tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30175913843497654722024-03-05T20:44:28.155-05:00Woofy Wordsmy various rants and raves, almost certain to contain trace elements of nuts, sugar, dairy products and rageTimmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-58115521141707205222014-07-02T22:40:00.002-04:002014-07-02T22:40:10.190-04:00DROITS DE SEIGNEUR<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">DROITS DE SEIGNEUR<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">I partially cede mes droits de seigneur<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">For a guided tour of the lands of my flesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Rappel gently down the cliffs of my neck<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">And mark your place with indents small.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Explore the stalagmites of my chest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">And the echoing heart – listen close to the
walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Cling fast to the arms to assist your descent,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">And use them as harness to hold you in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">The rumbling stomach like boulders in fall – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">And on that subject, the abutments below.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Feel free to traverse them, even crawling by
hand,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">And mayst even bow down, kiss the earth if you
will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">The back country, though, is most unexplored,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Thus likely to remain, guarded by and from
Bears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">The tree-trunk legs are not maple – I entreat, do
not tap – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">But you mayst feel free to rub on their rough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">And the footlands, feel free to linger and
explore,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">And sample their delicacies slow as you please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Take all time that’s required to ascend to the
heights,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">Where I reclaim my rights with the flag of a
kiss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA">Tim, 7-2-14<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-22408814445491431242013-11-14T09:14:00.003-05:002013-11-14T09:16:24.482-05:00Another short story of mine, ca. 1998 or 1999<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">THE
SEA OF POSSIBILITIES<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As John strode through the high school
corridor, head up to find air in the closeness, Patti Smith chanted in his headphones
that there was a rhythm generating down the hallway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There was one, pounded out in
textbooks, showers and boy/girl sexuality, with variations tattooed in
response, but he ignored it – it did not suit his style of dancing. Unfortunately, the affair did not take to
wallflowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Horst, Will and Craig were lounging by
their lockers, abstractly beautiful bodies, concretely ugly minds. As John passed, and winter light hit his
multi-coloured hair, a plan was formulated between the lads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Collectivity was needed, as they
lacked the imagination and will to act alone.
Herd mentality protected groups and justified common goals, no matter
where it was found.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John had nearly reached the school’s
front entrance when they struck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It was like ballet. The tape player, ripped from John’s grasp,
went into a corner of the foyer, playing tinnily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With precision, Will held John’s arms,
exposing the heart to choreographed blows from Horst.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Craig called out steps and provided
encouragement and direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John was stage and audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Patti was asking the listener whether
s/he liked it like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The offenders did. John held a different, unsolicited opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Finally, the performance was over, and
the players left the stage, talking and patting each other on the back. Having shown they were men, affection was
sanctioned and sanctified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Time passed at a variable rate. As it was four o’clock, and the school was
deserted, no-one came to his aid. His
diminishing resources were marshaled to pull himself up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Once on his feet, he staggered to the
washroom to tidy up and survey damage.
Enraptured as he had been by the experience, he had not noticed
individual elements – careless, but understandable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The mirror was warped and stained, but
served. There were marks on his neck
where Horst’s fingers had found purchase – or perhaps it had been Will’s – they
could not keep their hands off him.
Given other circumstances, that might have been flattering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">While his chest was tender, nothing
appeared broken to sight or touch. They
had not targeted his eyes, except for a few scrapes – kind, since old bruises
had not yet faded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Bashers often targeted eyes, he had
learned somewhere. They could not stand
another man’s look, and had to avert gays/gaze permanently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the back of his mind, John almost
wished he HAD been blinded by them.
However, that was a short-lived, dark fantasy, as it was important to
look at such people defiantly until they cringed away in shame/fear/desire –
polite engagement was for the polished, among victims and perpetrators – and as
there was beauty to see in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">But now was no time for
philosophy. He had to return ‘home’,
because it was his night to prepare dinner, and the others who lived there (not
his family – he had none since the death of his mother and the departure of his
sister – his father and brother were mere ties in poisoned blood) would be
upset if he failed to fulfill his designated duties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He looked out the door, scanning for
the trinity. Not seeing them, he went to
his locker, put on his leather jacket (stopping to ensure Patti’s voice rang
true – it did), combed his thatch again and left, Patti moaning in his ears
about how her friends were not here today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He had to walk slower than usual, so
his father’s car was already home when he arrived there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Furthermore, his older brother’s
bicycle was sprawled across the sidewalk again, for which, although it was not
John’s bike, he would somehow be blamed, because all fault accrued to him with
interest, or disinterest – he should have been home earlier to put away the
bicycle his brother had failed to (it was vital to give a semblance of order to
chaos that was ‘order’) – which meant he too had returned from school earlier
than usual (Ed attended a school across town, to avoid being seen around
John). They both would be hungry, or
expecting to be fed, whether they actually had any desire for supper or not –
it was routine, and ritual existed outside need or justification…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John paused, took a deep breath and
stepped through the doorway, abandoning hope as he did. Certain things were left behind upon entering
prison – overt emotion was one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ed was the first vision to
appear. “Got beat up, huh, freak?” he
jeered, mouth full of something undefined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ed was not a freak. He looked like what he thought everyone else
did, and monitored his actions and words accordingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He was, in short, normally
abnormal. This phenomenon was well-known
to John, but invisible to many others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Normally, John would have let that
slide. Today, however…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“How do you know?” John muttered. “How do you hear these things?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“When don’t ya, freak!” Ed replied
with what he doubtless thought good humour.
“’Sides, Will phoned me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Until now, John was not aware Ed knew
anyone from John’s school. Of course, it
should have been no surprise. Evil is a
party animal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ed was expecting a response – John
could tell – as he was standing there, poised and quivering like a regulation
mouse-trap. As John did not want what
cheese could be gained by risking the device, he shrugged and walked towards
his room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ed grabbed John’s shoulder. John realized that sore spot had been missed
in his self-examination. No matter – he
did not give Ed a clear reaction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Leave ‘em alone! Quit looking at ‘em
and they’ll stop hitting you.” Ed probably meant this as kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There was no way not to look at Horst,
Will and Craig, however, because they were everywhere and wanted to be
regarded. On their terms. Fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“When you gonna act normal?” Ed called
out after his as John shut his door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“When normal acts like me,” John
muttered as he gingerly removed his jacket and shirt. A poster of Darby Crash looked down upon him
with confusion, anger and some form of desire.
The parallel to his feelings from a closet-case suicide was cold
comfort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He sat on the bed’s edge and took deep
gulps of air, but he was no more able to catch his breath here than anywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John got up and went into the kitchen,
contemplating the sustenance he would have to take.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And there was the father, hunched over
the brown beer bottle altar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“About time,” the old man
slurred. “You hanging out with your
faggy friends again?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I don’t have ‘faggy friends’,” John
muttered foolishly. Then he froze, near
the refrigerator, and the shadow fell across him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John’s head bounced against the
freezer compartment and he slid down the spotless white appliance, hands
dragging magnets in the shape of fruit and chocolate boxes and idyllic homes
down with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Don’t you sass me, boy!” the father
roared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For the second time that afternoon,
John staggered up on his feet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It was darkly amusing to John that
no-one but bashers and his male jailers/fellow inmates ‘read’ him as gay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It was probably true, in the latter
case, that they had some insight into him, though, like all character analyses,
ideological glaucoma clouded the vision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As to bashers, a number of theories
had been presented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There was the idea that bashers were
themselves gay, an argument which had never held weight for him, if only
because anyone that concerned with conformity, who was a non-conformist only in
the sexual sense, should have bought the problematic pacifist mentality
plaguing the gay scene and never laid a finger on another human being, even in
self-defense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Internalized homophobia also struck
him as a dubious concept. Patterned as
it was on assumed commonalities, shared goals, beliefs and cultural images, it
was used to attack gay rebels as much as straight bigots. John was aware that he would be accused of
it, were he to run across the wrong people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John favoured the divide and rule theory
– that bashers and some gays targeted those viewed and constructed as weak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It was grimly true that few bashers
were as single-issue as the identity politicians who claimed to combat them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Such thoughts occurred to John as he
stirred soup and rubbed his pained head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Naturally, no-one credited him with
ideas. He was, after all, only
seventeen, and thus not as wise as those subsumed in either queer or straight
culture. Furthermore, his outsider
status made him unworthy to comment, just as no-one in North America had any
right to speak about Hong Kong and no single person had the right to speak
about the abusive nature of a married relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John was not entirely ungrateful about
living in Toronto, however.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The city was, after all, the gay
Mecca/Shangri-la/Brigadoon – thus holy, idyllic and prone to not appearing to
the unclean or those not in the right place at the right time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He had extensive access to gay
materials, books, magazines and groups.
He had even read a few, and had one or two hidden away in obscure
locations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There is nothing more alienating than
knowing one is gay and being told by the holy texts of one’s alleged (queer)
culture that one is not – not to mention by the prophets of one’s tribe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With the possible exception of Who’s Emma,
the anarchist bookstore/record store, there was no queer space John felt
comfortable in, and neither was any queer space comfortable with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">‘Divide and rule’ cut far too many
ways, a deadly razor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Punks were a threat to gays, he had
been told more times than he cared to think about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Of course, gays were also a threat to
(queer) punks (and were also bashers and accomplices to self-murder, were the
implications carried to the fullest extent) if that attitude went unchallenged –
and for the most part, it did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And naturally, punks were also a
threat to (queer) punks in many cases.
This also went largely unquestioned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">‘Queer community’ as a monolith was a
farce and, most disgusting of all, was often known to be one by participants,
who still felt as though it were out of their control – which it could never
be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Freedom to dance to disco music. Freedom to wear a suit – to marry and replicate
the circumstances that led to his mother’s suicide and his sister’s fleeing the
soul-destroying environment of ownership disguised as love, before she did the
same – to fight for welfare reforms that would mean death for many people with
AIDS (bad queers?) – to have pride parades acknowledged by the enemy (police,
government and big business) – in fact, to have the enemy set up camp in the
midst of these commercial ventures – this ‘community’, John could live without.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Quit thinking and get over here!”
John’s father suddenly bellowed from the dining room table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John sighed very quietly and lifted
the soup from the stove, pouring it into shallow bowls set out nearby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">But at last the evening was over. The father had fallen asleep into a drunken
stupor over the kitchen table. Ed was holed
up in his room with the latest victim of love, who had come after supper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John sat for a moment or two in the
darkness of the “TV lounge”, staring at his reflection in the silenced, dark
television, then rose and slipped into his bedroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The magazine had a high gloss to it,
although it was words on paper and captured images, like any ‘zine. John lay on his bed and flipped through it
absently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He was told these men were
beautiful. So were Horst, Will and
Craig, however – all muscular with well-combed hair and big, vacant
smiles. It was surface – the surface of
an alien world that might contain wonders, but also menace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Normalcy and respectability were the
keywords. To be like Conrad Black –
successful, well-attired, generally arrogant and self-absorbed – was the goal
to shoot for. One had to show
seriousness by taking part in what John viewed as a sick joke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Jayne
Mansfield – why did a sub-group claiming interest in the masculine cling to
long-dead (physically and/or artistically) female icons? (He was not
necessarily disapproving of this phenomenon – just wondering – and questions
did seem welcome in this area.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Why these ones? Had culture ceased to
develop around 1969, when those ‘unacceptable, stereotypical, sexist’ (that
label should burn in the mouths of the hypocrites who spoke it!) drag queens
had rioted and allowed ahistorical jerks years later to deride them in their
publication?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What of Patti Smith? What of Poly
Styrene? If anything, the alleged interest the queer community had in breaking
down stereotypes, which, unfortunately, tended to mean marginalizing non-conformists
with greater efficiency than the straight world practiced, should have driven
them to these women. Their entire body
of work fought for the importance of self and finding one’s place within
oneself as well as without.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In any war between the two, ‘within’
had to win, but it was not always possible to survive that battle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John went over to the record player he
had inherited from his sister and put his battered copy of <i>Horses</i> on – to “Land”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Patti chanted about the hallway, the
boy, the angel and the fight/fucking as John lay there in the dark and held his
arms around himself tightly – protection, a pinning in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The needle leapt across the record and
stabbed down hard. John, briefly
entranced by the chanting and the throbbing music, returned to full
consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Up there, there is a sea – a sea of
possibilities…”, Patti chanted, as various other tracks of her voice intoned
words John had never heard clearly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Tonight, though he still did not hear
the actual sub-texts, he began to think it may have been contradictions and
doubts and influences that colour even the most assured work of art/life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is necessary to listen to these
voices, for they might be your own reflected back at you through the headphones
as you make the record you will leave behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is not essential to do what they
say, but to ignore them is to miss fragments of wisdom, or those who are
speaking your language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Frantic now, Patti was screaming about
the sea of possibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John squeezed his eyes tight, both to
hide the tears (he had been well-trained) and to see the inside – for eyes open
wide may miss the internal vista for the ugliness and beauty that lie without.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He started to quietly whisper, “There
is a sea – a sea of possibilities…there is no land but the land.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.5pt; line-height: 200%;">“Ah, pretty boy – can’t you show me
nothing but surrender?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 22.0pt; line-height: 200%;">YES.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-31140385949269845732013-11-12T11:35:00.003-05:002013-11-12T11:35:46.643-05:00A short story of mine from the mid-to-late-1990s...<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">LESLEY
GORE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“You
would cry too – if it happened to you…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am in bed. I should be at work but, as I am not, I will
listen to Lesley Gore on the end-table radio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I admire how “It’s My Party” is
occupied by the interpreter until she is virtually the author of its defiant
sorrw. It is a rare skill; Ella
Fitzgerald had it, perhaps – or Ann…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Without it, I might not have awakened,
though I set my alarm for 6:30 and was given “Satisfaction”, which I would
normally like – yet I pillowed my head, only to receive “Walk Away Renee”, “For
No-One” and “She’s Leaving Home”. Irony
is alive and well in radio programming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is over. I should rise to face the day, as my class
depends on my, and pays for my questionable assistance/collaboration, for
regular, meaningless lives and chances to mock the conventions of Renaissance
verse, said derision being filtered through their laughably simplistic
assumptions – but that is too easy an irony to use outside a sitcom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sometimes I agreed with them, though I
tried to concentrate on the art involved.
Today, the required distance for that is far away, as is: the floor; the bathroom; the kitchen; the
university and…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Her
name is – her name is – her name is – her name is –
G…L…O...R…I…A…Gloooooooriaaaaaa…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With a deft snap of the button and a
disturbing snap of the knees, I am up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am clean in the semi-fogged bathroom
mirror. As life is not a stock comedy, I
am bald, beardless, fifty, fat and arguably fatuous, rather than wild-haired,
stubbled, thin, adolescent and terrified, like the child I imagine I should be
feeling like inside. Still, somehow, I
cannot bear the dissonance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Silence. A voice should be in the kitchen, telling me
to hurry. I paid there, puddling the
floor, and turn the radio to another station, for cross-talk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“…seeing
things we used to do – they think of you – I sit and watch as tears go
bye-uh-I-uh-I…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This tie does not go with the chosen
shirt (how taut to pull?); also, the knot is too tight (dismiss that
thought…). I struggle with the noose
until it is loose enough for me to breathe.
(It does not do to embrace random despair. It is cheating on Life with Death.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Looking among my clean clothes for a
better shirt, I find a pocketed note.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“My” pastel garment – not personally
purchased – nearly another’s – needing absence’s permission to put on?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Therefore, it is impossible to wear –
anymore? I cannot throw out the message, so I place it on the dresser, near an
outdated “family” photograph.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Because
– every time I see your picture I cry – and I learn – to get over you – one
more time…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My stations rarely play Canadian
Content or the recent past. I have not
heard properly – or someone has made a terrible mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I…terrible mistake”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Badly ironic – poetic. Like a frustrated English
teacher/author. On which point, Leonard
Cohen’s narrator bemoaned not comparing Anne’s eyes to the sun until her
departure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The parallel fails. I did compose odes to my Ann’s body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Bathroom. “…come on…TAKE IT! Take another little piece
of my heart now, baby…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To work, where colleagues take up
torment’s duties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kitchen. “Do you know how to pony – like Bony Marony?
Do you know how to twist? It goes like this – goes like this…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">These musical strains cruelly invoke a
dancing/sex partner. Out!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I must have grabbed the note before
leaving the house, as it is on the dashboard – a smoking gun/raven/Deathly
figure/device of Plot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I will not dwell on Ann. I must make mind as Homeless as body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I roll down a window to admit
air. The paper drifts to my lap and
tries to open, but I toss it near the brake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Coincidence is fine, but it must know
who is boss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“You
better stop – look around. Here it comes
– here it comes – here it comes – here it comes – here comes your nineteenth
nervous breakdown…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Obvious, and not unexpected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Common sense says I should be able to
deal with grief and being left by women.
My course deals with such things, and my early life was touched by them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Rationality whispers: PULL TO THE SIDE
OF THE ROAD! I cannot see for moisture from the wind in my eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The person who conceived logic
invented its comrade, suicide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am not presently aware of how the
note returned upwards. Did I pick it up?
Has the breeze of Fate struck? Am I an unreliable narrator who never dropped it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Coincidence has climbed the corporate
ladder in leaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As I am not going anywhere, I will
look at the message. Even for the
hanging victim, suspense must end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The note must have been shirted a long
time ago; it has been laundered nearly illegible. Had Ann typed it, this might have been
avoided or reduced. I tried to tell her
so in the past, but she informed me she was not my student anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To my knowledge, learning never stops.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: right;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">February 24/25<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Dear (James?):<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I wanted to speak,
but you ‘lost’ me in ‘profundity’. I do
not need lectures, James – I attended yours, and could not be heard even then.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I am not presently
aware (your phrase – implies resources available but temporarily inaccessible –
denies fallibility) why I (illegible)d you – if I did. You despise clichés, but we started as ‘young
woman – older professor’. This game
continues, so it may be mutual distortion.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">You do not (live? love?)
me, but an idea of me. For and to
myself, I am a human being. Am I a plot
device to you – with no (rule? role?) – who projects at cocktail parties that
you are (illegible – suggest ‘loved’) – who fixes you up before events I am not
invited to? Do I (extend? exist?) outside that to you?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I will not be Muse <b>or</b> whore. I must be complicated – infuriating –
reassuring – loving – raging – or not Be at all. It is clear you want a selection, but are not
sure which. In the case and in ‘your’
stead, though it is not a matter in which you have a choice, I choose none and
all.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We want appeal to
our divinely profane bodies as well as to our souls and minds.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">You have no passion,
James – even for learning. I have tried
to teach you. I do not wish to face my
failure’s consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Mine at last,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ann<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I would fail an undergraduate who
attempted to pass such drivel off!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I start the car and go forward in the required
direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">THIS is why I found an early empty
house yesterday? I was angry enough at THAT betrayal, but…rejected with
self-indulgence and intellectualized hatred or pity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">She should have been dramatic or
crass. I might have listened to her
complaints then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I cannot notice everything. Existence is no heavy-handed book with
clearly marked conflict. Denouement is
not much easier to spot, except with sick dread as gravity and inertia take
their toll.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Static,
then… “I cover my ears – I close my eyes
– I still hear your voice – and it’s telling me – l-i-i-uh-I’s…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I have crossed a reception
barrier. I listen to country briefly,
then spin the dial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I do not believe/feel I am guilty of
the accused things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">…but I am an unreliable narrator, and
truth is endangered in my care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And what of Ann’s care? Was it correct
to suffer me in silence? I had no mirror – what good was one warped or broken
by design – meant to break as though struck by a shotgun blast, leaving shards
in my heart?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Plainness is needed, before ornamental
turns become nooses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Turns.
I have missed mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The road less travelled stretches
long, one-way, unswerving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">No homes. (No-one to see…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">No vehicles. (No-one to hit and create ambiguous
intentions, but no-one to stop me either…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">IT IS JUST EMPTY HIGHWAY! IT IS NO
SYMBOL OF ANYTHING, JAMES!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The part of my mind which does not
believe in portents tells me so, contradicting the portion which feels doomed
and open to consciously chosen leitmotifs.
WE write the story of our lives, even if society’s blue pencil hovers
nearby to frustrate in aid’s name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ann might be impressed. This grief does not feel stylized to me,
though qualifiers must be born(e) in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I pull over. I must not be accosted by concern, law or
order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“…You
don’t own me. I’m not just one of your
many toys…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Coincidence and conspiracy have come
to Lesley Gore’s least successful hit.
Until recently, I thought it her most admirable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I never claimed to own Ann, but a
portion of a relationship. I thought
termination would have been difficult, but given effort, it might have seemed
beneficial in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Conceded. I thought I owned her. By distancing myself from those boorish
bastards who beat, belittle and banish their wives, I neglected to notice I was
treating Ann as my intellect’s exclusive property.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The glove compartment is stuffed
overfull and pops open, Fate’s fickle finger working into me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Well.
Ann has left something behind to remember her by – to leave an
impression deep in my head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">She never felt safe alone in the
care. Now, neither do I.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I hid(e) behind irony, sarcasm and
Fate – an author/man/coward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I view(ed) the world as myself
extended – an author/coward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I believe(d) others accept(ed) this
premise and (w)a(s)m reluctant to conceive rejection – a man/coward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I cannot live, having been told where
to place these truisms. I am a coward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Suicide is noble and required. I am a(n) (author) (man) (coward).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Here, on this route to the future
(though it may end abruptly at a field meant and designed to be enlivened by
waste and death) with no evidence anyone shall follow it to eventuality, I
shall, from my point of view, put an end to events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I hope you suffer me once more, Ann,
if you hear of this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Spite is something of which I did not
think myself capable. One is constantly
surprised by what one can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So to speak. Constancy is not in the cards for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The gun is virtually invisible in my
huge, grasping hand. No art, high or
low, be it novel, painting, song or even film, has prepared me for its
intrusive, icy, snub nose against my suddenly damp temple-skin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“…he
blew his mind out in a car. He didn’t
notice that the lights had changed…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At this late date, I would like to
change my mind – not that I am not about to, if I may be permitted
gallows/morgue humour. Pop music is
today’s literature – barren and humble at first, swelling to a pregnancy of
meaning and an arrogance in its knowledge of the ‘soul’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is a moment of waking into joy from
a nightmare before one realizes that the dream of desertion was real, blurring
the purpose and the existence of rising at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 94.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is a spiritual ode to a wife
lusting for a physical touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is a drive on a deserted road, a
gun in the glove compartment, when one hopes for/needs company/a map to
fulfillment and/or/through emptiness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is Fate’s heavy hands around the
blood-burdened heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt;">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Will<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Never<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Stop!?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">SQUEEZE!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0in; tab-stops: 94.5pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It has…</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-48469262028103827032013-04-28T12:42:00.004-04:002013-04-28T12:42:31.788-04:00The Fall Record Day Store 2013 7" :)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hGWC3new6bQtIMI2zGvKGfPKGUX_hEnCubcpO-Iv5GPCs-eriTZaqXMc2E4xYzyhnqbb5-Jfswfydz49CtimlIDZaO2QUGlc4JrYN5J1m_6dQYE6CnNmnV_CSQq1IttLs1WyJwO3csxb/s1600/sirwilliamraythefallsingle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="614" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hGWC3new6bQtIMI2zGvKGfPKGUX_hEnCubcpO-Iv5GPCs-eriTZaqXMc2E4xYzyhnqbb5-Jfswfydz49CtimlIDZaO2QUGlc4JrYN5J1m_6dQYE6CnNmnV_CSQq1IttLs1WyJwO3csxb/s640/sirwilliamraythefallsingle.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-2249310283258351742013-03-14T21:24:00.002-04:002013-03-14T21:24:55.378-04:00MORT THE LEECHshort story in progress.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Noah had been sitting Shiva for his departed mother for seven days, so given the darkened nature of the house, both emotionally and literally, as well as the covered mirrors and the fact that he was alone, as the sole survivor of the family, it was not surprising he did not notice the intruder until the man literally announced himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Hi, Noah,” a naggingly familiar voice said, startling him to the point he fell off the admittedly slippery, plastic-covered sofa. Of course, given that he had barely eaten or slept for seven days, since his mother had had few friends left, other than the Rosenberg twins down the road who had brought company and food that were not especially appetizing, though it would have been impolite to say so at such a time, he was on edge and easily surprised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Noah got up off the floor and turned to face the voice, instinctively, if not very correctly, pulling together his torn shirt, given the fact he had a visitor, albeit possibly a criminal and, at the very least, suspicious one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “And you would be…?” Noah said, though even as he did, his squint penetrated the slightly twilight dimness of the living room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Is that you, Mort?” Noah said. “I haven’t seen you since high school. Have you come to pay your respects?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Ah,” Mort said sheepishly. “That would explain the torn clothing, the mirrors and, well, frankly, the fact that you kind of smell.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yes,” Noah said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">“My mother, Esther, died, and what with Dad being dead and me being the only child, there was no-one else to sit Shiva.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Turns out she didn’t have many friends either.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The rabbi’s been by, of course, but I’ve pretty much been here alone for seven days since the burial.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Sorry to hear that,” Mort said. “I haven’t really been keeping up with the newspapers, so I didn’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Ah,” Noah said. “I figured maybe you heard about it on Facebook. After all, I befriended you there about a month ago. Imagine, at our ages, fooling around on that page – you’d think we were twenty instead of fifty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Yeah, well,” Mort rejoined. “You gotta do something to feel like you’re still living, nu?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Yes,” Noah said vaguely. “I’m not wild about that turn of phrase right now, but I know what you mean.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “I’m not completely sure you do,” Mort countered, heading over towards one of the mirrors, which was incongruously covered in faded Bionic Man sheets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“What are you doing?” Noah said, slightly alarmed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“It’s already sunset,” Mort soothed.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Seven days are over.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I think it’s important you see this – or rather, don’t see this.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">With one dramatic flourish, he pulled the sheet from the mirror above the fireplace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Noah saw himself, and was glad he would soon be able to shave, to shower and to comb his hair.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">What he did NOT see was…Mort.</span></div>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-77084266829016994812013-03-14T21:24:00.001-04:002013-03-14T21:24:30.194-04:00MY PUSSY IS A SOCIOPATH<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">MY PUSSY IS A SOCIOPATH</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">My pussy is a sociopath.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">It makes its demands of oppressed billionaires</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Who want more and more of my less and less.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">It says: ‘Read my lips, cunts! No new taxing</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">My patience. Do not pound your nonsense into me</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Just because I’m wearing your school uniform.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Your scissors determined the cut – </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Just as my teeth will determine yours.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">My pussy is a sociopath.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">It finds your protrusions to be tiresome,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Approximate dictations and so short of sight.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">It says: ‘limp sleeping serpents and vaguely wet fuses</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Do not frighten me as much as you think.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">I can pounce on you like a legged clam,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">And surround you with depths you can barely fathom – </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Bobbitt was just the start, little man.’</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">My pussy is a sociopath,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">To what you consider society to be.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">51 , a high number for your stubby things.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">It says: ‘don’t inflict nature while those little blue pills</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Are serving to shore up your ego like sand.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">We can rise up much higher than you ever will</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">and we can close our door when you come back from war.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">So get in the kitchen and cook up some change.’</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: cyan;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: cyan; color: red;">Tim 3-14-13</span></div>
<span style="background-color: cyan;"><br /></span>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-9349424985324366572012-12-09T22:19:00.005-05:002012-12-09T22:19:59.116-05:00An Apple, A Day<br />
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">AN APPLE, A DAY</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“This is the way the
world ends, this is the way the world ends…”<br />
<br />
It is peculiar, the bits of doggerel and songs that drift through your mind
before you wake up in the morning or, for that matter, AFTER you wake up. It is
also not particularly reassuring or even appropriate, given that the sun is
trickling in through the tiny gap in your billed-as-blackout curtains and, when
you open them, pouring in like a flood, revealing a glorious day.<br />
<br />
What is also peculiar is the presence of an apple sitting on your bedside
table, as you did not leave one there last night, and you live alone. Then
again, you are getting older, and that certainty may not be etched in the
proverbial stone.<br />
<br />
The apple is a symbol of so many wonderful things. Good health, as it keeps the
doctor away, though it might be argued that that state’s continuation may be
contingent on having a doctor SOMEWHERE nearby. Adoration, as in ‘the apple of
your eye’ (an expression which is odd to you, given that it suggests there is a
green, yellow or red covering over that organ, a somewhat squishy interior
(which is accurate, granted) and some unpleasant seeds within).<br />
<br />
It also has more unsavoury associations. There is the Garden of Eden story (and
while we may be getting ahead of ourselves here, levels of reality in which
apples do not exist (or indeed, ANY kind of fruit) do not feature an endless
rent-free stay in Paradise – God is far too inventive a sadistic father for
THAT…). William Tell springs to mind
also, which <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">in turn inspires the
concept of that murderous game the OTHER William played with Joan Vollmer,
though that featured a water tumbler (water also is a mixed symbol, but there
is not going to be enough time to address that or any other heavy-handed allusions)
and also dragged in the poppy (see previous parenthesized remark). And, of
course, Snow White, which is a sufficiently disturbing story to contemplate
WITHOUT bringing in the poisonous fruit, given her co-habitation with a flock
of diminutive bachelors. On which point, that sheen on the modern
agricultural-industry-promoted apple betrays chemicals that could accumulate in
your body and kill you.<br />
<br />
But, as you reassure yourself while going through your morning ablutions, this
is far too nice a day to dwell on such morbid and troubling contemplations,
even if it does feature roughly eight hours of soul-destroying data entry ahead
of you.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">While you debate between
five identical shirts, twelve black pants and six pairs of wingtips (black),
the mysterious observer of your banal rituals has time to look away and
consider a few things.<br />
<br />
As was observed by HG Wells, man is not alone in the universe. However, that
only goes so far – in fact, the UNIVERSE is not alone in the universe. There
are, in fact, multiplicities of universes, some of which feature realities that
even the most inventive or substance-abusing writer could not envision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">For example, peel away
just a few layers of the cosmic onion and a world is discovered in which you
did not wake up this morning. No, not in that sense, though there are more than
a few billion of THOSE as well. Reassure yourself that it simply means the
local equivalent of an alarm clock did not go off, and you continued on
dreaming your empty life away. In many ways, that is more fortunate, though not
for that version of you’s employment. As to those other billions, we will leave
it to you to decide, in the time that remains, whether THAT would have been
preferable.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
<br />
And, yes, as has been noted earlier, there are planes of existence on which
apples do not exist. This did not always prevent the subsequent events, as the
mysterious force (call it God, fate or historical determinism – under the
circumstances, it hardly matters) had at least 109 alternate plans for each
level, with some being entirely unique to a given alternative, such as the one
involving…but there are no terms for it on the world you occupy, so never mind.<br />
<br />
But now you are ready to leave, or at least you have arbitrarily determined
there is nothing else to keep you here, since you had no opportunity to get
food last night </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">before
you had to hurry home to watch television, so you will have to grab something
on your way to work. At least you have an apple, regarding which you bury your
vague presentiments of worry and snatch up to take with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">In case you are curious, this is, in
fact, plan #109, as you have proven remarkably resistant and/or oblivious to
earlier attempts involving automotive system failures, chemical spills at work,
fires that incorporated plastics and other toxic-fume-producing </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">substances and even minor incidents of
psychotic breaks from reality. There is something to be said for single-minded
determination to get to work and to continue the routines of your life, though
we who are recording these events in the aftermath are not certain what it is.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In any case, your car
started without incident, as even the vaguely gremlin-like being who is the
chief executive officer of your reality does not care to repeat his methods of
mischief, particularly given the previous failures and the remarkable
resilience you have demonstrated by joining car pools, using public transit,
hauling out a dusty bicycle (whose chain perversely refused to break, fall off
or jam, despite the best efforts of junior and senior programmers alike in,
shall we say, God’s employ) or, on another glorious though less ominous day,
walking the roughly thirty-seven minutes to your dark satanic mill.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Fortunately,
the fact that your coffee cup holder was occupied by an enormous carafe of foul
stimulant, left over from the previous day, and your coin receptacle was,
unimaginatively, filled with money, toll chits and even video game tokens, a
testimony to a somewhat cheerful if vaguely immature clinging to the vestiges
of your youth, meant </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">that you had no choice
but to put the apple on the narrow dashboard, as a particularly junior agent in
God’s employ had projected that you would, ensuring himself a five-minute break
from playing harp and praising the Eternal, a few centuries down the line.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As you turned onto
Wormwood Drive (yes, heavy-handed, we realize, but we are merely recorders
here, not editors or cynical critics), the apple rolled off the dashboard and
fell neatly under the braking device on your car. You failed to notice this,
distracted as you were by the handsome bearded gentleman occupying the car next
to you (we do not judge here, preferring to leave this to the cruel and
unforgiving gremlin aforementioned).<br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At this same
moment, a few blocks away, an employee of the local military base, who has been
charged with the awesome, if of late dull, responsibility of possessing</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">the codes to launch or
abort the nuclear missiles that form the main part of your MAD détente (we believe
this stood for ‘mutually assured destruction’, and is a sign of either
obliviousness or exceedingly black humour as acronyms go), is struggling with
getting the lid off his own container of foul stimulant, though his is in
flimsy cardboard rather than the thin metal comprising yours. Though he
routinely fails to slow at the yellow light or even stop for the red at the
intersection you are both approaching, this has typically resulted only in
honking horns and digital demonstrations in the past. It should be added that
that will NOT be the case today, and that, in any case, discussions of the
past, present or future are about to be moot.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Approximately coinciding
with this, two other improbable events have occurred. The OTHER person who has
the codes has just discovered that her husband, in addition to leaving her, has
taken the atypical-for-his-gender step of shredding all of the clothes in her
bedroom closet (and, as it happens, also taking her cell phone, which will have
a fairly obvious consequence in a short time), leaving her with literally
nothing to wear to work, thus compelling her to call in and inform her employer
that she will be late. She then starts to call up her few friends who will
admit to having the same dress size as her, in hopes of borrowing something not
too tasteless or vulgar at least long enough to get to the store and replace
some crucial garments, and finally succeeds at this, leaving the house in her
full-length mink and winter boots…but this is outside the narrative of the
story, which is about to end anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">
<br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Meanwhile,
a mouse that has quietly, if with some potential for peril, lived inside the
launching apparatus at the base has chosen THIS day to nibble at a few critical
wires. This ends its life, which would have been ended shortly anyway, but it
also has the consequence that even the
oh-my-god-we-can’t-find-the-codes-we-must-shut-this-thing-down-COLD backup
system will be inaccessible. Its dying convulsions also succeed in starting the
launch sequence. As we have said before, God has his sadistic and heavy-handed
moments.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
You succeed in spotting the car going through the intersection, as you are a
cautious driver, but your attempt at braking is thwarted by the fruit wedged
under the pedal. In an <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">understandable moment of
panic, assisted by tweaks from Beyond, you inadvertently push down both the gas
pedal and the accelerator, resulting in a horrific crash, an explosion and the
end of both your existence and that of the code-holder. These, of course, are
not the only deaths that day.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
<br />
Since God (for lack of a better term) is able to think AND act globally,
similar events of equally improbable coincidence occur in the part of the world
with which you are currently at eternal war, which would be known as the Middle
East in your particular subset of the universe. Incredible as it may seem, on
another layer of the cosmic onion, your nation state is engaged in a ceaseless
ideological conflict with the region corresponding to your Liechtenstein, which
managed to acquire a nuclear bomb due to its failing to give women the vote and
thus having no voice of reason or intelligence to stop the madness (we are
editorializing, we know, but it hardly matters now that all ideologies are
about to be proven either false or true). The</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">leaders of the United Arab Emirates deeply, if briefly, rue
their decision to switch their communications links with missile control to a
new satellite in the same week as massive sun spot activity is reported. In
that other reality, otherwise so similar to yours, women have the ultimate ‘I
told you so’ and ‘If we ruled the world, we’d make a much better job of it’
lecturing opportunity, though they of course have to speak quickly, which is
not a problem to the half of the human species that some anthropologists
believe invented language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">In case you feel you
really must know, some people ARE, in fact, ‘called up’ before the end of life
on Earths. They are not the people you might expect, though, and the roster is
not dependent upon donations to badly toupeed religionists or positions of
worldly Godliness. And, as you will discover soon enough, while there IS bodily
resurrection in the next world, it is run through a randomizer. This has some
very distasteful consequences, but it was felt it was both the fairest and
certainly the most fun way to handle it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
<br />
You will have eternity to mull over why God ended all existence throughout the
Multiplicities. There were any number of valid reasons and a corresponding
number of invalid ones. Some of them conflict with one another, but this is
only to be expected in a being who is three-in-one, or possibly even four.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Gnostics may well have been right, and the Latter Day Saints were surprisingly
close. Again, you will find out.<br />
<br />
As you settle into a new and not necessarily any more meaningful state of what
you stubbornly insist on calling ‘life’, we will fade on a bit of doggerel,
with a twist, which is red-shifting its way across the final dying embers of
the universes to you.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Yes, the Multiplicities
do have a physical end point, where you are right now. You are not entirely
surprised to discover that everyone perceives it differently. Some see Mecca;
some Shangri-La; some Valhalla; an unfortunate few see their mother-in-law’s
house at Thanksgiving; or Toronto during an unpleasant world summit and/or
garbage strike, these last two having as a common thread the accumulation of
trash and an unpleasant odour for all concerned.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
<br />
As to what you see, we shall give you the illusion of privacy and draw a
discreet veil – but it is certainly more pleasant, at least superficially, than
the place you spent most of your life.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
“Not with a whimper, but with a bang.”</span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-26427713968976953372012-05-31T17:03:00.001-04:002012-05-31T17:39:53.360-04:00Barbarians cover, in honour of Christine Jourgenson Day<object height="240" width="320"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
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<embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/10150955312730128" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="240"></embed></object>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-87666741643082111552012-05-12T17:29:00.004-04:002012-05-12T17:29:28.458-04:00A BEAR SHOULD KNOW BETTER...AND I DO #7 (my zine)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://db.tt/mYbNT8TJ"><span style="background-color: lime; color: #741b47;">http://db.tt/mYbNT8TJ</span></a></div>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-66979345857360536262012-04-08T19:29:00.003-04:002012-04-08T19:30:17.558-04:00Evaporators LP review<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSSbNNFKwwlmV0hm0EHcmpxT9I8TjKt5ditT3_D7HNyWGvOpukH_KXmICNjFbw0T2a6uv5tnZOz7GQWKBbMjTXJOG2vPGKgq5Lzqvx3p-mLaSM6ZjixqqTcmasOXoj-6stThXwgX8DnPn/s1600/bdn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSSbNNFKwwlmV0hm0EHcmpxT9I8TjKt5ditT3_D7HNyWGvOpukH_KXmICNjFbw0T2a6uv5tnZOz7GQWKBbMjTXJOG2vPGKgq5Lzqvx3p-mLaSM6ZjixqqTcmasOXoj-6stThXwgX8DnPn/s200/bdn.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>Various Artists</strong>, <em>Nardwuar the Human Serviette</em> and the <em>Evaporators</em> Present: <strong><em>Busy Doing Nothing!</em></strong> LP (Mint Records/Nardwuar Records)</div>
<br />
<br />
Nardwuar and his gang have been around for more than twenty years, compiling both wonderful collections of others’ material and original material. This record basically cuts it down the middle, with 8 new selections by The Evaporators, 4 cover tunes of classic early Canadian punk-pop and an interview with Frank Ferdinand (the Scottish band, not the scapegoat/excuse for World War I), all in a hair under half-an-hour (which makes this a little on the short side for a compilation, but about average for an Evaporators LP).<br />
<br />
The covers would be: England’s The Cribs covering early Canadian girl band The Dishrags’ “Death In The Family” (a record which allegedly came out on the British arm of RCA, though there are some doubts about this), in a short energetic burst fairly similar to the original, if not quite as hooky; Kate Nash doing cub’s “My Chinchilla” with quirky preciousness, except for the final minute or so when she rocks it; Franz Ferdinand xeroxing The Pointed Sticks’ “The Real Thing”; and Fuad and the Feztones’ perpetrating frat-rock wonderfulness on The Evaporators’ “Welcome To My Castle”, complete with saxophone and growly vocals.<br />
<br />
On the subject of vocals that are most assuredly NOT growly, we have now arrived at the geeky garage-pop-rock of The Evaporators. Nardwuar can be an acquired taste, as both singer and personality; a friend tells me that he deliberately chose NOT to volunteer at a Vancouver radio station when he learned that Nardwuar worked there. Ooooh, burn…<br />
<br />
Let’s start with the material where they are augmented by special guests. Andrew WK whips out his organ and plays with his ivory on “I Hate Being Late When I’m Early” and “Bring It On Home”, the latter also featuring the sultry contributions of Jill Barber. He also sings on the former, though only occasionally – it has a sort of boogie-metal-punk feel to me, though still nerdy (which makes sense, because I remember what the FANS of metal I knew in high school looked like… :) ). “Bring It On Home” is a cover of a song by a largely forgotten songwriter named Doug Rutledge from British Columbia, and is vaguely rootsy/country/50s rock and roll. Nardwuar manages to shed some of the acquired-taste squeak and adenoidal delivery he typically provides, though he is sort of speak-singing through most of it, until the silly ad lib outro – though at least Nardwuar rightfully thanks Andrew for his awesome keys-pounding. “Hot Dog High” which features Megan Barnes’ enthusiastic vocalizing, as well as Xaul Xan and Sage Francis rapping (I’m reasonably sure that’s a first on an Evaporators disc), is a chugging Ramonesy song whose title pretty well describes the subject, and to which I can only say that I hope it is possible to take some extra credits at Cod Collegiate or Salad Secondary. <br />
<br />
“Milkshake Murder” is a surprisingly catchy, speedy number with a guest saxophone cameo by someone named Corinne Mundell, which is based on a real case in Canada from 1965, in which someone from Vancouver killed his wife with arsenic milkshakes and tried to use as his alibi the fact that he was up on a billboard to promote a car dealership at the time. The title track is sort of average garage-punk-pop, though still pleasant. “Bunk” has a theme much like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio” or “We Want The Airwaves”, though in this case more kvetching about the ‘news’ and how it’s generally telling the ruling class side of things. It has a great bass solo and super-bubblegum-fun organ, though I wanted it to be so much longer! “Pig War” is also based on an obscure Canadian-related event, but it’s over so quickly that I don’t feel like sharing the story (really, neither does the song), except that it involved a border dispute arising from a pig being shot. “All The Bad Girls” sounds sort of like The Cars covering Rockpile, if you can imagine that; in short, somewhat twangy/basic rock with a deadpan vocal style; at least until the shout-it-out last few seconds.<br />
<br />
Nardwuar has mellowed a bit in his interview style, or perhaps it’s because the rise of so many GENUINELY hostile and VICIOUSLY sarcastic radio personalities has made him seem kinder in comparison. In any case, he wraps up this disc with a fun and informative interview with Franz Ferdinand. Though I haven’t really followed them since “Take Me Out” and don’t feel compelled to after this little taster, they do seem like nice enough folks and play along engagingly with the wacky host. <br />
<br />
Oh, I almost forgot – this record comes with, in addition to the download card (in the past, Nardwuar comps came with the actual CD inside the LP – when Skookum Chief came out, you actually HAD to buy the LP to get the CD…), a Nardwuar vs. Bev Davies calendar that has photos and stories about various rock stars the latter photographed, in the form of a 2013 calendar (there’s a single page with just calendar grids for May 2012 to December 2012). This goes a long way towards augmenting the semi-skimpy length of the record, though the record is pretty fun as well while it lasts.<br />
<br />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-1299822558405506422012-04-05T18:11:00.003-04:002012-04-05T18:11:31.308-04:00Grass Widow/Raincoats gig review<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">AT THE ROCK SHOW</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">GRASS WIDOW/RAINCOATS, Wrongbar, Toronto, Ontario, 9/23/11</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">Initially, there was confusion about this gig, both my fault and, to some extent, due to how the event was initially advertised on-line. To make a long story short (it is almost always too late to invoke that by the time you’ve said it), it developed that there were two shows that same evening (which was not clear when I bought my tickets), and it was originally billed as (that act) and The Raincoats, so I bought the tickets for (that act), thinking it was her and then The Raincoats, only to discover when things were updated that I had purchased for the wrong programme. After some frantic negotiations and communications with both Shirley (The Raincoats’ manager) and the event organizer, the boyfriend and I were on the guest list, so we got in cheaper than would normally have been the case, as the tickets for the other act were a smidgen less pricey. (By the way, the other act was Marnie Stern, an excellent guitarist – I would go see her on some other occasion, and would have loved to have seen her if she had been on the bill with The Raincoats, but I wanted to see the band, as there could not be that many more opportunities and, as it develops, they revealed during the intro that they had NEVER played in Canada before).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">There was a very small group of people waiting at the door when we arrived at the designated time (it may not be very rock ‘n’ roll of me, but I foolishly still think the stated kickoff is when things will start), and the door was locked, which caused us some concern. A couple of employees who were going in were unclear when it was starting, though one thought the door would open in about twenty minutes. When that time arrived, we timidly knocked, and a woman came to the door and said she also was not sure when it was going to commence. That woman was, in fact, Ana Da Silva from the band! (It was both a thrill to speak to her, however briefly, and somewhat ominous, given that the GROUP was not sure when it was going to launch).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">When we entered, I sincerely wish I’d had my video camera at the ready, as the band were all gathered over in a corner and Ana and Gina were doing dance moves to the Motown blasting from the jukebox. Candid YouTube moments, foiled again…</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">I’m afraid I hit the merch table in advance of the show, while I could still hear (which is when I had my second conversation with Ana, albeit in terms of her asking me to move my big bearish butt (no, not in those words) so she could get a snapshot of the stuff). I got a t-shirt of The Raincoats (I was glad to see that they actually had one in my size, though the band that recorded ‘Odyshape’, with its critical remarks about size discrimination, would have been ill-served had they NOT), as well as a 45 and a cassette (yes, a cassette) by the opening band, Grass Widow.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">On the subject of Grass Widow – they are a San Francisco female trio, consisting of Hannah (bass/vocals), Raven (guitar/vocals) and Lillian (drums/vocals), who perform very intricate and rhythmically tricky/elastic songs, in a mode somewhere between Erase Errata (yes, I know it’s lazy to compare a female band from San Francisco to ANOTHER female troupe from the same place), Throwing Muses and, well, The Raincoats, which made them an ideal opening act.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">Because of the interwoven nature of their vocals and arrangements, they were a bit ill-served by a murky mix, but it got better (because it gets better) as time went on, and they were an original and intriguing ensemble whose albums I feel obliged to acquire over time (their 45 and their cassette were both excellent, arty affairs, full of interesting lyrics, chorale voices and sharp angles).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">And The Raincoats? Oh, my goddess, where do I begin? Ana (guitar/bass/not functioning sampler/vocals), Gina (bass/guitar/vocals), Anne (violin/guitar/bass/vocals) and either Vice Cooler or Jean-Marc Butty on drums (they didn’t introduce him and my research has not found pictures identifying who he is/was) took to the stage with ferocity and none of the alleged shambling and uncertainty I have heard of their shows. Gina, who had swept into the bar looking rather damp and wind-blown (yes, it was pouring the day they played…imagine the aptness), was looking ferocious and fabulous now, and Ana had the energy and inventiveness often attributed to women half her age, while Anne and the drummer were perky and on top of their game. They played the hell out of a wide swath of their material, even including b-sides such as “I Keep Walking” (more baleful and Velvets-touched than the studio take), as-yet-unrecorded gems like “The Feminist Song” and my personal faves “Don’t Be Mean” and “Babydog”, along with absolutely required numbers such as “Fairytale In The Supermarket” and “No Side”. My only quibble is that they didn’t do “Lola”, but one can’t do EVERYTHING.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><span style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #0b5394;">And before we knew it, it was over. The boyfriend and I walked back to the hotel, on a now clear and not overly cool night, though I rather suspect I floated on a wave of satisfaction and glee. :)</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span><br />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-80398676621864807712011-12-14T18:31:00.000-05:002011-12-14T18:31:44.713-05:00The art show theme<a href="http://soundcloud.com/timmybearishone/the-art-show-theme?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=blogger&utm_content=http://soundcloud.com/timmybearishone/the-art-show-theme">The art show theme</a>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-91785377529443918282011-12-05T20:01:00.001-05:002011-12-05T20:02:33.060-05:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">THE YOUNG WIDOWER</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower arises</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">From the nearly flat</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Oceanic expanse of blue and white sheets</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">And wishes for roiling, as they had been before.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower arises</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Cold feet to cold kitchen</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">And takes down a cup, one of many</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Matched by color, in one of two names.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower arises</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">To claim the daily paper</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Marking another passage of the moon through night</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">And the haughty arrival of another day.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower peruses</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The deaths and the courts</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">And also births and weddings, faint smile</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">At the easy procession of unquestioned routine.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower reflects</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">On their meeting in college</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">In knowledge that, had they known the brevity,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">They still would have artfully managed to live.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower recalls</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The seeking of blessing</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">From God and humanity, constructed in stone,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">A simple marker in a weeded field.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower sighs</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">At the mad whirl of faces,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Dancing in a space paid for dearly</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">And held dearly in memory ‘gainst the cold grip of earth.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower glances</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">At the gleaming container</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">Hard fought for the right to have, burn and cherish</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">So many broken bones now brought to ash.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">The young widower turns</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">To go forth in the world </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">that anonymously killed one thought anonymously loved…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">But he proclaims their names in love.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: red;">December 5, 2011</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><br /></span><br />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-58257154825225640682011-09-12T21:57:00.000-04:002011-09-12T22:01:06.757-04:00new poemIN A BETTER WORLD<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Kurt Cobain married Calvin Johnson<br />
<br />
And raised baby kittens on a cartoon spaceship,<br />
<br />
While Courtney Love stayed with Falling James…<br />
<br />
And if they ever fought, it was over him stretching her dresses.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And Amy Winehouse lived to a saucy old age,<br />
<br />
Singing ‘Cupid’ down at her local pub<br />
<br />
And the worse thing she ever put in her veins<br />
<br />
Was the slimy grease from pork ‘n’ beans. Oy vey!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And Dusty Springfield looked in the mirror<br />
<br />
That hung inside her walk-in-closet door<br />
<br />
And saw Mary O’Brien as she truly was…<br />
<br />
The beautiful girl who could be Dusty as well, and lived.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If Jeff Buckley ever swam, he disrobed, lovely boy.<br />
<br />
He could wait to meet the father that he never knew…<br />
<br />
And while he never made another ‘Grace’,<br />
<br />
His muse took him elsewhere, lovers met but no journey’s end.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Scott Wannberg became the cranky old man<br />
<br />
That Kerouac did not, and Burroughs should not have<br />
<br />
And hung with Henry, Exene…and Viggo. Why not?<br />
<br />
And spun surreal poems on looms of paper and pen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Sylvia Plath used her oven to cook<br />
<br />
As an independent woman with seventeen cats,<br />
<br />
For she told her fascist Daddy that they were through<br />
<br />
And he became an Iron Giant, a male artist all on his own.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Akhmatova saved her son from Stalin<br />
<br />
And became the poet of slumber and summer.<br />
<br />
Some would argue they were lesser verse,<br />
<br />
But they can have winter and open red eyes and mass graves.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Virginia Woolf put practice to theory<br />
<br />
And left Leonard for Vita in 1928<br />
<br />
And summered in Paris with Gertrude and Alice<br />
<br />
And if she ever swam, had no rocks clutched close to her heart.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Matthew Shepard left Wyoming in haste,<br />
<br />
Or perhaps he stayed and married a Phelps.<br />
<br />
Life is crammed and packed with twists,<br />
<br />
And if God has the answer, the vector brings more than one.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Tipton and Teena share a trailer together,<br />
<br />
Grandparent and grandchild in a quiet life.<br />
<br />
I have seen their ID, and whatever it says,<br />
<br />
Your ID is yours, to share or to clutch to bound chest.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Carlos may have regretted her candour,<br />
<br />
Thinking curious playboys wanted to know…<br />
<br />
But what they wanted was to feel<br />
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They could check off a box – and check one out as well.<br />
<br />
<br />
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I am not a puzzle for you to solve.<br />
<br />
I am no riddle to parse in the dark.<br />
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I am no joke for you to wheeze, laughing.<br />
<br />
I’m a story in progress, and the ending is mine, so just wait.<br />
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September 7, 2011<br />
<br />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-1729553712627059532011-07-24T08:41:00.003-04:002011-07-24T08:41:33.432-04:00Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5968546239/" title="Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6022/5968546239_a5dc2af6e2.jpg" alt="Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill by The Enchanter Tim" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5968546239/">Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/">The Enchanter Tim</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p></p>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-41473443102547360242011-07-24T08:41:00.001-04:002011-07-24T08:41:11.518-04:00Dog of pure evil cuddliness<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5969103606/" title="Dog of pure evil cuddliness"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5969103606_3df8de2bb7.jpg" alt="Dog of pure evil cuddliness by The Enchanter Tim" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5969103606/">Dog of pure evil cuddliness</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/">The Enchanter Tim</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p></p>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-24932612610571519532011-06-20T21:26:00.000-04:002011-06-20T21:26:59.746-04:00BEAR LIKE ME by Jonathan Cohen (in review)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx9NtdY6gWY6YQSST3Ybu1Jq59Je826wu01vOLYcbIyyEvvwB32mRVkdMrK3A-M4EGpwpkl1Y2aARmk8UIMhrZ_aWq9wAsLlNB6gti5z3Nibtnaw6sj0Hf5aREJlKJYn7fZqec0Ot7kuLT/s1600/bearlikeme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx9NtdY6gWY6YQSST3Ybu1Jq59Je826wu01vOLYcbIyyEvvwB32mRVkdMrK3A-M4EGpwpkl1Y2aARmk8UIMhrZ_aWq9wAsLlNB6gti5z3Nibtnaw6sj0Hf5aREJlKJYn7fZqec0Ot7kuLT/s320/bearlikeme.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>BEAR LIKE ME, by Jonathan Cohen (</strong></span><a href="http://www.bearbonesbooks.com/"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Bear Bones Books</strong></span></a><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>/</strong></span><a href="http://www.lethepressbooks.com/"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Lethe Press</strong></span></a><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>, 2011)</strong></span></div><br />
<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red;">I confess to having read this book back in 2003 when it was published by a now sadly defunct company. I think I prefer this cover a bit to the original, though I'd rather see the model recoiling in horror from the razor. ;)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red;">In that now-distant era, I was fairly new at Bear identity. However, I've never held identity as this precious thing beyond humour or critique, especially since my general experience with the queer community has required that I both be able to laugh to keep from crying or retching and to realize that some people think that their product resulting from what bears do in the woods does not stink. Therefore, I loved this book then, if only because it is true that you are a bear if you say you are...until ten other bears rip you to shreds.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red;">This fun romp through the main character's adventures when he sets out to go undercover as a Bear in order to write a piece about that subculture, with the resulting changes in his life, is romantic, hilarious, sardonic and shockingly true-to-life. Though I must confess that early on I thought perhaps things like beauty contests and A-lists would be something foreign to a community made up primarily of exiles, I should have realized that, no matter what some Bears actually say, we ARE gay men, and there does seem to be some cultural tendency towards bitchiness (or butchiness, if you will). And the passage of eight years has allowed me to stop cringing at the notion of a Bear named Ben, fortunately. :).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; color: red;">Like the best books that would seem to have an audience in mind, this book could appeal to a wider range of people interested in humorous but pointed satire, which I tested by leaving the book out in a pile of leaves in the middle of the woods. Soon, several women and straight men ventured along, flipped through it, and guffawed, so I know it could have a broader appeal (no girth humour intended).</span>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-10005529475724785572011-05-22T11:03:00.000-04:002011-05-22T11:03:39.765-04:00NOISE QUEEN, 1997 piece<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><u>Hanson Vs Velvet Underground - MMMbop/Sister Ray Medley to the Death</u></span></strong></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">By Tim Murphy</div><br />
There are eerie parallels between these two groups that cannot be discounted easily, much as you might desperately try to. In the name of revealing truth, and as proof that my job is both boring and brain-damaging, I present you with the inevitable skewed comparisons I thought of while there...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(1) Each has been captured on film by a gay director.<br />
<br />
<br />
(2) They are on PolyGram Records, as are the Velvets. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(3) Hanson has a blonde, long-haired singer with an odd voice, much like Nico of the Velvets. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(4) Hanson are a bunch of kids singing simple, catchy harmonies; Lou Reed started in a doo-wop group as a teenager. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(5) Hanson has immeasurable talent, as do the Velvets (there may be sarcasm in effect on one side of this equation). <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(6) Both have had string arrangements on their songs. <br />
<br />
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(7) Each has a long, depressing song about isolation with deathly overtones on its debut album. <br />
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(8) Each mentions a deity in its lyrics. <br />
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<br />
(9) Aspersions have been cast on the instrumental skills of both bands. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(10) Hanson are cute, as was Lou Reed in his heyday (subjective, I know). <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(11) Image and voice wise, members of both bands have been gender-misidentified. <br />
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<u></u>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-64841334297139054822011-05-02T13:14:00.001-04:002011-05-02T13:14:23.947-04:00Record Store Day Haul<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5679863781/" title="Record Store Day Haul"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5229/5679863781_e8709367d0.jpg" alt="Record Store Day Haul by The Enchanter Tim" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/5679863781/">Record Store Day Haul</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/">The Enchanter Tim</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p>Top Row, Left to Right; Fucked Up, DAVID'S TOWN, lp; Green Day/Husker Du, DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY 7"; Velvet Underground, FOGGY NOTION/I CAN'T STAND IT 7"; Roxy Music, VIRGINIA PLAIN/PYJAMARAMA 7" (top)<br /><br />Bottom Row, Left to Right; Mighty Clouds, S/T lp; City and Colour, SOMETIMES 2xlp</p>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-3311937674770623642011-02-01T17:30:00.001-05:002011-02-01T17:36:24.019-05:00Another Rant From Ponyboys<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><u><strong>AM I EVER GONNA HEAR THOSE WEDDING KNELLS? or MR. MURPHY, YOUR MARRIAGE HEARSE IS HERE...</strong></u></span></div><br />
<br />
I've ranted on this subject at tedious length in the past. However, I was foaming at the mouth from theory then. Now that it would appear it might become a reality, the concept has to be addressed in all its white-gowned and black-tuxed terror, head-on. :-) <br />
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I will begin with a shocking confession. I DID write to my bachelored member of Parliament (let's call him Peter Milliken) asking him to support the gay marriage bill. I had been entreated to at every turn, and I gave it a good deal of mulling. After all, my old political tendency (International Socialists) was arguing for a principled position in favour of legal recognition despite the cases made by both Alexandra Kollontai and Emma Goldman about the problematic nature of matrimony under capitalism, and I would not want to disappoint my erstwhile comrades (well, not some of them, anyway :) ). <br />
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In any case, I had to look at who I was aligning myself with by silence as the discourse and legislation increased in volume and fervour. Having witnessed the unfortunate results of conservative feminists and sex-phobic preachers supporting the Butler decision on porn, I realized that, once things had reached the stage of proposed sweeping changes, I could no longer say 'not my kind of thing or issue', because it was likely to harm people I cared about if this legislation was not brought to consideration. <br />
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However, this is not to say I have no reservations, and I still think there are unfortunate qualifiers that will undercut it (I will try to stick to legal/cultural factors as they currently exist, at least for a while, as opposed to my usual free-wheeling anti-social stance...). <br />
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Let us start with road blocks that would affect me if I managed to get my Arne (or, Marx forbid, some other quiet eccentric I might want to make an honest fella out of) into a tux (or a large, long white dress) and down the aisle. Let us suppose we swore out the license, perhaps because we did the bear test and the ursine died, inclining us to marry to give the future Antichrist a stable home environment, and went through with it. <br />
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Texas, where Arne lives (and where I would likely relocate), does not recognize same-sex marriages (I wonder about the legality of that, as it recognizes hetero marriages that are carried out elsewhere, but it has met with the approval of the Supreme Jackass Court...apropos of nothing, it was under the Clinton administration that the Defence of Marriage Act was passed to permit states to make this determination...so don't start with the Bush bashing (it's strange to hear me say that - but let us be fair...)). Those of you who follow the news (I know, that requires both tacitly supporting corporate agendas, either in print or broadcast, and having nerves of steel and a brain of razor sharpness to withstand and filter...) may remember a couple being told it could not file a joint customs form after being married in Canada and trying to enter the States, as the US did not acknowledge same sex matrimony (just once, I wish an official could say 'THE GOVERNMENT or A MONEYED, RIGHT-WING VOCAL MINORITY does not recognize...' instead of saying 'The USA', as there is evidence that average citizens don't have that problem, at least not the majority...but the illusion of participatory democracy requires that sophistry (I refrain in the name of brevity from discussing rigged elections in the recent past) ). <br />
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I sometimes think every male-female couple should have to prove its marriage by document and deed, as I believe that, if would-be immigrants who marry and are viewed as doing so to get into the country are obliged to leap through hoops and answer invasive questions, then no less paperwork and demonstrated bond should be required of man and wife. Now, imagine the trafficking in plastic wedding rings, MSATs (Marital Sex Aptitude Tests) and forged matrimonial records THAT might produce. <br />
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If you had forgotten to bring your marriage certificate (because, under mauve alert, you would have to PROVE you are contributing to the stability of Western culture by engaging in holy matrimony), would sexual acts, passive aggressive carping or the trotting out of ways you have changed your spouse since your union prove you are not brother and sister? Oh, but surely even miserable sinners could fake THAT! <br />
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However, though the notion of making heteros uncomfortable and oppressed appeals to the twisted faggot in me, I realize it's neither likely nor desirable. We need to make the law, um, serve justice and equality (yes, I know, idealist to the queercore...). <br />
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And now to savage marriage beyond recognition... After all, as a sodomite, I should be committing indignities to SOMETHING - it's only foul, er, fair. <br />
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Now, forgive me (as if the sort of person likely to be offended by this WOULD), but, if marriage is so 'natural', why does it need defense? If marriage is so desirable, why do fully half of all marriages conclude with both parties screaming to GET OUT OF IT!? I've yet to get a satisying answer to THAT one. If we inverts, constituting somewhere between 0.1% and 10% of the population, have the power to topple the tree of Holy Union, there must be a lot of swishy termites, I feel obliged to speculate - and a lot of homemade axes wielded by renegade hetero land developers who aren't willing to wait for permits. ;o) <br />
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Opponents of same sex marriage often cite that both the Church and human society have always condoned only opposite sex marriage. First of all, marriage as we know it is a fairly recent phenomenon in the human condition - it is hardly a given, either in terms of the official combination itself or in the attitudes currently attributed to its construction. <br />
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For those who pimp love and devotion, but then marry carefully for maximum tax benefit, it is important to point out that marriage emerged as a means of making sure that your property and money carried on down the line. Chivalric tradition contended that, though Love might exist, it was never within a marriage. The lack of desire to strangle your spouse was probably strove for, but sentiment and lust were likely not weighted greatly. <br />
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Once such concepts as mercantilism and 'the family name' evolved, there was a clear advantage to tying the producer of heirs to you, in order to carry on the grand traditions. <br />
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There is some evidence marriage was not common among peasants and serfs, though there are not many primary documents surviving from the era, and virtually NONE from below the ruling or clergy class. What property did they own - so what purpose in establishing a patrilineal descent? (Consider THIS in light of the fact that most homosexual unions will not be producing children, and file it away for reference on adoption...). <br />
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And now to get back to same sex marriage never happening historically. The late John Boswell, in such books as Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality discovered evidence that the early Christian Church may have performed such unions. There are documents surviving of actual liturgy that reveal a union ceremony existing, in which both parties were men, from the 10th and 11th centuries. In fact, in remote regions of the Ukraine, there is documentation suggesting it survivied until the early 19th century, at least once with two women. Now, what is MORE contentious is whether these were marriages or blessing/recognition of a partnership that could not be ignored, but the fact remains SOMETHING happened in churches along these lines (and the proof is in the Vatican!). In light of the fact that the early Church used to have pagan temples in the back to lure people in, this is hardly surprising - the Church Eternal and Unchanging indeed! <br />
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Now, one couple on a local e-mail forum to which I subscribe has gone on about how it is going to adopt children now as part of its marriage. <br />
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There is one problem with that, though I confess I do not know whether the legislation to be introduced in Canada will incorporate this (nor, I think, does anyone yet). Those European jurisdictions which have legalized same-sex marriage and unions have, to the best of my knowledge, specifically forbade couple adoption of children as part of this process - I certainly know Denmark has, based on information from my permanent fiance. :) <br />
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Of course, one could adopt children as a single person today, and there ARE incidents of couples being permitted to adopt, though often as a sort of 'last possible option, and only if all the child molesters and serial killers are busy' case - BUT there is no legal protection, which puts one on shaky grounds. Of course, given the conveniently forgotten nature of law at key moments (no matter how much reformists will tell me that I am being paranoid, there are such things as nothwithstanding clauses, emergency powers and so on WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK, and there are numerous historical examples of the State ignoring the rule of law with impunity - for one, look into whether Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recalled Parliament to have it vote on declaration of war during the Gulf Oil Grab in 1991...to make it brief, no, he did not, and it is REQUIRED under the law...believe me, I checked - even under the War Measures Act, which was not invoked, there has to be a token appearance, in which it really could not say 'no'...), such protection would not necessarily be worth the paper on which it would be written in metaphorical pencil, but it is simply not there. One would be better off, from a legal point of view, with one partner adopting and the other being 'uncle' or 'aunt' in the law's eyes...though some idiot will then talk about an immoral environment of loose living and a lack of permanent bond, classic Catch-22 logic at its 'best' (you see, this is where I'd almost argue for marriage out of sheer perversity - 'YOU WANT US TO BE JUST LIKE YOU? WELL, LOOK INTO THE MIRROR, BABY!! UGLY, AIN'T IT? OH, NOW YOU WANT US TO LIVE IN SIN AGAIN!? TOO LATE!'). <br />
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At this point, I'd like to take off my powdered wig and black robes, and slip into something cuter and more comfortable (perhaps a leather tuxedo or a nice rubber wedding gown), as the little outburst above may be a hint to you I'm about to get personal, subjective and critical. <br />
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Let us be honest here. Like everyone else (to the best of my knowledge), I grew up on Earth. In my particular case, I am in North America, surrounded by the marital industry and the messages its official spokespersons (churches, schools, stores, etc.) send out insidiously through every channel available. Therefore, I certainly heard the same propaganda you did. <br />
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However, I also had the (dis)advantage of somehow developing a critical mind (this is not to suggest everyone else does not - but mine does not appear to have an off switch). <br />
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Therefore, in light of MY experience of marriage, it seemed to be a thing which actually cheapened the value of relationships, as the connection seemed to break down in most instances where I saw the ceremony happen, and with depressing speed (of course I know exceptions, including, to date, the only gay marriage I know of among my peers, which took place on August 18, 1990 - sometimes I wonder if the LACK of legal recognition has lead to that ironic longevity, but it is hardly a question one can ask or expect an answer for from within the framework of the partnership...). Furthermore, based on those of my peers who had parents who stayed together 'for the children', a rapid divorce might have been easier on their psyches. And do not even get me started on my childhood friend whose father managed to get the Pope to annul marriage after marriage after marriage - why does that tiresome old walking corpse feel so opposed to ONE queer union when he seems to hand out forgiveness for haste or attempts to give lust the patina of respectability like so much toilet paper used in rectory bathroom tricking and child molestation? <br />
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On the other hand, I had peers whose parents were not married at the time of their conception and/or birth, or who never got married and lived together, and they seemed much happier. I do not suppose it is a scientific survey, either in terms of objectivity or numbers, but it was simply an observation. The family is not necessarily the best environment to grow up in, as it is designed to reproduce social values which may not actually be worth saving, especially for those of us whose choices and/or natures mean we are devalued artificially the moment we are 'kidnapped and sold into slavery' (to use Andy Warhol's depressing yet insightful metaphor for birth and youth). <br />
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The irony (or shall we call it dialectic) of education in North America is that it is full of rhetoric about individuality and being your own person. Of course, you are supposed to find your own way to be like everyone else, or, to use a metaphor from Madeleine L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME, you are given a sonnet and then told you can write whatever you wish as long as you hold to its structure. Of course, the flaw in that conceit is that sonnets are supposed to be on certain subjects, just like haikus. What if they do not inspire you? <br />
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Of course, some supporters of gay marriage say that they are not going to have a 'traditional marriage'. On a literal level, that would be true, since most straight unions do not consist of two men or two women. However, despite the glitz and spectacle of most heterosexual wedding ceremonies (I do not have enough information on queer counterparts, having attended exactly one celebration, which was held at a pleasant, but hardly gaudy and cathedral-like, reception hall...), there IS more than the surface to be contended with. First of all, let us begin with the usual motivations people state for the desire to have a same-sex marriage. <br />
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(1) They want public acknowledgement of their relationship. Fair enough. The closet can kill - though some open lifestyles seem deadly to me as well, especially those involving matching outfits, poodles and being joined at the hip until death do you part (oxygen, PLEASE!). However, would marriage be required for this? I mean, I had a friend some years ago who wondered if his mother knew about him and his boyfriend being a couple, rather than just buddies - without a hint of irony, he mused about what it meant that said parent pushed the two single beds in his room together when the fellow came to visit. I think people would know. As someone in that classic film Boys In The Band said: 'If two men over the age of 35 live together, they are not roommates.' <br />
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(2) They want the taxation benefits. Okay, now we're getting closer to the heart of our lovely consumerist culture. I confess I do not know the advantages accrued by official couple status (as I have no intention of ever being 'legal', and could not BE so under the laws of the jurisdiction in which I am seemingly destined to reside one day...). I also know that the law as it is currently written does not allow for a same sex common law couple to file joint tax returns as a couple ( though I suspect that will be changed in light of court rulings), so perhaps my proposal that people just live in sin is impractical in this case. However, I can think of a significant drawback to couple status, and it was the one which caused me to sever my tenuous ties with organizations such as CLGRO (Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario), due to its support for the scenario I will set out (I believe the group said it was 'only fair'...oh, my, a phrase I did not buy as an excuse when I was a CHILD! The moment anyone says something is 'only fair', ask 'FOR WHOM!?'). <br />
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Let us suppose that you have a couple in which one party is HIV positive and on disability, and the other party is working. Under current law, the first party could remain on disability and use that to, for example, purchase necessary medications (some drugs used to combat AIDS are not covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP)), while the second party could use income to survive and cover expenses. If official status were granted to the relationship, that would cease, as, should the second party make enough for both to cling to life under current government compassion, this would result in the disability or welfare payments being stopped, as the second party would make more than that pittance and could support both of them, in the evil eyes of the State. <br />
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Thus, the marriage hearse of which William Blake spoke would be parked outside the church on that lovely day... <br />
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(3) It's what people do who are in love. Well, not necessarily. Even once we discount the historical roots of marriage, acknowledging that it could be done without an interest in property or power (directly - indirectly, it's very MUCH about these things...), there are a lot of other reasons. Sometimes people marry because one party is pregnant. That is not going to be a factor in same sex marriage. It could happen because of morality issues. Far be it from me to dis others' choices, but merely conforming to a set of societal standards does not seem to be a very good motivation. When people say things like 'society and/or 'they' expect(s) you to do it', several questions come to my mind. Are we not part of society? Do we not get a say in how it is shaped? Who is this insidious 'they'? Is it the same 'they' that wants homeless people to be arrested and wants them to stay out of businesses' restrooms while making public urination illegal in several jurisdictions and attempts to make giving alms against the law as well, while cutting any support the state offers to a trickle (and, in some American states, putting a lifetime limit on all forms of assistance, including permanent disability)? Is this a 'they' one WANTS to heed intently? <br />
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I have peers who say they want to reshape marriage and counter its more sexist/classist elements. It is not as though NO progress has been made in this regard - there was a recent time in which a wife could not have a credit card without her husband's permission. <br />
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However, my mother STILL writes cards to 'Mr. and Mrs. John Smith' - I've seen one or two letters addressed to Mrs. John Smith, which, given that the person in question is not trans-identified, freaks me out. I believe women became human beings in 1919, and a name of one's own would be nice. <br />
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In light of this, how much of an independent identity CAN be forged within marriage, given its societal context (though I confess it would be amusing to see how my mother would contend with either Mr. and Mr. Tim Murphy or Mr. and Mr. Arne Ledet :) )? <br />
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There have been examples of marriage between queer individuals (Vita Sackville-West and her husband, and possibly Mr. and Mrs. Virginia Woolf), in a straight context, and there is evidence that such things survived, but at what cost (in the case of Virginia, the tally can be rung up, judging from the movie/book The Hours and biography)? Would a queer marriage be immune from societal expectation, given the conflation between gender and sexual orientation which tiresomely drags on? Would attempting to adapt it result in adoption instead of a demon-childish institution that might not be to one's advantage? <br />
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Would Vita and Virginia have had any better luck at it? Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas seemed to do well, but, by most accounts, they were very strong-willed individuals. It is also important to note that they did NOT get married. My stance against matrimony might be confirmed by the survival of such a relationship. Once the State gives its blessing, it is also free to give its curse, and to impose other strictures upon one. Is it not oppressive ENOUGH!? <br />
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Now, in light of my usual tiresome 'What are you rebelling against? WHAT YOU GOT?' rant, I suppose the logical question would be: 'Why did you ask your local Member of Parliament to support gay marriage, then?' <br />
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Well, much as Virginia Woolf in her brilliant polemic Three Guineas ultimately opted to send money to a gentleman trying to organize resistance against war, despite her reservations about trying to do so within the existing social structure and systems, I suppose I try and err on the side of optimism. It would be very nice to think that legalizing same-sex marriage might have a lightning bolt effect on the rotted tree of culture. I hardly aspire to creating wild social anarchy in which all would be destroyed, but some fairly radical arboreal surgery is desperately needed. It is also a comforting, if historically unlikely, notion that such a move might result in more freedom and 'rights' for gay folk (it might ease the lives of many a middle-class interior decorator and car mechanic, but I am not certain how much it would benefit the teenaged boy constantly beaten up in class while his teachers tell him that, if he didn't act that way, he wouldn't get treated so badly...or the young girl who is shown the myriad benefits of heterosexual discourse by rape...). <br />
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And, as a vestige of my days as a rabid Marxist (I have had the shots, though, fortunately, there have been some lingering side-effects), I should bring up the concept of 'critical but unconditional support'. In other words, I lend my efforts and voice to causes that I think might have a transformative or reformative effect on capitalist society, even if I question some of the ideologies and motivations of those movements, and also think it might be too little, if not too late. Oppressed nations should have the right to self-determination, even if there are some serious issues with the determinations made, which one would vigorously debate the substance of; however, the basic concept strikes one as a good idea that engenders solidarity and mass movements, ideally. Similarly, it is clearly an issue of some resonance with a goodly number of queer folk, and it has resulted in a mass movement of sorts, if only one based on seeking recognition from a leery State. Incidents such as the border crossing debacle only demonstrate the desperation and, frankly, childishness of a government structure that is out of touch with public opinion (not that 'public opinion' should be the only parameter - life really should not be a popularity contest, and the notion that 'majority rules' was made abundantly hollow by the 2000 election and far more examples than I have time to go into here (can anyone say 'Goods and Services Tax' or 'Poll Tax'?)). As battle lines form around this issue, it is possible that the clash between the marriage lobby and the 'get to the back of the bus, cocksucker' front may result in a more radical alternative between the two. <br />
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And, on a less didactic note, it should be added that I am, and always have been, a romantic. It actually breaks my heart to see friends split up or (and I know this seems to fly in the face of my earlier rhetoric) marriages fail (I mean, if you are GOING to do such a thing, and it is supposed to have a lasting effect, it IS sad when it falls apart - there are people involved, not just an institution that gives me pause - and I generally like people...). <br />
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As I have said in the past in relation to the obvious inquiries that are bound to come up when you've been linked to the same person for nigh on six years, I would be quite happy to live with my boy for the rest of my life. I would not even be opposed to certain life-easing legislation (readers, please! I am likely to live in Texas, for Marx's sake!!). However, I just do not have a good feeling about marriage - I did not as a child, long before I had any notion that the whole heterosexual package was not for my consumption (now THAT just sounds wrong...and I might add that, when I was about six, I remember looking at a family picture and suddenly having the revelation there wasn't going to be one like that for me in the future...it was a suprisingly cool, rational moment, that still startles me to recall it even now...). Maybe it has to do with seeing a few marriages end in great rancour (though, oddly, there have only been TWO divorces in my immediate family...despite the endless ranting about how children of the 70s grew up with divorce, homosexuality and disco all around them, I pretty much saw relationships stumbling along together, oppressive breederfests and Johnny Cash/Olivia Newton John/Anne Murray...) - or perhaps it is because I am not certain I want the respect of a culture that used to make endless fun of me for reading, crying and asking questions of its inviolable tenets (yes, it's personal, baby, and, yes, I carry grudges until their handles break or they start to cut into my fingers - and sometimes I don't let go even then...). <br />
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I am not, in the final analysis, totally certain of why marriage bothers me, but I do know that sitting side by side with my sweetheart in the evening, or snuggled in his arms, or walking down the street thinking 'This is my boy, and you can't have him, and he loves ME - yes, ME!' makes me feel very happy indeed (I believe we were discussing childishness). <br />
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However, I do know that some people do want that sense of societal approval, and who am I to say they cannot have it? By remaining silently non-committal (in a legislature-related sense - anyone who has spoken to me on this subject knows I am, and possibly should BE, committed...) as long as I have, I was certainly putting a tacit identity to myself, and it bore an uncanny resemblance to the likes of Pat Robertson and George W. Bush. Therefore, I am putting in my three guineas 'for' marriage, and I hope to see a return on my investment, if not necessarily a direct payment out from the State when that input 'matures'. <br />
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However, I leave you with these words of wisdom to contemplate: <br />
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"Consummation makes a grumble, and the sound that I have found - BAN MARRIAGE!" HIDDEN CAMERAS, 2003 (by Joel Gibb, from the LP/CD 'Smell of My Own', on Evil Evil/Rough Trade Records)Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-81753516243947881592011-02-01T17:07:00.000-05:002011-02-01T17:07:28.005-05:00A little rant from PONYBOYS, my zine of days gone by :)<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><u>PLEASE GET HELP</u></span></div><br />
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It grieves our hearts to have to say this, but we feel we no longer have a choice. We have tried to be kind. We hoped you would learn the error of your ways, particularly as they have been pointed out to you from all camps for quite some time now. To some extent, we tried to ignore you, and, fortunately, the development of modern technology has allowed us that option to an increasing extent. However, a problem does not go away by itself, and you have been resorting to your bad habits again, and thinking you can hide or deny it by doing it to a different set of victims (Bleeding Rose Bookstore in Victoria, British Columbia instead of Little Sisters in Vancouver or Glad Day Bookstore in Toronto; to Charlotte Cooper, a relative unknown, instead of Dennis Cooper or Pat Califia). Clearly, your illness and pathology have metastasized and deepened respectively, and an intervention is the only path left to us.<br />
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You seem to have a difficult time distinguishing between what’s MINE and what’s YOURS, which, frankly, most people decipher by about kindergarten. <br />
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Here is some elementary capitalism, which even someone like me, who would dance in cha-cha heels on Conrad Black’s grave (preferably while he’s buried alive so he can enjoy it), can grasp. If I order something from someone, and I send them money, and you steal it, YOU HAVE TO PAY ME BACK – at the very least, you should let me know you’re the schoolyard bully who’s taking my lunch, and give me a chance to fight you to reclaim it! And, furthermore, if you say you didn’t steal it but are, instead, ‘protecting’ me from my own choices, I should point out, as Virginia Woolf did more or less in her classic work Three Guineas, that you are extending a patronizing and oppressive system of censorship and state control to me and calling it love, when, really, it’s more the kind of ‘love’ that little boys who don’t know about the boundaries of people’s bodies and dignity claim they are administering in back alleys, cars and bars with Rohypnol rickeys.<br />
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Though this is exactly the sort of image you would seize if it appeared in a magazine, no doubt, do NOT piss on my back and tell me it’s rain…<br />
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And this is the point where your sickness will truly manifest itself, and you will attempt to justify your actions by bringing up someone like Robin Sharpe, whose work I’m to find repugnant due to its sadistic and pedophilic tendencies (as it happens, I DO find him somewhat disturbing) – this is the sort of thing you’re protecting me from. Well, thank you, and what a representative example! Anyway, the courts have ruled that the mere writing of or drawing of such things is not criminal, no matter how tasteless it may seem – and, if you disagree with the courts (and god knows you do, because you have DISOBEYED their rulings so many times – are you not a government agency? Do you NOT have to follow the rules set out by those who oversee you? Of course, they often do not either, but that is beside the point…), militate for appeals and clarification, if you must (god knows you NEED clarity – gentlemen, you once banned lesbian erotica with no dildos, tongues or fingers in use upon the relevant region, on the grounds of ‘anal penetration’. Perhaps some elementary anatomy lessons should be administered?).<br />
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Besides, boyfriends (and you ARE boys, dears, because isn’t it funny how a fair amount of degrading imagery about women, or even, oh, women being fucked up the ass isn’t, as it were, diddled with by you AT ALL, but let one male asshole be violated, and civilization’s collapse is imminent…), you are NOT protecting anyone by keeping a picture out. Pictures represent the culture or, more accurately, its hypocrisies and secret desires, and, for better or worse, there are going to be JonBenet Ramsays whether you remove every bit of pornography in the world or not.<br />
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Until you are willing to admit that you are scared little boys who cannot deal with your own repressed homoerotic desires, or, in a best-case scenario, your conflicts with depictions of sexual realities that are clearly shared by a fair number of people who wish to consume those images (you aren’t trying to stand in the way of the Free Market, are you? I rebuke you in the name of Adam Smith…), we must insist you refrain from looking at any art coming into the country – if someone objects to something, and must have legal recourse, let that person bring charges. You are clearly so deeply embedded in your psychoses and delusions that you cannot be relied upon to make rational decisions about what people WHO PAY YOUR SALARIES and (some of) whom HAVE BRAINS UNCLOUDED BY UGLY ANTI-SEX ATTITUDES OR DENIAL LOOPS should be allowed to see (hint: I can’t remember ever consulting my PARENTS over what I ‘should’ read, so why would I turn that task over to a bunch of faceless bureaucrats?), so we beg of you…<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><strong><u>PLEASE GET HELP!</u></strong></span></div>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-73034886506415214412010-12-23T18:53:00.002-05:002010-12-23T19:03:31.913-05:00From Noise Queen, Winter 1997 :)<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Christmas: Consumer Orgy or Commie Love-In?</span></strong></div><br />
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By Tim Murphy<br />
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Ah, Christmas - that most quintessentially Christian of holidays - what with the tree idea (stolen from Norse myth) - the fallen divine figure concept (ditto, at the very least); the mistletoe (the substance that killed Baldur in Norse myth, so what's up with THAT!?); and, of course, St. Nicholas (very possibly based on a man in Turkey who would creep down rich people's chimneys to steal for the poor).<br />
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As a Commie, I do believe in the concept of 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need' (though, my fellow members of the working class, I assure you that my need for white socks has been met for the conceivable future...).<br />
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However, I must confess it used to bug me when my parents would complain that Christmas left them in deep debt - both because, by implication, my sister and I were responsible and because they either chose to do it or were well-conditioned by consumerism.<br />
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However, Christmas can be subjected to a Marxist analysis (aren't you glad?). In addition to the 'ability-need' model, consider the following factors:<br />
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(a) One of the many St. Nicholases robbed from the rich and gave to the poor - thus modeling Robin Hood AND an ideal working class uprising.<br />
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(b) While Santa is said to preside over the ultimate family holiday, it is significant to note that Santas is the ultimate bear (fat, bearded and benign) and his assistants quintessential cubs. Mrs. Claus is a fairly recent addition to the myth, obviously inspired by heterosexist panic at the notion of NOT having the old guy safely married - I suspect she's either a beard (no pun intended) or a trannie. Thus, there is a queer overlay to the whole story that challenges the capitalist model of reproduction for future generations of workers...<br />
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(c) Santa wears RED and is said to give presents to all girls and boys (it's true that upper-class kids tend to get more, but that is due to attempts by the ruling class to undermine Santa's collectivist leanings - socialism cannot survive in one Pole).<br />
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Anyway - on the title question - oh, who knows? Just hope the season is tolerable to you.<br />
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Hugs and smooches of an indefinably but undeniably queer nature,<br />
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Santa Tim<br />
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Polar Cub/Bear ExtraordinaireTimmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-91702606186506863592010-10-26T14:55:00.000-04:002010-10-26T14:55:48.076-04:00Listen, The Leaves Are Falling Everywhere...<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgugiP83khW1s1Ht3QgQmyZoQfb20TG9mOeHFG_nucQBA8bAhE0nVedVGje7ODYLXbwPDcfj6-X_Lodccwkt4CzByl6WXAyWrDHqvhDOXUcR09M47wIiHR4DPUIxywxzWdYq0pl94nMzIVt/s1600/leaveseverywheregrey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgugiP83khW1s1Ht3QgQmyZoQfb20TG9mOeHFG_nucQBA8bAhE0nVedVGje7ODYLXbwPDcfj6-X_Lodccwkt4CzByl6WXAyWrDHqvhDOXUcR09M47wIiHR4DPUIxywxzWdYq0pl94nMzIVt/s200/leaveseverywheregrey.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAYDFPuXP4jZLQNxG1RshBRtgwUt5K-Do2kg9AFjkhb1MtW5fg8qy99kQpDvzXiFFxCCuPEVBpAtocUO2y-1K9jAdjBOpxW6wg0QF7PV2XiM_Pl71JFy7w64D3YYeMRIUqwcgpfozFfgY/s1600/leaveseverywhereintense.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAYDFPuXP4jZLQNxG1RshBRtgwUt5K-Do2kg9AFjkhb1MtW5fg8qy99kQpDvzXiFFxCCuPEVBpAtocUO2y-1K9jAdjBOpxW6wg0QF7PV2XiM_Pl71JFy7w64D3YYeMRIUqwcgpfozFfgY/s200/leaveseverywhereintense.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjAbfeWOTBAqTzs3m93lc7HMuvEJI4d2FnSMgVh-4azDTRbqibUVPq5sOVghhoNLLJBB7N4iQMQoFtqm4igua1JzjelHf87KSPJ90yKw7wQDsybSpqRw9fVC-GoMS_TXHKKNxO2QWyo5y/s1600/leaveseverywhereweird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjAbfeWOTBAqTzs3m93lc7HMuvEJI4d2FnSMgVh-4azDTRbqibUVPq5sOVghhoNLLJBB7N4iQMQoFtqm4igua1JzjelHf87KSPJ90yKw7wQDsybSpqRw9fVC-GoMS_TXHKKNxO2QWyo5y/s200/leaveseverywhereweird.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling over town</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling everywhere</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between Princess Towers Building</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">and Between The Springer Square</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling over town</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling over town</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling everywhere</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between your bed and mine</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between your head and my mind</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling everywhere</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between Yarker and Belleville</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between Picton and Brockville</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Between your God and mine</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen, the leaves are falling everywhere</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Leaves dream</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Leavesfall</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Leaves, fly</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Listen</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">(with profuse apologies to the Queen of Noise, Madam Yoko Ono)</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://imaginepeace.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/YO1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" nx="true" src="http://imaginepeace.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/YO1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-25933737520753186772010-07-08T10:00:00.001-04:002010-07-08T10:00:06.213-04:00Chuck E Cheese<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/3601732689/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3371/3601732689_c0ce9fc6f2_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmybear/3601732689/">Chuck E Cheese</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/timmybear/">The Enchanter Tim</a></span></div>Just because I'm feeling random today. :)<br clear="all" />Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017591384349765472.post-67011812571248013362010-06-29T15:10:00.000-04:002010-06-29T15:10:20.888-04:00an apple a day - rewrite/expansionAN APPLE, A DAY<br />
<br />
“This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends…”<br />
<br />
It is peculiar, the bits of doggerel and songs that drift through your mind before you wake up in the morning or, for that matter, AFTER you wake up. It is also not particularly reassuring or even appropriate, given that the sun is trickling in through the tiny gap in your billed-as-blackout curtains and, when you open them, pouring in like a flood, revealing a glorious day.<br />
<br />
What is also peculiar is the presence of an apple sitting on your bedside table, as you did not leave one there last night, and you live alone. Then again, you are getting older, and that certainty may not be etched in the proverbial stone.<br />
<br />
The apple is a symbol of so many wonderful things. Good health, as it keeps the doctor away, though it might be argued that that state’s continuation may be contingent on having a doctor SOMEWHERE nearby. Adoration, as in ‘the apple of your eye’ (an expression which is odd to you, given that it suggests there is a green, yellow or red covering over that organ, a somewhat squishy interior (which is accurate, granted) and some unpleasant seeds within).<br />
<br />
It also has more unsavoury associations. There is the Garden of Eden story (and while we may be getting ahead of ourselves here, levels of reality in which apples do not exist (or indeed, ANY kind of fruit) do not feature an endless rent-free stay in Paradise – God is far too inventive a sadistic father for THAT…). William Tell springs to mind also, which in turn inspires the concept of that murderous game the OTHER William played with Joan Vollmer, though that featured a water tumbler (water also is a mixed symbol, but there is not going to be enough time to address that or any other heavy-handed allusions) and also dragged in the poppy (see previous parenthesized remark). And, of course, Snow White, which is a sufficiently disturbing story to contemplate WITHOUT bringing in the poisonous fruit, given her co-habitation with a flock of diminutive bachelors. On which point, that sheen on the modern agricultural-industry-promoted apple betrays chemicals that could accumulate in your body and kill you.<br />
<br />
But, as you reassure yourself while going through your morning ablutions, this is far too nice a day to dwell on such morbid and troubling contemplations, even if it does feature roughly eight hours of soul-destroying data entry ahead of you.<br />
<br />
While you debate between five identical shirts, twelve black pants and six pairs of wingtips (black), the mysterious observer of your banal rituals has time to look away and consider a few things.<br />
<br />
As was observed by HG Wells, man is not alone in the universe. However, that only goes so far – in fact, the UNIVERSE is not alone in the universe. There are, in fact, multiplicities of universes, some of which feature realities that even the most inventive or substance-abusing writer could not envision.<br />
<br />
For example, peel away just a few layers of the cosmic onion and a world is discovered in which you did not wake up this morning. No, not in that sense, though there are more than a few billion of THOSE as well. Reassure yourself that it simply means the local equivalent of an alarm clock did not go off, and you continued on dreaming your empty life away. In many ways, that is more fortunate, though not for that version of you’s employment. As to those other billions, we will leave it to you to decide, in the time that remains, whether THAT would have been preferable.<br />
<br />
And, yes, as has been noted earlier, there are planes of existence on which apples do not exist. This did not always prevent the subsequent events, as the mysterious force (call it God, fate or historical determinism – under the circumstances, it hardly matters) had at least 109 alternate plans for each level, with some being entirely unique to a given alternative, such as the one involving…but there are no terms for it on the world you occupy, so never mind.<br />
<br />
But now you are ready to leave, or at least you have arbitrarily determined there is nothing else to keep you here, since you had no opportunity to get food last night before you had to hurry home to watch television, so you will have to grab something on your way to work. At least you have an apple, regarding which you bury your vague presentiments of worry and snatch up to take with you.<br />
<br />
In case you are curious, this is, in fact, plan #109, as you have proven remarkably resistant and/or oblivious to earlier attempts involving automotive system failures, chemical spills at work, fires that incorporated plastics and other toxic-fume-producing substances and even minor incidents of psychotic breaks from reality. There is something to be said for single-minded determination to get to work and to continue the routines of your life, though we who are recording these events in the aftermath are not certain what it is.<br />
<br />
In any case, your car started without incident, as even the vaguely gremlin-like being who is the chief executive officer of your reality does not care to repeat his methods of mischief, particularly given the previous failures and the remarkable resilience you have demonstrated by joining car pools, using public transit, hauling out a dusty bicycle (whose chain perversely refused to break, fall off or jam, despite the best efforts of junior and senior programmers alike in, shall we say, God’s employ) or, on another glorious though less ominous day, walking the roughly thirty-seven minutes to your dark satanic mill.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the fact that your coffee cup holder was occupied by an enormous carafe of foul stimulant, left over from the previous day, and your coin receptacle was, unimaginatively, filled with money, toll chits and even video game tokens, a testimony to a somewhat cheerful if vaguely immature clinging to the vestiges of your youth, meant that you had no choice but to put the apple on the narrow dashboard, as a particularly junior agent in God’s employ had projected that you would, ensuring himself a five-minute break from playing harp and praising the Eternal, a few centuries down the line.<br />
<br />
As you turned onto Wormwood Drive (yes, heavy-handed, we realize, but we are merely recorders here, not editors or cynical critics), the apple rolled off the dashboard and fell neatly under the braking device on your car. You failed to notice this, distracted as you were by the handsome bearded gentleman occupying the car next to you (we do not judge here, preferring to leave this to the cruel and unforgiving gremlin aforementioned).<br />
<br />
At this same moment, a few blocks away, an employee of the local military base, who has been charged with the awesome, if of late dull, responsibility of possessing the codes to launch or abort the nuclear missiles that form the main part of your MAD détente (we believe this stood for ‘mutually assured destruction’, and is a sign of either obliviousness or exceedingly black humour as acronyms go), is struggling with getting the lid off his own container of foul stimulant, though his is in flimsy cardboard rather than the thin metal comprising yours. Though he routinely fails to slow at the yellow light or even stop for the red at the intersection you are both approaching, this has typically resulted only in honking horns and digital demonstrations in the past. It should be added that that will NOT be the case today, and that, in any case, discussions of the past, present or future are about to be moot.<br />
<br />
Approximately coinciding with this, two other improbable events have occurred. The OTHER person who has the codes has just discovered that her husband, in addition to leaving her, has taken the atypical-for-his-gender step of shredding all of the clothes in her bedroom closet (and, as it happens, also taking her cell phone, which will have a fairly obvious consequence in a short time), leaving her with literally nothing to wear to work, thus compelling her to call in and inform her employer that she will be late. She then starts to call up her few friends who will admit to having the same dress size as her, in hopes of borrowing something not too tasteless or vulgar at least long enough to get to the store and replace some crucial garments, and finally succeeds at this, leaving the house in her full-length mink and winter boots…but this is outside the narrative of the story, which is about to end anyway.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a mouse that has quietly, if with some potential for peril, lived inside the launching apparatus at the base has chosen THIS day to nibble at a few critical wires. This ends its life, which would have been ended shortly anyway, but it also has the consequence that even the oh-my-god-we-can’t-find-the-codes-we-must-shut-this-thing-down-COLD backup system will be inaccessible. Its dying convulsions also succeed in starting the launch sequence. As we have said before, God has his sadistic and heavy-handed moments.<br />
<br />
You succeed in spotting the car going through the intersection, as you are a cautious driver, but your attempt at braking is thwarted by the fruit wedged under the pedal. In an understandable moment of panic, assisted by tweaks from Beyond, you inadvertently push down both the gas pedal and the accelerator, resulting in a horrific crash, an explosion and the end of both your existence and that of the code-holder. These, of course, are not the only deaths that day.<br />
<br />
Since God (for lack of a better term) is able to think AND act globally, similar events of equally improbable coincidence occur in the part of the world with which you are currently at eternal war, which would be known as the Middle East in your particular subset of the universe. Incredible as it may seem, on another layer of the cosmic onion, your nation state is engaged in a ceaseless ideological conflict with the region corresponding to your Liechtenstein, which managed to acquire a nuclear bomb due to its failing to give women the vote and thus having no voice of reason or intelligence to stop the madness (we are editorializing, we know, but it hardly matters now that all ideologies are about to be proven either false or true). The leaders of the United Arab Emirates deeply, if briefly, rue their decision to switch their communications links with missile control to a new satellite in the same week as massive sun spot activity is reported. In that other reality, otherwise so similar to yours, women have the ultimate ‘I told you so’ and ‘If we ruled the world, we’d make a much better job of it’ lecturing opportunity, though they of course have to speak quickly, which is not a problem to the half of the human species that some anthropologists believe invented language. <br />
<br />
In case you feel you really must know, some people ARE, in fact, ‘called up’ before the end of life on Earths. They are not the people you might expect, though, and the roster is not dependent upon donations to badly toupeed religionists or positions of worldly Godliness. And, as you will discover soon enough, while there IS bodily resurrection in the next world, it is run through a randomizer. This has some very distasteful consequences, but it was felt it was both the fairest and certainly the most fun way to handle it. <br />
<br />
You will have eternity to mull over why God ended all existence throughout the Multiplicities. There were any number of valid reasons and a corresponding number of invalid ones. Some of them conflict with one another, but this is only to be expected in a being who is three-in-one, or possibly even four.<br />
<br />
The Gnostics may well have been right. Again, you will find out.<br />
<br />
As you settle into a new and not necessarily any more meaningful state of what you will stubbornly insist on calling ‘life’, we will fade on a bit of doggerel, with a twist, which is now red-shifting its way across the final dying embers of the universes to you.<br />
<br />
Yes, the Multiplicities do have a physical end point, where you are right now. You are not entirely surprised to discover that everyone perceives it differently. Some see Mecca; some Shangri-La; some Valhalla; an unfortunate few see their mother-in-law’s house at Thanksgiving; or Toronto during an unpleasant world summit and/or garbage strike, these last two having as a common thread the accumulation of trash and an unpleasant odour for all concerned.<br />
<br />
As to what you see, we shall give you the illusion of privacy and draw a discreet veil – but it is certainly more pleasant, at least superficially, than the place you spent most of your life.<br />
<br />
“Not with a whimper, but with a bang.”Timmybearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09892276346644554626noreply@blogger.com0