|
|
WK30
Dec 10, 2021 3:07:03 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Dec 10, 2021 3:07:03 GMT
Never saw Carol's latest victim, that scented candle thing, on our "big board of capital ventures." This, her spoonerizing Holden Caulfield in the VC's surname, and the totally awesome title that made me think of Bukowski (really so great that, even unaccompanied by any subsequent narrative, I'd have probably sent it up) leads me to believe she made that shit up. So finish it, and sub it under an alias. I want it. Please.
Finally got around to reading Honovich's offering yesterday. For the whole first section, I was pretty sure I'd send it up. Clever similes. Tight prose. Yeah, I didn't really know what was going on or why, but, maybe because I work in a diner, I bought into it. But then, when the mysterious Caleb launches into long dialogs that might better have been straight up 1st person narrative (but wasn't quite) relating to his abusive dad and creepy priest (both of whom he whacks) I started to have second thoughts. Now it was like the actual narrator was just an unnecessary pretext for the real story.
I never really skimmed, even read the ending a couple times to try to make sense of the burns on Grace's hand and the threat Caleb posed to local bad folk. I also wondered how a pot flimsy enough to be dented (I'm thinking cheap aluminum) when smacked against a man's head by a boy would cause much injury. Maybe my brain was spongy from losing too many games against Stockfish level-5 on Lichess.org. Maybe I'm not sharp enough to begin with, or just didn't try hard enough. But in the end I'm left mainly with doubt and suspicion. So my next instinct was to toss it into the deluge with Carol's fictitious "Mother's Ass" thing. But then today I remembered that Rats in the Root Cellar, the last cap I was on the fence about and sent up, made it all the way to fame and $ here, which almost never happens. So wtf do I know? I think this Keloid thing might at least deserve a closer look. I know you guys are busy upstairs, with lives and jobs and your own writing and publications. But fair is fair. This cap ascends, if only for further abuse.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Dec 14, 2021 1:44:04 GMT
Post by deplancher on Dec 14, 2021 1:44:04 GMT
[DeP’s listening to Counting Crows on her Beats. Yesterday it was an old Lone Justice lp she found in the Zulu bargain bin. People discount all kinds of things they don’t understand. The platter is sacred. Remember this, Grand Mère said. Keep your distance, aussi. All will be well. She gets up from her cushion. Caps have slipped in along with the usual abundance of holiday sales flyers, overdue bill notices, and fan mail. She smiles a little, remembering the crude blow up doll once delivered here. It remains a mystery whether its resemblance to Doomey was intended as a slam or an homage.]
Dear Someone. Tell us everything you know. Tell it from the beginning. Turn the lights down low. We will sit like children around a campfire on a summer’s night and you will tell us. You will tell us everything we think you know.
This current cap is a letter. Oh, already biased I am. Who sent me this? I ask with only minor suspicion. Does anyone take the time to ponder long enough to set out a few hundred words in long hand? Can twenty-first century people even dream of the concept of owning a precious writing instrument? Can anyone scribble legibly cohesive thoughts on paper and keep that rhythm going for more than half a page? And if yes yes and yes, to whom do they write and of what?
Cynicism does not suit you. Or anyone. D’accord. Just say it: j’adore les lettres! Write me one soon, anyone from anywhere about anything! Irrelevant to the task before me, je comprend. Still, I am excited.
Chasing Dandelions presents as a letter. VCJane must have inside information. Non, c’est impossible.
A letter. To? From? I thought at first the narrator was a man. An adult reminiscing about his childhood experience as a misfit and how finding just one friend saved him from misery. I was wrong. Assumptions are troublesome. Read on.
The letter skips and skids, glances up to the future, returns to past, reflects on what’s light and dark between. Is it melodrama? I ask while reaching for another black licorice——oh, organic vegan no additives only svp——and then what’s expected? Is our letter writer going to flounder and compromise and sacrifice all for blinding love, jump in front of a speeding train, or something else?
No names are mentioned anywhere in this cap. Identities aren’t necessary. The Sender. The Recipient. We know them well. Some of us have been them. It’s either You. Or Me.
I’m closing my eyes and taking a chance on this cap’s exquisite approach to a complex simplicity. I’m blowing hard on this dandelion gone to seed.
See where it lands, mon ami. Up with the bird who still has wings so that he may with speed deliver these things. Fly!
|
|
|
|
WK30
Dec 20, 2021 16:50:31 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Dec 20, 2021 16:50:31 GMT
[Rocks mulls over Dep's poetry. It's soothing somehow. Hypnotic. In a good way. A musical way. But, alas, duty calls.]
Sweet Deals and Sweeter Dealings struck me as the work of a mature writer. Chock full of clever literary devices and humor, it follows the adventures of a pair of aliens who use human disguises to aggravate us with religion and politics. Sentence by sentence it's engaging and amusing. Made me think of Douglas Adams' classics. But by maybe 2/3 through this longish short, I found myself reading faster, even outright skimming. Is it that religion and politics (and now "science") are such low-hanging fruit mockery-wise that I lost interest? Or perhaps arguing with the Ministry of Truth's (i.e., CBC's) morning and afternoon radio broadcasts during my week-daily commute has immunized my mind to caring. The "news" now just makes me angry in the way Mike with the heavy Indian accent from Microsoft Problem Solutions once did, and the endless robocalls informing me of legal problems or unauthorized purchases still regularly do. Like how fucking dumb does one need to be to give some stranger credit or gift card numbers over the phone, or take yet another d-dimer raising clotshot to address a new disease associated with so few deaths worldwide that statistically, as in acturarily or whatever, you have a better chance of living another day with than without it? (Are Treacle and Maple behind any of this?) In any event, anger is isolating. Perhaps it has innoculated me from caring about or identifying with the characters in Fischer's very well penned yarn. Is it a series of disjointed scenes, or does a plot lurk somewhere in its vast drollery? Is there worthwhile social commentary embedded? Are ellipses overused? These are not rhetorical questions. I know both our Terminali here are busy with other publications, and so kind of hate to ask... but I think this one deserves an answer.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Jan 7, 2022 16:48:24 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jan 7, 2022 16:48:24 GMT
Apparently, I have just learned, not from this Father Doyle cap, but from a standup comedian, one need not be Catholic to confess. Being Catholic is not like being vaccinated (except maybe in the sense that it provides some illusion of protection). There is no certificate or QR code proving you are fully Catholicized. So one could, if one wished, plop down across from an ordained emissary of the pope, and share in confidence and at length one's sins. Even on a good day, I have a buttload. Even on mediocre days, if there were a little red button I could push that would instantly, painlessly and retroactively (which I think goes without saying since time is a thing) delete everything, including all of its creators, and their creators (in whom I also do not believe), I'd probably at very least put my finger on it and mull it over. Since my last confession (perhaps in some previous life) I have tortured a frog. I once shit in my friend's parents' van and blamed it on his little brother. And this is only the beginning. Must one wear a mask in the confessional today? I have many questions.
Father Doyle is seeking absolution for having semi-inadvertently ratted out a woman who suffocated her two young children in a trunk in order to collect their million dollar trust fund. He was dismayed that, despite ample evidence to the contrary, she got off calling it an accident, then withdrew and disappeared with the cash. He's feeling guilty because, after mentioning her little misdeed to some of his poker buddies with organized crime connections, they track her down, receive her confession, kill her and return the money to the church. Given the Catholic church's long history of inquisition, residential school atrocities and generalized and widespread diddling, it's hard to see how a marginal connection to some exceptionally well-deserved vigilante justice would inspire any sense of remorse. But that's the story's main hook: to what is he confessing? There's a lot of buildup with tons of backstory and credible Catholic insider detail. The grammar's solid, the piece seemingly very well edited. But I found the POV wonky. Almost confusing. Not at first. At first it's just the two priests, one confessing to the other in limited 3rd. But in the course of this confession it drifts off into limited 3rds where Doyle is not the POV character. Like the evil stepmother who murdered the kids, or the doctor who questions her story. Is Father Doyle recounting these scenes replete with copious dialog and eloquent speech tags?
E.g., Mrs. Jepson's voice sounded uncharacteristically monotonous. "Michael is good with his hands, and he wanted..."
E.g., Mrs. Jepson cried again and couldn't seem to stop. "Barbara blames herself. She always told the kids...
E.g., He [Dr. McKeever] stood up, shook Ira's hand, and said, "Please have a seat, Father Doyle."
Like am I to understand that this is all actually Father Doyle speaking?
Inserting later into the text, "...interrupting Ira's vivid recollection" by way of explanation/penance didn't really cut it for me. No recollection is that vivid.
But is this sin of digression enough to banish this perhaps otherwise fine work to Porthole hell? I have trouble with tagged verbatim dialog as it is. It's not how we tell (only write) stories. So I'm probably overly biased against nesting such dialog in such dialog. Selfishly, I want to know what my upstairs colleagues think. So up it goes to Terminal purgatory, and possibly eventually even to stand before the Monkey God in final judgment.
Just as an afterthought, I find being judgmental of others among the worst character traits one can exhibit. It should almost be a deadly sin. Maybe it's why I've always disliked the Bible's God character. And critiquing others' writing.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Jan 12, 2022 17:58:26 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jan 12, 2022 17:58:26 GMT
Misdiagnosed with cerebellar ataxia (Lou Gehrig's), my father, in his final years, actually only suffered from chronic aphasia. Deaf and unable to speak, he would communicate through simple gestures, most commonly a thumbs up, or, if particularly emphatic, two. One had to rely on context to glean his specific meaning. Very near the end while he was living at my sister's, one morning he fell in his bathroom and couldn't get up. By the time they discovered him, he'd been down for an hour at least. Immediately, from the floor, he allayed their concerns with two enthusiastic thumbs up. There's a picture on Facebook somewhere, taken at his funeral. His many progeny are gathered around his coffin. We all have our thumbs up, as if to say, "Finally!" But really, "You were admired and will not be forgotten."
Reading Wilem's cap's funeral got me reminiscing. But here the dearly departed was despised by all who knew him. Family arrive eager to desecrate the body. The big question, of course, is why is he so reviled, and also (for me anyway) how's tearing apart his corpse going to cause him any distress? I mean, don't we often cremate bodies? How's being embalmed and buried any nicer? I've heard tendons are sometimes severed to keep the deceased from curling up. Don't we already mutilate our dead? So I was a little disappointed to learn that this guy wasn't that big a prick. Sure he was disappointed in his kids, a manipulative, materialistic snob. Though he did love his dog, to whom he'd bequeathed his entire estate. But really, he probably wasn't even in the upper 30 percentile of truly shitty fathers.
The writing's fine. Some okay hyperbolic humor. But in the end, the opening promise (to reveal what made him so intensely unpopular among his kin) was not kept. Worse, I didn't like, or even much identify with, any of the characters. We need heroes. A story needs a protag. But, and perhaps worst given its brevity, there was no metaphorical layer or symbolism that I could discern. It made me question, but not wonder, or even really think.
[Rocks squares the pages on his little lift-top desk in preparation for their journey through the Porthole. He did not hate them. He will not bend, fold or mutilate them. He might even remember them for a time.]
I've probably eulogized enough, but will someone help me drape and bear this pall?
|
|
|
|
WK30
Jan 26, 2022 4:09:21 GMT
Post by deplancher on Jan 26, 2022 4:09:21 GMT
[DeP's walking with a bit of a stomp, possibly wanting someone to notice her new Blundstones. More likely she's trying to keep them from flying off her feet as they're a size and a half too large. An onlooker unfamiliar with her demeanour would deem her confident, possibly bold and commanding. If only she could find the military surplus store. If only people went to stores out there past the valley of deluge.]
Rox, the world is a messy place. We are fortunate Rorschalk sets out the banquet table once a month as a reward for us continuing to show up. Where does he get the fresh fruit, I wonder? Ask no questions, je comprend.
If you've any molasses, I'll take a warm glass with a splash of cointreau, s'il vous plaît. I know I'm not the carrier of the load here but it's not long since I reviewed a Cap so radioactive with strange arrangement and punctuation and odd capitalizations and tense switches, my beret spun up and away from me and attached itself temporarily to the ceiling tiles. I might have to candle my ears.
Oh well. Happy 2022. We are happy, are we not? Maybe I can play some Radiohead this week instead of whatever's making Spotify tilt at the moment. I'll take Mozart's Second if it's here. I want to fade into the music of my mind awhile until I forget.
Is it any wonder I can only read one Cap every six months?
[She leans against the wall, shifting her heels toward the back of the boots. From her position under the still filthy window she surveys the familiar room. Notes the stillness of the hour, the relative emptiness of the sometimes flashing and still spacious Floor. Once she imagined she saw a shadow against the far wall. Someone rocking in a wooden chair. She shines her penlight in the general direction but finds no one there.]
|
|
|
|
WK30
Jan 26, 2022 19:26:27 GMT
Post by rorschalk on Jan 26, 2022 19:26:27 GMT
[The Rorschalk straps on his N95 mask, then nods abruplty so the 3 dollar pair of black sunglasses setting on his forehead drop over his eyes. Were he more celebrity than unknown cartoon character, despite the erasure of his face the blue dreds and suspendered white pantaloons would be a dead giveaway]
Dayo! ........ Day-eeh-oh-oh!
[The audience of the crowded civic auditorium stands as one to give him an undivided ovation as the proprietor of this thriving capital consortium is at play in the fertile field of the theater of his mind. Thus placated by their adulation, the faceless wonder spreads his arms out as if he were making the first symbolic cuniform personification of the Village People's peoples anthem, YMCA...]
Are you not entertained!?
[He reaches up and flips his glasses back onto his forehead. the auditorium is now filled to capacity with wild and angry men hurling insults as well as fresh produce at the anomaly upon the stage. He begins the custodial task that keeps his staff in kale and kiwi fruit for some days out of the 30 that comprise their months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds...]
Thank you! Thank you. For whilst there be a few rotten eggs and tortured cabbages among the bunch there's still some lemonade to be squeezed from the lemons and fre shavocado to be guac'd fro mthe avocados knowing these theoretical slings and arrows can be braved as the antithesis of the proverbial sticks and stones. Adieu!
[Thus does he disappear behind the curtain with his arms full of another few days worth of good clean food]
|
|
|
|
WK30
Jan 30, 2022 21:27:02 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jan 30, 2022 21:27:02 GMT
This experimental offering from the Gongster was one of those rare caps I read mostly without skimming, and somehow managed to find interesting without having a clue what was going on or what it was about. I think in the end it was all a VR, a game of some sort. Not that this reality, whatever it is, isn't. The title, We Can Think it for You, says it all. And of course we can, especially once you can't think for yourself. We're pretty much there already. Decided to try not wearing a mask out grocery shopping the last couple days. Support the truckers, and all. Depending where you're from, this might not sound like much. But here I didn't see a single other un-diapered face. No one said anything to me, which was a little surprising. Although Zehrs' PA system lady (who's not near as happy sounding as the Giant Tiger PA lady, who just gurgles with delight) did start reminding "shoppers" that everyone has to have their face covered. Though maybe I was just paranoid. But anyway, it's pretty clear someone else is doing our thinking for us. So today I wore a face shield.
Amazed that VCs can't be bothered to paste their work into a google doc, or even just gmail, for a quick and easy edit. You can hate Alphabet (Google) for their monopoly on truth, but their software is great. But even without which I saw a bunch of little nits like,
His entire body sasms uncontrollably
spasms
then I cross them off by one according to my criteria;
one by one
I breath out slowly
breathe
I see how civi...
Just ends?
a high school prank in school.
redundant
...lised we are.
Okay, I get it. This continues where the text was cut off earlier. Very clever.
If it weren't for the typos, I think I'd have sent this up. There's some cool tech. Some nice pacing. And my not totally following could be a plus. Made me think of Gibson's world building. But if you're going to wax all experimental and confusing, you have to be technically polished. Still... close call. But I think my Terminal colleagues are too busy to be fed anything even this raw. But I would kind of like to hear their thoughts on it. But no. Hope the VC's not too disappointed. I'll think them happy thoughts.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Feb 5, 2022 17:29:34 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Feb 5, 2022 17:29:34 GMT
So I took a few runs at this Laughing Man cap, even made it more or less all the way through once. First time, I only read a few pages before I was interrupted, and then, a day later, couldn't remember a thing about it. Weird. A teflon story. It's not badly written. A few minor stumbles like, "...explored shops in the new building that sold hemp clothes and a gift shop," that made me go, Huh? Maybe a "laid" that should've been a lay. But really nothing to slow me down or get in the way of the story, which was about someone hooking up with someone and moving in together and losing his job because of an alcoholic "friend." In a way, it was pretty lifelike, though not necessarily in a good way. More a meaningless way.
Biggest problem was POV. It has none. I thought it eventually sort of loosely settled onto Randy's, but after just now having re-reread the first few pages, I wasn't sure. As always with this fly-on-the-wall (objective) point of view, it's at least 75% dialog with most of the rest tags. Not unclever, but still I'd have stopped eavesdropping if I were the fly.
I don't think I've lost interest in reading. Like I'm rereading Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, mostly just to get to the scene where the little alien probe that's been two centuries traveling to Earth is intercepted by humanity's mighty fleet of 2015 giant warships with all sorts of high-tech weaponry. They're all there so that our great victory's glory can be shared equally. Earth is celebrating! Except the little probe is made of some new type of matter that, with its advanced computing and technologies, lets it destroy in minutes all but a few of the mighty ships (who manage to escape) just by ramming them. I like how Cixin deals with our scientific and military hubris.
More than ever now, I need my fiction to say something. Take a stand. Mock. Worship. Observe and comment. Research is pretty important, too, unless the VC is already experienced or otherwise knowledgeable in some field. I don't need to agree, or even totally understand, but I do need to learn something. So this here "No!" might be more about me than the wordsmithery here. Another reader might well relate, be enlightened and entertained.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Feb 10, 2022 20:04:42 GMT
Post by deplancher on Feb 10, 2022 20:04:42 GMT
[DeP's looking up at the fly on the ceiling. She's reading the Tao Te Ching for the seventeenth time. Or maybe it's only the third. That last slice of avocado was not green in a true avocado way. She is thin, but has no desire to be paper, so she ate it anyway. Essence and Substance, that novel by Harold R. Johnson speaks of, and DeP understands that balance relies on maintaining a fragment of both.]
The days are long here, fly. Look at this thread. We remain in Week 30. It's a kind of loop. We're attached to a thread. It's transparent but strong. See how the back of my cape lifts almost imperceptibly? This represents my attachment. Contractual commitment. We are threaded in.
Oh but why would I tell you any of it, fly? What's your life expectancy...five days? I will have to Google when the power is turned on again. The Study of Flies. This becomes the title of the next cap to enter your inbox, Roxy. Desolé. I did not ask for knowing what comes next.
Oh what about masks? I don't have a truck anymore, nor do I wish to ride in back of one. I do not like honking. Have you ridden in a taxi through Hanoi? I like my two masks: one depicting a moon stealing raven and the other just bright red. I wear my darkest sunglasses with them. I've always enjoyed being undercover or invisible [though not paper]. Oh yes. I hope to wear a mask forever now, required or not. I might get a horse.
Once I thought I was a revolutionary but it was just an act. Hold on, fly, I'll be right back. I think I hear honking outside.
|
|
|
|
WK30
Feb 26, 2022 18:40:02 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Feb 26, 2022 18:40:02 GMT
I read this The Three and Only before Russia invaded Ukraine or I'd think it was a metaphor for that conflict in which Russia represents the humans and the Ukrainians represent the Trelanian parties. Most of what I know about the Ukraine situation comes from MSM's and Facebook's vilifications and virtue signaling. So, ruling these out, it looks like a belated civil war. Most of what I know about the human/Trelarian situation comes from the five or six thousand words I was able to read before my eyes glazed over and I started skimming, and but which looks like the humans are invading in their usual "We come in peace" guise and Trelanian parties are trying to believe them but can't. There are some quirky, funny-ish bits, like the Trelarians finding the humans stinky. And the prose is clean and flows, or I'd never have plowed into it as far as I did. But ultimately, nothing happens. It's all talk and no action. And if there's anything at stake beyond the POV character Tal's reputation as a negotiator, I missed it. So, another for the Porthole.
I hope the VC knows that I'm super hard to please writing-wise these days. Since retiring I've been busier. And no longer listening to CBC an hour a day during my erstwhile commute, I don't get all the Covid stuff. Is it even still a thing? Must be. I still see gobs of masked faces and drop-in jab clinics. People still want to flash their QR codes in the restaurant. This is distracting. I did see a minor typo in, "Tal noticed they both were [sic] thin coverings on their hands. Hope that helps in future subs.
​
|
|
