Week 446: Influences; Site Influencers and Under the Influence

Influence

When in a certain mood my mother could kill a good vibe with a comment more quickly than the Andromeda strain can wipe out a small town in the desert. There would be a get together of family and friends, and everyone would be chatting and having a nice time and she would inevitably have to say something like:

“It’s sad to think we will all be as dead as people in old movies someday.” Then she’d cast an innocent glance around the room (which included children) then add “Ever wonder who’ll kick first?”

As time goes by, and now amazingly, more than a decade after Mom joined the cast of her own old movie, I can see the great influence she has had in my writing. Mom never wrote, but read endlessly and had a way with words that got across. Not to be mean, but I think she would agree that she was better at reproach than affection. She used to say things like “Lucky day–I’m gonna give you something new to hate”; “Hell Day seems to come sooner every year,” and her classic “There’s nothing wrong with what I just said, is there, Miss? I’d sure hate to be so stupid that I can’t see it.” She got this certain tone in her voice that inspired dreams of matricide.

Now, I know Mom is in no position to retort except by Ouija board or crystal ball, so I must confess that I gave as good as I got and cultivated an attitude that made it very easy for her to dislike me. Still, her voice is much like my own and I would have to say that she is my greatest influence. I learned from her that any mundane conversation can be spiced up with a pinch infusion of the unexpected or inappropriate. Often, a well timed profanity goes a long long way, but mostly it is the stuff that is the verbal equal to an Evil Cousin of a Cliche that gets through.

Cliche: I’m sure he is in a better place

Evil Cousin: He won’t need long johns anymore

Cliche: That’s a contradiction

Evil Cousin: Nun on the pill

Mom was born in Canada and orphaned at three. Without living relatives she was placed with the Catholic Church, then sponsored to the US by the church at sixteen, where she immediately ran off and got married to an American before anyone could do anything about her. She intensely hated the church–for in the 40’s they did not spare the rod, discipline-wise. I mention this because I made Mom laugh harder than I ever saw her laugh when I was about five. We met a nun she knew during her brief stay at the American convent. The Nun said hello to me, to which I innocently replied, “Hi Ernie.”

Mom referred to nuns as Ernie–as in Ernest Borgnine. In her mind there were no Sally Field flying nuns– she described them as “Ernie Borgnines with smaller tits”–a full definition that I wasn’t in on yet. The nun I called Ernie was, well, nunplussed (to hell with the redline), but it got me a rootbeer float when we got home.

Writers are the children of real people whose ways quite often gain longevity if not immortality.

Influencers

This week we had five writers who are also children of real people and quite nifty with a turn of phrase in their own rights. Could be they learned some of it from their parents. We feature three debuts, another appearance by a frequent influencer and the long awaited return of a writer after he spent six years in the virtual wilderness (not really, but it sounds dramatic).

Some people are creatively weird and affect the lives of others by doing stuff that requires action, but the sort of action needed is obscure. Life is often punctuated by the odd activities of persons who do strange things for either attention or just to piss other people off. This type of inexplicable behaviour is brilliantly presented in Neighbours by Chloe McCormick.

Dave Louden last appeared on the site six years ago this month. There is nothing artificial about his Fake–which explores one of the strangest phenomena in world culture–professional wrestling. There is something eternally Saturday afternoon about wrestling, and it contains a paradox: the choreographed violence is often as, or even more dangerous than the stunt performed. I’ve often wondered what alien beings, who know us only through our TV and radio emissions, make of it. I even wrote something about that once. Could be little green Hulkamaniacs out in the stars.

On Wednesday Alain Kerfs explored the human capacity of turning something into nothing in The Sound That Nothing Makes. Alain understands the difference between places of peaceful solitude and those as dead as Mars because of the human hand, which brings disease and predators to foreign lands. The comparison between the dreams of war and the ghostlike island are beautifully drawn.

By my unreliable count, Harrison Kim graced the site for the 26th time on Thursday. Don’t Mess With Me is another quality piece that gets behind the human facade and locates the heart and pain of an individual. He specializes in persons whom society deliberately ignores.

Newcomer David Agyei-Yeboah gave us Kiin Kiin Kiin to close the week. The constructs of poverty are the same everywhere. It’s a hellworld in which women are economic slaves, you must tolerate people you hate because you need their help to survive, and the constant surrender to petty tyrants who have no potency anywhere else but in the dreariest of circumstances. Pretty much everyone is a victim here. But some are evil in this because instead of learning kindness from misery they take revenge on the weak as payback.

Perhaps Under the Influence

Since there’s rumour of fall in the air, my mind returns to the subject of overlooked music. Something autumnal about the subject. Thus I now produce a list of songs that should be, in my humble opinion, better known than they are, or once were and have managed to slip into obscurity. Ten is open for suggestions. (I’m not certain if the song or persons in the clip rate remembering, but maybe it is a good Hell Day tune)

• You Want it Darker-Leonard Cohen
• Tomorrow, Wendy-Concrete Blonde
• Autobahn-Kraftwerk
• Come Monday-Jimmy Buffet
• The Ballad of Lucy Jordan-Marianne Faithful
• Return of the Grievous Angel-Gram Parsons and Emilylou Harris
• Desolation Boulevard-Sweet
• Valotte-Julian Lennon
• Day After Day-Badfinger

Leila (dunno why I got the extra image; I’m sure they made their mums proud)

(I have named the Header Pigeon Elliott)