Dear England:
I wrote to you a number of years ago with no response. Again I find myself at the beginning stages of the American election cycle. Again I find myself face...
Well. England has a bit of a Brexit problem. I probably won't get a response. That's probably true of all the islands right there and thereabouts.
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Dear Malta,
Thank you for a taking a moment to read my request for asylum. As you may have noticed in the past few years The United States of America has become a beacon of mental instability. We are so divided and so full of hate that we can't seem to enjoy anything any more without it being somehow offensive to someone else. Then to better our civil discourse somebody that neither enjoyed the event nor was offended by the event decides that they should champion the cause of the offended (who probably had already forgotten that they were offended). These champions of justice or, social warriors as they are both righteously and pejoratively called, create the echo chamber in which hate takes shape. Other unconnected people with an exactly opposite political bent then weigh in on the matter which they knew nothing about until the social warrior had brought the obscure event to their attention. From this exchange creates a back and forth that is nothing short of abject hatred. Never mind that the two arguing parties have more in common with one another than differences and that temperamentally they are suited to be excellent friends. Their political differences, these political ideals that govern all their conversations and none of their daily actions, are too self-important and prevent any kind of kindredship between the parties. This process is repeated millions times a day and then plastered all over the internet and fed to us as news.
I was so wearied by the Republican Primaries in the last election that by the time of the General Election debates you could have knocked me over with a feather. The candidates decided to complete their easy task with sledge hammers. Through the whole year I found myself waiting, desperately for November to come and put a silence to the madness that was the election build-up. I figured of course, that the election would solve the problem. Election day would be a deafening crescendo for sure. Then for a week or two the losing side would raise holy hell but slowly their disappointment and anger would dissipate into the more comfortable resignation. I admit that I thought it would not matter who won. One candidate would shift to the left upon winning and the other would shift to the right. There would be all sorts of demagoguery in front of the cameras and behind the veil some work would get done. I would get a respite from the relentless nature of the previous campaign.
That however has not been the case. The holy hell was raised and it kept on raising. Three years in and we are still hearing about a stolen election. Nothing is really being done in Washington but its forked tongue is screaming out warnings and apocalyptic narratives at such a pace that it is nearly impossible to make sense of the whole. So instead of making sense of the whole we latch on to a single narrative thread and treat it as the main plot and color our entire worldview around it. A birth certificate? Some Tax Reports? Quid pro quo? Deep state? Which of these one attaches ones self to will change the way the world is at appears to the holder. It makes communication across imaginary political lines impossible and the few that try are labeled traitors to their kind, even if they did not know that they had a kind prior to becoming a traitor.
It's all exhausting. The modern world as it is means that the election cycle is going to be brutal. But, that should last a year for most, average Americans. The political junkies and the local politicians have chosen their vice and let the suffer its consequences as they reap its benefits. I want no part of that. In this new world the election cycle seems to have no end. If one is reelected then we have another four years of all the chaos on top of the year we already have left. If he is removed through anything by other than the election it will be seen as a coup d'etat even by a large portion of moderates because there will be no true smoking gun. The closest that has come so far is the Mulvaney quip about getting over it. I think, through no intention or planning on his part, Trump has been the most transparent of all Presidents in modern history. Mulvaney basically said that, "America puts political pressure on people to achieve its agenda. This is how it's been done for years. You know it. I know it. Nothing new here. Move along". He's right. He's just an idiot it for saying it. But he's a genius for saying it because it will rile up a vocal part of the base with him using the system against itself. This will be spun as a heroic act in some circles. Others won't even know how to understand this logic, let alone how to responds. There will be rage. If one of the Democrats win there could very well be a smattering of small wannabe militias roaming the streets causing unrest after the election. There could be people out there in the name of journalism provoking violent reaction to the election so that they can gain clicks regardless of which side wins. I want no part of that.
I am writing you today to ask for a way to come and stay with you. I am willing to work, I simply require the legal framework from you. Please don't turn me away because I'm too tired to deal with this for the rest of my life, which will be greatly shortened by being bombarded by this nonsense at every waking hour.
Yours Truly.
Showing posts with label Short Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Short Stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Early Greek Math & Astronomy
The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Ch. XXIV Early Greek Mathematics and Astronomy
The Greeks took a little from the Egyptians and a little from the Babylonians and then developed some sound mathematics.
Euclid was still regarded as the sole textbook on geometry when Bertrand Russell was a schoolboy.
"Euclid Elements is certainly one of the greatest books ever written, and one of the most perfect
monuments of the Greek intellect. It has, of course, the typical Greek limitations: the method is
purely deductive, and there is no way, within it, of testing the initial assumptions. These
assumptions were supposed to be unquestionable, but in the nineteenth century non-Euclidean
geometry showed that they might be in part mistaken, and that only observation could decide
whether they were so" (Russell, 211)
Like Plato, Euclid had a contempt for the practical utility of his work.
The Buridan's ass argument: two bundles of hay were placed at equal distances to the right and left of the donkey. Therefore, he died of hunger. That could be mined for an interesting short story idea.
In astronomy the Greeks made leaps and strides, with some even moving away from an anthropocentric universe. Of course, it wasn't quite heliocentric yet, but the notion of earth being just one of the planets moving in space paved the way from a heliocentric theory.
Heraclides, a pupil of Plato's school postulated that the earth rotates once on its own axis every twenty-four hours and discovered that Venus and Mercury revolve around the son.
Aristarchus of Samos (310 - 230 BC) "is the most interesting of all ancient astronomers, because he advanced the complete Copernican hypothesis, that all the planets, including the earth, revolve in circles around the sun, and that the earth rotates on its axis once in twenty-four hours" (Russell, 214).
Seleucus, Aristarchus' successor fully adhered to this theory as well, but then was not adopted by any other ancient astronomer.
Eratosthenes estimated the earth's diameter within 50 miles of the actual diameter.
Bertrand Russell
Ch. XXIV Early Greek Mathematics and Astronomy
The Greeks took a little from the Egyptians and a little from the Babylonians and then developed some sound mathematics.
Euclid was still regarded as the sole textbook on geometry when Bertrand Russell was a schoolboy.
"Euclid Elements is certainly one of the greatest books ever written, and one of the most perfect
monuments of the Greek intellect. It has, of course, the typical Greek limitations: the method is
purely deductive, and there is no way, within it, of testing the initial assumptions. These
assumptions were supposed to be unquestionable, but in the nineteenth century non-Euclidean
geometry showed that they might be in part mistaken, and that only observation could decide
whether they were so" (Russell, 211)
Like Plato, Euclid had a contempt for the practical utility of his work.
The Buridan's ass argument: two bundles of hay were placed at equal distances to the right and left of the donkey. Therefore, he died of hunger. That could be mined for an interesting short story idea.
In astronomy the Greeks made leaps and strides, with some even moving away from an anthropocentric universe. Of course, it wasn't quite heliocentric yet, but the notion of earth being just one of the planets moving in space paved the way from a heliocentric theory.
Heraclides, a pupil of Plato's school postulated that the earth rotates once on its own axis every twenty-four hours and discovered that Venus and Mercury revolve around the son.
Aristarchus of Samos (310 - 230 BC) "is the most interesting of all ancient astronomers, because he advanced the complete Copernican hypothesis, that all the planets, including the earth, revolve in circles around the sun, and that the earth rotates on its axis once in twenty-four hours" (Russell, 214).
Seleucus, Aristarchus' successor fully adhered to this theory as well, but then was not adopted by any other ancient astronomer.
Eratosthenes estimated the earth's diameter within 50 miles of the actual diameter.
Friday, September 13, 2019
The Apple Racket
write a short story about the benefit of apples. an apple a day keeps the doctor away the cooing mother sings to her child. It is every child's first memory, the sing-song instructions and the emphasis on the health benefits of apples. Apples had helped generations grow healthy and strong. Children everywhere sat and listened to their parents tell them about apples and how if they just eat an apple a day then all their dreams and their wishes will come true. The apple was the key component to their success. You might get lucky they told their children and you can get by without having an apple a day, but it's risky and you'll be much better off if you do eat an apple a day. A day comes in the life of every child that they notice their parents aren't eating apples and they wonder why. The parents explain that they ate all their apples growing up and once you're an adult the apples aren't necessary anymore, unless you want to do something else in your life. Then you have to cram as many apples in a day as you can. That's why some adults eat apples they'll explain. Satisfied with the answer the child moves on to school knowing that their parents, whom they love and trust, have told them an apple a day is what is important.
Then children go off to school where they meet teachers, principals, guidance counselors and coaches, all of whom have grown strong by eating their apples. They tell the students, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. For twelve years they repeat and reinforce what their parents had told them.
Even in the summers a lot of children ate an apple a day and studied so they could one day cram in all the final apples they needed to do right before becoming an adult. Those last bushels were always more expensive, but still, the investment was worth it in avoiding the doctor's bills alone.
Then came the crisis. The farmers had seen how much money they could make selling apples and they started to work to raise their profits. They packaged them differently, making them shiny and unique. They advertised to the students, who by the time they are in high school have to start looking for where they can get their final bushels from before becoming an apple. Apples, having been around for centuries, thousands of years even, suddenly became a hot commodity. Apple bushels, even though they hadn't changed in twenty years were suddenly twenty times the price. Still the parents and the teachers, and more importantly, the marketers and the apple bushel sellers and the government who wanted to prop up the apple sellers kept preaching the importance of apples. So the kids, right on the brink of adulthood, are asked to prepare to buy their final apple bushels. The cost is too much so the bankers say, we'll give you the money and you just pay us back later. So the child, who has been told for his or her entire life by nearly every important person in their life that they have to eat an apple a day for the transition into adulthood, has to make a choice. Do they accept the banker's money to do the thing that all those important people told them they have to do, do they step back a moment and objectively block out what they've had a dozen or so years of marketing material shoved down their throats by people who have spent a lifetime learning how to be persuasive and say, "I think I'm going to try and go without the apples". Of course not, they have everyone they love and trust plus the professional pushers telling them to eat the apple. They take the bank's money because they believe it's the only way to keep the doctor away.
Then came the crisis. The blight. The apples weren't healthy. The whole economy crashed. Somehow the prices of apples still went up. The kids, now adults, saddled with the banker's loans struggled to find meaningful work. They got sick. They needed doctors. But they didn't have any money. All of it went to pay back the loans they were told were necessary to keep away the doctors. Now they have doctor's bills on top of the loans. They're angry. They feel cheated. Their parents generation responds with a complete lack of empathy and a complete lack of understanding. They tell them that they shouldn't have taken the loans out in the first place. One young man asks, should we have not listened to you then or should we not listen to you now. One young man, whose parents had bought him the bushels he needed to transition into adulthood, declares the other young man is just a loafer. (The first young man weeds the other young man's garden). Tumult occurs as each generation blames the other. Anger permeates the village and everybody has an opinion, even and especially so the ones who had their apples paid for by someone else or paid for their apples twenty years ago when a part time summer job would pay enough for the whole year's worth of apples. Finally, the apple orchard is burned down by the disillusioned poor. In the aftermath a man plans to plant a peach tree. He tells his companion, "A plump peach a week gives you everything you seek". His friend responds, it's a good start but think on this, "A plump peach this very hour will keep your fate from ever going sour". The first one agrees, but says they'll start slow and then with effective marketing move up to eating by the hour.
Then children go off to school where they meet teachers, principals, guidance counselors and coaches, all of whom have grown strong by eating their apples. They tell the students, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. For twelve years they repeat and reinforce what their parents had told them.
Even in the summers a lot of children ate an apple a day and studied so they could one day cram in all the final apples they needed to do right before becoming an adult. Those last bushels were always more expensive, but still, the investment was worth it in avoiding the doctor's bills alone.
Then came the crisis. The farmers had seen how much money they could make selling apples and they started to work to raise their profits. They packaged them differently, making them shiny and unique. They advertised to the students, who by the time they are in high school have to start looking for where they can get their final bushels from before becoming an apple. Apples, having been around for centuries, thousands of years even, suddenly became a hot commodity. Apple bushels, even though they hadn't changed in twenty years were suddenly twenty times the price. Still the parents and the teachers, and more importantly, the marketers and the apple bushel sellers and the government who wanted to prop up the apple sellers kept preaching the importance of apples. So the kids, right on the brink of adulthood, are asked to prepare to buy their final apple bushels. The cost is too much so the bankers say, we'll give you the money and you just pay us back later. So the child, who has been told for his or her entire life by nearly every important person in their life that they have to eat an apple a day for the transition into adulthood, has to make a choice. Do they accept the banker's money to do the thing that all those important people told them they have to do, do they step back a moment and objectively block out what they've had a dozen or so years of marketing material shoved down their throats by people who have spent a lifetime learning how to be persuasive and say, "I think I'm going to try and go without the apples". Of course not, they have everyone they love and trust plus the professional pushers telling them to eat the apple. They take the bank's money because they believe it's the only way to keep the doctor away.
Then came the crisis. The blight. The apples weren't healthy. The whole economy crashed. Somehow the prices of apples still went up. The kids, now adults, saddled with the banker's loans struggled to find meaningful work. They got sick. They needed doctors. But they didn't have any money. All of it went to pay back the loans they were told were necessary to keep away the doctors. Now they have doctor's bills on top of the loans. They're angry. They feel cheated. Their parents generation responds with a complete lack of empathy and a complete lack of understanding. They tell them that they shouldn't have taken the loans out in the first place. One young man asks, should we have not listened to you then or should we not listen to you now. One young man, whose parents had bought him the bushels he needed to transition into adulthood, declares the other young man is just a loafer. (The first young man weeds the other young man's garden). Tumult occurs as each generation blames the other. Anger permeates the village and everybody has an opinion, even and especially so the ones who had their apples paid for by someone else or paid for their apples twenty years ago when a part time summer job would pay enough for the whole year's worth of apples. Finally, the apple orchard is burned down by the disillusioned poor. In the aftermath a man plans to plant a peach tree. He tells his companion, "A plump peach a week gives you everything you seek". His friend responds, it's a good start but think on this, "A plump peach this very hour will keep your fate from ever going sour". The first one agrees, but says they'll start slow and then with effective marketing move up to eating by the hour.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
From Goodreads
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
What in the holy hell of hodgepodge gumblygook did I just read? Bach crammed a bit of eastern mysticism, a dash of de-deified Jesus as a dude, pseudoscience mumbojumbo, Socrates and a hobbyist's enthusiasm for aviation into a tumbler and shook it up to see what he could pour out. What poured out was a bunch of black and white seagull pictures that a sophomore in high school took on the family vacation that he deemed art surrounded by a boring, pointless fable. This is a prime example of spiritualism without a grounding in any truth. On a side note it did make me think about a story where the earth is falling apart because the number of souls remains constant and because of modern medicine the number of bodily beings is exhausting the stock of souls. Imagine, all the wicked souls who ought to be languishing in hell for eternity are being released early. That's where all the extra evil is coming from. Too much body, not enough soul. If I flesh it out for a hundred and fifty pages and find a high schooler with an old film SLR I could turn the idea into a movie. This book got made into a freaking movie!!! I'm probably not going to search it out, but I might try to track down the soundtrack by Neil Diamond.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
What in the holy hell of hodgepodge gumblygook did I just read? Bach crammed a bit of eastern mysticism, a dash of de-deified Jesus as a dude, pseudoscience mumbojumbo, Socrates and a hobbyist's enthusiasm for aviation into a tumbler and shook it up to see what he could pour out. What poured out was a bunch of black and white seagull pictures that a sophomore in high school took on the family vacation that he deemed art surrounded by a boring, pointless fable. This is a prime example of spiritualism without a grounding in any truth. On a side note it did make me think about a story where the earth is falling apart because the number of souls remains constant and because of modern medicine the number of bodily beings is exhausting the stock of souls. Imagine, all the wicked souls who ought to be languishing in hell for eternity are being released early. That's where all the extra evil is coming from. Too much body, not enough soul. If I flesh it out for a hundred and fifty pages and find a high schooler with an old film SLR I could turn the idea into a movie. This book got made into a freaking movie!!! I'm probably not going to search it out, but I might try to track down the soundtrack by Neil Diamond.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Reaction to a dark twist in a short story idea
I just came across an idea for a short story that I posited in August of 2007. Wow, that was surprisingly dark! I think I may have been watching entirely too much Law and Order. I also think that I was trying to be provocative for the sake of provocativeness. Honestly, if done well it wouldn't be a horrible short story, but it might be done mediocre and achieve nothing but shock for the sake of shocking or be a badly written morality tale with a weird kitsch vibe. I'm not sure what I think about it. I was just surprised by its darkness.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Lottery
Do a short story on Plato's lottery for sex.
I imagine a very somber, melancholic room. Sex has been stripped of its fun. The lottery has been going on for centuries. Instead of creating excitement it now creates dread. When the lottery is drawn the couples perform in front of bored audiences. The woman is then sequestered until she is with child. If she doesn't conceive both the man and the woman are released from the lottery system. They are thrown out into the free love room. This is where I want to do the myth of the cave kind of story. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I am picturing an aesthetic similar to Dogville by Lars von Trier...
I'm not sure where this will go (if anywhere) but there you have it future Chris. Good luck with this one...
I imagine a very somber, melancholic room. Sex has been stripped of its fun. The lottery has been going on for centuries. Instead of creating excitement it now creates dread. When the lottery is drawn the couples perform in front of bored audiences. The woman is then sequestered until she is with child. If she doesn't conceive both the man and the woman are released from the lottery system. They are thrown out into the free love room. This is where I want to do the myth of the cave kind of story. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I am picturing an aesthetic similar to Dogville by Lars von Trier...
I'm not sure where this will go (if anywhere) but there you have it future Chris. Good luck with this one...
Monday, March 6, 2017
Some of Lewis' thoughts on Free Will (and a short story idea)
God decided to create the world in such a way that man had free will. For what reason would God choose to create a world in which free will exists, knowing as He did, it could end up going very badly (as it did indeed)? "Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other" (Lewis, Mere Christianity).
God could have created a world where man had free will but chose to erase the Original Sin. But, if God had used some sort of magical eraser to erase the Original Sin or hit the reset button, then He would have continued to have to do it to erase the inevitable Second Original Sin, Third Original Sin, Fourth Original Sin, and so on ad infinitum. But, if He had opted for this course than either the world would have never really gotten going or eventually whatever umpteenth number Original Sin would have eventually started off the course at which we found ourselves.
Lewis states that some people claim to be able to imagine a world in which there is Free Will but no possibility of evil. Lewis denies this. Basically he states that in order to have a world with Free Will but with no possibility for the misusage of Free Will God would have to intervene at an infinite rate to produce miracles after miracles in such a way that they would disrupt the natural order of His creation. There would be no laws of physics or any kind of natural law because God would have to constantly intervene whenever someone tried to do something wrong. The way Lewis writes about this gives me a funny idea for a short story involving Cain and Abel.
The Unfortunate Events of Cain and Abel
Say God had decided to intervene with his magic original sin eraser. After about the three thousandth time of erasing the Original Sin God finally gets fed up with Adam and Eve and casts them out of the Garden. But, after awhile he decides to get back up to the whole reset button and magic eraser routine until Cain and Abel are ready to make their sacrifices. God accepts Abel's but rejects Cain's. Cain is so angry at Abel he calls him every name under the sun, but God, in order to spare the evil from polluting the world alters the sound waves so that Abel doesn't hear all the threats that Cain is making. The problem here becomes twofold. First, it further angers Cain. Second, it leaves Abel completely unaware that his brother is furious with him and wants to kill him. He accepts Cain's overtures to go hang out in the rock pit. Whereupon Cain picks up a rock in anger and tries to hit Abel upside the head, but God quickly changes the law of physics so that whatever Cain throws at Abel will end up harmless. The rock flies at Abel who is suddenly popped in the head with a Watermelon, leaving him stunned, but chuckling. He picks up a rock and pummels Cain with it. God however is so tired of this whole magic eraser business and is busy telling the Holy Spirit his frustration that he doesn't notice Abel throwing the rock at Cain and since He only changed the laws of physics to protect Abel from Cain's sin, Abel inadvertently slew Cain. Totally bemused with his first family and his ill-fated attempts to create perfect children with Free Will he decides to hit the reset button and leaves them Free Will and devises a different plan to get them out of the inevitable mess they'll make.
Lewis, however, is a bit more serious minded than I am. He contends that a world where Free Will exists and God changes their mistakes before they become sin would not only create a world where wrong actions are impossible, but where freedom of the will would become impossible. He also makes a fascinating point about being upset with God for creating a world with the possibility of such evil. He argues that we have no right and no real standing when we argue against God on this matter. God is the very source of our reasoning power, so to use our reasoning power to try and argue against him is not only fruitless, it's a little bit like chopping off the branch we're sitting on to spite the tree. The Tree is still going to be standing once we crashed out onto the ground.
God could have created a world where man had free will but chose to erase the Original Sin. But, if God had used some sort of magical eraser to erase the Original Sin or hit the reset button, then He would have continued to have to do it to erase the inevitable Second Original Sin, Third Original Sin, Fourth Original Sin, and so on ad infinitum. But, if He had opted for this course than either the world would have never really gotten going or eventually whatever umpteenth number Original Sin would have eventually started off the course at which we found ourselves.
Lewis states that some people claim to be able to imagine a world in which there is Free Will but no possibility of evil. Lewis denies this. Basically he states that in order to have a world with Free Will but with no possibility for the misusage of Free Will God would have to intervene at an infinite rate to produce miracles after miracles in such a way that they would disrupt the natural order of His creation. There would be no laws of physics or any kind of natural law because God would have to constantly intervene whenever someone tried to do something wrong. The way Lewis writes about this gives me a funny idea for a short story involving Cain and Abel.
The Unfortunate Events of Cain and Abel
Say God had decided to intervene with his magic original sin eraser. After about the three thousandth time of erasing the Original Sin God finally gets fed up with Adam and Eve and casts them out of the Garden. But, after awhile he decides to get back up to the whole reset button and magic eraser routine until Cain and Abel are ready to make their sacrifices. God accepts Abel's but rejects Cain's. Cain is so angry at Abel he calls him every name under the sun, but God, in order to spare the evil from polluting the world alters the sound waves so that Abel doesn't hear all the threats that Cain is making. The problem here becomes twofold. First, it further angers Cain. Second, it leaves Abel completely unaware that his brother is furious with him and wants to kill him. He accepts Cain's overtures to go hang out in the rock pit. Whereupon Cain picks up a rock in anger and tries to hit Abel upside the head, but God quickly changes the law of physics so that whatever Cain throws at Abel will end up harmless. The rock flies at Abel who is suddenly popped in the head with a Watermelon, leaving him stunned, but chuckling. He picks up a rock and pummels Cain with it. God however is so tired of this whole magic eraser business and is busy telling the Holy Spirit his frustration that he doesn't notice Abel throwing the rock at Cain and since He only changed the laws of physics to protect Abel from Cain's sin, Abel inadvertently slew Cain. Totally bemused with his first family and his ill-fated attempts to create perfect children with Free Will he decides to hit the reset button and leaves them Free Will and devises a different plan to get them out of the inevitable mess they'll make.
Lewis, however, is a bit more serious minded than I am. He contends that a world where Free Will exists and God changes their mistakes before they become sin would not only create a world where wrong actions are impossible, but where freedom of the will would become impossible. He also makes a fascinating point about being upset with God for creating a world with the possibility of such evil. He argues that we have no right and no real standing when we argue against God on this matter. God is the very source of our reasoning power, so to use our reasoning power to try and argue against him is not only fruitless, it's a little bit like chopping off the branch we're sitting on to spite the tree. The Tree is still going to be standing once we crashed out onto the ground.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
A History of the World in 6 Glasses
A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Tom Standage
This was a really fun little history book that shows the development of human history through six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola. For a history book it really keeps the pages turning and would be a good read for just about anyone. It's not so lofty that only history nerds would like and understand it; but, it isn't so simple that those same nerds would turn their nose up at it.
Here are just some of my highlights from the book.
"To Neolithic drinkers, beer's ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical" (Standage, 19). - The obvious inference here is that beer is a gift from the gods, which played a central role in many ancient peoples' religions.
An interesting Egyptian myth that would be worth further study and possibly a short story:
"The Egyptians, for example, believed that beer was accidentally discovered by Osiris, the god of agriculture and king of the afterlife. One day he prepared a mixture of water and sprouted grain, but forgot about it and left it in the sun. He later returned to find the gruel had fermented, decided to drink it, and was so pleased with the result that he passed his knowledge on to humankind. (This tale seems to tally closely with the way beer was probably discovered in the stone age)." (Standage, 19).
It is better to be a beer drinker than a non-beer drinker.
"In other words, beer helped to make up for the decline in food quality as people took up farming, provided a safe form of liquid nourishment, and gave groups of beer-drinking farmers a comparative advantage over non-beer drinkers" (Standage, 22).
Philosophy of Religion and History of Religion: An interesting theory on how temples emerged to play a role in society:
"Keeping surplus food in the storehouse was one way to ward off future food shortages; ritual and religious activity, in which the gods were called upon to ensure a good harvest, was another. As these two activities became intertwined, deposits of surplus food came to be seen as offerings to the gods, and the storehouses became temples." (Standage, 22).
"The Mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.
-Egyptian Proverb, c. 2200 BC."(Standage, 23)
The very definition of civilization is beer.
"The Mesopotamians regarded the consumption of bread and beer as one of the things that distinguished them from savages and made them fully human. Interestingly, this belief seems to echo beer's association with a settled, orderly lifestyle, rather than the haphazard existence of hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times" (Standage, 27).
Another Egyptian Myth worth retelling in short story form:
"One Egyptian tale even credits beer with saving humankind from destruction. Ra, the sun god, learned that humankind was plotting against him, and dispatched the goddess Hathor to exact punishment. But such was her ferocity that Ra feared there would soon be nobody left to worship him, and he took pity on humankind. He prepared a vast amount of beer - seven thousand jars of it, in some versions of the story - dyed it red to resemble blood, and spread it over the fields, where it shone like a vast mirror. Hathor paused to admire her reflection and then stooped to drink some of the mixture. She became intoxicated, fell asleep, and forgot about her bloody mission. Humankind was saved, and Hathor became the goddess of beer and brewing. Versions of this story have been found inscribed of Egyptian kings, including Tutankhamen, Seti I, and Ramses the Great" (Standage, 28-29).
"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever"
-Aristophanes, Greek comic poet (c. 450-385 BCE)." (Standage, 43).
Plato's wine experiment and "fear drink" to test someone's character:
"Wine could be used in everyday life to reveal truth: It could expose the true nature of those drinking it. While he objected to the hedonistic reality of actual symposia, Plato saw no reason why the practice could not, in theory, be put to good use as a test of personality. Speaking through one of the characters in his book Laws, Plato argues that drinking with someone at a symposium is in fact the simplest, fastest, and most reliable test of someone's character" (Standage, 63-64).
"Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine and sex?
-Corpus Inscriptions VI, 15258" (Standage, 69).
Another short story that would be worth writing - This might be good as a story of disembodied heads relating their final moments on earth at a party in the afterlife:
"It is not often that choosing one wine over another is a matter of life or death. Yet that is what determined the fate of Marcus Antonius, a Roman politician and a renowned orator. In 87 BCE, he found himself on the wrong side of one of Rome's many interminable power struggles. Gains Marius, an elderly general, had seized power and was ruthlessly hunting down supporters of his rival, Sulla. Marcus Antonius sought refuge in the house of an associate of far lower social status, hoping that nobody would think of looking for him in such a poor man's house. His host, however, unwittingly gave him away by sending his servant out to buy wine worthy of such a distinguished guest. The servant went to the neighborhood wine shop and, after tasting what was on offer, asked for a far better and more expensive wine than usual. When the vintner asked why, the servant revealed the identity of his master's guest. The vintner went straight to Marius, who dispatched a handful of soldiers to kill Marcus Antonius. Yet having burst into his room, the soldiers could not bring themselves to kill him, such was the power of his oratory. Eventually, their commanding officer, who was waiting outside, went in to see what was happening. Denouncing his men as cowards, he drew his sword and beheaded Marcus Antonius himself" (Standage, 75).
A funny account of early English settlers to the New World:
"In 1613 a Spanish observer reported that the three hundred colonists had nothing but water to drink, 'which is contrary to the nature of the English - on account of which they all wish to return and would have done so if they had been at liberty'" (Standage, 113-114).
The Early American Drink:
Rum starts out as the colonial and American drink, but it is supplanted by whiskey with even George Washington getting in on the game. Jefferson however laments this as both a statesman, and a wine aficionado - calling wine, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey. "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage" (Standage, 127).
A fascinating account of the origin of coffee
"One tells of an Ethiopian goatherd who noticed that is flock became particularly frisky after consuming the brownish purple cherries from a particular tree. He then tried eating them himself, noted their stimulating powers, and passed his discovery on to a local imam. The imam, in turn, devised a new way to prepare the berries, drying them and then boiling them in water to produce a hot drink, which he used to keep himself awake during overnight religious ceremonies. Another story tells of a man named Omar who was condemned to die of starvation in the desert outside Mocha, a city in Yemen, on the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula. A vision guided him to a coffee tree, whereupon he ate some of its berries. This gave him sufficient strength to return to Mocha, where his survival was taken as a sign that God had spared him in order to pass along to humankind knowledge of coffee, which then became a popular drink in Mocha" (Standage, 137).
Might be a funny short story:
Not everyone in the arabic world was thrilled with discovery of coffee. "Religious leaders invoked this rule in Mecca in June 1511, the earliest known of several attempts to ban the consumption of coffee. The local governor, a man named Kha'ir Beg, who was responsible for maintaining public morality, literally put coffee on trial. He convened a council of legal experts and placed the accused - a large vessel of coffee - before them. After discussion of its intoxicating effects, the council agreed with Kha'ir Beg that the sale and consumption of coffee should be prohibited... Within a few months, however, higher authorities in Cairo overturned Kha'ir Beg's ruling, and coffee was soon being openly consumed again. His authority undermined, Kha'ir Beg was replaced as governor the following year" (Standage, 138).
Another funny short story surrounding coffee, might be one reported in the Spectator (London paper) in 1712.
"There was a fellow in town some years ago, who used to divert himself by telling a lye at Charing Cross in the morning at eight of the clock, and then following it through all parts of town until eight at night: at which time he came to a club of his friends, and diverted them with an account of what censure it had drawn at Will's in Covent Garden, how dangerous it was believed at Child's and what inference they drew from it with relation to stocks at Jonathon's" (Standage, 154).
This was a well-written and well-researched book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Tom Standage
This was a really fun little history book that shows the development of human history through six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola. For a history book it really keeps the pages turning and would be a good read for just about anyone. It's not so lofty that only history nerds would like and understand it; but, it isn't so simple that those same nerds would turn their nose up at it.
Here are just some of my highlights from the book.
"To Neolithic drinkers, beer's ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical" (Standage, 19). - The obvious inference here is that beer is a gift from the gods, which played a central role in many ancient peoples' religions.
An interesting Egyptian myth that would be worth further study and possibly a short story:
"The Egyptians, for example, believed that beer was accidentally discovered by Osiris, the god of agriculture and king of the afterlife. One day he prepared a mixture of water and sprouted grain, but forgot about it and left it in the sun. He later returned to find the gruel had fermented, decided to drink it, and was so pleased with the result that he passed his knowledge on to humankind. (This tale seems to tally closely with the way beer was probably discovered in the stone age)." (Standage, 19).
It is better to be a beer drinker than a non-beer drinker.
"In other words, beer helped to make up for the decline in food quality as people took up farming, provided a safe form of liquid nourishment, and gave groups of beer-drinking farmers a comparative advantage over non-beer drinkers" (Standage, 22).
Philosophy of Religion and History of Religion: An interesting theory on how temples emerged to play a role in society:
"Keeping surplus food in the storehouse was one way to ward off future food shortages; ritual and religious activity, in which the gods were called upon to ensure a good harvest, was another. As these two activities became intertwined, deposits of surplus food came to be seen as offerings to the gods, and the storehouses became temples." (Standage, 22).
"The Mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.
-Egyptian Proverb, c. 2200 BC."(Standage, 23)
The very definition of civilization is beer.
"The Mesopotamians regarded the consumption of bread and beer as one of the things that distinguished them from savages and made them fully human. Interestingly, this belief seems to echo beer's association with a settled, orderly lifestyle, rather than the haphazard existence of hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times" (Standage, 27).
Another Egyptian Myth worth retelling in short story form:
"One Egyptian tale even credits beer with saving humankind from destruction. Ra, the sun god, learned that humankind was plotting against him, and dispatched the goddess Hathor to exact punishment. But such was her ferocity that Ra feared there would soon be nobody left to worship him, and he took pity on humankind. He prepared a vast amount of beer - seven thousand jars of it, in some versions of the story - dyed it red to resemble blood, and spread it over the fields, where it shone like a vast mirror. Hathor paused to admire her reflection and then stooped to drink some of the mixture. She became intoxicated, fell asleep, and forgot about her bloody mission. Humankind was saved, and Hathor became the goddess of beer and brewing. Versions of this story have been found inscribed of Egyptian kings, including Tutankhamen, Seti I, and Ramses the Great" (Standage, 28-29).
"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever"
-Aristophanes, Greek comic poet (c. 450-385 BCE)." (Standage, 43).
Plato's wine experiment and "fear drink" to test someone's character:
"Wine could be used in everyday life to reveal truth: It could expose the true nature of those drinking it. While he objected to the hedonistic reality of actual symposia, Plato saw no reason why the practice could not, in theory, be put to good use as a test of personality. Speaking through one of the characters in his book Laws, Plato argues that drinking with someone at a symposium is in fact the simplest, fastest, and most reliable test of someone's character" (Standage, 63-64).
"Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine and sex?
-Corpus Inscriptions VI, 15258" (Standage, 69).
Another short story that would be worth writing - This might be good as a story of disembodied heads relating their final moments on earth at a party in the afterlife:
"It is not often that choosing one wine over another is a matter of life or death. Yet that is what determined the fate of Marcus Antonius, a Roman politician and a renowned orator. In 87 BCE, he found himself on the wrong side of one of Rome's many interminable power struggles. Gains Marius, an elderly general, had seized power and was ruthlessly hunting down supporters of his rival, Sulla. Marcus Antonius sought refuge in the house of an associate of far lower social status, hoping that nobody would think of looking for him in such a poor man's house. His host, however, unwittingly gave him away by sending his servant out to buy wine worthy of such a distinguished guest. The servant went to the neighborhood wine shop and, after tasting what was on offer, asked for a far better and more expensive wine than usual. When the vintner asked why, the servant revealed the identity of his master's guest. The vintner went straight to Marius, who dispatched a handful of soldiers to kill Marcus Antonius. Yet having burst into his room, the soldiers could not bring themselves to kill him, such was the power of his oratory. Eventually, their commanding officer, who was waiting outside, went in to see what was happening. Denouncing his men as cowards, he drew his sword and beheaded Marcus Antonius himself" (Standage, 75).
A funny account of early English settlers to the New World:
"In 1613 a Spanish observer reported that the three hundred colonists had nothing but water to drink, 'which is contrary to the nature of the English - on account of which they all wish to return and would have done so if they had been at liberty'" (Standage, 113-114).
The Early American Drink:
Rum starts out as the colonial and American drink, but it is supplanted by whiskey with even George Washington getting in on the game. Jefferson however laments this as both a statesman, and a wine aficionado - calling wine, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey. "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage" (Standage, 127).
A fascinating account of the origin of coffee
"One tells of an Ethiopian goatherd who noticed that is flock became particularly frisky after consuming the brownish purple cherries from a particular tree. He then tried eating them himself, noted their stimulating powers, and passed his discovery on to a local imam. The imam, in turn, devised a new way to prepare the berries, drying them and then boiling them in water to produce a hot drink, which he used to keep himself awake during overnight religious ceremonies. Another story tells of a man named Omar who was condemned to die of starvation in the desert outside Mocha, a city in Yemen, on the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula. A vision guided him to a coffee tree, whereupon he ate some of its berries. This gave him sufficient strength to return to Mocha, where his survival was taken as a sign that God had spared him in order to pass along to humankind knowledge of coffee, which then became a popular drink in Mocha" (Standage, 137).
Might be a funny short story:
Not everyone in the arabic world was thrilled with discovery of coffee. "Religious leaders invoked this rule in Mecca in June 1511, the earliest known of several attempts to ban the consumption of coffee. The local governor, a man named Kha'ir Beg, who was responsible for maintaining public morality, literally put coffee on trial. He convened a council of legal experts and placed the accused - a large vessel of coffee - before them. After discussion of its intoxicating effects, the council agreed with Kha'ir Beg that the sale and consumption of coffee should be prohibited... Within a few months, however, higher authorities in Cairo overturned Kha'ir Beg's ruling, and coffee was soon being openly consumed again. His authority undermined, Kha'ir Beg was replaced as governor the following year" (Standage, 138).
Another funny short story surrounding coffee, might be one reported in the Spectator (London paper) in 1712.
"There was a fellow in town some years ago, who used to divert himself by telling a lye at Charing Cross in the morning at eight of the clock, and then following it through all parts of town until eight at night: at which time he came to a club of his friends, and diverted them with an account of what censure it had drawn at Will's in Covent Garden, how dangerous it was believed at Child's and what inference they drew from it with relation to stocks at Jonathon's" (Standage, 154).
This was a well-written and well-researched book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Assessment of Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad
I finished Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad yesterday after a month long struggle. It's not that I didn't enjoy the book because I did, it's just that as an anthology I think I found myself bored with some of the repetitive nature of the stories. I think I would have enjoyed them better in isolation. This particular book included the stories An Outpost of Progress, The Lagoon, The Nigger of the Narcissus, Youth, Heart of Darkness, Typhoon and The Secret Sharer. Youth and Typhoon were my favorites.
An Outpost of Progress was the first ever story I've read of Joseph Conrad. It was in my opinion, better than Heart of Darkness; but, as I stated above, I think that I would have enjoyed reading Heart of Darkness if I hadn't read four other short stories by Conrad right before. I was surprised by Outpost in what it was. I was assuming that Conrad was going to be a bit more, how can I put it, burden-of-the-white-man friendly. While there are some elements of his time that we might find distasteful in a 21st century context, he wasn't as Colonialist or Imperialist in his perspective as I had preconceived. Outpost is the prime example of this as he is much more introspective and questions the morality of colonialism by showing the two white characters as a bit stupid.
I found Youth and Typhoon the most entertaining because of the subject matter. Generally speaking, I like to have a book take me outside of the norms of my everyday life. Conrad was writing about everyday life, but I am removed enough from the seafaring days of the late 19th century, early 20th century that it might he might as well have been writing a fantasy novel for me. Youth and Typhoon were the most fantastic. The Nigger of the Narcissus was an interesting tale as it took a classical myth and turned it into a dark play on the story set in contemporary times. Heart of Darkness was slow-going for me because I was getting restless with reading Conrad stories. It is on my list of things to read still because I have a stand-alone copy. I was about to take it off that list and realized that I should read it in isolation to get a better understanding of it and to take it on its own footing. The Secret Sharer was rather bland for me. The Lagoon was good, but nothing overly remarkable.
The Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus was an interesting read because it covers Conrad's theory on Aesthetics and Art. He describes art as "a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying in its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of life, what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential - their one illuminating and convincing quality - the very truth of their existence" (Conrad, 57). For Conrad, then art is the attempt at discovering truth. He contrasts artists with scientists and thinkers. The scientists and thinkers speak to man's common sense, to his intellect and to his desire of peace. They speak to man's desire to believe. Artists however appeal to man's sense of wonder. Artists appeal to the parts of man that are hidden behind their appeal for order and facts.
"Fiction - if it at all aspires to be art - appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such an appeal, to be effective, must be an impression conveyed through the senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions" (Conrad, 58). For Conrad then, writing is about eliciting an emotion from a reader. It has to appeal to the senses in order to reach that area where man hides his emotions. Interestingly, he states that writing must achieve the plasticity of sculpture, the color of painting and the magic suggestiveness of music. He calls music the "art of arts". I find that an author calling music the art of arts an interesting occurrence. It suggests a humility in Conrad. To achieve the aim of becoming art, Conrad demands that the form be perfect so that the end can be achieved. His chief aim is "to make you see" through his prose.
"Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim - the aim of art, which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult - obscured by mists. It is not in the clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not less great, but only more difficult" (Conrad, 60). The aim of art is to arrest, however briefly, the busy workers of earth and compel them to glance a moment at the object of art, to make them smile. And while this is an intensely difficult task, when that smile, when that moment of pause does occur "behold! - all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile - and the return to an eternal rest" (Conrad, 60). It's an interesting theory of aesthetics and one that demands a little more study from me.
The one part that I found incredibly interesting in Heart of Darkness is the Russian fellow who becomes enamored with Kurtz. This son of an Arch-Priest of the Government of Tambov is going to make an excellent short-story character. My aim will be to enlarge his mind further.
An Outpost of Progress was the first ever story I've read of Joseph Conrad. It was in my opinion, better than Heart of Darkness; but, as I stated above, I think that I would have enjoyed reading Heart of Darkness if I hadn't read four other short stories by Conrad right before. I was surprised by Outpost in what it was. I was assuming that Conrad was going to be a bit more, how can I put it, burden-of-the-white-man friendly. While there are some elements of his time that we might find distasteful in a 21st century context, he wasn't as Colonialist or Imperialist in his perspective as I had preconceived. Outpost is the prime example of this as he is much more introspective and questions the morality of colonialism by showing the two white characters as a bit stupid.
I found Youth and Typhoon the most entertaining because of the subject matter. Generally speaking, I like to have a book take me outside of the norms of my everyday life. Conrad was writing about everyday life, but I am removed enough from the seafaring days of the late 19th century, early 20th century that it might he might as well have been writing a fantasy novel for me. Youth and Typhoon were the most fantastic. The Nigger of the Narcissus was an interesting tale as it took a classical myth and turned it into a dark play on the story set in contemporary times. Heart of Darkness was slow-going for me because I was getting restless with reading Conrad stories. It is on my list of things to read still because I have a stand-alone copy. I was about to take it off that list and realized that I should read it in isolation to get a better understanding of it and to take it on its own footing. The Secret Sharer was rather bland for me. The Lagoon was good, but nothing overly remarkable.
The Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus was an interesting read because it covers Conrad's theory on Aesthetics and Art. He describes art as "a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying in its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of life, what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential - their one illuminating and convincing quality - the very truth of their existence" (Conrad, 57). For Conrad, then art is the attempt at discovering truth. He contrasts artists with scientists and thinkers. The scientists and thinkers speak to man's common sense, to his intellect and to his desire of peace. They speak to man's desire to believe. Artists however appeal to man's sense of wonder. Artists appeal to the parts of man that are hidden behind their appeal for order and facts.
"Fiction - if it at all aspires to be art - appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such an appeal, to be effective, must be an impression conveyed through the senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions" (Conrad, 58). For Conrad then, writing is about eliciting an emotion from a reader. It has to appeal to the senses in order to reach that area where man hides his emotions. Interestingly, he states that writing must achieve the plasticity of sculpture, the color of painting and the magic suggestiveness of music. He calls music the "art of arts". I find that an author calling music the art of arts an interesting occurrence. It suggests a humility in Conrad. To achieve the aim of becoming art, Conrad demands that the form be perfect so that the end can be achieved. His chief aim is "to make you see" through his prose.
"Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim - the aim of art, which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult - obscured by mists. It is not in the clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not less great, but only more difficult" (Conrad, 60). The aim of art is to arrest, however briefly, the busy workers of earth and compel them to glance a moment at the object of art, to make them smile. And while this is an intensely difficult task, when that smile, when that moment of pause does occur "behold! - all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile - and the return to an eternal rest" (Conrad, 60). It's an interesting theory of aesthetics and one that demands a little more study from me.
The one part that I found incredibly interesting in Heart of Darkness is the Russian fellow who becomes enamored with Kurtz. This son of an Arch-Priest of the Government of Tambov is going to make an excellent short-story character. My aim will be to enlarge his mind further.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Two Short ideas concerning Socrates
1) Write a dialogue in Platonic style called Asclepius' Cock. Have him wonder why Socrates gave him the cock upon his death. The end of the story is that Socrates was giving him a cock, as is customary when one recovers from illness and the illness that Socrates has just recovered from was life.
2) Write a short story about the executioner of Socrates and his reaction to the whole mess.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Reaction to the previous blog post
Sarcasm. Sometimes I say things sarcastically and let it linger so that the other person doesn't know if I'm being sarcastic or not. Sometimes I do this unintentionally. I assume that they know me well enough to understand the intended sarcasm. I'll say something without the proper sarcastic voice tone and simply assume that they will understand that what I am saying is meant to be taken ironically because of the absurdity of the comment. The unfortunate thing is that the other person doesn't catch the sarcasm. Sometimes this is because they don't get it. Most of the times though it is because the person hearing my sarcasm does not know me well enough to get my irony. That happens often. I don't include enough back story for them to get my joke. But, that is often because my jokes are often meant to be self-amusement and if you happen to be in on it than you are fortunate to be on my level.
My wife does not often get my sarcasm. But, that is often for a different reason entirely. I say more ridiculous and outlandish things to her than I do to most people, other than to myself (which others often hear because most of the time that I am talking I am doing so to amuse myself rather than to convey information to another). However, even the amount of absurd claims and desires I profess to here are insignificant to the number of ideas that I keep locked away internally so that I am not locked away externally, literally or metaphorically speaking. But, I digress. The point is that often people don't get my sarcasm because I haven't given them enough space to understand that I'm being sarcastic. This is because I treat every sarcastic comment equally regardless of who happens to hear that comment. I assume they will understand the backstory. Often they don't because they have no possible way of knowing the backstory. This leads to awkward situations. I get some amusement out of the awkwardness.
If someone were to understand the entirety of my sarcasm they would have to know me very well, much better than the strangers I am often sarcastic with. Or, they would have to be with me at all points in my life to understand the necessary context into which my sarcastic jigsaw puzzle pieces often fit. Even then they would struggle to make the necessary connections because my mind works in ways that I can't always explain. The connections necessary to make sense of my sarcastic comments are often incongruous and illogical. But, they are my illogical, incongruous system. I understand it.
Other times I am vague in my declarations. This way if I see the conversation going sideways or slantways towards an avenue I don't have any intention of taking I can claim sarcasm and allow people into the context in which that comment can be taken sarcastically. Sometimes this is to allow myself to save face and shy away from the embarrassing words that have just come out of my mouth. Sometimes it is because the words have escaped my mouth before I have deemed them sarcastic or sincere. They float around in the ether as I ponder their meaning and tone. This leads to some uncomfortable and awkward silences. It produces a double laughter in me as I find amusement in awkwardness and I laugh when I am nervous. It is a vicious cycle because my nervous laughter often produces more awkwardness and the double laughter effect is amplified again and again until I am in the midst of a self-satisfying giggle fest.
I am however a relatively nice person. You simply need to understand the context and you'll agree that I'm relatively nice. However, I don't intend on giving you goal posts to measure my niceness so you'll have to come up with your own scale. Just remember, I'm relatively nice. What I'm trying to say in a long-winded way is that I'm vague only every so often and then not in a vicious way (mostly). Much of the lack of comprehension of my sarcasm comes because I, intentionally or otherwise, fail to provide enough context for someone to understand it as such. As I said before you would have to know me exceptionally well to catch all of my sarcasm because it is a bundle of innuendo and inside jokes. But even then you still might not catch all of my sarcasm. In fact, some times I'm not even sure if what I said was sarcastic or not.
Take for example the previous blog post. In it I was giving a play-by-play announcement of a classical concert. It is entirely possible that I was taking short-hand because I had to do an assignment for some class. It is also as likely that I was making a mockery of being forced to go to this concert by some person at the time. But, it is equally conceivable that I wasn't being sarcastic or forced to attend the concert for a school assignment. It is entirely possible that I was attempting to give an assessment of the concert using terrible cliches such as, "Triumphant. Exuberant, inspiring finale", and, "Masterful".
Who the hell does this 22 year-old, pretentious twat think he is? But if it was intended as sarcastic, I can picture that 22 year old kid laughing at his 32 year old counterpart hysterically. And then of course there is the option that the 22 year-old me was writing his opinions intentionally vague and experimenting with high-society language so that if he were to receive criticism he could claim sarcasm to save face. Or, if his silly language had been accepted he would have basked in the praise. And, if I had figured it out ten years ago I would have done both of these depending on whether the other party was laughing at or praising the words.
Alas, I find myself flummoxed. I don't know if it was sarcastic. The sentences and phrasing were rather awkward. Maybe that amused me at the time. Maybe it was just an experiment. It obviously wasn't an impactful one because I surely don't remember writing it. Maybe it was intentionally done that way so that the 22 year-old version of me could laugh at the 32 year-old version of me. I simply don't know. What I do know is that there is a story somewhere in all of this waiting to be carved out.
My wife does not often get my sarcasm. But, that is often for a different reason entirely. I say more ridiculous and outlandish things to her than I do to most people, other than to myself (which others often hear because most of the time that I am talking I am doing so to amuse myself rather than to convey information to another). However, even the amount of absurd claims and desires I profess to here are insignificant to the number of ideas that I keep locked away internally so that I am not locked away externally, literally or metaphorically speaking. But, I digress. The point is that often people don't get my sarcasm because I haven't given them enough space to understand that I'm being sarcastic. This is because I treat every sarcastic comment equally regardless of who happens to hear that comment. I assume they will understand the backstory. Often they don't because they have no possible way of knowing the backstory. This leads to awkward situations. I get some amusement out of the awkwardness.
If someone were to understand the entirety of my sarcasm they would have to know me very well, much better than the strangers I am often sarcastic with. Or, they would have to be with me at all points in my life to understand the necessary context into which my sarcastic jigsaw puzzle pieces often fit. Even then they would struggle to make the necessary connections because my mind works in ways that I can't always explain. The connections necessary to make sense of my sarcastic comments are often incongruous and illogical. But, they are my illogical, incongruous system. I understand it.
Other times I am vague in my declarations. This way if I see the conversation going sideways or slantways towards an avenue I don't have any intention of taking I can claim sarcasm and allow people into the context in which that comment can be taken sarcastically. Sometimes this is to allow myself to save face and shy away from the embarrassing words that have just come out of my mouth. Sometimes it is because the words have escaped my mouth before I have deemed them sarcastic or sincere. They float around in the ether as I ponder their meaning and tone. This leads to some uncomfortable and awkward silences. It produces a double laughter in me as I find amusement in awkwardness and I laugh when I am nervous. It is a vicious cycle because my nervous laughter often produces more awkwardness and the double laughter effect is amplified again and again until I am in the midst of a self-satisfying giggle fest.
I am however a relatively nice person. You simply need to understand the context and you'll agree that I'm relatively nice. However, I don't intend on giving you goal posts to measure my niceness so you'll have to come up with your own scale. Just remember, I'm relatively nice. What I'm trying to say in a long-winded way is that I'm vague only every so often and then not in a vicious way (mostly). Much of the lack of comprehension of my sarcasm comes because I, intentionally or otherwise, fail to provide enough context for someone to understand it as such. As I said before you would have to know me exceptionally well to catch all of my sarcasm because it is a bundle of innuendo and inside jokes. But even then you still might not catch all of my sarcasm. In fact, some times I'm not even sure if what I said was sarcastic or not.
Take for example the previous blog post. In it I was giving a play-by-play announcement of a classical concert. It is entirely possible that I was taking short-hand because I had to do an assignment for some class. It is also as likely that I was making a mockery of being forced to go to this concert by some person at the time. But, it is equally conceivable that I wasn't being sarcastic or forced to attend the concert for a school assignment. It is entirely possible that I was attempting to give an assessment of the concert using terrible cliches such as, "Triumphant. Exuberant, inspiring finale", and, "Masterful".
Who the hell does this 22 year-old, pretentious twat think he is? But if it was intended as sarcastic, I can picture that 22 year old kid laughing at his 32 year old counterpart hysterically. And then of course there is the option that the 22 year-old me was writing his opinions intentionally vague and experimenting with high-society language so that if he were to receive criticism he could claim sarcasm to save face. Or, if his silly language had been accepted he would have basked in the praise. And, if I had figured it out ten years ago I would have done both of these depending on whether the other party was laughing at or praising the words.
Alas, I find myself flummoxed. I don't know if it was sarcastic. The sentences and phrasing were rather awkward. Maybe that amused me at the time. Maybe it was just an experiment. It obviously wasn't an impactful one because I surely don't remember writing it. Maybe it was intentionally done that way so that the 22 year-old version of me could laugh at the 32 year-old version of me. I simply don't know. What I do know is that there is a story somewhere in all of this waiting to be carved out.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Short Story Ideas - The Heat, July 4th, The Problems of a Vivid Imagination
Some short story ideas before bed:
The Heat of the Car (working title)
The anger was rising in him with every degree in his non air-conditioned car. Who rents an non air-conditioned car in the 21st century anyway?
It is a common trait among Americans to believe that they are in fact, a good driver. The reality though is that 95% of Americans are in fact, not good drivers. They are inherently incapable of being a good driver.
The natives of the northeastern cities are good drivers, driven along by the societal pressures that demand aggressive natures. New Yorkers are always in a rush because time is money. New Yorkers can cram their tiny little vehicles into even tinier little spots and at speed. Washingtonians have grown up in an environment that completely revolves around power. They have been cultivated to believe that they are each the most powerful being in existence and this extends to when they are behind the wheel. They are uncompromising to the last in their own minds, but like any true politician they are hypocritically able to defer to the other at the last possible section to avoid disaster. Bostonians are generally speaking, ass holes. They talk like ass holes. They eat like ass holes. They drink like ass holes. And, they drive like ass holes. But, that last part isn't necessarily their fault. Boston's roads are just a bunch of roundabouts that demand you drive like an asshole to escape an eternity of driving in the same circle.
On the opposite coast Angelenos tend to be good drivers, not because societal pressures have forged them into aggressive drivers, but simply because they spend two-thirds of their Adult lives behind the wheel. While Bullitt would have you believe that all San Franciscans are incredible drivers, I think that this is myth. In the middle of the country, Chicagoans can claim to be good drivers for most of the year. There are no other Americans that can drive like a native of the second city in inclement weather. While Chicagoans might wear this as a badge of honor, the rest of us Americans can take comfort in the fact that we don't have to live in that shitty weather. I'm not sure if Chicagoans are good drivers when there isn't a whole bunch of snow on the ground because as soon as the snow melts the construction crews block off eighty-seven percent of the roads to pretend to work and natives of the city and tourists alike simply sit in traffic.
The rest of America are shaky drivers at best, but usually atrocious and dangerous behind the wheel for a litany of reasons. Brett, like the vast majority of drivers in America believed he was a fantastic driver. He had even grown up just outside of DC and had that sense of being more powerful than everyone else on the road and the snakelike ability of politicians to turn on a dime. But, he had learned to drive as a Hoosier and as such, was constitutionally incapable of driving well. Besides that, Atlanta traffic was enough to turn a good driver into a poor one and a poor one into an abysmal one. Plus, Hertz had managed to rent him a car without A/C and it was 106 degrees outside. The heat and traffic was making Brett, a poor driver by nature, an abysmal driver. And the heat was rising inside of that car with every fifteen feet he was able to drive without having to come to a complete stop because some yahoo Georgian had never mastered the art of merging at speed.
July 4th
July 4th in an election year always brings out the worst in Americans. This is the story of the conservative pastor, the liberal pastor, the conservative parishioner in the liberal church, the liberal parishioner in the conservative church, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party and the sitting Democratic president and how each of them is exactly the same person - a bundle of inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
The Problems of a Vivid Imagination
Tony was terrified of speaking in public, but being the valedictorian meant that he had to give a speech in front of the whole of the seniors, their families, the faculty and their families, and the random people who like to torture themselves by going to graduations when they are not otherwise obligated to go. Tony would eventually become a critically acclaimed writer and win a whole slew of awards for his fiction, which in turn would bring him more public speaking opportunities to be anxious over. But, not one of these many speaking duties would produce a disaster on par with his valedictorian speech. He would become a critically acclaimed writer because he had such a vivid imagination. He would fail so spectacularly in his valedictorian speech because he had such a vivid imagination. He would fail so spectacularly in his valedictorian speech that in spite of becoming a famous and acclaimed writer he would never give another speech at his college again. The problem was the old advice of imagining everyone in their underwear while speaking.
After organizing his notes he froze as he gazed out into the audience and saw twenty-three hundred and sixteen individual human beings in their underwear. He imagined all kinds of underwear - new and old, trendy and not, silky and not, coarse hair shirts, assless chaps, thongs, granny panties, boxers, briefs and everything in between. It was so distracting that he froze. His mind broke. His mouth began to relay the thoughts of his broken mind and after ten minutes of this unconscious rambling twenty-two hundred and ninety-nine individuals were offended. Seven had fallen asleep. Two had gone to the bathroom and missed the speech. The remaining eight were childish and immature and found the speech hilarious. I was one of those remainders.
The prepared speech would have sounded like this:
The actual speech sounded like this:
The Heat of the Car (working title)
The anger was rising in him with every degree in his non air-conditioned car. Who rents an non air-conditioned car in the 21st century anyway?
It is a common trait among Americans to believe that they are in fact, a good driver. The reality though is that 95% of Americans are in fact, not good drivers. They are inherently incapable of being a good driver.
The natives of the northeastern cities are good drivers, driven along by the societal pressures that demand aggressive natures. New Yorkers are always in a rush because time is money. New Yorkers can cram their tiny little vehicles into even tinier little spots and at speed. Washingtonians have grown up in an environment that completely revolves around power. They have been cultivated to believe that they are each the most powerful being in existence and this extends to when they are behind the wheel. They are uncompromising to the last in their own minds, but like any true politician they are hypocritically able to defer to the other at the last possible section to avoid disaster. Bostonians are generally speaking, ass holes. They talk like ass holes. They eat like ass holes. They drink like ass holes. And, they drive like ass holes. But, that last part isn't necessarily their fault. Boston's roads are just a bunch of roundabouts that demand you drive like an asshole to escape an eternity of driving in the same circle.
On the opposite coast Angelenos tend to be good drivers, not because societal pressures have forged them into aggressive drivers, but simply because they spend two-thirds of their Adult lives behind the wheel. While Bullitt would have you believe that all San Franciscans are incredible drivers, I think that this is myth. In the middle of the country, Chicagoans can claim to be good drivers for most of the year. There are no other Americans that can drive like a native of the second city in inclement weather. While Chicagoans might wear this as a badge of honor, the rest of us Americans can take comfort in the fact that we don't have to live in that shitty weather. I'm not sure if Chicagoans are good drivers when there isn't a whole bunch of snow on the ground because as soon as the snow melts the construction crews block off eighty-seven percent of the roads to pretend to work and natives of the city and tourists alike simply sit in traffic.
The rest of America are shaky drivers at best, but usually atrocious and dangerous behind the wheel for a litany of reasons. Brett, like the vast majority of drivers in America believed he was a fantastic driver. He had even grown up just outside of DC and had that sense of being more powerful than everyone else on the road and the snakelike ability of politicians to turn on a dime. But, he had learned to drive as a Hoosier and as such, was constitutionally incapable of driving well. Besides that, Atlanta traffic was enough to turn a good driver into a poor one and a poor one into an abysmal one. Plus, Hertz had managed to rent him a car without A/C and it was 106 degrees outside. The heat and traffic was making Brett, a poor driver by nature, an abysmal driver. And the heat was rising inside of that car with every fifteen feet he was able to drive without having to come to a complete stop because some yahoo Georgian had never mastered the art of merging at speed.
July 4th
July 4th in an election year always brings out the worst in Americans. This is the story of the conservative pastor, the liberal pastor, the conservative parishioner in the liberal church, the liberal parishioner in the conservative church, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party and the sitting Democratic president and how each of them is exactly the same person - a bundle of inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
The Problems of a Vivid Imagination
Tony was terrified of speaking in public, but being the valedictorian meant that he had to give a speech in front of the whole of the seniors, their families, the faculty and their families, and the random people who like to torture themselves by going to graduations when they are not otherwise obligated to go. Tony would eventually become a critically acclaimed writer and win a whole slew of awards for his fiction, which in turn would bring him more public speaking opportunities to be anxious over. But, not one of these many speaking duties would produce a disaster on par with his valedictorian speech. He would become a critically acclaimed writer because he had such a vivid imagination. He would fail so spectacularly in his valedictorian speech because he had such a vivid imagination. He would fail so spectacularly in his valedictorian speech that in spite of becoming a famous and acclaimed writer he would never give another speech at his college again. The problem was the old advice of imagining everyone in their underwear while speaking.
After organizing his notes he froze as he gazed out into the audience and saw twenty-three hundred and sixteen individual human beings in their underwear. He imagined all kinds of underwear - new and old, trendy and not, silky and not, coarse hair shirts, assless chaps, thongs, granny panties, boxers, briefs and everything in between. It was so distracting that he froze. His mind broke. His mouth began to relay the thoughts of his broken mind and after ten minutes of this unconscious rambling twenty-two hundred and ninety-nine individuals were offended. Seven had fallen asleep. Two had gone to the bathroom and missed the speech. The remaining eight were childish and immature and found the speech hilarious. I was one of those remainders.
The prepared speech would have sounded like this:
The actual speech sounded like this:
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
The Monist Support Group
Short story idea - The Monist Support Group
The other day I was walking my dog - a fluffy white cockapoo I named Gallifrey after the Doctor's home planet - when I saw something that caught my attention and demanded my investigation. There was a van - a white fifteen passenger van that looks suspicious even when it has legitimate reasons for being where it is - that had a picture of seven white people of middle age and a token, younger black man sitting in a circle, each delightfully holding their own djembe plastered on its side. The van was labeled "Therapeutic Drum Circle" and advertised a website. Gallifrey and I had to investigate.
I followed the van as quickly as my poor little dog could go who was becoming agitated with our suddenly rapid rate as it caused him to miss out on sniffing near identical bushes every three feet along a path we had traveled together countless times. His body language screamed that I was messing up his investigation. He had no idea that we were on a joint investigation as he hadn't seen the van, or if he had he had no reason to be suspicious of it as he can't read or generally understand pictures well. In spite of his tiny, ten pound frame he was able to stop my greater than tiny, two hundred and fifty pound frame from continuing in pursuit at a sufficient speed to follow the van. Sadly, Gallifrey and I lost the suspicious van. We turned around and walked back to our house, stopping every three feet or so to investigate suspicious, near identical bushes.
Two weeks later I was driving to the store when I happened upon the van again. Gallifrey was in the car with me with his butt in my lap and his head out the window. He generally refuses to sit in the passenger seat, instead opting to sit in the driver's lap completely unaware of the safety issues his presence causes. This time I was able to abandon my current task at hand and follow the suspicious van. Gallifrey might annoy me or cause me to break some laws by sitting in my lap while driving, but his tiny frame can't stop my car as easily as he can stop me on foot.
Had I been living in New York City (which I never have) I imagine that I wouldn't have found this notion of a bunch of people getting into a drum circle for therapeutic reasonings all that suspicious. New York City has nearly 8.5 million people in it and the odds of eight weirdos getting together to do something weird is not strange. Had I been living somewhere in California like San Francisco or Los Angeles (which I never have) I probably wouldn't have found this strange either as I believe it is a prerequisite to being a left coast Californian. Had I been living in Washington DC (which I have) I wouldn't have found it all that odd either because there are a lot of protesters and invariably protestors come equipped with either an acoustic guitar or a djembe as a symbol of their protestation.
Personally, I always thought those who brought a djembe to anywhere other than a place specified for musical performance were just attention seekers; and I held the conservative notion that most protestors were akin to those types of people that bring a djembe to a non-musical settings. Logically, I assumed that those who brought a djembe to a protest were doubly attention seeking and likely faking anything to get the attention they craved. Had I been living in east-central, rural Indiana (which I have) I would have feared for their safety. But I was living in Augusta, GA.
Augusta has its fair share of weirdos and kooks, but its a different kind. They eat pimento cheese sandwiches on white bread - velveeta cheese mixed with mayonnaise, pimentos and spices spread on processed white bread. They drive countrified, jacked-up trucks much like the trucks I was accustomed to in east-central Indiana, only when they get out they look like they stepped out of a Brooks Brothers store - a pastel colored polo, seersucker shorts and boat shoes. Not only is this juxtaposition jarring, but their pride in it is flabbergasting. Many of those same countrified trucks with snooty prep school drivers are emblazoned with the words "Prep Neck" in bold letters somewhere on the truck. Augusta is full of weirdos, just not your typical hippie or revival hippie variety. But as I was driving in pursuit of this anomalously weird van I slammed on my breaks when my eyes read something even stranger - a tiny store front with tiny little letters that read "Monist Support Group".
I immediately pulled a u-turn causing poor Gallifrey to slide into the passenger seat. He yelped in protest of being unseated so rudely and climbed back into my lap and resumed his place by setting his chin on the window behind the mirror. Sometimes I think he likes the idea of the wind rushing through his hair and ears more than he likes the actual wind rushing through his hair and ears. I parked the car and rolled up the window just enough so he couldn't jump out, assuring him that I would be right back. As I walked up to the odd storefront I could feel his panicked eyes following me to make sure that my trip would be a short one. I read the sign again and my eyes were not deceived. It was a building dedicated to a Monist Support Group. In even smaller letters it announced the meeting times - Monday, closed; Tuesday, 12:30 pm; Wednesday, closed; Thursday; 7:25 pm; Friday, closed; Saturday, closed; Sunday, 6:45 am. Odd hours for an odd little store. I looked at my watch. It was Tuesday, 11:16 am. I had to investigate.
I drove Gallifrey back home and was back at the support group's building too quickly. It was only 11:37. I felt bad for leaving Gallifrey as Tuesday's were normally our special day together. It usually started with a walk, which was painfully slow as he had to sniff every three feet to see which other dogs in the neighborhood had peed there recently. After that it was lunch which was sometimes at home and sometimes at one of the restaurants downtown where I could sit outside with him. He enjoys bahn-mi, hamburgers, apples and bacon. He is not a big fan of peaches, sushi or pimento cheese. After that I get him an ice cream cone which he loves, but tends to make him shiver even in the oppressive Georgian summer. We would still get the ice cream I told him before leaving to go to the meeting. I tried to peer inside but the windows and doors were mirror-tinted. But, while unsuccessfully trying to see in I caught a reflection of a cafe across the street that I had never eaten at before. It was truly a day of discovery.
The menu of the cafe said that they had the best pimento cheese in Augusta. They didn't. Everyone in Augusta knows that the Augusta National has the best pimento cheese in Augusta. I discovered pimento cheese when I moved here at age 28. I discovered that it wasn't just an Augusta thing, but the whole south was crazy about pimento cheese. It's basically just mayonnaise and processed cheese and somehow each little corner of the south has put their own twist on it! The only time I can get my hands on a pimento cheese sandwich from the Augusta National is during Master's Week when someone other than me goes to a practice round and brings me back one (along with a souvenir cup). Most of the other places in Augusta make reference to how theirs compares with the Master's version. It's sold in every grocery store here and just about every restaurant puts some type of store brand or homemade version on a burger with bacon. I ate so much of the stuff the first three months I lived in Augusta that I've grown tired of it, but there is a good place in Columbia, SC about an hour away called DiPrato's that makes one with jalapeños in it and serves it with pita chips that is pretty darn good. The best I've ever had though was in Charleston, SC from a place called Burgage's Grocery. This little cafe had mediocre pimento cheese in spite of their claim to be the best and I'm fairly certain that it was just Kroger brand slapped on whatever bread they got on sale last week.
I entered the Monist Support Group storefront right on time. Upon arrival I was given a clipboard and instructed to fill out the questionnaire and return it to the front. The lady who worked the desk seemed like a character out of a bad 80's movie with a nostalgia theme harkening back to the better era of the 50's. She had those pointed, black spectacles with a chain and a quasi-beehive hairdo and popped her purple gum loudly. I later found out that she didn't believe in any of this Monist hoodoo but it was an easy second job that somehow miraculously paired perfectly with her regular job as a Waffle House waitress. That should have been an indicator that maybe the Monists were on to something, but the intricacies of the Universe were lost on me at that moment.
INSERT QUESTIONNAIRE HERE
Outline for the rest of the story
There were eleven people in the room - myself and the Waffle House waitress were the only ones to have not experienced the ineffable oneness of the One yet. There was one leader who didn't have a clipboard. That left six others scribbling answers on their clipboards other than me, in total nine individuals, seven of which didn't believe in individuality at all.
Each individual told their story of how they became aware that everything was one and all else was illusionary.
1) The leader (classical hippie type) - arrived at the One via a bastardization Dvaitadvaita Hinduism
2) Shelia (classical hippie type) - arrived at the One via a bastardization of pseudo intellectual yoga
3) Jeremy (neo-hippie type) - arrived at the One via reading the heart sutra while smoking pot
4) Tanya (neo-hippie type) - arrived at the One while in coitus with Jeremy (her boyfriend)
5) Mark (business professional) - arrived at the One when a homeless man asked him for change in LA, he reached into his pocket to produce a few coins only to find the homeless man there holding a $20 bill asking him if he could break it so he could get a soda out of the machine
6) Connie (young, stay-at-home mom) - arrived at the One during breast feeding
The other day I was walking my dog - a fluffy white cockapoo I named Gallifrey after the Doctor's home planet - when I saw something that caught my attention and demanded my investigation. There was a van - a white fifteen passenger van that looks suspicious even when it has legitimate reasons for being where it is - that had a picture of seven white people of middle age and a token, younger black man sitting in a circle, each delightfully holding their own djembe plastered on its side. The van was labeled "Therapeutic Drum Circle" and advertised a website. Gallifrey and I had to investigate.
I followed the van as quickly as my poor little dog could go who was becoming agitated with our suddenly rapid rate as it caused him to miss out on sniffing near identical bushes every three feet along a path we had traveled together countless times. His body language screamed that I was messing up his investigation. He had no idea that we were on a joint investigation as he hadn't seen the van, or if he had he had no reason to be suspicious of it as he can't read or generally understand pictures well. In spite of his tiny, ten pound frame he was able to stop my greater than tiny, two hundred and fifty pound frame from continuing in pursuit at a sufficient speed to follow the van. Sadly, Gallifrey and I lost the suspicious van. We turned around and walked back to our house, stopping every three feet or so to investigate suspicious, near identical bushes.
Two weeks later I was driving to the store when I happened upon the van again. Gallifrey was in the car with me with his butt in my lap and his head out the window. He generally refuses to sit in the passenger seat, instead opting to sit in the driver's lap completely unaware of the safety issues his presence causes. This time I was able to abandon my current task at hand and follow the suspicious van. Gallifrey might annoy me or cause me to break some laws by sitting in my lap while driving, but his tiny frame can't stop my car as easily as he can stop me on foot.
Had I been living in New York City (which I never have) I imagine that I wouldn't have found this notion of a bunch of people getting into a drum circle for therapeutic reasonings all that suspicious. New York City has nearly 8.5 million people in it and the odds of eight weirdos getting together to do something weird is not strange. Had I been living somewhere in California like San Francisco or Los Angeles (which I never have) I probably wouldn't have found this strange either as I believe it is a prerequisite to being a left coast Californian. Had I been living in Washington DC (which I have) I wouldn't have found it all that odd either because there are a lot of protesters and invariably protestors come equipped with either an acoustic guitar or a djembe as a symbol of their protestation.
Personally, I always thought those who brought a djembe to anywhere other than a place specified for musical performance were just attention seekers; and I held the conservative notion that most protestors were akin to those types of people that bring a djembe to a non-musical settings. Logically, I assumed that those who brought a djembe to a protest were doubly attention seeking and likely faking anything to get the attention they craved. Had I been living in east-central, rural Indiana (which I have) I would have feared for their safety. But I was living in Augusta, GA.
Augusta has its fair share of weirdos and kooks, but its a different kind. They eat pimento cheese sandwiches on white bread - velveeta cheese mixed with mayonnaise, pimentos and spices spread on processed white bread. They drive countrified, jacked-up trucks much like the trucks I was accustomed to in east-central Indiana, only when they get out they look like they stepped out of a Brooks Brothers store - a pastel colored polo, seersucker shorts and boat shoes. Not only is this juxtaposition jarring, but their pride in it is flabbergasting. Many of those same countrified trucks with snooty prep school drivers are emblazoned with the words "Prep Neck" in bold letters somewhere on the truck. Augusta is full of weirdos, just not your typical hippie or revival hippie variety. But as I was driving in pursuit of this anomalously weird van I slammed on my breaks when my eyes read something even stranger - a tiny store front with tiny little letters that read "Monist Support Group".
I immediately pulled a u-turn causing poor Gallifrey to slide into the passenger seat. He yelped in protest of being unseated so rudely and climbed back into my lap and resumed his place by setting his chin on the window behind the mirror. Sometimes I think he likes the idea of the wind rushing through his hair and ears more than he likes the actual wind rushing through his hair and ears. I parked the car and rolled up the window just enough so he couldn't jump out, assuring him that I would be right back. As I walked up to the odd storefront I could feel his panicked eyes following me to make sure that my trip would be a short one. I read the sign again and my eyes were not deceived. It was a building dedicated to a Monist Support Group. In even smaller letters it announced the meeting times - Monday, closed; Tuesday, 12:30 pm; Wednesday, closed; Thursday; 7:25 pm; Friday, closed; Saturday, closed; Sunday, 6:45 am. Odd hours for an odd little store. I looked at my watch. It was Tuesday, 11:16 am. I had to investigate.
I drove Gallifrey back home and was back at the support group's building too quickly. It was only 11:37. I felt bad for leaving Gallifrey as Tuesday's were normally our special day together. It usually started with a walk, which was painfully slow as he had to sniff every three feet to see which other dogs in the neighborhood had peed there recently. After that it was lunch which was sometimes at home and sometimes at one of the restaurants downtown where I could sit outside with him. He enjoys bahn-mi, hamburgers, apples and bacon. He is not a big fan of peaches, sushi or pimento cheese. After that I get him an ice cream cone which he loves, but tends to make him shiver even in the oppressive Georgian summer. We would still get the ice cream I told him before leaving to go to the meeting. I tried to peer inside but the windows and doors were mirror-tinted. But, while unsuccessfully trying to see in I caught a reflection of a cafe across the street that I had never eaten at before. It was truly a day of discovery.
The menu of the cafe said that they had the best pimento cheese in Augusta. They didn't. Everyone in Augusta knows that the Augusta National has the best pimento cheese in Augusta. I discovered pimento cheese when I moved here at age 28. I discovered that it wasn't just an Augusta thing, but the whole south was crazy about pimento cheese. It's basically just mayonnaise and processed cheese and somehow each little corner of the south has put their own twist on it! The only time I can get my hands on a pimento cheese sandwich from the Augusta National is during Master's Week when someone other than me goes to a practice round and brings me back one (along with a souvenir cup). Most of the other places in Augusta make reference to how theirs compares with the Master's version. It's sold in every grocery store here and just about every restaurant puts some type of store brand or homemade version on a burger with bacon. I ate so much of the stuff the first three months I lived in Augusta that I've grown tired of it, but there is a good place in Columbia, SC about an hour away called DiPrato's that makes one with jalapeños in it and serves it with pita chips that is pretty darn good. The best I've ever had though was in Charleston, SC from a place called Burgage's Grocery. This little cafe had mediocre pimento cheese in spite of their claim to be the best and I'm fairly certain that it was just Kroger brand slapped on whatever bread they got on sale last week.
I entered the Monist Support Group storefront right on time. Upon arrival I was given a clipboard and instructed to fill out the questionnaire and return it to the front. The lady who worked the desk seemed like a character out of a bad 80's movie with a nostalgia theme harkening back to the better era of the 50's. She had those pointed, black spectacles with a chain and a quasi-beehive hairdo and popped her purple gum loudly. I later found out that she didn't believe in any of this Monist hoodoo but it was an easy second job that somehow miraculously paired perfectly with her regular job as a Waffle House waitress. That should have been an indicator that maybe the Monists were on to something, but the intricacies of the Universe were lost on me at that moment.
INSERT QUESTIONNAIRE HERE
Outline for the rest of the story
There were eleven people in the room - myself and the Waffle House waitress were the only ones to have not experienced the ineffable oneness of the One yet. There was one leader who didn't have a clipboard. That left six others scribbling answers on their clipboards other than me, in total nine individuals, seven of which didn't believe in individuality at all.
Each individual told their story of how they became aware that everything was one and all else was illusionary.
1) The leader (classical hippie type) - arrived at the One via a bastardization Dvaitadvaita Hinduism
2) Shelia (classical hippie type) - arrived at the One via a bastardization of pseudo intellectual yoga
3) Jeremy (neo-hippie type) - arrived at the One via reading the heart sutra while smoking pot
4) Tanya (neo-hippie type) - arrived at the One while in coitus with Jeremy (her boyfriend)
5) Mark (business professional) - arrived at the One when a homeless man asked him for change in LA, he reached into his pocket to produce a few coins only to find the homeless man there holding a $20 bill asking him if he could break it so he could get a soda out of the machine
6) Connie (young, stay-at-home mom) - arrived at the One during breast feeding
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Story Ideas - Mind Control & The Sandwich Shop
I've got two short story ideas
1) Mind Control
A man believes that he alone exists. Everything else that exists is merely a construct of his mind. However, he is frustrated that he cannot seem to control everything the way he thinks he ought to given his creation of the objects. Setting is in a mental institute. The funny thing is, is that he is actually crazy so some of the people and objects he creates are actually in the story.
2) The Sandwich Shop
There exists a sandwich shop where customers come in and go out like all other sandwich shops in the world. But, the workers never leave. The delivery drivers step out with the food and enter nothingness only to return to the shop without the food. It is an infinite loop.
1) Mind Control
A man believes that he alone exists. Everything else that exists is merely a construct of his mind. However, he is frustrated that he cannot seem to control everything the way he thinks he ought to given his creation of the objects. Setting is in a mental institute. The funny thing is, is that he is actually crazy so some of the people and objects he creates are actually in the story.
2) The Sandwich Shop
There exists a sandwich shop where customers come in and go out like all other sandwich shops in the world. But, the workers never leave. The delivery drivers step out with the food and enter nothingness only to return to the shop without the food. It is an infinite loop.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Twain - The Stolen White Elephant
I'm enjoying my Mark Twain short stories. I still feel that Journalism in Tennessee is my favorite thus far, but in reading Twain's The Stolen White Elephant I'm realizing that I like detective stories. Now, that said, I haven't read a Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie or any other "serious" detective fiction. But, I've loved Law & Order since at least high school; I think I liked it earlier, especially the crossover episodes with the Baltimore based Homicide: Life on the Street. I know I liked those when I was young and before I moved out of the area. But, it also made me never want to enter the city...
But, earlier on this blog and in one of my nascent stories I've mentioned the similarities between Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently and Raymond Queneau's Morcol in The Flight of Icarus and now having read Twain's short story The Stolen White Elephant, I'm finding that I really enjoy farcical detective stories. I'm also noticing a trend about such characters. They are, simultaneously, bungling and cunning. They have the great balance of bafoonery and intellect that allows them the expertise of the charlatan. Money moves them. I guess that's a well-worn thought because even in serious journalism we question the ethics of the police. Maybe we should simply make them well paid and then they wouldn't have to worry about bribes. That however would be a socialist notion and thus, completely unacceptable in America. We can't stand an ounce of socialism. On a side note, I'm very concerned that I'm not going to get my social security in forty years or so when I'm eligible. These aren't related thoughts, but my mind is always doubled over in multiple trajectories.
As for Twain's short story, it's great. It is silly and full of sharp language. That makes it easy to read and easy to pause and reread a fantastic passage or sentence. With Twain, it's often the sentence that you reread because of it's incredible sarcasm within its brevity. "Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest detail. It even had additions, consisting of Detective this, Detective that, and Detective the other's 'theory' as to how the robbery was done" (Twain, 28). Beautiful. Concise. Caustic.
The thing that I like so much about this story is that it incorporates an odd structure using the "telegraph" as a medium. I had this idea for a short story (which is still peculating within me) that makes use of a similar medium. Interwoven in the story will be some background narrative, but the story will be moved forward by a different medium - comments posted on Internet "journalism". I thought it would be a new novel and innovative technique. Twain wrote The Stolen White Elephant 101 years before I was born. What did Solomon say???
But, earlier on this blog and in one of my nascent stories I've mentioned the similarities between Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently and Raymond Queneau's Morcol in The Flight of Icarus and now having read Twain's short story The Stolen White Elephant, I'm finding that I really enjoy farcical detective stories. I'm also noticing a trend about such characters. They are, simultaneously, bungling and cunning. They have the great balance of bafoonery and intellect that allows them the expertise of the charlatan. Money moves them. I guess that's a well-worn thought because even in serious journalism we question the ethics of the police. Maybe we should simply make them well paid and then they wouldn't have to worry about bribes. That however would be a socialist notion and thus, completely unacceptable in America. We can't stand an ounce of socialism. On a side note, I'm very concerned that I'm not going to get my social security in forty years or so when I'm eligible. These aren't related thoughts, but my mind is always doubled over in multiple trajectories.
As for Twain's short story, it's great. It is silly and full of sharp language. That makes it easy to read and easy to pause and reread a fantastic passage or sentence. With Twain, it's often the sentence that you reread because of it's incredible sarcasm within its brevity. "Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest detail. It even had additions, consisting of Detective this, Detective that, and Detective the other's 'theory' as to how the robbery was done" (Twain, 28). Beautiful. Concise. Caustic.
The thing that I like so much about this story is that it incorporates an odd structure using the "telegraph" as a medium. I had this idea for a short story (which is still peculating within me) that makes use of a similar medium. Interwoven in the story will be some background narrative, but the story will be moved forward by a different medium - comments posted on Internet "journalism". I thought it would be a new novel and innovative technique. Twain wrote The Stolen White Elephant 101 years before I was born. What did Solomon say???
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
I Finished The Trade
Today, July 15, 2015 I finished a short story. Well, I finished the first draft of the story. Now I'm going to give it to my wife to edit for grammatical mistakes.
The name of this story is called: The Trade, Or, How I was Banished From France. There are a couple of things about this that are interesting to me. First, it's the first short story that I've ever used myself and my wife as characters. Second, it is amazing how what I am reading at the time really impacts my writing. I'm nearly finished with Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake and halfway through this first draft I suddenly became conscious of the impact that Vonnegut was having on my writing. I hope that I haven't simply mimicked or copied him, but there is at least in my mind, an obvious tone. Thankfully, I had finished the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille before I came up with that story. I don't think I'd like to do a memoir-style short story in that story involving my wife.
The name of this story is called: The Trade, Or, How I was Banished From France. There are a couple of things about this that are interesting to me. First, it's the first short story that I've ever used myself and my wife as characters. Second, it is amazing how what I am reading at the time really impacts my writing. I'm nearly finished with Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake and halfway through this first draft I suddenly became conscious of the impact that Vonnegut was having on my writing. I hope that I haven't simply mimicked or copied him, but there is at least in my mind, an obvious tone. Thankfully, I had finished the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille before I came up with that story. I don't think I'd like to do a memoir-style short story in that story involving my wife.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Notes on Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales
After finishing the last book I read, I figured that it would be alright if I took an easier challenge. I picked up the Penguin Popular Classics' Scottish Folk & Fairy Tales edited by Gordon Jarvie. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, somewhere between an Arthurian legend or The Mabinogion or even something like a Grimm's. It was nothing like the Mabinogion and had an element of Grimm folk tale to it, but it was a lot lighter. In the moments it was a bit sinister, it was done almost at a Classic Disney level - enough to frighten younger readers, but not enough to offend the sensibilities of said young readers' parents. That said, the book was a pretty good read. I think it should be something read to children to get them interested in good literature and plan on making a note of that for the future. Some of this criticism is probably unfair because it really felt like a children's book in the beginning and that sort of dissipated the further into the book you got. It was an anthology and the tone was set by the first seven little folk tales written by the same author. It was her stories that really made it feel younger reader oriented.
But, as is the case with all anthologies, a couple of the stories really stood out to me. The story of Tam Lin, the first traditional folk tale in the order, was the salvation that kept me going through as it was relatively close to the beginning of the book. Which I am glad because there were a couple of really good stories later on. Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm was another one I enjoyed. Ever since I read the Orkneyinga Saga, I have found myself fascinated by Orkney and lo and behold, one of my favorite Scottish fairy tale comes from the Orkney Island. Plus, it was a genesis story of sorts and I always find those enthralling. The last big chunk of the Book was The Gold of Fairnilee, 'a classic victorian fairy tale'. Given that it was written by Andrew Lang, a specialist in Scottish folklore, it was probably the best story outside of Assipattle.
Lastly, the most intriguing story was by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His Through the Veil was excellent. The writing was good and its colloquial, phonetic writing of the Scottish dialogue was nice, but what set the story apart was the intriguing subject matter. After finishing that one, I thought it would be a good idea to appropriate the concept and turn it into a different short story of my own.
But, as is the case with all anthologies, a couple of the stories really stood out to me. The story of Tam Lin, the first traditional folk tale in the order, was the salvation that kept me going through as it was relatively close to the beginning of the book. Which I am glad because there were a couple of really good stories later on. Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm was another one I enjoyed. Ever since I read the Orkneyinga Saga, I have found myself fascinated by Orkney and lo and behold, one of my favorite Scottish fairy tale comes from the Orkney Island. Plus, it was a genesis story of sorts and I always find those enthralling. The last big chunk of the Book was The Gold of Fairnilee, 'a classic victorian fairy tale'. Given that it was written by Andrew Lang, a specialist in Scottish folklore, it was probably the best story outside of Assipattle.
Lastly, the most intriguing story was by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His Through the Veil was excellent. The writing was good and its colloquial, phonetic writing of the Scottish dialogue was nice, but what set the story apart was the intriguing subject matter. After finishing that one, I thought it would be a good idea to appropriate the concept and turn it into a different short story of my own.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Eudaimaniacs
Eudaimonia is the Greek philosophical notion, of the highest good of human kind.
There was debate in the Ancient philosophy of Greece on what that highest good was. Socrates taught that eudaimonia was taking good care of the soul so that it is in the best possible shape (having the most virtue). In Plato the eudaimonia also rested with the soul, but rather than having the most virtue possible, it was that the soul was perfectly balanced. In Aristotle eudaimonia was using, to the fullest extent possible reason - which set man apart from the animals. Epicurus was hedonistic, but a long-term hedonist. For him, the eudaimonia was the long term best pleasure with as little bit of pain as possible. In Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, eudaimonia was an end. In Epicurus, eudaimonia was a means toward happiness.
Using these four basic stances I think a short story could come together about four persons living out these philosophies to the nth degree. Living there lives totally dedicated to the highest good of human kind, but in a post-apocalyptic setting and the characters could be crazed and delusional and thus, Eudaimaniacs.
There was debate in the Ancient philosophy of Greece on what that highest good was. Socrates taught that eudaimonia was taking good care of the soul so that it is in the best possible shape (having the most virtue). In Plato the eudaimonia also rested with the soul, but rather than having the most virtue possible, it was that the soul was perfectly balanced. In Aristotle eudaimonia was using, to the fullest extent possible reason - which set man apart from the animals. Epicurus was hedonistic, but a long-term hedonist. For him, the eudaimonia was the long term best pleasure with as little bit of pain as possible. In Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, eudaimonia was an end. In Epicurus, eudaimonia was a means toward happiness.
Using these four basic stances I think a short story could come together about four persons living out these philosophies to the nth degree. Living there lives totally dedicated to the highest good of human kind, but in a post-apocalyptic setting and the characters could be crazed and delusional and thus, Eudaimaniacs.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
The reincarnation model of the Future Modern Ancient Greeks
Plato describes the reincarnation futures for the types of people in this world and what their destiny is to be. For the impure souls they are destined to wander or be reincarnated in a humiliating way. What if an impure soul had been reincarnated as a closet light switch with a load of frustrations that he sits and thinks about in darkness and when the mechanic comes in and switches on the light switch he espouses his theories on why he is suffering this injustice but all of his words are heard only as annoying buzz that the mechanic will someday investigate when he has less work to do. The law-abiding souls are reincarnated as either social animals or humans. The philosopher however escapes the reincarnation and enters into a new realm of wisdom and the next life. It is for this reason that the mechanics of the Planet of the Future Modern Ancient Greeks has been suffering eons of brain drain and has been left to the slightly better than the impure but incredibly inept. "This could explain why I've been marooned on this odd planet four weeks when I only needed an oil change and a tune up. What is that incessant buzzing noise?"
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
The Travels of the Future Modern Ancient Greeks
I think it would be great to do a "Travel Chronicler" of a poor lost space/time traveler that happens upon a bunch of worlds that have interesting and comic outcomes. He could at one point find himself in a world, looking for a tune-up for his spaceship when he happens upon a planet full of used spaceship salesmen, astrophysics-mechanics and snake-oil salesmen that are eternally reincarnated Greeks.
It's there that he finds a new fuel to make his travels easier and essentially a lot less expensive - the apieron, "it's boundless after all, plus it will transform into anything and everything you like (and its opposite all at once). While mulling over switching to this latest and greatest theory on travel fuel he could stumble upon the workshop of Zeno and check out his latest models of starcrafts:
1. The Bisection (where you get halfway by going halfway and halfway by going halfway of the halfway until you don't get anywhere and are so frustrated by the situation that you buy the upgrade that gets you halfway there halfway faster but never quite gets you home)
2. The Achilles and The Tortoise Models A & T (twin engined spacecraft that has one engine that gets a head start and the other one never quite catches up. It'll get you where you're going, but you'll do it in circles. Very comfortable, but persistent dizziness is a noted side effect)
3. The Arrow (Such smooth space flight it'll feel like you never move. Given that movement is illusionary only anyway you won't feel the motion because there is none).
4. The Place Paradox concept craft (Tagline: since any particular place would imply an infinite number of places, which is absurd, there is no place so you're already where you were trying to go.)
It's there that he finds a new fuel to make his travels easier and essentially a lot less expensive - the apieron, "it's boundless after all, plus it will transform into anything and everything you like (and its opposite all at once). While mulling over switching to this latest and greatest theory on travel fuel he could stumble upon the workshop of Zeno and check out his latest models of starcrafts:
1. The Bisection (where you get halfway by going halfway and halfway by going halfway of the halfway until you don't get anywhere and are so frustrated by the situation that you buy the upgrade that gets you halfway there halfway faster but never quite gets you home)
2. The Achilles and The Tortoise Models A & T (twin engined spacecraft that has one engine that gets a head start and the other one never quite catches up. It'll get you where you're going, but you'll do it in circles. Very comfortable, but persistent dizziness is a noted side effect)
3. The Arrow (Such smooth space flight it'll feel like you never move. Given that movement is illusionary only anyway you won't feel the motion because there is none).
4. The Place Paradox concept craft (Tagline: since any particular place would imply an infinite number of places, which is absurd, there is no place so you're already where you were trying to go.)
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