Part One
Gwen Cooper, the volunteer Weekend Caretaker at New Town Cemetery, was raking leaves one fine autumnal Saturday morn’, singing a groovy song first heard on The Brady Bunch called Sunshine Day:
“I just can’t stay inside all day
I gotta get out, get me some of those rays
Everybody’s smilin’ (sunshine day!)
Everybody’s laughin’ (sunshine day!)”
Continue reading “Small God Syndrome by Leila Allison”
There’s a great sense of loss on many levels in Tim Frank‘s first LS story, Dodging Traffic. The underlying suicidal nature of a childhood game; Nina’s bleak future; the neighbor who was “carried out on his shield,” and the inevitable assimilation of gentrification make this a multi-liveled marvel that is almost impossible to dissect–without going on and on.
It’s easier if you just read it. You won’t regret it.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns Dodging Traffic by Tim Frank”
Latest Big Idea
I heard Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen for the hundred-thousandth time on the radio this week, and hated it a little more. There’s a Classic Rock station that is played in the warehouse near my workstation, and that despised tune intrudes on my thoughts an average of three times a week. Once upon a time actual human beings designed playlists, now they are done by programs. These programs are flat out poorly constructed for they only select material already heard to the saturation point. Same old same old. Never any happy surprise memories.
Continue reading “Week 402: I Love You, But…The Loved Week That Is; An Invitation and a Veterans Day Act of Remembrance”
There are at least a dozen memorable lines in Amanda L. Wright’s Colours. The main thing that sticks with me is the lament (and I paraphrase) that if they had gone to war to protect the British way of life, then the war was lost long ago.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Colours by Amanda L. Wright”
Tableau de rasa is Latin for “a clean slate.” In philosophy it describes the unmuddled mind of infancy, which is soon spoiled by life. I was once one of those overly polite people who’d write “As you know…” or something equally cagey before sneakily defining a term that I figured maybe only half the readers already know. This of course presents an unwinnable situation for the polite person. I have always seen condescending people as jerks while patronizing types are smiling jerks. In my mind you cannot patronize without being condescending but you can condescend without being patronizing. So, if anyone out there smells either on my breath I apologize, but it might be an aid to know that I consider condescension slightly less rotten than patronization.
Continue reading “Week 401: A Dirty Slate; Welcome to YES-vember and What’s On Your Wonderwall?”
Dianne Willems’ Perry begins as a daydream that edges in and out of a nightmare reality, and ultimately ends with the ultimate sacrifice. It is a tragedy because life is determined to be a black comedy. Life is loaded with easily discouraged, jaded Superheroes, but very few Perrys. The piece ends the only way it could, yet you never see it coming.
Q: Do you believe that the well meaning You Are Special message, without explaining how everyone can be special, without negating the definition, drives young minds into hopelessness almost as effectively as a poor home life?
Q: I see something Christlike about the Parrot, how his martyrdom brought the flabby heroes back into shape. Do you agree?
Dianne’s responses
Q: Do you believe that the well meaning You Are Special message, without explaining how everyone can be special, without negating the definition, drives young minds into hopelessness almost as effectively as a poor home life?
Q1: I am less familiar with the ‘You Are Special’ message (I think it’s a cultural thing, here in the Netherlands there’s more of a calvinistic attitude), but I have some thoughts about the ambitious ‘aim for the stars’/’be the best’ message some people try to install in their children. However, regarding the Parrot, I think he is more about trying to gain some control over a chaotic life. And being a hero, because his family did the exact opposite of installing in him the ‘aim for the stars’ OR ‘you are special’ attitude. So he tried extra hard, regardless of cost, to be someone special.
Q: I see something Christlike about the Parrot, how his martyrdom brought the flabby heroes back into shape. Do you agree?
Q2: Having grown up in an almost completely atheist environment I haven’t nearly enough knowledge about Jesus to have drawn this parallel. However, I think the question should be, did the Parrot bring the flabby heroes back into shape? Or was that one last desperate fantasy as he lay dying?
Although justice usually arrives pretty damn late, it can show via any avatar. For the evil willingly participated in by Lazlo Lachman, there is no suitable punishment. For crimes against humanity, even hell feels insufficient. So, maybe causing him to go mad, to shove him into himself with only a buzz for input is as good a penalty as any. Such is the soul of The Bee by Rebecca Moretti.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – the Bee by Rebecca Moretti.”
As we get closer to Halloween I find myself thinking of the darker side of the human heart. But instead of making a list of horror films and actors (which I have done before), I would like to salute the Evil Bad Guys* of Film and TV, for they are the ones who make stuff worth watching. (I use the word “Guys” in the unisex form–for I do not care for “Gals.”)
Continue reading “Week 399: A Tribute to Dark and Stormy Knights and Another Week That Is”
Something got in the way should apply only to happiness. I’d rather be a happy peasant than a genuinely depressed monarch. So in that regard it doesn’t matter if you are working the door or have it held open for you.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Revolving Doors by Sharon Frame Gay”
Positive Thinking
We will celebrate our eighth anniversary next month. Anniversaries and birthdays usually make me queasy because I view each as another item to be checked off a Great To Do List whose final task is “Die.” But I will allow that there is maybe, perhaps, seemingly and possibly an element in my personality that could be improved by wise advice, Vitamin Jesus or even a sunnier attitude brought about by better chemistry.
Continue reading “Week 398: Positive Thinking; The Week In Rocktober and Sing, Little One, Sing Like the Wind”
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