literally stories

I noticed that many species of male birds have low self esteem. Your basic Lady Pheasant is a sensibly attired person while the gent is as garish and loudly dressed as a grand opening of a supermarket.

Have a look at this fellow, a gent Ring-necked Pheasant named Ralph Beeker.

Ralph lives a short distance from me and I assume he is a pet since he is always in the same yard, and I’ve seen him plenty. Here, perhaps not his greatest moment, Ralph is giving the beak to his reflection in a tail light. So, all the wild colours might be necessary in aiding him to find a mate, since intelligent conversation is likely off the table.

And this guy (just down the road from Mr. Beeker) is a Northern Flicker Woodpecker. I call him Big Ed. At the time of the picture, he was up there jack-hammering the metal gutter to let the lady Flickers know that Big Ed is back in town and he’s ready to experience the miracle of love. He is a bird of perhaps false bravado. Anyone who has not heard a Woodpecker drum on a gutter or chimney cap, I can tell you it is hell loud. Football helmet designers should pattern their wares after the unknockoutable noggin of the Woodpecker.

Take the Bird of Paradise (I’ve never seen one in person, but I have seen the clips that most of us have seen at one time or another in our life’s journey spent mostly watching YouTube). The female is a pretty and tastefully turned out bird, while the male is a loud fashion disaster who has never met a bright color he can turn down. These guys are all strut and hard sell. If the male Paradise could get his wings on pyro, he’d use it. Nothing is too crass for him. He is a Kiss concert come alive.

Something tells me that the Lady Paradise Birds have fun with this and that they are more impressed with how far the guy will go to make a fool of himself rather than looking for a Mr. Right to sweep her of her talons.

I forgot to mention Elliot of the header. He usually goes for the direct approach and chases girls as they try to separate seeds from cigarette butts on the sidewalk. A Human being would get scolded, but it is normal Pigeon behaviour, and I doubt that a Pigeon can conceptualize “dinner and a date.”

Still, there is far more dignity in Elliot’s actions than there was in a human one I saw unfold at the park a Sunday or so back.

There was a couple in the park’s parking lot looking under the hood of their car. People all around. Kids everywhere. The woman was an obvious meth addict (no PC there, anyone who can’t tell a meth addict after having one shown to her is either headless or painfully stupid). She was twitchy and had that fast-forwarded face and voice similar to Pazuzu from The Exorcist. I wanted to feel pity for her but at some point a person must stand up and prove she wants to be alive.

The guy was apparently not an addict, looked younger, maybe twenty-three. And he was a punk. Not as in the style (he was one of those skinny wannabe jerks whose pants were down to his knees) but punk as in a guy who needs his ass kicked profoundly and often. (And he had eyes like those of a Sardine.)

This ritual ensued:

Woman: “Sorry babe…musta broke it”

Punk: “You [are] incompetent, bitch! You [are] stupid bitch!” (That’s how he spoke, like Tarzan, “You useless Jane!”)

Woman: “Heyheyhey!!!”

Punk: “You [are] pointless bitch!”

Woman: Something loud and unintelligible.

As you might guess the people in the park heard all this because it was shared at an extremely loud volume. Verbal abuse only, but you sensed it could go even more wrong. As anyone who has ever stupidly tried to get between a couple fighting in a tavern can tell you, trying to be the “Hero” in that situation is a very bad idea. The “victim” will rip into you, due to (in this case) her “training.” It’s best to drop a dime. Which is exactly what happened because a patrol car drove in and a very large policeman and equally capable policewomen had a visit with the quarrelsome twosome. The punk’s attitude changed swiftly, as it does with phony loud noises wearing Raider’s gear–all yessir, yessum. The woman just stood there (I assumed she had been taught not to say shit when he was talking) perhaps praying that they would not check for wants and warrants.

So, if anyone ever wants to know why I spend more time writing about animals than people, let the above serve as an example. Quite often it is demoralizing to observe the human race. Even dim Ralph Beeker can see that.

But lucky us! We get to move on to better things, written by people who have higher aims in life than making fools of themselves.

I am extolling six again this week. Two are written by long time friends, another by a recently acquired friend of no small talent and three by outstanding newcomers to the site.

The Sunday rerun was Michael Bloor’s Jack o’ Diamonds. It’s a rare and heartwarming thing that isn’t cloying or superficial. Mick has one of the best commands of plain language I’ve ever read and he uses his talent beautifully.

Robert Stone was the first of our new contributors. Prize. Humour is usually the kiss of death around here. But Robert’s story of “what would I do if…” is a fine bit of whimsy aided by wit and a likeable narrator. Makes you consider the possibilities and downsides of having your own large weapon.

Christopher Ananias has certainly been on a roll since first submitting to us last year. The Campground Dog is another of his tales that objectively explores lives that are not usually written about, unless in a stereotypical and/or mean fashion. It’s a tough read, but most serious pieces are.

Wednesday gave us Fallen by Northern Pike. You get a creature, two dangerous guys weapons and mistakes galore in this bit of action. The key here is its tremendous pace and how the writer delivers the storyline without bogging things down.

The Wheelbarrow Man of Hastings Street is longtime contributor and commenter, Harrison Kim’s thirty-fifth story in LS. Like Christopher, Harrison also writes well and honestly about people who have been called many things over the years–from riff raff, hobos, bums to street people. If an alien species ever lands here, they might ask us about the situation and we will not have a good answer. But maybe reading the works of people like Harrison (and Mr. Ananias) will shed some light on the question.

We closed the classy part of the week yesterday, with the publication of White Horse by Kate Mole. This is a wonderful bit of work that takes the reader to Cornwall (a place that is the focus of most of Kate’s writing). It also dips into the history of one person and comes together beautifully. Being an American who has never been to Europe, I imagined Cornwall as something out of the film Rebecca. All cliffs and thundering waves. But Kate has done something to ease my ignorance on the topic, which is a high aim for a writer!

This week’s list is about plot hitches in (mainly) films and TV that have always bothered me. As always there is room for many many more. It stemmed from again wondering about the seventh item in the following list. These are various mental toe stubbings that I’ve yet to get out of my mind.

• An entire season being “All a Dream” on Dallas (talk about lazy assed writing!)
• The Vulcan Inner-Eyelid (After Spock is driven mad by something that looked like a fried egg on a piano wire, Dr. McCoy figured that extreme light was the cure. But Bones used white light, which was unnecessary and it temporarily blinded Spock–but the secret “Vulcan inner eyed-lid” saved Bones McCoy from a malpractice suit)
• Lee Harvey Oswald just happened to work at….oops that was real–according to some
• The unlikely water gimmick in Signs. I doubt that life could evolve without needing H2O in some way. Moreover you could probably smell it coming a long way, like the gimmick itself.
• In his brilliant The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler forgot to add the killer of one of the characters. In fact he confessed to not knowing who did it.
• Luke and Leia were clearly love interests in the original Star Wars (and there was a poster with her arm around his leg). Then they become brother and sister in later films. I suspect that Lucas hadn’t made the change yet in the first film or The galaxy far far away is in Arkansas
• Again, No one has ever explained to my satisfaction what Fredo Corleone did to betray Michael in Godfather II. Did he open the curtains? Let guys with machine guns in? But he didn’t know it was a hit. Makes no sense.
• Adam Sandler as a serious leading man in any picture. Ain’t buying it. It’s like imagining Jerry Lewis as Hamlet.
• In the original Alien, the face grabber (and assumedly the creature’s) blood was an acid capable of burning through the hull of a spaceship. Gallons of it are/were spilled in the sequels to no similar effect.
• Yours

Leila