It was an authentic 1960’s Plymouth Fury. Over two hundred thousand miles and, if the previous owner was to be believed, still ran. No car Saul’s father ever owned lived that long. He ran his hands over the black hood, letting his fingertips trace the dimples.
Two hundred thousand miles was the easiest part of the deal to believe, and Saul took it all seriously.
“Hey there,” he said, speaking to a car for the first time in his adult life. As a kid he’d talked to them all the time. They’d never spoken back, barring the radio. “I hear you’re haunted.”
The Fury sat in his driveway. It did not speak. It did not honk or flick its radio to a rock ‘n roll station, which the previous owner claimed happened sometimes.
“Did you really kill that guy’s wife? Or was she just a bitch who texted while driving?” He took a step back and collected a brown paper bag. “I’m not taking anything away from you. I just want you to know, I’m on your side.”
He produced a bottle of Castrol GTX3 and set it before the Fury’s front left tire.
“This is the best oil in town, and I’m promising to change it every 5,000 miles. Screw what the owner’s manual says. Plus we’re only getting Premium gas. It’s already damned expensive, and if a couple pennies more makes you happy, we do it.”
Saul canted his head around one side of the Fury, regarding the two dents in the driver’s side door. “I’m going to offer something more. I know a parts dealer out of Michigan that can get you a new door, off another car. No way to hammer those dents out as-is. But I don’t know how you’d feel about that. So let’s say, if my foot doesn’t get mysteriously caught in the door like that guy warned me about, for the next three months? Then we do it. If it does, that’s all that needs to be said. Regardless, you get this.”
He added a bottle of wax behind the Castrol. It didn’t look impressive, but had cost the most of anything at the shop.
“Is it true they found a hobo dead in your backseat? I don’t think so. I think that’s crap. But again, I just want you to know, I’m on your side. Oh.”
His eyebrows went up as he remembered. He reached into his jeans and pulled out a pine tree air freshener. It dangled from his middle finger for a couple of seconds, wagging in front of one of the Fury’s headlights.
“I promise you will never see one of these. That shit has got to be offensive. You’re not a forest. You’re one of the best cars ever made and that smells good enough for me.”
With that, he pulled back on the air freshener and released, slingshotting the thing into the adjacent bushes. It could hang out there. Even if they were haunted, smelling like plants wouldn’t offend them.
“Think it over, okay?” he asked the Fury. It did not rev its engine or flash its headlights in magical compliance. He walked inside to get a soda, and to give the car a chance to run over the bottles of oil and wax before its tire in case they made it unhappy. It was only a few inches of the car to roll, and Saul was open to signs.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins For Him. 9.
There is an audio edition of today's story. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming audio or click this text to download the MP3.
“Why are you this way?”
I wake up and can’t move. My forearms catch on something. I try to roll over, and that’s when I notice the straps. Leather restraints around my wrists and ankles, across my knees, chest and forehead.
I’m in a small room, empty. Three walls are white, one with a little window. The fourth wall is all Plexiglas. On the other side are three people in suits and white coats. One is a blonde, two are brunettes. The brunettes are men – that’s what you call a guy with brown hair, right? A brunette? A bruno?
“Why are you this way?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say. “Can you please come loosen this? I can’t feel my legs.”
They look at their palm pilots and clipboards. They look nervous, like I’ll bite them through the glass.
“How did you access the air conditioning system?”
“Where did you find that many amphetamines?”
“Why did you strangle that orderly to death with a rubber chicken?”
I don’t know what they’re talking about and they won’t listen. My legs tingle. I’m thirsty. There isn’t even a mirror – I don’t remember what I look like. I ask who I am and seconds later they shuffle away. They leave together, like just one of them doesn’t dare stand outside my cell on his own.
Across from my cell is another with a Plexiglas wall. Its inhabitant is a big man. Half of his face is scabs, like he’d laid down on a hot stove and stayed there. I don’t know if that’s true. He tears a button from his cot and keeps flipping it. His bad eye, the one without a lid, stares at me. He’s not restrained. I am. What did I do?
Security walks by often. There’s a camera with a steady red light in one of the corners of my ceiling. It’s not enough. At least one guy comes by ten times that day. Nine times to look. One time he has a newspaper. He presses the front page against my glass. The headline reads: “STATE SEEKS DEATH PENALTY AGAINST INSANE MAN.”
I can’t make out the photo. It looks like a cartoon face. The guard speaks through the glass to me.
“I hope they get you, you sick fuck.”
Night falls through my little window. I feel like I’m not alone and don’t realize for a while that I’m right. There’s a man in a black mask glaring through the pane. We’re however many stories up and he somehow got there. I call for help and nobody comes. I try to smile, to put on an unaggressive face, and he bares his teeth at me. If he could get through the glass I think he’d strangle me.
I blink and he’s gone.
I can’t get up to see if he was really there, and the people who work here won’t help me. It doesn’t matter what I yell. My fellow inmate, the scarred man, wakes up and stares at me with that eye. He calls me a clown and tells me to shut up or he’ll kill me. That’s the only response I get in this world.
Let’s say I’m not an amnesiac. That I just want to stop. To put down my knives and joy buzzers. But everything else is true: the shrinks are terrified of me, the law wishes I was dead, and there are masked faces following me around in the night. What are the choices? Play dead, or be “this way.”
“Why are you this way?”
I wake up and can’t move. My forearms catch on something. I try to roll over, and that’s when I notice the straps. Leather restraints around my wrists and ankles, across my knees, chest and forehead.
I’m in a small room, empty. Three walls are white, one with a little window. The fourth wall is all Plexiglas. On the other side are three people in suits and white coats. One is a blonde, two are brunettes. The brunettes are men – that’s what you call a guy with brown hair, right? A brunette? A bruno?
“Why are you this way?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say. “Can you please come loosen this? I can’t feel my legs.”
They look at their palm pilots and clipboards. They look nervous, like I’ll bite them through the glass.
“How did you access the air conditioning system?”
“Where did you find that many amphetamines?”
“Why did you strangle that orderly to death with a rubber chicken?”
I don’t know what they’re talking about and they won’t listen. My legs tingle. I’m thirsty. There isn’t even a mirror – I don’t remember what I look like. I ask who I am and seconds later they shuffle away. They leave together, like just one of them doesn’t dare stand outside my cell on his own.
Across from my cell is another with a Plexiglas wall. Its inhabitant is a big man. Half of his face is scabs, like he’d laid down on a hot stove and stayed there. I don’t know if that’s true. He tears a button from his cot and keeps flipping it. His bad eye, the one without a lid, stares at me. He’s not restrained. I am. What did I do?
Security walks by often. There’s a camera with a steady red light in one of the corners of my ceiling. It’s not enough. At least one guy comes by ten times that day. Nine times to look. One time he has a newspaper. He presses the front page against my glass. The headline reads: “STATE SEEKS DEATH PENALTY AGAINST INSANE MAN.”
I can’t make out the photo. It looks like a cartoon face. The guard speaks through the glass to me.
“I hope they get you, you sick fuck.”
Night falls through my little window. I feel like I’m not alone and don’t realize for a while that I’m right. There’s a man in a black mask glaring through the pane. We’re however many stories up and he somehow got there. I call for help and nobody comes. I try to smile, to put on an unaggressive face, and he bares his teeth at me. If he could get through the glass I think he’d strangle me.
I blink and he’s gone.
I can’t get up to see if he was really there, and the people who work here won’t help me. It doesn’t matter what I yell. My fellow inmate, the scarred man, wakes up and stares at me with that eye. He calls me a clown and tells me to shut up or he’ll kill me. That’s the only response I get in this world.
Let’s say I’m not an amnesiac. That I just want to stop. To put down my knives and joy buzzers. But everything else is true: the shrinks are terrified of me, the law wishes I was dead, and there are masked faces following me around in the night. What are the choices? Play dead, or be “this way.”
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Familiarity Does
Matvey stood under the 40-watt bulb in the garage, sizing up the body. He pulled on some latex gloves and picked up the wire cutters, nodding like a lumberjack sizing up a young tree. He took the cadaver’s left hand and began snipping off the fingertips so that the authorities wouldn’t be able to run prints if they found it after he dumped it in the river. The fingers swished into the wastebasket as he responded to Nikola’s assertion.
“They may say familiarity breeds contempt, but I’ve always considered that glib. Sure, you’ve got to know what something is to hate it, but that isn’t always why you hate it. Sometimes you hate something because you can’t figure it out.”
He dropped the left hand to start on the right. It lolled off the side of the workbench, bushing against Matvey’s knee. He kicked it aside and continued.
“Now your country’s Mark Twain said familiarity breeds children, which is funnier. Also less true, I think. I am mighty familiar with my siblings, but unless I blacked out one holiday, I never fathered a baby by them.”
He dropped the wire cutters into the basket along with the fingers and the last of his low mein. Prying open the mouth, he squinted, angling the head so the garage’s dim bulb could illuminate inside.
“No, Nikola. I think familiarity breeds ability. The more familiar you get, the easier it is to do something. You get on a unicycle enough and you don’t even have to think about pedaling.”
Matvey grunted at Nikola’s bridgework and reached for the pliers.
“They may say familiarity breeds contempt, but I’ve always considered that glib. Sure, you’ve got to know what something is to hate it, but that isn’t always why you hate it. Sometimes you hate something because you can’t figure it out.”
He dropped the left hand to start on the right. It lolled off the side of the workbench, bushing against Matvey’s knee. He kicked it aside and continued.
“Now your country’s Mark Twain said familiarity breeds children, which is funnier. Also less true, I think. I am mighty familiar with my siblings, but unless I blacked out one holiday, I never fathered a baby by them.”
He dropped the wire cutters into the basket along with the fingers and the last of his low mein. Prying open the mouth, he squinted, angling the head so the garage’s dim bulb could illuminate inside.
“No, Nikola. I think familiarity breeds ability. The more familiar you get, the easier it is to do something. You get on a unicycle enough and you don’t even have to think about pedaling.”
Matvey grunted at Nikola’s bridgework and reached for the pliers.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
True Stories of John 4, Spookiest Moment
I’d just picked up a friend from the train. Let’s call her Gladys, because it’s a nice name and I don’t want to give her real one out. We rolled down the hill in my little Camry and onto the small concrete bridge. At the end was a stop light, with just one vehicle paused there. It was a white transport, like a short bus for school, but with state and police markings.
Waiting behind them, Gladys and I chatted idly about her job search. We looked around my empty car, to the stone walls that artistically lined either side of the bridge, and at the overcast sky. Anywhere but the police transport in front of us. There was a mix of that awkwardness about looking into other people’s cars, and the intimidation of police.
Eventually the light turned green and the transport remained at the intersection. I frowned at the transport. Then Gladys asked something.
“Is there anybody in there?”
I craned my neck and looked through their rear windows. You could see up the aisle of padded benches. There was no one in sight, even on the driver’s side. I stuck my head out the window and noticed the driver’s side door was open. So was the passenger’s exit. The transport simply sat there, engine off, under the grey light of an overcast day.
“Where do you think they went?” I asked. I didn’t have many ideas.
Gladys shifted in her seat, trying to see over the stone wall to our right. It was only a couple feet away, and only a couple feet high. On the other side was a slope leading to the river. My imagination, being my best friend, and best friends very often playing horrible tricks on you, suggested a serial killer crouched on the other side of the wall, lying in wait for a dumb enough local to get out of his car.
Gladys asked, “Should we wait?”
I didn’t know what to answer. Could you pull around a police transport? Was this a traffic sting? I felt like, at best, I would leave this intersection with a ticket.
The light went yellow, then red. No one came back. No driver, no maniac, no state troopers escorting a convict after letting him take a leak. We sat there behind this hulking vehicle, until the light turned green again.
Gladys developed this magnificent two-face act. She would look at the transport and seem pathetically nervous, then look at me like this was no big deal and I should go. She swapped between the looks dissociative brilliance. No argument had to be made; she quietly convinced me that something awful was waiting around here and we should let it be.
I gave in and pulled us around the left side of the transport. We looked through all the windows. No one was there. The driver’s side door was gaping open, and we could see through to the side of the road and the grassy hill on the other side. I turned us onto the main road and looked down the hill, expecting to see some explanation. There was no one there. We didn’t even see another car on the road for another ten miles.
There was nothing about it in the paper the next day or blotter report that weekend. I asked a couple of people who were in local law enforcement, but nobody knew what I was talking about. I never found out what was going on that day.
Waiting behind them, Gladys and I chatted idly about her job search. We looked around my empty car, to the stone walls that artistically lined either side of the bridge, and at the overcast sky. Anywhere but the police transport in front of us. There was a mix of that awkwardness about looking into other people’s cars, and the intimidation of police.
Eventually the light turned green and the transport remained at the intersection. I frowned at the transport. Then Gladys asked something.
“Is there anybody in there?”
I craned my neck and looked through their rear windows. You could see up the aisle of padded benches. There was no one in sight, even on the driver’s side. I stuck my head out the window and noticed the driver’s side door was open. So was the passenger’s exit. The transport simply sat there, engine off, under the grey light of an overcast day.
“Where do you think they went?” I asked. I didn’t have many ideas.
Gladys shifted in her seat, trying to see over the stone wall to our right. It was only a couple feet away, and only a couple feet high. On the other side was a slope leading to the river. My imagination, being my best friend, and best friends very often playing horrible tricks on you, suggested a serial killer crouched on the other side of the wall, lying in wait for a dumb enough local to get out of his car.
Gladys asked, “Should we wait?”
I didn’t know what to answer. Could you pull around a police transport? Was this a traffic sting? I felt like, at best, I would leave this intersection with a ticket.
The light went yellow, then red. No one came back. No driver, no maniac, no state troopers escorting a convict after letting him take a leak. We sat there behind this hulking vehicle, until the light turned green again.
Gladys developed this magnificent two-face act. She would look at the transport and seem pathetically nervous, then look at me like this was no big deal and I should go. She swapped between the looks dissociative brilliance. No argument had to be made; she quietly convinced me that something awful was waiting around here and we should let it be.
I gave in and pulled us around the left side of the transport. We looked through all the windows. No one was there. The driver’s side door was gaping open, and we could see through to the side of the road and the grassy hill on the other side. I turned us onto the main road and looked down the hill, expecting to see some explanation. There was no one there. We didn’t even see another car on the road for another ten miles.
There was nothing about it in the paper the next day or blotter report that weekend. I asked a couple of people who were in local law enforcement, but nobody knew what I was talking about. I never found out what was going on that day.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: What’s Scary About the End of the World
I listened to him because it was his fire that kept the dogs away, and his beans we ate. If I was good he might even crack open one of the last remaining beers in New England. I could see three bottles in his satchel.
“Dying isn’t what scares anybody about the end of the world. Everybody thinks he’s going to make it through to see Mad Max. Because if you don’t? Then it’s the end of you, and who cares about the rest?”
He stuck his poker in the flames, stirring the logs. Scintillas flew up, like he’d angered a flaming hornet nest.
“What’s scary about this was never dying in the atomic blast. It wasn’t even that all the fun would be over. No more new movies. No more spring fashion. No more daycare, low fat food, or bitching about the price of gasoline.”
He threw up his arms and announced to the abandoned building, “Ladies and gentlemen: the internet is closed!”
He sat back down beside me, the poker dangling from his fingers.
“All that stuff blows away in the wind. The closest to culture you’ll get is a shred of The New York Times in a tumbleweed.
“No, that’s not what’s scary. That’s what’s depressing.
“What’s scary comes right after scavenging for food and fighting a stray for shelter before it rains. And it’s not the lack of food or shelter, or the plentiful irradiated dogs.”
He jabbed the poker at the nearest window. Its glowing orange tip accused the rest of the planet, perhaps for not being frightening enough.
“It’s that it’s out there. Observe the toppled buildings and wilted flowers. Look past them. Somewhere, out there, is the legitimate shit. The wide steel doors that the government has kept locked. The Devil himself, riding horseback down the highway, weaving amongst a graveyard of dead cars. The gurgling noise in a pit from the earth, and there’s no CNN let to tell you why it opened.
“Yeah. That’s the legitimate shit. The bogeyman that’s been waiting in your closet all your life for the day when the door would be knocked over. It’s stuff that’s waiting for you at the end of a long and leveled field. That’s what’s still scary when you’re scrounging for canned food and a place to sleep.”
“Dying isn’t what scares anybody about the end of the world. Everybody thinks he’s going to make it through to see Mad Max. Because if you don’t? Then it’s the end of you, and who cares about the rest?”
He stuck his poker in the flames, stirring the logs. Scintillas flew up, like he’d angered a flaming hornet nest.
“What’s scary about this was never dying in the atomic blast. It wasn’t even that all the fun would be over. No more new movies. No more spring fashion. No more daycare, low fat food, or bitching about the price of gasoline.”
He threw up his arms and announced to the abandoned building, “Ladies and gentlemen: the internet is closed!”
He sat back down beside me, the poker dangling from his fingers.
“All that stuff blows away in the wind. The closest to culture you’ll get is a shred of The New York Times in a tumbleweed.
“No, that’s not what’s scary. That’s what’s depressing.
“What’s scary comes right after scavenging for food and fighting a stray for shelter before it rains. And it’s not the lack of food or shelter, or the plentiful irradiated dogs.”
He jabbed the poker at the nearest window. Its glowing orange tip accused the rest of the planet, perhaps for not being frightening enough.
“It’s that it’s out there. Observe the toppled buildings and wilted flowers. Look past them. Somewhere, out there, is the legitimate shit. The wide steel doors that the government has kept locked. The Devil himself, riding horseback down the highway, weaving amongst a graveyard of dead cars. The gurgling noise in a pit from the earth, and there’s no CNN let to tell you why it opened.
“Yeah. That’s the legitimate shit. The bogeyman that’s been waiting in your closet all your life for the day when the door would be knocked over. It’s stuff that’s waiting for you at the end of a long and leveled field. That’s what’s still scary when you’re scrounging for canned food and a place to sleep.”
Monday, October 25, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Reasons why I should write the new Legendary Pictures Godzilla reboot.
Dear Legendary Pictures,
I am aware you are in the planning stages for a new American Godzilla franchise. As a writer and longstanding fan of giant monsters, I am concerned for the film. Nobody needs another TriStar Godzilla. I am a versatile steward, capable of writing a screenplay featuring series favorites like King Ghidorah, lesser Toho rogues like Gorosaurus, or recognizable creatures in the public domain, like one of those giant Buddha statues in China that is animated by science gone wrong. Yet I am not offering myself merely as a writer, but in every facet of my being to ensure a quality film.
You may wonder what services a professional writer can offer besides a dynamite screenplay featuring a minimum of five giant monster battles. Well for one thing, hiring me will make storyboards obsolete. I will slouch, pull my elbows to my chest and enact any Godzilla sequence for directors, actors and/or catering staff whenever necessary. This way you will know exactly how stage directions are supposed to go. I make a very believable radioactive breath sound, too.
Scientists suggest that between seven or eight hours of sleep are optimal for the human body. Thanks to a lumpy mattress I haven’t slept a full night in months, and believe these scientists to be sissies. I will gladly sleep only three hours a night, spending the remainder of the dark hours showing your actors how to portray realistic fear of titanic threats, patching up and airbrushing dinosaur costumes, and setting up tiny Lego towns.
Do not mistake these services as a smokescreen for lazy writing. Not only will I produce a screenplay immediately upon request, but I’ll stay on set to re-write any lines you dislike, and to play sounding board if the actors try to adlib. I will set up a tent near the fire escape, my pen living within the range of your beck and call. My screenwriting will only cease once the film is distributed to theatres, at which point I will happily deploy to any theatres where you would like audiences to have their reactions scripted.
I cannot stress my devotion to the project enough. If at any time you feel the extras are slacking and someone needs to literally be crushed to death to appropriately express Godzilla’s magnitude, I will sacrifice myself. I can’t think of a better way to die than beneath a mammoth foot.
And I will do all of this for one dollar. Being a professional writer I do not work for free. But realistically, even if you throw it away and keep two gag jokes, it’ll have been a worthwhile investment in your eight-digit-budgeted film. Not that you’d want to throw this screenplay away – it’s going to be awesome, especially when Godzilla and Jesus team up to take down the Idolatrous Ro-Beast, Mecca-Jesus. I am fully knowledgeable about series history, having seen every Godzilla film multiple times. Even Godzilla’s Revenge, one of the worst films to ever be screened on multiple continents, and I’ve seen that sucker eight times. Thanks, WPIX New York.
Sincerely,
John Wiswell
I am aware you are in the planning stages for a new American Godzilla franchise. As a writer and longstanding fan of giant monsters, I am concerned for the film. Nobody needs another TriStar Godzilla. I am a versatile steward, capable of writing a screenplay featuring series favorites like King Ghidorah, lesser Toho rogues like Gorosaurus, or recognizable creatures in the public domain, like one of those giant Buddha statues in China that is animated by science gone wrong. Yet I am not offering myself merely as a writer, but in every facet of my being to ensure a quality film.
You may wonder what services a professional writer can offer besides a dynamite screenplay featuring a minimum of five giant monster battles. Well for one thing, hiring me will make storyboards obsolete. I will slouch, pull my elbows to my chest and enact any Godzilla sequence for directors, actors and/or catering staff whenever necessary. This way you will know exactly how stage directions are supposed to go. I make a very believable radioactive breath sound, too.
Scientists suggest that between seven or eight hours of sleep are optimal for the human body. Thanks to a lumpy mattress I haven’t slept a full night in months, and believe these scientists to be sissies. I will gladly sleep only three hours a night, spending the remainder of the dark hours showing your actors how to portray realistic fear of titanic threats, patching up and airbrushing dinosaur costumes, and setting up tiny Lego towns.
Do not mistake these services as a smokescreen for lazy writing. Not only will I produce a screenplay immediately upon request, but I’ll stay on set to re-write any lines you dislike, and to play sounding board if the actors try to adlib. I will set up a tent near the fire escape, my pen living within the range of your beck and call. My screenwriting will only cease once the film is distributed to theatres, at which point I will happily deploy to any theatres where you would like audiences to have their reactions scripted.
I cannot stress my devotion to the project enough. If at any time you feel the extras are slacking and someone needs to literally be crushed to death to appropriately express Godzilla’s magnitude, I will sacrifice myself. I can’t think of a better way to die than beneath a mammoth foot.
And I will do all of this for one dollar. Being a professional writer I do not work for free. But realistically, even if you throw it away and keep two gag jokes, it’ll have been a worthwhile investment in your eight-digit-budgeted film. Not that you’d want to throw this screenplay away – it’s going to be awesome, especially when Godzilla and Jesus team up to take down the Idolatrous Ro-Beast, Mecca-Jesus. I am fully knowledgeable about series history, having seen every Godzilla film multiple times. Even Godzilla’s Revenge, one of the worst films to ever be screened on multiple continents, and I’ve seen that sucker eight times. Thanks, WPIX New York.
Sincerely,
John Wiswell
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins for Him. 8.
There is an audio edition of this story. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming audio, or click this text to download the MP3.
I was in high school. Like now, I was a gangly kid. Very into photography. Mostly funeral photography, but you know, you can only take so many rolls of a corpse in so many poses before they say you're "different." So I helped the school paper. One day I hopped over to a science expo. They were irradiating clowns to see if they'd be funnier when exposed to plutonium. One of the clowns got loose and bit me. I fainted dead away.
Woke up in a hospital room with chattery teeth stuck to my sternum. The doctor said I had two days to live at best and there was nothing modern science could do to save me. Well my father was a super-physicist before he died in a tragic fall from a trapeze, so I set about updating modern science. I constructed the most advanced containment field known to man to keep the chattery teeth from reaching my heart. It all plugged into this purple jumpsuit. Sort of my prototype.
My family was overjoyed and we went out for a picnic. There we were, on the lawn outside a carnival, when this black car rolled by. It turned out my mother was a witness to some mob crimes and they wanted to send a message. So they sent it, at eighty bullets per second. In less than a minute, every relative I'd ever known was dead. I swore revenge over their bodies.
I returned to my family mansion to plot this revenge. I needed a symbol. Something to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious criminals and lazy cops. But what?
It was then that a clown flew through the window. How he got in, I don't know. I couldn't get him out and eventually beat him to death with a broom.
To get the homicide off my mind I went spelunking into the cave beneath the family mansion and was shocked to discover a letter from my dear departed dad. He'd been hiding it for when I was older. Turned out I wasn't actually his. Ma and Pa had found me in a field when I was just a baby amongst the remains of a crashed spaceship. I was the last son of a dead world. A planet of mediocre stand-up comedians. My birth parents had sent me here because the yellow sun would imbue me with superhumor abilities. So the letter said.
Anyway, the next week I got caught in a nuclear test site and the gamma explosion turned me into this. True story.
I was in high school. Like now, I was a gangly kid. Very into photography. Mostly funeral photography, but you know, you can only take so many rolls of a corpse in so many poses before they say you're "different." So I helped the school paper. One day I hopped over to a science expo. They were irradiating clowns to see if they'd be funnier when exposed to plutonium. One of the clowns got loose and bit me. I fainted dead away.
Woke up in a hospital room with chattery teeth stuck to my sternum. The doctor said I had two days to live at best and there was nothing modern science could do to save me. Well my father was a super-physicist before he died in a tragic fall from a trapeze, so I set about updating modern science. I constructed the most advanced containment field known to man to keep the chattery teeth from reaching my heart. It all plugged into this purple jumpsuit. Sort of my prototype.
My family was overjoyed and we went out for a picnic. There we were, on the lawn outside a carnival, when this black car rolled by. It turned out my mother was a witness to some mob crimes and they wanted to send a message. So they sent it, at eighty bullets per second. In less than a minute, every relative I'd ever known was dead. I swore revenge over their bodies.
I returned to my family mansion to plot this revenge. I needed a symbol. Something to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious criminals and lazy cops. But what?
It was then that a clown flew through the window. How he got in, I don't know. I couldn't get him out and eventually beat him to death with a broom.
To get the homicide off my mind I went spelunking into the cave beneath the family mansion and was shocked to discover a letter from my dear departed dad. He'd been hiding it for when I was older. Turned out I wasn't actually his. Ma and Pa had found me in a field when I was just a baby amongst the remains of a crashed spaceship. I was the last son of a dead world. A planet of mediocre stand-up comedians. My birth parents had sent me here because the yellow sun would imbue me with superhumor abilities. So the letter said.
Anyway, the next week I got caught in a nuclear test site and the gamma explosion turned me into this. True story.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
"To Each Her Own Triceratops" at The NOT
A micro-story of mine appeared in Michael Solender's Dog Days of Summer anthology. The theme was summer. Because my imagination likes to be difficult, mine was about the summer the dinosaurs came back. The story, "To Each Her Own Triceratops," was featured this week over on Solender's NOT. You can read it here.
As an aside, thanks for all the kind wishes over the last week. I'd tell you how hard it is to abstain from writing, but then I'd have to write about it. Oh no - am I cheating right now?
As an aside, thanks for all the kind wishes over the last week. I'd tell you how hard it is to abstain from writing, but then I'd have to write about it. Oh no - am I cheating right now?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: People Want Dark Fiction
The reader rolls her eyes at her friend and pushes the YA novel away.
“I don’t like that simpering crap. Fiction needs to be dark like real life. Lives don’t end with the good guy winning and faeries dancing. It’s twisted and gutwrenching—”
At which point an author looms over the divider between their tables and smashes her square in the mouth with his laptop. It’s a construction-yellow Toughbook, folded up into a tidy bludgeon.
The reader shrieks, while all the other diners freeze. Even her friend is shocked. The author, dressed in tweed and khakis, climbs the divider and mounts the reader’s table. Everyone’s eyes go up, not at the author, but at his direction. They’re like deer.
“You want it bleak, right?” he asks. It’s a rhetorical question, something that he can seldom pull off on the page but is so easy when you’re speaking out loud. “Got to be bleak! And violent!”
She scrambles to exit the booth, but he swings overhand and connects with her chin. She flails back into the cushions, stuck in the corner of the booth. Before she can contemplate another escape route, he begins swinging the Toughbook into her nose and mouth repeatedly. Its yellow plastic is speckled with red bits in no time.
The diners-cum-deer scatter for the exit. Even the reader’s friend, abandoning her French fries and YA Fantasy.
“Because you lead a joyless and hollow life, I’ve got to write stories validate it! If I write happy things you might be challenged to change. If you laugh at something other than sarcasm, you might grow a soul, and we hate believing in those!”
Her face is a red and pink paste. If she’s conscious, we can’t tell it by her eye movements. They’re erratic in an absent way.
“You want a dark ending?” he asks down at her. “Then don’t press charges. I won’t get brought to justice and you’ll live happily ever after with a mangled face. Choose your own adventure.”
He hops off the table and looks for napkins to wipe off his Toughbook. He hates writing with them dirty, and he has a great story idea.
“I don’t like that simpering crap. Fiction needs to be dark like real life. Lives don’t end with the good guy winning and faeries dancing. It’s twisted and gutwrenching—”
At which point an author looms over the divider between their tables and smashes her square in the mouth with his laptop. It’s a construction-yellow Toughbook, folded up into a tidy bludgeon.
The reader shrieks, while all the other diners freeze. Even her friend is shocked. The author, dressed in tweed and khakis, climbs the divider and mounts the reader’s table. Everyone’s eyes go up, not at the author, but at his direction. They’re like deer.
“You want it bleak, right?” he asks. It’s a rhetorical question, something that he can seldom pull off on the page but is so easy when you’re speaking out loud. “Got to be bleak! And violent!”
She scrambles to exit the booth, but he swings overhand and connects with her chin. She flails back into the cushions, stuck in the corner of the booth. Before she can contemplate another escape route, he begins swinging the Toughbook into her nose and mouth repeatedly. Its yellow plastic is speckled with red bits in no time.
The diners-cum-deer scatter for the exit. Even the reader’s friend, abandoning her French fries and YA Fantasy.
“Because you lead a joyless and hollow life, I’ve got to write stories validate it! If I write happy things you might be challenged to change. If you laugh at something other than sarcasm, you might grow a soul, and we hate believing in those!”
Her face is a red and pink paste. If she’s conscious, we can’t tell it by her eye movements. They’re erratic in an absent way.
“You want a dark ending?” he asks down at her. “Then don’t press charges. I won’t get brought to justice and you’ll live happily ever after with a mangled face. Choose your own adventure.”
He hops off the table and looks for napkins to wipe off his Toughbook. He hates writing with them dirty, and he has a great story idea.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Brilliant Scheme of Bit Torrent
You always hear conspiracy theories about the government inventing crack cocaine or time travel, but they never get credit for the beloved stuff. For instance, the government invented Bit Torrent. It was one of their easiest cover-ups - point the finger at a scruffy white guy in a t-shirt and everybody thinks, "Of course he made that computer thing. Now shut up while I download all nine seasons of Scrubs."
Bit Torrent was a simple program. It was P2P, connecting your computer to every other one with a user that had or wanted a certain file. A movie, an album, etc. People scaled back using normal websites to download because all the users connecting to a Torrent allowed it to go faster, or for them to browse more conveniently, or eventually, because it had taken over the market. It caused trillions of dollars of media to be accessed freely. It became the platform for media piracy, just like they wanted.
The government had set this all in motion. They received obscene campaign donations from Hollywood and music moguls. Who would believe they’d help college students pirate blockbusters?
While Bit Torrent was on the rise, other companies came up as well. Netflix, which offered to deliver DVD’s to your house or let you watch things instantly. Wal Mart for people who might buy things in person, and Amazon.com for internet shoppers, both very consciously telling you that you were getting a cutrate deal. Nobody would patronize these services, of course, so long as they used Bit Torrent.
That’s when the last part of the plan came through. Internet Service Providers everywhere throttled bandwidth – meaning all those HD videos you were downloading at 800 K were suddenly going at 50 K. They knew exactly how to do it because they had the code. They had been planning the slowdown all along. An hour download turned into a day. The vehicle Bit Torrent had built, of instant free gratification, slammed on the breaks. Before this time, 50 K per second was actually a good speed. Now it was absolutely unacceptable, and rendered Bit Torrent useless. But because it controlled the market, there was no serious competition. There was no other program to run to. All you had were a dozen other slow Bit Torrent clients.
Meanwhile, you could watch that movie you wanted over on Netflix instantly, for a moderate fee. And while people blasted Supernatural or American Dad for being garbage, that garbage had filled an hour-long void in their lives every week for a while. They were hooked on crap. The options were either to tune in when it was on, a skill the next generation had not learned at all, or pick it up from Amazon for 56% off with free shipping on orders over $25. It’d get there faster than the throttled Bit Torrent would download it, and it was sort of a deal, so they bought it in bulk while writing negative reviews of the shows on their blogs. Bit Torrent had been the most expensive advertising campaign in history.
You wouldn’t believe what Youtube is for.
Bit Torrent was a simple program. It was P2P, connecting your computer to every other one with a user that had or wanted a certain file. A movie, an album, etc. People scaled back using normal websites to download because all the users connecting to a Torrent allowed it to go faster, or for them to browse more conveniently, or eventually, because it had taken over the market. It caused trillions of dollars of media to be accessed freely. It became the platform for media piracy, just like they wanted.
The government had set this all in motion. They received obscene campaign donations from Hollywood and music moguls. Who would believe they’d help college students pirate blockbusters?
While Bit Torrent was on the rise, other companies came up as well. Netflix, which offered to deliver DVD’s to your house or let you watch things instantly. Wal Mart for people who might buy things in person, and Amazon.com for internet shoppers, both very consciously telling you that you were getting a cutrate deal. Nobody would patronize these services, of course, so long as they used Bit Torrent.
That’s when the last part of the plan came through. Internet Service Providers everywhere throttled bandwidth – meaning all those HD videos you were downloading at 800 K were suddenly going at 50 K. They knew exactly how to do it because they had the code. They had been planning the slowdown all along. An hour download turned into a day. The vehicle Bit Torrent had built, of instant free gratification, slammed on the breaks. Before this time, 50 K per second was actually a good speed. Now it was absolutely unacceptable, and rendered Bit Torrent useless. But because it controlled the market, there was no serious competition. There was no other program to run to. All you had were a dozen other slow Bit Torrent clients.
Meanwhile, you could watch that movie you wanted over on Netflix instantly, for a moderate fee. And while people blasted Supernatural or American Dad for being garbage, that garbage had filled an hour-long void in their lives every week for a while. They were hooked on crap. The options were either to tune in when it was on, a skill the next generation had not learned at all, or pick it up from Amazon for 56% off with free shipping on orders over $25. It’d get there faster than the throttled Bit Torrent would download it, and it was sort of a deal, so they bought it in bulk while writing negative reviews of the shows on their blogs. Bit Torrent had been the most expensive advertising campaign in history.
You wouldn’t believe what Youtube is for.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Appearances in Toast
He didn’t look like Jesus to me. In fact, he looked like a girl. The long hair – I guess it suggests different things to different people. But it was my toast, and by the way the nooks and crannies were burned, I thought the face that appeared in it was too narrow to be a guy, let alone a god. The eyes drooped, and if there was a mouth then it was gaping. It was a sad face. A ghost face. So maybe not Jesus in my toast, just the Holy Ghost. I pretended to scarf it down, because if Mom knew it survived she would have built a shrine around it. I built it a nest of napkins and hid it behind the textbooks on my shelf. At night I’d bring my ghost toast out, to chat. I figured it was safe at night, when anyone who might see was unconscious, and ghosts like the night. It’s never haunted me and never gone moldy. I talk to it, ask it for bread’s opinions on things. It doesn’t answer often. Mostly its char face simply stares out at my wallpaper, mouth wide open. Kind of like it's hungry.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Writer’s Exhaustion, OR, Writer’s Block is Good for You
In 9th grade Social Studies we learned three major things about Japan. First, that Admiral Perry and his U.S. fleet had royally screwed them over. Second, that women were still struggling for respect. Last and most interesting to me, that businessmen in their twenties were dying from overwork. “Karoshi” was sudden stress-related death such as from stroke. The documents claimed it resulted from a mixture of demanding corporate culture and inherited ideas of samurai dedication. Like many teens I was unhealthily cynical and thought the whole thing was both fake and deserved.
I’ve been thinking about karoshi for the last few weeks. My arms are shaking. I have slept about twelve hours in the last four days, and no two of those hours have been in a row. My syndrome-related pain is so acute that I can’t exercise. I can feel the swelling in my lungs and esophagus, the tender heat-like pain when I exhale. I’ve long known that mental stress worsens this syndrome’s severity. But I think, “Have to work through it. I’ve only submitted twenty-one short stories this quarter.” I turned twenty-nine this month and am far from famous. There’s so much work to do.
I have sworn to stop. No more shorts after I reach thirty-five submissions. Four more in this file folder, submit them, and finish. It was “two more” this morning, but I argued myself up.
It’s a vain promise. Rationally, I ought to stop right now. When I open up the vampire story I’ve been wrestling with, I can’t read it. I’ve edited five drafts and seven revisions of those drafts. Now when I look at the page I cannot focus the words into sentences. My vision gets a little fuzzy, and my brain goes right along for the ride. Syntax falls apart and I notice the shaking in my arms gets stronger. Last night I tried to convince myself that shaking was a muscle memory urging me to reach out and type.
This is a fatigue that has not gone away with a little rest; coming back the next day, I find the same problems with my work and my health. Nobody in college told me what this is. I’m calling it writer’s exhaustion. It is a burnout that screws with you on technical writing, in critical thinking, and your whole frame of mind. It’s made me, as best I can tell, incredibly unpleasant to be around. I’m chipper for twenty seconds before this fatigue dries me up and I get snippy; I yelled at someone over how to clean a blender this afternoon. It’s always worse directly after I write. The blender episode was right after finishing a murder scene. I need to do fewer of those.
The worst is that with this intense mental fatigue, I still want to write. I’m rambling this first draft into a tape recorder so I can type it up when I’m more lucid. I’m doing it with no irony whatsoever, which is, I guess, an even greater irony.
In college I struggled with writer’s block. Mine was never a deficiency of ideas. I could come up with a hundred bad ideas before you came up with two good ones. My blockage was perfection. I insisted that every paragraph be pristine on the first draft. The epic novels I wanted to embark upon had to be thoroughly plotted without much notation, since notes were themselves imperfect. I only squeaked out one short story my entire first term, set in a world I spent at least two hundred hours putting together. When the professor asked how much I’d written for this world, looking to indulge in the enthusiasm of a young Fantasy nerd, I admitted, “about thirty.” His frown still haunts me.
The best writing advice I ever got in person was from another professor, Rebecca Godwin. I described my writer’s block to her. This cheery lady was remarkably stoic. She had no sympathy and immediately launched into anecdotes about her time at an ad agency. Perhaps she’d once been like me, but she couldn’t remember if she had. Her department had to produce new material every day and if it sucked then they had to roll with it or they’d be fired. She didn’t say it, but she expressed this thing I carry around: that perfectionism is a luxury.
I had to wade through my own emotional mire. I could advise anyone else through theirs (most of us think we can do that), and I did so for some Freshmen. Nothing you can write will be enjoyed by everyone – not the Bible, not the Constitution, not Shakespeare. I told them they couldn’t aim for it, and they looked at me like a genius. Yet I was deathly afraid of negative reaction. To this day any negative feedback makes me cringe inside, but back then it stayed my hand entirely and pre-emptively. Fear of negative response, fear of incorrect syntax, fear of typos and logical loopholes and saying something somebody else said first (darn you, Yann Martel, for beating me to “fig mints”).
I only overcame these issues after falling on them over and over again. I did public readings to unhappy audiences, and sometimes got them to laugh. I did some performances that would have humiliated me if I hadn’t embraced them (there’s nothing for the ego like stuffing a canteen into your shirt to mimic breasts to play an old crone). I took shallow advice like, “You could be a novelist if you wrote 1,000 words a day,” and did my damnedest to ford the shallow waters, because over time routines erode what prevents them. I added to my novels every day, often with stuff that would only make me laugh, but at least I was getting somewhere. Soon I posted routinely to a blog, and later, posted daily. With hesitation gone, the fountain of a thousand bad ideas got tapped. Bad ideas – ones a literary critic might say were bad, ones my roommate might, or a teacher, or an imaginary cynical teen on a message board somewhere. I waded in that fountain, trying to filter out the ones I genuinely liked despite all the imaginary naysayers I had.
For a while I got a brand new problem: writer’s plenty. I had so many ideas I was afraid to write any of them, because in penning the first I’d forget the second. This silliness cost me months of work and perfectly workable ideas.
One night, when the ideas were so plentiful that I couldn’t focus on the TV, I finally did something about it. I opened a Word file and jotted a couple lines down. Then I opened another, and put down a title. A third, and typed out three lines of dialogue. A fourth, and a fifth, until I had thirty-two documents, exhausting my muse. With every story accounted for by some reminder or placeholder, it became a question of which seemed most attractive. There was no fear an idea would be lost on the hard drive.
Since then I’ve jotted down notes on the black spaces in a program at a play, and on recycling bin paper in waiting rooms, and even the terrible cliché of the backs of envelopes. I have gotten at least ten stories off the white space on envelopes. Have the ideas anywhere, get the kernels out and save them for when the work can be done. Then, of course, make sure you do the work. An easy formula. I whizzed along so much that I ditched word minimums, because I couldn’t keep track of how much work I did throughout the day.
It’s been three or four years of this. That first night ended with shakes of laughter. Tonight it is a medical tremor. I had this condition back then, and back in college, and back in Middle School when I decided I wanted to tell stories. But tonight and for the last week I have been acutely aware that if I do not stop writing, it will stop me.
Writer’s exhaustion. I’ve produced so much that I can’t stop thinking about the work, and at the same time am so burned out that I’m messing it up. I forgot to delete one of the thirty-four occurrences of my name from my Writers of the Future entry, which will cause it to be disqualified. I had been looking over that document for half an hour before I submitted it and did not notice what was right in front of my eyes. It was only last night as I lay in bed that I realized it.
Beyond the typos and brainos, I am getting sicker. There is no day when I do not feel guilt for not writing, even on days when I have high output. I’ll try to unwind and half an hour into a videogame I’ll think how lazy this makes me. How lazy for not writing more, and when I write more, for not writing better, and when I write better, for not having enough published and not being far enough into my career and, at some point, some god whispers about what they do to you first when they want to destroy you.
I can’t help but think of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk. She felt we put too much stress on our artists as a society, and so wound up with Woolf, Hemingway, Cobain and many others killing themselves. I’m not saying that writing (or writing alone) drove any of these people to suicide, but there is a distinct need for certain artistic people to take perspective and care.
My case is severe, in that my health turns stress into malady. I’m a psychosomatic realist and physiological drama queen. Of course, my case is also very not severe compared to Ms. Woolf going back up the beach for more rocks. But I feel it’s important to express that there is an opposite to writer’s block that is potentially more dangerous and that may lie in wait for a lot of people who are trying blindly to escape it.
I also think about other occupations. The stock broker, the plumber and the cable TV installer have days off. They have their own demands and are all tougher on the body than I could take. But they do not wake up Saturday and fear they’re behind on that novel. Maybe they wake up afraid about car payments or fertility, but those are human regrets a writer also gets. They may anticipate when work resumes, but it has a clear starting and stopping point, so they cannot loathe themselves like this (or at least I hope they don’t). In this vacuum of responsibility, I’ve somehow gotten to the point where most of my waking hours belong to worrying about some kind of story.
At the same time, this is not an addiction. I cringe when writers compare their craft to addiction. A heroin addict shuffles out onto the street to satisfy dependency, perhaps with a glimmer of future pleasure, but he does not feel the obligation I do. I feel obliged to the work, the market I’m going to submit to, and to the audience I’d like to have. It is every bit as conscious as it is unconscious. Somewhere out there is a real writing addict who starves to death rather than leaving her keyboard. The rest of us make decisions.
I love stories, I love telling them, and I love reading the good ones. But I’m making the decision to stop for a while. I hope to only stop for a couple weeks. I doubt I’ll last that long – if you’re reading this, then I not only recorded it, but typed it up. Probably did a few drafts. I’ll lie in bed tonight thinking over the way the shapes of the paragraphs compliment each other.
I hope good sense will get me to take a deep break and that this break will fix things. Not a day off, because you don’t take a day off walking when you break your leg. When it heals, I’ll approach again and monitor myself so that I don’t go too far. I’m pretty sure I know what novel I’ll begin working on next, too. But for now, I’ve had a migraine for at least 36 hours and the sound of a door slamming causes my inner eardrum to spasm like someone is jabbing it with a pipe cleaner. I believe in karoshi.
Please take care of yourselves.
(As pertains to the Bathroom Monologues, they’re going to continue daily. Did you really think you could trust John? He’s written a few weeks of material in advance for this literary vacation. We hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave comments or start discussion below - he'd love your feedback.)
I’ve been thinking about karoshi for the last few weeks. My arms are shaking. I have slept about twelve hours in the last four days, and no two of those hours have been in a row. My syndrome-related pain is so acute that I can’t exercise. I can feel the swelling in my lungs and esophagus, the tender heat-like pain when I exhale. I’ve long known that mental stress worsens this syndrome’s severity. But I think, “Have to work through it. I’ve only submitted twenty-one short stories this quarter.” I turned twenty-nine this month and am far from famous. There’s so much work to do.
I have sworn to stop. No more shorts after I reach thirty-five submissions. Four more in this file folder, submit them, and finish. It was “two more” this morning, but I argued myself up.
It’s a vain promise. Rationally, I ought to stop right now. When I open up the vampire story I’ve been wrestling with, I can’t read it. I’ve edited five drafts and seven revisions of those drafts. Now when I look at the page I cannot focus the words into sentences. My vision gets a little fuzzy, and my brain goes right along for the ride. Syntax falls apart and I notice the shaking in my arms gets stronger. Last night I tried to convince myself that shaking was a muscle memory urging me to reach out and type.
This is a fatigue that has not gone away with a little rest; coming back the next day, I find the same problems with my work and my health. Nobody in college told me what this is. I’m calling it writer’s exhaustion. It is a burnout that screws with you on technical writing, in critical thinking, and your whole frame of mind. It’s made me, as best I can tell, incredibly unpleasant to be around. I’m chipper for twenty seconds before this fatigue dries me up and I get snippy; I yelled at someone over how to clean a blender this afternoon. It’s always worse directly after I write. The blender episode was right after finishing a murder scene. I need to do fewer of those.
The worst is that with this intense mental fatigue, I still want to write. I’m rambling this first draft into a tape recorder so I can type it up when I’m more lucid. I’m doing it with no irony whatsoever, which is, I guess, an even greater irony.
In college I struggled with writer’s block. Mine was never a deficiency of ideas. I could come up with a hundred bad ideas before you came up with two good ones. My blockage was perfection. I insisted that every paragraph be pristine on the first draft. The epic novels I wanted to embark upon had to be thoroughly plotted without much notation, since notes were themselves imperfect. I only squeaked out one short story my entire first term, set in a world I spent at least two hundred hours putting together. When the professor asked how much I’d written for this world, looking to indulge in the enthusiasm of a young Fantasy nerd, I admitted, “about thirty.” His frown still haunts me.
The best writing advice I ever got in person was from another professor, Rebecca Godwin. I described my writer’s block to her. This cheery lady was remarkably stoic. She had no sympathy and immediately launched into anecdotes about her time at an ad agency. Perhaps she’d once been like me, but she couldn’t remember if she had. Her department had to produce new material every day and if it sucked then they had to roll with it or they’d be fired. She didn’t say it, but she expressed this thing I carry around: that perfectionism is a luxury.
I had to wade through my own emotional mire. I could advise anyone else through theirs (most of us think we can do that), and I did so for some Freshmen. Nothing you can write will be enjoyed by everyone – not the Bible, not the Constitution, not Shakespeare. I told them they couldn’t aim for it, and they looked at me like a genius. Yet I was deathly afraid of negative reaction. To this day any negative feedback makes me cringe inside, but back then it stayed my hand entirely and pre-emptively. Fear of negative response, fear of incorrect syntax, fear of typos and logical loopholes and saying something somebody else said first (darn you, Yann Martel, for beating me to “fig mints”).
I only overcame these issues after falling on them over and over again. I did public readings to unhappy audiences, and sometimes got them to laugh. I did some performances that would have humiliated me if I hadn’t embraced them (there’s nothing for the ego like stuffing a canteen into your shirt to mimic breasts to play an old crone). I took shallow advice like, “You could be a novelist if you wrote 1,000 words a day,” and did my damnedest to ford the shallow waters, because over time routines erode what prevents them. I added to my novels every day, often with stuff that would only make me laugh, but at least I was getting somewhere. Soon I posted routinely to a blog, and later, posted daily. With hesitation gone, the fountain of a thousand bad ideas got tapped. Bad ideas – ones a literary critic might say were bad, ones my roommate might, or a teacher, or an imaginary cynical teen on a message board somewhere. I waded in that fountain, trying to filter out the ones I genuinely liked despite all the imaginary naysayers I had.
For a while I got a brand new problem: writer’s plenty. I had so many ideas I was afraid to write any of them, because in penning the first I’d forget the second. This silliness cost me months of work and perfectly workable ideas.
One night, when the ideas were so plentiful that I couldn’t focus on the TV, I finally did something about it. I opened a Word file and jotted a couple lines down. Then I opened another, and put down a title. A third, and typed out three lines of dialogue. A fourth, and a fifth, until I had thirty-two documents, exhausting my muse. With every story accounted for by some reminder or placeholder, it became a question of which seemed most attractive. There was no fear an idea would be lost on the hard drive.
Since then I’ve jotted down notes on the black spaces in a program at a play, and on recycling bin paper in waiting rooms, and even the terrible cliché of the backs of envelopes. I have gotten at least ten stories off the white space on envelopes. Have the ideas anywhere, get the kernels out and save them for when the work can be done. Then, of course, make sure you do the work. An easy formula. I whizzed along so much that I ditched word minimums, because I couldn’t keep track of how much work I did throughout the day.
It’s been three or four years of this. That first night ended with shakes of laughter. Tonight it is a medical tremor. I had this condition back then, and back in college, and back in Middle School when I decided I wanted to tell stories. But tonight and for the last week I have been acutely aware that if I do not stop writing, it will stop me.
Writer’s exhaustion. I’ve produced so much that I can’t stop thinking about the work, and at the same time am so burned out that I’m messing it up. I forgot to delete one of the thirty-four occurrences of my name from my Writers of the Future entry, which will cause it to be disqualified. I had been looking over that document for half an hour before I submitted it and did not notice what was right in front of my eyes. It was only last night as I lay in bed that I realized it.
Beyond the typos and brainos, I am getting sicker. There is no day when I do not feel guilt for not writing, even on days when I have high output. I’ll try to unwind and half an hour into a videogame I’ll think how lazy this makes me. How lazy for not writing more, and when I write more, for not writing better, and when I write better, for not having enough published and not being far enough into my career and, at some point, some god whispers about what they do to you first when they want to destroy you.
I can’t help but think of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk. She felt we put too much stress on our artists as a society, and so wound up with Woolf, Hemingway, Cobain and many others killing themselves. I’m not saying that writing (or writing alone) drove any of these people to suicide, but there is a distinct need for certain artistic people to take perspective and care.
My case is severe, in that my health turns stress into malady. I’m a psychosomatic realist and physiological drama queen. Of course, my case is also very not severe compared to Ms. Woolf going back up the beach for more rocks. But I feel it’s important to express that there is an opposite to writer’s block that is potentially more dangerous and that may lie in wait for a lot of people who are trying blindly to escape it.
I also think about other occupations. The stock broker, the plumber and the cable TV installer have days off. They have their own demands and are all tougher on the body than I could take. But they do not wake up Saturday and fear they’re behind on that novel. Maybe they wake up afraid about car payments or fertility, but those are human regrets a writer also gets. They may anticipate when work resumes, but it has a clear starting and stopping point, so they cannot loathe themselves like this (or at least I hope they don’t). In this vacuum of responsibility, I’ve somehow gotten to the point where most of my waking hours belong to worrying about some kind of story.
At the same time, this is not an addiction. I cringe when writers compare their craft to addiction. A heroin addict shuffles out onto the street to satisfy dependency, perhaps with a glimmer of future pleasure, but he does not feel the obligation I do. I feel obliged to the work, the market I’m going to submit to, and to the audience I’d like to have. It is every bit as conscious as it is unconscious. Somewhere out there is a real writing addict who starves to death rather than leaving her keyboard. The rest of us make decisions.
I love stories, I love telling them, and I love reading the good ones. But I’m making the decision to stop for a while. I hope to only stop for a couple weeks. I doubt I’ll last that long – if you’re reading this, then I not only recorded it, but typed it up. Probably did a few drafts. I’ll lie in bed tonight thinking over the way the shapes of the paragraphs compliment each other.
I hope good sense will get me to take a deep break and that this break will fix things. Not a day off, because you don’t take a day off walking when you break your leg. When it heals, I’ll approach again and monitor myself so that I don’t go too far. I’m pretty sure I know what novel I’ll begin working on next, too. But for now, I’ve had a migraine for at least 36 hours and the sound of a door slamming causes my inner eardrum to spasm like someone is jabbing it with a pipe cleaner. I believe in karoshi.
Please take care of yourselves.
(As pertains to the Bathroom Monologues, they’re going to continue daily. Did you really think you could trust John? He’s written a few weeks of material in advance for this literary vacation. We hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave comments or start discussion below - he'd love your feedback.)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Indiviso
She showed me a room that looked more like a casino than a math lab. Hundreds of men and women in various conditions of dress, from underwear to lab coats to three-piece suits, worked busily on hulking laptops equipped with levers and jacked into four additional screens. Every so often somebody’s quad of screens would flash. They’d smile, then sink back into work like a gambler feeding quarters into the slots.
I asked, “What are they doing?”
Pi beamed at her flock of mathematicians. “We’re working on the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“You know,” she said, waving her middle and index fingers in what most people would consider the sign of the cross, though using the two fingers to her meant the pound sign. “ Life. The universe. Everything.”
Being someone who reads Douglas Adams and thinks himself too clever, I asked, “Have you tried forty-two?”
“Forty-two?” Her face wrinkled at me. “That’s divisible by at least four numbers. There’s no way that’s the answer.”
“The answer can’t be divisible by four numbers?”
“Realistically, it can’t be divided by any numbers. Not even itself. Otherwise we’d have calculated it by now.”
I knew enough math to disagree. “It’s not a number if it can’t be divided by itself.”
“It can be the unique number. The original number.” She made her pound sign again.
“We call it ‘Indiviso.’”
“So you figured it out?”
“No, just got the name ready for it. Naming stuff is way easier than getting to it. It’s probably not supposed to be conceivable.” She folded her arms and regarded the rows of mathematicians. Somebody's screen flashed gold, then went back to streams of binary. “But if it is, math is doing its half of the work.”
I asked, “What are they doing?”
Pi beamed at her flock of mathematicians. “We’re working on the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“You know,” she said, waving her middle and index fingers in what most people would consider the sign of the cross, though using the two fingers to her meant the pound sign. “ Life. The universe. Everything.”
Being someone who reads Douglas Adams and thinks himself too clever, I asked, “Have you tried forty-two?”
“Forty-two?” Her face wrinkled at me. “That’s divisible by at least four numbers. There’s no way that’s the answer.”
“The answer can’t be divisible by four numbers?”
“Realistically, it can’t be divided by any numbers. Not even itself. Otherwise we’d have calculated it by now.”
I knew enough math to disagree. “It’s not a number if it can’t be divided by itself.”
“It can be the unique number. The original number.” She made her pound sign again.
“We call it ‘Indiviso.’”
“So you figured it out?”
“No, just got the name ready for it. Naming stuff is way easier than getting to it. It’s probably not supposed to be conceivable.” She folded her arms and regarded the rows of mathematicians. Somebody's screen flashed gold, then went back to streams of binary. “But if it is, math is doing its half of the work.”
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Supernatural Warehouse
There is an audio edition of this monologue. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming audio, or click this text to download the MP3.
Shackled serial killers, revolutionaries in iron muzzles, lobotomized banshees, chemically sterilized succubi, single malt water elementals, and werewolves that only salivate when I ring the dinner bell. De-fanged vampires, de-horned unicorns, de-winged angels and demonized saints. Fire magi covered in sulfur, terminal necromancers, and wizards who are allowed to keep their wands but not their fingers. This prison is a warehouse and I am a catalog of torture and disaster. What would you like? A troll sun-dried into a permanent statue? A giant squid so thirsty its tentacles are cracking? I am positively overstocked on little prophetic children that can no longer tell the future because I’ve made them afraid to dream. Or perhaps you have a child – I have faeries that don’t believe in themselves, in both insecure and existential varieties. Perfect for pets. I’ll grant you some for profit, because money keeps my inventory full, but this is a place of research. I tell you that if there is a magic thing on this continent then I have it and have ruined it. Broken and alive. No formaldehyde, no mystical nonsense or textbook theory. I have everything ready for interview and experiment. You want your class to really know what ghosts are like? I’ve got ten haunted houses that owe me mortgages. Gryphons? Shrink at the sight of a whip and a birdcage. A golem or gargoyle? A closet full, filed down to the head so they can’t get away. I can get you anything from any book, compliant and whimpering. It’s all for knowledge.
Shackled serial killers, revolutionaries in iron muzzles, lobotomized banshees, chemically sterilized succubi, single malt water elementals, and werewolves that only salivate when I ring the dinner bell. De-fanged vampires, de-horned unicorns, de-winged angels and demonized saints. Fire magi covered in sulfur, terminal necromancers, and wizards who are allowed to keep their wands but not their fingers. This prison is a warehouse and I am a catalog of torture and disaster. What would you like? A troll sun-dried into a permanent statue? A giant squid so thirsty its tentacles are cracking? I am positively overstocked on little prophetic children that can no longer tell the future because I’ve made them afraid to dream. Or perhaps you have a child – I have faeries that don’t believe in themselves, in both insecure and existential varieties. Perfect for pets. I’ll grant you some for profit, because money keeps my inventory full, but this is a place of research. I tell you that if there is a magic thing on this continent then I have it and have ruined it. Broken and alive. No formaldehyde, no mystical nonsense or textbook theory. I have everything ready for interview and experiment. You want your class to really know what ghosts are like? I’ve got ten haunted houses that owe me mortgages. Gryphons? Shrink at the sight of a whip and a birdcage. A golem or gargoyle? A closet full, filed down to the head so they can’t get away. I can get you anything from any book, compliant and whimpering. It’s all for knowledge.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: From Early 2010
I close the windows and shut down the computer. It’s turned to night outside while I’ve been in here. With the monitor off, it’s dark. I fumble my way to the bathroom, finding the knob and shutting the door on a shitty ten minutes.
“In the last ten minutes,” I tell myself, “I have learned that the friend who survived brain surgery wound up with severe complications and may die. My grandmother definitely has cancer, is dangerously underweight, and her options are two different kinds of life-threatening procedures that probably won’t work. While she’s in the hospital, my mother is babysitting my senile grandfather in a house with no power and caught in a rainstorm. He gets violent sometimes. My blog’s gotten no comments today and I just got three rejection e-mails, from the three biggest contests and magazines I ever thought I had a real shot at. Those last things shouldn’t bother me so much right now. I’m kind of petty.”
“It has been a shitty ten minutes. The kind of ten minutes that makes me wish I’d gone the whole vacation offline. The kind that makes me wish I didn’t know how to read. These ten minutes will follow me around for days. There will be more tens of minutes; I’m in one now. I need to think of new tens. Better tens. Holding the doors open for grateful people, making friends laugh until they fall over, and earlier this year when I made my first big fiction sale. The ten minutes when I learned that she survived the surgery in the first place. The ten when Mom got the call that she didn’t have cancer. A million minutes harboring disasters dodged or simple positives, the latter being why I live.”
“In the last ten minutes,” I tell myself, “I have learned that the friend who survived brain surgery wound up with severe complications and may die. My grandmother definitely has cancer, is dangerously underweight, and her options are two different kinds of life-threatening procedures that probably won’t work. While she’s in the hospital, my mother is babysitting my senile grandfather in a house with no power and caught in a rainstorm. He gets violent sometimes. My blog’s gotten no comments today and I just got three rejection e-mails, from the three biggest contests and magazines I ever thought I had a real shot at. Those last things shouldn’t bother me so much right now. I’m kind of petty.”
“It has been a shitty ten minutes. The kind of ten minutes that makes me wish I’d gone the whole vacation offline. The kind that makes me wish I didn’t know how to read. These ten minutes will follow me around for days. There will be more tens of minutes; I’m in one now. I need to think of new tens. Better tens. Holding the doors open for grateful people, making friends laugh until they fall over, and earlier this year when I made my first big fiction sale. The ten minutes when I learned that she survived the surgery in the first place. The ten when Mom got the call that she didn’t have cancer. A million minutes harboring disasters dodged or simple positives, the latter being why I live.”
Friday, October 15, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins for Him. 7.
There is an audio edition of this monologue. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming it or click this text to download the MP3.
When I first heard there was a masked vigilante in town I was overjoyed. No more stringing along this rinky-dink corrupt and uninspired P.D. And when I heard he was going by “The Bat Man?” Fell down and wept on a fresh kill. Thank God, somebody campy as shit. A foil I could sink my teeth into.
He was after me within a week. Not me specifically – he thought I was four different criminals. I’m a professional and modus operendi isn’t that hard to fake at this level. Slew a newlywed couple near the harbor, like this particular serial killer was doing that summer. Even posed them on a cot, tastefully. Then I waited in the attic, with my gun and a view through the air vent.
He came in the window, floor length black cape draping behind him, and I drooped. His mask had devil horns, and he didn’t talk! No cavalier monologue, no procedural chatter. He was silent and grim and didn’t even smile as he stepped around my work. Why was his mouth the only exposed part of him if he wasn’t going to smile? The hero is bright, witty, handsome – he’s supposed to be good incarnate. This was an affront to all those Green Lanterns and Wonder Women. What worthwhile chase was I going to get out of this guy?
I almost shot him. Not only because he was trying to bring me to justice. Not only because he was dumb enough to wear body armor everywhere except his face. No, no, no. Because there are some things that are so wrong you can’t correct them straightforward. You’ve got to shake them. Agitate them. If his neck breaks while you’re trying to slap sense into him, at least you tried.
Had to do it myself. If the hero was going to be in black, I was going to be in Technicolor. If he was going to have a spooky bat on his chest, I’d wear a flower on my lapel. If he was going to glower, I’d wear the biggest smile he’d ever seen. I’d show him what he was doing wrong, become the light and laughter of this city while thinning its numbers.
A couple of wild cards at the scene of a crime, a couple of judges asphyxiated with laughing gas – I may have played it too strong. He was on me in three days. I let him chase me, my brooding foil, and made a discovery on the ledge of a building. He was very good at hand-to-hand – had his hand on my neck, my feet over a sheer drop. I had a gun to his chin and he wouldn’t let me go. The big, scary hero didn’t like killing! That’s the extent to which he wouldn’t steal the villain’s act.
That’s hypocrisy. Either he goes White Knight, or he joins my side. Doesn’t matter how many sidekicks I have to beat with a crowbar. He will either kill me and take my place, or he will get on his side of the line.
The Possible Origins for Him Archive.
When I first heard there was a masked vigilante in town I was overjoyed. No more stringing along this rinky-dink corrupt and uninspired P.D. And when I heard he was going by “The Bat Man?” Fell down and wept on a fresh kill. Thank God, somebody campy as shit. A foil I could sink my teeth into.
He was after me within a week. Not me specifically – he thought I was four different criminals. I’m a professional and modus operendi isn’t that hard to fake at this level. Slew a newlywed couple near the harbor, like this particular serial killer was doing that summer. Even posed them on a cot, tastefully. Then I waited in the attic, with my gun and a view through the air vent.
He came in the window, floor length black cape draping behind him, and I drooped. His mask had devil horns, and he didn’t talk! No cavalier monologue, no procedural chatter. He was silent and grim and didn’t even smile as he stepped around my work. Why was his mouth the only exposed part of him if he wasn’t going to smile? The hero is bright, witty, handsome – he’s supposed to be good incarnate. This was an affront to all those Green Lanterns and Wonder Women. What worthwhile chase was I going to get out of this guy?
I almost shot him. Not only because he was trying to bring me to justice. Not only because he was dumb enough to wear body armor everywhere except his face. No, no, no. Because there are some things that are so wrong you can’t correct them straightforward. You’ve got to shake them. Agitate them. If his neck breaks while you’re trying to slap sense into him, at least you tried.
Had to do it myself. If the hero was going to be in black, I was going to be in Technicolor. If he was going to have a spooky bat on his chest, I’d wear a flower on my lapel. If he was going to glower, I’d wear the biggest smile he’d ever seen. I’d show him what he was doing wrong, become the light and laughter of this city while thinning its numbers.
A couple of wild cards at the scene of a crime, a couple of judges asphyxiated with laughing gas – I may have played it too strong. He was on me in three days. I let him chase me, my brooding foil, and made a discovery on the ledge of a building. He was very good at hand-to-hand – had his hand on my neck, my feet over a sheer drop. I had a gun to his chin and he wouldn’t let me go. The big, scary hero didn’t like killing! That’s the extent to which he wouldn’t steal the villain’s act.
That’s hypocrisy. Either he goes White Knight, or he joins my side. Doesn’t matter how many sidekicks I have to beat with a crowbar. He will either kill me and take my place, or he will get on his side of the line.
The Possible Origins for Him Archive.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: They Shook Hands
They sat at the childrens table, bright yellow plastic, insultingly fake yet functional enough to eat tuna sandwiches upon. William had grape juice with his, while Annette had Mango Burst. This lunch was about proving things: that the electric can opener removed the need for wrist strength, and that the two of them could navigate to the top shelves of the refrigerator without an adult.
Annette proposed: “I clean the rooms and you do the laundry?”
They shook hands.
William proposed: "I do the paperwork and you answer the phone?"
They shook hands.
Annette proposed: "I do the cooking and you do the dishes?"
William filibustered: "I hate dishes."
Annette countered: "I hate that you burn everything."
"Hmm,” William deliberated. “So do I. Fine. Deal."
They shook hands.
Annette queried the floor: “Can you mow the lawn?”
William declared for the record: “Probably in a year if I get that growth spurt Mom was always promising. We can pay somebody to do it until then, though.”
Annette finished her orange juice and rubbed her sleeve over her lips. “Is that everything?”
“Yeah, I think we can get rid of them.”
Annette rose. As was his duty now, William gathered their dishes.
Annette proposed: “You get rid of Mom and I do Dad?”
They shook hands.
Annette proposed: “I clean the rooms and you do the laundry?”
They shook hands.
William proposed: "I do the paperwork and you answer the phone?"
They shook hands.
Annette proposed: "I do the cooking and you do the dishes?"
William filibustered: "I hate dishes."
Annette countered: "I hate that you burn everything."
"Hmm,” William deliberated. “So do I. Fine. Deal."
They shook hands.
Annette queried the floor: “Can you mow the lawn?”
William declared for the record: “Probably in a year if I get that growth spurt Mom was always promising. We can pay somebody to do it until then, though.”
Annette finished her orange juice and rubbed her sleeve over her lips. “Is that everything?”
“Yeah, I think we can get rid of them.”
Annette rose. As was his duty now, William gathered their dishes.
Annette proposed: “You get rid of Mom and I do Dad?”
They shook hands.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Top Ten Essential Zombie Movies
I saw a Top Ten Essential Movies list recently on a website far more popular than mine that will remain anonymous because their was asinine. What a weird idea for a list – we believe there are more than ten zombie movies that are essential, but we won’t tell you all of them, just these. But, good news: it inspired my own list of the Top Ten Essential Zombie Movies. Enjoy.
#1) The Night of the Living Dead. Made in 1968, it started the zombie craze. It did not invent zombies; they lurked in lore for centuries beforehand. It was not the first to employ all the tropes; even the vampires in Vincent Price’s Last Man on Earth (1964) were essentially zombies. But George Romero’s indy movie was the first essential one, exploding the zombie concept in popular consciousness. They were farm hands, house wives, businessmen, and even your brother. They were slow, nearly brainless, moved in groups, worked in day and night, and were out to eat us. They were the recent dead and, as revealed in a twist near the end, their condition might spread through bites. They overran our society and infiltrated public places, bringing Horror to Washington D.C and your porch. At first an individual, then a tense group, then two tense cooperating groups struggled to survive the onslaught, trapped in a place and then attempting escape. It is nearly every zombie movie ever made, done in ninety-six minutes.
Not #2) Return of the Living Dead. It added that zombies ate brains, directly responding to Night’s essence. It wasn’t essential for anything more than a running joke.
Not #3 & Not #4) 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) allowing zombies to run also did not change their essence. They responded to the essence, making the threat more imminent. All the essence of 28 Days Later is already in Night of the Living Dead; it innovates from there to be its own movie about the genre creature. Both of these are great zombie movies, quite suitable to a Ten Best list, but not suited to an Essential. These are the kinds of movies you see after the essentials and go, “Damn, things get better.”
It’s not #5, it’s actually #2) The next essential zombie to emerge was also a George Romero joint. His 1978 Dawn of the Dead took the zombie essence and added heavy social consciousness. Zombie + Satire. Night of the Living Dead had some cultural awareness, but it had nothing on Dawn. Dawn of the Dead waded into a mall, wielding montages of consumerism, and in the end arguing that the living were more brutal than the undead. When in Robert Kirkman’s superb comic, The Walking Dead, one character proclaims humans to be the monsters, he’s regurgitating Dawn’s essence. Romero firmly wedged himself into that kind of commentary, which pervaded all of his later zombie movies. He never added to the essence again.
Not #6) Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. It’s Not #6 because it’s both not essential and not a movie. I had to give it a shout out after the previous paragraph. It’s great, though, and the teasers for the AMC TV show look cracking. I have this space to waste because, really, there hasn’t been another essential zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead in 1978. Unless you count…
Not #7) Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 was the unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead. It was “unofficial” in a “How is this legal?” way. The European director ripped off Romero’s zombies and fed them to another continent of audiences in resplendent color and gore. It is beloved by Horror aficionados. It is also not essential because gore zombie cinema wasn’t new, gore in European cinema wasn’t new, and much to my chagrin, the Shark Vs. Zombie fight did not start a trend. It was a loving sequel to a movie, paying homage and extending elements that already existed. So again there hasn’t been another essential zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead in 1978. Unless you count…
It’s not #8, it’s actually #3) Shaun of the Dead. So Night of the Living Dead gave us nearly everything, and Dawn of the Dead gave us gore and the director’s opinions. But you know there’s something missing from that tally of the zombie essence: humor. That Shark Vs. Zombie fight from Zombi 2 is hilarious. The Return of the Dead movies also desperately tried to parody the zombie. But for a generation there was humor in the zombie zeitgeist that wasn’t reflected in film, that strain of humor that cooks up “zombie plans” and jokes about how easy it would be to outrun these things. They’re undead, they want to eat us, but at any moment you can snicker at how much less threatening these guys are than a wolfman. Shaun of the Dead crystallized that feeling. The semi-nerdy, semi-slacker backwash generation cast reflects the feeling of the modern zombie-loving audience. Zombies are mindless, but the survivors are morons – and morons you’d like to befriend. They have in-jokes, lead the zombies on distracting chases, and even when one of them gets infected, he’s chained up in a shack to be kept around for game night. It’s still easy to take zombies seriously, but there’s a ridiculous dimension to them as well. With these finally embedded in film you get hilarious things like Zombieland and Tokyo Zombie. Oh, what the Hell.
Not #9 & not # 10) Zombieland and Tokyo Zombie. They’re not essential, but they’re fun. They’re also America and Japan’s response to England’s Shaun of the Dead. Zombieland is obsessed with rules, while Tokyo Zombie is obsessed with jujitsu (and that knowing how to flip a guy makes you invulnerable to biting-based opponents). They are their own movies, just like 28 Days Later and Zombi 2. You may even like them better than the essentials. That doesn’t put them on some essential list, though. I enjoy the Spanish [REC] more than most of the essential zombie films and you don’t see it on this list. You won’t, either, because I’ve carelessly run out of slots.
#1) The Night of the Living Dead. Made in 1968, it started the zombie craze. It did not invent zombies; they lurked in lore for centuries beforehand. It was not the first to employ all the tropes; even the vampires in Vincent Price’s Last Man on Earth (1964) were essentially zombies. But George Romero’s indy movie was the first essential one, exploding the zombie concept in popular consciousness. They were farm hands, house wives, businessmen, and even your brother. They were slow, nearly brainless, moved in groups, worked in day and night, and were out to eat us. They were the recent dead and, as revealed in a twist near the end, their condition might spread through bites. They overran our society and infiltrated public places, bringing Horror to Washington D.C and your porch. At first an individual, then a tense group, then two tense cooperating groups struggled to survive the onslaught, trapped in a place and then attempting escape. It is nearly every zombie movie ever made, done in ninety-six minutes.
Not #2) Return of the Living Dead. It added that zombies ate brains, directly responding to Night’s essence. It wasn’t essential for anything more than a running joke.
Not #3 & Not #4) 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) allowing zombies to run also did not change their essence. They responded to the essence, making the threat more imminent. All the essence of 28 Days Later is already in Night of the Living Dead; it innovates from there to be its own movie about the genre creature. Both of these are great zombie movies, quite suitable to a Ten Best list, but not suited to an Essential. These are the kinds of movies you see after the essentials and go, “Damn, things get better.”
It’s not #5, it’s actually #2) The next essential zombie to emerge was also a George Romero joint. His 1978 Dawn of the Dead took the zombie essence and added heavy social consciousness. Zombie + Satire. Night of the Living Dead had some cultural awareness, but it had nothing on Dawn. Dawn of the Dead waded into a mall, wielding montages of consumerism, and in the end arguing that the living were more brutal than the undead. When in Robert Kirkman’s superb comic, The Walking Dead, one character proclaims humans to be the monsters, he’s regurgitating Dawn’s essence. Romero firmly wedged himself into that kind of commentary, which pervaded all of his later zombie movies. He never added to the essence again.
Not #6) Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. It’s Not #6 because it’s both not essential and not a movie. I had to give it a shout out after the previous paragraph. It’s great, though, and the teasers for the AMC TV show look cracking. I have this space to waste because, really, there hasn’t been another essential zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead in 1978. Unless you count…
Not #7) Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 was the unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead. It was “unofficial” in a “How is this legal?” way. The European director ripped off Romero’s zombies and fed them to another continent of audiences in resplendent color and gore. It is beloved by Horror aficionados. It is also not essential because gore zombie cinema wasn’t new, gore in European cinema wasn’t new, and much to my chagrin, the Shark Vs. Zombie fight did not start a trend. It was a loving sequel to a movie, paying homage and extending elements that already existed. So again there hasn’t been another essential zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead in 1978. Unless you count…
It’s not #8, it’s actually #3) Shaun of the Dead. So Night of the Living Dead gave us nearly everything, and Dawn of the Dead gave us gore and the director’s opinions. But you know there’s something missing from that tally of the zombie essence: humor. That Shark Vs. Zombie fight from Zombi 2 is hilarious. The Return of the Dead movies also desperately tried to parody the zombie. But for a generation there was humor in the zombie zeitgeist that wasn’t reflected in film, that strain of humor that cooks up “zombie plans” and jokes about how easy it would be to outrun these things. They’re undead, they want to eat us, but at any moment you can snicker at how much less threatening these guys are than a wolfman. Shaun of the Dead crystallized that feeling. The semi-nerdy, semi-slacker backwash generation cast reflects the feeling of the modern zombie-loving audience. Zombies are mindless, but the survivors are morons – and morons you’d like to befriend. They have in-jokes, lead the zombies on distracting chases, and even when one of them gets infected, he’s chained up in a shack to be kept around for game night. It’s still easy to take zombies seriously, but there’s a ridiculous dimension to them as well. With these finally embedded in film you get hilarious things like Zombieland and Tokyo Zombie. Oh, what the Hell.
Not #9 & not # 10) Zombieland and Tokyo Zombie. They’re not essential, but they’re fun. They’re also America and Japan’s response to England’s Shaun of the Dead. Zombieland is obsessed with rules, while Tokyo Zombie is obsessed with jujitsu (and that knowing how to flip a guy makes you invulnerable to biting-based opponents). They are their own movies, just like 28 Days Later and Zombi 2. You may even like them better than the essentials. That doesn’t put them on some essential list, though. I enjoy the Spanish [REC] more than most of the essential zombie films and you don’t see it on this list. You won’t, either, because I’ve carelessly run out of slots.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Little White Lies
No, nothing malicious. It was only a little white l--- uh. No. A little non-racial lie. Deceptions entirely devoid of ethnicity or gender. Tiny, minuscule lies with no bias against dwarfism. Tolerant, forward-thinking lies that embrace all people of all creeds. An entirely inoffensive lie with decisive religious neutrality – indeed, a religiously tolerant deception! A lie that cares not for the color of the lips it leaves or earlobes it enters, one that treats men and women equally and without discrimination for how much money they make. A lie, really a fib, that boldly embraces all childhoods and backgrounds, back credit histories and sexual persuasions. It was not the truth, but rest assured, it should have offended no one.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Castlevania Parody, OR, We Love Shelly
Once upon a time where was a barbarian named Belmont. He really hated vampires, like all barbarians do. Barbarians barely wear clothing, so they're very susceptible to vampire bites. This is the same reason most barbarians hate poison ivy.
Belmont looked at all the things vampires were vulnerable against. Sunlight. Holy water. Teen girls who want to show them how to love.
And he said, “Nah, I'll just use a whip.”
The first enemy he encountered was, sadly, not a vampire. It was Frankenstein's Monster.
Belmont said, "Wait, don't you live in Germany?"
The Monster said, "Eh, I was in the Arctic Circle at the end of the book."
"Then why are you in Romania?"
Frankenstein's Monster responded with a jab to the eye. Then they had a climactic boss battle.
The second monster he encountered was a mummy. Belmont worried he’d travelled too far south from his homeland and wound up in Egypt. While he looked outside to check for pyramids, the mummy sucker punched him in his good eye.
Then they had a climactic boss battle.
Afterwards Belmont iced his black eyes and reflected on the scenery. All the street signs were for Castlevania, not Transylvania. And it was pretty weird that the entire city was consumed in castle architecture. His travel book suggested Transylvania was much more modest.
But before he could reflect upon the sites any further, the screen started rising and he had to keep jumping to safety, even though what was three feet below the screen was totally safe flooring. Neither barbarians nor ten-year-olds playing NES understand game design.
When he got to the top of the tower, he encountered the Grim Reaper.
"Wait," said Belmont. "Aren't you several magnitudes of order more powerful than Dracula? What the fuck, man?
The Grim Reaper shrugged.
"Guy's got to have a hobby."
Then they had a climactic boss battle. Afterwards, Belmont was very sad he didn't get to keep the Reaper's sweet scythe. He guess he understood it, though. The Reaper would need it for every ensuing sequel to this wacky series.
Finally Belmont arrived at Dracula's abode. The lord of the vampires was hiding in one room at the very top of the castle, ironically full of windows.
Belmont almost entered to charge him head-on. Then he realized that would be stupid.
Instead he waited for dawn and kicked in the door. Dracula burned to death in seconds.
"That was easy,” he said. He briefly reflected that cheap tricks like this might curse him to perpetually fight this guy in every game for the next decade. That could get old.
He told himself, "At least I'll get a reprieve when they put me in Smash Brothers."
Somewhere the ghost of Nintendo laughed and gave him the finger.
Belmont looked at all the things vampires were vulnerable against. Sunlight. Holy water. Teen girls who want to show them how to love.
And he said, “Nah, I'll just use a whip.”
The first enemy he encountered was, sadly, not a vampire. It was Frankenstein's Monster.
Belmont said, "Wait, don't you live in Germany?"
The Monster said, "Eh, I was in the Arctic Circle at the end of the book."
"Then why are you in Romania?"
Frankenstein's Monster responded with a jab to the eye. Then they had a climactic boss battle.
The second monster he encountered was a mummy. Belmont worried he’d travelled too far south from his homeland and wound up in Egypt. While he looked outside to check for pyramids, the mummy sucker punched him in his good eye.
Then they had a climactic boss battle.
Afterwards Belmont iced his black eyes and reflected on the scenery. All the street signs were for Castlevania, not Transylvania. And it was pretty weird that the entire city was consumed in castle architecture. His travel book suggested Transylvania was much more modest.
But before he could reflect upon the sites any further, the screen started rising and he had to keep jumping to safety, even though what was three feet below the screen was totally safe flooring. Neither barbarians nor ten-year-olds playing NES understand game design.
When he got to the top of the tower, he encountered the Grim Reaper.
"Wait," said Belmont. "Aren't you several magnitudes of order more powerful than Dracula? What the fuck, man?
The Grim Reaper shrugged.
"Guy's got to have a hobby."
Then they had a climactic boss battle. Afterwards, Belmont was very sad he didn't get to keep the Reaper's sweet scythe. He guess he understood it, though. The Reaper would need it for every ensuing sequel to this wacky series.
Finally Belmont arrived at Dracula's abode. The lord of the vampires was hiding in one room at the very top of the castle, ironically full of windows.
Belmont almost entered to charge him head-on. Then he realized that would be stupid.
Instead he waited for dawn and kicked in the door. Dracula burned to death in seconds.
"That was easy,” he said. He briefly reflected that cheap tricks like this might curse him to perpetually fight this guy in every game for the next decade. That could get old.
He told himself, "At least I'll get a reprieve when they put me in Smash Brothers."
Somewhere the ghost of Nintendo laughed and gave him the finger.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins For Him. 6.
You can listen to today's story two ways. Click the triangle to the left to begin streaming audio, or click this text to download the MP3. Enjoy!
I was born ugly. Not a cleft pallet or flat nose or some tabloid rack batboy. I gurgled up at my mother and she sobbed. Doctors had to perform so much surgery just to keep me breathing that cosmetics were out of the question. They left my crib in the basement, under a narrow window. I'm told I didn't cry much. I bled instead. They wrapped me in newspapers because the blankets became too unsanitary to wash. I think they were underestimating the washing machine – it was sturdy. I spent a lot of time with it, testing what would break apart or perish tumbling inside. Me, the washer, dryer, and boxes of things they didn't want.
I learned to escape the crib early. They’d forget to feed me some days, and others, a kid gets bored of lying in his own scabs. Scaled down a landslide of National Geographics and Gotham Gazettes. Learned to read from them. Learned where the jugular was from them, too. You never think about how surroundings influence you like that until you realize all those precious papers have gone up in flames with the rest of the house. I’m still a little absentminded like that. I was so afraid to leave home, so afraid everyone else in the world would want me in a basement that I tried not to think about it all. Departure was simple necessity – you can’t stay in town once you’ve locked your parents downstairs and set a fire. I had my little hoodie up the whole ride to the city, to avoid identification, and judgment.
Nobody tells you how hot it is in a city train station. I was used to the cool of underground. There, it was like steam in thin air. My face felt like it was falling apart. I pulled the hoodie down on the escalator and held my breath. A couple glanced at me. An old lady shrieked. I came up to the top and saw this black man playing a guitar. He was jumping around and laughing to solicit change. He saw the couple, and the old lady, and all the people staring at this new act. He looked at me, and his showman smile went away. I know where it went. I caught it between my teeth, and I’ve never let it get away.
I was born ugly. Not a cleft pallet or flat nose or some tabloid rack batboy. I gurgled up at my mother and she sobbed. Doctors had to perform so much surgery just to keep me breathing that cosmetics were out of the question. They left my crib in the basement, under a narrow window. I'm told I didn't cry much. I bled instead. They wrapped me in newspapers because the blankets became too unsanitary to wash. I think they were underestimating the washing machine – it was sturdy. I spent a lot of time with it, testing what would break apart or perish tumbling inside. Me, the washer, dryer, and boxes of things they didn't want.
I learned to escape the crib early. They’d forget to feed me some days, and others, a kid gets bored of lying in his own scabs. Scaled down a landslide of National Geographics and Gotham Gazettes. Learned to read from them. Learned where the jugular was from them, too. You never think about how surroundings influence you like that until you realize all those precious papers have gone up in flames with the rest of the house. I’m still a little absentminded like that. I was so afraid to leave home, so afraid everyone else in the world would want me in a basement that I tried not to think about it all. Departure was simple necessity – you can’t stay in town once you’ve locked your parents downstairs and set a fire. I had my little hoodie up the whole ride to the city, to avoid identification, and judgment.
Nobody tells you how hot it is in a city train station. I was used to the cool of underground. There, it was like steam in thin air. My face felt like it was falling apart. I pulled the hoodie down on the escalator and held my breath. A couple glanced at me. An old lady shrieked. I came up to the top and saw this black man playing a guitar. He was jumping around and laughing to solicit change. He saw the couple, and the old lady, and all the people staring at this new act. He looked at me, and his showman smile went away. I know where it went. I caught it between my teeth, and I’ve never let it get away.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Eight Questions
This week Anthony Venutolo tagged me with eight questions. Below are my answers.
1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?
Hulk powers. Oh my God, Hulk powers! Get angry, destroy everything, solve everything with thoughtless brute force. I don't know why Banner is sad all the time. I would gladly trade all my intellect for the ability to kick a bridge over for traffic being too slow.
2. Who is your style icon?
Eudora Welty. She’d write whatever style she pleased. Which is my way of weaseling out of having a style icon, because there isn’t one iconic style I cherish over all others.
I hope you mean writing-wise. Clothing-wise? Let’s got with the Hulk again. Tattered purple pants. Very macho.
3. What is your favorite quote?
It changes routinely. At present it’s from Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, put into the mouth of Isaac Jaffe:
"If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you."
Sorkin is unparalleled for quotability in modern TV and film.
4. What is the best compliment you've ever received?
In high school I was sent to a writing conference at this Community College. This felt huge for me, and I loved all the panels I attended. The last was a workshop with an author of Holocaust memoirs. I brought two things: a gratuitously violent action story, and a love poem to my imaginary girlfriend. When it was my turn, I suddenly realized there was no way I could read something violent in front of this man. So I pulled out the poem. When I looked up from the page every girl in the room was looking at me, which was very unusual at the time (still is), and the author smiled at me.
“You should share that with her,” he said.
He looked so knowing, so sure of himself and happy at this little writer boy in front of him. None of them had an inkling she wasn’t real and judging me invasively, if approvingly. That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.
5. What playlist/CD is in your CD player/iPod right now?
In the car it's Lettuce's "Outta Here" and "Rage!" Two of the very few albums I listen to in their entirety. I’m a terrible song miner.
On the computer I've been listening to every version of the theme from Jon Carpenter's Halloween I can find. Tyler Bates did some great tinkering on it. It’s that time of year.
6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?
Natural night owl. Even as a kid I loved New Years Eve and being allowed to stay up late into the night. I wrote most of my first novel after dark. Trying to force myself into becoming an early riser, just because it's more convenient to be on civilization's clock.
7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?
Cats. They are on average smaller and thus take less time to bury.
8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?
It’s the creation story for this place. Back in college I was afraid I was losing my creative drive by focusing so acutely on assigned topics. So whenever I got up from the textbook or computer to use the bathroom, I’d improvise a monologue related to anything other than what I was working on. If I’m studying 1800s American politics, then it can be about orcs and dishware. If I’m studying Kafka, then it can be about the Three Stooges. I’d keep it up until I returned to the computer. Bathroom Monologues. Sometimes I’d type them up and IM them to friends. That’s the tradition I uphold here at the writing desk, while working on short stories and novels.
In keeping with the game, I'll now pass these questions on to Karen Schindler. Tag!
1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?
Hulk powers. Oh my God, Hulk powers! Get angry, destroy everything, solve everything with thoughtless brute force. I don't know why Banner is sad all the time. I would gladly trade all my intellect for the ability to kick a bridge over for traffic being too slow.
2. Who is your style icon?
Eudora Welty. She’d write whatever style she pleased. Which is my way of weaseling out of having a style icon, because there isn’t one iconic style I cherish over all others.
I hope you mean writing-wise. Clothing-wise? Let’s got with the Hulk again. Tattered purple pants. Very macho.
3. What is your favorite quote?
It changes routinely. At present it’s from Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, put into the mouth of Isaac Jaffe:
"If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you."
Sorkin is unparalleled for quotability in modern TV and film.
4. What is the best compliment you've ever received?
In high school I was sent to a writing conference at this Community College. This felt huge for me, and I loved all the panels I attended. The last was a workshop with an author of Holocaust memoirs. I brought two things: a gratuitously violent action story, and a love poem to my imaginary girlfriend. When it was my turn, I suddenly realized there was no way I could read something violent in front of this man. So I pulled out the poem. When I looked up from the page every girl in the room was looking at me, which was very unusual at the time (still is), and the author smiled at me.
“You should share that with her,” he said.
He looked so knowing, so sure of himself and happy at this little writer boy in front of him. None of them had an inkling she wasn’t real and judging me invasively, if approvingly. That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.
5. What playlist/CD is in your CD player/iPod right now?
In the car it's Lettuce's "Outta Here" and "Rage!" Two of the very few albums I listen to in their entirety. I’m a terrible song miner.
On the computer I've been listening to every version of the theme from Jon Carpenter's Halloween I can find. Tyler Bates did some great tinkering on it. It’s that time of year.
6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?
Natural night owl. Even as a kid I loved New Years Eve and being allowed to stay up late into the night. I wrote most of my first novel after dark. Trying to force myself into becoming an early riser, just because it's more convenient to be on civilization's clock.
7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?
Cats. They are on average smaller and thus take less time to bury.
8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?
It’s the creation story for this place. Back in college I was afraid I was losing my creative drive by focusing so acutely on assigned topics. So whenever I got up from the textbook or computer to use the bathroom, I’d improvise a monologue related to anything other than what I was working on. If I’m studying 1800s American politics, then it can be about orcs and dishware. If I’m studying Kafka, then it can be about the Three Stooges. I’d keep it up until I returned to the computer. Bathroom Monologues. Sometimes I’d type them up and IM them to friends. That’s the tradition I uphold here at the writing desk, while working on short stories and novels.
In keeping with the game, I'll now pass these questions on to Karen Schindler. Tag!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Ghost Dancer
“Come on!” Anne called, waving her sister over. “Lawrence’s sweethearting with a ghost.”
Patricia and Anne crept under his window. They hid behind the shadow of his flatscreen monitor. Outside it was pitch black, contrasting against his lit bedroom.
All he had were the computer and the bed, but you’d look at Lawrence no matter what else was around. He was 6’4” at 17 years old, and puberty still hadn’t given him enough fat or muscle to carry the height. He was a scrawny giant, with long legs and fingers. A human scarecrow. There was something wrong with his right knee, such that he couldn’t help but walk awkward. It was like God left a KICK-ME sign on his back.
But there was something more to look at tonight. His bed was pushed to one corner, leaving the floor empty. He stood the straightest they’d ever seen him, hands extended in front of him, holding nothing. One was low, where a woman’s hip might be, while the other was high, as though on a shoulder. His bad leg led him two steps here, then pivoting and taking two steps there.
Anne canted her head. “I think he’s waltzing with her.”
Patricia looked from Lawrence to Anne and back again, like this would share whatever the other two were seeing.
“Waltzing with who? I think he’s going mad.”
“No.” Anne rested her elbows on the windowsill, watching Lawrence dreamily. “He’s dancing with a ghost girl.”
Patricia scrunched up her forehead. “There’s nobody there.”
“Dunce, she’s transcendent.” Anne waggled her nose in the air, glorying in this bit of vocabulary. “Can’t you see her gown? It’s frilly, like Nana’s curtains. He keeps almost stepping on it.”
Patricia focused on her brother’s feet. They shuffled deliberately – either he was neurotic, or was trying to avoid somebody’s feet. She glanced up and saw his lips moving.
“Is he whispering to himself?”
“Poor Lawrence.” Anne sighed at the sky. It was nighttime in Heaven. “He was so lonely that he found a girl from beyond the grave.”
“That’s crazy.” Patricia pushed her. “Crazy’s what he’s doing. Dancing all alone.”
Lawrence looked at the window and both of them ducked behind the monitor. They were grateful that Dad had gotten him a widescreen for Christmas. The two girls stayed down, not even breathing for fear it would give them away. When the window didn’t clatter open, the sisters peered at each other.
Patricia pinched Anne on the shoulder. “Tell me you didn’t really see anyone.”
“I did, too.” Anne sucked her lips inward, turning her mouth into an angry line. “She’s ravishing. I’m happy for him.”
“There’s nobody there. Come on.”
They rose just high enough for their eyes to peek over the sill. Lawrence was still dancing in an ugly square with his invisible bride. His hands were stable, even if his right leg kept trembling for position. He was definitely mouthing something.
“I’m looking,” said Anne. “I see the prettiest girl in the world. She’s got blonde hair, braided like Mom won’t let me do mine. And her eyes are like the moon. I think he’s talking to her.”
“He’s talking to himself. Besides, ghosts wouldn’t look like that. They’re dead.”
“Well what do they look like?”
Patricia folded her arms. “Like nothing.”
“If you don’t see anything, and ghosts look like nothing, then how isn’t she a ghost?”
Patricia was a year older, but that only made her eleven. It didn’t give her a good answer. She watched the nothing-girl in her brother’s arms. The absence of a bosom pressed to his chest, and the absence of legs matching his steps. The nothingness that hesitated just as long as his bad knee did, matching his strides and following his lead. Even if she wasn’t there, she was more elegant than he was. It was nice for him to get such a dance partner.
She squeezed her eyes closed.
“Maybe I’m crazier than he is.”
She opened them to find Anne glaring at her with pure ethereal intensity. It was like Anne saw ghosts in her now.
“Don’t you call him crazy. He found love.”
“I’ll call you crazy. And so what?” she said with the conviction of the convert. “You think he’s got a ghost girlfriend. Either he’s gone mad or gone wizard.”
“Necromancy? Oh, that’s unnatural. I thought maybe she came to him.” Anne’s fire was doused. Her eyes blinked and flickered in worry. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Maybe we can ask to meet her, and talk it out.”
“You can’t ask to meet your brother’s ghost girlfriend.” Anne shook her head so rapidly it almost gave away their location. “It might break the spell.”
“Or get you committed.”
Lawrence’s great shadow approached the window. This time they darted away altogether, not wanting to be caught by his phantom lover or whatever virus was eating his brain stem. They hid under the porch and prayed he wasn’t an evil wizard now.
“One, two, three,” he repeated to himself. “One, two, three.”
He didn’t even notice them. Lawrence bent over the monitor and clicked a Related Video, starting up the next Waltz practice on Youtube. He’d get this eventually. He was glad nobody ever saw him practice this. He couldn’t imagine what it looked like.
Patricia and Anne crept under his window. They hid behind the shadow of his flatscreen monitor. Outside it was pitch black, contrasting against his lit bedroom.
All he had were the computer and the bed, but you’d look at Lawrence no matter what else was around. He was 6’4” at 17 years old, and puberty still hadn’t given him enough fat or muscle to carry the height. He was a scrawny giant, with long legs and fingers. A human scarecrow. There was something wrong with his right knee, such that he couldn’t help but walk awkward. It was like God left a KICK-ME sign on his back.
But there was something more to look at tonight. His bed was pushed to one corner, leaving the floor empty. He stood the straightest they’d ever seen him, hands extended in front of him, holding nothing. One was low, where a woman’s hip might be, while the other was high, as though on a shoulder. His bad leg led him two steps here, then pivoting and taking two steps there.
Anne canted her head. “I think he’s waltzing with her.”
Patricia looked from Lawrence to Anne and back again, like this would share whatever the other two were seeing.
“Waltzing with who? I think he’s going mad.”
“No.” Anne rested her elbows on the windowsill, watching Lawrence dreamily. “He’s dancing with a ghost girl.”
Patricia scrunched up her forehead. “There’s nobody there.”
“Dunce, she’s transcendent.” Anne waggled her nose in the air, glorying in this bit of vocabulary. “Can’t you see her gown? It’s frilly, like Nana’s curtains. He keeps almost stepping on it.”
Patricia focused on her brother’s feet. They shuffled deliberately – either he was neurotic, or was trying to avoid somebody’s feet. She glanced up and saw his lips moving.
“Is he whispering to himself?”
“Poor Lawrence.” Anne sighed at the sky. It was nighttime in Heaven. “He was so lonely that he found a girl from beyond the grave.”
“That’s crazy.” Patricia pushed her. “Crazy’s what he’s doing. Dancing all alone.”
Lawrence looked at the window and both of them ducked behind the monitor. They were grateful that Dad had gotten him a widescreen for Christmas. The two girls stayed down, not even breathing for fear it would give them away. When the window didn’t clatter open, the sisters peered at each other.
Patricia pinched Anne on the shoulder. “Tell me you didn’t really see anyone.”
“I did, too.” Anne sucked her lips inward, turning her mouth into an angry line. “She’s ravishing. I’m happy for him.”
“There’s nobody there. Come on.”
They rose just high enough for their eyes to peek over the sill. Lawrence was still dancing in an ugly square with his invisible bride. His hands were stable, even if his right leg kept trembling for position. He was definitely mouthing something.
“I’m looking,” said Anne. “I see the prettiest girl in the world. She’s got blonde hair, braided like Mom won’t let me do mine. And her eyes are like the moon. I think he’s talking to her.”
“He’s talking to himself. Besides, ghosts wouldn’t look like that. They’re dead.”
“Well what do they look like?”
Patricia folded her arms. “Like nothing.”
“If you don’t see anything, and ghosts look like nothing, then how isn’t she a ghost?”
Patricia was a year older, but that only made her eleven. It didn’t give her a good answer. She watched the nothing-girl in her brother’s arms. The absence of a bosom pressed to his chest, and the absence of legs matching his steps. The nothingness that hesitated just as long as his bad knee did, matching his strides and following his lead. Even if she wasn’t there, she was more elegant than he was. It was nice for him to get such a dance partner.
She squeezed her eyes closed.
“Maybe I’m crazier than he is.”
She opened them to find Anne glaring at her with pure ethereal intensity. It was like Anne saw ghosts in her now.
“Don’t you call him crazy. He found love.”
“I’ll call you crazy. And so what?” she said with the conviction of the convert. “You think he’s got a ghost girlfriend. Either he’s gone mad or gone wizard.”
“Necromancy? Oh, that’s unnatural. I thought maybe she came to him.” Anne’s fire was doused. Her eyes blinked and flickered in worry. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Maybe we can ask to meet her, and talk it out.”
“You can’t ask to meet your brother’s ghost girlfriend.” Anne shook her head so rapidly it almost gave away their location. “It might break the spell.”
“Or get you committed.”
Lawrence’s great shadow approached the window. This time they darted away altogether, not wanting to be caught by his phantom lover or whatever virus was eating his brain stem. They hid under the porch and prayed he wasn’t an evil wizard now.
“One, two, three,” he repeated to himself. “One, two, three.”
He didn’t even notice them. Lawrence bent over the monitor and clicked a Related Video, starting up the next Waltz practice on Youtube. He’d get this eventually. He was glad nobody ever saw him practice this. He couldn’t imagine what it looked like.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Grudges
He will cross the state to pick you up when you’ve got nothing left but a hard luck story and your boxers.
She won’t even answer the phone, though the porch light will be on when you drive up.
You are always acutely aware that you’re supposed to do something in their mutual presence, but you’ve never figured out what.
He will forget you blasphemed his Savior two days later.
She will remember you left the toilet seat up two years later.
You are very careful in their bathroom. You once splashed a little water from the sink and made sure to dry it with your shirt to avoid soiling any linens. You noticed her changing the towels five minutes later.
He still reads comic books (Wolverine rules).
She reads James Patterson, but can and will quote Schopenhauer if you piss her off.
You cannot remember what you did to piss her off, but she has seemed pissed off for as long as you’ve known her.
He says she’s got no problem with you.
She says she’s got no problem with you.
You’ve woken up in their guest room multiple times to find the door locked from the outside.
She spends nine hours cooking Thanksgiving supper and talks for two more hours before she lets anybody eat.
He eats Pop Tarts (cherry) straight from the shiny package.
You wonder what the conversations are like after you leave.
He will spend all afternoon in the garage, fixing an engine that works fine. He will claim nothing is wrong.
She will drive to every fertility clinic and seminar possible for an answer.
You wonder if (somehow) she believes you two hanging out is causing this.
She would throw a lamp at you if you asked that.
He’s pretty sure she would, anyway. He’ll be right back – he has to look for the key to this stupid door, but you can climb out through the window if it takes too long.
You wonder, sometimes, how their marriage has lasted.
He gets quiet, but he always does what she asks.
She always buys more of those Pop Tarts.
She won’t even answer the phone, though the porch light will be on when you drive up.
You are always acutely aware that you’re supposed to do something in their mutual presence, but you’ve never figured out what.
He will forget you blasphemed his Savior two days later.
She will remember you left the toilet seat up two years later.
You are very careful in their bathroom. You once splashed a little water from the sink and made sure to dry it with your shirt to avoid soiling any linens. You noticed her changing the towels five minutes later.
He still reads comic books (Wolverine rules).
She reads James Patterson, but can and will quote Schopenhauer if you piss her off.
You cannot remember what you did to piss her off, but she has seemed pissed off for as long as you’ve known her.
He says she’s got no problem with you.
She says she’s got no problem with you.
You’ve woken up in their guest room multiple times to find the door locked from the outside.
She spends nine hours cooking Thanksgiving supper and talks for two more hours before she lets anybody eat.
He eats Pop Tarts (cherry) straight from the shiny package.
You wonder what the conversations are like after you leave.
He will spend all afternoon in the garage, fixing an engine that works fine. He will claim nothing is wrong.
She will drive to every fertility clinic and seminar possible for an answer.
You wonder if (somehow) she believes you two hanging out is causing this.
She would throw a lamp at you if you asked that.
He’s pretty sure she would, anyway. He’ll be right back – he has to look for the key to this stupid door, but you can climb out through the window if it takes too long.
You wonder, sometimes, how their marriage has lasted.
He gets quiet, but he always does what she asks.
She always buys more of those Pop Tarts.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: To The Door
To listen to today's monologue either click the triangle to the left to begin streaming audio, or click this text to download the MP3. Enjoy me going silly for seventy-one seconds.
A word of warning: what you are about to see cannot happen. It can never have happened. It will not happen. It is nevertheless real. Everything beyond this door is one-hundred-and-one percent true and nothing will change that. But these things do not happen. Every member of tonight’s audience must concede that on any day of the year that everything they will see tonight is impossible. You swear its oath when you get up for work in the morning, and have low-fat lunches, and fall in love, and grow old and turn to dust. There are things that we as a society agree do not happen. It is for the sake of productivity, efficiency, and other fine traits that make men build doors. For your sanity and my liability I insist that you concede that what you are about to see is true and truly not happening. If you cannot concede it, cannot concede without first seeing what cannot lie beyond this door, then I must ask you to take your refund and return to the parking lot. To those who make concessions to what cannot be, though, I invite you: ladies and gentlemen, to the door.
A word of warning: what you are about to see cannot happen. It can never have happened. It will not happen. It is nevertheless real. Everything beyond this door is one-hundred-and-one percent true and nothing will change that. But these things do not happen. Every member of tonight’s audience must concede that on any day of the year that everything they will see tonight is impossible. You swear its oath when you get up for work in the morning, and have low-fat lunches, and fall in love, and grow old and turn to dust. There are things that we as a society agree do not happen. It is for the sake of productivity, efficiency, and other fine traits that make men build doors. For your sanity and my liability I insist that you concede that what you are about to see is true and truly not happening. If you cannot concede it, cannot concede without first seeing what cannot lie beyond this door, then I must ask you to take your refund and return to the parking lot. To those who make concessions to what cannot be, though, I invite you: ladies and gentlemen, to the door.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Gay Marriage in ______
I didn't think gay marriage was plausible before. My mind changed on a recent trip to ___, one of the few states where it is legal. I came adequately prepared, with a diving suit, several tanks of compressed air and dehydrated food. It was cumbersome to walk the streets in that suit, and further cumbersome to see couples happily walking along the streets without such equipment. They were all heterosexual couples, or people so old and dried out that any sex life between them, hetero or homosexual, was a wishful illusion. At first I wondered where the packs of roving gay couples were, but then something else caught my attention.
The roads were freshly paved and most buildings were in good repair. I checked into a corner bookstore to find the new Jimmy Carter and Stephanie Meyer. The Social Network and Let Me In were playing at the movies. It appeared new outside-world products were still travelling into ___. And though I was deprived of smell within the suit, all food served in street-side cafes appeared fresh and unspoiled.
Then a terrifying thing transpired. The helmet disrupted my peripheral vision and, attempting a crosswalk, I was nearly bowled over by a delivery truck. I tumbled to safety in a gutter, where my sleeve snagged a grate. It tore. I clutched at my neck, preparing to choke to death on _____'s tainted atmosphere. My air hissed out, while ____’s air seeped in silently. I closed my eyes and prepared for death.
To my surprise, I did not die. I lay in the gutter for half an hour before realizing that the atmosphere of ___ was relatively potable to a foreigner. I removed my helmet, though I kept a pair of goggles and a spare oxygen tank just in case. I rested beneath some oak trees. They had turned as orange as any other place in the country. I reflected upon them, and all the other samenesses of this place where gay marriage was legal. Two Hispanics jogged by in sweatpants, one man and one woman, chugging along as though they had no idea that alternative lifestyles were available. They breathed heavily and did not die. They seemed entirely unimpeded. It was then I decided that yes, gay marriage could happen, if only because its occurrence would affect so little else that most natives wouldn’t even notice.
The roads were freshly paved and most buildings were in good repair. I checked into a corner bookstore to find the new Jimmy Carter and Stephanie Meyer. The Social Network and Let Me In were playing at the movies. It appeared new outside-world products were still travelling into ___. And though I was deprived of smell within the suit, all food served in street-side cafes appeared fresh and unspoiled.
Then a terrifying thing transpired. The helmet disrupted my peripheral vision and, attempting a crosswalk, I was nearly bowled over by a delivery truck. I tumbled to safety in a gutter, where my sleeve snagged a grate. It tore. I clutched at my neck, preparing to choke to death on _____'s tainted atmosphere. My air hissed out, while ____’s air seeped in silently. I closed my eyes and prepared for death.
To my surprise, I did not die. I lay in the gutter for half an hour before realizing that the atmosphere of ___ was relatively potable to a foreigner. I removed my helmet, though I kept a pair of goggles and a spare oxygen tank just in case. I rested beneath some oak trees. They had turned as orange as any other place in the country. I reflected upon them, and all the other samenesses of this place where gay marriage was legal. Two Hispanics jogged by in sweatpants, one man and one woman, chugging along as though they had no idea that alternative lifestyles were available. They breathed heavily and did not die. They seemed entirely unimpeded. It was then I decided that yes, gay marriage could happen, if only because its occurrence would affect so little else that most natives wouldn’t even notice.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Burden of Proof
Five hours into the debate the philosophers invented "Burden of Proof." Though records differ, the first draft of the "Burden of Proof" went something like this:
"You prove it!"
"No, you!"
Fifteen motions later, the concept of “Burden of Proof” was established as something like this:
"One party has the burden of providing substantial evidence for the veracity of its position."
However, it took fifty more motions to extract, "and that party is the other side" from their definitions.
The idea was never introduced to find the truth. It's not even mentioned in historical record what the philosophers were debating that night. Truth has very little to do with debates, after all. If there was a truth that could be got at through them, it would be clubbed, caged and wheeled out on stage. One debater would get the blue ribbon and go home cocksure.
Debating then, as now, was about charisma, showmanship, the appearance of logical complexity, and sounding clever. Either side in an elite-level debate could make a convincing argument no matter his side. For government? Look at the evils of corporations in need of regulation, and the abuse of warlords in states without police. Against government? Look at the evils of government that don't regulate themselves properly, and the abuse of power by police. For the rich, against religion, the ancients were smarter, the internet is making us dumber - the skilled debater, then and now, could champion either side and was raised to be able to embrace whatever platform was profitable.
What the philosophers invented that day was a substantial weapon in debate. “Burden of Proof” meant the other side had to prove its case or your side won by default. That day it went much as it does today:
"You've got a position. Prove it beyond my ability to object or you're wrong."
To which the second party replied, as anyone can and usually does in different words:
"By opposing my position you have also taken a position, and since I believe my position I don’t see it as a position at all but merely the truth, and if you do not prove your position beyond my ability to object, then you are wrong by default."
"No, you!" follows shortly thereafter, usually in different words.
On that campus, as today, Burden of Proof didn't matter. It didn't matter if things were unprovable - they hadn't even invented the clock, so couldn't prove what time something happened, and just like today, most events went unfilmed and unwitnessed, and therefore were also next to unprovable. But that Burden of Proof was a great wedge in the mouths of either side. Accuse with it, then dig it in with all your charisma, showmanship and ability to sound clever.
We don't know what those debaters were arguing over. We do know, though, how the audience voted. One hundred and four students of the campus were in the pews that evening. They were compelled to check 'For' or 'Against' the motion of the evening on their way in. 58 were For, 46 were Against. On their way out they were compelled to again check their positions on the matter, in a primitive attempt at polling. The poll found 58 were For, and 46 were Against. This suggests to some that public debates, then as now, were mostly for the entertainment of the already convinced.
Hard to prove it, though.
"You prove it!"
"No, you!"
Fifteen motions later, the concept of “Burden of Proof” was established as something like this:
"One party has the burden of providing substantial evidence for the veracity of its position."
However, it took fifty more motions to extract, "and that party is the other side" from their definitions.
The idea was never introduced to find the truth. It's not even mentioned in historical record what the philosophers were debating that night. Truth has very little to do with debates, after all. If there was a truth that could be got at through them, it would be clubbed, caged and wheeled out on stage. One debater would get the blue ribbon and go home cocksure.
Debating then, as now, was about charisma, showmanship, the appearance of logical complexity, and sounding clever. Either side in an elite-level debate could make a convincing argument no matter his side. For government? Look at the evils of corporations in need of regulation, and the abuse of warlords in states without police. Against government? Look at the evils of government that don't regulate themselves properly, and the abuse of power by police. For the rich, against religion, the ancients were smarter, the internet is making us dumber - the skilled debater, then and now, could champion either side and was raised to be able to embrace whatever platform was profitable.
What the philosophers invented that day was a substantial weapon in debate. “Burden of Proof” meant the other side had to prove its case or your side won by default. That day it went much as it does today:
"You've got a position. Prove it beyond my ability to object or you're wrong."
To which the second party replied, as anyone can and usually does in different words:
"By opposing my position you have also taken a position, and since I believe my position I don’t see it as a position at all but merely the truth, and if you do not prove your position beyond my ability to object, then you are wrong by default."
"No, you!" follows shortly thereafter, usually in different words.
On that campus, as today, Burden of Proof didn't matter. It didn't matter if things were unprovable - they hadn't even invented the clock, so couldn't prove what time something happened, and just like today, most events went unfilmed and unwitnessed, and therefore were also next to unprovable. But that Burden of Proof was a great wedge in the mouths of either side. Accuse with it, then dig it in with all your charisma, showmanship and ability to sound clever.
We don't know what those debaters were arguing over. We do know, though, how the audience voted. One hundred and four students of the campus were in the pews that evening. They were compelled to check 'For' or 'Against' the motion of the evening on their way in. 58 were For, 46 were Against. On their way out they were compelled to again check their positions on the matter, in a primitive attempt at polling. The poll found 58 were For, and 46 were Against. This suggests to some that public debates, then as now, were mostly for the entertainment of the already convinced.
Hard to prove it, though.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: The Last Man and His Mother
There is an audio edition of this story. Click the triangle on the left to listen to the stream, or click this text to download the MP3.
The last man on earth sat alone in his room. There was a knock at the door.
"Freddy, supper's ready."
"Mom! I'm writing!"
"Okay honey. I'll leave it in the fridge."
He was the last man on earth. The one and only
"Do you need some Pepto?"
"Mom!"
"Okay, okay!"
The last man on earth held his head in his hands. No one understood him.
The last man on earth sat alone in his room. There was a knock at the door.
"Freddy, supper's ready."
"Mom! I'm writing!"
"Okay honey. I'll leave it in the fridge."
He was the last man on earth. The one and only
"Do you need some Pepto?"
"Mom!"
"Okay, okay!"
The last man on earth held his head in his hands. No one understood him.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Loving the Dead
Wesley was not the popular kind of necrophiliac. The popular kind of actress was the one who slept around and flashed her cleavage on magazine covers. There were hundreds of heads of state around the world, and yet the world only recognized a couple war-makers. Uninformed stereotyping harmed his passion. Wesley never touched a corpse improperly. He touched them with care, embalming, smoothing wrinkles and dabbing around their eyes with industrial make-up. There was no sexual intercourse. It would get him fired, and that wouldn't be love. That would be rape. He was a lover of the dead, there to ready them for that last encounter with their families. They didn't need a one-night stand with some stranger at the mortuary. They needed support. Sometimes supportive undergarments, but usually just a man who could take care of them. They'd all forgotten how to tie a Windsor. He'd do it around his own neck before slipping it around theirs. Pulling the knot tight was the most intimate he got with them. They deserved more than a clip-on, and he never left a bruise. That was love.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins for Him. 5.
There's an audio version of today's story. To listen either click the triangle to the left for the stream, or click this text to download the MP3.
It was to impress a girl. Blonde, with glasses and a white coat buttoned all the way up to her chin. A fetish of mine, hard to explain. I’d have been head over heels even if I hadn’t been restrained in the position. She was the newest therapist to try building a career on curing me. So I told her.
I was born to a lower middle class family. Mother died in childbirth. Dad held it against me. I tried time and time again to get him to laugh, but he wouldn’t crack a smile. He’d only crack me across the mouth. This famous grin of mine? His handiwork after I tried to run away and join the circus.
It was all lies. I don’t remember the first thing about my childhood. Considering all the chemicals I’ve inhaled and blows I’ve taken to the head, is that really a surprise? I just had green hair and turned it into an easy gimmick. But this girl wanted rhyme and reason, and I wanted her.
We traded answers in the style of Silence of the Lambs. She asked where I learned chemistry, and I asked why Karl was the funniest Marx brother. My questions were to get her to laugh – let her hair down. She was so uptight, so driven by career that she’d forgotten how to have fun. I actually invented the first squirting flower to get a rise from her. The second one, I used to melt the lock of my cell.
Now it turns out that if you shackle my hands so I can’t strangle a girl, I’m charming. More charming when you think I once tore dad’s trousers during a prat fall. More charming when you hear he broke my nose for it. More charming when you see some hulking hero drag me in, my bones broken and him as grim as the reaper. I’m still grappling with Daddy. Get it?
I didn’t. Went straight over my head. When I escaped I hammed up the humor. Defacing all America’s tuna. Blimps that sprayed psychotropic laughing gas over football stadiums. And I let myself get caught. Twice, then three times. Why? So that I could go back to her.
The third time? She slapped him! She held me in her arms and ordered the guards to kick him out or arrest him. She didn’t care how many people I’d killed that weekend. And with my bloodied cheek cozied up to her chest, I didn’t either.
Fools fall in love. Dead men hit the ground. We were the type to just keep falling. We had sessions while I was still in traction – physically incapable of harming her. What a joke. I’m comparing this to my first pie in the face, and she’s laughing so hard she has to take off her glasses. I got her to take ‘em off, and let me tell you, if there’s one thing that strikes me harder than a blonde in glasses, it’s one who takes them off and dabs at the corners of her eyes like she isn’t sitting the ICU with a sociopath.
Such a girl, woman, lady, doctor, is not the sort of person an asylum wants working on my sort of case. They relieved her that afternoon. I heard her yelling in the parking lot. Everybody did.
I think only I heard her coming back that night, though. She’d developed this bounce in her step during our relationship, something only the doctor and patient would recognize. I also recognize the beeping of an armed bomb. She blew open the wall to the ICU and busted me out. Had a wheel chair, an escape car, and a grenade launcher. That’s a keeper.
I’ve kept it up ever since. The comedy because it’s fun, and the Daddy thing because, well, it’s the story of how we met. You want to know the truth? She is my origin.
Unless I’m only telling you this to get on your good side. You look nice today.
It was to impress a girl. Blonde, with glasses and a white coat buttoned all the way up to her chin. A fetish of mine, hard to explain. I’d have been head over heels even if I hadn’t been restrained in the position. She was the newest therapist to try building a career on curing me. So I told her.
I was born to a lower middle class family. Mother died in childbirth. Dad held it against me. I tried time and time again to get him to laugh, but he wouldn’t crack a smile. He’d only crack me across the mouth. This famous grin of mine? His handiwork after I tried to run away and join the circus.
It was all lies. I don’t remember the first thing about my childhood. Considering all the chemicals I’ve inhaled and blows I’ve taken to the head, is that really a surprise? I just had green hair and turned it into an easy gimmick. But this girl wanted rhyme and reason, and I wanted her.
We traded answers in the style of Silence of the Lambs. She asked where I learned chemistry, and I asked why Karl was the funniest Marx brother. My questions were to get her to laugh – let her hair down. She was so uptight, so driven by career that she’d forgotten how to have fun. I actually invented the first squirting flower to get a rise from her. The second one, I used to melt the lock of my cell.
Now it turns out that if you shackle my hands so I can’t strangle a girl, I’m charming. More charming when you think I once tore dad’s trousers during a prat fall. More charming when you hear he broke my nose for it. More charming when you see some hulking hero drag me in, my bones broken and him as grim as the reaper. I’m still grappling with Daddy. Get it?
I didn’t. Went straight over my head. When I escaped I hammed up the humor. Defacing all America’s tuna. Blimps that sprayed psychotropic laughing gas over football stadiums. And I let myself get caught. Twice, then three times. Why? So that I could go back to her.
The third time? She slapped him! She held me in her arms and ordered the guards to kick him out or arrest him. She didn’t care how many people I’d killed that weekend. And with my bloodied cheek cozied up to her chest, I didn’t either.
Fools fall in love. Dead men hit the ground. We were the type to just keep falling. We had sessions while I was still in traction – physically incapable of harming her. What a joke. I’m comparing this to my first pie in the face, and she’s laughing so hard she has to take off her glasses. I got her to take ‘em off, and let me tell you, if there’s one thing that strikes me harder than a blonde in glasses, it’s one who takes them off and dabs at the corners of her eyes like she isn’t sitting the ICU with a sociopath.
Such a girl, woman, lady, doctor, is not the sort of person an asylum wants working on my sort of case. They relieved her that afternoon. I heard her yelling in the parking lot. Everybody did.
I think only I heard her coming back that night, though. She’d developed this bounce in her step during our relationship, something only the doctor and patient would recognize. I also recognize the beeping of an armed bomb. She blew open the wall to the ICU and busted me out. Had a wheel chair, an escape car, and a grenade launcher. That’s a keeper.
I’ve kept it up ever since. The comedy because it’s fun, and the Daddy thing because, well, it’s the story of how we met. You want to know the truth? She is my origin.
Unless I’m only telling you this to get on your good side. You look nice today.
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