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WK 26
Jun 23, 2021 7:15:53 GMT
Post by deplancher on Jun 23, 2021 7:15:53 GMT
I have again and again returned from the barely moving comatose and nearly dead. Merci beaucoup for not yet changing the locks. Oh, there are no locks. Well, merci beaucoup for remaining present while I travel these broken highways of my mind. You are the wild horses with hoofs on the ground/tiles while I.
Am not right handed, no Rocks. Neither am I left but somewhere in between. It takes so long to write a letter.
Contributing so little of late and even before that, I have no answers to the unquestions. The air though is fragrant in pleasant places I have been. Let this be what it is. John Lee said, Boom Boom boom boom.
Oh Carol. I did not mean for you to step away. You need a desk upon which to linger and ponder Cap and rest your glass of amber. Thanks though for wiping off the dust. Stay.
One of my eyes has been wandering. What can it mean? Too much moon gazing, je pense.
Anyway, all apologies or none. I today flung a long one toward The Terminal. It's timely. Or relevant. We'll see. I read Greenwood. I speak with silence except for these purple stars. Sometimes I wonder where and what you are.
And we all shine. On.
[DeP pulls a small turntable from beneath the vast folds of her cloak. She removes one of the rings from her forefinger left or right we can't quite see. There's a 45 that needs demagnetizing. She sticks the ring in its middle then slaps it onto the platter. Some tune plays and she sways with it. Round and round and round as the pale blue light in the corner illuminates without warning.]
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WK 26
Jun 24, 2021 18:15:56 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jun 24, 2021 18:15:56 GMT
I believe the word is ambidextrous, Dep. I'm guessing the time you take is born of thought, not want of manual dexterity.
Hey Bullmeister! Welcome to the world of horizontal Z's. (Yes, I graze in the Terminal.) Ms. Rocks still sleeps in a power recliner, and I on a twin-XL slab of memory foam on the floor in the corner, like a pet. Great stuff, memory foam.
I used to be an asshole like the male antagonists in this Transfemation cap. Maybe not as big an asshole as the MC's incestuous, rapist brother or the Epstein-esque pedo she snuffs at the end, but certainly the two she practices her newly acquired feminine wiles on, then jilts. But now that I'm over the hill, and so less at the mercy of my dick, I'm much nicer.
No points off, but the title sucks. Too "clever" by far, and theĀ "Trans" leads me to expect more than just a little hair dye and superficial acting behind her metamorphosis. Like, at the very least, implants and collagen. Capitalizing Mom, Mother, Dad, Father, Brother, etc. when used as common nouns at first seemed to want toĀ impart symbolic significance, then just confused. Otherwise it's well penned technically, and rife with allegories to movies, plays and literature. I like how charactersĀ are allowed to speak at length, even if they do all seem to speak with the same voice and knowledge set. Even the epistolary excerpts have that same mature erudite formality, aggravated by the narrative's puppeteer-like omniscientĀ (nearly objective) POV. Her friends, the gay dude and football star, who school her in the ways feminine seduction, are then all but abandoned save for a stage bow at the end. I was hoping she'd hook up with her good buddy, the jock. That I care at all, is testimony to the VC's craft. If she had, I might've even given this a Yes. It's that close. And maybe, upon reflection, some future romance is,Ā if not implied, then at least not ruled out. But, still, sadly, perhaps even unfairly, no. Not quite.Ā
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WK 26
Jul 5, 2021 18:30:39 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 5, 2021 18:30:39 GMT
(Dep, if you're reading, please skip this paragraph.) Once, way back in the early 70's when I was a student at U of W, I inadvertently jerked off in some evening class, I think History of Russian Culture, or maybe Neurophysiology (dummied down for Psych majors). Hard to tell, partly because of the prof 's thick Slavic accent, but mostly because I was fucked up on alcohol from the student Bombshelter pub and Elavil samples from Dr. Koo, the Korean GP I was gaming for pharmaceuticals at the time. Whatever the class was, it wasn't very popular, conducted in a tiny room up in the Humanities building. It was late. I was bored stupid, trying to stay awake. The girl sitting in front of me had a nice neck, wisps of red hair escaping a French ivory barrette. I was slouched in a little lift-top desk with my hand in my pocket, and didn't really realize what I was doing until it was too late. Still, I thought I was pretty discreet. Downers are funny that way.
I relate the above only to demonstrate that I'm not averse to masturbation, in life or in stories. So when, after four pages, all that's happened is the MC, who's sitting in a sweltering hot car in an airport parking lot after dropping off some friends, "wondering what to do," has begun whacking off to a radio interview with a couple nympho hookers, I'm still on page, albeit grimacing a little. Even after he saunters back to the main terminal to finish pleasuring himself in the airconditioned comfort of a men's washroom stall, I persevere. Good writing should disturb the comfortable. And I'm fairly comfortable these days. It's only after some dark-clad stranger appears and forces him at gunpoint to stick his finger in his ass, and he complies, that I bail.
Airport Hallucination or not, I don't think I'll sully the deluge beyond the Porthole with it. Instead I think I'll rip it into little strips and flush it down the crapper after pissing on it.
That's a no, in case anyone wondered.
Although... it was technically well written. And it did evoke a response in this reader. So maybe it has literary merit. Maybe send it to Glimmer Train.
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WK 26
Jul 6, 2021 0:38:17 GMT
Post by doomey on Jul 6, 2021 0:38:17 GMT
[rockefeller had doomey at "I inadvertently jerked off in some evening class." doomey sucked dreamily on his pall mall, exhaled plumes of sweet smoke across the cherrywood's desktop and the capital spread thereon, tilting his head as rockefeller further dived into his narrative with his discription of "a nice neck, wisps of red hair escaping a French ivory barrette." at this point doomey's elbow, till now stanced upon the edge of the cherrywood, slipped, and doomey fell forward, bashing his chin on the edge of the desk]
ow. fuck a duck.
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WK 26
Jul 6, 2021 0:43:48 GMT
Post by carol on Jul 6, 2021 0:43:48 GMT
[Carol stands beside DePlancher, her lips in a bit of a twist. She has capital spread out on the leftness of DePLancher's desk, and she'd been examining it prior. But now she's icing Doomey with her stare]
I'm watching you. Got eyes on you. Pervert.
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WK 26
Jul 6, 2021 0:58:37 GMT
Post by doomey on Jul 6, 2021 0:58:37 GMT
[doomey caresses his chin gently. he looks at his fingers, looking for wet blood]
jesus.
[he settles his ass in the pilot's chair and shoves the butt end of the pall mall between his frowning lips]
okay, damn. rock. that sounded like a really fucking good capital to motherfucking moi, hombre. but, you know, we each raise our army, and we each rage our war.
[he gathers up the capital spread out on the desktop and he rushes over to the wardrobe. he glances over at at Carol]
shan't climb this again, girl.
[doomey pulls a controller from the insides of his clothes (may be from the depths of his underwear) and he taps a button/switch/watermark and Mike Jackson erupts from the speakers located strategically in the rafters, flooding the Floor with Can't Let Her Get Away. doomey dances over to the dead tubes. he dances over to the ghost of Bukowski. he slides the capital into Bukowski's old trembling hands, and he gives Hank a wink. doomey wanders over to the cherrywood. bukowski floats upward, capital in hand]
the capital has been sent, friends. Chris Chinchilla, which on my life has to be a fake tag, has been Terminaled!
[doomey leans forward, breathes heavy. he looks up at the rafters and signs a heart. he blinks, and he slams his ass into the pilot's chair. he taps out a pall mall]
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WK 26
Jul 6, 2021 13:08:02 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 6, 2021 13:08:02 GMT
Practically the first cap I read all the way through here, way back in the day, was a book review of yours, Doom.Ā GardensĀ of something or other. And I still remember the line, "Reluctantly he removes his finger from her asshole." I thought it was great, even made it into TQR'sĀ last anthology as I recall. So obviously I have nothingĀ against digits in derrieres. But this Airport cap was nothing like that, not at all in the same class, of the same calibre. I did wonder if you'd've liked it, though.
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WK 26
Jul 7, 2021 16:10:29 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 7, 2021 16:10:29 GMT
In the first few pages of Meyers' cap, nine-year-old Maggie gives a rundown of her extended family tree. You'd think it'd be boring, what with nothing really happening beyond some backstory about Great-Gran and Gramps having traveled to and homesteaded this distant world they all live on. But I'm a sucker for good SF, and wondering what it was about kept me reading. Plus the writing's tight, clean and voicey. Though I did wonder why this girl from our far flung future narrates in an almost hillbilly-esque lingo where folk still take shines, spin tales, divvy up chores, marry off and are nice as pie. But okay. Maybe it's steampunk. An alternate history thing where it's the Clampett's kinfolk made it to the stars, the only linguistic evolution being that chess is now a proper noun, Chezz, and checkmate is Chezzmake. Anyway, to make a short story shorter, G-Gran, whose health is failing, has this magical ability to switch bodies with people. Because of how grateful all her progeny are for her having spawned them, they all take turns loaning her their younguns for the summer.
My parents used to loan me out summers. Mostly to religious community farms, but twice to my grandma and grandpa at their cottage on Chesapeake Bay. Gramps was still working as a millwright. So Granny was stuck trying to keep twelve-year-old me entertained. No mean feat back before Ritalin. She taught me how to gossip, gave me big balls of yarn to untangle, and sent me out fishing and crabbing a lot. Never once swapped bodies with me, though (and still made it to 107).
But all Maggie's great-granny ever does is beat her at Chezz mornings, then trade places with her for the day. I didn't get why or how families kept the body-lending aspect of these summer visits secret from their young "volunteers." If granny had made me sit around quilting all day, every day in her wiry old body, I'd sure as shit have warned my sisters ahead of their turns. And Maggie's great-gran is in way worse shape than my grandmother ever was... except maybe right at the very end where we were told by those in attendance that they'd dimmed the lights in her room, had hymns playing softly in the background... really, done everything they could do but hit her with a shovel to send her on her merry way. So I also wondered how and why G-Gran endured the rest of the year. But mostly I wondered why the story was coerced into science fiction when it would've worked so much better as a historical piece with G-Gran cast as a witch, set maybe in the Ozarks. So even if the not-very-surprise ending hadn't somewhat sucked, I'd be giving this a pass. Albeit with writerly apologies and respect.
PS
Great-Gran is the only left.
Is there a word missing here, or is it just a voice thing?
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WK 26
Jul 8, 2021 15:55:54 GMT
Post by rorschalk on Jul 8, 2021 15:55:54 GMT
Hey Boligard,
"THE THINS..." is tied in the terminal and since we're short staffed it falls on you to break the tie. When you can, read the cap and then go into the terminal (right below the floor in the New Free Market) and post your verdict.
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WK 26
Jul 19, 2021 18:39:15 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 19, 2021 18:39:15 GMT
So the cap's in a file called Rock Star.docx, but the title page says, "Deadline." Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Right away I'm thinking, here's a writer trying to circumvent the whole "first print rights" thing that most publishers (even little webzines like this) are pretty insistent upon by subbing previously published work under a new title. And to be sure, a quick Google flags the author's website where I see "Rock Star" is the most recent addition to a work-in-progress collection offering a "sneak peek into the world of advertising and the looney but lovable characters who give it life" called "A Young Man's Game." But then I also see "Deadline" listed under "Other Short Stories." Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? But whatever. Neither is published, even on the website, and even if they were, that whole exclusive rights thing is bullshit anyway. It's not like some other little zine with a readership of maybe five tops (if you don't count family and editors) posting the same piece is going to cut into our, probably even smaller, readership.
Though I wouldn't call any of the characters looney or loveable, especially the MC who's a dick, I actually kind of enjoyed the piece. The writing flows, and it had an authenticity to it that struck me as born of experience more than just research (though it's possible, I suppose, Bob also watched Madmen). I'd almost call it a coming of age story, even if the age come to is somewhat older than typically associated with the genre.
Because I'm sending it up for my esteemed colleagues to further pontificate on, here are a few nits one might wish to consider.
Every square foot of the wall space in Emma Lockeās apartment was covered with prints and watercolors and the floor
This made me go "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" then mentally insert a comma.
Nick grit his teeth and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets
gritted... jeans'
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WK 26
Jul 22, 2021 1:07:06 GMT
Post by doomey on Jul 22, 2021 1:07:06 GMT
[doomey pulls the pall mall from his lips, blows a plume of glorious smoke from his chapped lips, coughs. aligns his sightline directly onto ours, like some sort of weird TV ad, and he says]
fantastic land. it's where you want to be.
[he settles into the pilot's chair, gathers up the current capital, taps it straight and true]
James Rumpel's My Strange Adventures at Sea is going into the sludge, deep, like really deep. so sorry. sorry only because i really want us, capitalists, to float ever upward, float on the surface and explode. right? Rumpel didn't explode. didn't float.
[doomey puts the eraser to the current capital, the big? eraser shaped like sean penn from his under rated (wait) movie Milk, and he (doomey) erases with the Milk eraser, erases, erases, back and forth with the erasing. and doomey smiles]
god damn, sean penn is the most. awesome. actor. currently.
[doomey shoves the empty papers to the side]
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WK 26
Jul 23, 2021 1:02:36 GMT
Post by carol on Jul 23, 2021 1:02:36 GMT
[Carol stands beside DePlancher's desk, her current capital spread slightly on the edge of the desk, her looking down on it, absorbing it, sucking on a wacky cigarette, her left hand raised and her finger tucking at the under edge of her left eye, absently. Almost like she's really stoned, and maybe she's locked in to this examination, like it might go on forever. And then she twirls]
We're shoving Holly's White up to the Terminal, Gods bless.
[Carol gathers up the capital, walks over to the ghost that hangs out beside the wardrobe, his head lowered, his left hand itching his crotch. She shoves the capital into the ghost hands]
Deliver this, fucker.
[The ghost spits at her, and he takes the capital, and he rises, rises up above the rafters]
That's a good Hank.
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WK 26
Jul 27, 2021 0:47:33 GMT
Post by doomey on Jul 27, 2021 0:47:33 GMT
[doomey rolls the current capital into a massive joint, and he swan vestas the tip of the capital, sucks at it, gets some good smoke. he blows the smoke up into the rafters]
there we go, cousins. Kris Ashton's Imaginary Murder has been Terminaled.
[he taps out the massive joint in the gigantic triangular marble ashtray, and he coughs for a few beats. he swivels in the pilot's chair, twists his lips]
i want to tell you folks that its probably best you don't smoke paper products.
[he coughs]
fuck my ass.
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WK 26
Jul 27, 2021 15:40:46 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 27, 2021 15:40:46 GMT
Speaking of fragile minds, I began reading this cap yesterday afternoon, got about 2/3 though, and had no idea what was going on or why. So I tried again this morning, better caffeinated, and still couldn't make heads or tails of it. That it's split into 10 or 11 sections didn't help. Also, way too many adverbs for my liking. The first paragraph alone contains an instinctively, a continuously, and three slowlys. How does one shout playfully, or smile sarcastically? And how does someone snap anything but angrily? Removing them all probably wouldn't make the narrative any less confusing, might even sharpen it up, make it more like early Gibson, whom I'd bet my left testicle this VC's read. It smacks of that sort of world building, which, actually, I liked.
If I had to guess, I'd guess it's about a guy who has tech that allows him to usurp other people's bodies, and that he jumps around a lot. In one scene he wakes up next to a woman he doesn't recognize, but, instead of just keeping his mouth shut and tapping some strange, freaks out, which was a little disappointing, and also made me wonder where Fabian, the dude she calls "Honey" and attempts to embrace, is in all of this.
[In no particular order, Rocks crumples the pages and throws them at Carol who's engaged in rolling the perfect nine-gram spleef. Probably fortunately he catches Boligard's cautionary look before actually connecting with one.]
If there's a story here, I totally missed it. Not that lit-fic, which can include SF, needs to follow the straight and narrow, but geez I'd love to see a synopsis for this one.
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WK 26
Jul 30, 2021 0:22:44 GMT
Post by doomey on Jul 30, 2021 0:22:44 GMT
[doomey locks eyes with rockefeller mid-suck on his pall mall, and he smoothly inhales, and then he exhales]
rockster, i dug that critique. makes me want to go in that direction. help the struggling artist by offering advice. but then my body vomits, and i get directly on my iPhone and order a fuck ton of paper towels.
[doomey gathers up the current capital from his desktop and he tosses it at rockefeller]
mean the fuck while, Kemmerer's Tell It On the Mountain has been Terminaled. but there is a problem, seeing as how i can not communicate with the motherfucker. so he won't know he's been Terminaled. christ, i hope he doesn't hang his stupid self. that would seriously be fucked up.
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