Many many years ago, I discovered Might magazine.  It was a funny, silly magazine that spoofed everything (but had a serious backbone, too).  (You can order back issues here).  And so, I subscribed around issue 13.  When the magazine folded (with issue 16–and you can read a little bit about that in the intro to Shiny Adidas Track Suits) it somehow morphed into McSweeney’s, and much of the creative team behind Might went with them.

The early volumes (1-5 are reviewed in these pages, and the rest will come one of these days) are a more literary enterprise than Might was.  There’s still a lot of the same humor (and a lot of silliness), but there are also lengthy non-fiction pieces.  The big difference is that McSweeney’s was bound as a softcover book rather than as a magazine. And, I guess technically it is called Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern as opposed to Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Issue #6 came with a CD of music by They Might Be Giants.  And from then on it was anybody’s guess what the next issue would look like.  (This Wikipedia page provides a nice summary of all of the issues that have been published, including authors).

The latest issue (#33) is being printed as a newspaper (just to give an idea of the diversity of product here).

The books (for most of them are books, despite the above newspaper) come out occasionally.  I gather it was supposed to be a quarterly, but I don’t know that they’ve ever really kept a schedule. Many of the books are hardcover (beautifully bound).  Some have been paperbacks.  Occasionally they come in a fancy packaging (boxes, slipcases etc). You never know what you’re going to get, which is a lot of the fun.

Although you do know that you’re going to get quality short stories.  The list of fantastic (and well-known) authors grows and grows. (Just a few: Michael Chabon, Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, Roddy Doyle, A.M. Homes, and Joyce Carol Oates.)  And mixed in with them are less well known (ie. more indie) authors, as well as occasional unknowns.  And even if I don’t love every story, I know that they’ll all be worth a read.

McSweeney’s itself has grown from a publisher of this quarterly to include an empire that publishes books (their book of the month club is the way to go), an official periodical (The Believer), and a video magazine (Wholphin).

I am probably a little too steeped in McSweeney’s-world, but I’ve never been disappointed with a release of theirs (okay, that’s not true, they have published a few clunkers).  I’m always excited to get the box with the little chair as the return address.

And, of course, I began a Wikipedia page of all of the McSweeney’s Books. I’m delighted to see that folks have been adding to it!

Original mention in Periodicals Page:

McSweeney’s. Technically a periodical. A collection of short stories and things like it. I’m usually too overwhelmed by the time this comes in, and frankly, I am many many issues behind on reading this. However, I plowed through 21 and 22 recently, and just got 23. So, I’m looking forward to it and its brethren. I got turned onto McSweeney’s because I used to subscribe to MIGHT magazine (R.I.P) which was a hilarious magazine ala Spy (R.I.P). Might ran for a dozen or so issues and then strangely morphed into McSweeney’s. I think somehow my subscription ran over into McSweeney’s and the rest is 23 issues of fun!

It can be hard to find something to be thankful for during this current economic recession.  Perhaps you or someone you know is struggling to stay employed or worse, the job you had is no longer there.   Some Thanksgiving celebration it’ll be.  Or will it?  I guess it depends on your perspective.  It reminds me of a short story I wrote several years ago that might help put some perspective on the employment uncertainties we are all facing and maybe help you find some additional things to be thankful for this week.  Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s What We Do – A Short Story by Paul Kulpinski

The town of Billet Falls has always been this way for as long as anyone can remember.  It’s a town, not unlike many others.  It’s full of people who are all busy doing the things they do in the places they do them.  There’s the banker who works at the bank.  The butcher who works at the market.  The nurse who works at the hospital and of course the Mayor who works at City Hall all working to keep things running along smoothly and without disruption, because that’s the way it’s always been done.  The people of Billet Falls liked living life that way and no one ever dared to try living life any differently.

It was the first warm day after a particularly long cold winter when Mr. Lincoln and his family moved to Billet Falls.  Their home, while new to them, had previously been occupied by the dry cleaner who ran the laundry near city hall.  It was a beautiful house, located right in the heart of town.  So it was that after unpacking their belongings, Mr. Lincoln decided to conduct some business and establish themselves as the town’s newest residents.  His first chore was to open a bank account, so he went to the bank and met the banker.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lincoln”, said the banker.  What do you do?”

Mr. Lincoln noticed the family pictures on the banker’s desk and replied, “I do the same things you do.”

“Oh, you’re a banker too?” asked the banker with a tone of concern.

“Not at all.  I rear two beautiful children with the help of my lovely wife,” said Mr. Lincoln.

This puzzled the banker who replied, “Oh, that’s nice, I guess.”

The next morning, Mr. Lincoln decided to buy some fresh bread and pastries for his family’s breakfast.  So he ventured out early to the bakery where he met the baker.

“Welcome to Billet Falls Mr. Lincoln”, said the baker.  What do you do?”

“I am a father.” replied Mr. Lincoln.

The baker chuckled, “I see, and do you do any work?”

“Oh, there is a lot of work to do rearing two beautiful children.  Without the help of my lovely wife, I don’t know that I could get all of the work done!”  exclaimed Mr. Lincoln.

This confused the baker who was left to wonder as Mr. Lincoln walked back to his home in the heart of town with his fresh bread and pastries whistling a happy tune in the morning sunlight.

By the third day, Mr. Lincoln began preparing for a far-away trip he had scheduled so he stopped by the barber shop where he met the barber.

“Have a seat, Mr. Lincoln” said the barber inviting him into the chair by the front window.  “I’ve heard all about you.” As indeed word was spreading about the strange ways of Mr. Lincoln and his family.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Mr. Lincoln.  “Then you know about what I do.”

“Well, no not exactly.  What is it that you do?”  asked the barber as his scissors began snipping away around Mr. Lincoln’s head.

“I’m the husband of a beautiful lady who has the deepest green eyes and who embodies that joyful feeling of a cool summer breeze,” said Mr. Lincoln with admiration.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot of work,” commented the barber as his scissors snipped on around Mr. Lincoln’s right ear.

“We’re quite busy actually, what with our two little one’s there’s barely a moment where we’re not doing something new and amazing!”

This wasn’t quite good enough for the barber so he pressed on.   “That’s nice, but what’s your real job,” he asked.

“I can’t think of any more important job than that!”  Mr. Lincoln thought for a moment then said, “Perhaps after the children are grown, I’ll find one.”

After Mr. Lincoln left with his fresh haircut, the barber turned the sign on his door to “CLOSED” and collapsed into his barber chair, stunned by what he had just heard.  If what Mr. Lincoln had said was true, this wasn’t good for Billet Falls.  For as long as anyone could remember, the people of Billet Falls knew each other by what they did and the very important titles they held because of it, like the banker, the baker and of course the barber.  What could it mean to be just a father?  The barber thought long and hard and it could only mean one thing.  So he went to the police station where the police officer worked and after talking for a moment, they went to the hospital where the doctor worked and after a while they went to the accountant’s office where the CPA worked and soon a large crowd of the people of Billet Falls, not knowing what to do about this new threat to their way of life went to City Hall where the Mayor worked.

The Mayor was outraged to learn that there could even be one citizen of Billet Falls who was not working at doing something productive.  So the Mayor marched off to Mr. Lincoln’s house in the heart of town followed by the banker, the baker, the barber, the policeman, the doctor, the accountant and the large mob of the other townspeople of Billet Falls which had become quite agitated.

The Mayor pounded on the door of Mr. Lincoln’s home.  When the door opened he demanded to know what Mr. Lincoln did.

Once again, Mr. Lincoln calmly replied,  “I am rearing two beautiful children with the help of my lovely wife.”

“What does it mean to rear two beautiful children with the help of your lovely wife?” blurted the Mayor.

“It means that I build model rockets with my son.  It means that I have tea parties with my daughter.  It means that my two beautiful children, my lovely wife and I take regular picnics in the parks around Billet Falls.  It’s that simple,”  said Mr. Lincoln.

“Ah, ha.  So you are unemployed!” the Mayor said accusingly.

“No, not at all!  I fly airplanes for the airline at the airport.” declared Mr. Lincoln.

The townspeople gasp in unison and then shouted in relief, “Oh, you’re a pilot!”

“No, I’m a father,” insisted Mr. Lincoln.  “It just so happens that I fly airplanes to earn money.”

A low murmer arose from the crowd as they grew uneasy again.  “I am no different from any of you,” Mr. Lincoln added.

But this did nothing to calm the crowd, until the fireman spoke up, slowly.  “So, you’re saying that because I am rearing my son that I am a father, who happens to put out fires for money”?

“Exactly,” said Mr. Lincoln.

Then the nurse spoke up, “I don’t have any children, Mr. Lincoln.  Does this mean that I am no body?”  There was a great commotion, as the crowd now believed that Mr. Lincoln had been defeated and maybe life could return to normal.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Lincoln.  “You’re someone’s daughter and perhaps even someone’s friend, correct?”

“Yes” she said.

“Then you are a daughter of two people who love you very much, who happens to take care of sick people for money,” said Mr. Lincoln.

The Mayor, still frantic about maintaining order in his town shouted, “How can we have a town full of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends and neighbors?  We will never get anything done!  The town will collapse!”

But Mr. Lincoln knew that would never happen.  “Mr. Mayor” he said, “jobs come and go but the relationships you have with your family, friends and neighbors will outlast them all.”  Then Mr. Lincoln extended his hand to the Mayor, “my name’s Tom.  Tom Lincoln.”

The Mayor stammered slightly, then with a laugh he shook Mr. Lincoln’s hand firmly and replied, “my name’s Robert James Turner.  My friends call me R.J.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, R.J.,” said Mr. Lincoln.

And with that handshake, the matter was settled.  Before long, the people of Billet Falls began to think of themselves as fathers, mothers, sons and daughters; friends and neighbors all of whom did this or that for money.  Did the town collapse?  On the contrary.  It thrived as an amazing thing happened – some people actually decided to swap the jobs they did for money, because the banker really didn’t like banking and the plumber hated water.  What would have been the scandal of all scandals in the history of Billet Falls in the past, was now a minor event because Susan was a better banker than she ever was a plumber and Henry became the best plumber the town of Billet Falls had ever known.

© 1999, 2009  Paul Kulpinski

My girlfriend and I took a big step the other day. I’m not going to pretend to know if it was a good or bad decision in the grand scheme of things. It certainly had some repercussions. And it certainly was a big step.

I had to go grocery shopping, and so did she, so we went together. We don’t usually do this. It was nice. Kind of cute I guess. I noticed other couples, maybe two or three. But mostly I saw people who were by themselves and were single or married – you could tell by their cart.

That’s not what was important about this trip, though. What’s important was this – we bought ice cream together.

It all starts somewhere, people, and for us, it was ice cream.

I’ve had friends who were dating each other and they thought, ‘let’s get an apartment together.’ Sometimes that’s awful nice, and beautiful, and whatever else. Sometimes though, it’s the opposite of the list of adjectives you just came up with.

One such couple bought a set of pots and pans together. A fifteen set. That is a lot of pots and pans and perhaps even more importantly it is an odd number. The gal in this relationship, not to be sexist – but she’s the one living the stereotype, not me – cooks much more than the guy. The guy is really rather stupid when it comes to food. He and I got in a conversation about it, from which I learned he thinks it is more cost-savvy to eat out at cheap sandwich shops. ‘I buy a sandwich and it costs like, 5 or 6 bucks … I go to the grocery store and I have to spend all this money on bread, and meat, and tomatoes … and then I have to take all the time to prepare it.’ He really is this dumb.

And now here he is engaging in this next dumb activity. You get an apartment together, that’s fine. But you each buy half the necessary stuff! Don’t split it. I get the couch, you get the TV. Etc.

I can see in a few months some very heated discussions about that terrible 15th pot/pan. It is a terrible maneuver on the part of the pot/pan making company but very business savvy. They will each have to go buy a half set more of pots/pans, or find someone who made the same mistake in a relationship but got the exact opposite half set of pots/pans. Wouldn’t that be tremendous?

I am smart. I can see potential problems and that’s why I’m doing so well. I don’t rush into things. My girlfriend wasn’t the type to rush into things either.

We were going to start doing more together. We were going to eat ice cream together. After that magical trip to the grocery store.

As soon as we checked out I looked at her and she smiled and I thought, ‘this is so nice.’ Then I looked in front of me to make sure I wouldn’t walk into something. Then I looked over at her again and she was still smiling. This worried me.

Why is she smiling so much?

I thought back on what we had said when we made the decision to buy ice cream together,

‘Mmm, I could go for ice cream.’ Me.

‘Yeah, that does sound good.’ Her.

‘I’m gonna buy some.’ Me.

‘Want to split one? I don’t want to eat that much, so you can have most.’ Her.

That bitch! She tricked me into this! Of course!

That wily bitch.

She knows I’m cheap, and she knows I love food – she used this. Bitch is probably smiling about wedding rings!

As we got back to my place I felt claustrophobic. I looked around and couldn’t help but imagine her moving in and taking up too much room.

Is that her sweater on my chair?

‘Hey, is that your sweater?’

She smiled that, ‘whoops’ smile. Wily, manipulative -

‘Actually I’m cold anyway.’

Cold-hearted, manipulative, wily little -

I have to say, looking back, it was probably a little irrational of me to break it off with her that night. And then to throw the ice cream out the window was just kind of silly. I can safely say that I overreacted.

With pots and pans, especially the nice ones, when you buy those with someone you’re stuck for a long time. You had better not be the type to feel claustrophobic. Ice cream is a less strong commitment, but it is certainly still a commitment. Do not underestimate it. You don’t want to break it off, and then go home feeling down to find an empty freezer knowing full well that your ex is eating ice cream that you paid for.

Since the ‘ice cream incidator’ (incidator because it’s like instigator mixed with incident) as I called it in the Dear So-and-So advice column letter I thought about writing, I’ve been working on my commitment issues.

I figured the best way to work on my issue would be to dive in head first.

I went out on a date with a girl and after the date ended I insisted that we get ice cream. I bought a pint and said, ‘keep it at your place, maybe after our next date we can finish it off.’ Then I smiled to let her know, I’m in this for real.

She never called me again. I think I came on too strong, wanting to have a mutual possession too soon.

I went on a date with a different girl and I asked her how long she thought a thing of ice cream usually lasted. She said depends on the person. I said I could polish one off in three, maybe four sittings. Then I looked away and said let’s get a thing of ice cream together, ‘for us‘. She laughed and said ok. I didn’t know the word ‘ok’ could come across sounding so needy.

Recently I found out that you can fake being lactose intolerant, and no one would ever know. I have a date tomorrow with a girl, and having found out about this lactose intolerance I don’t see how any thing can stop us from being married.

Once upon a time, not very long ago, and in a land rather close by, Ben stumbled into one of those jam-packed action/adventures that are so common in tv and movies, yet so elusive in real life. Actually, it stumbled into him.
…………He was dicking around on the net, doing nothing really, when he heard a huge crash outside. It was big and loud enough to rattle the tin can of a trailer house he called home, which, admittedly, wasn’t saying much. A picture of Mother even fell off the wall and shattered on the dirty linoleum of the floor.
…………Ben pulled up his pants and went to the window. A car was wrapped around the light pole at the corner of the yard. Smoke rose from the crumpled hood. Inside, he could see two men. The driver was moving, but the other man was slumped over and still.
…………Zipping up, Ben went out on the rotting deck. It was Sunday afternoon and quiet, warm for October. Lower Valley Road, which ran past the Paradise Trailer Court, was empty. He had a better view on the deck and could see blood on the second, unmoving man’s face. It seemed too dark, like the red-purple of beet juice.
…………“Oh, shit,” Ben whispered. He reached in his pocket and realized he had left his phone by the computer. He was about to go back inside when the driver called out to him.
…………“Can we get a hand over here?”
…………Ben paused. For one ludicrous second he thought of applauding.
…………The man spoke again. “Please?” He began to struggle with the door, which was jammed.
…………As he approached the car, Ben could smell fuel and oil and smoke. A subtler, hot, twisted metal smell floated underneath. A peripheral scent, it somehow tied everything together and said: This is what a car wreck smells like.
…………He took hold of the window frame of the door and pulled out as the driver continued to push from inside. The door resisted, creaking loudly, then swung open.
…………“Thanks,” the man said, out of breath. Moving stiffly, he climbed out and stood next to Ben. He was really tall. “Gimme a hand with my buddy, will you?”
…………The passenger was still not moving, but Ben could see that he was conscious. His eyes were open and dazed. There was a large gash running between his eyes, across his forehead, and into his hair line. His face, neck, and chest were covered in the strange dark blood.
…………“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” asked Ben. “Moving him might be a bad idea.”
…………“He’s just shook up. Lenny’s a real trooper.”
…………Together, they pulled Lenny out of the car through the driver side door and laid him on the dead lawn where fire ants and jiggers would have easy access to him. They tried to be gentle, but failed, and he cussed them mercilessly the whole time:
…………“Ouch! Goddamn it! Shit! Fuck! Jesus! Ouch!”
…………And so forth.
…………“You have a phone?” Ben asked the driver.
…………“No.”
…………“I’ll run get mine.” He turned to go back to the house.
…………“Wait–Would it be ok if we hauled him inside? I hate to leave him here on the ground like an animal.”
…………“Um, sure. I guess,” said Ben.
…………Lenny cussed them all the way across the lawn, up onto the deck, through the door, and over to the couch. There they plopped him like a bag of feed.
…………Ben walked over to the computer and picked up his phone.
…………“No calls.” the man said. He was standing next to Ben, really tall. With his left hand he grabbed the phone away and slipped it in his pocket. He was holding a gun with his right hand.
…………Instinctively, Ben put up his hands. “Hey, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to help, that’s all.” Where had the gun come from? The man was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt.
…………To say that this was unexpected would be a mythic understatement. Hold-ups, gun violence, and that sort of thing just didn’t happen in South Dakota, where the only serious crimes were perpetrated lawfully by business people.
…………“Oh, you’ll help, all right.” Keeping an eye on Ben, he shut the door and closed the blinds. “I’m Karl. That’s Lenny.” He indicated the man on the couch by casually pointing the pistol at him.
…………“Carl?”
…………“No, not Carl, you idiot. Karl.”
…………“Sorry,” Ben said sheepishly and looked down at his toes.
…………“I see you were shaking hands with Mr. Happy,” said Karl, nodding at the computer.
…………The browser was still open to the Buns-n-Ammo webpage. Quickly, Ben x’d out of it. His session had expired anyway, if you know what I mean.
…………“So who are you?”
…………“Ben.”
…………“Ben Dover?” Karl threw his head back and laughed.
…………“No,” Ben said. He looked down at his toes again.
…………Just then Ben’s kitty, Princess, came out of her bedroom to see what all the fuss was about. She was fashionably late as usual. With sleepy green eyes, she regarded first Karl, then Lenny. She was not impressed with either.
…………“Go back to your room, Sweetie,” Ben said to her. “Go on.”
…………“You have a fucking cat?” Karl said. “I hate fucking cats.”
…………He walked over and picked her up by the scruff of the neck, holding her at arm’s length to avoid contamination. Ridiculously, he put the gun to her tiny head. “Should I blow ‘er away, Lenny?”
…………“Fuckin’ A” cussed Lenny from the couch.
…………“You got a pet carrier or something?” Karl asked. “We gotta do something with her or I’m gonna kill her. I do not want a fucking cat around me.”
…………“We have the Doctor Taxi,” Ben said.
…………“The Doctor Taxi?”
…………“I put her in it when I take her to the doctor. She gets really upset if she’s loose in the car.”
…………“Get it–and Benji? If you get any funny ideas I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”
…………Ben got the Doctor Taxi from Princess’s closet. It was pink and decorated with hearts and flowers. Stenciled above the door in loopy, flowing script was her full name: Precious Princess Peaches.
…………“Well, isn’t that just about the cutest think in the whole universe?” Karl said when Ben came back with it. “Could you be any more of a pussy? Jesus.” He stuffed Princess inside and closed the door.
…………Ben could see her pretty green eye looking out one of the air holes and his heart broke. She was clearly terrified. Who is this big mean man, Papa? the eye said to him.
…………“Uh, I can just put her in her bedroom if you want,” said Ben.
…………Karl held the Doctor Taxi by the handle like a very adorable piece of luggage. “I think Precious is gonna be my insurance, Benji. You be a good boy and I won’t have to hurt her.”
…………“She prefers Princess,” Ben told him. There was a spark of anger in his voice he simply couldn’t help.
…………“Is that a fact? Tell me something, could you be any more of a pussy? Jesus.”
…………Ben looked down at his toes. “You already asked that,” he said quietly.
…………“There here, Lenny,” Karl said, not paying attention. He was peaking through the blinds.
…………“Fuck,” cussed Lenny from the couch.
…………“Who?” Ben asked. He was hoping, dearly hoping, it was the police.
…………“The fucking Man,” said Karl.
…………“The fucking Man?”
…………“You know, the cops, the pigs. The Man. The Man that keeps everyone down. Everyone. You, me, Lenny on the couch there.” He indicated Lenny by casually pointing the pistol at him again. Clearly, gun safety was not a priority with this guy.
…………“The fucking Man,” cussed Lenny from the couch.
…………“Ok, right now they’re checking out the car, but if they come to the door you’re gonna be cool. Right, Benji?” Karl lifted up the Doctor Taxi and peered inside. “Otherwise I’ll pull off this stupid cat’s head just like I did my sister’s dolls when I was a kid.” Awkwardly, he put the pistol in his armpit and squeezed it there. Then he put the thumb of his now free hand inside his mouth and snapped it out, making a loud POP! sound.
…………Ben held his ominous gaze, truly hating him. “Don’t worry about it.”
…………But there was no knock. From his perch by the blinds, Karl related all that was going on outside, along with commentary. “Another cop car just showed up. Man, that’s a total of four. Must be a slow day….or is this town as lame as it looks? Look at that cop. Holy shit, he’s fat! He brings new meaning to the word ‘pig’. Oink-fucking-oink. And here’s the tow truck. Finally. Look at this fucking hick. Man, what a greaseball redneck-looking dipshit. I bet he’s married to his sister. You really live nowhere, Benji. Fucking nowhere.”
…………And so on.
…………After everyone had gone, Karl turned from the blinds and looked at Ben. “Guess who’s giving us a ride outta here?”
…………“Just take my car. What you need me for?”
…………“Because the minute we leave, Benji, you’ll rat us out. We’re tired of the Man looking for us. You’re gonna drive our asses to Canada.”
…………“You guys are from Canada?”
…………“No, dumbass. You hear all the cussing we do? They don’t cuss like this in fucking Canada, man. It’s too damn cold.”
…………They got in the car and headed out onto the highway. Ben drove and Karl sat in the passenger seat, the Doctor Taxi containing Princess on his lap. Lenny was in the backseat. Ben had more or less carried him there while Karl waved the gun around and barked orders. It was clear to Ben that Lenny was seriously injured, not just “shook up” like Karl had said. He needed a hospital and soon.
…………Karl had the pistol pointed casually at Ben, its butt resting on the top of the Doctor Taxi. So casually, in fact, the barrel was pointing downward at Ben’s crotch. If it went off, the bullet would nail him right in the genitals. This was something Ben absolutely did not want, having just joined the Buns-n-Ammo website that very day.
…………In the rearview mirror, Ben could see Lenny drifting in and out of consciousness. His eyes would close, then snap open whenever the car shimmied or swayed. When they were open, they were unfocused and clouded, and held a look of fading fear. His skin had turned a ghostly white since leaving the house. Ben hoped he would die.
…………As he drove, he fantasized about snatching the gun away and shooting Karl in the face with it. A little smile formed on his lips as a video of Karl‘s brain flying out the back of his head played over and over in his mind.
…………“So tell me, Benji,” said Karl, his voice relaxed, almost friendly. “What do you do to make a buck in this fucked up world?”
…………Ben was a bill collector by trade, but he didn’t want Karl to know that. He didn’t want anyone to know, in fact. It was a brutal job. Only IRS agents have it worse. All day long he said things like this:
…………“Now, Mrs. Sullivan, you and I both know you can afford more than $5 a month on your $46,000 credit card bill….”
…………Then would come the protests, the bawling, the carrying-on. He would have to listen, but not care. If he cared he would get fired. He would have to sit there with his stupid headset on and listen to them cry, and then suggest that they were liars or, worse, thieves. And of course they hated him. They absolutely hated him.
…………No way was he going to tell Karl.
…………“Do you know those little plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces?” Ben asked him.
…………“Yeah….”
…………“I install those.”
…………Karl looked at him blankly for a moment, then shook his head like he was trying to clear it of a particularly convoluted math problem he no longer cared to solve. “Whatever,” he said.
…………They were on 85 North, heading toward Belle. Beyond was Ludlow, then North Dakota, and finally Canada, where it’s too damn cold to cuss.
…………On the outskirts of Belle, Karl ordered Ben to pull over at a gas station. He wanted to fill up and get some snacks and beer. He gave the gun to Lenny, who held it shakily. He was in no shape to be in charge of a hostage, even one like Ben, but there were no other options.
…………“Five minutes, man,” Karl told him. “That’s all I’m asking. Can you do it?”
…………“Uh-huh,” groaned Lenny.
…………“Shoot this pussy in the back of the head if he moves a muscle.” Out he went, leaving Princess on the seat. He, of course, took the keys with him.
…………Within a few seconds, Princess began mewing. She apparently felt it was safe enough with big, mean Karl gone. She mewed and mewed, scratching at the door of the Doctor Taxi. “Hush, baby doll,” Ben said to her. “It’s ok.”
…………Behind him he could hear Lenny’s ragged breathing. He looked in the rearview mirror, but couldn‘t see him. He was now too far to the side, leaning against the door. “Is there anyway we can get some water for her?”
…………Lenny responded by gurgling and dropping the gun to the floor of the car with a heavy, dull thump.
…………Ben turned around in his seat and saw that Lenny’s eyes had rolled back into his head. A mixture of blood and saliva oozed from his mouth.
…………He was dead.
…………Ben grabbed the Doctor Taxi and watched as Karl disappeared into the gas station. Then he ran away.
…………He had never been in Belle before, but had heard it was on the way to becoming a ghost town. He went flat out full speed for what must have been a mile. Up and down alleys, across vacant lots, and past one abandoned building after another, until, almost collapsing, he stopped in front of a bar called “The Cowboy Up”. It was the first place that looked like it had any people in it.
…………Leaving Princess outside to calm down, he staggered through the door. Three or four people sat at the bar. “Can I use the phone? I need to call the police. It’s an emergency.” He bent over and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
…………“Here ya go.” One of the patrons had flipped open his phone and was holding it out for him. It glowed brightly and looked very hi-tech in the dim, dusty light. “It’s ringing.”
…………Ben took the phone. “Thanks.”
…………Out on the sidewalk waiting for the police to arrive, Ben resisted the urge to take Princess out of the Doctor Taxi. She was so rattled she‘d probably just run away, he thought. He very much wanted to hold her and give her smooches, though.
…………A police cruiser pulled up and a very large, very bald cop got out. “I’m Officer Murchison,” he said, his head shining in the late afternoon light, “and I’ll be solving your crime today.” He handed Ben a little blue card. Across the top it said:

…………………………………………………………How am I doin’? Let my boss know!

…………“That’s a standard comment card we hand out to all victims. Please fill it out when we’re done and drop it off at the station at your earliest convenience. Now. How may I help you?”
…………Ben slipped the comment card in his pocket and told Officer Murchison what all happened. Actually, he related the events of the afternoon to a Law Enforcement Official, to use police lingo. He skipped the part about spanking it to internet porn, but was truthful and detailed about everything else. When he was finished, he was blinking back angry tears. He wanted desperately to cuddle with Princess and call Mother.
…………“And this is Princess, I assume?” Officer Murchison asked. He sat down on his haunches next to the Doctor Taxi, which was on the sidewalk between them.
…………“Yes,” Ben said, wiping his eyes. He sat down on his haunches too.
…………“Hello, Princess,” cooed Officer Murchison, a bemused smile on his face. “Puss, puss?” He poked his large finger in through an air hole, attempting to reach her, but she backed away. She was still shaken and in no mood for company.
…………“It’s ok, sweetie pie,” Ben said. “It’s a nice man. A niiiice man. See?” Without thinking, he reached up and patted Officer Murchison’s bald head.
…………It was really sweaty.

The End
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LOL i am now resorting to making Gong Yoo the main character of a short story. Needless to say it is a romantic comedy and the setting is in Japan, where he is on vacation because he’s not being productive at work (omg, do you see what kind of mind a fan can have?!!) and because he is trying to get over over the focused Yoon Eun Hye (LOL yes, im sorry i made her a workaholic in this story… how else could i justify their separation in my imaginary world??!!) and of course there’s another girl involved. =)

should i post it here? i feel like a loser right now LOL.

cuteness~!!!

omg, seeing pics of him makes my heart palpitate. i’m serious.

but it could be the obsessed fan hormone rushing into my brain…

(To Be Continued)

The gravel in the street lies intermixed with broken glass from car windows. Up from the sidewalk, past the telephone poles covered in fliers for bands you’ll never hear, and around the boughs of maples, Doug firs, and Russian olives. East down Morrison, past the flat roofs of coffee shops and apartment buildings, the smell of cedar from fireplaces, and the wind slight from the north under the low clouds. Over the Lone Fir cemetery where the shadows of the Ukrainian gravestones with Cyrillic lettering grow longer as the sun falls behind. On past the shops and the cars and the bicycles and the people on the sidewalks to the active volcano Mount Tabor, the forest that is the park, and back again into the trees.

Describe a landscape as seen by a bird. Do not mention the bird.

STORY

The narrator is a grown man who has ‘not been what people call a success in life’. He looks back on the days when he would go with his mother and brother to the bach (holiday house) at the beach. There was an old woman, Mrs Crawley, who lived there all year round with her daughters and son, Joe, who she favoured. Once, the narrator’s mother sent them some Christmas cake. It was revealed later that the girls hadn’t received any of it. Joe had eaten it all.

An Affair of the Heart is a story of two linked sections. The first half finishes with ‘It certainly made us a bit sorry to think that we wouldn’t be seeing the Crawleys that summer, but I don’t think we lost much sleep over it. I remember we talked about sending a letter. But it never got beyond talk.’

The second half begins: ‘What I’m going to tell you about happened last Christmas.’

In the first section, the narrator makes references to the fact that it was a long time ago and that circumstances are different now. ‘It was all very interesting and romantic to me and my brother.’

At the end of the first section is a small intermediary piece which bridges the large time gap between childhood and the present. ‘Anyhow, the next thing was our family left off going to the boy. My brother and I were old enough to go away camping somewhere with our cobbers…’

The second section is full of nostalgic references: ‘The bach was much the same…’ The second part is written in much more recent times, when the narrator visits the beach. He calls in on Mrs Crawley. She says she is waiting for Joe. There are much luxurious Christmas items laid out for his arrival. To satisfy the narrator’s curiosity, the narrator asks the bus-driver what sort of person Joe is. The bus-driver reveals that Joe has recently stopped coming altogether and that only one daughter bothers to keep in touch with Mrs Crawley by writing.

LEVELS

There are two levels in most of Sargeson’s work:

1. Social – this has endeared him greatly to leftist reformers

2. Existential – concerned with people more than ideas. His view is sourly compassionate. At times he probes more deeply than he perhaps realises. An Affair of the Heart leaves no room for anger or judgment. Mrs Crawley’s love for her son, though it eventually destroys her sanity, carries its own terrible justification. Truly hers is an affair of the heart.

CHARACTERS

Sargeson uses  male narrators of limited education, simple vocabylary and sentence structure and is often retrospective, with the narrator looking back to events and people of his youth.

are introspective and capable of considerable compassion

His tolerance extends to all lost men, cranks and sexual perverts. It is the self righteous whom Sargeson most condemns. He is on the side of the ‘down and outer’. In subtle ways he criticises society and its hypocrisy and narrowness.

Essentially lonely men; not men without emotions but men who suffer from a sort of impediment of feeling or who cannot establish a relation where their emotions can be adequately expressed. Incapable of being articulate about a feeling unless it is one which has a gregarious discharge; anger for example, or laughter. The softer feelings they must always keep to themselves, or express obliquely through action.

formed in the hostile environment of the industrial working-class or the subsistence farm.

Frank Sargeson is New Zealand’s first NATIONAL writer. In Katherine Mansfield’s work, for instance, we are not conscious of anything New Zealandish.

LANGUAGE

• Sargeson has found the perfect language to express each character’s feelings. Is not British nor American English. It is easy, subtle and free of mannerism.
• The special quality of the language lies not only in the bold colloquial tropes or the occasional local usage but informs every intonation and every element of the spoken idiom.

1. sea-eggs – sea urchins, kina in Maori
2. kumaras – red-skinned sweet potato, with an English plural suffix
3. pipis – cockles
4. tea-tree bush – a shrub or small tree native to New Zealand and southeast Australia (Melaleuca lanceolata)

• The language spoken by Sargeson’s characters is not the only language spoken in New Zealand, and these are not the only characters.
• The sentence structure must be no more elaborate than his characters’ and no more subtle.
• The spoken language is Sargeson’s chief instrument; if he were interested in characters of another kind, his method would have to be modified.
• The stories are told in first person, from the point of view of semi-articulate characters.  This technique illustrates how Sargeson’s method enables him to give us simultaneously:

1. the development of the story
2. evocation/description of its setting
3. information about characters only indirectly portrayed
4. emotional reactions of the narrating character to the whole

• He uses punctuation not to reinforce the logical and syntactical divisions of the thought but to mark the places where in fact the narrating voice could have paused.

DRAMATIC IRONY

The reader realises more than the narrator does because the reader is given clues.

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Lost Memories

I can’t be at a point in life lower than I am now.  Just an hour ago, I’ve been told that I am getting expelled from my school for fighting.  My life is in a total mess now.  I walk home with heavy feet, at the point of collapse.  I reach the front lawn of my house.

I could only stare at the house, just looking back at me.  As I stand in front of the house, I imagine my parents’ reaction.  Well, no I don’t think my step dad would care much.  He never really cared.  But I couldn’t stand to see my mom cry.  When I go inside right now though, my mom won’t be home.  Rather she should be at work.  I quickly run up the steps of my porch and take out my keys.  I carefully stick my keys in the key hold, trying to make as little noise as possible.  However hard I try, it still makes some noise.  To make matters even worse, the door creaks as it opens.  I instinctively flinched at the noise.  I paused just in case someone happened to be home.  No sound.

I climbed the stairs to my room, carefully choosing my steps so I don’t make any noise.  I get to the door of my room, but pause before I open the door.  I thought I heard a tape playing.  I listen more carefully.  There is static coming out of my room.  Someone left my TV on.  I open my door and I fall to the floor screaming.

What I see before me is a woman, hanging limply on a rope, swinging gently.  Suddenly her eyes turn towards me.  Two blood shot eyeballs, filled with blood with tiny black pupils in the middle stare at me.  She tries to say something but only raspy noise come out from her throat.  A single drop of tear ran down her cheek and then she closes her eyes.  My mother had just died in front of me.

I get up quickly from where I was sitting and run over to my mom to cut her down.  I run down to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife.  I cut my mother from the lasso that hung her from the ceiling.  I hold her close to me as I cry.  For a long time I was in this position now my tears dry, but still sitting there trying to soak in everything that just happened.

I finally realize that my room is in a total mess.  There are papers everywhere, and some broken picture frames.  But the television was still on the white noise screaming at me and my mother’s corpse.  I found a video cassette ejected in my VCR.  I press the rewind button on the machine and listen to the whirring of the spinning cassette.  All the while I still am holding tightly onto my mother.

The TV bleeps on to a blue screen.  The cassette finished rewinding.  I reach for the play button.  A little hesitation stops me.  But it lasts only a second and then I proceed to press it.  Then my mom comes out on the screen.  She looks several years younger than now.  Several seconds into the video she starts to talk.

“Hello Johnny, when you watch this, you’re probably thinking you are going to get in a lot of trouble because you flunked out of school.  But that’s not the case.  You did get expelled but not for fighting.  You got expelled for brain malfunction.  After the fight at school, the other boy pummeled your head, and your brain suffered internal bleeding.  Now after several surgeries, we were able to save your brain.  There was however, a cost.  You live Monday, January 22nd, 2006 everyday, over and over again.  Every day, you lose all the memories you gained throughout the day…”

I stopped the tape short.  This was all too unreal for me.  I ejected the tape.  As I pull it out, I feel a piece of paper taped to the bottom of the cassette.  I pull it off and read.

“Dear my son,

I’m sorry.  I just can’t live like this anymore.  13 years.  I’ve given up 13 years to just replay January 22nd, 2006 for you.  You probably won’t remember tomorrow so don’t you throw this away.  I won’t be there for you anymore.  But I’ll always love you… “

I drop the letter to the floor.  All my life, I’ve been living January 22nd, 2006 everyday.  Every fucking day.  I pick up the kitchen knife and plunge it through my stomach.  The warm dark red blood trickle down my fingers, the fingers that are still tightly gripped to the handle of the knife.  I collapse next to my mother, staring into her closed eyes, for the last time.  I close my eyes to rest in my eternal sleep.

I was taken aback by the aggressive posture the 5 foot 3 man took when I told him I could not sell the item for the price he asked. He was unaware that I had a bat under the counter that I had wrapped my fingers around. Suddenly, he took a lunge for me over the table and I was able to move just before he grabbed my jacket. I immediately brought the bat into both hands and could tell that this caught him by surprise. Unexpectantly, a young man came up behind the attacker and wrestled him to the ground which he did quite easily. I decided at this point I wasn’t going to hit him with the bat and helped keep the man pinned down until law-enforcement officials arrived.

I am a happy hooker!

Maybe I should tell you the story behind this statement.  Hahaha….  My step-mother is very much into crafts.  Crochet,  knitting,  cross stitching,  sewing,  and many many more crafts.   She was the one who taught me how to crochet,  using a crochet hook.   Both of us really enjoy crocheting,  so this was our little inside joke.  

Happily using crochet hooks = happy hooking!   Hahaha..

Every christmas I give each woman in my family a home made gift.  This is usually something crocheted by me,  plus a little home  made christmas card.    This year I don’t have the time to crochet for everybody,  so I will have to come up with a different idea.   A couple of christmases ago, I made all of the girls each  5  dish cloths, (for washing dishes).   And a matching stove towel.   I made about 6 sets that year.   

The first set:

The Second set:

Third Set:

The first & third sets look indentical,  because I made them for both of my neices.

So I really wanted them to match.

Fourth Set:

Fifth Set:

My set:

I don’t have pictures of my complete set,   just my stove towel.

A closer look:

More To Come…….

© Serenity – Dawn

I wish I was the kind of writer who benefited from an outline before I write, but they never work out for me. My work changes so quickly from the outline that I just don’t bother. I know my destination, but how I get there is different from day to day. The thing is, writing my first novel like that has created a god-awful-mess of a first draft. I have written the same scene two different ways fifty pages apart. Scenes are out of chronological order, or some are missing altogether. While re-reading my draft I’ve been getting new ideas for the story, so I’m adapting a reverse outline technique. If you’ve got a messy draft and are looking for a way to manage it, this might work for you as well.

As I read my draft, I have some index cards nearby (the big ones not the 3×5) and made a card for each scene (not each page). On this card I write a title for the scene, what pages the scene is on, the setting and the characters. I also write a quick summary of the scene and where it fits into the larger whole of the novel. I write comments in the manuscript as well. I do this for the entire manuscript.

If you’re like me, your scenes are not in the right order on the actual page, so the first thing to do is to put the index cards in the order the scenes will be for the second draft. For example, if you wrote the last scene of the book into the middle of the manuscript, you move the appropriate index cards to their correct order. There are three reasons for this: 1) You’re going to write the outline using these cards 2) It’ll make finding the scene in the word processor document easier (because you put the page numbers in there) and 3) It’s easier to move index cards with a title of each scene around than chopping up a million pieces of paper and doing it.

Next, boot up your word processor (don’t do it by hand unless you’re good at judging space) and outline the novel you have based on your scene cards. Get the existing stuff down and then save it. Then re-read the outline, adding in new scenes and taking out old ones and save this under a different file name. Now you can always refer back to the original if you need to.

And now you have an outline of the second draft, with your planned changes. Sure, the second draft might not end up looking like that either, but it gives you an idea of the changes you’ll need to start on. Because that’s the thing about revision, especially of long works. Where the heck do you start? I know it sounds like work (and it is), but anything that helps you write a better novel is worth trying at least. Anyone who has other outlining techniques for revision, or even other revision techniques, feel free to share.

——————————————————————————————————————

I posted another short story I wrote for my semester work called Transplantation. It’s underneath the Pages section to the right. Don’t want people thinking I’m just writing about writing without having actually done it. And I hope someone else benefits from my reverse outlining I posted up there. It’s working pretty well for me so far. And I do know there are places where the process could be streamlined, but I’m one of those people who could never use the shortcuts in math either, I always had to work the entire problem out on the page.

I am a huge fan of alternate histories, whether massive or minuscule in its scope. Most people turn to Harry Turtledove, and with good reason, but other people have done interesting takes with the concept. Take Stephen Baxter’s short story  The Twelfth Album.

The story starts with two dock workers stumbling onto a mysterious black album with the word God written on the lower left hand corner. In it was a shocker: An album by the Beatles from an universe where they made one more album after Abbey Road. The songs in the album are (in our universe) ones from their solo albums, so some of the titles sound familiar, but the way they were arranged  are definitely something different. Take into account the last track on this incredibly peculiar album, in  Baxter’s words ( thanks to user  Necanthrope from  everything2):

This would be the the ultimate track–the twelfth track on the twelfth album.

The last new Beatles song we would ever hear.

Because, of course, by now we both believed.

It was recognizable from the first, faded-in, descending piano chords. But then the vocals opened–and it was Lennon.

“It’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed,’”, I said, awed. “Mcartney’s greatest post-Beatles song–”

“Just listen to it,” said Lightoller. “He gave it to Lennon. Listen to it.”

It didn’t sound like the version from our world, which {McCartney], battered and bruised from the breakup, recorded in his kitchen.

Lennon’s raw, majestic voice wrenched at the melody, while McCartney’s melodic bass, Starr’s powerful drumming, and Harrison’s wailing guitar drove through the song’s complex, compulsive chromatic structure. And then a long coda opened up, underpinned by clean, thrusting bass, obviously scored by George Martin.

At last the coda wound down to a final, almost whispered lament by Lennon, a final descending chord sequence, a last trickle of piano notes, as if the song itself couldn’t bear to finish.

The stylus hissed briefly, reached for the run-off groove, and lifted.

That is pretty powerful, at least to me, growing up watching the Anthology documentary and knowing all the turmoil the band was going to at that point in history. As it stands, some people aren’t fans of the story, but opinions are like..well, you know. I want to get my hands on the story myself to get the whole deal. Oddly enough, people have taken this idea and run with it. This guy here might have taken it a  little too far, but I do want to see if he gets a cease and desist from EMI. Hey, it happened to Danger Mouse, right?

As a side note, I wonder if Kieron Gillen has ever wondered about tackling the Beatles for his Phonogram stuff, but that’s another thing altogether.

Maine, digital photography, www.carolineallen.com

I have a client who came to me to coach her in the writing of a nonfiction book about kids in foster care, their trials and tribulations, our misunderstanding of at-risk youth.

I knew in my gut this client was also a writer of fiction. I’m not sure she knew it yet, though. People will often come to me with a soulful desire to write fiction that is so latent even they don’t know it’s there. So they will hire me as a coach for a nonfiction book, and before you know it we’re discussing fiction. It’s magical.

At any rate, months into our work together, this woman told me about a clairvoyant friend who ’saw’ one of my client’s past lives when they were in the theatre together more than a decade ago. This friend saw someone around my client, a man who had loved her in medieval Wales, when she was another person altogether. The clairvoyant reading drew up inexplicably strong emotions for my client.

So, we decided she should write this past life as a novel. There was a lot of information about the people to begin with, their names, where they lived, how they were separated, death and longing. The emotions around it for my client were intense. The emotions around writing fiction were intense. When your soul wants something, some creativity, some expression of it, the emotions around that artistic need are huge and should not be ignored. Just as you wouldn’t ignore a suspected illness, ignoring the soul’s creative needs, I believe, can take years off one’s life.

I started thinking about where our creativity comes from. What if every time I write a character in my novel I’m channeling a past-life? Who’s to say where inspiration comes from? Who’s to say I’m not channeling another dimension as I write? Could the very land upon which my building sits be dictating my creativity? What if the wide lugubrious river out my kitchen window is dictating to me as I pen Chapter 7?

Don’t try to analyze with your brain where inspiration comes from. It comes from myriad dimensions – past lives, other dimensions, trees, a television commercial, future lives…what a glorious mystery and one that makes me love being an artist.

I’m a writing coach. www.artofstorytellingonline.com

We relieved ourselves on the left flank of Christiansborg Palace, in plain view of the Folketinget, the Supreme Court, Office of the Prime Minister, and—we both hoped—directly below the chambers of Queen Margrethe II. We had travelled from Potsdam to Berlin, two brown boys on a stolen scooter in horizontal rain, then crossed on a ferry at Ahrensoop. Neither of us spoke Danish.
We were hungry and we had no money. So we sat on a kerb in front of the Copenhagen Kommune, across from the National Museum, and begged.
Three consecutive nights we slept on a bench inside Vesterport train station, but eventually we were hustled out by two policemen on bicycles.
A middle aged prostitute put us up in one room on the promise that we would clean her flat and both bathrooms.
We spent two nights there.
In the daytime we smoked her black hash and ate bread.
There were no jobs for two dark skinned Bulgarian transients.
I spent one afternoon digging out dog shit from the channels cut into my soles.
Anastas picked at a lesion on his cheek.
We had no food that winter in Copenhagen.
Finally, for nine days we were sub-contracted by a Chinese family to clean flats and houses.
And then we put up our own fliers in coffeehouses:

hi, we are student of denmark and we are greek and nepal, 22 year old males. we are looking for cleaning job in copenhaven, as we can do good in cleaning. we had cleaned since we was in denmark and we know how to go for it. so, it wil b thankful if u provide us this short of job. we peomise to do good in this feild.
thanking you
Prakash Budhathoki and Stavros Costagavras
telefon. 26744075
Rebæk Søpark 5, 6, -748
2650 Hvidore

The telephone number belonged to a public handset in the train station. No one ever called.
Anastas prostituted himself to a handful of Japanese businessmen.
We smoked Kent cigarettes.
And then Anastas

Each woman had a story behind her. This one was a very young woman, now married to a much older man. He lurked in the background, anger hard in his eyes, his mouth set in a grimace. He had paid a good marriage price for his wife and she had not given him what he expected. A son was what he demanded and she had only produced one stillborn in the two years they had been married. Something was wrong with her. Perhaps the ritual he paid for with heavy coin would answer to his concerns. If not, perhaps he could ship her back to her parents and demand the bride price back.

The Sheika’s voice called out, her arms raised towards the woman, and this woman began to pace around the altar. At first her head just nodded back and forth as she slowly moved around the room. Then her body began to twitch, her arms rose upwards, jerking with her movements. Her hair was unbound, and with each violent movement of her head, it swung around in great, undulating waves.

Still the drums increased their tempo. The drummers were off in their own trances, their faces blank, their eyes unfocused. The ney player, his wooden flute dark with age and the stains of fingers, was answered with finger cymbals and an undercurrent of chants. The room seemed to pulsate within another dimension as the incense and drums took over the senses. The chants increased in strength and sweat poured down the face and breasts of the Sheika and the possessed young woman, making transparent their white cotton dresses. Dark tipped nipples and golden breasts, the sheen of skin heated to match the frenzy of all around them, they danced on, now uttering incoherent growls and high pitched exclamations. Other women sat in place and tossed their bodies back and forth and a few stood up and joined the young woman, their own bodies beginning to mimic hers. Shrieks and groans were heard from different corners of the room and still the drums increased in rhythm, exciting the senses to a fever pitch.

Suddenly the Sheikha stiffened, her eyes rolled back as the young woman passing before her collapsed at her feet.

She had caught the Zar! He had released hold of the ends of the hair of the young woman and flown into the arms of the Sheikha! He had hit her with enough force that she staggered backwards and only the support of the women behind her kept her on her two feet.

Now the Wise Woman talked in a low, unknown language. She berated, cajoled, implored and threatened the Zar. She grasped at the air and shook it violently. She brought the Zar to her breast, seemed to stroke it, this unseen matter, and then push it from her, chiding and scolding it.

For those in the room who knew about Zars, knew one never could get rid them. No, he could be appealed to, reasoned with, but who but one equal to a Zar can reason with a Demon?

A man brought forth a white cock and with a quick flash of his knife, cut its throat. With a bow he presented the dying cock to the Sheikha who began to sprinkle the warm blood about the now still woman. Again low guttural chants rose all around but the drums remained silent.

The Sheikha would threaten this Zar with her own spirits. She would threaten with her own history of wrestling with past Zars, and call upon their power for her to subdue this one.

Silently she prayed the demon before her would attend. It would be a fierce battle to the end, and onlookers watched for signs of who was winning; who was more powerful.

Ah! There always was signs of the battle within. Exhaustion threatened to overtake the Sheikha. She would have to bargain hard with this Zar. He was a powerful one; not about to give up his berth without a fight.

But, slowly, slowly….there were signs she was winning, and those who knew of these things would see renewed energy on the part of the Sheikha, a renewed passion for what she was facing. If she was coming to victory, her voice would soften, her appeals would be as to a child and perhaps this Zar would listen.

But success was never assured. These Zars were thousands of years old and wily creatures. They may be made of air and malevolence, but they were a force outside Nature.

No victory over a supernatural force could be guaranteed. It always was a battle to the end. For you never get ride of a Zar, the possessor. You only give him a good shakeup, new marching orders, and you send him back into the possessed.

No one wants a Zar running around scaring the children and chickens. And a goat for possession will not do.

The Sheikha looked down at the woman at her feet. Ah! There was a change in her face, a smoothing of her brow, a peaceful countenance. She could be restored to her husband and the Sheikha prayed that he would see his wife in a new light.

The Sheikha knew what was wrong here. It was the same old story over and over. A man, too old to give his wife the pleasure she was made for, would demand from her what he could not give. So the senses were imbalanced, the forces of love were destroyed, the woman would suffer unless….

The Sheikha’s eyes snapped to the husband and with a gesture she had him approach. She stared deep into his eyes and held them. She muttered in her strange and frightening language and still she did not drop her eyes. Then she sprinkled his white robes liberally with the cock’s blood.

She had the satisfaction of seeing the fear in his eyes.

Perhaps this time the Zar will behave. And better, perhaps so the husband, too.

*************************

Outside the walls of the souk, outside where the night wind rested, camels complained and the dung fires scented the air, where the moon looked down on the sea of sand, other Zars were gathering to float over the walls.

The food on the altar would not last long. Again Spirit would invade Flesh and the drums would call out demons into the arms of some Sheikha.

In this part of the world, the Zars were part of human destiny.

They were a part of life as much as the desert sands, the groans of camels and the dark eyes of beautiful women.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2009

Tindal Street Press is a small regional publisher based in Birmingham. With many prize-winning books on its lists (including three Booker Prize nominees: Clare Morall’s Astonishing Splashes of Colour,  Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost and Gaynor Arnold’s Girl in A Blue Dress) – it is well-known for punching above its weight.

Launched a decade ago with a collection of short stories called Hard Shoulder, Tindal Street put themselves on the map when it came to finding new regional voices – particularly from the Birmingham and Midlands areas.  Now, ten years on, they have brought out a new anthology, Roads Ahead.

Ok, first off, let’s get things clear. I am not a great short story reader. I am part of those much-moaned-about masses that tend to eschew the short story form in favour of other forms. Novels. Or plays. Or even non-fiction (shock horror). Anne Brooke is the great VL short story reviewer; I am just a pale pretender.

But when Tindal Street offered this collection for review,  I jumped at the chance. First, being from a publisher with a strong regional focus, I was hoping to find something different: some interesting settings and specificity of place. Secondly, Tindal Street  invited open submissions for this project – a rare and exciting opportunity for both writers and readers. As Catherine O’Flynn says in her introduction:

“Writers aren’t often invited to submit material. They’re more used to being explicitly asked not to and told that, if they do, their work will just be shredded, or recycled, or made into paper aeroplanes: but on no account read.”

The third reason is the fabulous cover (shallow of me, I know).

Editor, Catherine O’Flynn, likens this collection to a pick ‘n’ mix of sweets – or a “10p mixup” as was common when she was a child: the pleasure being that you don’t know what is coming next. Certainly this anthology is full of variety of locations: we have stories set in Birmingham, Buenos Aires and Nigeria; in locales such as a sealife aquarium, a deserted farm, a drug-riddled estate. There is also a satisfying mix of subject matter.

In general, the collection favours quite traditional stories: character over concept, realism over stylistic experimentation, ordinary life over mad fantasies.  The tone is predominantly young, urban, sharp and observant – and there is an accessibility and lack of pretentiousness to this whole collection that is very likable indeed.

However, despite all this variation of place and subject, there does seem to be a slight similarity of style and form. Most are accessibly written in traditional style. Most have a first person voice that is fairly casual and straightforward. Most use a bit of slang and modern references – but not too much; have a bit of comedy – but not too much; a bit of bleakness – but not too much. Many seem to go for a realistic setting that escalates either into a dramatic dark twist or towards a more downbeat note at the end.

Shooters by Michelle Singh and Six of the Best by Iain Grant both suffer a little from dark twist syndrome. Singh’s writing about place is impressive and Grant has a straightforward likable style laced with dark comedy moments that is very appealing. But the curiously realistic and believable situations in both stories are unbalanced by their slightly overblown endings.

A couple of stories used the macrocosm of outside events in the wider world to mirror the microcosm of personal relationships.

The most interesting and successful of these is Table Rock Lake by David Savill where a black American man tries to find out more about his  white male soldier lover’s  abuses in Iraq. The veil of secresy that hangs over the details of the case seems to mirror the taboo and the unacknowledged and unsaid  that surrounds their own private relationship.

There were some stories that I really enjoyed but wondered if they were more like beginnings of novels than complete stories – particularly those where character came more to the fore. The book opens with the lovely and likeable tale called The Chest. I loved this story – the characters are terrific, the style is easy, funny and engaging, and the premise is bizarre and original (two people squabbling over a chest they find in the street). However, I felt it was slightly let down by the rather predictable short story style ending – the “profound bit” if you like. I understand why it might have been rounded off in this way, but I couldn’t help feeling that the originality of the story and its comedy – yes, comedy – should have been allowed to stand alone. This was one story where I enjoyed the characters so much that I wanted to spend more time with them and I would love to see something longer by its writer, Kathryn Simmonds.

Two of the stories that really stood out for me took very different approaches to each other, yet both felt complete and right in the form. Both have stayed with me and both seemed to capture something true without seeming to try too hard.

Like a sudden burst of Beckett in the middle of all the traditional formats, Since Charlie Hadn’t Come by Chris Smith is like a breath of fresh air, very moving, and beautifully complete. About an elderly man living in rural isolation, this story  is richly imaginative and poetic, changing the tempo and acting as a contrast to the more naturalistic everyday tone  elsewhere. It is a confident story, balancing what it lets us know and what it doesn’t let us know with great skill. With its strong symbolic imagery and confident imagination, it shows how powerful the short story can be and it is the one that – for me – engages most with the form. I would have welcomed more stories that were less traditional in style and tone such as this one .

The other story that I admired greatly – for different reasons – is Kavita Bhanot’s A Float for Shez. This story is the other extreme – so normal, so everyday and very traditional in form, about the subtle shifts and power relations in friendships between schoolgirls, and yet the characterisation is so well done, the understanding of behaviour and emotions so perceptive that it is elevated above the usual. Bhanot has done that other thing that short stories can do so well– captured perfectly the small interactions between people, the seemingly small moments. She does this with her sense of realness – of time, of place, of people: of the way those people interact.  She does not throw it all away with a self-conscious ending, rather she has faith that that she has captured it well enough for it to deliver.  And it does.  Again, this story has a kind of uniqueness to it and a completeness. It just feels right.

Taking the book as a whole, I set to wondering about the considerations and problems of putting together such a collection.  How do we read short stories as readers? Do we take them one by one? Is there a sense of the whole in a book such as this or are we just expected to dip in and out of it? How important is the juxtaposition and placement of the stories? Should they flow together, go together – or should they rudely contrast with each other?

Short story collections, I decided in the end, should ideally be like music albums. Or concertos. Whilst the stories are all separate, there should be some sense of rhythm – even the rhythms of light and dark, comedy and tragedy, the rhythms of theme and setting even….that takes us through from one to the other, so that even whilst we pick and choose we feel our tastebuds watering in anticipation.

Roads Ahead is a lively collection of readable, likeable and interesting stories with a diversity of settings (both national and international), characters and ideas. For me, to have become a really great collection, it needed a wider diversity of writing styles and to have taken a few more risks.  But, as a  fitting way to celebrate 10 years of Tindal Street and as a manifesto of intent for the future, this collection certainly made me curious to find out what roads lie ahead both for the writers featured within its pages and for Tindal Street Press itself.

304 pages, published by Tindal Street Press (Sept 2009). ISBN-13: 978-1906994006

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Other links

Website of Tindal Street Press

Leena’s original Vulpes Libris review of Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost here.
RosyB’s  interview with  Catherine O’Flynn for Vulpes Libris

——

When she’s not palely pretending to be stern and serious  for VL, RosyB writes comedy novels. You can find out more here.

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-Aspects of the Sensual World (1989).

This was the first CD single that I can remember acquiring.  I got it from the radio station at school, and I felt like I was in on a big secret having all of these bonus tracks.

There are five songs on this disc.  The original “The Sensual World” and an instrumental version of the song.  The three bonus songs are pretty rocking songs that fit nicely with this era of Kate’s output.  “Be Kind to My Mistakes” sounds like it should be a sweet ballad, but no, it’s all percussion-heavy and fun.  And “I’m Still Waiting” is even more intense, with some of Kate’s over the top vocals added in.

The final track, “Ken” is the theme song to The Comic Strip Presents short film The GLC.  It’s a wonderful theme song, even if the film is a parody.  It’s got a singalong “da da da” chorus and fist pumping backing vocals and all sorts of fun things.  You can see the “preview” for the film along with Kate’s song, on YouTube.

This disc is something of a trifle compared to her full CDs, but it’s an easier way to get these tracks than buying This Woman’s Work!  When The Sensual World came out I assumed that Kate cut off all her hair (judging by the cover), but this cover belies that.  I wonder which one is a wig.

[READ: November 13, 2009] “An Insurrection”

This story won the Esquire fiction contest.  I fully intended to submit a story to this contest, but, well, I forgot.  I didn’t write a word for it (although I did spend a few days thinking about what I would write about).  If I had won the contest, I would of course have wanted people to read my story, so I felt it was the least I could do to read the winner’s story.

And I’m a little mixed about it.

I’m not at all certain why there was such emphasis placed on the fact that it was a post- 9/11 scenario.  The jokes about cashing in on people’s insecurities about terrorism were fine but it didn’t really warrant all of the set up about when the story took place.

Really, the story is just about two people growing apart; the time of the story was irrelevant (and yes, I do understand that everyone is more tense with fears of terrorism, but it doesn’t really impact the story).  I found the introduction of the story to be quite compelling.  But when it started to turn into a “she’s going to leave me because I’m fat” gripe, I lost interest.

The story did reverse that trajectory, thankfully, and the final section was gross but interesting.  And I have to say that the final lines (within the context of the whole story) were fantastic.

My biggest gripe however, comes with Esquire itself. They included two pictures with the story.  One references a wet T shirt description in the story (which I needed to cover up when reading in the library).  The second, and yes, I’m writing this in all caps:  THE SECOND PICTURE TOTALLY GAVE AWAY THE “TWIST” IN THE STORY!  And, it came right at a time in the story WHERE PLACING THE PICTURE WOULD GIVE THE READER NO DOUBT ABOUT WHAT THE PICTURE REPRESENTED.

Talk about spoilers.  Of all the things they could have put a picture of, they had to put that one?  Hey Esquire, if I were the contest winner, I’d be pissed if you gave away the (admittedly minor) twist in the end of my story.  So, I hope that Walsh isn’t too pissed (he did win, after all).  But man, it so obviously impacted my reading of the story, that I couldn’t appreciate it for what it was trying to do.

I can’t honestly say how much I would have enjoyed the story if this wasn’t so obviously given away, because I spent much of the last section expecting it to be spoiled.  Pity, really.

I’m being a little dramatic, yes.  I’m sorry.

Overall, the story was good. I’m quite certain that nothing I would have written would have made it into Esquire (I don’t think I’ve ever written a story with the word “tits” in it).  So, I won’t sit around wondering “what if.”  Rather, I’ll just enjoy the story for what it was: a look at midlife crisis (in an out of control environment).

Congratulations Walsh.  Well played.

Katherine Mansfield finished The Garden Party on her 32nd birthday in 1921. She took a month to recover from her previous story, At the Bay before embarking upon this one. She felt that The Garden Party was better than At The Bay, ‘but that is not good enough, either…’ It is apparently based upon an actual incident.

STORY

Mrs Sheridan holds a party, which she leaves to her teenage children to organise. This will mark their entry into the world. However, the story is not about the party itself but rather the lead-up and the aftermath, when the upper class Sheridan family learns that a man has been killed down below. Laura thinks to offer solace by taking his bereaved wife some of the leftovers. She goes to the house down below and is overcome with a feeling of hopelessness, inappropriateness and perhaps some greater understanding of the nature of life and death.

The Garden Party is much more a story than the short stories involving The Burnell Family. Here, events are used to carry the meaning; Prelude and At the Bay are more explorations of milieu, where a series of keen observations about seemingly insignificant details add up to form a lasting impression and offer a deeper message.

SETTING

KM presents this deeper message by building an atmosphere of fun and frivolity before presenting the characters with an awful situation. The ostentatious nature of the party is emphasised with our attention drawn to the comfortable circumstances of The Sheridans: large house, tennis court, spacious garden, hilltop view, lily lawn, green baize door.

The house KM imagines is her bigger childhood house in Thorndon, Wellington, at 75 Tinakori Road. The Beauchamp family moved back to town when Kathleen was 9 and a half.

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Also within this setting, we see a comparison between the Sheridans and the underlings – we see them interact with each other and the different reactions of the family to their social inferiors.

THEMES

Growing Up

The party is the children’s first time to prove their new-found maturity. Their mother is ‘determined to leave everything to the children this year’. Laura is torn between her own feelings and the dominance of her mother, who never really does relinquish control of the party, ordering masses of lilies on a whim.

Laura does not reject the life she is a part of; rather, she has understood something about it – she reaches a more serious maturity than her mother and older sisters have reached.

Class Distinctions

Criticism of the social values of bourgeois society is the most obvious, basic theme, with the upper-class Sheridan family living at the top of the hill and the lower-class in their ‘poky little holes’, ‘little cottages just below’. KM herself must have been keenly aware of class distinctions as she was the daughter of a self-made man, living in upper-class New Zealand society. This theme is also important in The Doll’s House.

The upper-class is symbolised by sheer extravagance. The sandwiches each have flags (fifteen kinds). There is a hired band, cream puffs and masses of canna lilies. Each member of the family has power over the cook, the maids and the men putting up the marquee.

CHARACTERS

The family is no longer the Burnells but The Sheridans, who reflected KM’s family during her own teenage years. Unlike the Burnells, the family does not live within its own microcosm of the world but is fully participant in the wider social world of town.

Laura

This is Laura’s story. Although there are some general, impersonal passages and several scenes without her, we see the world through Laura’s eyes. We observe others how she sees them, especially their response to her own behaviour.

Laura is still a child. She doesn’t fully understand what is happening; her reaction to the workman’s death is a mixture of instinct, upbringing and egotism. She sees the workman’s death in an emotional way, torn between her own instinctive feelings and the powerful dominance of her mother and older sisters. She finally reaches her own personal understanding of life, which is left ambiguous in the final sentence. She does not reject the social life of the upper-class but comes to her own serious kind of maturity.

Being still a child, and not fully aware of the power of class distinctions and her own place within the social structure, Laura acts as a bridge between the upper and lower classes. She decides ‘it’s all the fault… of these absurd class distinctions’. Unlike Mrs Sheridan, she sees the workmen as individual people, indeed, as attractive ones.

When the carter dies, again, Laura sees him as another human, with the frivolity of their party exposed.

Meg

Meg ‘could not possibly go and supervise the men’.

Jose

Jose, too, has absorbed the attitudes of her mother re class distinctions.

Mrs Sheridan

Mrs Sheridan is comfortable with her social status and at ease with ordering others about. We see this clearly in her attitude towards the cook.

Laurie

Laura and Laurie are similar in their outlook on life, symbolised by their similar names. It is only natural that Laurie understands Laura’s reaction to the grieving family without Laura needing to put her feelings into words.

SYMBOLISM

Laura’s Hat

By placing the hat upon Laura’s head, Mrs Sheridan claims her to the upper-class – superiority and indifference. But Laura does not feel comfortable in the hat.

‘Forgive my hat.’

Nor is she entirely comfortable in her class. Nevertheless, she does wear the hat, just as she takes part in her upper class, privileged lifestyle.

Last summer, President Lyndon B. “Basketballs” Johnson called me and said, “Jack, I’m gonna need you to get a hold of a gun for me.”

“But Lyndon, why?” I asked. “I don’t even know anything about guns… What do you need a gun for?”

“It’s personal, Jack. Very personal. Hurry.” I sped out with a quickness to the nearest gunnery, around the corner from the Capitol building. I chose the Dirty Harry-style Magnum revolver. It was weighty and cold in my hands. Would Lyndon be satisfied? I wondered. I brought it to him in a very fancy cigar box, so as to not ruffle the feathers of any of the monkey-suit-wearing 9-to-5-types that littered the corridors of the White House.

“Yes, this’ll do,” he grumbled. “It’ll have to do.” He hesitated before looking up from his desk and into my eyes with his baby blues. “We’ve got a job to do tonight, Kennedy. We’ve got to kill the President.”

I was in shock. Dumbfounded.

“But Lyn…Lyndon, that’s me. I am the President,” I stuttered.

He turned his gaze back to his desk. “I know, Jack…” He looked back up at me and saw that I’d gone ghost-white, that my mouth was hanging open, slack-jawed like some sort of foolish country yokel. “And that’s what makes this so hard.”

“Lyndon, I…what’ll I tell Jackie…the kids…”

“Nothing, Jack. You can’t tell them a gosh-derned thing. Not a single. Gosh. Derned. Thing. We need this right now, Johnny-Boy. The country needs this.” Lyndon was stern-faced, and he meant every word he said.

“It needs me to die?!” I blurted. “I just don’t see how that could be!” Lyndon said nothing in rebuttal. “Can I at least…can I at least have the night to think about it? We can talk it over on the ship to San Diego tomorrow morning?” I saw a powerful fire cool in his eyes. My suggestion was reasonable to him, and we agreed to talk it over on the ship to San Diego tomorrow morning. I slept soundly that night, and dreamt of a well-advertised festival of animals that nonetheless was poorly attended. Only a koala bear, a toad, and a scantily clad sloth bothered to show up.

Out on the deck of the ship to San Diego the next morning, I sipped my orange juice, lightly salted the way I like it, while Lyndon sat, quietly, staring long and hard out the window as the Mmississibbippi River guided us west through America’s great Corn Belt. “It’s truly the World’s Greatest Corn Belt, you know that Lyndon?”

“Hm. I suppose it is, Johnny-Boy. I suppose it is.” I could see that he was waiting for me to restart yesterday’s discussion. I wasn’t afraid anymore.

“Lyndon, last night I had a dream, a beautiful dream about the bountiful splendors that this fine nation provides for its peoples.”

“That sounds wonderful.” He bit into a jelly-soaked bagel, and started coughing as a bready lump of it lodged itself in his throat. I was too caught up in the throes of my patriotic speech to notice, though, as he leapt up from his chair and threw himself against a railing to perform some sort of peculiar anti-choking maneuver on himself. If I had bothered to look, I would have seen that it was quite an odd sight.

“Yes, it was,” I continued. “It really was. And it…it changed me, Lyndon. It changed the way I see things. I can make whatever sacrifice is needed of me. This country was founded on the principles that, if need be, we give up everything we have for the greater good, for the little people, for the little things, for the little moments, the moments you photograph with the family camera, and then when you develop and print that roll of film, you tuck that photograph into your pants pocket and then maybe forget about it for a while, and then you wash those pants without checking the pockets and the photograph faded a bit, but you still remember what it looked like when it was new, and you move it to a different pair of pants, maybe one that you don’t wear as often, so when you put them on and find that photograph again, you can’t help but yelp, ‘Holy Moly – I remember this photograph. Hey, everybody! Come look at this photograph I took a long time ago but left in this pair of pants for some reason! I remember this day so clearly, but having this photograph really cements the moment in time, so that’s why I kept it in my pocket, because, after all, that’s just a basic right that our forefathers fought for.’ That’s what I’m fighting for, too, Lyndon. That’s what we’re all fighting for. That simple principle. The Romans called it, Ecce Romani spiritum absoroturotatotita esritoim spuriutum. Those Romans were really on to something, Lyndon. They got it. Really, a fantastic people. And I think, if we can all remember the wild-eyed ideals that our fine nation was built around, someday – someday – we can achieve what they did. I know it, Lyndon. I just know it.”

I looked off to the east, at the steadily rising sun, hoping that I looked as heroic as I felt.

“You really look quite heroic right now, Jack.” He paused, dramatically. “Well then…let’s get down to business. Here’s the plan. First – “

Before he could begin, his cell phone rang. It produced a harsh and uninviting sound, surely the boring default tone that he was either too lazy or too inept to change. As he gestured to inform me that he needed to take this, my phone rang as well, and I hope Lyndon recognized my smooth jazz ringtone to be something infinitely more interesting than his viciously dull series of beeps and boops that had irritated me so.

“Ahoy-hoy?”

“Good morning, pumpkin.” It was Jackie. My beautiful Jacqueline. “So have you talked to him yet?” she asked. She was, understandably, quite uneasy about the entire situation.

“Yes, I have. I’m doing it, sugar. I’ve got to do it. As the Romans said, This spaghetti won’t make itself. I have to do it, dear. I have to make my spaghetti.” I could only hope that she would understand.

“I understand, cinnamon” she said. I was relieved. “I suppose I just hope it isn’t too messy, is all…”

“Now, Jackie, I know that’s not the only thing on your mind. Talk to me, honey pie.”

“Oh, sweet pea, I know you have to do your patriotic duty, I’m just so selfish – I’m just not sure I want you to die, even for this most noble cause. Am I a bad person, my dearest biscuit?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, my delicious dumpling, you most certainly are not. You’ll be taken care of, though, twinkie, you know that. And I’ll always be there, metaphorically.”

This seemed to alleviate her uncertainty on the issue. “You’re right, burrito. Of course you’re right.”

“Do you feel better, my perfect pear?” I asked.

“I do, my steamy strudel,” I replied. “I do.” The call-waiting tone buzzed in my ear.

“See you in San Diego, candy pants!” I switched over to this mysterious new caller. “Moshi moshi?”

“Jack!” It was Lyndon. “It’s Lyndon! You’re ready to continue?”

“That I am, sir.” We hung up and continued the previous conversation about the plan.

“So, Jack, the first part of the plan goes like this…” Lyndon then laid out the whole complicated, extraordinary, intriguing, wonderful, heartrending, insane, shocking, arresting, intricate plot to assassinate me, none of which would matter a few hours later when I made the executive decision not to go through with it.

I thought I was prepared, mentally, but as I ate my pre-lunch snack of a toasted jellied ham and chipped beef sandwich, I saw that I was totally chicken. I accidentally found myself thinking, If the country needs me to die, maybe it also needs me to live? It seemed so logical, in my shaken pre-death state. I couldn’t tell Lyndon, though; I just didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. After all, he practically raised me from the cradle. I couldn’t have standed to see that look of hangdog dissatisfaction in his shimmering green eyes.

So I did the next most reasonable thing: I hired a man, whose name escapes me at the moment, though I think it sounded something like Moseph Mabarthy, to have his face surgically altered to look like mine. It was a quick surgery, only some minor scarring, and I was able to get the new Me out into the parade route with enough time to hole up in a downtown hotel that would have a good view of the shooting.

Lyndon pulled the trigger from a room a few floors below, and I had a quick thought as Moseph buckled over on to the sidewalk. I dialed out to room service for a bacon-egg-and-cheeseburger, a local specialty, and then called my doctor. He picked up on the first ring, as was a recognizable trait of his that is surely worth noting. “Dr. Falafel? It’s President Jack Kennedy.”

“Ah, yes, what can I do you for, President Jack?” He was a congenial man, despite his glaringly bald head.

“If I were to die anytime soon – “

“Oh, heaven forbid,” the doctor interrupted.

“Yes, indeed, heaven forbid. Anyhow, if I were to die anytime soon, I don’t want an autopsy. Just stuff me in that pine box and lay me in the ground.”

“I hear you loud and clear, President Jack. I’ll call your lawyer and let him know.”

“You’re a good man Doc. A good man, indeed.” I hung up just as the bellhop with my food rapped on the door. I took off all my clothes and answered. “Howdy, amigo – that my meal?”

“Indeed, Mr. President. And might I add, that’s an excellent penis you’re sporting today.” He was enthusiastic, and deserved the hefty tip I laid in his gloved palm before he turned to leave. I drew a bath and readied myself to eat the burger in the tub. My eyes were bigger than my esophagus, however, and I soon found myself choking on a sizable hunk of the sandwich.

This is no good! I thought as my eyes watered, my chest constricted, and my heart pounded with fear. If only I had watched Lyndon perform that unusual maneuver on himself on the ship, I would have known the preferred way to dislodge food chunks from one’s throat. Instead, I found myself pounding my chest against a solid hotel desk chair, which resulted in several broken and bruised ribs, which ultimately was of no concern after I died due to asphyxiation, which I believe is a fancy word for “choked to death.”