Every now and then a story comes by that makes me slap my head and bemoan the fact that I didn’t think of it first. Such is the case with this week’s rerun Watching It Move by Alex Reid. Still, there ain’t a great idea that can stand up to clumsy handling; but Alex timed this perfectly and the result is satisfying as well as a cause of envy.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Watching it Move by Alex Reid”
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Eight years. Since an idea by Adam West in response to a favourite site failing to today. Those of you who have been with us from the early days may remember the struggle for content when we put our own work in to fill the spaces. Later you may not have realised how we were breaking under the weight of work until Lovely Leila came to our rescue. She works incredibly hard since we ambushed her and dragged her into LS Towers and we are really glad we threw that sack over her head (sorry about the hair, Leila).
Continue reading “8 Years!”
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?
Here we are at Week 400. I’m quite sure I’ll use that number a few times throughout this post.
I honestly can’t believe that we’ve reached this amount of weeks of publication!
It’s just a pity that the hundreds and the anniversary don’t tie in, I think it did on our second year but then dates and weeks and holidays buggered everything up. Our 8th year anniversary will be in a few week’s time, Week 403 on the 19th November.
Continue reading “Week 400 – 400 Weeks, Halloween And A Hospital Visit.”
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.”
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