NaNoWriMo: Prologue

So I may have signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. And I may need ideas for a novel. Right now, I'm thinking a supernatural teen romance about a love triangle between a mermaid, an angel and a table.

The table would be beautiful and smart and funny, but have one leg shorter than the others. The mermaid and the angel would love it more because of that flaw, though. Read more!

It's Halloween!

...and I'm sick as hell.  I look forward to an internet full of scantily clad women and men doing stupid, stupid things to impress them. Read more!

Okay, people...

Yes.  Disney bought Lucasfilm.  Relax.  Think about the things Lucasfilms has done in the last few years.  Really think about them.  Star Wars?  Yeah.  Indiana Jones?  That happened, too. 

Now...clap down on your knee to stop that jerk and think about what Disney's done.  When was the last time you saw a shitty Pixar movie?  Up?  Toy Story 3, anyone?  The Avengers...and all the related (good) Marvel movies of late? 

So knock it off.  Hating something because other people do is about as lame as liking something because other people think it's cool.  Think.  Then react. Read more!

Today's Grammar Lesson: Awww... and Awe

Today's grammar lesson: Awww... and Awe

Awww... - A colloquial phrase used to show affection or to draw attention to something which is sad and/or adorable

Awe - An overwhelming feeling of reverence, often touched with fear or respect, which, ironically, generally prevents such utterances as, "Awww.." Read more!

A Thought: On the Benefits of a Long Week

Long weeks just mean you have more time to allocate to those things which make you happy, those people you love and all the things you keep meaning to do, but haven't yet. Read more!

An Interesting Piece of Mail...

Since moving into the new neighborhood, by far the most affluent in which we've ever lived, we've gotten campaign flyers and such every day.  It was nothing but annoying, until the other day.  Now, I'd heard of this but have never had it happen to me before, until the other day, when we got this...

Dear Rhonda (the woman who lived here before us),
   I am a fellow American who is very worried about out country and the future of our children.  Please pray for our country.  Our nation is in deep trouble and will not survive 4 more years like the last 4 years we have endured.  Please vote for Mitt Romney for President and Jeff Landry for Congress!

A concerned American,
    Olivia Nash

There was no return address, though I'm tempted to look her up and write her a letter in return asking her what, exactly, she has endured these last four years that was the result of the current administration, rather than the previous, how it will destroy the nation in only four more and what Mitt Romney and Jeff Landry will do to miraculously save us.  This, right here, is the product of the politically divisive, fear tactics being employed in this country to control the ignorant populace.  Yeesh. Read more!

The Louisiana Goblins

This is a statute found outside the tourist center here in my hometown of Lafayette.  I understand artistic license but...these are, what, goblins?  Or it's really racist.  Can't be sure. 

Read more!

Poetry: Between the Lines

I fell in love with a girl once,
Whose name I never knew.
I never saw her face,
Though I'm sure it was lovely,
The sort of soft, quiet beauty
That lingers in the mind
With a smile that hints
Of unspoken secret
And whispered promise.
Nor did I ever look into her eyes,
Though I can see them when I close mine,
Bright and deep,
With the faint touch
Of a sadness long past.

I found her in the pages of a book
I bought at a secondhand store.
She was there, in the margins,
In a handwriting that managed to somehow
Be both tight and flowing,
Adding things, here and there,
As though conversing with the novel.

The book, which was mediocre, at best,
Became a vehicle,
Nothing more,
For my getting to know her,
Her wit, her humor,
Twice, her pain,
Never overt, but neither hidden,
Worn with the humble truth
Of the survivor.

When it was over,
When there was no more,
I put the book aside,
It's narrative fading,
But not ours,
Fanciful as it was.
She was a dream,
Ephemeral and sweet
Forever out of reach,
The girl between the lines. Read more!

First Impressions: Evil Dead Reboot

So I just watched the trailer for the Evil Dead reboot.  I know, I know.  Raimi and Campbell both give it a thumbs up.  It seems, though, to be just another contemporary gorefest, though.  There was no trace of the humor or even the over-the-top nature of the original.  It looks as though they're trying to make it a real, dark, serious horror film...just like all the others in this new generation (except Cabin in the Woods, of course).  I'm not giving up all hope, but I'm certainly not looking forward to it the way I was.

Oh, they did keep the tree rape, though, so there's that. Read more!

A Thought: On Memory and Mortality

Memory is our consolation for mortality. Read more!

Here's to you, Pool Cleaning Robot...

We watched Paranormal Activity 3 on Netflix last night.  It was, in my opinion, the best of the three, thus far, mostly because of the lame ending of the first one, which, until that point, was stellar.  The same could definitely be said for the third, but it was still a better film, all around, I think.

The second movie was...kind of boring.  Too little happened.  The thing is, as I watched the third installment in the series, I found myself thinking wistfully to the one truly standout performance in the second, that of Pool Cleaning Robot, who had nearly as much screen time, and generally more gravitas, than did any of the other thinly written characters.  I looked forward to my glimpses of PCR, which came frequently, though never frequently enough. 

So here's to you, Pool Cleaning Robot.  You're the best and may the short-sightedness of Hollywood not impede what is the beginning of a beautiful career. Read more!

A Thought: On Persistent Perception

Stubborn is just the weak's way of saying persistent. Read more!

A Thought: On Video Games and Waterfalls

Thanks, again, video games.  My whole life, every time I've seen a spectacular waterfall, I can't help but be somewhat disappointed because there's never a hidden cave behind it, filled with awesome. Read more!

The List - Year 32

Physical

• Create and maintain a long-term free weight workout
• Work up to being able to do at least 30 minutes of cardio
• Drop two shirt sizes and ten in pants

Spiritual

• Research and explore Taoism

Personal

• Make 3 new friends
• Begin a postcard collection
• Learn at least 20 new skills

Professional

• Create and maintain a website with a storefront
• Make money writing, even if only supplementary

Academic

• Achieve proficiency in French
• Work through an inorganic chemistry textbook
• Read and review 13 books (10 fiction & 3 non-fiction)
• Memorize 3 poems or monologues
• Learn a new fact every day

Music

• Learn music theory
• Learn 4 contemporary covers (guitar)
• Learn 2 classical pieces (guitar)
• Learn 5 pennywhistle tunes
• Learn to play the harmonica
• Write 2 new songs
• Discover 12 new bands/artists I like

Writing

• Finish a novel
• Write 5 short stories
• Write 5 essays
• Write 5 poems
• Script a comic
• Write a dramatic piece
• Publish at least one piece of writing

Art

• Fill a sketch book
• Become proficient in Photoshop Elements
• Take 6 new photo sets
• Complete 3 woodworking projects
• Learn to cook 6 new dishes

Read more!

Shameless Promotion: Vamped

So some friends of mine are doing a comic called Vamped.  It's about, as they put it, "bloodsuckers in a world of freaks and geeks," and promises to be clever and funny as hell.  They've got a kickstarter going here, so go check them out and throw them your support.  Tell 'em Zach sent you.  Pass it along.  Thanks. Read more!

A Thought: On the Cleverness of Nicknames

The moment you use a nickname, derogatory or otherwise, for any political candidate is the moment I start tuning you out.  It shows me not that you're clever, but that you aren't clever enough to know when someone else's words are coming out of your mouth. Read more!

A Thought: On Internet Activism

The internet is the absolute best way to affect genuine concern for the state of the world without actually having to do anything about it. Read more!

A Thought: On Commies!

My favorite thing about this election is that it has allowed me to yell, "Commie!" in an accusatory tone while pointing at anyone who doesn't agree with me.  I mean, who'd have thought that, two decades after The Cold War, half a century after McCarthy, we'd be able to drag that one back out with the same self-righteous, blind zeal as those glory days. Read more!

Poetry: Generations

We were a generation that had never known war.
 To be born, raised,
 In a time of peace and prosperity,
 Instills a sense of invulnerability,
 A lack of awareness
 Of the fragility
 Of such idyllic things.
 To us, Vietnam was a story
 Told by old, haunted men,
 Tragic and terrible, certainly,
 But somehow removed.
 The Gulf War
 Little more than a brief memory.
 Too short and too early
 To be felt.
 So it was that,
 When the world broke,
 Its pieces ripping away
 Innocent fallacies,
 Fear slouched in.
 Creeping through fresh wounds,
 Carrying insidious infection.

We were a generation that had never known war
 And from that fear
 Was born a generation
 That has never known peace. Read more!

Old Writing: Jack - Part 4 - Final

            This will be my final letter, though I know now that you will never read it.  I have tried to change the world and failed.  My work, my crimes, have drawn the eye of the public, even that of the crown, to the travesty that is the poverty running rampant like a sickness in the veins of London.  That I should have done so much is beyond anything I or any of my accomplices could have imagined.  But it must stop now.

            I awoke recently to the newsboys outside my home proclaiming another murder in my name.  In my bleariness, I nearly fell back to sleep before the abrupt realization that it was not by my hand that this most recent of crimes was perpetrated.  I threw myself from the bed and dressed quickly, racing to catch the boy before he moved on.  A few pence later and I sat with the paper in my lap and a terrible chill in my heart.

            That same day, I wrote a letter to the newspaper which had run those previous, denouncing this most recent murder, expressing my outrage at both the killer and the news organization that failed to realize the gross inconsistencies in the separate crimes.  I waited a day, then another.  Nothing.  The letter never saw print, just as these will not, I am now certain.  They will be too rational, not sensational enough.  I will not be the monster you need me to be.  It disgusts me.

            That someone, a twisted, deviant mind, would latch on to my, our, legacy in order to commit such a heinous act is a perverse mockery of those who have died willingly at my hands in order to usher in a new era.  More so, that the sadistic lust of the populace which has turned the media into the sensationalistic, bloodthirsty charade that it has become leaves me without hope for any of you.  I suppose, though, that I should not be surprised.  It is nothing if not indicative of the opportunistic depravity of our time.

            So it ends now.  I cannot bear to carry on this work, knowing that it has, however indirectly, led to this.  There was no justification, no deeper purpose, to the slaughter of this young girl.  I am damned.  I knew the moment Polly’s argument began to sound rational on that night so long ago.  I accept that.

            But I am not the only one.  Each of you who revel in the darkness, who feel a visceral thrill in the depths of your heart or gut at the pain of others, physical or emotional, each willing to watch the world burn around you and do nothing, will be there with me.  Indifference is the greatest of sins and you are all damned.

- Jack

1888

Read more!

A Thought: On the Good in the Propensity for Evil

Those who strive hardest to be good are those who are most aware of their capacity for evil. Read more!

Old Writing: Jack - Part 3

            When Mrs. Nichols, Polly, approached me, I am ashamed to say that I at first thought the same as any of you would think and nearly shooed her away.  She was an older woman, almost matronly, who had undoubtedly been pretty before poverty and the life it had forced upon her had stripped it away, piece by piece.  She was also, I would come to learn, a very clever woman who, despite her lack of what we in the more refined classes would call true education, had learned enough quickly enough to survive.

            When she asked to speak with me, her voice strong and resigned but with no hint of solicitation, I agreed warily.  So we walked down the streets of London, she talking and I listening, and my eyes were slowly, tactfully, opened to the world as it truly is.  We have, as a ruling class, embraced complex illusions of propriety in order to, we claim, keep the world running as it is meant to run.  Deep down, however, the real reason for our reliance on this rigid social construction is simply to keep ourselves insulated from the cruel havoc we inflict upon others without a second’s contemplation, all in favor of our own comfort.

            Polly explained carefully the injustice that existed just outside our periphery, only acknowledged when we sought out our baser fancies, and only for the brief time it took to partake in them.  It was what she had done more of her life than I should rightly be so, out of necessity, and it was what, she said as we arrived at my home, was going to be the death of her in a very immediate sense.

            By the time we’d reached my doorstep, any hesitation about inviting her in had long since passed.  We had tea and talked long into the night, sometimes about her crusade, the crux of which she had yet to spring upon me, and other about her life, her family, her world.  I was ashamed of the life into which I had been born, something she insisted was foolish with a wave of her worn hand.  She reminded me of my own mother, God rest her soul.

            By the time it all came out, her plan to change the world, the fire was burning low and the first chill of the early morning was just reaching out from the shadows.  She was, she told me, going to die the following Friday.  I began to protest, insisting, as we are wont, that she not lose hope, that disease was unpredictable and medical science expanding rapidly its understanding of the body.  As I rambled on, she watched me serenely, waiting until I had finished to shake her head softly.

            “No,” she said, “You don’t understand.  I’ll die Friday cause you’re going to kill me.”

            She leaned back in the softness of the high-backed chair, into the darkness, as she laid out her plot in intricate detail.  Her words curled inside me like some malevolent serpent, twisting in my gut, in part because of the nature of the crime and in part because, as she continued, I realized with a horrifying certainty the wisdom of her words and that she was right; I was to become a murderer.

Read more!

Old Writing: Jack - Part 2

The letters were not my idea, but rather that of one of my co-conspirators.  They were an inspired detail, to be sure.  Without them, those who run the newspapers would quickly lose interest in the murders, regardless of how gruesome or enigmatic.  With them, I perpetuate the scandal which seems the only real purpose of modern newsprint.  With them, I become something more than I am, and idea, a shadow of possibility that lingers in the mind long after the paper has been put aside, and that is the purpose of the letters.  If I am forgotten, then my work, our work, their sacrifice, will be for naught.

            I admit to taking a perverse pleasure in crafting the maniacal ranting of a madman.  It appeals to something dark and sinister inside me, something which, I have come to realize, reflects the world in which we dwell all too closely.  We create a stained veneer of civility, of culture, with customs and traditions that have become almost hallowed.  We do so out of fear.  We are afraid that, if we don’t hold tightly to what we believe, erroneous as it may be, the façade may slip and we may be faced with what lies beneath, squirming and writhing and rotted.  Above all, that is what, more than shifting shadow or my name spoken in hushed tones among friends safely indoors, drives the unsettling terror in our souls.

            You may ask yourself if I question all of this, if I wonder at the lengths to which we’ve gone in the name of salvation.  I do.  The burden of it weighs heavily upon my shoulders, more so each time I watch the life flee from the eyes of someone who, willingly or not, I have sent to what I hope is a better world.  It must be a better world. 

            They give their lives, true, but I have given my soul.  I have a keen empathy for the figure of Death, who must pass into lives so briefly, only to know that, within hours, sometimes less, that life will cease to be more than a collection of memories or whispers in the night.  When they sleep, their suffering ends.  I have not that luxury.  I must wait.  I must hope.  This much change.  It must be a better world.

Read more!

The Birthday Begins

Take a four day weekend for my birthday?  Why, thank you, university, I will.  It starts now... Read more!

A Thought: On Thirtysomething at Thirtysomething

Though I've been waiting two decades or more for it, I turn 32 on Saturday and I still don't get Thirtysomething. Read more!

A Clarification: On Marginalization

I was reading an article this morning addressing a study that said Protestants have lost the majority in the U.S. which brought up the increasing trend of said group to decry itself as being consistently more and more marginalized in this country.

Here's the thing...

Here in America, many, many groups are marginalized because of things outside their control, things like ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation and a whole host of other things.  That's wrong, because discrimination is wrong, period.  By extension, it's also wrong when someone judges you or doesn't listen to what you have to say based on some personal affiliation, like political or religious ideology, but it's not the same and you have to realize that. 

If you align yourself with a group that, by and large, is voluntarily and increasingly vocal in their exclusion of many other groups (cause that's what marginalization is, guys, it's not just when you don't get your way, every time), you have chosen to give up the right to complain when that group is, in return, marginalized by the rest of the society whom you've chosen to marginalize.

In closing, Christians (and all you other folks who are making this mistake, and you know who you are), please realize that if you start to understand that we all have to live and work in this country, and being to accept others, like that Christ guy, who was all about acceptance, you could very easily unmarginalize yourselves. Read more!

A Thought: On the Irony of YOLO

I find it incredibly ironic that YOLO is used, more often than not, as a justification for things which are, overall, a waste of time, in the grand scheme of one's life. 

Experience is everything, yes, but getting blind drunk and having another random hook-up you can't remember much of the next day, rather than going to class or work, isn't something you need to experience more than the once, because you won't remember it the second time, either. Read more!

A Thought: On the Opposition of Change

It is not only past those who seek to obstruct change directly that those who seek to enact it must pass, but also all those who refuse to believe that meaningful change is possible who stand guard before them. Read more!

Old Writing: Jack - Part One

My name is not important.  That is to say, it is irrelevant to the nature of my message.  You may call me Jack.  I am not, as they would have you believe, a monster.  I kill only out of necessity.  The brutality of my crimes is at the strict behest of my victims, those brave souls who have chosen to die that others may live.  I envy their sacrifice and see them not as victims, but rather as martyrs, choosing to end their lives for the sole purpose of aiding others.  Their names will not be remembered any more than mine, except by historians and collectors of the twisted and macabre.  They are divinity in its truest sense, no more, no less.

I do what I can to ease the suffering.  There is a long history in my native land of anesthetizing the sacrificial lamb.  The Druids before me, when they proffered to their pagan gods the burnt flesh of prisoners of war, made certain that the men felt no pain.  The images of the screaming, thrashing prisoner burning alive are nothing more than the petty remnants of the proponents of an ideology which could not tolerate those of others.

That being said, they are chosen because their lives have already been made forfeit, shallowly by the various venereal diseases which ravage their sad population, and more deeply by the rotted, disgusting inhumanity that has forced them into the life which made contraction of their plagues possible.  It is to draw attention to the darkness, the depravity of the rise and maintenance of the bitter aristocracy, that they come to me, choosing to end their lives so that the curtain may be pulled from the eyes of those who would otherwise remain blissfully unaware of their condition.

Read more!

Old Writing: My Grandfather

            My grandfather was a quiet man.  My grandmother did most of the talking, which was fine with him.  He listened and watched from his old leather chair.  Mostly, I remember him in that chair.  It’s where he went when they wouldn’t let him work anymore.  They gave him a gold ring with a ruby and told him he had worked enough, whether he liked it or not.

            He would wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, then sit in his chair until lunch, unless there was something my grandmother needed him to do.  There usually wasn’t.  So he would watch TV, getting up only when he had to.  Most days, that was all.  Sometimes, though, when I was very young, and I don’t know why, he would wake up different.

            Those mornings were my favorites.  He would wake me up early and we would have breakfast, same as always, but instead of going to his chair to watch reruns of old Westerns afterwards, we would go out into the garage, pick out walking sticks, fill our canteens, and leave.  Sometimes we would bring food, but not usually.

            We would walk and I would talk, out past the cane fields, on the old railroad tracks that didn’t carry trains anymore, a cadence of steps and the thumping of the walking sticks, rhythmic and slow.  After awhile, we had left the little town where we lived behind and I would become the quiet one as he told me stories about when he was young, about his family.  I wish I could remember those stories, but I never cared as much about the details as I did about the feeling of his telling them.

            We would go into the woods and he would tell me the names of flowers and what things were good to eat.  He always saw the rabbits and birds before I did.  I was too busy trying to take everything in at once, as children are prone to do.  We would walk alongside the old tracks, overgrown and reclaimed by the wild, and for the only times in my whole life, my grandfather was no longer quiet.

            When we eventually got back to town, I’m not sure how but I never needed to know the way, we would make our way back home, side by side, footsteps and thumps, hang up our canteens, put away our walking sticks, and he would go back to his chair, I to my room.  When I got older, we never talked about those walks, but I remember the feeling and, as I watched him dying slowly over the two years after my grandmother left us, I would see, as he looked into the backyard from his wheelchair, the man who took me walking.
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An Alternative to Gun Control...

I've decided that, as gun control is such a difficult issue, with so many valid facets on both sides, that the answer is simple.  We ban guns, melt them all down, and go back to the days of good, old-fashioned melee weapons.  We could start a guns for swords program.  It works out all the way around, really. 

Those who value weaponry for personal defense would have more than enough options, especially if they're of the type who believe that the intimidation factor alone is worth it.  I see a guy walking around with a gun tucked into the back of his pants, I think he's a douche gangsta' wanna-be.  I see a guy walking down the street with a battle axe strapped to his back, I guarantee you I'm not going to fuck with him.  It's just that simple.  Plus, there's the added bonus of being able to really look someone in the eye when you kill them that you just can't get with a long-range weapon.  It's the little things in life.

On the other end of the spectrum, for those who worry about the dangers of handguns, which statistics have more than backed up, this would remove all but the most idiotic of home accidents and, really, let's be honest, if your kid accidentally decapitates himself with your brand new bastard sword, it's probably better, from a societal standpoint, that he or she was removed from the gene pool early on.  Second, because the only way to kill someone with a melee weapon is close combat, you'd never hear about little Janey walking home from school and getting caught by a stray bullet.  So there's that.

Finally, and I think we can all get behind this one, as both sides claim to be right on their approaches regularly, it would make most crimes which currently use guns all but impossible.  Bank robbery at sword point?  Probably not.  And yes, I know, it's happened, but that's because banks weren't built to work with someone only have a few feet.  If a teller's being held up by someone with a gun, short of bulletproof glass, you got nothing.  But if the teller's being held up with, say, a broadsword, a couple of steps back and a bit of patience until the police get there and all's well.  The field of personal security would also be much easier, for much the same reason.

So, in this election season, when important issues are on your mind, I urge you to seriously think about a reasonable, practical alternative to gun control which, I believe, works for everyone involved. Read more!

Poetry: Her Eyes

The way she smiles,

  Her eyes in the shadows

  Beneath dark hair,

  Unable to meet mine,

  Though not for fear of rebuke,

  But, rather, of acceptance,

  Of perfect, imperfect faith,

  Reflected within.

Read more!