They might as well stick this underneath the Statue of Liberty, since it basically summarizes America.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
USA
They might as well stick this underneath the Statue of Liberty, since it basically summarizes America.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Cormac McCarthy's Birthday Meridian
From February, in honor of the release of the new film, The Road. (Yes, I know that book is in a completely different style than BM.)
They rode in westward from six or eight houses from the far end of the street in the humid peak of the midday sun leading a neighborhood denizen who had no portent of what awaited him amid the crabgrass and oak trees of the community park. Balloons red like devil eyes and in seemingly equivalent numbers to the souls in his residence gave the kid trepidation as they arrived ever closer to this place transformed from its unwritten normalcy of decrepit picnic tables and vestigial forlornness into a phantasmagoria of checkered vinyl and people who were not strangers to him. Is this for my birthday the kid asked and his fellow riders responded with uneasy silence and more rapid pedaling. One of the riders had the chain slip from his bicycle and was left behind because his cries could not catch up with the others and he would only rejoin them when he found abandoned a ten-speed with a banana seat which he mounted uncomfortably the length of the block. The kid himself never knew this so focused was he on the strangeness of the horizon and he repeated his question but was ignored with even greater taciturnity.
They arrived and each propped their bicycles with a measured boot to the metal rod between the tires. The gathered turned their faces toward the kid in a moment of synchronized jubilation and shouted words of approval that he had survived another year on this planet and they were to celebrate this feat. A crow flew overhead and its shadow touched only the elderly who huddled together near casks of soda pop that had flattened from the same heat that curdled the potato salad into mounds unfathomable. Someone passed the kid a box with a patterned epidermis but it was quickly revoked and the perpetrator was admonished for beginning that portion of the festivities at the erroneous time. That person spat. Let us start with a game the woman who appeared to be in charge cried out and all agreed with somnambulant nodding, save the idiot child who stood straddlelegged and barefoot among trodden dandelions where he had rendered fault lines in the earth with the handle of a contraband plastic knife.
They circled beneath the outstretched branch of the lone maple tree in the vicinity. Above them a horse the size of a dog with a paper coat of motley colors dangled from its spine by a string resembling a wayward vertebra. The kid was looking up at this ascending creature that hovered between him and the brightness behind the wooden limbs when from behind a cloth enveloped his face and he could see only what the blackness of his eyelids reflected. A thin wooden cylinder was thrust into his hands and he gripped it with all the uncertainty of an agnostic spelunker. Heathen chants and primal yowls reverberated from all sides and then he was seized by the shoulders and made to rotate at increasing speeds and even though he had long forgotten which way he was facing he continued to whirl like some wayward maelstrom with centrifugal malice until he was pushed forward and made to swing the weapon in his hand. He did with the aim of bludgeoning any and all objects in front of him and he felt an ungodly concussion and tore off his mask and saw that the horse above him was now bleeding its innards onto the dehydrated grass below. They rushed in and grabbed palmfuls of viscera in greedy hysteria and the kid himself clawed and lined his pockets with the silvery bits and when it was all done he raised a morsel and put it in his mouth and smiled like an abdominal scar because the chocolate was full dark. From the tree the eviscerated horse swayed with its blank eyes painted on and turned upward looking for something familiar between the summer leaves.
They rode in westward from six or eight houses from the far end of the street in the humid peak of the midday sun leading a neighborhood denizen who had no portent of what awaited him amid the crabgrass and oak trees of the community park. Balloons red like devil eyes and in seemingly equivalent numbers to the souls in his residence gave the kid trepidation as they arrived ever closer to this place transformed from its unwritten normalcy of decrepit picnic tables and vestigial forlornness into a phantasmagoria of checkered vinyl and people who were not strangers to him. Is this for my birthday the kid asked and his fellow riders responded with uneasy silence and more rapid pedaling. One of the riders had the chain slip from his bicycle and was left behind because his cries could not catch up with the others and he would only rejoin them when he found abandoned a ten-speed with a banana seat which he mounted uncomfortably the length of the block. The kid himself never knew this so focused was he on the strangeness of the horizon and he repeated his question but was ignored with even greater taciturnity.
They arrived and each propped their bicycles with a measured boot to the metal rod between the tires. The gathered turned their faces toward the kid in a moment of synchronized jubilation and shouted words of approval that he had survived another year on this planet and they were to celebrate this feat. A crow flew overhead and its shadow touched only the elderly who huddled together near casks of soda pop that had flattened from the same heat that curdled the potato salad into mounds unfathomable. Someone passed the kid a box with a patterned epidermis but it was quickly revoked and the perpetrator was admonished for beginning that portion of the festivities at the erroneous time. That person spat. Let us start with a game the woman who appeared to be in charge cried out and all agreed with somnambulant nodding, save the idiot child who stood straddlelegged and barefoot among trodden dandelions where he had rendered fault lines in the earth with the handle of a contraband plastic knife.
They circled beneath the outstretched branch of the lone maple tree in the vicinity. Above them a horse the size of a dog with a paper coat of motley colors dangled from its spine by a string resembling a wayward vertebra. The kid was looking up at this ascending creature that hovered between him and the brightness behind the wooden limbs when from behind a cloth enveloped his face and he could see only what the blackness of his eyelids reflected. A thin wooden cylinder was thrust into his hands and he gripped it with all the uncertainty of an agnostic spelunker. Heathen chants and primal yowls reverberated from all sides and then he was seized by the shoulders and made to rotate at increasing speeds and even though he had long forgotten which way he was facing he continued to whirl like some wayward maelstrom with centrifugal malice until he was pushed forward and made to swing the weapon in his hand. He did with the aim of bludgeoning any and all objects in front of him and he felt an ungodly concussion and tore off his mask and saw that the horse above him was now bleeding its innards onto the dehydrated grass below. They rushed in and grabbed palmfuls of viscera in greedy hysteria and the kid himself clawed and lined his pockets with the silvery bits and when it was all done he raised a morsel and put it in his mouth and smiled like an abdominal scar because the chocolate was full dark. From the tree the eviscerated horse swayed with its blank eyes painted on and turned upward looking for something familiar between the summer leaves.
Brenda L. Smart Short Story Contest
Much to my surprise, I did quite well in North Carolina State's annual short story contest. This free contest is open to all North Carolina residents who haven't published a book or who are professors in the NC Public College system. Out of hundreds of entries, I was an honorable mention in the "regular" category (up to 5,000 words) and a finalist in the "short" category (up to 1,200 words). Check out the link, and congratulations to my friends Katherine and David, who won the categories.
http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/creativewriting/story_contest.php
http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/creativewriting/story_contest.php
Tom Swifties Excised From the Bible
This is what I do at work when kids are taking SAT Practice Tests and I have nothing to look over. Enjoy!
http://mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/5harris.html
http://mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/5harris.html
A Eulogy for Evan Anderson, The Class of 1972’s Winner of The Drinking Game of Life
A Eulogy for Evan Anderson, The Class of 1972’s Winner of The Drinking Game of Life
I’ll just say it: the man we are remembering today was a drinker. Most of you out there, I know, consider this to be his greatest flaw, the thing that held him back from being a competent employee, a devoted father, and a model husband. But, as his best friend, it’s up to me to finally pop the cork on this champagne of secrets: with his death from cirrhosis, Evan Anderson, class of 1972, is the official winner of Daniels College’s Drinking Game of Life.
To make a long story short, on the night of graduation, with the “real world” the two scariest words besides “last call,” ten of us drew up a list of rules to follow the rest of our lives. Getting caught breaking them would result in unbridled shaming and, even worse, forfeiture of the game. We each copied the rules in our own handwriting, sanctified them with communion wine, and went forward as .19% blood alcohol content brothers.
Forty years later, only Evan has lived up to our youthful promises. Less than a month after signing our pact, Dave Tuggle took an accounting job in a dry county and dropped out because he wouldn’t make the 40 minute drive both ways just to get sloshed. Shortly thereafter, “Shitfaced” Shawn Daniels rediscovered his Mormon faith. He might as well have been dead. Speaking of which, the Parker twins, Ron and Don, carried the firewater admirably until their unfortunate drunken duel in ’81. Less filling or tastes great? We’ll never know.
We said “Adios!” to Alan, who quit the bottle in a show of support to his pregnant wife. The kid wasn’t even his, but by the time that was clarified it was too late to get back in the game. In 1999 another one bit the dust, as we tricked Craig into being the designated driver the night the Yankees won the World Series. How he fell for that we’ll never know. And tragically, we had to disqualify Cliff “Keg Rapist” Bracey because he flat-out refused to meet us for an “Act of War” round on September 11th. Rules are rules.
So come our 30 year college reunion, it was just me, Evan, and Garrett left to see who would wear the crown. But—and here’s why he’s the undisputed champion--Evan had his suspicions, and in typical Evan-fashion, he hid out in the bathroom and discovered that Garrett’s bar snack of choice was literally finger food! What I would have paid to have been there when Evan kicked open that stall door and shoved the “self-induced vomiting” clause into Garrett’s not-blurry-enough vision!
Evan stuck to the rules of the Drinking Game of Life like a child afraid of Santa’s naughty list. Our rulebook, as you can see, is as thick as a Mezcal worm, and it takes a consummate professional to abide by it uninterrupted for 37 years. He is like Cal Ripken. But better.
Where’s Tom Millbanks? There you are. Evan worked in your company for over thirty years. You weren’t even there when he started! But one of our rules was “If some hot-shot sack of shit gets an undeserved promotion instead of you, drink.” When you became VP, Evan became Very Plastered. Did you know that he kept a cooler in his filing cabinet just because almost every week you made good on the “If your asshole boss makes you work Saturday, drink” rule? Just think, Evan never called in sick a day in his life.
To his parents, who have both survived him, you probably thought that he didn’t care about you in your old age. Not true at all! The day he had to abide by the “If your parents are basically invalids who drive worse than they hold their bladders, drink” rule, your son was a blubbering mess. He got his sensitivity from his mother. And from you, Mr. Anderson, his taste in bourbon.
I see his beautiful kids in the front row. You angels validated your Daddy more than anyone. William, you almost cost him the title, but he was adamant that you weren’t gay and thus didn’t finish that bottle of Dewar’s. That was a big risk, and if you hadn’t taken that girl to prom you would have DQ’d your papa. You pulled it out in the bottom of the ninth, slugger. And Emily, sweet, Emily, dry your eyes: you proved your old man’s mettle over and over again. Most men would have quit when they had to buy a round of top-shelf scotch, but the day you got an abortion everyone had a by-the-rules glass of 25 year-old single-malt Glendronach. You were toasted several times that night.
That brings me to Evan’s wife. Kathy, I’m sure you grew concerned that your husband headed straight to the sauce after almost everything you said. But he was just following the rules! I’m sure if you would have known that asking him to take out the garbage before he got out of his work clothes constituted finishing off a six-pack that night, you would have been a little more patient. But deep down, he cared for you. Actually, one of the rules is “If you are still in love when you wake up, add grain alcohol to your morning coffee.” And if I’m reading the look on your face correctly, you could smell the love on his breath with every goodbye kiss.
Ladies and gentlemen, the way the drinking game of life is decided is: when only two participants remain, the first to succumb to an alcohol-related ailment takes home the medal. Unfortunately for me, my heart bypass last summer put me at a disadvantage for the sudden-death finale. But if I couldn’t win, I’m glad Evan did.
But there is one final rule to the drinking game. The winner is cremated and put in this giant margarita glass, the same grail we blessed that spring Sunday in 1972. Then his loved ones take a goodbye sip of his ashes. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to taste a winner. Forgive me, dear friend, if I chase you with my tears.
I’ll just say it: the man we are remembering today was a drinker. Most of you out there, I know, consider this to be his greatest flaw, the thing that held him back from being a competent employee, a devoted father, and a model husband. But, as his best friend, it’s up to me to finally pop the cork on this champagne of secrets: with his death from cirrhosis, Evan Anderson, class of 1972, is the official winner of Daniels College’s Drinking Game of Life.
To make a long story short, on the night of graduation, with the “real world” the two scariest words besides “last call,” ten of us drew up a list of rules to follow the rest of our lives. Getting caught breaking them would result in unbridled shaming and, even worse, forfeiture of the game. We each copied the rules in our own handwriting, sanctified them with communion wine, and went forward as .19% blood alcohol content brothers.
Forty years later, only Evan has lived up to our youthful promises. Less than a month after signing our pact, Dave Tuggle took an accounting job in a dry county and dropped out because he wouldn’t make the 40 minute drive both ways just to get sloshed. Shortly thereafter, “Shitfaced” Shawn Daniels rediscovered his Mormon faith. He might as well have been dead. Speaking of which, the Parker twins, Ron and Don, carried the firewater admirably until their unfortunate drunken duel in ’81. Less filling or tastes great? We’ll never know.
We said “Adios!” to Alan, who quit the bottle in a show of support to his pregnant wife. The kid wasn’t even his, but by the time that was clarified it was too late to get back in the game. In 1999 another one bit the dust, as we tricked Craig into being the designated driver the night the Yankees won the World Series. How he fell for that we’ll never know. And tragically, we had to disqualify Cliff “Keg Rapist” Bracey because he flat-out refused to meet us for an “Act of War” round on September 11th. Rules are rules.
So come our 30 year college reunion, it was just me, Evan, and Garrett left to see who would wear the crown. But—and here’s why he’s the undisputed champion--Evan had his suspicions, and in typical Evan-fashion, he hid out in the bathroom and discovered that Garrett’s bar snack of choice was literally finger food! What I would have paid to have been there when Evan kicked open that stall door and shoved the “self-induced vomiting” clause into Garrett’s not-blurry-enough vision!
Evan stuck to the rules of the Drinking Game of Life like a child afraid of Santa’s naughty list. Our rulebook, as you can see, is as thick as a Mezcal worm, and it takes a consummate professional to abide by it uninterrupted for 37 years. He is like Cal Ripken. But better.
Where’s Tom Millbanks? There you are. Evan worked in your company for over thirty years. You weren’t even there when he started! But one of our rules was “If some hot-shot sack of shit gets an undeserved promotion instead of you, drink.” When you became VP, Evan became Very Plastered. Did you know that he kept a cooler in his filing cabinet just because almost every week you made good on the “If your asshole boss makes you work Saturday, drink” rule? Just think, Evan never called in sick a day in his life.
To his parents, who have both survived him, you probably thought that he didn’t care about you in your old age. Not true at all! The day he had to abide by the “If your parents are basically invalids who drive worse than they hold their bladders, drink” rule, your son was a blubbering mess. He got his sensitivity from his mother. And from you, Mr. Anderson, his taste in bourbon.
I see his beautiful kids in the front row. You angels validated your Daddy more than anyone. William, you almost cost him the title, but he was adamant that you weren’t gay and thus didn’t finish that bottle of Dewar’s. That was a big risk, and if you hadn’t taken that girl to prom you would have DQ’d your papa. You pulled it out in the bottom of the ninth, slugger. And Emily, sweet, Emily, dry your eyes: you proved your old man’s mettle over and over again. Most men would have quit when they had to buy a round of top-shelf scotch, but the day you got an abortion everyone had a by-the-rules glass of 25 year-old single-malt Glendronach. You were toasted several times that night.
That brings me to Evan’s wife. Kathy, I’m sure you grew concerned that your husband headed straight to the sauce after almost everything you said. But he was just following the rules! I’m sure if you would have known that asking him to take out the garbage before he got out of his work clothes constituted finishing off a six-pack that night, you would have been a little more patient. But deep down, he cared for you. Actually, one of the rules is “If you are still in love when you wake up, add grain alcohol to your morning coffee.” And if I’m reading the look on your face correctly, you could smell the love on his breath with every goodbye kiss.
Ladies and gentlemen, the way the drinking game of life is decided is: when only two participants remain, the first to succumb to an alcohol-related ailment takes home the medal. Unfortunately for me, my heart bypass last summer put me at a disadvantage for the sudden-death finale. But if I couldn’t win, I’m glad Evan did.
But there is one final rule to the drinking game. The winner is cremated and put in this giant margarita glass, the same grail we blessed that spring Sunday in 1972. Then his loved ones take a goodbye sip of his ashes. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to taste a winner. Forgive me, dear friend, if I chase you with my tears.
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