On the night before we had to leave, an angel visited us in the darkness. We were crying in Elizabeth's bed, see, her and myself, just holding each other and crying, and then the angel came down on a moonbeam or something and spoke to us. Your love was pure and your happiness was genuine, and you should not weep for that, it whispered, and Elizabeth said, don't you think we know that.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
New Love Stories
The wedding reception was outfitted with the usual diversions –
my new wife was a very wealthy woman
thanks to a late father who had made his money
selling explosives and machine-guns to warlords in central Africa
so that they could paralyze more children with landmines –
And so for us that meant an open bar and a fancy Hollywood DJ.
I was not bothered by her shrill friends,
Or the vows she wrote herself which took an hour to read.
That night we took the jet to her villa outside of Paris
And slow danced to soft jazz music
on the balcony off the master bedroom.
Darling, she purred,
Her breath hot and smelling of expensive wine,
I’m so happy.
And I said, I am too, and
we danced closer to the railing.
my new wife was a very wealthy woman
thanks to a late father who had made his money
selling explosives and machine-guns to warlords in central Africa
so that they could paralyze more children with landmines –
And so for us that meant an open bar and a fancy Hollywood DJ.
I was not bothered by her shrill friends,
Or the vows she wrote herself which took an hour to read.
That night we took the jet to her villa outside of Paris
And slow danced to soft jazz music
on the balcony off the master bedroom.
Darling, she purred,
Her breath hot and smelling of expensive wine,
I’m so happy.
And I said, I am too, and
we danced closer to the railing.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Z
Inspired by the work of Alexey Pajitnov.
****
This is the end.
You sowed the seeds of your own destruction
even as you left the last column free.
I watched you squirrel those boxes away in the corner
on top of the T-blocks,
assuring yourself, perhaps, that you’d deal
with those tiny gaps later,
when you had more time,
more space,
and a few more points under your belt.
The line piece you were waiting for, though, has come and gone
and now here I am, staring down at a jagged
and desperate landscape where I don’t belong.
Were you satisfied, clearing four lines
to leave nothing but a fourteen-story tower
built of rotted concrete?
Were the points worth this immovable tribute
to short-sightedness?
I have no regrets, friend.
I only hope you can say the same.
****
This is the end.
You sowed the seeds of your own destruction
even as you left the last column free.
I watched you squirrel those boxes away in the corner
on top of the T-blocks,
assuring yourself, perhaps, that you’d deal
with those tiny gaps later,
when you had more time,
more space,
and a few more points under your belt.
The line piece you were waiting for, though, has come and gone
and now here I am, staring down at a jagged
and desperate landscape where I don’t belong.
Were you satisfied, clearing four lines
to leave nothing but a fourteen-story tower
built of rotted concrete?
Were the points worth this immovable tribute
to short-sightedness?
I have no regrets, friend.
I only hope you can say the same.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Do-Overs
"Do-Overs" is mash-up artist and Brad Pitt look-a-like PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's second single off of his mixtape The Wuggie Norple Story. Samples include Steely Dan, Caro Emerald, and the U.S. Naval Drum Corp. Upon the track's release, one of the artist's many fans was reported to have raved "well if you're done then will you please take the garbage out like I asked you this afternoon."
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Inheritance
On Sunday I left the milk out. By accident, I mean.
I just forgot to put it away
after I finished watching TV.
But when I picked it up on Monday it was still cold,
Like I had just taken it out of the fridge.
Something has been breaking down around here, man,
And I can’t put my finger on it except to say
I have powers.
The holes in my shirts have been fixing themselves overnight.
My cereal turned into gasoline. I think I can control mosquitoes.
Today is Thursday, and the milk is on the counter,
Still sweating it out, still just, you know, just chilling.
So I pick it up and drink it, straight from the carton.
It just feels right. And the taste is fresh and rich
And so, so cold,
with a flavor like I’ll never get another sunburn,
like maybe I could turn one of my hands invisible,
and like I could learn to fly
for a few minutes at a times, at least.
I just forgot to put it away
after I finished watching TV.
But when I picked it up on Monday it was still cold,
Like I had just taken it out of the fridge.
Something has been breaking down around here, man,
And I can’t put my finger on it except to say
I have powers.
The holes in my shirts have been fixing themselves overnight.
My cereal turned into gasoline. I think I can control mosquitoes.
Today is Thursday, and the milk is on the counter,
Still sweating it out, still just, you know, just chilling.
So I pick it up and drink it, straight from the carton.
It just feels right. And the taste is fresh and rich
And so, so cold,
with a flavor like I’ll never get another sunburn,
like maybe I could turn one of my hands invisible,
and like I could learn to fly
for a few minutes at a times, at least.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Barton Fortsworth, 20, on the lecture he attended with his roommate while under the influence of salvia
Not based on a true story.
****
We were going to class,
See. My roommate and I. This long lecture class.
Two hours. Ethnomusicology.
And so I say to Jesse. That’s my roommate. Jesse. I say
let’s smoke a bowl in the facilities closet
right beforehand. And he says, yeah, okay.
And so we do, except apparently my dealer mixed up his stuff
Because we smoked salvia. That’s not illegal I learned,
But I wouldn’t recommend it for pregaming a class with.
Shortly after we got to the room I was a book.
People just stared at me. No one said a word.
I was certain they were reading me because
My torso had split open and there was a story there.
Jesse told me that it was raining long diagonal lines and
He was falling down them, but I don’t remember that at all.
My vision stopped vibrating in the bathroom.
I had stumbled out just after class had started,
Pausing only for a second to put on my jacket
That I sewed deftly of the quilted walls.
As I wandered back I realized I no longer feared death
Which worked out because Jesse was certainly going to kill me.
****
We were going to class,
See. My roommate and I. This long lecture class.
Two hours. Ethnomusicology.
And so I say to Jesse. That’s my roommate. Jesse. I say
let’s smoke a bowl in the facilities closet
right beforehand. And he says, yeah, okay.
And so we do, except apparently my dealer mixed up his stuff
Because we smoked salvia. That’s not illegal I learned,
But I wouldn’t recommend it for pregaming a class with.
Shortly after we got to the room I was a book.
People just stared at me. No one said a word.
I was certain they were reading me because
My torso had split open and there was a story there.
Jesse told me that it was raining long diagonal lines and
He was falling down them, but I don’t remember that at all.
My vision stopped vibrating in the bathroom.
I had stumbled out just after class had started,
Pausing only for a second to put on my jacket
That I sewed deftly of the quilted walls.
As I wandered back I realized I no longer feared death
Which worked out because Jesse was certainly going to kill me.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
1902
Off of PAPERCUT MIXMASTER's groundbreaking new mixtape "The Wuggie Norple Story", 1902 blends Pheonix's vocals with acoustic samples and crunchy drums for a unique track critics have been hailing as "song-like mostly" and "pretty alright".
Friday, February 10, 2012
Brian Duncard, Flyin' Drunkard
This needs revision but I'm trying to post more, you may see a better version of it soon.
****
I'd like to tell a story that I hope you'll think is cool
About a friend named Brian that I met while back in school.
See Brian had a little quirk I bet will get you thinking,
For it would only manifest itself while he was drinking.
When normal people drink, they mostly wake up in a bed,
But Brian always woke up in quite strange locales instead.
He'd wake up in hotel rooms, he'd wake up in a fountain,
He once awoke to find himself on a gigantic mountain.
And Brian never could recall how he would get these places.
Instead of normal memories, he'd only have blank spaces.
Until one Friday night he walked right up to me and said,
"Tonight we should find out why I don't wake up in my bed!"
We watched a movie and he had a beer or seventeen.
And just about at midnight - well, I thought it was a dream -
I couldn't comprehend just what it was I was discovering.
I looked at Brian Duncard and I saw that he was hovering.
When the next morning came I didn't know quite what to do.
He came down from the roof and still he didn't have a clue.
I sat him down and said to him, "now listen closely, Brian,
The fact is when you'd drank enough, you up and started flyin'"
He thought at first what I had said was pure misinformation,
But soon he came to see there was no other explanation.
He stood up from his chair and left my dorm room in a daze,
But not before he grabbed a can of beer while on his way.
And he did not return that night; he'd left the school right then.
It wasn't 'til years later that I saw that man again.
I was on the night shift at the clinic just last week,
When Brian Duncard came in looking haggard, sick, and meek.
I walked to him and cried out, "What has happened, my old friend?"
He winked and said, "I'm fairly certain this could be the end,
And though I don't remember much, I'm certain this is true:
You wouldn't mourn me if you saw the places that I flew."
****
I'd like to tell a story that I hope you'll think is cool
About a friend named Brian that I met while back in school.
See Brian had a little quirk I bet will get you thinking,
For it would only manifest itself while he was drinking.
When normal people drink, they mostly wake up in a bed,
But Brian always woke up in quite strange locales instead.
He'd wake up in hotel rooms, he'd wake up in a fountain,
He once awoke to find himself on a gigantic mountain.
And Brian never could recall how he would get these places.
Instead of normal memories, he'd only have blank spaces.
Until one Friday night he walked right up to me and said,
"Tonight we should find out why I don't wake up in my bed!"
We watched a movie and he had a beer or seventeen.
And just about at midnight - well, I thought it was a dream -
I couldn't comprehend just what it was I was discovering.
I looked at Brian Duncard and I saw that he was hovering.
When the next morning came I didn't know quite what to do.
He came down from the roof and still he didn't have a clue.
I sat him down and said to him, "now listen closely, Brian,
The fact is when you'd drank enough, you up and started flyin'"
He thought at first what I had said was pure misinformation,
But soon he came to see there was no other explanation.
He stood up from his chair and left my dorm room in a daze,
But not before he grabbed a can of beer while on his way.
And he did not return that night; he'd left the school right then.
It wasn't 'til years later that I saw that man again.
I was on the night shift at the clinic just last week,
When Brian Duncard came in looking haggard, sick, and meek.
I walked to him and cried out, "What has happened, my old friend?"
He winked and said, "I'm fairly certain this could be the end,
And though I don't remember much, I'm certain this is true:
You wouldn't mourn me if you saw the places that I flew."
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Singles' Night
BILL, just shy of 50, dances with LINDA at singles' night. They rock awkwardly back and forth for a while. LINDA has her eyes closed. BILL stares vacantly into the space behind her.
BILL
This is my first time at one of these things.
LINDA
What?
BILL
Yep, it’s true.
LINDA
No, I mean. I didn’t hear you.
BILL
Oh. I said. This is my first time at one of these things. You know. Singles night. I saw it driving home from work, and I thought. What the heck. Singles night.
LINDA
Yeah. It’s. I have a good time.
BILL
Have you been to one before?
LINDA
A couple times I guess. I try to go like. Once a month or whatever.
BILL
Oh, sure.
A pause. They keep dancing.
LINDA
I’m new to the area, see. I moved hear about a year ago.
BILL
Oh?
LINDA
Yeah, and I just. I don’t know many people so I started coming, and it’s. You know. It’s fun.
BILL
Yeah. It’s fun.
LINDA
Yeah.
A pause.
BILL
What do you do? For, like, employment.
LINDA
I’m a lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer.
A pause. They continue dancing.
BILL
And you. You didn’t grow up around here? You just moved here?
LINDA
I’m from Philly.
BILL
Really? Yeah, I think I have some cousins in, like, uh, Ardmore? Is that nearby?
LINDA
Yeah. Well I mean I say I’m from Philly but I’m not, like, from the city. I’m from the suburbs, the. The Main Line, it’s called. I live in Radnor. Ardmore is right down the street.
BILL
Why’d you move up here?
LINDA
I was working for a big firm in the city and they wanted me in one of their satellite offices in Albany.
BILL
Oh, sure. That makes sense.
LINDA
Yeah. What about you? Are you from around here?
BILL
Yeah, I’m from Poughkeepsie. I was working in Seattle after school, you know. Writing user manuals for a tech company out there, but then. Well. My dad wasn’t doing too great or whatever after my mom passed away so I moved back here.
LINDA
Are you employed in the area now?
BILL
Yeah, I work for General Electric. GE Appliances. That’s part of the reason I came, because. Because I work with mostly men, and I thought. You know, I have my poker buddies or whatever but it’s nice- (trails off)
LINDA
To know women?
BILL
Yeah. I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
And you write manuals at GE too?
BILL
Yeah, manuals. It’s. It’s okay work. I like that it’s, you know, pretty cut and dry for me. Because I know how to use the stuff and I just, I. I explain it.
A pause.
BILL
Because you go through life solving problems, right? It’s nice that I can. You know. It’s nice that I can think that I’m helping people solve a few of them. Even if it is, just. With their refrigerator. Like I mean how you help people stay out of jail. That’s.
A pause.
BILL (half trying to laugh)
That’s a lot bigger, I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
But what you do is pretty important too.
BILL
I mean, sure. Yeah.
LINDA
Because. Because people pay me to keep them out of jail, you know. But you get paid to. You help people help themselves.
BILL (sort of weakly)
Ha, yeah, I guess.
LINDA
No, I think. I think really. We need more user manuals, you know? For life. For. For making friends or whatever. For more than, you know. Refrigerators.
BILL
Yeah.
A short beat.
BILL
Yeah. That’d be funny, if we had a. A user manual for life.
LINDA
I’d buy it, though.
BILL
Me too. Who wouldn’t?
Another beat.
LINDA
You can put your arms around my waist if you want.
BILL (flustered)
What. Oh. Yeah oh. I mean. Sure.
LINDA
It’s just because. I only said that because it would have been in the manual.
BILL
What?
LINDA
The life. The user manual for life. For dancing with a girl, it would say- I mean you said you would have bought it so I just figured I’d let you know. It would say, you can put your hands around her waist.
BILL
Oh. Well, thanks.
BILL slips his arms down around LINDA’s waist. They dance a little closer as the lights fade.
BILL
This is my first time at one of these things.
LINDA
What?
BILL
Yep, it’s true.
LINDA
No, I mean. I didn’t hear you.
BILL
Oh. I said. This is my first time at one of these things. You know. Singles night. I saw it driving home from work, and I thought. What the heck. Singles night.
LINDA
Yeah. It’s. I have a good time.
BILL
Have you been to one before?
LINDA
A couple times I guess. I try to go like. Once a month or whatever.
BILL
Oh, sure.
A pause. They keep dancing.
LINDA
I’m new to the area, see. I moved hear about a year ago.
BILL
Oh?
LINDA
Yeah, and I just. I don’t know many people so I started coming, and it’s. You know. It’s fun.
BILL
Yeah. It’s fun.
LINDA
Yeah.
A pause.
BILL
What do you do? For, like, employment.
LINDA
I’m a lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer.
A pause. They continue dancing.
BILL
And you. You didn’t grow up around here? You just moved here?
LINDA
I’m from Philly.
BILL
Really? Yeah, I think I have some cousins in, like, uh, Ardmore? Is that nearby?
LINDA
Yeah. Well I mean I say I’m from Philly but I’m not, like, from the city. I’m from the suburbs, the. The Main Line, it’s called. I live in Radnor. Ardmore is right down the street.
BILL
Why’d you move up here?
LINDA
I was working for a big firm in the city and they wanted me in one of their satellite offices in Albany.
BILL
Oh, sure. That makes sense.
LINDA
Yeah. What about you? Are you from around here?
BILL
Yeah, I’m from Poughkeepsie. I was working in Seattle after school, you know. Writing user manuals for a tech company out there, but then. Well. My dad wasn’t doing too great or whatever after my mom passed away so I moved back here.
LINDA
Are you employed in the area now?
BILL
Yeah, I work for General Electric. GE Appliances. That’s part of the reason I came, because. Because I work with mostly men, and I thought. You know, I have my poker buddies or whatever but it’s nice- (trails off)
LINDA
To know women?
BILL
Yeah. I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
And you write manuals at GE too?
BILL
Yeah, manuals. It’s. It’s okay work. I like that it’s, you know, pretty cut and dry for me. Because I know how to use the stuff and I just, I. I explain it.
A pause.
BILL
Because you go through life solving problems, right? It’s nice that I can. You know. It’s nice that I can think that I’m helping people solve a few of them. Even if it is, just. With their refrigerator. Like I mean how you help people stay out of jail. That’s.
A pause.
BILL (half trying to laugh)
That’s a lot bigger, I guess.
A pause.
LINDA
But what you do is pretty important too.
BILL
I mean, sure. Yeah.
LINDA
Because. Because people pay me to keep them out of jail, you know. But you get paid to. You help people help themselves.
BILL (sort of weakly)
Ha, yeah, I guess.
LINDA
No, I think. I think really. We need more user manuals, you know? For life. For. For making friends or whatever. For more than, you know. Refrigerators.
BILL
Yeah.
A short beat.
BILL
Yeah. That’d be funny, if we had a. A user manual for life.
LINDA
I’d buy it, though.
BILL
Me too. Who wouldn’t?
Another beat.
LINDA
You can put your arms around my waist if you want.
BILL (flustered)
What. Oh. Yeah oh. I mean. Sure.
LINDA
It’s just because. I only said that because it would have been in the manual.
BILL
What?
LINDA
The life. The user manual for life. For dancing with a girl, it would say- I mean you said you would have bought it so I just figured I’d let you know. It would say, you can put your hands around her waist.
BILL
Oh. Well, thanks.
BILL slips his arms down around LINDA’s waist. They dance a little closer as the lights fade.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
AN ESSAY
My great-great-grandfather’s name was Isaac or Jacob or something. And he was from one of the Eastern European countries, the ones with a lot of Jews, probably with like a hard name to pronounce. His mom had a sweet blue apron that was all faded and his dad was a butcher or something cool. This was their homeland, and in the summer there were all these warm breezes smelling faintly of lavender that would shake this tree that my great-great-grandfather would sit under with his girl, whose name was Rose, and who died of some awful disease when she was young.
Anyway Jacob or Isaac or whatever came over to the United States on a big boat, or maybe his son did, regardless it doesn’t much matter. He came over and when he got here he got off the boat and said, “yes, America! This is such a nice place that I am now, better than that place I was in before that has that name that’s hard to pronounce.” Except he said it in broken English and his hat was like they had in The Newsies. And also he was so wrong about America! It is not like those things he said it was, it was really hard. For instance he was robbed as soon as he got off the boat, like right after he said how good it is here, and the robbers hurt him real bad and he went to the hospital, but then when he got to the hospital he was robbed again by the doctors. They took the gold Star of David he wore around his neck, and he said, “no, that was given to me by my girlfriend Rose, who died of some awful disease when she was young.” And the doctors were like, “yeah, whatever,” And they put him back onto the streets, which were now dark and it was raining too.
So my great-great-grandfather did a lot of stuff including inventing some stuff and meeting my great-great-grandmother, and they had babies and the babies had babies and eventually we got my mom, Ellen. She grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish area though she often skipped Hebrew School to play at the arcade across the street. One time she was pushing a doll in a stroller and her sister pushed her and the stroller and she fell flat on her face and her nose got a little flatter, which is actually a symbol for her malleable feelings towards tradition and culture. They were so malleable that she married my dad, Dan, who came from Troy, New York and who was a Christian and who used Miracle Whip, which is also another symbol for how gross and weird his family was to my mom, who used mayonnaise like a normal person. But anyway they got married.
I was sort of an immigrant too, like my great-great-grandfather, except my immigration was from one suburb to another suburb and it was not an immigration at all really. I mean it was from Poughkeepsie, New York to Wayne, Pennsylvania, so come on. Those cities are very different in several substantial ways, for instance in my new house we did not have an above-ground pool which I am told was awesome. I say “I am told” because I only lived in Poughkeepsie for one year, specifically until I was one. Memories then were foggy like London fog gently rolling over London, which I say in the interest of providing beautiful imagery, etc.
When I was five we moved from Wayne to Belgium for a little bit for my dad’s job. My main memories from this period was showing my class the wooden sword I had for show and tell and also the time I smashed my teeth on the hard wood of the dining room floor when my stupid babysitter let my sister and I grab hands and spin in circles. My teeth were not a symbol for anything, though, and plus they were fine. I mean I never even got braces, which was probably not a result of that accident but you never know I guess. We moved home eight months after, which was good because I got to see all my kindergarten friends again except now we were in first grade.
School went on for a while and I found it pretty boring because I was intelligent but not very hard-working, and because of this my grades were bad and my parents and I fought. Doors were slammed, cars were crashed, urine was tested. Eventually I realized how much I love my family and we stopped fighting, though in the interest of not providing too much of a cliché ending on that front my mom and I fight still very rarely in a healthy way but I love her still, or possibly we never fight but our relationship is still not perfect, or maybe she got me the wrong color car for my most recent birthday. Also in middle school once someone called me ginger-balls and it was my first encounter with the racism I would face throughout my life but eventually I learned how to be proud of my heritage from someone significant like my dad.
My family would be best explored by examining one of our yearly traditions which is Christmas. Even though we are Jewish we still celebrate Christmas because my dad grew up Christian and we like presents. We used to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas – I mean the one on my father’s side, we used to go to her house – but eventually we stopped liking her maybe so we started celebrating Christmas with my mom’s side. They are all Jewish though so they don’t really know what to do, like for instance we usually get a tree on Christmas Eve and then get rid of it on December 26. We don’t like it sitting around my house because my cousin is allergic to pine. We should really get a fake one but we are all pretty lazy. Two years ago I got a Wii, it was so sick, but also it is about family togetherness and stuff like that.
Anyway yeah and stuff, this is all about how I'm the same as my great-great-grandfather probably. You probably need to read more into the symbols or whatever.
Anyway Jacob or Isaac or whatever came over to the United States on a big boat, or maybe his son did, regardless it doesn’t much matter. He came over and when he got here he got off the boat and said, “yes, America! This is such a nice place that I am now, better than that place I was in before that has that name that’s hard to pronounce.” Except he said it in broken English and his hat was like they had in The Newsies. And also he was so wrong about America! It is not like those things he said it was, it was really hard. For instance he was robbed as soon as he got off the boat, like right after he said how good it is here, and the robbers hurt him real bad and he went to the hospital, but then when he got to the hospital he was robbed again by the doctors. They took the gold Star of David he wore around his neck, and he said, “no, that was given to me by my girlfriend Rose, who died of some awful disease when she was young.” And the doctors were like, “yeah, whatever,” And they put him back onto the streets, which were now dark and it was raining too.
So my great-great-grandfather did a lot of stuff including inventing some stuff and meeting my great-great-grandmother, and they had babies and the babies had babies and eventually we got my mom, Ellen. She grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish area though she often skipped Hebrew School to play at the arcade across the street. One time she was pushing a doll in a stroller and her sister pushed her and the stroller and she fell flat on her face and her nose got a little flatter, which is actually a symbol for her malleable feelings towards tradition and culture. They were so malleable that she married my dad, Dan, who came from Troy, New York and who was a Christian and who used Miracle Whip, which is also another symbol for how gross and weird his family was to my mom, who used mayonnaise like a normal person. But anyway they got married.
I was sort of an immigrant too, like my great-great-grandfather, except my immigration was from one suburb to another suburb and it was not an immigration at all really. I mean it was from Poughkeepsie, New York to Wayne, Pennsylvania, so come on. Those cities are very different in several substantial ways, for instance in my new house we did not have an above-ground pool which I am told was awesome. I say “I am told” because I only lived in Poughkeepsie for one year, specifically until I was one. Memories then were foggy like London fog gently rolling over London, which I say in the interest of providing beautiful imagery, etc.
When I was five we moved from Wayne to Belgium for a little bit for my dad’s job. My main memories from this period was showing my class the wooden sword I had for show and tell and also the time I smashed my teeth on the hard wood of the dining room floor when my stupid babysitter let my sister and I grab hands and spin in circles. My teeth were not a symbol for anything, though, and plus they were fine. I mean I never even got braces, which was probably not a result of that accident but you never know I guess. We moved home eight months after, which was good because I got to see all my kindergarten friends again except now we were in first grade.
School went on for a while and I found it pretty boring because I was intelligent but not very hard-working, and because of this my grades were bad and my parents and I fought. Doors were slammed, cars were crashed, urine was tested. Eventually I realized how much I love my family and we stopped fighting, though in the interest of not providing too much of a cliché ending on that front my mom and I fight still very rarely in a healthy way but I love her still, or possibly we never fight but our relationship is still not perfect, or maybe she got me the wrong color car for my most recent birthday. Also in middle school once someone called me ginger-balls and it was my first encounter with the racism I would face throughout my life but eventually I learned how to be proud of my heritage from someone significant like my dad.
My family would be best explored by examining one of our yearly traditions which is Christmas. Even though we are Jewish we still celebrate Christmas because my dad grew up Christian and we like presents. We used to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas – I mean the one on my father’s side, we used to go to her house – but eventually we stopped liking her maybe so we started celebrating Christmas with my mom’s side. They are all Jewish though so they don’t really know what to do, like for instance we usually get a tree on Christmas Eve and then get rid of it on December 26. We don’t like it sitting around my house because my cousin is allergic to pine. We should really get a fake one but we are all pretty lazy. Two years ago I got a Wii, it was so sick, but also it is about family togetherness and stuff like that.
Anyway yeah and stuff, this is all about how I'm the same as my great-great-grandfather probably. You probably need to read more into the symbols or whatever.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Setting Alarms (Rewrite)
Alex Albright, 21-year-old Anthropology/Sociology double major, contemplates the sort of paper she could publish on the monster aliens that invaded earth and killed all her loved ones.
It would be about the little things, Alex decides, her head under her desk as one of them moves around her room in the dark. Writing sticky notes, taking photographs, setting alarms. That’s the sort of edge this paper could really bring to the table – the human connection. The sort of tendencies that span galaxies and exist in spite of an urge to exterminate all other sentient life. She could watch them from afar and note them giving each other high-fives with their tentacles and playing cards.
I mean you can't blame her for staying at school up in Vermont. When word first hit the college’s online forums, when the army was still trying to get it together, people started leaving and then never came back. She called her parents; they didn't call back. The city had already been vaporized. Where was she going to go?
And they - I mean, they – hadn’t been around these parts for so long. Only a couple weeks after the touch-down they had left, and she had gotten lonely and then accustomed and then sloppy. She turned lights on at night. She played music out loud.
Mostly, though, she knows it will be her watch alarm that does her in – every midnight exactly, just to remind her to take stock of her supplies. It was eleven forty-eight when she heard the footsteps outside her room, she has been trying to count the seconds.
It touches the bed that used to belong to her roommate. Alex remembers this, mainly: that they had a fight about whose turn it was to buy the milk and cereal that week and then Alex saw her get devoured on the lawn in front of the chapel. It was to say the least an unusual start to her spring term.
She thinks about her pocket-knife, on the bedside table feet away – she knows there isn’t time; they are so quick. She thinks about her parents because she misses them a lot of the time. She thinks about her dog and her old boyfriend. She thinks about the garden she was going to start on the football field.
And then there is a quiet beeping.
It looks down, where a small electronic device wrapped around one of its appendages is glowing. It taps something. The beeping stops.
It walks out and closes the door.
It would be about the little things, Alex decides, her head under her desk as one of them moves around her room in the dark. Writing sticky notes, taking photographs, setting alarms. That’s the sort of edge this paper could really bring to the table – the human connection. The sort of tendencies that span galaxies and exist in spite of an urge to exterminate all other sentient life. She could watch them from afar and note them giving each other high-fives with their tentacles and playing cards.
I mean you can't blame her for staying at school up in Vermont. When word first hit the college’s online forums, when the army was still trying to get it together, people started leaving and then never came back. She called her parents; they didn't call back. The city had already been vaporized. Where was she going to go?
And they - I mean, they – hadn’t been around these parts for so long. Only a couple weeks after the touch-down they had left, and she had gotten lonely and then accustomed and then sloppy. She turned lights on at night. She played music out loud.
Mostly, though, she knows it will be her watch alarm that does her in – every midnight exactly, just to remind her to take stock of her supplies. It was eleven forty-eight when she heard the footsteps outside her room, she has been trying to count the seconds.
It touches the bed that used to belong to her roommate. Alex remembers this, mainly: that they had a fight about whose turn it was to buy the milk and cereal that week and then Alex saw her get devoured on the lawn in front of the chapel. It was to say the least an unusual start to her spring term.
She thinks about her pocket-knife, on the bedside table feet away – she knows there isn’t time; they are so quick. She thinks about her parents because she misses them a lot of the time. She thinks about her dog and her old boyfriend. She thinks about the garden she was going to start on the football field.
And then there is a quiet beeping.
It looks down, where a small electronic device wrapped around one of its appendages is glowing. It taps something. The beeping stops.
It walks out and closes the door.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
The Money Cut
The riskiest play in ultimate is not the huck. People assume it is, but the fact is that if you're comfortable with a long throw and if your guy is open - and these are, of course, two prerequisites for throwing a huck - then there isn't an issue. Fake break side, wind back, step out, and put that shit up. It's not an issue.
The riskiest play in ultimate is the up-line cut - the money cut - and it goes like this. The disc is trapped on or near the line, and the dump - on stall four to six, maybe - takes a step towards the around and then busts up into the force lane diagonal to whomever has the disc.
And the throw isn't hard just because hitting someone running nearly straight away from you is tricky - it's hard because at the moment you have to let go - at the moment of release - your mark is in between you and your target. You get to see him and his defender a second before you make the throw, but for the most part you're blind. You watch the first two seconds of a five second race and have to decide who is going to win. You don't know what's on the other side - your handler could have tripped or it just could have been a fake. This has happened before - we've all seen it happen, that the disc is trapped on the line and then it gets thrown five yards up to no one because the dump changed his mind.
Worse still is that the money cut is a bailout throw - if you don't hit your money cut then you're on stall seven with a defender right in front of you in the lane and no dump at all. New players look off the up-line because it's scary and then end up getting stalled. Or maybe even the handler - a senior, the friendly and athletic captain of the team - shouldn't have made the cut. His man is tight on him and you don't know how much space he has.
So you put it up, maybe, high and sort of far because his defender has already laid out for a few d's, and he catches it and immediately throws a huck to a continuation deep. Or you don't, because, you know, sometimes you don't. The first player in the stack knows what he's doing, and you've always trusted your break throws. It might be worth a shot.
The riskiest play in ultimate is the up-line cut - the money cut - and it goes like this. The disc is trapped on or near the line, and the dump - on stall four to six, maybe - takes a step towards the around and then busts up into the force lane diagonal to whomever has the disc.
And the throw isn't hard just because hitting someone running nearly straight away from you is tricky - it's hard because at the moment you have to let go - at the moment of release - your mark is in between you and your target. You get to see him and his defender a second before you make the throw, but for the most part you're blind. You watch the first two seconds of a five second race and have to decide who is going to win. You don't know what's on the other side - your handler could have tripped or it just could have been a fake. This has happened before - we've all seen it happen, that the disc is trapped on the line and then it gets thrown five yards up to no one because the dump changed his mind.
Worse still is that the money cut is a bailout throw - if you don't hit your money cut then you're on stall seven with a defender right in front of you in the lane and no dump at all. New players look off the up-line because it's scary and then end up getting stalled. Or maybe even the handler - a senior, the friendly and athletic captain of the team - shouldn't have made the cut. His man is tight on him and you don't know how much space he has.
So you put it up, maybe, high and sort of far because his defender has already laid out for a few d's, and he catches it and immediately throws a huck to a continuation deep. Or you don't, because, you know, sometimes you don't. The first player in the stack knows what he's doing, and you've always trusted your break throws. It might be worth a shot.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Notes
As some of you might know I'm taking an introductory fiction writing class this semester, which means obviously most of my creative efforts have been directed away from my blog. That being said I'll do my best to post what I can here - what is below this note ("VICTOR RHODES") is a mostly-finished piece for that class. I encourage you to read it and leave me some criticism!
Also of note: writing for this blog the last three years has left me virtually unable to write a story longer than 250 words.
Also of note: writing for this blog the last three years has left me virtually unable to write a story longer than 250 words.
VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR
1.
The fan on his desk is the small, industrial kind – steel and gray and unreasonably loud – but Victor, like all his coworkers, keeps it on for the heat in the office. He is fairly certain someone has put in a request for quieter ones. He is also fairly certain he is starting to get another migraine.
The document in question is produced just before five o’clock.
His process is as follows: the randomization is created on a central server and sent to his desktop computer. If he determines it to be garbage (as nearly all of them are) he just deletes it. If it’s mostly comprehensible, though, he clicks advance and it goes to a higher-level analyst – one who decides if the idea itself makes any sense and to what sort of expert reader it should be passed on to if it does. Victor is averaging a little less than four documents advanced per day (out of nearly a thousand he sees), which is about right for readers at the lowest level.
This text, though, is different. Victor reads it twice and then blinks at the screen for a little bit.
He prints it out and clicks delete.
2.
The idea in the end was called Intentional Serendipity, and it went like this: let’s fake discovery. You’ll grant that most scientific advances can be expressed in a couple paragraphs, and who could imagine how valuable even a single page of a medical journal from one hundred years in the future would be to us now? So let’s fake it, let’s just fake the whole thing. Let’s make computers generate random strings of words and see if they make any sense. Sure, the ideas still need a little testing, but for every few million non-sensical paragraphs that are generated there is always that one that makes it to the real expert, who looks down his glasses at it and say, “you know, I think this would work.”
And we got our breakthroughs, that’s the thing. The nature of the process meant that a great deal of them were military – a field that was evidently lacking in creativity more than anything – but we cured a few diseases along the way, we came up with some new and innovative economic policies. According to a sociological test invented with the help of randomization number 7A4892F, we discovered that overall quality of life had improved since Intentional Serendipity had been implemented. There were even some published short stories written originally and completely by the computers – lyrical ones, flat ones, sad ones – and of course a wide range of visionary mathematical proofs. The human race had quit using what little light it had in trying to navigate the darkness of its existence, choosing instead to sprint through the night, eyes squeezed tight, hoping to bump into something that felt like it might help.
3.
TO: HUMANITY C/O VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR
FROM: THE LORD YOUR GOD IN HEAVEN RULER OF THE UNIVERSE
THIS PROCESS IS FLAWED AND WILL CONSUME YOU.
On the train, Victor reads and re-reads the document, giving nervous glances to the other passengers every couple of minutes. It isn’t very long – by design, of course – but it doesn’t need to be.
Here’s the thing, though: statistically speaking something like this was bound to happen. Victor isn’t a religious man, but this - this?
At home, Victor puts the paper on his fridge and tries to put it out of his mind for a little bit. He makes a couple hot dogs and thinks about calling Hannah at her conference, but it’ll be just after midnight in Hong Kong and it’s probably not worth waking her up. If she were here she’d know what to do, he’s sure, but maybe it’s for the best that he makes this decision on his own. It’s not going to be a secret police job or anything like that, but making this public in any significant way means he loses his job for sure. With the economy the way it is and Hannah still in school he wonders if it’s worth it.
For the first time in two decades, Victor prays before he gets in bed. It’s sweaty and embarrassed and about half of it is plagiarized from movies and television, but it’s a prayer, at least.
4.
Victor worked in a lab before.
I mean he’s not bitter or anything because things worked out for the best – I mean, sure, he liked his old job. The thing is his mom was pretty sick so he went into research pretty much right away, but then when I.S. came around the lab shut down and his mom died, which was unrelated, he knows, but still.
And a couple months later – a couple months of Hannah waitressing to support them both – I.S. found a cure out of one of the randomization offices in the Midwest. It got passed up by a reader named Barton and in the very middle of the paragraph there was the word badger, but if you ignored that, I mean, it made sense and it was exactly right. The story got published all over, and always ended the same way, about how more low-level readers were needed. When Victor read it he cried, and then he applied for the job.
5.
In his dream, at the kitchen table with his mother and God.
Victor asks his mother: Why me?
His mother smiles and shakes her head in the way she used to.
Victor looks at God.
God clears his throat and takes a sip of water.
6.
At lunch, Victor talks with the office’s administrative assistant. Her name is Gladys and she’s like a thousand years old. Victor thinks she might have powers.
“Gladys, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, dear, what is it?”
He appreciates this term of endearment.
“If you got a letter that wasn’t addressed to you, you’d forward it to the right person, right? Or at least try to?”
“Sure, of course.”
Victor taps the table with the very tips of his fingers.
“But let’s say this letter - let’s say you read it by accident, and it had some stuff in it that you thought might be wrong. Stuff that, like, might even cause trouble. What would you do then?”
Gladys eats a thoughtful bite of her bran muffin. “Gee, that’s a toughy. The letter wasn’t addressed to me, though? Well, I guess then I would ask my husband Edwin what he would do.”
“But say you couldn’t ask him,” Victor says, “what would you do if you had to figure this out by yourself?”
“Well gosh, I just don’t know.” She sort of trails off in a way that makes Victor think she might come up with something, but then she smiles at him as if expecting another question.
He packs up his stuff. “Yeah, nevermind. Thanks, Gladys.”
7.
Disaster strikes just after lunch, when Victor moves the paper on his desk and it gets caught up in the fan’s draft - up, around, and then violently through the back of the blades. Victor sits dismayed as the holy confetti quietly settles around his cubicle. He then decides this is a good time to take a smoke break.
8.
Outside with his boss Nick, Victor lights up and looks up at the sun as if he might be able to figure out what time it is.
“Hey, Nick, you were a botanist before I.S., right?”
“Mmmhmm.” Nick nods.
“And then what’s your take on all this?” Victor asks, “How do you feel about quitting your job as a scientist for a career in middle management?”
Nick looks across the street. “I feel okay about it.”
“Yeah?” Victor says.
“Yeah,” Nick says.
There is a brief silence.
“Because I was in it for the discovery,” Nick says, “I wanted to figure out stuff about the world, and now we’re doing it this different way. I’m still helping. We’re all still helping.”
Victor squints at him. He takes a drag on his cigarette.
“If I deleted a document by accident, is there a way to get it back? If I just clicked the wrong button, I mean.”
“You clicked the wrong button? Your job is to click one of two buttons and you clicked the wrong one?”
Victor just stares.
“If you go to the server on your computer I believe there are records,” Nick says, “It’s so an employee can’t steal a good idea, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He puts out his smoke and turns to go inside.
Victor says, “Hey, Nick.”
Nick says, “What.”
Victor says, “We need new fans.”
The fan on his desk is the small, industrial kind – steel and gray and unreasonably loud – but Victor, like all his coworkers, keeps it on for the heat in the office. He is fairly certain someone has put in a request for quieter ones. He is also fairly certain he is starting to get another migraine.
The document in question is produced just before five o’clock.
His process is as follows: the randomization is created on a central server and sent to his desktop computer. If he determines it to be garbage (as nearly all of them are) he just deletes it. If it’s mostly comprehensible, though, he clicks advance and it goes to a higher-level analyst – one who decides if the idea itself makes any sense and to what sort of expert reader it should be passed on to if it does. Victor is averaging a little less than four documents advanced per day (out of nearly a thousand he sees), which is about right for readers at the lowest level.
This text, though, is different. Victor reads it twice and then blinks at the screen for a little bit.
He prints it out and clicks delete.
2.
The idea in the end was called Intentional Serendipity, and it went like this: let’s fake discovery. You’ll grant that most scientific advances can be expressed in a couple paragraphs, and who could imagine how valuable even a single page of a medical journal from one hundred years in the future would be to us now? So let’s fake it, let’s just fake the whole thing. Let’s make computers generate random strings of words and see if they make any sense. Sure, the ideas still need a little testing, but for every few million non-sensical paragraphs that are generated there is always that one that makes it to the real expert, who looks down his glasses at it and say, “you know, I think this would work.”
And we got our breakthroughs, that’s the thing. The nature of the process meant that a great deal of them were military – a field that was evidently lacking in creativity more than anything – but we cured a few diseases along the way, we came up with some new and innovative economic policies. According to a sociological test invented with the help of randomization number 7A4892F, we discovered that overall quality of life had improved since Intentional Serendipity had been implemented. There were even some published short stories written originally and completely by the computers – lyrical ones, flat ones, sad ones – and of course a wide range of visionary mathematical proofs. The human race had quit using what little light it had in trying to navigate the darkness of its existence, choosing instead to sprint through the night, eyes squeezed tight, hoping to bump into something that felt like it might help.
3.
TO: HUMANITY C/O VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR
FROM: THE LORD YOUR GOD IN HEAVEN RULER OF THE UNIVERSE
THIS PROCESS IS FLAWED AND WILL CONSUME YOU.
On the train, Victor reads and re-reads the document, giving nervous glances to the other passengers every couple of minutes. It isn’t very long – by design, of course – but it doesn’t need to be.
Here’s the thing, though: statistically speaking something like this was bound to happen. Victor isn’t a religious man, but this - this?
At home, Victor puts the paper on his fridge and tries to put it out of his mind for a little bit. He makes a couple hot dogs and thinks about calling Hannah at her conference, but it’ll be just after midnight in Hong Kong and it’s probably not worth waking her up. If she were here she’d know what to do, he’s sure, but maybe it’s for the best that he makes this decision on his own. It’s not going to be a secret police job or anything like that, but making this public in any significant way means he loses his job for sure. With the economy the way it is and Hannah still in school he wonders if it’s worth it.
For the first time in two decades, Victor prays before he gets in bed. It’s sweaty and embarrassed and about half of it is plagiarized from movies and television, but it’s a prayer, at least.
4.
Victor worked in a lab before.
I mean he’s not bitter or anything because things worked out for the best – I mean, sure, he liked his old job. The thing is his mom was pretty sick so he went into research pretty much right away, but then when I.S. came around the lab shut down and his mom died, which was unrelated, he knows, but still.
And a couple months later – a couple months of Hannah waitressing to support them both – I.S. found a cure out of one of the randomization offices in the Midwest. It got passed up by a reader named Barton and in the very middle of the paragraph there was the word badger, but if you ignored that, I mean, it made sense and it was exactly right. The story got published all over, and always ended the same way, about how more low-level readers were needed. When Victor read it he cried, and then he applied for the job.
5.
In his dream, at the kitchen table with his mother and God.
Victor asks his mother: Why me?
His mother smiles and shakes her head in the way she used to.
Victor looks at God.
God clears his throat and takes a sip of water.
6.
At lunch, Victor talks with the office’s administrative assistant. Her name is Gladys and she’s like a thousand years old. Victor thinks she might have powers.
“Gladys, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, dear, what is it?”
He appreciates this term of endearment.
“If you got a letter that wasn’t addressed to you, you’d forward it to the right person, right? Or at least try to?”
“Sure, of course.”
Victor taps the table with the very tips of his fingers.
“But let’s say this letter - let’s say you read it by accident, and it had some stuff in it that you thought might be wrong. Stuff that, like, might even cause trouble. What would you do then?”
Gladys eats a thoughtful bite of her bran muffin. “Gee, that’s a toughy. The letter wasn’t addressed to me, though? Well, I guess then I would ask my husband Edwin what he would do.”
“But say you couldn’t ask him,” Victor says, “what would you do if you had to figure this out by yourself?”
“Well gosh, I just don’t know.” She sort of trails off in a way that makes Victor think she might come up with something, but then she smiles at him as if expecting another question.
He packs up his stuff. “Yeah, nevermind. Thanks, Gladys.”
7.
Disaster strikes just after lunch, when Victor moves the paper on his desk and it gets caught up in the fan’s draft - up, around, and then violently through the back of the blades. Victor sits dismayed as the holy confetti quietly settles around his cubicle. He then decides this is a good time to take a smoke break.
8.
Outside with his boss Nick, Victor lights up and looks up at the sun as if he might be able to figure out what time it is.
“Hey, Nick, you were a botanist before I.S., right?”
“Mmmhmm.” Nick nods.
“And then what’s your take on all this?” Victor asks, “How do you feel about quitting your job as a scientist for a career in middle management?”
Nick looks across the street. “I feel okay about it.”
“Yeah?” Victor says.
“Yeah,” Nick says.
There is a brief silence.
“Because I was in it for the discovery,” Nick says, “I wanted to figure out stuff about the world, and now we’re doing it this different way. I’m still helping. We’re all still helping.”
Victor squints at him. He takes a drag on his cigarette.
“If I deleted a document by accident, is there a way to get it back? If I just clicked the wrong button, I mean.”
“You clicked the wrong button? Your job is to click one of two buttons and you clicked the wrong one?”
Victor just stares.
“If you go to the server on your computer I believe there are records,” Nick says, “It’s so an employee can’t steal a good idea, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He puts out his smoke and turns to go inside.
Victor says, “Hey, Nick.”
Nick says, “What.”
Victor says, “We need new fans.”
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Pets Die
I wrote this song January 2011, and this is me performing it live for the incoming freshmen on the eve of their orientation hiking trips in September 2011. Enjoy, and sorry for the mildly poor quality.
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