There are all types of world gone wrong pieces in the LS vault. Simply, we find Dystopia much more interesting than Utopia; same goes for Hell and Heaven. Perhaps it is indicative of the human species that we are much better at imagining pain than we are happiness.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Hangings by James Hanna”
I recently recalled a cherished Halloween memory from my childhood: I was in the living room watching a Casper the Friendly Ghost Halloween special on TV the Saturday morning prior to the big day. My monumentally hung over grandfather just came out of the kitchen, a glass of what surely held only healthy tomato juice in his unsteady hand. A great question had formed in my mind.
“Grandpa, how did Casper die?”
“He asked the wrong people a lot of stupid questions.”
By now it must be obvious that I have seized upon Halloween as the inspiration for this post. Since the Nobel prize for literature has already been passed out, I see no reason to introduce revolutionary literary techniques or topics until the next voting cycle begins.
Continue reading “347: Mental Scar Tissue, Curtain Calls and Scares A to Z”
As all of earth once growled and gnarled its way to an instant conflagration, a calamitous roar, all its gears beginning to shift, in the near-middle of the last century, Saugus, Massachusetts, a small town just north of Boston, started to empty its bedrooms… the ones in the attic, in the space out over the garage, third floor second door on the left, the bedrooms facing on the pond or the cemetery or those looking broadly down on the wide marshes or quickly down on quiet Cliftondale Square. The bedrooms where boys cruised into manhood, almost overnight at that.
Continue reading ” The Quiet, Empty Bedrooms of Saugus by Tom Sheehan “
Life as interpreted through the eyes of a child is a tricky thing for an adult writer to pull off gracefully. We can remember believing certain things as children, but not why. The most challenging aspects are understanding adults; parents tell children that grown ups know what they are doing, even though they know that is usually not the case.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Night Game by Jennie Boyes”
Here we are at Week 346 as another seven days slope into the distance.
I really do appreciate when these write themselves.
Continue reading “Week 346 – Beasties, Beasts And No Pressure There Then!”
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They say that trouble arrives in threes. That old bit of nonsense came to mind when a trio of my home grown Fictional Characters (FC’s) came to my office on behalf of an alien FC, also of my creation.
The petitioners were Renfield (my lead human FC), Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess and a Siamese Cat named Boots the Impaler. The creeps either walked, trotted or sauntered in, each one via her, her and his natural mode of locomotion. I just sat there and watched as Renfield gently hoisted the small animals onto my desk and sat on the corner of it herself.
We all sat in silence, save for Boots, who was purring. It worried me that the chocolate-point fink was content about something that I was unaware of. For I’d designed his personality to be “like Genghis Khan in an Angora sweater–soft and fuzzy, but don’t touch him.”
Continue reading “Citizen Pie-Eyed Peetie the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon By Leila Allison and Daisy the Pygmy Goatess”
I view Tom Sheehan’s Johnny Igoe, Spellbinder Remembered as more of a link to rather than an item lost to the enveloping past. This tale is full of remembrance, Ireland, poetry and a melancholy for those little things lost. There are certain persons in our lives (sadly, too few) who make you sad to think about what it will be like when they are gone, even as they live.
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Q: From what I observe, good oral storytellers, those who make you lean forward as they weave a yarn, are an endangered species. Yet there is nothing out of date about that ability. It is still desired, but has fallen off. In your estimation is there anything besides our reliance on devices (for communication and entertainment) that has contributed to our lack of good speakers?
Q: I keep casting about my mind for a better way to phrase this question, but have come up empty. Simply, is this a true story? Seems so to me. Even if it is fictionalized, it has great truth to it.
Tom’s response:
Too much attention elsewhere for many folks, Leila, and Johnny Igoe hangs in my mind as if it is his memorial, every word like an echo I grab on the run through his life again and again., so lucky to have known him so close for a long time, though I am a poor mechanic at this machine and often can’t remember what I want to look up, which is a stumbling block, there is so much work captured here someplace.
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Mister Hisster
For the past three years I’ve been feeding a “neighborhood cat” I call Mister Hisster (yes, that is him in the header). I figured that by giving him a name I’d eliminate the “stray” stigma. Mister Hisster is a smallish long haired gray tabby, and leads with his right. There is nothing overly tragic about Mister Hisster because he is feral and has no use for the human race, but tolerates me–to a quickly arrived at point. Whenever I place his food at his spot under the boxhedge, I’d better get my hand out of the way awfully damn quick or the next thing I will do with it is open a tube of neosporin.
“Good morning, Mister Hisster. How’s my favorite little son of a bitch today?”
Continue reading “Week 345: Mister Hisster, Star Turns and Things That Need Inventing”
There’s always something that is both hidden and in plain sight at the same time in Hugh Cron’s stories, and Jim’s Aunts definitely has that quality in abundance. Although it is a short piece, all the words tell and the thing that it causes to form early on in the back of your head comes to light with the final sentence–even though it is also open ended.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Jim’s Aunts by Hugh Cron.”
First off I need to apologise to Diane for having to set up a posting with the longest title ever! (Are you taking that as a challenge Leila??) They’re all quotes, the first two are difficult to find but the third one, the one that really does get to me is there and can be found.
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literally stories 