This was the week every year when the snapping turtles returned, and the neighbour boy was preparing for it. He laid out careful patterns of rocks and stones in elaborate geometries, here and there stashing bits of lettuce and other vegetables among his seemingly random mineral ley lines. The confusion of columns and divisions gradually…
Another story fragment that’s not going anywhere
She walked with them through the foothills in no particular formation, a scattered crowd sharing the same destination. In front of her was Patson, a man she knew. He’d stood with her husband against the initial assault, where townsmen fell by the score, this morning or two weeks ago, she couldn’t recall. The clouds in…
Isn’t the perfect society somewhere between America and N Korea?
And I don't mean in the Pacific near Midway. Let's not deny that the West's hungry obsession for circuses of distraction, via entertainment, substances, free love, free speech etc has kept a great many of its greatest creative innovative potentially ambitious minds anonymous, less importantly occupied from focussing on fixing the world. Too much freedom? Hey…
The opening of a story that’s not going anywhere
It was only later, after the plates of our elaborate meal had been cleared, and twice more drink delivered by the exquisite Danda, that Arbotis began his tale. My host waited until she, with natural luminous grace, concluded the fire and sugar ritual bound to his libation, then he snatched it up. He immediately called…
Mamas, Don’t Trust Your Ideas To Memory
"We can never remember the things we always forget." - Men Without Hats Even the best among you can't expect to remember every thing. A good rule of thumb is: if it seems like it's worth notice, it's worth remembering. And you're not going to remember it by tilting lampshades and wrapping an elastic around…
Why Blood Meridian Sucks
No! say it ain't so. Sure, I find great pleasure galore in the poetic prose of its pages, a textural, substantive satisfaction like A Clockwork Orange or Trainspotting... but it's ultimately a superficial immersion. The sights and sounds and smells and kills of the era convey swimmingly, and in the language the storytelling reflects the…
Don’t change the song, write it down
What I had in mind was a complete outline for an exciting unique take on an idea that was just there one thought ago, dammit, between the time Fragile finally ended and I put on whatever it was I decided to play. There where I lost! one of the best ideas I ever had, because…
Please if you please, help me choose my entry for the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #625 | July 30, 2018
"No you can't see our sign for fire." "That's right, the quick white flying side-wheel bird." Og can do. Og .400 against lefties. "Og, where's your helmet?" * "Og here may be 1 for 4 and 0 for 2 tonight, but he's .400 against lefties and he knows this pitcher." * "That's right Mike, not…
What is it like to be an extra in a Hollywood movie, you ask?
I can’t guarantee your experience would be like mine, but I was a Scottish private in the World War battle scenes of Legends Of The Fall. For starters, that meant lining up in a warehouse to be fitted along with scores of other guys, and gals I assume, who could pass for blurrily authentic soldiers…
Star Wars a small world, after all.
After all, where else will you see a robot, loosed randomly into open space by a princess, land on a sparsely populated sand planet and within that desolate expanse find the brother she never knew existed? As a scientist I have to allow that it could happen: space is vast but not infinite. I'll even…