softer shoes

2006-11-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

Seeing as it's election day, I thought this article I found (written today) was fitting.

Woman Fatally Bitten By Snake At Church

LONDON, Ky. -- A southeastern Kentucky law enforcement officer said a woman was bitten by a snake during church and died.
She was 48-year-old Linda Long. The Laurel County Sheriff's Office reported that she died Sunday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
Detective Brad Mitchell said Long died about four hours after the bite was reported.
Officials said Long attended East London Holiness Church. Neighbors of the church told the newspaper the church practices serpent handling.
Lt. Ed Sizemore of the Laurel County Sheriff's Office said friends went with Long to a local hospital Sunday afternoon.
"She said she was bitten by a snake at her church," Sizemore said.
Sizemore said he thinks the woman was bitten by a timber rattlesnake.
Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky. Snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of $50 to $100. Police said they had not received reports about snake handling at the church.
Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible, in the Gospel of Mark, that said a sign of a true believer is the power to "take up serpents" without being harmed.
A woman who lives near the church told the Lexington-Herald leader that she's witnessed snake handling at the church.
"I don't have no dealings with those snakes," Opal Wagers said. "But they seem to handle them pretty good."
She told the paper that people handle snakes at the church at least one Sunday each month. Wagers said the snakes are taken to the church by members from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.
Church officials could not be reached for comment.

Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

2006-11-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

As I was waking, I saw on the floor next to me, in a tangle of dirty clothes, books, c.d.’s, and towels, an old bone. It was small, cylindrical but angled, and had shards of marrow still clinging to its bottom right side (or top left). We’ve had it for a couple months. Just a random toy we purchased for my love, Meggy. She plays with it from time to time. When she remembers she has it.
I picked it up and felt it in my hands. It was rough, most likely from Meggy chewing on it, and, possibly only because of the Halloween season, it made me think of the slaughtering house and whatever animal, probably a cow, this was attached too. I thought of the life process this bone went through before it ended up on my floor under dirty underwear and a Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy c.d. It was an awesome feeling. I thought of two cows fucking, probably something like ten years ago, maybe sooner. I really have no idea, but I do know, that two animals fucked to produce that bone.
It was a funny image to think of. Two cows, the male on top of the female, doggy style, fucking. Watching animals fuck has always been something I have enjoyed. It’s not something I get off on (though sometimes it does make me a little horny). It’s just interesting to watch because neither of them look like they’re having any fun. It’s just a primal act. I imagine it makes more sense for them in a lot of ways. Me, I’m horny, I want to fuck someone. I see a hot girl at a record shop. I want to fuck her. I imagine her riding me. Her breasts flowing gracefully in motion with her body as I lay under. I have no interest, at least consciously, of wanting to carry on my seed, implanting it in future generations. In fact I have a vested interest in making sure it is not planted, in anything, but a strip of latex, or, preferably inside her (assuming she used the pill or some other form of birth control). We are told these sexual urges—the wanting to fuck part, not the fear of children—are natural. Primal. I wonder if the only quality that distinguishes my sexual urges from the cow’s is that I’m smart enough to wrap it up.
So these two cows fuck and the male has an orgasm inside the female’s vagina. She gets pregnant and a couple months later—I have no idea how long a fetus gestates in a cow—we have a bone for my love, Meggy, to play with occasionally. I think she played with it two nights ago. This cow lived. It ate, slept, possibly, hopefully, fucked a couple times. Everybody, animal or human animal, should fuck a couple times in their lifetime. Masturbation does not count. But it can be fun when one cannot make it to record shops to make the records spin.
The most important part of this is that the cow was born to die. Its parents were placed together when they were in season and their instincts took over. The farmers did this to create more livestock. More produce to sell. All its life it was raised to be eaten, unless of coarse it was a women, and then it was probably raised to be milked. I don’t know which is worse.
You might be wondering if this is an all too subtle piece of writing (who said this was writing) for PETA or for becoming a vegetarian. It’s not. I eat meat, I like the taste of it, and I don’t care if you do too. It’s just the idea of how this cow was created to die and rendered into distributable parts to sell, like a bone for my love, Meggy, that interests me. It has a kind of capitalistic egalitarian feel to it that makes me feel like this world is connected somehow. A continuously flowing piece of swallowed smoke. Who swallowed it? Hell if I know. Probably the cow on its dying breath.

2006-10-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

In conjunction with what I was writing about earlier: the line between the writer's responsibility and the reader's, I found this. It's an interview with writer David Foster Wallace for Salon from the end of the twentieth century discussing the release of his then latest book, Infinite Jest. Despite what I said in the previous post, Dave is a writer I enjoy, though I do find him to be obnoxious at times. And stumbling upon this interview was a welcomed irony because many have accused Dave, including myself, of occasionally only making poses as apposed to trying to communicate anything that would make trying to navigate a page and a half sentence worth while. They are of coarse aesthetically beautiful poses, but poses nonetheless. He of coarse has a different opinion, so I've posted his to be fair and balanced (mine is right). Also, if you're so inclined the link to read the whole interview (which is quite great) is :http://www.salon.com/09/features/wallace1.html

What's it like to be a young fiction writer today, in terms of getting started, building a career and so on?

Personally, I think it's a really neat time. I've got friends who disagree. Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends sometimes fall into, the ol' "The audience is stupid. The audience only wants to go this deep. Poor us, we're marginalized because of TV, the great hypnotic blah, blah." You can sit around and have these pity parties for yourself. Of course this is bullshit. If an art form is marginalized it's because it's not speaking to people. One possible reason is that the people it's speaking to have become too stupid to appreciate it. That seems a little easy to me.
If you, the writer, succumb to the idea that the audience is too stupid, then there are two pitfalls. Number one is the avant-garde pitfall, where you have the idea that you're writing for other writers, so you don't worry about making yourself accessible or relevant. You worry about making it structurally and technically cutting edge: involuted in the right ways, making the appropriate intertextual references, making it look smart. Not really caring about whether you're communicating with a reader who cares something about that feeling in the stomach which is why we read. Then, the other end of it is very crass, cynical, commercial pieces of fiction that are done in a formulaic way -- essentially television on the page -- that manipulate the reader, that set out grotesquely simplified stuff in a childishly riveting way.
What's weird is that I see these two sides fight with each other and really they both come out of the same thing, which is a contempt for the reader, an idea that literature's current marginalization is the reader's fault. The project that's worth trying is to do stuff that has some of the richness and challenge and emotional and intellectual difficulty of avant-garde literary stuff, stuff that makes the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it's also pleasurable to read. The reader feels like someone is talking to him rather than striking a number of poses.
Part of it has to do with living in an era when there's so much entertainment available, genuine entertainment, and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren't. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It's unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it's neat. There's so much mass commercial entertainment that's so good and so slick, this is something that I don't think any other generation has confronted. That's what it's like to be a writer now. I think it's the best time to be alive ever and it's probably the best time to be a writer. I'm not sure it's the easiest time.

2006-10-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

I’m currently reading the great Mr. Vonnegut’s wonderful Palm Sunday. A non-fiction piece containing essays, interviews (with himself), and original segues that glue this revelatory montage together. Kurt’s one of my favorite writers and I’ve always adored his style: simplicity of language to communicate profound ideas. So I was delighted to find that one of the essays in the book was one commissioned for him (by the International Paper Company) on literary style.
“When you yourself put words on paper, remember that the most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you don’t know what is interesting and what is not.” Though I find this to be true (and fear of that very rule is what has kept me from creating this blog sooner), I find the word “interesting” to be a very subjective word. For instance, listen to one hour of NPR, then watch one hour of Mtv.
People’s interests are often only what entertains them and what entertains them is usually only a mirror of themselves but prettier, cleaner, and funnier (sit-coms), or their vicarious fantasies (action movies, NPR). So “interests” is not something that I am very interested in. A more appropriate word, I believe, is relevance. One person may enjoy As the World Turns as much as the other enjoys Hannity & Colmes (I mean they do have the same writers, don’t they?). However, which is more relevant is anybody’s guess. To be fair, “relevance” is just as subjective as “interesting.” But these digressions will have us spiraling into the black hole that is logical accuracy. And that is something that no one finds entertaining. So let’s move on.
“So your own winning literary style must begin with interesting ideas in your head. Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” Aside from what has already been treaded over, I completely agree with this. Writers such as Kierkegaard, Henry James or more modern renditions such as David Foster Wallace, can just seem obnoxious. Granted, to varying degrees, they are all great writers and somebody understands them. But it is usually not me. And I question what is more important to them, style or substance? There is of coarse an argument, that I myself subscribe to, that at times substance can be achieved through style. But I believe that that is a different matter and does not dwell within the same context as what is currently being discussed.
But if you refuse to let it go, then I’ll have to surrender the floor yet again to America’s favorite zany but moral mad scientist: “As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of our language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were profound. ‘To be or not to be’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story “Eveline” is this one: ‘She was Tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those words do.”
I too find sentences such as “She was tired.” to be deeply beautiful and poetic in their simplicity of language as well as their psychological complexity (Assuming such a minimal sentence supports a larger framework, whether it be grammatical or merely emotional depends upon the story as well as its writer). “…No other words could break the heart of a reader as those words do.” That is what I’m talking about when I feel others writers, whether they be the examples given above or not, are obnoxious. Soren, for as much as I love the guy, cannot write a simple sentence. I will spend upwards of twenty minutes dissecting one single sentence from that mother fucker. When, and if, I finally understand his statement, those twenty minutes have become well worth it (much more worth it than spending that time watching As Hannity Turns To Bend Over Colmes). But it makes me furious at the fact that someone that gifted, both intellectually and grammatically, could not have simplified his verbiage without sacrificing his point. Perhaps as I get older his apologies will become clearer to me. God willing.
But you might be asking yourself the question, “Why should he or anyone else have to simplify? It’s not their problem you’re overreaching?”. This is completely true. But it brings me back to Kurt’s point: what is more important to the writer, communicating a mastery of high-minded literary style as well as your overall point or simply communicating your point? Perhaps an answer can be found in every christian’s favorite scientist, Mr. Charles Darwin. As the story goes, a biologist in training asked his professor where he could get the more scientifically inclined version of Darwin’s masterpiece Origin Of The Species. The professor simply replied, “There isn’t one. He just wrote it so that everyone could understand it.”
Now that’s a lovely anecdote but it begs another question: “Where does one draw the line?" You can only simplify, or ‘dumb down’ as some prefer, for so long. That’s a great question and one that, unfortunately, I don’t have an anecdote for. My only answer is this: writers, of any field, have to be able to trust that their readers understand them. That they are educated enough to comprehend the ideas being discussed. However, readers need to be able to trust that the writer is willing to communicate those ideas in a way that they can understand. That doesn’t give a firm line, but from what I hear, it was drawn in the sand anyway.

2006-10-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

this is just a quick post about the shin's new album, Wincing The Night Away. it is not a review. when the album gets closer to it's release date (January 23rd, 2007) and i have more to comment on--specifically the confirmed lyrics--then i will give a more thorough post:

After a few cursory listens I'm coming out and saying, “ I love it.” It's not nearly as immediate as Chutes Too Narrow--which should not be confused with not being as good. But it’s an incredibly ambitious and quite beautifully dense album. You can easily tell they got a big budget boost for this one and James and Co. put it to good use.
Many have said this is more of the same but I couldn’t disagree more. If anything it sounds similar to Oh, Inverted World and continues to display James’ infamous longing, abstract poetry; however, the songwriting is much more mature, complex, and achieved. Some of the songs display an entrancingly hard groove—which is a welcomed departure from their strictly “art indie” genre treading—, while others exhibit a country vibe that juxtaposes quite well with their neo-psychedelic sound. And with each genre they reach into they come out with their instruments speaking the tongues of their newly acquired slang.
But despite the growth and exploration, The Shins are still The Shins. Just a new, braver, more interesting Shins (and still a head above the rest). All of the poppy and summery atmospheres are still there and are still shaded by darker subject matter, but with Wincing The Night Away they have evolved from being a cutesy, albeit great, indie band to just a great, solid band (and maybe still a little cutesy). My only question is, Why is it coming out in two and a half months when they’re sending out advance copies now?

2006-10-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

During an interview with a reputable, albeit highly expensive, internationally-renowned coffee house, I was asked towards the end of my interview, presumably for my views on work and its relative relevance, if I was an existentialist. This question disorientated me because if there is one thing I have learned from numerous interviews of the service industry persuasion it is that, at twenty years old, they have absolutely no interest on my views concerning politics, culture, or any mixing of the two. So, needless to say, I was taken aback when the Assistant Manager, Rach (pronounced Raytch), was interested.
The only problem was, for as much time as I spent waxing a simmering pseudo-existentialism in the interview, as to present myself as intelligent but not obnoxious, I really had no idea what existentialism was. So I had to think fast. Most importantly, I had to think of what existentialism was. At the time the best description I could come up with was, “finding meaning in a meaningless world.” It seemed to fit suitably and I was hoping that Rach was not a philosophy major ready to tear apart this little pretentious twat.
“I mean… I guess what it means to me,” I said to her while readjusting myself on a wooden chair as I was becoming increasingly aware of my wallet as it dug into my ass, “is that as I get older I’m finding that life has no deeper meaning other than what is already there.” This is a thin tight rope I’m walking but luckily, all my words bore no weight thus far. I was simply balancing myself on the wire. It is a thin tight rope because I’ve found that most people, my self included, search out existentialism as “the only true religion” (A word to my friends and family: If I should happen to mysteriously disappear one day it is because a philosopher of existentialism—possibly Rach—has read this and has tracked me down and crucified me for calling his or her beloved that most dreaded beast.). Meaning, they have either left a major religion and are searching for something that makes more sense to them, or, they were able to skip the first tribulation all together (praise be!) and are looking for guidance as they drift through this doldrum unabated.
So I’m trying to figure out if the scenario I’ve become entangled in is a trick question. Is she trying to get me to dismiss or mock religion? Some employers seem alright with that or even encourage it if only vaguely, but I haven’t yet been able to glean Rach’s stance so I don’t want to give mine. Instead of showing her my cards, I checked and raised the bet.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure. Why, what are your thoughts on existentialism?”
“Well I’m just trying to figure out what you said. ‘Life has no deeper meaning other than what is already there’. That doesn’t mean anything. Does it?” She skipped my question entirely and went back on the attack. Logically, this was reprehensible, but by raising the stakes “on a whole ‘nother level” she called her own bluff and dared me just to raise a brow. She was my Interviewer, and as such had my cute, little testicles in her third-cup-of-coffee trembling hands. I couldn’t call her out and she knew it (But I knew it too).
“Well…all I meant by that is, as far as the quote unquote big questions go, is that there really are no definite answers.”
I wasn’t just walking on that rope, I was fucking dancing on it. Daring the physics of her wit and resilience to throw a gust my way.
“Well I don’t know about that.”
Fuck. She didn’t need to throw a gust my way. She merely needed to remind me it was a tight rope so I could fall on my own. And what’s worse, that free cup of coffee I was offered was working its way through me now so I was getting sweaty and gaseous as a result. I wanted to take off my coat but feared I might already smell and I didn’t know what kind of body language taking off your coat—a grey toned tweed blazer—meant. So, I sweat it out.
Now I have become rather deft at knowing what kind of flatulence I’m going to have to wrestle with at any given time. A connoisseur, if you will, of the G.I. tract. And, considering the two bowls of bran flakes I had for breakfast, I knew this one was to be bad. Possibly deadly, for my wallet, thick with change, left just enough room for a fart to rip right out the gates unabashed and blazing. In the past I’ve known bran flake farts to be quite loud but not smelly; however, with a grande pumpkin spiced latte added to mix all bets were off.
“Yeah I guess you’re right about that.” It wasn’t the most acute response, but I was becoming increasingly more concerned with how to mask this voracious fart. Pondering its eruption as it boiled slowly inside me, waiting to incinerate the remains of my dignity and the possibility of a job selling coffee at two-fifty a cup. Something had to be done.
Sadly, Rach interpreted my pondering face with the assumption that my previous statement was only the first part of my answer. She was waiting for the rest and for me to say, “oh, that was all” would be to plant the seeds of defeat. So again, I had to act quickly. “I mean…it’s all relative really. So long as you’re not trying to harm anyone.”
Without making so much as a facial gesture, she crossed the other leg now, tilted her head ever so slightly so the ceiling lights—almond colored and shaped like coconuts—reflected onto her glasses making it harder to see her eyes and then simply pursed her lips together. “But isn’t harm just as relative? I mean, how do you define “harmful” as apposed to destructive?”
This was child’s play no longer. She was creating her own game and I, was indubitably the pawn. However, with her flaccid command of semantics she had merely given synonyms. So, once again, Rach’s logic was utterly fallible. And on top of that, I wasn’t sure if she had used “apposed” improperly. Should it have been opposed? Either way it was futile. That was something I couldn’t call her out on anyway.
It then occurred to me that Rach may not have been as dumb as I thought. Perhaps she was simply playing dumb to get me to patronize her. That would be far more damning than mocking religion and would surely result in not getting hired. I also had to devise a plan to get away with this fart. I couldn’t excuse myself for at this point that would be defeat and regardless, merely getting up would cause my bowels to howl.
So I sat flinching. My brow filling with sweat. But what is worse? To let it drip or to swipe it thereby acknowledging that you are sweating? Surely people perspire but to swipe it away would be a self-consciously motivated decision to eradicate it. But then again, if perspiration is natural then why not just brush it off. Finally, I had decided. It must be done. But how? Time was of the essence so I made a snap judgment and let it all fly. “Yeah I can see your point about that…” , I said as I quickly, economically, gave rise to my right hand and it quickly—though nonchalantly—spread across my forehead. But then, in a moment of true inspiration, I brushed backwards as opposed to sideways. As if to be checking my hair, not drying my brow. Genius. “…I don’t know…if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life so far it’s that much pretty much everything is relative. It’s just all about individual morals. And that’s a hard call to make. But living with the results of not making that call can be far more detrimental, at least to me.”
That was clutch. I knew it. And she knew it. And just as she was beginning to lean forward and start to make what I assumed to be the beginning of a “hmm,” a child, that had apparently been running around the store that I had taken no notice of before, ran into a coffee table and starting bawling. Rach immediately got up, then turned to me and said, “Hold on” in a panicked tone (the panic was unquestionably from my answer seeing as the child was fine).
“Right!” I said to her in a tone that precisely matched the temper of the situation. Just then I realized now would be as good a time as any to expel myself within this haze of commotion. I seized the opportunity and by merely lifting my left buttock ever so slightly let out a loud, rambling fart radiating out my anus. It lasted much longer than I had expected it would. No doubt five whole seconds. So I was glad all this commotion had muffled it. I calmly looked around to see if anyone had noticed and to my dismay an elderly women sitting to my front right (approximately my two o’clock) had witnessed the ordeal in its entirety. She had the most bewildered look on her face and I could not ascertain if she was senile or just scared.
Soon after we made eye contact Rach came rushing over and said we would have to end the interview short and apologized in the warmest tone yet (perhaps I had won). Then, upon sniffing the recently pierced air asked, “Do you smell that?”
“No.” I said long-faced and wide-eyed. “I don’t.” I looked past Rach to the elderly woman and gave her a look that let her know I would strangle her to death right as she sat in her ergonomically designed chair if she said so much as one word.
“Okay. Well we’ll call you in about a week or two, okay?” She said while barking orders to one of the baristas to get an ice pack for the child.
“Absolutely,” I said triumphantly as I stood to shake her hand. But she was still barking orders so my hand lay fallow in the air. The elderly women watched—with the same senile face as before—as it dangled under the tension of this rapidly evolving scene.