The below is a creative piece I wrote for an online magazine contest, but forgot to submit. The contest prompt was as follows, verbatim: "sh--- s--- r---- seeks work that exhibits the gritty side of life: cigarette butts that litter sidewalks, a half-drunken bottle of whiskey left on the porch, the empty corridors of a dead mall – work that encompasses the underbelly of society, whether it be rural or urban."
C-----
I wanted to get published, so I tried to stay as close to the prompt as possible. Unforturnately, and as mentioned above, I forgot to submit. Nevertheless, the following is a piece I wrote.
- - - - - - - -
CARLEY stood in the alley, cleaning her fingernails with a fork she'd found in the garbage. Nick would be picking her up soon. She looked nice, except for her nails.
She looked up into the headlights as a car turned down the alleyway. The engine roared and the car picked up speed, and Carley's muscles quivered with the instinct to turn and run.
"You were scared as a deer!" said Nick as he pulled up beside her.
"Was not," said Carley.
It was their first date.
"Thanks for coming out with me," said Nick.
"Of course," said Carley. "What do you want to do?"
They decided on driving out to a suburb, where there was a lot more undeveloped land. Nick knew a place on top of a hill where they could drink his liquor and watch the city lights.
When they got there, the base of the hill was cordoned off by a chain-link fence. Carley asked whether they were allowed to go up the hill, and Nick replied that of course they weren't allowed up, that's what made it so private.
The hike took longer than it had looked. The hill was more sand than earth. Finally, huffing and puffing, they reached the summit, where there were a couple of lawn chairs.
"Been here before?" asked Carley.
"Once or twice," said Nick. He took off his shirt and placed it on the back of a chair.
"I bet you bring all the girls here."
"You're the first," said Nick.
She sat down in the other chair, drooping her arms off the sides. "You got that booze?" He handed it to her and she took a draw. "Rum?"
He laughed. "Whiskey."
"I only been drinkin' five months."
"How old are you, anyway?"
"I'm one hundred and fifty-five years old," she said.
He was surprised by the odor of marijuana. "Didn't know you did the stuff," he said.
"You want some?"
"Honey," he said, "I been doin' stuff since before you were born."
----
She liked him, but it was their first date and she didn't want to do what they were doing. He kept saying that he didn't want to if she didn't want to, but after every time she said that she didn't want to, he would ask why she didn't want to, and then after she explained he would ask again a few minutes later. She was frightened, but it was clear that he was not trying to frighten her; it was just that he wanted to and she didn't want to. Eventually, he asked, "What, do you think it would hurt?" and she replied, "I don't know if it will hurt, I just don't want to," and he said, "Well if you don't think it will hurt then why don't you want to?" and she finally said, "Okay, just promise to stop if I say it hurts." He agreed, and though it did hurt she said nothing, and even so it didn't hurt that much, and after all there were plenty of girls her age that had done this anyway.
"I want to go home, Nick," she said.
"We can go," he said. He made no effort to stand up. "I think I might love you."
"Stop that! I want to get off this damn hill!" she said. She stood up, fastened her pants, and began trudging down the hill.
He thought that if he let her trudge for a while, then she would eventually stop and come back. After all, she was very drunk. And, after all, he had the keys. But she kept on trudging down. Eventually, Nick stood up and clothed himself and made the descent after her.
She shrieked when he got close: "Get away!"
"Come on," he said. He hugged her and she placed her head on his shoulder. "Let's get going," he said.
----
They drove back to her house, mostly in silence. "Good night, Nick," she said, staring out the windshield.
He tried to say something, to thank her for her company, but she cut him off by angrily unbuckling her seatbelt and exiting the car.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Government-Run Health Care NOW
Bill Moyers' Journal: Critical Condition
Please watch the above video.
The medical care system should be sealed off from the forces of the market; I believe that market forces should not be allowed to operate in the environment of health care. The reason is simple; if health care is run by for-profit companies, then those companies have to siphon off a portion of the money that is pumped into health care; otherwise, there is no profit. The only way to make money in health care is to keep a certain amount of each dollar that goes into health care costs (i.e., patients' bills)--say, one cent of every dollar (this is hypothetical). In other words, if you get an operation that costs $100 (this is still hypothetical), 99 of those dollars will return to the economy; the final dollar will be towards health care industry profits. Let's keep in mind that it is always in the company's interest (that is not a pun) to keep more of your money, since its only interest is profit--or, I'm sorry, "the interests of its shareholders," perhaps the mostly disgusting euphemism in popular usage.
If health care were (I'm going to say it) socialized, all of that money would return to the real health care system--the system of patients and their care providers, the system that does not include and has no need for insurance companies--and the system would work much more efficiently, albeit not perfectly. There would still be a gap between coverage received by the rich and poor alike, and so this gap could be lessened--with the idea of bringing it to nothing--by a progressive income tax, which would be relatively low for low earners and relatively high for high earners.
Please watch the above video.
The medical care system should be sealed off from the forces of the market; I believe that market forces should not be allowed to operate in the environment of health care. The reason is simple; if health care is run by for-profit companies, then those companies have to siphon off a portion of the money that is pumped into health care; otherwise, there is no profit. The only way to make money in health care is to keep a certain amount of each dollar that goes into health care costs (i.e., patients' bills)--say, one cent of every dollar (this is hypothetical). In other words, if you get an operation that costs $100 (this is still hypothetical), 99 of those dollars will return to the economy; the final dollar will be towards health care industry profits. Let's keep in mind that it is always in the company's interest (that is not a pun) to keep more of your money, since its only interest is profit--or, I'm sorry, "the interests of its shareholders," perhaps the mostly disgusting euphemism in popular usage.
If health care were (I'm going to say it) socialized, all of that money would return to the real health care system--the system of patients and their care providers, the system that does not include and has no need for insurance companies--and the system would work much more efficiently, albeit not perfectly. There would still be a gap between coverage received by the rich and poor alike, and so this gap could be lessened--with the idea of bringing it to nothing--by a progressive income tax, which would be relatively low for low earners and relatively high for high earners.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Staff Bathroom
The other day, I was using the library bathroom before my shift began when it caught my attention that the stall I was in had no toilet paper. This was alarming, since the position I was in demanded such an amenity. So, I had to do the pants-around-my-ankles, feces-between-my-glutes shuffle over to the stall next to mine. Then that one had no toilet paper, either. There are only two stalls in the staff bathroom.
I began contemplating what to do. The first thing that came to mind was to step out of my underwear, use that to wipe, and then dispose of the evidence on the way out. It would no doubt cause a stench which one of my coworkers would probably report, but so long as I kept quiet nobody would have any reason to suspect me. It would probably just get pinned on one of the hobos who frequent the public access computers. But then I wondered whether polyester-cotton blend would even work as an effective arschenputzer, rather than just smear it around, and decided there was no reason to soil my Dallas Cowboys boxer shorts just so I could spend the rest of the day reeking of the shit that was caked onto my asscheeks.
There was a paper towel dispenser next to the sink, and I elected to make a dash for it. Realizing that having my pants around my ankles would only slow me down, I removed them along with my shoes and socks and scurried over to the paper towels, taking several handfuls very quickly before dashing back to the stall.
For the record, I almost made it back. Just as I was almost back to the stall, the bathroom door behind me opened so quickly that I had absolutely no chance to react.
It was Henry, my boss. I know it was him on account of the full-length mirror that was in front of me, which--and I don't know why--I looked into at the very same moment that Henry did. I don't know which image of me was more terrifying: My bare ass, with a vertical brown stripe running up the crack, or the mirror reflection which showed me completely naked from the waist down, a look of astonishment on my face as I practically leaped back into the stall while clutching two fistfuls of paper towels.
I slammed the door shut. I could feel him standing out there, just inside the bathroom door. He was as frozen stiff as I was. Finally, after what seemed like several hours, I heard the door open.
"Mr. King?" he said at last.
"Yes, Henry?"
"You won't be needed this evening, Mr. King," he said, and left the bathroom.
I was still standing up, and I seemed unable to remember where I was or how I got there. At last, I finished what I had originally set out to do and left the library at march tempo.
I began contemplating what to do. The first thing that came to mind was to step out of my underwear, use that to wipe, and then dispose of the evidence on the way out. It would no doubt cause a stench which one of my coworkers would probably report, but so long as I kept quiet nobody would have any reason to suspect me. It would probably just get pinned on one of the hobos who frequent the public access computers. But then I wondered whether polyester-cotton blend would even work as an effective arschenputzer, rather than just smear it around, and decided there was no reason to soil my Dallas Cowboys boxer shorts just so I could spend the rest of the day reeking of the shit that was caked onto my asscheeks.
There was a paper towel dispenser next to the sink, and I elected to make a dash for it. Realizing that having my pants around my ankles would only slow me down, I removed them along with my shoes and socks and scurried over to the paper towels, taking several handfuls very quickly before dashing back to the stall.
For the record, I almost made it back. Just as I was almost back to the stall, the bathroom door behind me opened so quickly that I had absolutely no chance to react.
It was Henry, my boss. I know it was him on account of the full-length mirror that was in front of me, which--and I don't know why--I looked into at the very same moment that Henry did. I don't know which image of me was more terrifying: My bare ass, with a vertical brown stripe running up the crack, or the mirror reflection which showed me completely naked from the waist down, a look of astonishment on my face as I practically leaped back into the stall while clutching two fistfuls of paper towels.
I slammed the door shut. I could feel him standing out there, just inside the bathroom door. He was as frozen stiff as I was. Finally, after what seemed like several hours, I heard the door open.
"Mr. King?" he said at last.
"Yes, Henry?"
"You won't be needed this evening, Mr. King," he said, and left the bathroom.
I was still standing up, and I seemed unable to remember where I was or how I got there. At last, I finished what I had originally set out to do and left the library at march tempo.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Textagrams
All of the words in any person's vocabulary can be divided up and placed into one of two categories: closed class or open class. Words that fit into the former category include prepositions such as 'to,' and articles such as 'the.' Such words exist for purely grammatical reasons; they do not have very concrete definitions of their own, but they contribute to the overall agreement of a sentence or phrase. The reason this class is referred to as being "closed" is because there are only so many grammatical words needed by any particular language; for example, Standard English has only room for one definite article (the). (More inflected languages, such as most languages in Europe, may have more definite articles than Standard English, but nevertheless there is a finite number of such words required, so that none are ever lost or gained.) Further, the semantics of "closed class" words can be difficult or impossible to define, and thus their dictionary definitions are not truly representative of the words' actual meanings.
The other class, the "open" class of words, takes up the vast majority of any person's vocabulary. These are "dictionary" words; that is, a good lexicographer can detail the exact meaning of a given word (in a given setting). So, if I use the word "dog" to you, you can be sure of what I am talking about without much context (on the other hand, imagine if the word were "of"; you would have no idea what its meaning could be without any context, even though it is a word entirely familiar to you). A "dog" has several semantic features: organic, animate, mammalian, canine, domestic, etc. Any word in the "open" class can be broken down in this sort of way.
The reason this class is referred to as "open" is that there is no limit to how many of such words can be in the lexicon of any particular language. New words are constantly being added to the open class, and are easily incorporated into anyone's vocabulary. Think of all the words and new definitions the internet has given us: blog, n00b, pwn, tweet, wall, etc.
So to my point: I've discovered and coined a concept for which there is, as far as I know, no word. Mark it: I would like to submit a word to be considered for candidacy to be a member of the open class: Textagrams.
The concept is this: When you send a text message with predictive text, oftentimes your phone will "predict" the wrong word. For example, if you type "beer," the word displayed on the screen might be "adds." This occurs because most of us don't type using keys that are each assigned to a particular letter of the alphabet; instead, each key could be any of three or four letters, on top of a single digit. So hitting 2-3-3-7 could be either "beer" or "adds"; likewise, 2-6-6-5 can be "book" or "cool."
This is doing interesting things to our language, I believe. Words are taking on new meanings because of the technological phenomenon of "textagrams" (I'm calling them this because of their similarity to anagrams). For example, some people have started using the word "book" to mean "cool" and "adds" to mean "beer." This creates a "code"; in order to speak the language, you have to know the rules, and the rules are arbitrary (as opposed to natural). Only speakers who have the key to the gate, the rules, are capable of speaking and understanding Textagrams; otherwise, it's nonsense.
Thus, the technology of cell phones is not only serving to expand the English vocabulary, the way past technologies have done. It is actually being taken a step further; a new sub-dialect is taking shape, a system of words with rules known only to an exclusive group of speakers, similar to Cockney Back and Rhyming Slang. Take a look at these Textagrams I've found (there are surely many, many more) and you'll see just how impossible it would be to decipher such a code without being privy to the rules.
Textagrams:
2-3-3-7: Beer, adds
2-6-6-5: Cool, Book
7-3-6-4-7: Penis, Semis
3-3-2-3: Dead, deaf
2-2-7: Cap, bar
The other class, the "open" class of words, takes up the vast majority of any person's vocabulary. These are "dictionary" words; that is, a good lexicographer can detail the exact meaning of a given word (in a given setting). So, if I use the word "dog" to you, you can be sure of what I am talking about without much context (on the other hand, imagine if the word were "of"; you would have no idea what its meaning could be without any context, even though it is a word entirely familiar to you). A "dog" has several semantic features: organic, animate, mammalian, canine, domestic, etc. Any word in the "open" class can be broken down in this sort of way.
The reason this class is referred to as "open" is that there is no limit to how many of such words can be in the lexicon of any particular language. New words are constantly being added to the open class, and are easily incorporated into anyone's vocabulary. Think of all the words and new definitions the internet has given us: blog, n00b, pwn, tweet, wall, etc.
So to my point: I've discovered and coined a concept for which there is, as far as I know, no word. Mark it: I would like to submit a word to be considered for candidacy to be a member of the open class: Textagrams.
The concept is this: When you send a text message with predictive text, oftentimes your phone will "predict" the wrong word. For example, if you type "beer," the word displayed on the screen might be "adds." This occurs because most of us don't type using keys that are each assigned to a particular letter of the alphabet; instead, each key could be any of three or four letters, on top of a single digit. So hitting 2-3-3-7 could be either "beer" or "adds"; likewise, 2-6-6-5 can be "book" or "cool."
This is doing interesting things to our language, I believe. Words are taking on new meanings because of the technological phenomenon of "textagrams" (I'm calling them this because of their similarity to anagrams). For example, some people have started using the word "book" to mean "cool" and "adds" to mean "beer." This creates a "code"; in order to speak the language, you have to know the rules, and the rules are arbitrary (as opposed to natural). Only speakers who have the key to the gate, the rules, are capable of speaking and understanding Textagrams; otherwise, it's nonsense.
Thus, the technology of cell phones is not only serving to expand the English vocabulary, the way past technologies have done. It is actually being taken a step further; a new sub-dialect is taking shape, a system of words with rules known only to an exclusive group of speakers, similar to Cockney Back and Rhyming Slang. Take a look at these Textagrams I've found (there are surely many, many more) and you'll see just how impossible it would be to decipher such a code without being privy to the rules.
Textagrams:
2-3-3-7: Beer, adds
2-6-6-5: Cool, Book
7-3-6-4-7: Penis, Semis
3-3-2-3: Dead, deaf
2-2-7: Cap, bar
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Narcissist, to his Mistress
Everything I've ever known and loved reminds me of you:
Rain on a summer Sunday after a storm,
Unexpected invitations to birthday parties,
Raisins,
And so on.
In the morning, upon waking,
I look up into the mirror and see my face,
And see yours,
And kiss myself in the mirror
And kiss you.
When I make love to myself,
I feel as if I am making love to you,
Unless I am
Making love to myself
Using the aid of pornography.
And when I am actually with you,
I feel like I'm with a reflection of myself,
So that
There are two of us both--
You and me in me and you.
I will ask, "Would you like wine?"
And, touching the bottle of Shiraz,
You'll respond,
"Yes, I would like some;
I prefer this variety in particular."
And my double (in you)
Will ask your double (in me)
Likewise,
And your double (in me)
Will respond likewise.
And then I'll lean across the table
And you'll kiss me,
And you'll
Merge back with yourself
And I'll merge with me.
And then I'll ask you,
While touching the Shiraz,
If you
Would like a glass,
And you'll say, "I prefer Merlot."
Then, after our date
I'll go home and look in the mirror
And think
Of when I saw you
When I didn't see you.
Rain on a summer Sunday after a storm,
Unexpected invitations to birthday parties,
Raisins,
And so on.
In the morning, upon waking,
I look up into the mirror and see my face,
And see yours,
And kiss myself in the mirror
And kiss you.
When I make love to myself,
I feel as if I am making love to you,
Unless I am
Making love to myself
Using the aid of pornography.
And when I am actually with you,
I feel like I'm with a reflection of myself,
So that
There are two of us both--
You and me in me and you.
I will ask, "Would you like wine?"
And, touching the bottle of Shiraz,
You'll respond,
"Yes, I would like some;
I prefer this variety in particular."
And my double (in you)
Will ask your double (in me)
Likewise,
And your double (in me)
Will respond likewise.
And then I'll lean across the table
And you'll kiss me,
And you'll
Merge back with yourself
And I'll merge with me.
And then I'll ask you,
While touching the Shiraz,
If you
Would like a glass,
And you'll say, "I prefer Merlot."
Then, after our date
I'll go home and look in the mirror
And think
Of when I saw you
When I didn't see you.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Gore Vidal's Inventing a Nation
Yesterday I finished Gore Vidal's Inventing a Nation, a small and stylish history of the early United States focused on Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. After reading Mr. Vidal's little book, I am taking a new interest in, and finding new appreciation for, the Founders, of whom I had previously only been very familiar with Jefferson and Franklin (who pops up from time to time in Inventing). In particular, I have always viewed Hamilton as a villain, likewise for Adams, and Washington I have always seen as nothing more than the instrument of his cabinet. Further, it always seemed to me that Hamilton's authoritarianism and monarchism were the symptoms of a feeble mind not unlike that of our most recent president, a belief which has dissolved after digesting Vidal's 189 pages (though, as a lover of Jefferson, I still cannot help but think Hamilton a bit of a pest).
But Vidal is truly the star of his own book, appearing now and again as "this author," and in the final section in a conversation with John F. Kennedy. Vidal's ability to stylize, to craft, to persuade, to guide a narrative is unequaled by nearly all historians, who too often neglect their prose, as if good writing should either happen by accident or not at all. Gore's talent for making beautiful sentences is on par with his abilities as a first-rate academic, and he clearly realizes that a historian's job should be seen as aesthetic as well as empirical. Consider this passage, which I underlined while reading but which might as well have been selected at random:
"Now, two centuries and sixteen years later, Franklin's blunt dark prophecy has come true: popular corruption has indeed given birth to that Despotic Government which he foresaw as inevitable at our birth. Unsurprisingly, a third edition of the admirable Benjamin Franklin: His Life As He Wrote It, by Esmond Wright, is now on sale...with, significantly--inevitably?, Franklin's somber prediction cut out, thus silencing our only great ancestral voice to predict Enron et seq., not to mention November 2000, and, following that, despotism whose traditional activity, war, now hedges us all around. No wonder that so many academic histories of our republic and its origins tend to gaze fixedly upon the sunny aspects of a history growing ever darker. No wonder they choose to disregard the wise, eerily prescient voice of the authentic Franklin in favor of the jolly fat ventriloquist of common lore, with his simple maxims for simple folk; to ignore his key to our earthly political invention in favor of that lesser key which he attached to a kite in order to attract heavenly fire."
Perhaps, if all histories were written this way, Americans would take more interest in their past.
This is no doubt Vidal's mission in writing Inventing a Nation: Today's Americans must remember the most distant days of the republic in order to preserve it. The work is not just a stylistic retelling of the early years of the United States; no, through the selection of detail and flash-forwards to the times of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and W. Bush, Vidal makes a case for why Americans should understand the actions, thoughts, and motivations of the Founders. The problems of the modern era were in many ways foreseen by bricklayers of nationhood (as indicated in the above quote about Franklin), and remembering their words and deeds is crucial to preserving an authentic sense of what it means to be American. Knowing their virtues and faults, their steps and missteps, their consistencies and contradictions -- seeing them as individuals both public and private -- this is the way to unearth the past and bring it to life.
But Vidal is truly the star of his own book, appearing now and again as "this author," and in the final section in a conversation with John F. Kennedy. Vidal's ability to stylize, to craft, to persuade, to guide a narrative is unequaled by nearly all historians, who too often neglect their prose, as if good writing should either happen by accident or not at all. Gore's talent for making beautiful sentences is on par with his abilities as a first-rate academic, and he clearly realizes that a historian's job should be seen as aesthetic as well as empirical. Consider this passage, which I underlined while reading but which might as well have been selected at random:
"Now, two centuries and sixteen years later, Franklin's blunt dark prophecy has come true: popular corruption has indeed given birth to that Despotic Government which he foresaw as inevitable at our birth. Unsurprisingly, a third edition of the admirable Benjamin Franklin: His Life As He Wrote It, by Esmond Wright, is now on sale...with, significantly--inevitably?, Franklin's somber prediction cut out, thus silencing our only great ancestral voice to predict Enron et seq., not to mention November 2000, and, following that, despotism whose traditional activity, war, now hedges us all around. No wonder that so many academic histories of our republic and its origins tend to gaze fixedly upon the sunny aspects of a history growing ever darker. No wonder they choose to disregard the wise, eerily prescient voice of the authentic Franklin in favor of the jolly fat ventriloquist of common lore, with his simple maxims for simple folk; to ignore his key to our earthly political invention in favor of that lesser key which he attached to a kite in order to attract heavenly fire."
Perhaps, if all histories were written this way, Americans would take more interest in their past.
This is no doubt Vidal's mission in writing Inventing a Nation: Today's Americans must remember the most distant days of the republic in order to preserve it. The work is not just a stylistic retelling of the early years of the United States; no, through the selection of detail and flash-forwards to the times of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and W. Bush, Vidal makes a case for why Americans should understand the actions, thoughts, and motivations of the Founders. The problems of the modern era were in many ways foreseen by bricklayers of nationhood (as indicated in the above quote about Franklin), and remembering their words and deeds is crucial to preserving an authentic sense of what it means to be American. Knowing their virtues and faults, their steps and missteps, their consistencies and contradictions -- seeing them as individuals both public and private -- this is the way to unearth the past and bring it to life.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
