Unstuck in Time.

Kurt Vonnegut died today. He was 84.

I heard the news while getting the shop ready for the morning opening. It came over the radio behind a little sound blurb about aggravated passengers stuck in the freak spring snows. The news hit me with a wave of emotions that forced me to come to the blog. In order to make sense of them, you see.

At first I couldn't believe it. Kurt Vonnegut couldn't die. He was always a survivor, his fiction is based on surviving. The firebombing in Slaughter House Five, the neutrino bomb in Deadeye Dick, and Ice-9 in Cat's Cradle. But he is dead. Motherfucker.

Then I was angry! SO ANGRY! This was the first time where an artist that spoke to me had ever passed away. I always understood that Kurt Cobain and John Lennon were important people, but I could never wrap my head around why people were just so distraught by their deaths. I can understand now, and empathize, instead of just sympathizing. Knowing that your favorite artists, writer, musician, whatever will never ever create again is much different then knowing they are retired or refusing to work. The latter always includes potential energy.

I was also angry because, in his later years, Vonnegut became a bit cranky, coming out of retirement to write Man Without A Country because of his contempt for Dubya. I compare him to Mark Twain, who in his later life became incredibly acerbic and cantankerous. However, Vonnegut always kept his compassion, his love of humor and the little guy.

I was so angry. So angry that I just had to get on my soapbox and yell all day. A great American writer just died, but I bet more people card about who got voted off American Idol. His death would get one, two, maybe three days, in the press and then just fade away. Meanwhile we still hear so much about Anna Nicole Smith. I think Vonnegut would see all this as just one big practical joke.

Vonnegut called himself a man without a country, but I believe he always had one. He was uniquely American, a real patriot, because it is artists, creators, not destroyers, like him that make this country great. How funny is it that "patriotism" is associated with such abstract concepts as "freedom" or "democracy," when we should be proud of what we have contributed and created! Our arts make us unique. In our short history we have created entire genres and styles that are used the world over. To get back to Mark Twain, he said, "A patriot supports his country all the time and his government when it deserves it." If you want to celebrate America, rip off the stupid magnetic ribbon from the back of your car and read! READ! Read Vonnegut, Hemingway, Poe, Morrison, Dickinson, Kesey, Hawthorne, Oates, Emerson, Thoreau, Faulkner, O'Connor! American artists have carved out a true identity for this country. Not more than 100 years ago, American arts were considered callow and juvenile. Charles Dickens thrashed America more than any of the leftists the right wingers love to prattle about! These people, these countrymen, carved out an identity for this country not at the end of a saber, but with words! You did have a country Kurt! You helped make it!
So angry. Motherfucker.

I am sorry for the rant. I don't like rants as they are easy to pick apart and heavy on rhetoric, light on subject. I believe Kurt Vonnegut to be a great American writer worthy of timeless study and praise. It just made me mad that know the celebrity gossip of the day will trump 50 years of literature. However, literature endures; pop fades.

Sorry for the anger in general. I am bit cranky myself with the move and the job hunt. My old blog was filled with rants. That is why you don't see my old blog anymore.

Finally, I became sad. I cried. Just a little. I will miss Kurt Vonnegut.

In his last book he said that when he died he would ask someone up in heaven what all the fuss was about. I hope he got his answer.

"Life is no way to treat an animal." KV

Peace!

Movies I Should Have Already Seen Vol 3. # 2

And it continues!

Movies I Should Have Already Seen! # 2

Joe Dirt

I am always a bit conflicted about David Spade. it isn't that I find his jokes unfunny, but that he puts off such a weaselly person that sometimes I don't feel I should laugh at his bits. Is his snark relevant or is it a bit too over the top? I like my David Spade in small bites, just like my Adam Sandler and pretty much everyone else from early 1990's Saturday Night Live.


I enjoyed Joe Dirt and I am not afraid to admit it! What really made it was the one-liners and the little bits that stay in your head. In an age shaped by quotable machines like Napoleon Dynamite, Joe Dirt seemed way ahead of its time. Who can dislike a movie where the main character, a redneck oaf goes around saying upbeat messages like "Life's A Garden. Dig it!" or "You can't have no in your heart!" Or a movie where motivation is found in "You're my sister! You're my sister!"or the latest copy of Autotrader Magazine. Sure, we laugh at Joe Dirt because he is crass, but he also has a little inkling of heart, which, of course, you can't have "no" in.


There is a fair amount of poop jokes and most are forgettable, except for the one involving the sheriff, ball peen hammer, and a septic tank. "It's just an old crapper tank from an Airstream, folks!"Inserting poop doesn't automatically make something funny, but in that scene, it just works, with Joe's own sincerity challenged by the reality that has, figuratively, crapped on him. The movie doesn't do very well with critics (11% on Rotten Tomatoes), but that shouldn't be a surprise. However, I think people are too quick to call this movie disposable. It has a heart and some surprises. You can't forget the mullets, crappy cars, and redneck jokes, but the actual movie has little to do with that. I am always so surprised how movie studios choose to advertise their movies. I guess an easy redneck skewering movie sells better than a slapstick journey. It easy to set up the movie as something that will have us laughing at the character, then empathizing. Joe never complains even though he has good reason too and this makes him likable. I guess this works especially well with the David Spade casting as he usually plays acerbic ninnies.

Peace!

Enchanted

First, a bit of background to this story as I usually don't write stories about unicorns. Or fantasy in general, actually. I wrote this piece for a science fiction/fantasy course I took while in college. The professor asked us to write a story about either a dragon and/or an unicorn. Most people wrote about dragons because, well, they are dragons. I decided to go for the horn and write about an unicorn. For the story, I used this fantasy book called, Dragons and Unicorns, which takes the form of a natural history of the creatures. It was a neat little book, akin to the Star Wars Essential guides I cut my nerd teeth on back when I was thirteen.

I am sheepishly proud of this story. I like how I described the actual hunting scene, but I agree that the ending is a bit ho-hum. However, those are my own thoughts about my own piece, so any comments are appreciated.

I read this at a public reading in a vain attempt to impress my favorite writing professor ever. He left before I got to read it and I think that was a good thing because it is about a unicorn.

Peace!

_____________________________

Cuernos

By Garik Charneco

Kaia sleeps with a stuffed panda she calls Lily that I picked up when I bought her “Save the Whales” bed sheets at The Nature Company. Lily has a sprig of plastic bamboo leaves glued to her mouth and Kaia adores how accurate that is. Kaia has cheetah pajamas, dolphin posters, and a baby jade plant, but she loves Lily the most; she has told me this personally. Her giraffe growth chart, jellyfish lampshade, and tiger sheets are all cool, but there is something mystical about that panda. Just like this unicorn I have in front of my arrowhead.

The unicorn drinks from the edge of this stream that runs to a fjord on the Baltic Sea. As I cock back the bowstring I notice that I have been in Norway for two weeks already and I haven’t really seen a fjord! Most unicorn lore puts them back into the interior, so I follow. How could I argue with ancient Norse seers?

I am glad that I paid the extra two hundred dollars back home for the cable guard. This bow is so quiet. All the life histories, legends, and field sightings mention a unicorn’s acute sense of hearing. But this one seems perfectly content, sipping away at the rippling water. I stop my pull and hold onto a 309 feet-per-second bolt of aircraft carrier steel. Kaia has nothing like this. All her friends love galloping satyrs and fairies, but Kaia prefers real animals with real problems that she can solve. She tells me and Lisa, every night, about the wildlife preserve she is going to open. “And Lily will be the grand attraction,” she announces, waving the stuffed bear in our faces. I’ll definitely get her something on the way out at the gift shop. There are endangered species in Norway. One is bound to please her.

This unicorn is covered in a thick, shaggy fur that would make a great coat. The white fur shimmers in absolute perfection; I can’t tell whether the water is reflecting the unicorn or whether the unicorn is reflecting the water. The image is a bit disconcerting and I struggle to steady the bow on the actual target. Lisa would look great in a unicorn pelt. She complains and nags about how I spend more time at work than home. Right now, southern Norway is my office and I cannot just leave to pencil in some Animal Planet time with Kaia. A nice gift like a unicorn coat would get me some peace. And Kaia can wear it when she is older. Once I get that horn I will worry about skinning this thing. I did not plan for a fur, but I’m flexible in the field. I will not have to saw that into pieces for transport.

The unicorn is big but the horn is really huge. One of the sources Gangy gave me said that some unicorn horns can reach up to six feet in length. This one’s horn is loosely coiled but, almost a good five feet. I guess it is a male, but I really don’t care about sex. This isn’t a nature trip.

When the unicorn bends down to drink some water, the tip of the horn just cuts across the surface of the stream. Water dances along the tip and the streams seems to get a lot clearer. Gangy was right about the horn’s powers. This unicorn horn could solve a lot of the world’s problems. I give the string one last tug and let the arrow fly.

The arrow head is capped with a tri-fold Revolution tip. On impact, three tiny stainless steel blades inch out and bore out a good, golf ball sized, entry wound. The unicorn’s blood is an un-legendary red. The shaggy fur wicks up the excess and the wound develops a mottled crimson look. The unicorn moans low and ailing, creating a dirge that stirs the rest of the forest to life. I whip out another arrow from the quiver and set it on the rest. I don’t have to bother with being silent anymore. The unicorn wails on and the forest is alive with the snap of branches and flutter of feathers. I come out of my crouch and the blood returning to my legs makes feel woozy. The unicorn still has steady footing, but it thrashes in the stream. Even with its wielder wounded, the horn still manipulates the water, but only on a greater scale. Huge sheets of water come up from the stream like geysers; just pure water, no silt, rocks, or dirt, but just liquid. I cock the bow again. Another arrow slashes through the air.

The second wound brings the animal down. The unicorn doesn’t tuck it legs under itself, but instead juts them out in all four directions. Now it can’t leap away like the one in the foothills of Galdhopiggen. It stops moaning and switches to zipping wheezes—its nostrils flaring for air. The stream undulates between rippling bands of red and brown as I prepare another arrow. With the bow readied, I step towards the unicorn. It only notices me when I am four feet away and looks up at me with a huge blue eye. Every other unicorn on this expedition had brown eyes. The curiosity only flickers in my mind and I launch another arrow, cutting through the soft flaps of flesh in its neck.

When the unicorn’s head hits the water, the horn slides under the surface and breaks the turbulent stream. The horn appears even larger up close and the twisted braid of it sparkles. The water around the horn bubbles and the silt and blood shy away from it. The horn cleans the entire stream to a sparkle as I hack it off.

And now, with Gangy complaining about how I didn’t bring him the entire horn, Norway feels like all my other jobs. In the back of Elements Natural Food Co-Op looking over at the baggies of powdered unicorn horn, the unicorn is just another catch. Nothing mystical about that.

“Man, I wanted the entire thing. I told everyone on the team about the entire thing! The whole thing, Chase! We even came up with a name for it, Horn of Gaea.”

I finger one of the bags and leave an indent in the plastic. The bags are the tiny kind that pharmacists use for pills. Gangy has hundreds of them back here, for the store’s Botanical Pharmacy section.

“You saw that powder cut through that motor oil in the pool yesterday. I ground it in Oslo, so I could get it through easier. I told customs it was beach sand from Hardanger fjord.”

“They didn’t hassle you?” Gangy asks curiously, but also concerned.

I laugh. “I was coming from Norway, Gangy! Fucking Norway! What is so dangerous about Norway?”

Gangy shrugs and mutters a brief chuckle. “Nice.” He holds up one of the bags to the light and slowly tilts it around. Flecks of silver and gold shine through the cream colored powder and clear plastic. “I guess this stuff will work.” He carefully places the baggie on top of the stack.

“Any ideas as to where you’ll use it?” I grab the same bag I poked and flip it through my fingers.

Gangy sees me playing with the baggie and he scrambles over to me. He snatches the baggie out of my hand and cradles it against his chest. “Chase! This is valuable!”

I can imagine the value. I can see the powder break up giant oil slicks, eradicate colonies of zebra mussels, and purge salt from Great Plains aquifers. “Ok, sorry. And speaking of value, when do I get paid?”

“C’mon, Chase, don’t give me this shit!”

I sense an excuse coming. “Gangy, you sell oranges at this market for six bucks a pop! Don’t tell me you don’t have the money!”

Shaking his head, he walks back to the table and starts gently placing the baggies into a tote bag. “I guess mercenaries have never heard of fair trade.” The tote bag begins to swell up with all the powdered unicorn potential and I see the sea turtle print on the side. “You’ll have your money soon enough. I need to authenticate that advance I got from the Prince William Sound fishermen.”

I decide to humor him. “So that is your first target? Huh, you would think that 16 years would be enough to clean all that oil out?”

“Not at all. Once we finish there, we can go global. There are plenty of places out there: the Aral Sea, the Danube, Chesapeake Bay. Keep an eye on the news, man. This will be big.”

His rhetoric sounds beautiful, but I just want my money. Obviously, he does not have the money in the store, but I set a timeline. “Ok. I can wait, but no longer than a week. The airfare alone was killer.”

Gangy nods and his beaded dreadlocks flail around like Kaia’s jellyfish lampshade. “Sure, man.” He starts to tie the tote bag together. “Oh, did you get something for Kaia? She came into the store every day and asked if I knew where you were. I said nothing, but she always looked sad and Lisa always looked pissed.”

“Of course I got her something.” I reach into my own bag. I leave most of my equipment in the field and, hence, the bag is easy to maneuver in. I plunk the gift down onto the table and say, “I got her this little plush unicorn.” The toy looks nothing like the one I brought down. This one is purple and with a sky blue mane, but I can pass it off as authentic Norwegian. Just need to rip off the tag that says ‘Made in Taiwan.”

An excuse

Long periods of time with no posts on the blog should not be much of a surprise. Especially to people that have stuck through all y blog shenanigans. Most times I don't post because I just plain suck, but other times I have an excuse! And this I have one!

I am moving out of my place and between packing, cleaning, working, and all other "legitimate" things, I have, once again, sacrificed the blog. So posts will be sporadic and stingy, but, this time, you understand why! I will leave you with one little story below (in a separate post), to hold you over.

As for the move, Amanda and I will be staying in Tompkins County for the next year and who knows after that. The stay is kind of bitter sweet. TC is a nice place to raise a family, but a horrible place if you want to develop as a young professional. However, we both remain optimistic, and I will continue sending out the applications. PEACE!