Thursday, September 28, 2006

the death of B&N

I quit. Yes, you whip-cracking booksellers, I quit. I want this to sound strong and life-affirming and other jargony terms that empower me, but let's face it, I was scared. Always am when it comes to dropping the casual hey-i'm-quitting-but-i-still-like-this-place speech.

but this is good. after two weeks, well, one-and-a-half now, i will be shut of the place. let's hope this means the beginning of a new epoch for me. it will certainly give me enough time to plan a few epochs, if i want.

here's to quitting. here's to feeling inferior in a graduate context and admitting it to myself and faking the smarts and quitting my job so i can stop faking and get intelligent.

Friday, September 15, 2006


please let it be true. TP's first in a decade. please let me get a pre-release copy. that would be unutterably great.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Wandered, Swamplike

Though there were thirteen of them at one time he had reduced it gradually to three. This constellation suited him, no Cygnus blinking back, head severed.

He shuffled them along the cross-hatched surface of the stump, end up, planted on the porch.

The checkers were slow, blind to his mistakes. He had chosen them as silent participators in the scenes he desired and manipulated with his brown fingers.

And though he had arranged for senseless examination of facts, there was more sense floating in square pools of space than he would allow.

There was no symptom that could not be corrected. He had only to allow time, to think, ponder the problem. Assign names to circles, class them in two colors: red, white.

After translation, simple movements remained. Forward over the squares. Plain diagonals. And backwards, in any fashion, for the kings. These motions repeated became symbolic of larger patterns he saw in the world around him: they became relationships.

Contact was an actual barrier to forming relationships: it was so easily misread. Example A: he fingered a red checker forward, one named Hannah. He knew this piece intimately; he directed it about the board with delicacy. Fully aware, fingertips burning accumulated touch.

Hannah was in close proximity to another checker, this one white, given the name Clarence.  Though one square remained between them, they held this space diagonally, looking askance at attempts at reconciliation.

He eyed the pieces, pondered the third, a red, deep in the briars of the double corner.

Stagnation was never something he had concerned himself with; rather, it had been concerned with him.

Spine-knobbed stone rose against reddened sky, wedging black rifts into the seams of his mind. The sun set; he waited for the next move to reveal itself.

Clarence had a habit of skittish movement. Confrontation was not his thing. A strong feeling, in word only, for literal behaviors manifested in him as hypocrisy.

Panned the board, summed the squares, 64, finite movements, action or reaction. Recant, why not cant it out if both allow? Sinew shrinking the span of his fingers from eight squares to five.

High trees shaded the porch. One by one, the leaves begin to fall. A chance breeze pushed one onto the board. He grasped the withered stem with his fingers, and twirled the leaf slowly.

To bridge the space separating two individuals, a girder, or artificial support, can sometimes be used to great effect.

He placed the leaf silently on the board, then slid the third checker out of the double corner. When kinged after the long march, he would break the standoff. He put his hands on his knees and watched the sun slide below the horizon. The leaves continued falling in the dusk, collecting at his feet. He shucked his way through them and wandered, swamplike.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

How did this happen?

Now, I would never be insensitive about someone's death.

It is never funny when someone dies, especially under tragic circumstances. But, well, just let me highlight the subtitle to the lead article here.

"A stingray barb through the heart kills the beloved Aussie Adventurer... How did this happen?"

Well, I'm not sure how it happened exactly. I do know that it could never have happened to me.

Irwin's death occured under suspicious circumstances: he was swimming with a 7 foot bull manta ray.

Let's refer to another picture to refresh in our minds what sort of person Steve Irwin was.

"Oh, that's him exactly!" I hear you say. And it is. To put it bluntly, Irwin was a man who played with the sort of animals--Poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and stingrays--that most of us avoid. Why do we avoid these animals? Because they all share a certain aptitude in areas that are, well, linked to those tragic deaths you hear so much about these days.

So while I do think an article about Irwin's death, a man who did get people interested in fangs and claws and stingers, could be a great spot for questioning (what is our fascination with dangerous animals), I don't think the one to ask is "How did this happen."

Let me just say unequivocally that the first day I swim with 7 foot bull manta rays is the same day I expect to be killed by them.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

chinese

Ahar! Chinese has just begun, and it is taking a TOLL. note the use of the verb take. the implication is one of violence, of coersion, of prizing something away from tightly locked hands. That something is my time. i have so little of it these days, it seems.

so what am i doing here? venting. that should be obvious. what sentient being can remain so without a little good-natured bleeding?

and so i am off to chinese again. it is by far the most regular element of my schedule.

and the teacher is a wretch who treats me like a child.