Sunday, September 11, 2011
Mervyn Peake, info on the Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy
Just a quick check in here - some who know me will profess to my admiration of Mervyn Peake and his writings and illustrations. I actually have two copies of The Gormenghast Trilogy, because I haven't convinced myself yet to part with one of them. Well, the odds are good that I may buy another copy soon, because the great Overlook Press is putting out an elaborate illustrated version of the trilogy. An update can be found on the publisher's blog, here.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Stray thoughts upon a much needed haircut.
- If you are a Caucasian male with straight to slightly wavy hair, and you are having your hair cut from fairly long to quite short, and you are doing it at a regular barbershop, then for a brief time during the process, you will have the Hitler hairdo.
- As I leaned my head forward for my barber to reach the higher climes, I noticed that I have a lot more white hair than I had previously noted. Less "salt and pepper," and more "spilled bleach."
- If you were to drink the vaguely turquoise fluid that disinfects the barber's stash of combs, you would probably gain super powers, perhaps a human/styptic pencil-hybrid.
- When people carry on a conversation in Spanish in my presence, I always assume that the conversation is more intense than it probably is.
- If your hair is cut at a regular barbershop, you will come out of there with the straightest combed hair possible. If your hair is cut by a stylist, your hair will be charmingly tousled. That is why they are enemies.
- My barber went the electric clippers route, so I was spared the Sweeney Todd razor on the back of my neck.
- His attention to detail included even my crazy Walt Whitman left eyebrow. It briefly will not resemble a dismembered electrical appliance.
- However efficient a hair dryer is at removing loose hair from one's person, it is equally adept at sending the hair as far into one's sinuses as is humanly possible.
- Barber shops single-handedly keep both the circular fluorescent light bulb and wood-paneling industries alive.
- Longer hair does help keep my neck from looking freakishly long. Perhaps I shouldn't have him trim the neck hair next time.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Reading with two bookmarks: a journey into "Dictionary of the Khazars"
Reading is generally a linear process: You start at the beginning of a book, read all the pages in the middle, and finish by reaching the end. Some books do challenge this status quo - many non fiction books have copious footnotes and/or endnotes, not to mention appendices, but these in general can be ignored or delayed in favor of the main text, with little effect on the main narrative. Certainly a short story collection can be read out of sequence, but here, except in special cases, there is no consistent narrative that needs to be followed-each story is, in effect, it's own little fiefdom.
Then there are the experimental fringes of fiction. The beats, especially Burroughs and Kerouac, experimented with cut-up narrative, taking a linear story, and deliberately chopping up the text and re-arranging it into a more disjoined narrative. However, the tendency is still to read Naked Lunch or Nova Express as linear tales, and take in the fractured nature of the telling at face value-since there is no guide beforehand where the parts originated, any piecing together would likely happen after finishing the book, upon reflection. Likewise James Joyce's experiments are still best experienced as a linear build, rather than bouncing back and forth. In some more modern examples, Samuel Delany's magnum opus, Dhalgren, contains diary entries that run alongside the main narrative, in smaller font (at least in the edition I own) similar to a side-quote box in a magazine article, only far denser, and often running for several pages, making it a serious decision to either follow along with the story you have been reading, or to jump to this lengthy digression, and find out how this leads, returning to the tale at a later time. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas*, which I read last year and really enjoyed, consists of five or six tales, of varying styles, begun and then interrupted by the chronological successor, reaching its apex at in a far-future dystopian tale, then descending to the climax of each tale, now in reverse chronological order. However, the structure here again finds its rewards in treating the text as a linear narrative, as the characters and stories often make appearances in the subsequent entries, and form, if not as a backstory, then at the very least a plot point: in one case, an environmental thriller tale becomes a manuscript that the literary editor main character in the next tale is reading. Another character becomes essentially a god figure in that far-future dystopian section. So Atlas, like all these other works, for all its temporal tricks, is still at its very core a linear story.
My current reading choice, A Dictonary of the Khazars, by Milorad Pavic, a Serbo-Croatian author (general computer ignorance and/or laziness prevents me from using correct diacritical marks in the man's name), is a book that, while it certainly can be read cover to cover, does not necessarily need to be, and indeed may become a different reading experience when read in different ways. The book, as suggested by the title, is a mock dictionary (or encyclopedia, really) reputed to be a reconstruction of a 17th century manuscript telling some of the history of the Khazar people, who occupied the region of the Black and Caspian Seas in the Dark Ages. The real Khazars were eradicated by the Rus in the 10th century, only remaining as ethnic lineages in much of Eastern Europe, much like most of Native Americans in the States (most likely, a Ukranian's connection to Khazar is similar to my having a minute fraction of Cherokee heritage courtesy of my Arkansas grandmother).
This, "dictionary," then, in structure is a series of entries, each entry a separate small story, that do, in aggregate, add up to more than the individual tales, but Pavic has an additional trick up his sleeve. Taking as his central conceit one of the milestones in Khazar history, the move away from the Khazar shamanic religion to the Abrahamic faiths, Pavic has not one, but three dictionaries, one for each of these faiths (the historical Khazars are believed to have converted primarily to Judaism, following the royal family and the aristocracy-Pavic's tale assumes a more profound theological split of the nation than this). There is the Red Book, of Christian sources, the Green Book, of Islamic sources, and the Yellow Book, representing Judaism. The three books are laid out in the above order, and there are entries that are specific to certain books, but also, entries that are common to multiple or all books, all vastly different in detail to each other. As can be expected, the entry for the "Khazar Polemic," which I can only describe as an actual competition among theologians of the three faiths for the Khazar body politic, in particular varies greatly in interpretation among the three books, each spinning the tale for advantage. Therefore, if one chooses to abandon linear reading to check out these differing entries (which are helpfully, though not always consistently, marked with cross-referencing symbols), one will get a more immediate sense of a hidden agenda in the three books, than might be apparent in a cover to cover reading.
One other Pavic trick: the book appears in both male and female versions (mine is the male) which differ in about 15 lines in a single entry. I'm not necessarily sure that the two changes mark a profound difference to me. This book is so densely packed with information, I suspect I will come back to it in the future, and read it in whole or in parts, to attempt to come to more understanding of the contents. At any rate, the lines for the Male/Female version differences are easily available online, for instance (Spoiler Alert, of course) here.
A few other things about this book. As I said, I haven't begun to parse out the larger point of the book, at least to my satisfaction, but that doesn't mean that the journey is wasted to me without that sense of greater destination. I am perfectly content to leave this book right now as a series of small tales meant to unfold a manner of one's own devising, as if it were an Arabian Nights filtered through the I Ching. Some entries are mock pedantic (meaning they are pedantic, but perhaps ironically so?) and others are genuine short fables, tacked on as part of the lore of this lost people. The tales can be quite beautiful and funny, with a wit and profundity all their own. Here is an excerpt from "The Tale of Petkutin and Kalina" in the Red Book, one of the first passages that grabbed me emotionally:
"He waited for March, ate his fill of cornelian cherries, and invited Kalina for a walk along the Danube. When they parted, she removed the ring from his finger and threw it into the river.
'If something good happens to somebody-she explained to Petkutin-it should always be spiced with some small unpleasantness, so that the moment is better remembered. One always remembers the unpleasant longer than the pleasant things in life..."
There is some truth to that passage, however minor, that resonated in me, and the tale, which is a variation on Orpheus/Eurydice myth, but has an ending all its own, calls back to this little truth in tragic ways. Dictionary is full of tales and passages like this. I am torn between preserving the book in as pristine a form as I have it, or highlighting and pencil marking all the stuff I want to come back to. I actually considered reading entries at random and marking each one with a pensil, marking my trail like Theseus's string in the labyrinth, or Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs.
Also, I may be making a fetish of my copy, but I picked up a secondhand copy of the hardback, which has a dust jacket design similar to that on the current paperback, but the jacketless hardback copy is a beautiful object on its own. It is a dark reddish-brown in color, and a rough surface, like old leather. Much has been done to make the book look like something out of antiquity, even relegating the copyright page to the last possible leaf of the book, after the note on the type. I am considering ditching the dust jacket entirely, and just having the hardback stand as is on my shelf.
Finally, for now (I may revise if new insights come to me), my method for reading the book has been this: I read it in a roughly linear fashion, but when I come to an entry cross-referenced, such as ATEH, the first such in the book, I read each of the entries under that name in succession. Then, back to where I left off in the linear order. Often I will re-read the entries again when I come to them in sequence, and sometimes back to the cross-referenced ones yet again. Hence the necessity for two bookmarks, and the title of this essay, which is longer than I expected. I feel like this is one of those books that would take longer in the summary than the book itself.
Until next time,
Roger
____________
*I picked up Mitchell's latest novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, as a Borders-dissolution-grab, and look forward to picking it up and reading it soon. Also, Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, which is partially read, but on hiatus, in true ADD fashion. But I digress.
Then there are the experimental fringes of fiction. The beats, especially Burroughs and Kerouac, experimented with cut-up narrative, taking a linear story, and deliberately chopping up the text and re-arranging it into a more disjoined narrative. However, the tendency is still to read Naked Lunch or Nova Express as linear tales, and take in the fractured nature of the telling at face value-since there is no guide beforehand where the parts originated, any piecing together would likely happen after finishing the book, upon reflection. Likewise James Joyce's experiments are still best experienced as a linear build, rather than bouncing back and forth. In some more modern examples, Samuel Delany's magnum opus, Dhalgren, contains diary entries that run alongside the main narrative, in smaller font (at least in the edition I own) similar to a side-quote box in a magazine article, only far denser, and often running for several pages, making it a serious decision to either follow along with the story you have been reading, or to jump to this lengthy digression, and find out how this leads, returning to the tale at a later time. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas*, which I read last year and really enjoyed, consists of five or six tales, of varying styles, begun and then interrupted by the chronological successor, reaching its apex at in a far-future dystopian tale, then descending to the climax of each tale, now in reverse chronological order. However, the structure here again finds its rewards in treating the text as a linear narrative, as the characters and stories often make appearances in the subsequent entries, and form, if not as a backstory, then at the very least a plot point: in one case, an environmental thriller tale becomes a manuscript that the literary editor main character in the next tale is reading. Another character becomes essentially a god figure in that far-future dystopian section. So Atlas, like all these other works, for all its temporal tricks, is still at its very core a linear story.
My current reading choice, A Dictonary of the Khazars, by Milorad Pavic, a Serbo-Croatian author (general computer ignorance and/or laziness prevents me from using correct diacritical marks in the man's name), is a book that, while it certainly can be read cover to cover, does not necessarily need to be, and indeed may become a different reading experience when read in different ways. The book, as suggested by the title, is a mock dictionary (or encyclopedia, really) reputed to be a reconstruction of a 17th century manuscript telling some of the history of the Khazar people, who occupied the region of the Black and Caspian Seas in the Dark Ages. The real Khazars were eradicated by the Rus in the 10th century, only remaining as ethnic lineages in much of Eastern Europe, much like most of Native Americans in the States (most likely, a Ukranian's connection to Khazar is similar to my having a minute fraction of Cherokee heritage courtesy of my Arkansas grandmother).
This, "dictionary," then, in structure is a series of entries, each entry a separate small story, that do, in aggregate, add up to more than the individual tales, but Pavic has an additional trick up his sleeve. Taking as his central conceit one of the milestones in Khazar history, the move away from the Khazar shamanic religion to the Abrahamic faiths, Pavic has not one, but three dictionaries, one for each of these faiths (the historical Khazars are believed to have converted primarily to Judaism, following the royal family and the aristocracy-Pavic's tale assumes a more profound theological split of the nation than this). There is the Red Book, of Christian sources, the Green Book, of Islamic sources, and the Yellow Book, representing Judaism. The three books are laid out in the above order, and there are entries that are specific to certain books, but also, entries that are common to multiple or all books, all vastly different in detail to each other. As can be expected, the entry for the "Khazar Polemic," which I can only describe as an actual competition among theologians of the three faiths for the Khazar body politic, in particular varies greatly in interpretation among the three books, each spinning the tale for advantage. Therefore, if one chooses to abandon linear reading to check out these differing entries (which are helpfully, though not always consistently, marked with cross-referencing symbols), one will get a more immediate sense of a hidden agenda in the three books, than might be apparent in a cover to cover reading.
One other Pavic trick: the book appears in both male and female versions (mine is the male) which differ in about 15 lines in a single entry. I'm not necessarily sure that the two changes mark a profound difference to me. This book is so densely packed with information, I suspect I will come back to it in the future, and read it in whole or in parts, to attempt to come to more understanding of the contents. At any rate, the lines for the Male/Female version differences are easily available online, for instance (Spoiler Alert, of course) here.
A few other things about this book. As I said, I haven't begun to parse out the larger point of the book, at least to my satisfaction, but that doesn't mean that the journey is wasted to me without that sense of greater destination. I am perfectly content to leave this book right now as a series of small tales meant to unfold a manner of one's own devising, as if it were an Arabian Nights filtered through the I Ching. Some entries are mock pedantic (meaning they are pedantic, but perhaps ironically so?) and others are genuine short fables, tacked on as part of the lore of this lost people. The tales can be quite beautiful and funny, with a wit and profundity all their own. Here is an excerpt from "The Tale of Petkutin and Kalina" in the Red Book, one of the first passages that grabbed me emotionally:
"He waited for March, ate his fill of cornelian cherries, and invited Kalina for a walk along the Danube. When they parted, she removed the ring from his finger and threw it into the river.
'If something good happens to somebody-she explained to Petkutin-it should always be spiced with some small unpleasantness, so that the moment is better remembered. One always remembers the unpleasant longer than the pleasant things in life..."
There is some truth to that passage, however minor, that resonated in me, and the tale, which is a variation on Orpheus/Eurydice myth, but has an ending all its own, calls back to this little truth in tragic ways. Dictionary is full of tales and passages like this. I am torn between preserving the book in as pristine a form as I have it, or highlighting and pencil marking all the stuff I want to come back to. I actually considered reading entries at random and marking each one with a pensil, marking my trail like Theseus's string in the labyrinth, or Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs.
Also, I may be making a fetish of my copy, but I picked up a secondhand copy of the hardback, which has a dust jacket design similar to that on the current paperback, but the jacketless hardback copy is a beautiful object on its own. It is a dark reddish-brown in color, and a rough surface, like old leather. Much has been done to make the book look like something out of antiquity, even relegating the copyright page to the last possible leaf of the book, after the note on the type. I am considering ditching the dust jacket entirely, and just having the hardback stand as is on my shelf.
Finally, for now (I may revise if new insights come to me), my method for reading the book has been this: I read it in a roughly linear fashion, but when I come to an entry cross-referenced, such as ATEH, the first such in the book, I read each of the entries under that name in succession. Then, back to where I left off in the linear order. Often I will re-read the entries again when I come to them in sequence, and sometimes back to the cross-referenced ones yet again. Hence the necessity for two bookmarks, and the title of this essay, which is longer than I expected. I feel like this is one of those books that would take longer in the summary than the book itself.
Until next time,
Roger
____________
*I picked up Mitchell's latest novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, as a Borders-dissolution-grab, and look forward to picking it up and reading it soon. Also, Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, which is partially read, but on hiatus, in true ADD fashion. But I digress.
Dead-letter Office
I have forgotten so many things.
My brain is a dead-letter office of unopened correspondence
all addressed to “occupant”.
Whole years of my life shoved into dusty canvas sacks.
A warehouse of subjects learned and discarded
unclaimed, with no return address.
People’s names are gone.
Marching millions of neighbors,
friends,
co-workers, even family.
Why do I have ten second-cousins anyway?
Aaron and Jessica, and a bunch of blonde ones,
and
the dark-haired one,
the
one who laughed at the motorboat noise I made.
He was cute, and I remember his laugh
but
his name, no.
He’s probably in college now.
I wonder if he has the memory of a man
who
made a mean motorboat sound.
If he doesn’t it would serve me right.
Someday I’ll wander in among the piles,
dust
tickling my nose to force a sneeze
and
pick up a random yellowed envelope.
Parse out the postmark through a mildew stain.
I’ll force my finger under the envelope flap
and
rip away along the upper fold,
and
pull out the contents
and
remember everything
Friday, September 2, 2011
Quick update, just because I can.
Friday night. The Friday night before Labor Day, so it is a three day weekend, and the child is up and running around at 10 pm. He is in one of these states where he is too tired to fall asleep. I sit here and try to come up with new material, since I can't keep posting old writings from the flash drive forever. Also, had that moment a few days ago where I felt creative again, and started working on a few things. but that has dwindled back to normal levels. It may just be the result of a busy week, but what if it was one of those momentary hiccups, and wasn't a long term trend?
Of course, I should ignore that voice, but that voice is loud, and pushes its way to the front and vies for attention. It is very tough to ignore. It is possible to put words on paper, and to create. I will tell myself that. I've already cut out a few distractions, and I am trying to get my reading done. I have never been particularly disciplined, but I guess I need to get there, if I'm ever going to get there. The creativity I felt a week or two ago was a euphoric trip, and I could use a little more of that in my life.
Of course, I should ignore that voice, but that voice is loud, and pushes its way to the front and vies for attention. It is very tough to ignore. It is possible to put words on paper, and to create. I will tell myself that. I've already cut out a few distractions, and I am trying to get my reading done. I have never been particularly disciplined, but I guess I need to get there, if I'm ever going to get there. The creativity I felt a week or two ago was a euphoric trip, and I could use a little more of that in my life.
Spencer’s New Toy: The Interviews (The Final Interview)
The Final Interview
(SFX: Child gurgling, cooing noises throughout)
Mom: I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. This must have been my eighth interview today, and I needed to freshen up a bit. I must say the toy market this year must be a bit weaker than usual. Let me just look at your resume, here...
(SFX: Paper rustle)
Mom: (cont’d)…Mr. Todd Hammon.
Todd: Yes. Please, call me Todd.
Mom: I don’t understand, Todd, it says here you are a recent MBA.
Todd: That’s correct! Graduated in May.
Mom: Wonderful for you, but, I think there’s something wrong here.
Todd: I know what you’re going to say…
Mom: You see, the interviews aren’t for a business position.
Todd: I realize that.
Mom: What we are looking for is more along the line of a toy for our son, Spencer.
Todd: Yes, I am aware of that. However, it is a soft job market, and the professors always encouraged us to, you know, seek out opportunities that were off the beaten path.
Mom: Well, that’s very admirable, but…
Todd: But to give you a better explanation, I have prepared for you this power point presentation.
(SFX: Laptop booting up)
Mom: I’m not sure this is the kind of thing we had in…Oh, that’s a lovely font.
Todd: Created it myself, minored in graphic design and publishing.
Mom: Very nice-I may want to borrow that for our holiday cards.
Todd: Feel free.
Mom: This is all wonderful, and you certainly are an extraordinary young man, but I suspect you may be, uh, overqualified?
Todd: I fully understand that this is an entry-level position.
Mom: This isn’t an entry level position. It’s a toy. We are trying to find a toy for Spencer, so this isn’t like a mailroom job. This is a toy.
Todd: I work well with children, let me tell you. If you look on my resume, you will see that I have extensive mentoring experience, and was a camp counselor for three years running.
Mom: All very admirable, Mr. Hammon…
Todd: Please. Todd.
Mom: Todd, but again, we are looking for a toy. This means you will be chewed when Spencer is teething, most likely drooled upon frequently. You will probably spend a inordinate amount of time at the bottom of a toy chest, and I can’t guarantee you will come out of this with all your limbs intact.
Todd: Would I need to sign a waiver, then?
Mom: I don’t think you’re quite getting me yet, Todd, toys are generally non-living beings, and it is best that-
(SFX: enthusiastic child babbling)
Mom: (cont’d)-we kept looking-
(SFX: even more enthusiastic child babbling)
Mom: (cont’d)-in that direction. Spencer?
(SFX: ecstatic child babbling)
Mom: Well, he certainly has taken to you!
Todd: I told you, I’m good with kids.
Mom: I can see that.
Todd: Hey there, little man, I’m Todd.
(SFX: happy child babbling)
Mom: I am impressed, Todd, and, uh, we haven’t had much luck so far with finding the right toy… I can’t believe I’m saying this.
Todd: That’s all right, I can start immediately.
Mom: Good.
Todd: Well, Spence, looks like I’m your new toy.
(SFX: another bout of child babbling)
Mom: Ok, I’ll leave you two to play, then!
Todd: Oh, by the way, do you have dental?
The End
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Spencer’s New Toy: The Interviews (The Second Interview)
The Second Interview
(SFX: Child gurgling, cooing noises throughout.)
Mom: All right, let’s see what we have here…
(SFX: Paper rustle)
Mom: You are Mr- excuse me, Commander Zam.
Zam: (metallic robot voice) Yes.
Mom: Is that an official military rank, or is it more of a nickname?
Zam: I am commander of The Overlord’s elite guard patrolling the Kingdom of Korv in the Zebulon Nebula.
Mom: Well, we’ll just call it official for now. Now, as you know, we are looking for a new toy for our son, Spencer, and we have been holding a series of interviews to find the right one. So, if you will start by telling me a little about yourself…
Zam: Darkness, the galaxy was darkness and chaos. Twelve empires came and went, and left nothing but destruction in their wake. Then my master, The Overlord, came and made the galaxy safe again. Small bands of rebels remain along the outer rim planets, but with my help, The Overlord will conquer all, and the rebels will be no more.
Mom: Well, that certainly sounds like you are very confident and ambitious! However, I would like to hear a little more about you- your interests, hobbies?
Zam: My purpose is to serve The Overlord.
Mom: That’s so nice. Loyalty and dedication are definitely in short supply these days. But if you don’t mind me saying, it sounds like you don’t have much of a life other than serving your “Overlord.”
Zam: There is only The Overlord. There is nothing else.
Mom: Don’t you have any family? What about your mother?
Zam: I was cloned from specially culled cells at The Overlord’s secret facility on Nargon 16, and raised with extreme discipline by our batch supervisor.
Mom: “Batch supervisor”? Is that like a mother?
Zam: The batch supervisor is charged with overseeing the growth and training of all Level 6 cyborg-clones. Clones not showing superior development are eliminated.
Mom: Sorry to hear that. Did your batch supervisor have a name?
Zam: Connie.
Mom: Your batch supervisor was named “Connie”?
Zam: Yes.
Mom: What was she like?
Zam: She was ruthless. You could see the fire in her one eye. She was there for one thing only, to create an army of warriors, there was no room for…weakness (small metallic sobs)…no, no.
Mom: What’s wrong?
Zam: (Still sobbing) I tried to be perfect for you, Connie. I tried! Every day you would come to me, your dueling scar throbbing red under your eyepatch, and you would try to make me a warrior! I worked so hard to be your favorite, but you had no favorites. All I wanted was your esteem, to feel the warmth of your gaze upon me. You had such soft hands for an evil henchwoman. I wanted you to like me Connie. I wanted to be like your little child. You were more a mother to me than the wire and cloth figure in my pen. Connie! Connie! (weaker) Mommie?!
Mom: Well, Commander, I must say right now that I think we will probably go a different way this time. I am glad, though, that you are getting a chance to work through some issues.
Zam: (Pulling it together somewhat) The rebels! The rebels will be assimilated. All will bow to the will of The Overlord!
Mom: Yes, well, good luck with that, then.
End Part Two
Spencer’s New Toy: The Interviews (A radio play in three parts)
The first interview.
(SFX: baby gurgling/cooing sounds throughout)
Mom: So, as you know, we are looking for a new toy for our son, Spencer, and we are happy you could come in and see us today, Mr… Uh…
(SFX: shuffling paper)
Mom: (cont’d) …Mr. Ragbottle. First of all, I would like to hear a little about you, and why you think you would be a good addition to our Spencer’s toy collection.
(Slight pause.)
Mom: Oh, I’m sorry. That’s right. I’m supposed to pull this string here-
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: (scratchy recorded falsetto voice) Hi! I’m Mr. Ragbottle, and I want to be your friend!
Mom: Well, that’s very nice, Mr. Ragbottle, but what I am really looking for is a sense of your qualifications-what you would be bringing to the toybox, so to speak.
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: All right! The very top of the list of my qualifications is my experience. I have been a popular children’s toy for a very long time-
Mom: I don’t mean to interrupt, Mr. Ragbottle, but, how shall I say this, your, uh, age as a toy was a subject of concern when I looked at your resume. I feel like perhaps we had something a bit, newer, in mind.
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: Uh, ok, when you look at it that way, I guess I am a bit long in the old tooth, but there’s still plenty of life in me!
Mom: Oh, I am sure there is. Also, I am sorry to add, my husband is not enthusiastic about his son’s next new toy being a, well, a doll. However, if you were an action figure, I think he would be more likely to agree. Do you have any qualifications in that area?
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: Well, yes, actually! Don’t let the patchwork appearance fool you. I am actually, uh, undercover…incognito as it were! You see, there’s this backstory, that I am actually a knight whose kingdom got, well, there was a coup, and the bad knights came in and took our land, so I went into the woods, with a band of merry men, and we took money from the bad knights, and gave it to all the poor people…
Mom: Isn’t that Robin Hood? You’re just making things up, Mr. Ragbottle.
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: Ok, you got me. But action isn’t everything you know…
Mom: I realize that, but…
Ragbottle: Let me finish! Look, I may be old, and kind of un-exciting, but I am kind, and a loving toy to sleep with, or drag around the house! I’m great at being the friend of all kinds of little kids all around the world! I’m a real hard worker, and I’m, I’m (slowing down voice) Oh, dear, please pull my string again.
(SFX: Pull toy string)
Ragbottle: And best of all, I’m a self-starter!
Mom: Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Ragbottle, we will be making our decision in the next week or so. I’ll show you to the door…
End Part One
Chance, encountered.
There was a chance
that I,
sitting here,
might make a choice today.
Maybe I would leave the house,
see some of the world outside,
take in a movie,
or watch children playing in the park.
Maybe I’ll go and hit the pavement,
fill out some job applications,
get a quiet lunch somewhere,
and keep chicken salad off my tie.
Perhaps I would find a twenty-dollar bill,
go and buy some treat,
have enough left for a train ride back home
and enjoy the rest of the night.
Or maybe I should save that twenty dollars.
I am out of a job, after all.
and by staying home, I save that twenty
that I never got because I never went out.
Have I lost forty, now?
I suck at math.
This could be the day that everything changes,
or another day of nothing.
It could be the day they strike at us again.
You might ask who “they” are.
and I would say, “well, them.”
Those that would do us harm.
Some indefinable set of harmdoers.
Terrorists, lone nuts in shopping malls,
it doesn’t make any difference.
Knowing their agenda doesn’t make anyone less dead.
Ok, I’ll grant you, maybe something wonderful will happen today.
Why anticipate the morbid?
You have to live every day like it’s the last or something like that.
If this were my last day, then would I be looking for a damn job?
I think if I had one day to live. I’d hug someone,
my wife and kid maybe,
go to a zoo, though it’s a bad weather day for that.
But hell, it’s my last day,
so the weather isn’t getting any better.
And yes, I know I’m dealing with hypotheticals here,
but hypotheses are math,
and I told you I suck at math.
I can only be open to all possibilities,
and in all possibilities, none.
We're getting the blog back together!
Ok, we have fallen off the writer's wagon a bit at RLBB central, but promise to make an effort to prioritize getting a handle on expediting the continuation of more more more for your blog reading pleasure. All one of you.
Will start with a few things from the archives, just to pad the entries a bit. Look like I'm doing work around here so the bossman doesn't catch me...
Will start with a few things from the archives, just to pad the entries a bit. Look like I'm doing work around here so the bossman doesn't catch me...
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