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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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9:33 pm - LJ Idol Entry #5 - Prompt: Bearing False Witness
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This is my entry for the fifth official round of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) therealljidol. Special thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sharya.
Mathew 12:36
After our parents died, Cath and me, well, we became a mite protective of our Aunt June, seeing as how we lived with her and such. Aunt June, she wasn’t a smart lady, but she was sweet as can be. She told us that our Pa had always taken care of her and she reckoned it was time she took care of somebody herself.
Over at The Clayton School – that’s where Aunt June taught pre-school – there was this guy named Dr. Ashmore who taught sixth grade science. The two of them would have lunch, oh, just about every day between when Aunt June’s morning group went home and before the afternoon group came in. That summer – the one before I went into sixth grade and Cath went into eighth – was when Dr. Ashmore started coming around our place for dinner, too.
Cath started to get a little worried that Dr. Ashmore might be fixin’ to propose to Aunt June.
“What if they get married, Louise?”
“They could have a big wedding. I bet everyone in town would come.”
“You don’t understand. She can’t marry him. She can’t.”
“Why not, Cath?”
“He’s Catholic, Louise. We’d have to become Catholic too.”
“We don’t even go to church anymore, Cath.”
“You don’t understand anything, Louise. We’ve got to put a stop to this.”
“I think a big wedding would be nice. You put a stop to it.”
“Well, maybe I will.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
As I was drifting off to sleep that night, I started to think about the time I went to church with my Catholic friend, Shelby. I’d spent the night at her house because my Ma and Pa had just died and the town was still trying to figure out what to do with us. What I was thinking about was how they all went up to get a wafer and some wine.
“That’s the Body and Blood of Christ,” Shelby explained.
“Wow. Is this a special day?”
“No, we do this every Sunday.”
I got to thinking about how Jesus must have been a really enormous man if Catholics had been eating his body and drinking his blood for 2000 years. It was amazing to me that there could be any left! I remember how my Ma made the Thanksgiving turkey last for almost two weeks once, but we finished that eventually. How much meat must Jesus have had on him for his body to last so long?
I dreamed that night of Catholic Jesus, 1,000 feet tall, returned for the Rapture, squashing people like bugs, while our poor regular-sized Jesus hid in the youth center of the big new church we had attended while Ma and Pa was still alive. Regular-sized Jesus was telling us that as long as none of us were Catholic, he could keep us safe.
“But I am Catholic,” I cried.
“Then you’d better leave, Louise,” he said, in that gentle voice of his. He sounded just like Robert Pattinson.
When I woke up, I told Cath I’d help her keep the marriage from happening. She knew just what to do.
First thing was Cath started telling her teacher, Miss Cuthbert (who wasn’t Catholic either) that Dr. Ashmore had the sweets for her. She didn’t take it too seriously until the little unsigned notes started appearing on her desk. My penmanship wasn’t so good, so Cath had me write the notes.
“That way, it’ll look like a man wrote them,” she explained.
Cath had me leave similar notes (which Cath wrote) on Dr. Ashmore’s desk.
“I don’t think they’re working, Cath. He just seems confused and he tosses them in the rubbish can.”
Around this time, Cath pointed out that Aunt June was wearing a new ring. She was singing all the time – which was normal, ‘cept that she was singing songs from “The Music Man” instead of from “Romper Room.”
“This is getting serious,” Cath observed, gravely.
I’m not proud of what we did, but at the time it seemed like we had to do it. I fished a couple of the forged love notes Dr. Ashmore had thrown away out of the trash can. Cath and I together brought them to Aunt June.
“Somebody’s been sending him notes,” I reported.
“We thought you should know.”
Aunt June got a peculiar look on her face. When Dr. Ashmore came over for dinner, she was tense. She sent us to bed early and we could hear the two of them talking with raised voices until pretty late into the night.
“I think its working, Cath!”
Sure enough, Aunt June wasn’t wearing the ring the next morning. She wasn’t singing either. She called in sick for work that day, and the day after that, and for the whole week. Then she submitted a letter of resignation and got a job at the Gingerbread Nursery School on the other side of town. Dr. Ashmore didn’t come over for dinner anymore.
Aunt June, she was so sad that I started to feel bad for what we’d done.
“If they were really meant to be together, they would have worked this out. All we did was help them realize they weren’t meant to be together. We did her a favor, Louise.”
Two summers later, I was getting ready to enter eighth grade. Cath had some trouble in high school, so she’d been sent to the next county to live with our grandparents. One day, Aunt June and I, we got a wedding invitation from Dr. Marcus Ashmore and Miss Cynthia Cuthbert. They were going to have a big wedding at the new church we used to attend.
“Why’re they getting married there, Aunt June.”
“That’s their church, Louise.”
“I thought Dr. Ashmore was Catholic.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
I didn’t really have a response for that, not that Aunt June would have noticed anyways. Her hands had started to tremble. Her lower lip quivered. Aunt June saw me looking at her and tried to force a smile.
“Dr. Ashmore,” she said, her voice breaking just a little, “was my last chance at love.”
And he was. He really was.
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(52 comments | comment on this)
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6:14 pm - Not This Week's LJ Idol Entry - Retraction
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I wrote two possible LJ Idol entries this week. This is the one I rejected.
Not edited, for your enjoyment.
Retraction
To our readers,
On behalf of the entire staff of the West Erie Gazette-Intelligencer, we would like to apologize for last Friday’s review of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” by our movie critic, Joey Michaels. The review was riddled with inaccuracies. Here is a brief list of some of the most egregious factual errors:
· Robert Pattinson does not play a character named “Lestat.”
· Bella Swan is played by Kristin Stewart, not Jimmy Stewart.
· The plot synopsis presented in the review was taken directly from a comment on the IMDB page for the movie “Underworld.”
· Please insert the word “werewolves” everywhere that Mr. Michaels wrote “horny, drunk Ewoks.”
· The movie is not set in Hogwarts, The Shire or “on the banks of the mighty Somme while German artillery explodes all ‘round.”
· Sneezy, one of the seven dwarves from Disney’s “Snow White,” plays no significant role in “New Moon,” and is certainly not involved in “an unforgettable romantic romp with Jimmy Stewart and and a horny, drunk Ewok that would give that threesome scene in ‘Gossip Girls’ a run for it’s money.”
· The acceptable term for what Vampires in the “Twilight” series do in the sun is “sparkle.” They do not “tinkle” or “shine out when all around is dark like a stream of bat piss.” Furthermore, the latter sentence is a Monty Python reference from their “Oscar Wilde” sketch.
· Oscar Wilde does not appear as a vampire in “New Moon.”
· Neither does the late Ricardo Montalban
· Neither does “zombie Paul McCartney”
· Furthermore, Paul McCartney, contrary to ancient rumors did not die in a “blazing fire after his convertible failed to make it around Dead Man’s Curve.” We think Mr. Michaels was confusing the “Paul is Dead” story with a song by Jan and Dean, as well as the actual death of Jimmy Dean.
· The opening theme to “New Moon” is almost certainly not a “peppy all-banjo version of zombie Paul McCartney’s ‘Live and Let Die.’”
· There is nothing in the film to suggest Mr. Michaels’ assertion that “’New Moon’ is the most fully developed depiction of March-November romance since Nabakov’s ‘Lolita.’”
· Mr. Michaels states that “the movie climaxes with a battle between Lestat, Thor, Loki and The Midgard serpent Jörmungandr in the most realistic staging of Ragnarök ever put to film.” “New Moon” has nothing to do with the Nordic “twilight of the gods.”
· Bella Swan not only doesn’t have a child, she doesn’t raise him on “a strict diet of Camels, hentai and vodka.” Vodka is not an appropriate drink for infants.
· We had to look up hentai. We don’t recommend that you look it up. There is no hentai in “New Moon.”
· Our Editor-In-Chief, Stan Lightfeather, is not “featured in a moving and totally nude cameo performance as the one man left standing after the Mayan 2012 prophecies come true, wiping Nordic gods, horny ewoks, zombie Paul McCartney and Lestat off the face of the Earth.”
Furthermore, we’ve found no evidence that Mr. Michaels actually watched the movie, though he insists he was sent a “special advance copy director’s cut that he has since destroyed to keep it out of the hands of Chinese DVD pirates.” He stands by his review as “100% accurate and painstakingly researched.”
The West Erie Gazette-Intelligencer apologizes for these extensive errors. We’d like to thank both of our readers for pointing out these errors.
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(19 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
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12:23 pm - Let's Talk About That Washington Football Team
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I've addressed this topic several times (1, 2, 3) at Sportsfilter, but I want to write about it here.
I have some strong feelings about the US National Footaball League's Washington Team's mascot name. Strong enough that I tend to write it out as "The Washington R*******" or, when I'm feeling more uppity, "The Washington Racists."
Now, I'm not thinking that every reference to Native American culture needs to be removed from athletics. I know that, for example, the Seminole tribe has an arrangement with FSU that has been positive and productive for both sides. Furthermore, I see a team name like "The Braves" to be similar to "The Vikings" in that it invokes a sort of warrior culture that is appropriate for an athletic event.
Not so with the R*******, a name that is racially loaded.
There are lots of folks who don't get why Washington should change its name. While there are many reasons why I think they should, there's a lot of people who argue that it isn't really offensive, so what's the big deal.
Well, here's the thing. I think it is genuinely offensive, and I think most of the people who say it isn't would actually agree that it is if they thought the whole thing through.
Imagine this situation. Your company is trying to close some sort of business deal with a Native American group. You're going to have a big meeting with them in your office to try and close the account. It could make your company a ton of money. There's another company that they're considering pretty seriously too. Now, in your office, you have a big Washinton R******* banner up. Before the meeting with this Native American group, would you leave it up and risk that it might offend them, ruining your business deal?
I believe a prudent business person would take it down because they want to maximize their odds of closing the deal. That ain't being PC - that's just being smart.
If something is racially offensive enough that you'd be considered that you might lose business over it, it stands to reason that its racially offensive enough to merit being taken off the list of "acceptable team names."
Anyhow, that's just one reason of many. And the team name isn't the only reason that the Washington franchise kind of sucks right now. They sue their fans. They sell their tickets to ticket brokers who jack up the price instead of fans. And they just kind of generally suck in the traditional sense, too.
I don't think most folks on my LJ friend's list really give a rip one way or another about sports, but I've been writing about this subject a bunch in the last couple of years and just wanted to have an "official" post about it.
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(24 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, November 16th, 2009
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12:03 am - Taxonomy of Blogs?
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Over at therealljidol, I got into a conversation with cacophonesque and emo_snal about categorizing blog entries. You can read the original thread here.
This has come up primarily because, with over 200 entries to read a week, it's sometimes useful to take some brief notes on each entry so you can remember what you're voting on.
The three of us use different systems. I wrote:Back "in the day,"a small subset of Internet types used to call blogging E/N - Everything/Nothing. Though we've dropped that silly name, I think its a good encapsulation of what you can expect from your average blog.
I tend to divide the personal non-fiction written entries in this contest into three fairly broad categories:
1) Personal Stories - Exactly what it sounds like - a specific story about something that happened to the writer. For example, purplehaze9 wrote a fairly straight forward story this week.
2) Personal Musings - This type of entry focuses on the writer exploring some sort of specific idea from their point of view. I would suggest that your entry [cacophonesque this week would fall roughly under this category.
3) Personal Entries - This is a little more vague, but generally a more unfocused entry, that dabbles in a little storytelling and a little musing, would fall under this category. I think this could be further broken down into subcategories. emo_snal sort of had the "ideal personal entry" example this week, IMHO.
Then there's "Photo Essays," "Fiction," "Comics," and "Silliness."
I'm sure there's more intelligent ways to categorize things, but that's just sort of how I've been notating them in my spreadsheet.
cacophonesque added:I would definitely add "Meme" to the list. And, yeah, I think that the broad categories work, but then I would continue to break them down into sub-genres... Schadenfreude, Writing for Catharsis, The Soapbox...
And then, there's the interstitial post. Hot damn do I love interstitial art when it's well done. She provided this useful link regarding interstitial art, which basically defines interstitial, in this context, as being an entry that defies easy categorization.
emo_snal described his system as follows in a comment titled "Blogology":I've been dividing entries into
Narrative
..Narrative, Personal Story (about 80% of LJI entries)
..Narrative, Fiction
..Narrative, Historical Fiction
Essay
..Essay, Humorous (these are those "funny entries," superhappytime does them well)
..Essay, Serious
Ramble (kind of a totally poorly executed essay. often stream of conscience)
Poetry
Other / Uncategorizable
Most LJI entries are narratives. Most blog entries in general are essays. Well most are probably rambles, but I mean the ones anyone takes seriously are essays.
I'm not saying I won't resort to pulling up ancient personal stories or writing historical fiction, but I've been trying to keep my entries in line with what I'd normally blog, ie either a "personal story" about what JUST happened to me the other day or an essay.
Before today, I've not put much thought into this subject. Indeed, the great thing about the Interweb is that there's the potential for online-specific genres that we've barely explored.
That said, and this is both for LJ Idol participants and for my super-genius friends list, do you break the blog posts you read into categories? If so, what are those categories?
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(99 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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7:00 pm - LJ Idol Entry #4 - Prompt: Sexual Ethics
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3:23 pm - Not This Week's LJ Idol Entry - "Who's that Trip Trapping Over My LJ?"
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This is also not my entry for week four of therealljidol. This is a very rough draft of something inspired by the prompt "Who's that Trip Trapping Over My LJ?" Long time readers of my journal will surely immediately recognize the main character of this piece.
THIS IS NOT MY WEEK FOUR LJ IDOL ENTRY
Just for the record, you know?
Wingless Victory
Fanged death waits for me as I approach the computer.
Oh, he might seem cute - snuggly even - but even at his advanced age, he is a force to be reckoned with. Lightning fast reflexes, razor sharp claws and a keen intellect make him a formidable opponnent even in the best of times. The times when I am able to focus completely on defense. The times when I'm wearing something long sleeved - preferably padded.
But when I get ready to write in my journal - when my focus should be on picking exactly the right words to communicate the day's events - that's when my fuzzy adversary launches his most persistent attacks.
Generally, he starts at the left side of my keyboard. His facial paw and claw swats can be easily parried with a swift left arm sweep. Sometimes, he opts to immobilize my left arm by wrapping his front paws around it, using his entire body weight to pin it to the desk, and then initiating an aggresive and humiliating tongue assault. I've been told that this is a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu move, though I've never actually seen a Garcie lick somebody else in the literal sense.
I've found that the best defense against this particular attack is to bend like a reed in the wind. I allow my arm to go limp and, when he is repositioning himself to lick a dry patch of arm, I swiftly slip it from his grasp, leaving him momentarily baffled and leaning on the CAPS LOCK, Shift and Ctrl keys.
Regrouping, the next wave of attacks consist of a series of carefully timed bites. He will sit still for sometimes as long as ten minutes, waiting for me to believe the battle has ended, and then carefully, deliberately, he'll lean in towards my face and attempt to chew on my chin. A quick head bob to the right will keep my face free of fang marks for another day - most days.
If this first volley doesn't lead to immediate victory, he switches to the right side of the keyboard and begins his assault pattern anew.
And then there are his special attacks. He's found that he can sneak up behind me and reach the back of my thigh from the ground with his paws. Then, when I stand up in shock, he swiftly claims my chair as his. Nothing short of a riot hose can get him out of the chair once he's claimed it. Should this happen, victory is his, for there will be no more journalling that day.
He has also learned that, with some momentum, he can leap from the futon to the back of my computer chair. Now, he can't balance on the back of the computer chair, but who needs balance when you can scratch into the back of the human in the chair? This also typically ends with him claiming the chair as his own.
There are no defenses against either of these moves as far as I can tell. You either accept the pain and don't move, or you move away and surrender your chair.
For a long time, I thought that claiming the chair was his main objective, but I've noticed that he only tries to get into the chair when I'm in the chair. He won't sit there otherwise - even if I put him there.
After much contemplation, I've decided that he's actually trying to train me in the ancient art of Quat Fu. He's my short, ill-tempered Mr. Miyagi, improving my peripheral vision, my reflexes and my ability to preserve my train of thought through frequent (and sometimes lengthy) interuptions.
Or maybe he just wants a kitty treat.
(Picture - My cat, Kitty Michaels, on my computer chair glaring at us. Caption is "I'm in your LJ deleting your fanfic")
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(14 comments | comment on this)
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3:19 pm - Not This Week's LJ Idol Entry - "Current Events"
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Over at therealljidol, we were given five possible topics. I've written three entries and know that I won't be using two of them. Here's the first one that I'm not using. Its a very rough draft based on the prompt "Current Events."
THIS IS NOT MY OFFICIAL ENTRY
(put in all caps to avoid any confusion)
The New Santa
(Inspired by this current event)
“So, Ka'ala, this is where the vehicle finally came to a rest?”
Ka’ala Shigemura, the only female tow truck driver from the Lihue Full Service Pump Station, glared at Detective Mendel Lau incredulously. She hadn’t even hooked up her rig to the wrecked Hummer yet.
“No, I wen push it into the wall of the 7-11 afta I got here.”
“Whoa, what's with the sarcasm, sista?”
“Yeah, you asking planni stupid questions.”
“Sorry. Twenty years in the police department and I never seen nothing like this. It’s throwing me off.”
“Nah, I sorry. I shouldn’t be giving you lip, Mendel. It’s just that the bugga in this Hummer… You know how there’s that roof thing that covers the gas pumps at the station so you no get wet if you’re pumping gas and its raining?”
“Yeah?”
“Fricken’ sucka knocked it down.”
“Oh, nah. Was that before or after he took out both the mailboxes in front of the post office?”
“He did that? Shit, I just mailed a thank you note to my Auntie in Kihei. She sent me and Butchie this industrial sized blender as one belated wedding present. She thinks we’re going to have uku hundred kids or something.”
“Pretty fricken’ belated. Didn’t you and Butchie get married in 2003?”
“Yeah, but we never told her because she and my mother weren’t speaking to each other.”
“How come?”
“Because she forgot to send one thank you card to my mother after my mother sent her a portable grill for her wedding.”
“Shit, Ka’ala. You’d better head to the post office after this. Still get plenty mail blowing around. They’re raking it up into a big pile – except the stuff that blew into the river.”
“Frick. I’m going to need a drink.”
“You never heard, then? This fricka was trying to get away from the mess he made at the post office and he backed right into Bradda Lou’s Bar and Bait. Knocked over all of the shelves like dominos. Can no longer tell if worms in the booze is from the tequila or from the bait buckets. Gross, yeah?”
“Was Bradda Lou all right?”
“Yeah, he’s fine, but he smells like warm beer mixed with chum.”
“He always smells like that.”
“Stronger today.”
“Frick.”
“For real.”
“Hey, so Mendel, why you think Alika wen go freak out like that? You think it was because Noreen left him?”
“No ways! Noreen left him? When did this happen?”
“Like two days ago. She sent him to Honolulu to pick up something for her at L’Occitane at Ala Moana and when he got back to the house, she’d moved back to her mother them’s place.”
“So Noreen is single now?”
“Why, you like go out with her?”
“Shit yeah.”
“She’s got like seven kids.”
“So? I got six. We’ll be like ‘The Brady Bunch.’”
“Yeah, but with 13 boys.”
“What the odds of that, yeah?”
“Whatever. Look, you think heartbreak is why Alika couldn’t drive straight?”
“Bugga shouldn’t have been driving at all. He had a root canal yesterday and was on all kine painkillers. Officer Kekuna said he held up three fingers when he fished Alika out of the car and Alika couldn’t even tell how many hands Kekuna was holding up.”
“Frick, so he was high on painkillers?”
“Nah, worse. Alika’s one independent contractor, yeah? Well, the bugga never bothered to buy insurance, so he paid for the root canal with cash but couldn’t afford the painkillers. First thing they did when they got him to the station was gave him a couple ibuprofen.”
“Did that help?”
“Not that you’d notice. Every time he tries to say something, he moves his jaw and starts screaming, which just makes him scream more ‘cuz when you scream, got to move your jaw, yeah?”
“Ho, Alika is caught in one vicious circle.”
“Yup.”
“Kinda sad. Especially for the keiki.”
“Oh, frick, I never even thought of that. Whose going to be Santa at the community center tomorrow night if Alika is in jail?”
“Yeah, the keiki are gonna be so sad.”
“You know what, though, would be worse if he were Santa. Every time they pulled his beard or made him speak, he would scream like a maniac. They’d all be scarred for life.”
Ka’ala finished hooking up the wrecked Hummer and headed for the cab.
“Hey, you know what Mendel – you should be Santa tomorrow night. You’d be perfect.
“What, you calling me fat?”
“Yes."
“Shit. I always put on like thirty pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“More like fifty.”
“Ah, well, might as well take advantage of it. Ho Ho Ho.”
“Merry Christmas, Mendel.”
“Yeah, you too, Ka’ala.”
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, November 8th, 2009
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11:43 pm - So I Turned Myself To Face Me
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This is nothing serious yet, but I've been pondering giving up improvisation.
Haven't really talked about it with anyone yet and have some shows in the pipeline, but, you know, I could be done.
The whole thing with Sad Clown Rep's implosion this summer has sort of taken two decades worth of wind out of my sails.
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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9:49 pm - Metal Heads On The Old Friend's List...
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...may want to check out this excellent therealljidol entry by rattsu. I don't often plug stuff, as most of you know, but not only is this a great piece about loving a band and finally getting to see them, the band he celebrates - At The Gates - actually rocks pretty hard.
I mean, if you like Metal.
If you don't like Metal, its probably just going to sound like thump thump thump scream shred shred to you.
Anyhow, I liked it.
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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7:47 pm - Today's Quat Photos
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8:37 am - LJ Idol Entry #3 - Prompt: Smile!
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This is my entry for the third official round of therealljidol. Special thanks to sharya.
Snow In August
On the night before Michaela Guadalupe Delgado was assassinated, she turned to Ignacio Ramos while she was packing her suitcase, looked him directly in the eyes and said “Should those bastards manage to kill me, they won’t be able to stop smiling.”
“Who would want to kill you, Lupe?” he replied. An idiot question! Everyone knew the factory owners would like nothing better than to see her dead, foolishly believing that Lupe’s work to start a labor union would die with her.
Ignacio’s brother, Santiago, later reflected that this was the first hint that Ignacio was the factory owners’ mole.
As Lupe boarded the 8:14 train from Querétaro to Santa Maria de Peñamiller, she looked back at her comrades and raised her hand to wave. She was immediately hit with three bullets – two in the chest, one to the head. Her body fell lifeless to the railroad tracks, her arm still raised, her face still wearing the sad smile of one who was taking leave of her good friends.
Lupe had once said that should she be murdered, her blood would not spill on the earth. Santiago noted with amazement – and perhaps a little fear – that her words were true. Oh, there was a lot of blood. More blood than one could imagine being contained in such a small body. The blood ended up all over the train, her clothes, her suitcase and the horrified bystanders. Not a drop was soaked up by the thirsty soil.
Eva-Yolanda Pena, a machinist who had lost her right arm to the factory and had since become Lupe’s irreplaceable assistant, wailed over Lupe, cradling her dear friend’s ruined body with her remaining arm.
“It is as she said,” Eva-Yolanda cried, “Her blood won’t touch the ground.”
“Ignacio, what do you make of that?” Santiago asked, but there was no reply. Having killed Michaela Guadalupe Delgado with his father’s gun, Ignacio had fled. The gun – a Colt SAA that had been in the family for more than 50 years – lay on the platform where he dropped it, leaving Santiago no doubt as to who had done the shooting.
The younger Ramos brother was still missing on the day of Lupe’s funeral. That was the day of the snowfall. Snow was not unheard of in Santa Maria de Peñamiller, but not in this amount, and certainly not in early August.
“Do you remember,” asked Eva-Yolanda, squeezing Santiago’s hand as they threw handfuls of dirt on Lupe’s coffin. “Do you remember what she said?”
In fact, it was all Santiago could think about.
“Should they kill me, it will snow in Santa Maria de Peñamiller from the day I am buried to the day they are brought to justice.”
Nearly the entire village and all of Lupe’s coworkers from Querétaro had turned out for the funeral. It would have been appropriate for the factory owners to have traveled to town to pay their respects. They had, at least publically, paid so much lip service to Michaela Guadalupe Delgado. Only Señor Alvarez, one of the oldest owners and one who treated his workers like they were fellow humans, bothered to ride the train to Santa Maria de Peñamiller.
After throwing his handful of dirt on Lupe’s coffin (and saying a few comforting words to her grieving mother), Señor Alvarez took Santiago and Eva-Yolanda aside.
“I offer no apologies for the absence of the other bosses,” the old man declared, “They are worse than dogs. Not a one of them can hide their delight at this murder. They are dead to me. You can be assured that my factory, at least, will always be a friend to your union.”
“What do you mean they can’t hide their delight?”
“They smile. They insist that they’re not trying to smile, but that just makes it worse to my mind.”
Señor Alvarez waddled off.
“She said they would not be able to stop smiling,” Eva-Yolanda said softly.
So it came as no surprise when two days into the snowfall, while the roads were being cleared, Ignacio Ramos’ body was found in a snowdrift; his mouth was frozen in a hideous grin. This assassin, who hadn’t dared to ask for shelter, had been gently smothered by a blanket of snow.
Santiago claimed his dead brother’s belongings – a worn pair of shoes, 500 pesos and an ill-matching suit. In the suit’s jacket pocket, he found an envelope. Inside that, a letter, foolishly signed by factory owner Heraclio Garcia. It detailed how Ignacio was to shoot Lupe as she boarded the train.
Hauled in by the police, Garcia implicated his fellow conspirators.
Perhaps the judge would have had more mercy on them if they could have stopped smirking. Their apparent mirth throughout the trial was his major justification for imposing the maximum punishment on each of them.
As they were, one by one, sentenced to death, the snowfall in Santa Maria de Peñamiller came to an end. Santiago Ramos didn’t notice this since his eyes were fixed on the large, wet tears, flowing over the smiling lips of the condemned men.
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(115 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, October 30th, 2009
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8:02 pm - LJ Idol Week #2 Vote-a-Rama
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| Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
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12:09 pm - LJ Idol Entry #2 - Prompt:: Uphill, both ways, barefoot
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This is my entry for the second official round of therealljidol. Special thanks to sharya.
Waiting For Gödel
I confess, it wasn’t my love for God that initially led me to choose a cloistered life. No, while my love for Him is the essential foundation of everything I believe, that love could have been expressed in any one of a thousand less extreme ways.
My mother, for example, would have preferred for me to enter the priesthood.
I think my father would have liked grandchildren. At least that’s what I imagine he would have liked. He died before I graduated from St. Simeon Stylites High School in 1994.
He would have loved to have seen that! The entire senior class (all 35 of us) was individually carried to the main courtyard by the underclassmen, and placed on top of our graduation pillars where Brother Fiacre, atop his platform, conferred our diplomas upon us!
Yes, yes, to outsiders, it would seem strange, but in my town, we believe in the old ways. In this case, the very old ways since St. Simeon Stylites-style pillar-sitting hasn’t been in fashion anywhere since the 5th century.
Nonetheless, his example inspired many of us. Well, two of us. Myself and my buddy, Drogo. Drogo had been named after the Saint of unattractive people, which I always thought had been an unfair burden for his parents to place on him. Of course, I’d been named Sithney after the patron Saint of mad dogs.
“That,” my mother would say, rolling her eyes dramatically, “was your father’s idea of comedy.”
Drogo and I decided during our sophomore year at St. Sim’s (as we all called it) that we would become brothers once we graduated. Drogo’s reason was simple. “With a face like mine, I’m not likely to marry, and who would want to watch me preach?”
My reason was somewhat more complicated, but it basically came down to the fact that I rather like learning, but really hate the modern world. Too much noise and information.
This is what led us to The Abbey of St. Cyprian of Antioch. Not that it’s in Antioch, just that that’s where this particular St. Cyprian was from. There are six or seven St. Cyprians, it being a popular name at one point, so one must distinguish them by their specific city of origin.
The thing about St. Cyprian’s is that they won’t take just anyone who wants to be a brother. No, if you commit to St Cy’s, in addition to the traditional vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, you have to vow to “always move up.” When Drogo and I were postulants – and later novices – certain important areas of St. Cy’s were off-limits to us, so the last vow made no sense.
In fact, this is what eventually led Drogo to leave. Shortly before we were to take our solemn vows, he got flustered about the “always moving up” business and decided to leave St. Cy’s for – ironically – The Abbey of St. Bernard of Menthon. Ironic because he objected to the idea of “move up” but then he actually moved up - to the craggy peak where that old building had been consecrated to the patron saint of mountaineers!
That was Our Father’s idea of comedy.
After I took my vows, I was led to the main building of the Abbey – one of the areas that had previously been off-limits to me. We approached through a lovely little garden pass that ended in the open arch into the building. We doffed our footwear as we prepared to enter.
“You’d better hold onto my arm when we walk in. Your first time can be a bit disorienting.”
I did as I was told and was glad I did, for as soon as I walked into the room – if that is, in fact, what one could call it – I was dizzy. No, dizzy doesn’t begin to encompass how I felt. Nauseous. Physically weak. Unhinged.
“See, when Brother Genesius decided he wanted to build St. Cyprian’s back in ‘85, he’d just finished reading Gödel, Escher, Bach…”
There were staircases at impossible angles leading to rooms and doors.
A balcony at an impossible angle to my, what, right? Above me? Below me?
Brothers walking up and down steps using both the tops and the sides of the steps – or with the tops the sides and the sides the tops?
“… so he got to thinking about how Bach’s Musical Offering is a piece whose notes potentially rise forever – as if rising to heaven – and Brother Genesius, well, he thought it would be Holy to have a building where you could only walk upstairs, like upstairs forever, like in Escher’s Ascending and Descending or Relativity. There’s actually some rather interesting math and science at play here, for example…”
“Is there a basement?” I blurted out.
“Well, in a sense, every room is the basement. Just like every room is the attic, I suppose. No matter what room you’re in, there is a room below you and a room above you.”
“That’s not possible…”
“Well, here we are in the entry way. Walk up and you’ll find yourself at the dormitory. Walk up again and you’ll find yourself at the kitchen. Again, and you’ll be at the chapel. Up again and you’ll find yourself back here at the entry way. So you see, we’re both above the chapel and beneath it.”
“That’s unnatural…”
“Look, it’s mostly an optical illusion, but consider this – could this exist if God didn’t want it to?”
I had no answer for that.
It took some getting used to – walking up always, as if to heaven, never down. Passing brothers walking up on the complimentary part of the steps. Always turning to the right, never left, but after a few months, I grew to appreciate the endless opportunities for contemplation – not to mention exercise – afforded by this unique building. God had always been the foundation of my beliefs but, walking up this endless staircase, I realized that foundation was infinite. I’d always loved learning, but looking up those stairs, I knew there was no end to what I still needed to learn.
As I walked up - ever up - I often found myself humming music softly to myself – usually the theme from the old sitcom, The Jeffersons.
That’s my idea of comedy.
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(89 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, October 25th, 2009
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2:06 pm - Caption Courtesy of oopsthud
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12:08 pm - State Of The Kitties Address
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| Friday, October 23rd, 2009
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12:01 pm - LJ Idol Experiment
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I'm going to try and get by on votes from within the LJ Idol contest for the next few weeks (unless I'm in danger of being eliminated). At the moment, they're only eliminating the lowest vote getter and - while I'm certainly not the highest vote getter - I'm not in any immediate danger of being eliminated.
One piece of advice I've read from past competitors that I'm taking to heart is "don't go to your friends list to ask for votes until you really need it." This is likely going to be a long contest (maybe 20 or more weeks), so I don't want all y'all to get bored voting for me early.
My hope is to make it past Round 6. Anything after that is gravy.
That said, if you want to see how I'm doing, you can check out my tribe's poll here. Click on "View Poll Results" to see where I rank right now.
Obviously, you're welcome to vote for me, too. My entry for this particular round is here. Please do read it and comment if you get the chance. While I'd love your vote, I'd love for you to read it even more.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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1:46 pm - Someone's Knocking In The Distance
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So why don't I update here as much as I used to?
Because for the last two years I've been writing about five songs a day nearly every day.
I've written entries on over 2000 songs. I'm almost up to the letter "E."
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
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9:49 am - USA SVU WTF?
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Mrs. The Wife Michaels is a reasonably big fan of the USA (a US Cable TV Channel) "Characters Welcome" series, so that channel is on frequently at the old homestead.
Now, there's this show called Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. For those of you not in the know, its about a New York police unit that focuses on victims of assorted rapes, sexually motivated murders, child molestation and other horrible crimes that involved some sort of sexual assault.
As befits the subject matter, the characters on the show are extremely serious - more so than the characters investigating murders on its parent show, Law and Order. Indeed, it isn't unusual to hear one of the officers on L&O crack a joke about the dead body in the cold opening of the show. No such jokes on SVU.
This is why it blows my mind that somebody at USA decided to create promos for SVU that were light-hearted, even poking fun at the show's seriousness. Seriously, what the hell is that all about?
First, let's assume that somebody who has never heard of SVU is attracted to watch the show because of the commercials. Their assumption would, correctly, be that they're in for a whimsical day with the NYPD. SURPRISE! The first scene typically features a dead body, a traumatized victim, a distraught parent or (if you're really lucky) all three.
Second, let's assume that somebody who HAS heard of SVU catches the promo. What are they to assume? That USA thinks the subject matter of the show is "ha ha" funny? "Hey, child abuse! But look at all the coffee they drink! What's up with that? Ho Ho Ho!"
I recognize that the USA 'Characters Welcome' promo is generally a pretty light-hearted affair, but SVU is decidedly not. As a result, while I wouldn't go so far as to call the promos offensive, I will say they strike the wrong note and are, perhaps, even somewhat insensitive.
I am offensive and somewhat insensitive, so I am qualified to recognize it when others are.
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, October 15th, 2009
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9:27 pm - LJ Idol Entry #1 - Prompt: Empty Gesture
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This is my entry for the first official round of therealljidol.
The Horse Head Fiddle
October 15, 3020, Third Age
Allow me to once again offer my most humble salutations to you, King Elessar, twenty-sixth King of Arnor, thirty-fifth King of Gondor and High King of the Reunited Kingdom. Long may you reign!
I, Uthunk Half-Orc write to you again as a duly appointed representative of your loyal subjects in Núrn, Mordor. Once more, let me express how grateful we are to have been set free from the bonds of slavery imposed on us by Sauron and his minions. Our life was never ending misery and torment under his rule and I am pleased to report that, under your just and kind rule, we have occasional respite from misery and torment. Oh, maybe only a few minutes of respite a week, but that is infinitely preferable to never ending misery.
Pardon, great King. As you're no doubt aware by now, I am prone to digression.
I first want to report how overjoyed we were by your very kind gift. This was, indeed, the first horse head fiddle that any of us in Núrn had ever seen. It took us a rather long time to grasp the concept that it was called a horse head fiddle because of the delightful horse carving at the top of the instrument's neck and not because it was made from an actual horse's head.
You see, our orkish masters made entire percussive orchestras from the body parts of various creatures. They called these revolting ensembles "goremelans." The sounds they made were really rather dreadful and horrifying, especially since many of the instruments weren't fully dead until after the performance. There were few phrases that caused more fear among my fellow slaves than "I think you might have a career in music."
That was the basis for our confusion. We were confused and terrified at first by the screeching that emerged from the horse head fiddle when your emissary played it, which led, in turn, to the dreadful arrow wounds he received. He is recuperating nicely. We've since gritted our teeth and endured several other performances from him in his sick bed. Your emissary has assured us that there are few things the people of Rohan like more than this sound, so we're really making an effort to appreciate it.
Even though the music this horse head fiddle produces causes us deep, psychic anguish, even freed slaves such as ourselves can recognize the fine Rohanian craftsmanship of the instrument itself.
Rohanian? Is that the correct collective term for the people of Rohan? Here in Mordor, we always heard them referred to as "the horse riding bastards," or - among the more gentrified Uruk-hai - "the horse riding sillies."
Once again, let me apologize for the digression. The main point I am trying to make is, despite our utter revulsion at the sound the horse head fiddle makes (which I would compare unfavorably to somebody slowly roasting a live cat), we are entirely grateful for the gift and don't want to appear ungrateful in the least, oh great, wise and beneficent High King.
For this reason, it pains me to write once again that, while we are very grateful for your beautiful and dreadful gift, what we actually need is food. You may recall that this was the subject of my last nine epistles, so I offer my humblest apologies for my repetitiveness.
We do recognize that the horse head fiddle is a "symbol of your great love for the freed people of Núrn," as your emissary so kindly reported before being perforated with crossbow bolts and hook-tipped arrows. However, at the moment, we are less in need of music and more in need of meat.
We expressed this to your emissary, who said something about "music being the food of love." My assumption is that he was delirious from the poison we often place on our arrowheads.
If I may, the people of Mordor - many of whom are half-orcs like myself - are used to living on pain, misery, malice and meat. I am pleased to report that we have an ample supply of the the first three.
We still walk to the fields every day over paths of razor sharp lava rock, nary a shade tree in sight, and toil for fourteen hours or until we drop dead.
Furthermore, although the trained "life counselors" you sent to Núrn have not been able to eradicated the malice in our shriveled, black hearts, we have redirected that malice in positive ways. For example, my wife just crocheted a sweater for me that is far too tight and filled with small metal shavings (not to mention entirely inappropriate for the climate). I'm sure you'll agree that is a fabulous step up from murdering humans and feasting on their still warm flesh.
Which, of course, brings me back to meat.
We're trying very hard to comply with your no-cannibalism laws, though we feel like they result in a terrible waste of potential food. I confess, many of us are confused by the punishment you've imposed for "eating the flesh of another sentient being." We can understand putting the offending party to death, but we don't understand why you insist on feeding the body of the victim to the Wargs.
Frankly, the Wargs are looking much better fed than us.
Furthermore, Wargs are sentient beings - they can talk to each other. I have heard them. We've all heard them. In fact, they laugh about the fact that they get to eat "sentient beings" when we cannot. Until you have been laughed at by a Warg, you have not known true humiliation.
In our hunger, I confess we initially thought your emissary (who you must admit is rather plump and delicious looking) was your actual gift to us. This impression was compounded when he announced that his fiddle playing was to be "dinner music." If the playing hadn't been so dreadful, we likely would have waited until after his performance to try and feast on him. That, of course, would have been a disaster, since he made it quite clear - after the incident with the arrows - that he was, in his words, "not for eating."
Once again, I humbly apologize for that bit of confusion. We're sincerely trying to fit in with your culture, but centuries of abuse sometimes make it hard for us to remember things that are probably second nature to you. Things like "don't eat your neighbors" and "floss."
High King, I repeat that we are very grateful for all that you and the people of Gondor and Arnor have done for us. We appreciate the horse head fiddle, and the lovely wind chimes from Moria that you sent before that, and the delightful set of 12 "special hobbit pipe-weed pipes only slightly used by some dwarves" that you sent before that, and all the other delightful small gifts you've sent our way.
None-the-less, you, in your wisdom, surely recognize that trinkets, no matter how wondrous, are a poor substitute for regular eating.
So, once again, I implore you, please send us some meat and send it quickly. Or perhaps some lembas - a box of those crackers could feed Núrn for months. Indeed, we would prefer horse head cheese to horse head fiddles in the future.
Not that we aren't grateful for the fiddle.
Your humble (but rapidly weakening) servant,
Uthunk Half-Orc
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12:21 pm - Vote Goat
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Ladies and Gentleman, therealljidol polls close soon.
Vote for JoeyMichaels.
This is just a practice round. I'd like to be more like one of those American Idol contestants that gets kicked off for posing for nude pictures than somebody who gets removed because their from a low population state and can't compete with the NYC dude.
POLLS CLOSED - thank you for helping me place in the top 5 of my tribe! :D
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