Nerds with swords

While I am talking about books that I am currently reading...

A few months back, I picked up a copy of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I got the book at one the area's (I don't remember if it was Trumansburg's or the county's) Friends of the Library book sale and all I could surmise from reading the back cover was that the book was cyberpunk.

I am not a huge fan of cyberpunk. The whole-grungy hacker culture thing just never did it for me. In theory, I could train really hard and become something like Paul Atreides from Dune or even Spiderman. But the whole hacking thing just felt so dense and foreign. Reading something like Neuromancer, or any other cyberpunk, I felt like I was the idiot being hacked and not the guy being saved. Call me a sucker, but I want to like my heroes. Even my anti-heroes need to have a sense of picaresque nobility. Like Huck Finn. Or Captain Malcolm Reynolds!

However, I am pleasantly surprised by Snow Crash. I like the cyberpunk concept (Hell, actually reality) that corporations will control everything. However, I don't think these concepts would do it in the Shinra or Umbrella way. They would be Walmart.

I like how Snowcrash also creates political/municipal divisions. Everything is deregulated and privatized. Cities are actually little city-states composed of self-enclosed suburbs called burbclaves. Each has there own police and laws. I like that Snowcrash has female characters that aren't ninja sexpots. I even dig the hero a bit, who has the clever name of Hiro Protagonist. He seems like what a real hacker would be like, some guy with mad skills that can never use them. Instead he delivers pizza.

Of course, he does have samurai swords, because it wouldn't be cyberpunk if you didn't give the guys some swords. And inexplicable training as to how to use them.

I might be the only nerd out there saying this, but I don't like swords. There used to be a time when I reached for this low-hanging nerd fruit and slapped swords on folks. Ever read that story I have on her called Temperature. I once submitted it for a class project and even admitted to the professor that I only stuck the sword in there because I had just finished reading the original Dune books and were pretty crysknife'd out!

If you are writing some Arthurian legend then go crazy with the swords. Hell, I'll help. The pointy end goes in the other guy. But, unless it's that, you go to try really hard to get those swords in there. Star Wars did it. So did Dune. Cyberpunk, well, I guess not so much, but I ain't no cyberpunk scholar.

Peace!

Rediscovering Writers

The other day I picked up Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama. Ellis is one of my favorite writers, and I believe Glamorama (Glam) best exemplifies that.

The books combines both the Ellis of American Psycho(AP) and the Ellis of the Less than Zero (LTZ). American Psycho is one of my favorite books because of the sheer weight of all the description. The colors of everyone's clothes, the makeup of the food they are eating, and the brand names of every shower product. Here is a sample of the writing. For setup purposes, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is getting ready to got out on date at a posh Manhattan restaurant.

"I worked out heavily at the gym after leaving the office today, but the tension has returned, so I do ninety abdominal crunches, a hundred and fifty push-ups, and then I run in place for twenty minutes while listening to the new Huey Lewis CD. I take a hot shower and then afterwards use a new facial scrub by Caswell-Massey and a body wash by Greune, then a boday moisturizer by Lubriderm and a Neutrogena facial cream. I debate between two outfits. One is a wool-crepe suit by Bill Robinson I bought at Saks with this cotton jacquard shirt from Charivari and an Armani tie. Or a wool and cashmere sport coat with a blue plaid, a cotton shirt and pleated wool trousers by Alexander Julian, with a polka-dot silk tie."

Of course, then there is the sheer action. For those of you that haven't read AP, the violence in it is sheer pornographic. It is the first book to ever make me un-comfortable and is certainly not for the faint of heart. Particularly vicious scenes, with a gruesome obsession of violence against women and animals. I won't include a sample of any of those snippets, but you can find some descriptions online and can always read reviews. The movie is, surprisingly, an excellent interpretation of the book.

However, unlike a weaker writer, unlike me, Ellis never uses the exposition as a crutch. He combines it with his satirical sense to lampoon the yuppy 80's culture of getting rich and looking good while doing it. Of course, I am biased. Ellis received numerous death threats and negative reviews when AP came out in the early 90's. I see everything as Ellis does through the fan lense, which means, everything is satirical, everything attacks our celebrity culture.

Then there is the Ellis of LTZ and all the other :going nowhere" kids. Descriptions are actually very low key here, but Ellis never fails to portray these characters as empty or unlikable. He satirizes the yuppy culture, the LA nihilism, and the selfishness not through violence, but through portrayal. He makes airheads scary, because, well, they really are.

When I finish Glamorama, I would have read every Ellis book yet. Makes sense. In Glamorama, Ellis paints every aspect of posh Manhattan celebrity culture brightly, but never fills it in. Maybe the empty, pretty boy model protagonist will learn something by the end of the book, which would be the ultimate attack on celebrity culture. That it can grow and change. Like we are all supposed to do.


Before I go, I must say that I adore the covers that Vintage Contemporaries puts out for the recent runs of Ellis' books. The hazy, empty image of a city or bed over a white background. There are no people in these shots, which adds to the haunting feelings. We expect someone to be in the bed or milling about in the city, but they are hollow. Vintage recently put out a new printing of The Informers, a collection of Ellis short stories. It is a personal favorite, and I, unfortunately, could not find a picture. However, imagine the LTZ cover pictured except its a creepy metallic gray and the picture is a hotel pool with lounge chairs and striped beach umbrellas. Incredibly evocative for an Ellis book about several LA kids back from college on break.


Peace!

First Time

Off-topic post. Comic books for everyone! Regular posts to return soon.

To the left! To the left! All these SPOILERS are coming in a blog to the left!

Please don't judge me for quoting Beyonce.

SPOILERS AWAY!

The last Wednesday of the month is one of my favorite days out of the whole 30-something day cycle. All my favorite comics come out on the last Wednesday and since I only buy five comics a month, due to budgetary reasons, the last Wednesday pretty much defines my monthly comics experience.

Today was an excellent Wednesday, on most counts. Daredevil and Iron Fist, at the hands of Ed Brubaker, were wonderful. I can't wait for Daredevil #100 in August! It's triple-friggin-sized! My first 100! WOO!

However, I also got another first today. My first, "WHY!?" moment.

This sucks.....


WHY!?

For those of you that didn't realize that was just a digital picture on my kitchen counter top, Kyle Rayner, my favorite Green Lantern, metamorphized into the evil Parallax. The same Parallax that a decade ago drove many a Hal Jordan fan raving mad. Superman went out in a blaze of glory. GL's become monsters. BAH! I guess it goes with the space cop thing.

I understand that this, the whole evil thing, must happen. Even a character like Kyle Rayner, who is only about thirteen years old, becomes stale without change. The initial "Whiz-bang" of a hero fades away if the only problems he/she faces is the "villain of the month." It's what defines the "modern age" of comics, and what sometimes can destroy it. Again, I refer to the original Parallax shenanigans. If you go too edgy, then you eventually fall off.

Kyle recently became a near god in the "Ion" storyline, and now he has fallen. It makes sense. I enjoy superhero comics where the good guy actually wins. I don't mind how we get there and I don't mind Pyrrhic victories, but I like for characters to come out on top. DC will probably kill off Kyle Rayner, which makes for another comic first for me. As a nerd, it feels like I'm growing up. And I'M FREAKING OUT!!!!!

Hopefully SallyP will get her thoughts up about the Sinestro Corps War soon and I can calm down a bit. Until then....FREAKING OUT!

Peace!

Underneath

The past few days in Ithaca have ranged in the mid-90's and everyone, everything, is seeking relief. A young white-tail deer doe has taken refuge under our porch. Well, actually, under the house's porch. Amanda and I live in the bottom half of a house split into two apartments. The porch belongs to the upstairs tenant, but we get the best view of everything under the weathered planks.

Living in a converted basement isn't bad at all. During the summer, that first blast of air from the apartment feels good. Compared to the outside temperature, for a few minutes, it feels like we have air-conditioning. My skin gets that same tingling feeling I remember from sitting next to an air-conditioner after getting wet in the rain. In this heat, it feels wonderful.

Of course, then there is the deer. It comes and goes throughout the day, even though the few plants that grow around the porch's edge show plenty of deer damage. She would never have to leave, it seems, except for the necessary exercise. In our sheltered suburban environment, she has found another layer of security. Imagine the ecological equivalent of tucking the end of your blanket under your feet.

As environmental studies majors, we were taught to hate deer. They are pesky generalist species that over-graze the few ecosystems left around development. They endanger people (and themselves) by blasting through roadways and backyards. They munch away on hobbies and livelihoods. I called a u-pick strawberry farm last Sunday and the outgoing message on the lady's answering machine went, "I had a lot of deer damage this year. They took most of the fruit." She suggested going to another farm.
Deer, however, are native animals, which we first decimated and now brought back. All those flowers are not. Like the rabbit, we share a love-hate relationship with them. A creature we venerate though movies and Romantic imagery, but still hunt.
Observing the porch deer, I understand how people can fall in love with the creatures. She twitches her ears, searching for sounds in the neighborhood. I studied her snout from the kitchen window. She appears equine from my angle and whoever challenged the nobility of a horse? Her fur there starts bristly white and then changes into the warm browns of her body. Reminds me of my dog's own nose. Her own snout looked snowy around her wet nose. The deer's mouth lines run clean across her entire face and up towards the eyes.

I have never looked much into a deer's eyes. Folks say plenty about human eyes, and even cat and hawk's eyes. All those eyes have nice layers of pupil and iris, each with its own colors. and while deer certainly have a pupil and iris, all one sees is black.

How expressive those black eyes can be! The eyes shine with different lusters and inkiness, giving the entire surface a slick surface and mottled underside. I have observed the same wonder in my pet's eyes. How the rabbit will expand or shut his eyes or the guinea pig will bat the reflective sheen of his. In the scientific sense, black absorbs all colors, but does not reflect them. It keeps all those molecules and dancing photons, letting the deer express that energy through muscle and movement.

Peace!

Surf and Turf

One of my favorite books, and favorite writers, is J. Robert Lennon's Pieces for the Left Hand*. It is a neat little read, made up of snippets focusing on life in one medium Upstate town. Lennon has a few books out chronicling several fake little towns in New York. They are all based on places right here in CNY. The first book I ever read by him, Mailman, featured the town of Nestor, NY. Nestor is pretty much a carbon-copy of Ithaca. And a nice scintillating copy of it! Filled with all the zanniness that gives you enough material to both love and hate the place. He was recently in the news for creating a fictonal Aurora, NY and writing about how one famous resident has bought up much of the local real estate, in an attempt to create an ideal "dollhouse" look.

I find Lennon's work gorgeous and find it invigorating that he lives in the area. He is a wonderful satirist, cutting, yet never sardonic. You don't need to take a step back and say, "Well, he is being satirical, right there," with Lennon. It all just makes sense.

Anyway, I mentioned Lennon, because the following piece is something in the spirit of Pieces for the Left Hand. Just a quick little anecdote that could be a part of something big. I don't have the patience for writing full lenght fiction. I just realized that. But maybe I can whip up a nice little chap book with a dozen or so interconnected stories. Here is my story in the same vein as Pieces and with a little of those quick George Saunders sentences. I just finished In Persuasion Nation. Amazing book, and another amazing local resource.

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After Vacation

By Garik Charneco

I saw it in the paper after we got home. The lobster story. In the "Odds and Ends" section. I was in the kitchen catching up on all the back papers the delivery boy had stacked on our porch. I gave Ryan, my son, the little subscription hold slip to drop off before we left. I enjoyed a nice week at the beach, knowing all the stove elements were off, the windows were locked, and the paper wouldn't come. But, the papers came.
I found it fun. To read through all those papers and catch up on the past week's news. I stacked them into a neat little pile on the kitchen table, a little dossier for me on our town.
And there was the story. The lobster story.

The headline read, "Park officials baffled by lobster release."

I had seen the exodus! I had seen the story! Ryan and I were throwing around the Frisbee and he heaved it over the dune grass. My first fears were that it landed in the water or bonked some poor person laying behind the grass. However, I heard no splashes or curses.
"Hey," I said to the boy. "Go get it. The one that lost it has to get it!" Those were the rules between me and my father and they would be the same between Ryan and I. But, Ryan, just shrugged.
"You got get it," he said pulling his cap down over his eyes. "You're closer."
I should had said something. I should have made a lecture, right there. About responsibility and Frisbee tradition, hut, it was vacation. I let it slide, and what a wonderful thing, because I had seen the news!

Ryan had heaved the Frisbee well beyond the dune grass and almost to the edge of a low cliff! There I saw it, the story. Below the cliff, I saw a dozen people squatting in the water next to boxes. All the boxes looked like coolers, made of styrofoam and thick. And there were some beach towels thrown around the sheltered beach. Looked like a picnic to me, at first. But, then, I saw all those lobsters coming out! I almost dropped the Frisbee, I was so surprised. Even from up on the cliff, I made out the lobsters. They looked black and mottled, especially in the shallows, but their spindly legs still kicked. The people there lured them out of the boxes. I heard lots of "C'mon's!" and "Yay's!" I didn't know what to make of the whole thing, so I just left.

I must had left before the lifeguards got there, accompanied by a ranger. The paper read, "When initially confronted, the liberators, as they referred to themselves, all produced receipts indicating they had bought the lobsters from local markets and restaurants."
Then a quote from a meat counter man and another from a restaurant manager. All their lobsters had disappeared into the sea.

The paper went on. "Dozens of live lobsters milled around the shallows at the east end, exploring the warm waters with their antennas. Park officials felt the freed lobsters would have a good chance at surviving in the wild due to existing fishing spots in the area. However, they discouraged others from copying the liberators actions, citing safety concerns."

I had only seen, maybe, seven black shapes in the water when I got the Frisbee. But the paper said over forty lobsters were freed. I imagined all those lobsters, pouring over one another in the same waters my family splashed. All their legs and eyes whirring through the sand and out into the sea. I should have gone down. Called Ryan and Marie, and even the baby for it would be irresponsible to leave her in her beach travel crib. Would have made even more of the vacation.

_______________________________

Any thoughts? I find the image of a dozen freed lobsters just clawing their way out to sea very moving and colorful**. I would be much more comfortable with it through a creative non-fiction lens. You know, pretend I am actually there. I'll try that for a final piece. Peace!



* Unfortunately, Pieces for the Left Hand, is only for sale in the UK. Makes no friggin' sense. If interested, you can buy it through Amazon UK or, if you live in Ithaca, can snag a copy at the Bookery 2 book store.

** While the ethics of freeing lobsters that one legally purchased are pretty clear, I am still fuzzy about how the animals will really take it. Releasing a domesticated cow into the wild, might not be the smartest thing, because that animal is no wild bovine. No bison, yak, or musk ox. I might not know anything but the feed lot! However, can a lobster go back to the wild? Some folks think so. In any case, makes for fascinating imagery, no? And for a crazy fish tale. Might try it sometime, if I lived by the sea.

Round-Up

I am back to the blog. Nothing really special to report. The trip to Ohio was lovely, as usual and I am plugging away at the new job. Even though I work in a law office that specializes in estate planning, wills, real estate, and such, I can't help but imagine being some plucky paralegal in the offices of Matt Murdock, wondering why all our clients seem to be gorgeous women or murderers.

Fan-boy feelings aside, it would probably be no fun to be Matt Murdock's paralegal. If I wasn't messing up the order of the Braille dots, a hitman would be throwing ninja stars at me from across the street.

Other jobs are going well. The coffee shop things keeps a going and my paper offered me to be the replacement film critic for the summer! But, then they found someone else who, you know, actually knew what they were talking about. Too bad. I was ready to convince my editor to let review the upcoming Transformers film for the paper. What a geek dream that would be!

"Optimus Prime has never looked better, leaving his boxy 80's looks for Bay inspired techno-militarism!" Well, I haven't actually seen the movie yet, so of course that line sounded bad, but, come on, the geekiness would have been astonishing!

Actual writing to follow later. Peace!

Hello, Charlotte

Speaking of nature...

________________

A Spider

By Garik Charneco

We live in the bottom half of a house split in two. We live in a basement. And every summer it fills up with creatures, mostly small. I caught a spider the other day, while getting the apartment ready for my sister's arrival. The nieces and nephew would not find the spider pleasing, probably even terrifying. Maybe the boy would delight in it, as little boys are supposed to, but I was never drawn to creepy crawlies. I imagined my nephew to be the same.

I pressed a plastic container against the ceiling and scooped her into the bowl. I didn't seal the lid, but left it haphazardly over the container. Too heavy for her to lift, but loose enough for me to watch.

I referred to the spider as a "her," because the back end, the thorax, glistened in a gray marble. It has a gelatinous shimmer to it and a purple veiny lattice work all around it. I envisioned her being pregnant, it being spring and all. Her legs were long, daddy-long legs long, but the field guide left over from college did not differentiate much in long-legged spiders. I had to pick from Eastern Daddy-Long Legs or Brown Daddy-Long Legs. All the other spiders in that section were woolly monsters with barbels and sharp hairs. Spider nothing like I have ever encountered, or would like to, in the apartment. Spiders nothing like her

She didn't seem like any of the long legs. From her midsection, her legs came away in neat little segments. Each joint between the segments had a pair of black bands around it, like old tube socks from gym class. She had a single black dot on the top of her midsection and nibbly thimble shaped head with a mess of shiny eyes. She performed tricks in the plastic, almost seemingly hanging from nothing in the middle of the bowl. Other times she pogoed on one leg, but, mostly, she probed at the sides and the lid.

I let her go into the container garden we keep outside the front door. I dropped her into some basil that had been gnawed on by insects unknown. As she scampered away, eight legs over one another, a moth flew into the house as if it knew the predator was gone.

________________________________

Peace!

Backyard Naturalist

I just finished reading a wonderful book. It's Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes and it chronicles Holmes year spent detailing and recording everything in her backyard. She chronicles a wonderfully wild quasi-ecosystem in a quirky humor full of pleasant anthropomorphizing. As compared to saccharine anthropomorphizing, which is what I do with my bunny Carson.

"Carson-warson-darson! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! My sweet prince!"

Like that. The guinea pig gets it too...

Anyway, I enjoyed the book for several reasons. I mentioned this earlier in the blog, but during the summer I enter my naturalist phase. My first summers here I spent lounging by the scrappy rock islands in Six Mile Creek, reading God Emperor of Dune on a fallen oak log over a divot cut in the stream bank. I can't help but enjoy a good piece of nature writing, particularly during the summer when I can see all the life mentioned. Holmes demonstrates a greater understanding of the impacts of lawns and suburbia on the environment. The American Dream tells us to isolate ourselves in the big house with the big lawn. But the big lawn; with its Kentucky Bluegrass monoculture, lawn mower fumes, and pesticides, brings the problems right to the castle.

OK, that's a bit melodramatic. Most of the lawns I see are the types of "Freedom Lawns" that Holmes describes. Not just perfectly manicured grass, but little patches of dandelions, clover, and plantains also making up the greenery. The whole book made me wish I owned the land I lived on, so I could run about creating edge space and planting natives all summer long.

I also enjoyed the book because it demonstrated how nature is all around us, not just in wild lands and mile-long hikes. Nothing beats a John Muir style hike through the sequoias or musing about taking on the Appalachian Trail, but I guess I am just too much of a Romantic. Even the pesky Ailanthus tree, can inspire me to wax poetically. Not very well, mind you me, but waxing nonetheless!

In The End of Nature, author Bill McKibben, describes just that-- the end of nature. But McKibben does not talk about total apocalypse. He means the end of nature as something completely separate from humanity. There is no wilderness, at all. Climate change and global pollution took care of that. But there is still wonder and awe in nature. It will always be gorgeous and violent. Holmes even describes the micro-fauna of her living room carpet in documentary terms. A carpeted Serengeti where mites and pseudoscorpions, all microscopic, fight for life. Holmes describes another scenes where a native plants enthusiasts does a survey of her lawn. It does not go well.

Everything is from somewhere else. The common garden slug, common earthworm, iris, lily, and those loathsome English Sparrows are all imports. Our nature isn't old. It's just a different kind of new.

However, it is still something. Something "natural." And for that it inspires me, while it also bothers me.

Peace.

Ghost Story

I enjoy ghost stories. In the book club I used to go to, one of the fellow readers said, "Garik, you sure do enjoy horror." I guess I do, even though it isn't a genre I really explored. Much of the horror I enjoy is the Palahniukan horror of the spooky and the mundane. Patrick Bateman and X-File such. However, I enjoy pretty much all horror or thrillers. * Even the cheesiet movie or story can work for me.

With all that said, here is little ghost story I once wrote for a class. It isn't scary, but what do you think of the pacing? I find it reads fast, especially now in retrospect, but I never meant it to be heavy. Just a slice of life story....with some ghosts. Peace!

______________________

Smells Like Almonds

By Garik Charneco

The soft crunch of the wind pant’s nylon shell comes in between my gasps for air. The old fleece sweater I have on wicks up my sweat and when my skin hits the wet fabric, I remember how alive I am. Someone once remarked about how depressing my job was and she was surprised I just didn’t crawl into a bottle after every client. A haze of alcohol could take the edge off work, but it didn’t get my adrenaline oozing or make my skin a gentle firelight red, like jogging. Alcohol would just lull me, dull my senses and make me feel like the ghosts I treat.

I take a gentle curve into the new cookie cutter home development that lines the old country road I jog. The cream-colored duplex houses break the former wood lots in neat square parcels. Trampolines, swimming pools, and blacktop dominate where there used to stand gnarled swamp white oaks. The only thing wild left in the area is the deer and the screaming children that tumble on manicured lawns. I run past house after identical house knowing there are no ghosts in them. They are too new and free of swallowed marbles, wine-painkiller cocktails, and faulty furnaces. I give it time and soon some guy will come back from the office early and find his wife with the neighbor’s Mexican gardener or some teen will freebase a little bit too much.

Running through the neighborhood I wonder if anyone will recognize me. My commercial ran this morning, right after the farm report and the early news. I hope I don’t get a prank call today. I get a lot of pranks from people who think wasting my time and my generous offer of a free estimate is funny. They call me for a ghost and when I open the attic, closet, or wherever they say creepy noises are coming from, I find an old dressmaking mannequin with a white sheet thrown over it. They listen, feigning interest, while I go on about Kirlian photography, time slips, and shamanistic shape shifting. Then the tape recorder they hid behind the couch skips.

I take another soft, gentle bend and look straight on, ignoring the bay windows, porch swings, and shingled roofs. At the edge of the neighborhood, my cell phone rings, breaking my stride. The adrenaline in me stops rushing and my legs begin to ache. On the phone, Mariela from Blue Iris screams at me, demanding I come downtown. I ask for an hour and then I hear a dish crash in the background. She says, “Thirty minutes, Fort.”

* * *

The cold blast of the Blue Iris Café’s air conditioner smacks me. My hair, still wet from a quick shower, feels icy and overexposed. The coffee shop appears busy and I wonder whether Mariela was just panicking. If Roger was really acting up, then the place would be abandoned, but this looks like the usual lazy Saturday lunch crowd. Patrons still curl up in the plush lounge chairs, reading paper backs and sipping at lattes. A couple slices off pieces of tiramisu and feeds it to each other in slow dainty dollops of espresso soaked cake. Over the speakers, chanting choral music plays, and while it seems out of character with Mariela’s intended Indie, up-scale, trendy atmosphere I dismiss the music choice as a phase.

Even over the choral music and hiss of the coffee machine I hear my name ring out from the back of the shop. “There you are! Fort!”

Mariela does not come over to me, but instead angrily waves me over to the back. Her overalls are stained brown and a patch of sweat expands out from the neck of her tank top. Her long, black, curly hair shines from a mix of sweat, steam and grease. I walk over to her and when I get close she grabs me by the hand and leads me into a corner, where she pins me against a stack of soda can flats and begins questioning me. Mariela speaks in hushed whispers, but her hazelnut eyes cut into me, and I droop my head. “Damn it, Fort,” she says. “I thought you said you got rid of that thing.” She points up at the ceiling and waves her hand, motioning to the entire space of the coffee shop. She pulls my head up and says, “Look at me, damn it! That thing is scaring away my customers!”

I look into her eyes and she reminds me of that roadside wraith I treated last week, angry and betrayed. “Mariela,” I start, with the soothing voice I use with ghosts. “I don’t get rid of them. I treat them, get them to cope, deal with their condition…”

She cuts me off. “Well, you failed because today he just starts moaning and moaning! He smashed a set of dishes and fired a jet of hot water at one of my employees; I lost all my morning regulars. They went to the gas station for coffee!” She rubs at her eyes and groans. “That kid has been too much of a pain. First he dies in the middle of the store and even when dead he steals money from the tip jar and moans on and on.”

I pry her fisted fingers from my chest and let her hand fall to the side. “It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know he was allergic to the almonds in that biscotti. Both his parents are lawyers, you know? They could have sued and then…”

Mariela grabs both my hands and cups them inside her own sweaty hands. She holds them up so both hands stand in the air in a spidery grip. Her hands are strong and I feel uncomfortable. She swings our hands from side to side with every one of her words. “Fort, I have customers drinking gas station coffee and employees threatening to call OSHA because of this thing. Fucking OSHA! Deal with it.”

I look up at the ceiling, my hands still in her vise. “I don’t hear anything.”

She breaks the hold and flings her arms upward. “Jesus,” she screams, and the tiramisu couple stares at her, odd and concerned. Mariela blushes and hunches down behind the soda flats. “You think I’m making this all up? I have this chamber music on because it drowns out his moans and groans. If I turn it off or switch to the usual music, we’ll hear him.”

Mariela pulls me to the center of the hallway and starts pushing me even further back. We pass the kitchen and a store room, until we’re at the grimy back door. She opens the door and light begins to creep in through the crack. “I’ll try to talk to him, Mariela, but you know my policy. Ghosts don’t work with guarantees.”

I feel my heel lean over the threshold and wiggle over the gap. Mariela begins to ease me down, into the alley. “And I don’t work with empty promises. I’m a business woman and I didn’t make this coffee shop out of broken promises and shoddy jobs! I paid good money for you and now he comes back! Unacceptable! I thought I stopped dealing with hustlers and liars when I left El Salvador.” The door is wide open and the heat from the outside feels strange with the icy air of the café. “Go out there, talk to him, and get rid of him. If he isn’t gone then I am going to call that psychic lady from daytime TV to blast him out!”

I step down and walk backwards, into the alley. Mariela shuts the door. Standing there, all alone, worrying about losing this job to Mystic Delvar, I cup my hands around my mouth and begin to call, “Roger! Roger!”

* * *

Roger is not a mean guy; he’s a simple guy. He didn’t deserve to die of anaphylactic shock, right in the middle of Blue Iris, with his throat doubling over and his face buried in his accounting textbook. When he was alive, Roger worked Thursday nights at the soup kitchen, said his prayers, and kept a 3.4 GPA. When he was alive, he just needed a nice Catholic girl to go to his parent’s house for dinner every Friday night. I keep calling out for him, alternating my calls between long coos and sharp pleas. I hear a clang, metal against metal, and the ladder of a fire escape slides down, slamming upright into the ground. I swivel around, and through the sun I see Roger drop down, swaying from side to side like a falling leaf

Ghosts like Roger, those that just never loved or were never loved, aren’t very tangible. Unlike angry wraiths or endless apparitions, Roger is just above a poltergeist in the visibility department. He comes through in wispy flickers, undulating as one unit, like a swarm of insects. His voice comes out in pieces, in a sort of ghost Morse code that starts with one word, pauses, and then says another. Roger touches the ground and tells me, in a broken slur, “Hello, Fort.”

I whip out my notepad, just to humor him. My head begins to ache, pain brought on by annoyance. Roger would not be in this situation if he ever had said, “I love you.” His post-partum depression and permanent residence on this astral plane stem from deep issues with his parents and with loneliness. I look at him and say, “Roger. How are you? I hear that you have been causing some trouble? What is up?”

He swirls up and hovers over me. “I saw McKenzie today!” His words trail off and his pauses are long and stifled. “Saw her wrapped around some huge meathead in the shop today.”

I look at some of my older notes, again to humor him, because I know who McKenzie is. We can’t have a talk without him mentioning her or her sea-foam green eyes, dirty red hair, Roman nose, or pout-perfect lips. “We have talked about this before, Roger. She wasn’t yours.” He never even talked to her.

“But I sat behind her in class for an entire semester. I know how many freckles are on the back of her neck. She smiled at me once.”

I have all of this in my notebook, written in smudged blue ink. My headache grows sharper and Roger complains about the guy McKenzie was with. If it weren’t for his speaking impediment, his words would machine guy across the alley in angry, whiny bits. I rub my pupils and try to block out Roger. He has no new developments and Mariela hasn’t done anything to anger him. Roger had a relapse and wants attention. I can see this even after just one question. Fuck, a sixteen-year-old girl reading Cosmo can recognize Roger’s wailing need for comfort. He complains about feeling unwanted and even betrayed. Even though Roger no longer has any senses, he says that he is in pain and his heart broken.

The headache begins to chip away at my temples. I want to grab on to Roger and somehow give him this headache, make him remember how it really feels to be alive. I bury my face in my hands and he notices me, trying to ignore him. Roger clicks his lips and the words come out slow enough that he sounds pretentious. “Are you even listening to me, Fort? Did Mariela get you out here just to distract me?” The clouds around what would be his head thicken like a thunder head and flicker in rapid saccades of light. For the first time in this conversation he is thinking, but I worry about what. “Is McKenzie in there? Did you just get rid of me so she can come back with that meathead and get some spanakopita or mochacinno? Are you here so Mariela can make a sale!?” His body twirls around and wisps of clouds slither like tethered rags. I have seen blood pouring from showerheads, computers type out phantom messages, and a rag doll in Key West scurry across a room. Roger does not scare me, but he exacerbates my headache till it pounds like the souls trapped in the scraped metal of the Kursk. For the first time ever in the presence of a ghost, I scream. The noise sounds loud, but angry enough that it carries no fear.

Roger stops his fit and he hovers in the air, straight up like a pillar of air. He says, “Woah.”

I’m not sorry and I go off on Roger. “God! We have been though this a dozen times! McKenzie was never yours and she never knew you. She can date anyone she wants because she has that right, she’s alive!” I push my eyeballs deep into their sockets, trying to shoo away the pressure on my head. “And you need to leave this coffee shop. You’re not a specific haunting, so any attachment is entirely in your head.” I lean up against the wall and slide down the hot bricks. I use my free hand to wave at Roger, telling him, “If you stay, then Mariela is going to bring in Mystic Delvar and then you’re gone. She’ll blast you with psychic energy, and then who knows?” I shrug my shoulders. “She is the real deal, but whether you just dissipate or end up in limbo, I can’t say.”

I still have my eyes closed, but my head feels better. A tiny breeze of hits my side and Roger hovers over to my side. “You mean that psychic lady on TV? She is real?”

I nod, laughing. “Of course. Come on, I am talking to you, a ghost. How can Mystic Delvar be any different?”

“What would I do, Fort? Like you just said, I’m a ghost.”

I think I have a moment with Roger and he snatches it away with his whining. I take my hand away from my face and look up at the sky. The view is blocked by the grates of fire escapes and the verdant leaves of the plants on the terraces. “Roger,” I tell him. “You’re a spirit. You can fly. Go somewhere. Get a map and just find some isolated island and live there. Go haunt a theme park or something. Go back to the college and haunt your old dorm room for all I care, but not this place.”

The air around me rises up and I lay eyes on Roger. The vapor around him no longer undulates, but wafts in the alley. “Psychic blasts? Maybe I will leave then. Go see McKenzie”

I look away from him and stare at the pavement on the alley. “Good. Just leave and try to stay calm.” I reach my hand over, but Roger is above me. All my previous experience with him and I still struggle to find his eyes.

Roger keeps floating up and begins to meld into the broken sky. “Thanks for the help,” he says, when he is just wisp. He completely disappears, but his presence still lingers, like a hangover on a Sunday morning. “I still feel like shit,” he announces and then the presence is gone.

I’m alone in the alley and then Mariela comes through the back door. Her arrival feels all too convenient and I bet she was listening in, hearing me and Roger. She carries an empty cardboard box with its sides adorned with dancing bananas and smiling Clementine oranges.

“You done,” she asks, her finger nails gripping into the wax-covered sides of the box.

I pull myself from off the alley floor. Dusting my self off I tell her, “We talked and I think he is gone for good. Decided to go on a vacation.”

Mariela curls her lip and twitches her nose, getting ready for a question. “The ghost? A vacation?” She chucks the box into the dumpster and starts laughing a deep and hot Salvadorian laugh, filled with life. “That is crazy, but is he really gone?”

I nod and raise my hand, flicking my wrist and twirling my fingers, so that they make this starburst motion. “Gone,” I point at the sky. “Poof! Gone for good.”

Mariela pulls a rag out from the front pocket of her overalls. She starts to wipe her fingers clean, shucking off brown coffee dust from her fingers. “Well, I guess thanks are in order.” She comes over to me and grabs my hands again, but this time puts them up to my chest. She pushes the hunk of flesh into my chest, rubbing the flat of my sternum. Mariela brings her face to mine and we are inches away from each other. For a second I think she is going to kiss me. Her breath comes across steamy and smelling of Arabica. “But only if he never comes back. I’ll call you in a few days.” Then she breaks the hold and pushes me away. I slide back a bit and watch her laugh, booming with delight. Her business is saved, but my headache remains.

_________________________________

*Except for that godforsake Chucky doll in the Child's Play movies. Hate the little bastard and all his sequels. Dolls and any sort of toy that comes to life for the sole purpose of killing eqauls terrifying.

In Sickness and Health

Been a while since I blogged, but that doesn't mean things haven't kept busy.

Right now, I am helluva sick. A I have been taking knock-off dollar store Nyquil to boot! So this, cold from hell hasn't gone away just yet. But my lovely girlfriend Amanda bought me some of the real stuff today, so eat it sickness! Whenever I am sick, I try a two-prong approach of western bio medicine and alternative therapies. Basically, I wash down some Nyquil with a whole packet of Gypsy Cold Care Traditional Medicinal tea. It rocks.

Other news...

1) Got a real, new job! WOO HOO! I am going to be a paralegal for a downtown law office. WOO HOO! It is only a part time gig, but it pays well and has health care! WOO HOO! Because of the part time basis, I will still be slinging coffee in the shop, but that is fine as the adjustment to the new store has gone well.

2) The paper I write for freelance has officially listed me as a contributor in their credits! WOO HOO!

3) I have Nyquil! WOO HOO!

I am actually going to Ohio later this week, so I hope to slap some posts up before I go and have a legitimate excuse for not posting.

Peace!

Bird Watching

In the summer, I enter a sort of naturalist phase of writing. All the life around me just makes me want to write about it and how folks relate to it. I can't let go of my environmentalist roots while writing and always try to use natural imagery as a throughline. Here is something short.

________________

I now have air superiority. I adopted a grey-black zig-zag tiger from the SPCA last week and let him loose in the back yard. The tall cedar planks keep him confined to the yard and he decimates the House Sparrows and Starlings. He pounces from bush to bush, shooing away the invaders. On the other side of the house, I create my own air force. Swapping the sticky mess of fat left in the suet feeder out for fresh food, I slide in oranges to attract orioles. Sunflower seeds for all manner of birds, but I hope they attract chickadees. Their soft fee-bees will ring over the liquid twitter-twat of the starlings. A bundle of brown and white down appears under the forsythia. The tiger pokes out, whiskers against the ground and claws kneading the feather mound. I enjoy air superiority.

________________________

I am going to stop with the whole title sequence for these little blurbs. They are all untitled and, of course, you know it is me writing them. Seem a bit pretentious. Peace!

Gym Class Hero

Ack! Been a while, eh? Well, I'm back and this week I have two whole days off from work, so writing awaits! YAY! Here is something I cooked up.

_______________________

Untitled

By Garik Charneco

I struggle for the final three in my sudoku, when Emile's assistant comes into the teacher's lounge looking for coverage.
"Randy is out sick," he says. "Just called in about a minute ago. We need someone to cover his classes. They meet at the field today"
There are four of us in the lounge, including myself. Miriam buries herself in the senior class and Pettie says she is too old to substitute a field class.
"Gym, actually," says Emile's assistant. 'No one calls them field classes. At least, not anymore."
"Still," she gazes out the window at the sunlight coming through the wire mesh sandwiched between the glass. "Besides it's hot out. Unsafe."
The assistant gives up and stares at me. "And you, Brian?"
I find my three before I say sure. I'll turn it into a gag later, ask the gym teacher to teach my history.

* * *

It's a Wednesday and the rotating schedule leaves my first period empty. The assistant brought this up, pointing to my schedule while he brought up the class list for the gym class. Sixth grade gym class, which quickly realize when it matched my own U.S. history roster. "That'll make it easy," the assistant says. I catch his name, Jona, from a placard above his monitor. He hands the paper to me, still hot from the printer. "Randy, says they are doing kickball this week."

* * *

At the softball field, I am sweating through my undershirt. The kids scream "Mr. Echo! What are you doing here!?" I like to think I am popular, at least with some. The quiet ones, the few looking for something. Certainly not with the kids who look forward to gym. "Well, Mr. Doms is out today, so I'll be here while you play."
"What about some free play, instead?" shouts an indistinct voice from the group of twenty-five. I imagine someone crouching in the back, giggling.
"I think Mr. Doms would appreciate if you continued the class." It felt phony to call this a class. Activities would have been a better word. Hell, even, game.
I remember my own gym classes and the line-up while everyone choose players. I was never last, but never first. Or close to first, either. I wonder whether I should designate team captains when the kids go into a sort of feral play instinct. Vidal, a 12-year old from my history class, asks for the ball with a nasally please. I know he looks forward to gym class and the other captain, alpha in the case, Fernie, already has his players lined up against the fence.

* * *

I sit on the hot metal of the lowest bleacher rung. I realize this game is a continuation of yesterday's play. Same teams, except for Shannon Torliss, who is out sick also. Fernie calls the game start. "Top of the 14th inning!" The score was left 4 to 2, Fernie's team winning yesterday at bell ringing. I'll quiz Fernie's memory prowess later today by asking him to tell me what Ticonderoga, Sumter, and Apache all have in common. 'But how you could remember all those kickball facts and not this?' It will be lovely. The alphas always tend to put me on my toes.

Vidal pitches from the mound, throwing under-arm rolls at the others. Some kids call for bouncy balls and others for fast balls. He shows little control over the rubber ball, as if anyone could. No one strikes out, but most get tagged at first. The kids that don't care, you can tell them when the outfields come in. Those dreaming of kickball scholarships, push the outfielders back.

* * *

I don't wear a watch and I use the wall clock in my own classroom. I ask Devon Diamond, a quiet kid, to let me see his watch. Darth Vader's black helmet obscures the numbers, but I realize maybe about fifteen minutes to go. "Fifteen, OK."
"Thanks God! I want it to end soon!"
"Don't like kickball, eh?"
He looks at the field and folds his arms across his chest. "No. Hate gym class. Pointless."
I don't know Randy the gym teacher very well. I play into an ugly stereotype and imagine him commiserating with the kids on the junior varsity baseball team. "Yes, classes suck, but you got to pull those C's if you want to stay on the team."
"I don't care for sports very much either, Devon. It's just gym class though."
He doesn't answer. From the field I here Fernie scream "Out! Out! Out! Our turn!"

* * *

Five minutes to go. This time from another watch, a simple black and white faced one. Vidal is back on the mound. I hear it is the 19th inning, the score now 10 to 15. I don't know who is winning, but Fernie does as he steps up to the plate. He has a runner on first, a kid names James who sits next to him in the back of history. I decide to watch these final seconds, happy that they hadn't hurt themselves. I try to think up some jokes for my next class, about why I am so sweaty. I'm horrible at jokes.
Vidal lobs the ball at Fernie. He connects and fills the air with a rubber twank. It's a arching ball heading, slowly freefalling to second base. Devon is there and he looks up. Even I know it's an easy catch, the kind of catch that in a real game would already have people up from the dugout. However, Fernie blasts towards first and James races to second. No one expect him to catch it. Running is like bringing the outfielders in.

Devon does bring his arms out. I hear a "Yeah, right" from the bench, the same disembodied tween voice. However, the big red rubber balls falls right into Devon's reach. A soft little plunk as his hands scrape against the taut surface. A loud "Yes!" from the mound and "Yeah's" from the rest of the infield. Fernie overshoots first, but already, the kid on base tells him he's out. James still blasts towards second, trying to steal. However, Devon pivots on ankle and flings the ball at James. He archs his body, for a dusty slide, when the ball twangs against his cheek. The auburn of his bowl cut bangs swings up to reveal wincing eyes.
"Touch rule," Vidal screams running to second. "Touch rule! He's out!" The disembodied voice gasps, "Double play! No way!"
The whole infield surrounds Devon while James gets up on his knees and pounds a balled fist into the dust. The bell rings in the background. I wonder how to approach the potentially injured James, but only utter, "Good work, guys."

* * *

Last period and I have most of gym in my class. James and Fernie sit in the back while Devon takes the front. I see him smile when he walks in and I return it, realizing we had never had such an exchange. I decide to show some clips from a documentary I taped. I never ask the connection question. In the softlight of the room, I look at James's bruise in quick glances. It has the gorgeous appeal of galaxy. Purple inkiness splotched with black-blue cloud nebulas and veiny comet tails. It engulf his cheek and disappears into his bangs. I wonder whether he should see the nurse, but it's already last period.

___________________________

I constructed this story form just one image. That is how most of my writing works. That is why it feels stilted. Well, one of the reason's it does. But my best stories, like Moo Shu, are pieces crafted from these solo images.

A walk

I am not too sure as how to structure this post. I don't have a clear intro and creative piece, so I will just push forward!

I have started working at a downtown location of the coffee shop I work for. It's a small local chain you see and the managers, both new and old, were nice enough to let me transfer from Trumansburg to Ithaca. The walk is a bit farther because I don't live in a village of 1,500 people anymore and, because it's Ithaca, involves a hill. I walked up the hill today, realizing I need the exercise in the wake of my organic pop tart diet. OK, fine, organic toaster pastries diet. I love organic junk food, it's a tasty mind bender!

As I walked up the West Hill, I realized how hot it was. Last winter seemed to sputter and sprout over the past five months. A big wet blast at the beginning of April and then sunshine. It felt like a summer day and the thermometer on the bank's big rotating clock read 92 degrees Fahrenheit! I don't know how accurate those bank thermometers are, but it was still hot.

The heat here seems to crackle. After winter, the buds break and flowers explode with noises that none of us can here. However, we can feel them, and even make out a faint whisper, like when a twig sheds a flake of bark under the sun's rays. The heat back home seems to simmer, a comforting white noise. To get all biochemical on you, the heat back home seems like ATP, omnipresent and endless, repeating itself minute after minute with only slight variations in intensity. However, the heat here is adrenaline, rushes of blood and those falling dreams.

I am more aware while walking here. I am out of shape and breathe heavy when climbing hills. I take in deep breaths of each flower and the mowed grass. I never really smelled flowers till I ca here. Never really smelled that powdery honey smell coming from bursts of blooming cherries. I believe the tropical flowers to simply be out of aromas, catering to year-long pollinators. Walking helps because in a car yo only experience one sense: sight. A strong odor might come through the windows and blast of noise comes through the body, but these have to be great attempts. Not subtle flowers. Back home, we drive everywhere. It is the only place where riding mass transit is a treat, something you take your grandmother from the country to after church.
The heat back home, however, is infinite. It is a heat you can settle into. Up here, the heat is one you have to struggle for.

Peace!

I Really Shouldn't Do This

I remember a technical writing class I took back in college. The professor made a "writing" hierarchy were the lowliest and simplest writing (technical) was at the bottom and the most creative (poetry) was at the top. Poems are certainly much more compelling than DVD manuals so the whole concept makes sense. I have a very high respect for poetry. I never ever try to write poetry, because of its stance at the top of the writing hierarchy. I can barely write something with a beginning, middle, and end, let alone, something in friggin iambic pentameter! However, I did write this one little poem. You have been warned.

__________________________________________________

Road side

By Garik Charneco

Tires pop
Keer-swish!
Rims hit metal, swords on asphalt.
Rubber patches alternating on blacktop.
Bluub-screech! Bluub-screech!

Driver screams
Oh, my God!
Hard breathing
Inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale
Flashers tick tock
Automotive metronome

Phone rings
I am stuck
Read the signs
Halsey at County Road 12
Why?
I think it hit a curb

Tires pop
Keer-swish!
Kinetic to potential
Progress stopped.

_________________________________________

Poems are hard, yo! Best left to professionals. Peace!

Flood Watch

The basement to our apartment flooded today. Amanda and I live in the bottom of a house that is split in half to create two apartments. Ours leads right into the basement through a side door and when I went in there today to grab my bike, I stepped into a good quarter inch of water. The hot water heater sprung a big leak and we were lucky the stuff didn't spill over into our place. The landlord immediately rushed over and got a plumber to replace the heater, but we still got a flooded basement to deal with. This inspired me to write up this little brief. The house I grew up in also had a flood-prone basement. I guess basements are pretty rare in PR, so it definitely made for an ice breaker whenever the relatives came over. Those experiences also inspired me.

_____________________________________

Untitled

By Garik Charneco

Staccato rules the neighborhood. After the hurricane, everyone fires up the generators they bought the night before. Each unit is still shiny, the generous gas tanks still hungry for refills. Our generator cannot compare to the new ones, except in noise. It rumbles with the best of the new ones, at least those without mufflers.

Runka-runka-runka-runka! The noise echoes against the concrete in our basement, the tiny two-horsepower motor churning out enough power for the fridge, a single fan, and a TV. Christie will turn the fan to high around noon time and then we lose the TV. Nothing to watch anyway, just the broadcast stations on 24-hour alert. The generator goes on. Runka-runka-runka-runka!

The DPW just opened the freeway and my uncle Peter brings his kids over. They do not have a generator, living in the walk-up apartments out by the mall. Generators are prohibited, just like any and all pets. His kids, my little cousins, cringe at the cacophony. Alissa, the oldest, inhales deep and imitates the noise. Runka-runka-runka-runka, in the best rumble an eleven year old can do.

Uncle Peter came for ice, but Christie persuades them to stay for dinner. She waves a platter of chicken thighs she just grilled up on the charcoal Hibachi. "It's to keep them from spoiling for just a little bit longer," she explains to the kids. "But they will do much better in your stomachs!" She smiles as the boy, Manny, sandwiches a crispy thigh between slices of wheat bread. We eat dinner out in the backyard, so that we don't have to strain our voices over the generator. Runka-runka-runka-runka!

It is 10-o'clock. The gas in the generator dwindles to fumes. Rrrrrr....unka-rrrrrr.....unka-rrrrr...rrr....unka! Uncle Peter grabs his bag of ice and calls out to the kids. We gave them the Scrabble board to play with after dinner, but that lasted only thirty minutes. They took to watching a rock dove remake its nest in the splintered end of a fallen cabbage palm. After the sun feel, they watched the wax bead away from a candle. They will have no power at their house, but they are eager to leave. Rrrrrr..ddrrrr...unkk...rrrrr...rrr....
The generator dies. The lights go out. Uncle Peter almost stumbles down the stairs.

Christie and I have taken to bed early these nights, just after the generator runs out of fuel. Alissa asks, "Can I see it? It's just so noisy."
We grab flashlights and head down to the basement, which is just off the side of the garage, down three gentle concrete steps. The generator lays silent, but it's body gives off a dull glimmer in the darkness. The body gives off a ghostly orange color, like lava rock hitting the ocean water. The kids gasp. "That's cool," says Manny, aiming his flashlight at it. The beam kills the glow and his sister swats the light away. Uncle Peter says, "Like a dying campfire." I step into the actual basement and the storm water in it licks the top of my soles. I splash some water at the glow and the darkness sizzles.

____________________________

Onomatopoeia, yo! Peace!

We're back!

The moving is complete! Well, sort of. I am all settled in, but Amanda still needs to bring her stuff at the end of May. So we still got some hauling to do, but I can now blog without having to worry about what box I put the mouse in or fending off high school kids at the public library. 30-minute limit, kids!

But, even in this hiatus, I have been writing. I have produced six pieces for one of the local alternative newspapers! WOO! The freelance writing gig is pretty nice. This paper has some decent resources behind it and gets published every week, instead of when everyone can get their stuff together. The Tompkins County area possess plenty of citizen-alternative journalism ventures, but plenty fail to gather enough steam to actually become a periodical. Also, the job pays! WOO!
Finally, I love being able to say that I am actually doing freelance writing. I love that word, "freelance." I want to put it in front of every activity. My friend Jing and I were having a discussion on the topic. He wanted to do "freelance eating." Awesome.

So I will try to keep the posts coming and cook up other excuses for future droughts. Just like normal! Peace!

"I clear my head and concentrate. My emerald girl is waiting for me. Throttling like an F-16. I strap in, and let her fly."

Hal Jordan knows a thing or two about coming back!

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!