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Wk 23
Jan 25, 2021 18:23:46 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jan 25, 2021 18:23:46 GMT
I read this The Flight of Aris XLIX cap last week and still remember it because it made me think of Stephen King's Under the Dome though I've never read it and even bailed on its low-budget movie adaptation after townspeople inside the impenetrable clear dome that had settled onto their small, Maine (where else) town were unable to figure out how to communicate with those on the other side of this impenetrable clear dome because of how soundproof it was. Though it's possible writing hadn't been invented yet, I was unable to any longer believe, and so care. In this Flight Roman-numeralized-49 story, the entire Earth has been encapsulated in an opaque bubble that's even more impenetrable, and is also shrinking. So our days are numbered.
In King's novel (according to Wiki, which I only skimmed) the mysterious dome turns out to be the creation of some advanced alien species' children who hadn't realized humans were intelligent and sentient, but then somehow did, and cared, and so let them go. This Aris cap's Dyson-type sphere remains a complete mystery (even as a metaphor) to the ambiguous end. No one knows what it is, how it works, where it came from, or why. But we have figured out that special teams of highly trained, telepathic pilots can fly through it in special "bullet ships" at super-precise angles, even though there's no evidence of anyone (in the previous 48 missions, I assume) having ever done so. In any event, Earth's remaining 3 billion humans will die along with every other life form. But, with any luck, a select few-hundred of us will migrate to Mars and carry on our good work from there.
[Rocks folds the pages into tiny origami replicas of bullet ships and, after mind-melding with his cohorts here, fires them at an exact 89.9 degree angle into Porthole's mysterious panes where they burst briefly into flame before vanishing.]
Sometimes less is not more, but too little. No.
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Wk 23
Jan 26, 2021 19:55:22 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jan 26, 2021 19:55:22 GMT
I like my homemade facemask, which is just a clear 8.5"x11" sheet of plastic duct-taped onto a pair of lens-popped eyewear frames. Unlike much befondled cloth and paper muzzles that cook my face and spew my breath outwards and upwards over my eyes and forehead, turning me into a kind of mobile germ geyser, my plastic one blocks a wider trajectory of other people's spit, and angles my own down onto my chest. I haven't been sick or killed anyone, as far as I know, in over a year. In case it's still not clear, I'm very proud it. So when, upon entering the local FreshCo last week, I was told by the customer-counting kid guarding the entrance that face-shields (which mine is not) are no longer acceptable and to put on a mask, I was pissed. I complied. But I was pissed. Not at him and his ridiculous frontline job, I explained, but at the endless edicts and policy revisions of our politicians. I said, "It's gotten to where I'm almost rooting for the fucking virus!" (which garnered me looks and hidden smiles from other sheep).
So I really liked this House of Giants cap, which initially read like it was written from the POV of an evolved virus. You'd think it'd be silly fantasy, but it's not. It's hard SF that's unique in my reading. Reminded me a little of Blood Music, an old SF by Greg Bear featuring intelligent bacteria. Even brought out the geek in me, so that I sat for a minute wondering what gravitational forces inside a massive cylinder would be like, and decided you'd be pulled down onto then along the central axis until equidistant from either end. See?
It's also a love story!
And well written. Solid lexicon. Smooth prose that provided no motivation to skim. The only possible nit I saw was in "Rifters reduced to treating with infidels: where I think the VC meant "trading."
[Rocks straps on a pair of fins and flippers, then uses one of TQR's complimentary air-bladders to propel himself upwards to the trapdoor in the ceiling. But the Bull's probably sitting on it. Can't blame him, all the work we've sent Terminal-ward lately. Rocks pounds on it with his girly fists. "Can you feel that?" he shouts without really thinking it through. "I have something for you!"]
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Wk 23
Feb 6, 2021 2:16:15 GMT
Post by doomey on Feb 6, 2021 2:16:15 GMT
[doomey grabs the edge of the cherrywood, pulls himself deskedge]
rock. you actually can't talk about our capitalists narratives until they've been published. dude.
[doomey lights up a pall mall, sucks in some sweet smoke]
this has been going for so long and no one has said a thing about it. unless we publish the work, we can't mention the storyline, bro.
[doomey smokes]
what the fuck, theodore!
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Wk 23
Feb 6, 2021 18:58:48 GMT
via mobile
Post by bulldust on Feb 6, 2021 18:58:48 GMT
Moo. Was something thrown up to us? Can't feel it through the My Pillow under my ass. Because where else would an ass pillow go?
But seriously, never got any cap since the pencil thing.
Moo.
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Wk 23
Feb 8, 2021 14:08:50 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Feb 8, 2021 14:08:50 GMT
Better sit down for this, all. But I am seriously entertaining the notion of parting my hair on the opposite side of my head.
Of lesser importance, Doomey? WTF man? You know VC's names and titles have been mentioned and their never-published cap bantered about, thoroughly summarized and shat upon for like what... maybe twenty years now? Have you never subbed anything? Have you never ventured upstairs?
Moo! Did I pronounce that correctly? Lots of cap never gets there on the first try it seems. The mailroom's pretty stoned. Sometimes you gotta ring twice. (Hemorrhoids?)
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Wk 23
Feb 9, 2021 20:24:10 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Feb 9, 2021 20:24:10 GMT
Except for the client's embedded narrative, which ran on too long for what it contributed to the 1st person narrator's reaching-out at the cap's abrupt and something of a cop-out resolution, it held my interest. Legally credible. Technically good, too, but for a handful of comma faults that I'd leave to our sharp-eyed Monkey/editor should it pass unscathed through the Terminal here (which it would not) were I to send it up (which I won't). Like so many I read, it struck me as a piece begun with no clear idea of where it was headed, and that the "perfect" irony in its title was more serendipitous than intentional. Personally, I was hoping for a tryst, at least a quickie, between this lawyer and his client, replete with complex personal aftermaths and maybe an Updike-type sex scene almost too interesting and real to be arousing. But the VC took another path, one of more talk than action, where the client and her long marital backstory and even her husband's untimely and actionable demise turned out to be mere catalysts for the MC's slightly bromidic epiphany.
Even though there's no right or wrong in these matters, I could still be, and often am, wrong. At worst, close call.
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Wk 23
Feb 12, 2021 1:39:36 GMT
Post by doomey on Feb 12, 2021 1:39:36 GMT
nar. dude.
[doomey grabs up a Frog From Frunder comic and opens it, spreading it's cheeks on the cherrywood desktop. he taps out a pall mall, slaps it to his lips and lights it with a thumbnailed swan vesta. he inhales, and then he exhales]
fucking dude. we have never in our lifetime revealed the capital for the world to examine. if we don't publish it, we do not have the right to reveal it. that is why i have been doing these crazy parodies and shams, cousin. the capitalists poems and prose are theirs, dude. unless we publish, we can not reveal what's what, okay?
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Wk 23
Feb 12, 2021 1:44:50 GMT
Post by doomey on Feb 12, 2021 1:44:50 GMT
Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[doomey sucks in some sweet smoke]
maybe you guys are just a little bit mudded. is that a word? mudded?
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Wk 23
Feb 26, 2021 1:28:35 GMT
Post by doomey on Feb 26, 2021 1:28:35 GMT
[Doomey slaps a fresh capital facedown on the Cherrywood's desktop]
okay, so Adam Breckeridge's narrative did not meet up with our expectations. we wanted more, and he gave us less. i will not be handing out plot lines and/or quotes from the crafters narrative at this time. in the next stage of our immaculate stage production of Network, such musings might reveal themselves verbally, textually. but not here, in the belly of the beast, the haunted disco. we are dregs. we are a machine, oiled but non-chromatic. i will say this about the capital. it had words, cousin. it had words.
[doomey rolls up the current capital, and then he twists it, minimalizing it, crumpling it, and squishing it, smashing it. and then it's gone]
Adam Breckenridge's The Train Up Mount Silence has been Portholed, ladies.
[doomey taps out a Pall Mall and swan vestas that bitch. he sucks in some sweet smoke]
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Wk 23
Mar 20, 2021 1:05:52 GMT
Post by doomey on Mar 20, 2021 1:05:52 GMT
[doomey sucks in some smoke, exhales, closes his eyes, relaxes, whispers his mantra (the one no one else gets to know, wink, what with TM). he'd been examining the latest capital, Rumpel's Nature Verses Nurture, where it'd been strewn across the Cherrywood desktop. he taps the capital with his fingertip, taps thrice more, and then]
gods, this fucker is good. he/she had me from the get go, what with the talk about the fern? right? i do however believe short fiction should be more fleshed out. i want to know the room I am in, i want to know what kind of glass i'm drinking my whiskey from, i want to know everything, daisy. so, the capital isn't all that, but it is some of that. so...
[doomey tosses the capital up to the rafters, where it flutters and twirls and rises]
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Wk 23
Mar 27, 2021 1:27:33 GMT
Post by doomey on Mar 27, 2021 1:27:33 GMT
[doomey taps a good two inch ash into the gigantoid marble ashtray. it's like he'd shoved a wire in there, the ash was so...long]
Carol, hey.
[he nods in Carol's direction, and then he lowers his head, leans in toward DeP, keeps his head lowered]
oh, DeP.
[he shuffles the papers on his desktop, tries to get them in order numerically, phonically, by thickness, and, desperately, by girth. he sucks in some sweet smoke, and then he exhales. he taps his fore fingertip on the capital befront him, and he twists in his pilot's chair just slightly to the right, stretching, doing some yoga]
this capital, jacobowski anthony hartley's irradiated was nearly shoved upward, Terminalward-speaking. but it lacked what we like to call here at TQR environment. other Floorites might be okay with a scene without environment, but i am a stickler for it. you could talk all you want, talk for days, and it could be great talk, amazing dialogue, but i need to know what room you're in, and i need to know how high the ceiling is. i really want to know what you're wearing. sorry you came across me, Junkstonia Anthony Heartbreath, but i can't get hard examining dialogue.
[doomey shoves the ass end of his pall mall into the gigantoid marble ashtray, twists it, deadens the spark. he fishes around in the bottom drawer of the cherrywood, comes up with a bottle of amber and a tumbler. he pours himself a good pour. sips at it. he nods to Carol]
girl.
[doomey grabs up the current capital]
hartley's irradiated is being Portholed, folks.
[he walks the capital over to the Porthole and tossed out into the storm. he watches it swirl and flit and twirl. he sighs]
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Wk 23
Mar 27, 2021 23:44:27 GMT
Post by carol on Mar 27, 2021 23:44:27 GMT
[Carol leans against the wall beside the wardrobe like Marlon Brando against a street light. She bics the tip of a doobie that bobs between her lips]
What the fuck happened to Rockefeller?
[She inhales. She holds the smoke in her lungs, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it, and she exhales]
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Wk 23
Mar 28, 2021 0:19:16 GMT
Post by doomey on Mar 28, 2021 0:19:16 GMT
[doomey spreads his arms, palms up]
i couldn't tell you, girl. he was so up. you know, happy. he was on a path, right? right?
[doomey thumbnails a vesta and lights the tip of his pall mall, he sucks in some seriously sweet smoke. he exhales and twirls in the pilot's chair, and he lands his hands on the current capital spread across the cherrywood desktop]
this bitch here, this one...
[he slams his index fingertip repeatedly on the papers spread out on the desktop]
this one is not going upward. and i am...sorry? is that the word? i feel horrible telling capitalists they've hit the brick wall. i know i have a nasty reputation, but i don't mind so much standing in that puddle, just so you all know. regardless, we, TQR, need edgy fucking shit, cousins. and you know what i'm most sorry about? i'm sorry we didn't let future capitalists know we don't want capital concerning fucking knights on horses and castles!
[doomey sucks smoke from his pall mall, he fingertips some music on his phone. Zeke's 'Til The Living End erupts from the speakers hanging like soldiers beside the mirrorball from the rafters above]
Nikola Tchalakov's A Tournament in Magic is going on a road trip to Disappointment Town, population you.
[doomey twists his lips]
damn it.
[he grabs up the capital in question and balls it up as he advances on the Porthole. he goes all Jordon, stuffing the capital through the hole]
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