so much thought that we can’t grasp it. You might call it “a movie.”
All of the above images are the property of their related studios and filmmakers - if you believe they are from films.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Dialogue that sprang after hearing that Leo Tolstoy wished people only to write for posterity, never for their own times
The next guy in line was another overweight middle-aged man. Gloria checked her watch; only twenty minutes left until she could abandon this table and get drunk with the somebodies of this writer’s fair.
"I've got a crack of a deal for you," said the man, setting down a briefcase. He pulled out three reams of paper. Gloria tensed – another white guy with the next Fantasy epic, the seventh this morning.
She tried to sound professional when she asked, "What's the pitch?"
"Your company has printed more copies of Leo Tolstoy's books than any in history. The e-book releases have been brilliant."
At least he aimed higher than being the next Stephanie Meyer. That won him points.
"So you think you write like Tolstoy?"
"I wouldn't tell you if I did.” He patted his stack of papers. “You, and everybody in this building, is never to know what I write."
"Come again?"
"See, we must write for the future and only publish once we're dead. You must believe this because you've profited so much off of Tolstoy’s reprints. I embrace your ideology. For just $100,000 a year, I will hide all of my fiction. I won't even show it to my roommate. Upon my death, it'll be turned over to your publishing house. You'll have every word of it and can plan whatever release schedule you want, secure in the knowledge that no word of it was tainted with desire for fame in my own lifetime."
She leaned to the side. The next three people in line were teen girls dressed in black, who almost certainly thought they were the next Stephanie Meyer. Fine. Mr. Tolstoy had won himself an interview.
"Only one hundred thousand, you say?"
"Per year.” He smiled conciliatorily. “I eat a lot of fastfood, so it won't be that many years."
"So where did you get this idea?"
"For $250,000, I'll die tragically. Look at what posthumous buzz did for Sylvia Plath. It still works, too: The Dark Knight rode Heath Ledger’s corpse. You can paint me as severely tortured or cursed to live in a broken world. Whatever your house digs out of my manuscripts and thinks will sell."
Gloria tried to restrain her smile from leaving the polite zone. "It's against our policy to have writers kill themselves."
"Not a suicide!” he slapped his thigh like she was his best buddy. “I'm just saying I'll go places. Baltimore. Baghdad. Spraypaint in Singapore. If you've got a publicist I could even get into legal troubles, to set up a backstory. A couple of international incidents in China and I bet you'll recoup all your fees on me from the biopic."
"You think big."
"I've got to. I'm planning to write the great novels of the next generation, and they're not even here yet."
"And what do you predict is coming?"
"I can't tell you.” He smoothed out the top sheet on his ouvre. “The only way you'll know is by outliving me and reading my books. Or, watching the news. But if you play it right, I’ll be the news by then."
"I've got a crack of a deal for you," said the man, setting down a briefcase. He pulled out three reams of paper. Gloria tensed – another white guy with the next Fantasy epic, the seventh this morning.
She tried to sound professional when she asked, "What's the pitch?"
"Your company has printed more copies of Leo Tolstoy's books than any in history. The e-book releases have been brilliant."
At least he aimed higher than being the next Stephanie Meyer. That won him points.
"So you think you write like Tolstoy?"
"I wouldn't tell you if I did.” He patted his stack of papers. “You, and everybody in this building, is never to know what I write."
"Come again?"
"See, we must write for the future and only publish once we're dead. You must believe this because you've profited so much off of Tolstoy’s reprints. I embrace your ideology. For just $100,000 a year, I will hide all of my fiction. I won't even show it to my roommate. Upon my death, it'll be turned over to your publishing house. You'll have every word of it and can plan whatever release schedule you want, secure in the knowledge that no word of it was tainted with desire for fame in my own lifetime."
She leaned to the side. The next three people in line were teen girls dressed in black, who almost certainly thought they were the next Stephanie Meyer. Fine. Mr. Tolstoy had won himself an interview.
"Only one hundred thousand, you say?"
"Per year.” He smiled conciliatorily. “I eat a lot of fastfood, so it won't be that many years."
"So where did you get this idea?"
"For $250,000, I'll die tragically. Look at what posthumous buzz did for Sylvia Plath. It still works, too: The Dark Knight rode Heath Ledger’s corpse. You can paint me as severely tortured or cursed to live in a broken world. Whatever your house digs out of my manuscripts and thinks will sell."
Gloria tried to restrain her smile from leaving the polite zone. "It's against our policy to have writers kill themselves."
"Not a suicide!” he slapped his thigh like she was his best buddy. “I'm just saying I'll go places. Baltimore. Baghdad. Spraypaint in Singapore. If you've got a publicist I could even get into legal troubles, to set up a backstory. A couple of international incidents in China and I bet you'll recoup all your fees on me from the biopic."
"You think big."
"I've got to. I'm planning to write the great novels of the next generation, and they're not even here yet."
"And what do you predict is coming?"
"I can't tell you.” He smoothed out the top sheet on his ouvre. “The only way you'll know is by outliving me and reading my books. Or, watching the news. But if you play it right, I’ll be the news by then."
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