Local Poetry Blog

I found This blog today. It has potential.

One Year Time Lapse

I can't get enough of time lapse photography.

One Year from Rick Scully on Vimeo.

Meeting this Thursday

Hey, this is the monthly concerning our monthly meeting. We are meeting this Thursday at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library. Remember to bring something to read, your own stuff or a piece by someone else.

How big is the Internet?

It's huge.

This has nothing to do with writing

But it is the coolest thing you'll watch today on Youtube.

Guess what? That was the 500th post on this blog!

(and your kitty is VERY cute, Ed)

I finally put my poem-a-day weiste together and here it is:

www.a-poem-a-day.yolasite.com

Tell me what you think!

The Meeting

We had another good meeting this month. We have five in attendance including a new guy, Jacob. He had a good time along with the rest of us and I think he'll be back. I'm happy that we are drawing in new people and maintaining a good group. I hope to see ya'll next month.

Have you seen my new kitty? Her name is Abby and she's about six months old.

Meeting Tomorrow

This is the monthly reminder that we are meeting tomorrow at 6pm at the Morrison Regional Library. I'll see you there.

The Passage of Disbelief

Science fiction/fantasy/awesome author Scott Westerfeld has some nice advice here on how to bring the weirdness into your story.

Ed in Honduras

Ed in Honduras
Originally uploaded by zzazazz

Since this is Veterans Day I will post this picture of me taken in Honduras in 1989. I am a 21 year old Marine.

Jack London

He has a really cool grave.

Robert A. Heinlein
1907-1988

May we Grok him forever


http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16630/

Cell Size and Scale

I've always loved stuff like this.

Meeting This Thursday

I thought I would post early to remind you that we are meeting this week at 6pm at the South County Regional library on Rea Rd. It's right across Rea Rd from the Calvary Baptist Church. The room we are meeting in on the second floor. Any questions?

The Wooden Periodic Table

My favorite parts of this are the audio samples of what certain things sound like when hammered.

Good Meeting

I'd like to thank the six awesome people that came to our meeting this last Thursday. We took it up a notch this month. Instead of passing one story around we passed around 7 at once. Got some good madness out of that experiment. Hopefully someone will post one. Luisa came up with an idea for our exercise. We had had to write something from the viewpoint of a household item. Katie wowed the room with her story about a toaster and his love for the electric mixer.

Next months meeting will be at the South County Library because our usual meeting place here at the Morrison Library will be unavailable.

Meeting This Thursday

This is your monthly reminder that we are meeting this Thursday at 6pm at the Morrison Regional Library. This month's topic will be "Where do we meet next month" because we won't have access to the room because of dadgum early voting. This democracy stuff is really getting in the way.

Don't forget to bring something to read...

Social Media

I know some of you use Facebook and have blogs but do any of you use Twitter? I'm asking because the Morrison Library now has a Twitter account. You can see what we are doing here. Follow us if you are out there. If you are clever when you tweet I'll retweet and make you a star.

Frederik Pohl tells you how to be a writer

I had no idea it was so easy. You can read his advice here.

So I got bored and had some fun with the pic ed took last time

Ok so the website that makes the little poor quality 3 d movies is down. I was planning making a series of movies made of solely what we write in the meetings but it since it's a bit slow, I'll post the writtings here. First, I was making a movie out of this one when the website shut down on me.

So here's katie's: (which is awesome btw)

I remember the day I died, I’ve always been alive, before Tuesday that is, feeling on top of the world and in control. I have never thought of death until, Tuesday that is. I know what you are thinking: so you’re dead huh? Then how’re you writing this, ghostie? To tell you the truth, I don’t really know. One minute I’m crossing I-485 to retrieve my hat that flew out the car window, the next here I am, siting in front of a humming monitor and CPU, trying to figure out what had happened. And now it’s Thursday. I kind of want to find out who the jerk going seventy on the highway at one o’clock was, and since he doesn’t seem to be around, I’m left to wonder : what did I do wrong? A. Maybe that flask with the convinient bendy straw hanging on a cord around my neck wasn’t the best of ideas. I don’t want to say it, but before now (since this place is kind of void of any beverage, let alone Jack Daniels) I was a little bit of an alcoholic. And AA meetings are for chumps. B. I hate the speed limits. And I love that stretch of the highway where the cops avoid. C. My baseball caps are kind of important to me. May be running out through three lanes of traffic was not my best of ideas (sober or not). I try to think of the positive now that I’m two days out of life. No more work deadlines wooshing by. Don’t have to clean out Fluff’s littler box either- I wonder if that old lady next door will feed home whole I’m gone- I mean, now that I’m not so alive anymore. I try not remember the shiny front bumper of the SUV or the blaring horn ringing in my ears. Instead, I’ll just sit here and type type type away at my after -memoirs.

So heres the video of our pass around story. Its almost midnight so I'll post the writtings tomorow.



http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090827233333803


I couldnt post the video somehow

Meeting This Thursday

Hey, we are meeting this Thursday at 6pm at the Morrison Regional Library. I hope to see ya'll there. I'll try to remember to bring those free books I forgot to bring last time.

A movie

I found a website where I can type in some text and some simple directions and a movie will show up. I used one of our group writing exercises from a few months ago and came up with this beauty below.

John Hughes as Penpal

I was sad to see that John Hughes died. The scene where John Candy is driving the wrong way on the interstate is still one of biggest laughs I've ever had while watching a movie for the first time. I came across a sweet blog entry today. It's the story of a teenager who had John Hughes as her penpal for a couple of years. It's very touching and you can read it here.

Going on Vacation

I am leaving this Saturday for Michigan and I'll be up there for two weeks. I'll be sure to post some pictures so you can see images of evergreen trees. That's all there is up there, lakes and evergreen trees and a few million whitetail deer.

Forgotten Swag

Wow, I was so caught up in putting together the awesome exercises we did on Thursday that I forgot to bring all the swag I had to give away. If any of you come in the library this month come by the reference desk for a free book.

Ok, so I haven't been checking blogs, webcomics, Facebook, .....ect this month cuase I've been in the south and now I had the time to check some. My favorite Xkcd of the past few weeks:

http://www.xkcd.com/610/

Make sure you read the extra comment. I hated having to read Anthem.

Meeting Announcement

It's hard to believe that this Thursday is already the fourth Thursday of July but it is. You know what that means, that means we are meeting this Thursday at 6 pm at the Morrison Library. It also means that the end of your summer vacation is rapidly approaching and soon you will be back in school. As an adult that hasn't had a summer vacation in over twenty years all I can say is "Ha ahaha ha ha ha ah ha ha!!!" Sorry.

I forgot to mention one thing in my last post about the books that Kate brought back from the American Library Association's annual conference. The books are all pre-pubs. That means they haven't been published yet and reading a pre-pub makes you very, very cool in the book readin' world.

Big Time Swag

Kate went to the ALA conference in Chicago last week and she brought back a stack of free young adult fiction which I will pass out at the next meeting.

Something to piss off "Lord of the Rings" fans
(Sorry Ed)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0lHNCiiXGo

A Story about Twitter written on...Twitter

This is a good article. You can read it here.

Tom Waits

This is one of the spoken word pieces by Tom Waits that I told Chris about last night. This is off his album called Mule Variations. I love this song.

A Staggering Work of Genius

It turns out the new Transformers movie that you thought looked stoopid may be one of the greatest movies ever made. It might be the end of cinema as you know it.

Word Website

Thanks to the mighty Metafilter I came across a new word website today. It is called Wordnik. According to the website they are "ongoing project devoted to discovering all the words and everything about them." I like this site. Check out the entry for frog. It gives you the word's appearance in public domain documents at Gutenberg site, several definition options, a recorded pronunciation, occurrences of the word in Twitter posts, synonyms and images from Flickr. Pretty impressive.

Meeting This Week

Howdy. Don't forget we are meeting this Thursday at 6pm at the Morrison Regional Library. Last month we had 36 attendees and we hope to top that this month. I even have a bunch of swag to handout. I'll see you there.

Matthews Library Holds Major Nerd Event

lotr
Originally uploaded by zzazazz

I just received this in an email. The Matthews Library is hosting a few events to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the publication of the Lord of Rings.

Do A Blind Search

Ever wonder which search engine you would pick if you took a blind test? Now you can find out. This site allows you to do a search and then see a three randomly placed columns from the search engines Bling, Google and Yahoo. Then you can pick which search you think is the best and then find out which was which. Pretty cool idea.

More Swag

In another pathetic attempt to entice people to come to writers night I took a picture of free stuff I am going to hand out at the next meeting. Man, there is some good stuff here. I will be gathering more as the month goes on.


Rock Band

If any of you guys play the game Rock Band there is a system wide Rock Band tournament this summer. We are having our competition here at Morrison on June 26th at 3pm. If you want to play or know someone that would call 704-416-5431 to register. I played Rock Band for the first time last weekend and I had no idea how fun it was. I am thinking about getting it for my Xbox 360. OK, not thinking about it, seriously shopping for a good deal.

Summer Vacation Haiku

Since summer vacation is right around the corner here's a summer vacation haiku from the working man's perspective. I dare you to post one of your own.

Out the window at work
Skateboarders practice their moves
Turn back to screen's glow

Hello all, as Ed had before, we had 9 people the other night. I thought I'd put up Katies and Chris' writtings along with mine. We did the exercise where everybody would write a prompt and somebody else write a response to it. Warning, if you read this you will also read some comments that I made on Chris' that are shown in brackets. Ignore if they annoy you.

The prompts were shuffled and Katie got "You find your childhood friend's body in the woods. What do you do?" Her response:



The leaves, moist in morning mist, a twig beneath my boot crunched and snapped, and I flinched. April 17th, 5:24 am. The air, thick with more than dew disturbed me, skin on my arms, prickling. Something had happened here, for never had I before felt such a presence in these woods.

*Slosh*. My foot sank quickly into a murky puddle as I let out a surprised yelp. Slowly, I withdrew my sole from the muck, only to find the brown leather had turned a scarlet, saturated color, rank with an indescribable odor. Horrified, I recognized the smell, the sickening, gore-ish color.

Then I recognized the pale face of my dear friend Nick staring up at me. His steely blue eyes without pupils and gaping mouth chilled me deeply. Quivering, I felt every muscle within in me quake as I looked upon his blood-soaked corpse, once so lanky and alive with youth. His white-blonde hair was stained the huue of strawberry jam- the mere thought of food made me gag.

Without thought, I fell to my knees, still shaking in disbelief. Thin, bony fingers brushed the tiny specks from his cheek, but no reaction to my touch. Red, burning streams soaked my collarbone as the raced from swollen irises, unblinking beads of blue. A voice unfamiliar to me crawled out of my throat, speaking a few solemn words.

"Better you than me."



Chris' prompt : "The passing of a generation"



It was ever dirty old man's nightmare. <> Romeo Rickenbough ran those two words through his head until he couldn't think of anything else. But the curvy blonde waitress still looked at him like a judge sizing up a serial killer [I kind of like that simile]. Romero always knew that psychic brain implants would cause problems like this: when you read the thoughts of everyone around you, you find that people think about sex. A lot.

"I'll have a nice stack of old nuns...I mean pancakes" Romero wheezed out, his voice starting to go raspy from one to many cigarettes. He knew talking to the waitress was unnecessary. Since she already knew what he wanted for lunch. The waitress just stared. Her eyes pulsed with psychic energy [ that makes an interesting image], and her head throbbed and pulsed like something out of a 50s invasion movie. Romero didn't understand how kids these days found that attractive. He assumed that was common, and youngsters just got used to it. But still, he could never imagine going to prom with a girl who looked like a character from "Attack of the Saucer Men"

For the millionth time that day, Romero thought how quiet it was in a diner full of psychic people. He wondered if this is what his parents felt like when he and his friends had started texting on their blackberries all the time. Because he was one of the last non-psychics on Earth, Romero had no idea what other people were thinking, but he was guessing it had something like to do with how small his head was. Damn kids.





Library's closing in a few minutes so I'll post mine when i get home.

Another Rough Draft

I jotted this down the other day and I am tweaking it. I was really saddened by witnessing the elderly couple across the street sell off their belongings and move out of their dream home after fifty years there. Just doesn't seem right, although they are not the first or the last people to do this.

The old couple across the street

I see the old man shuffle to his car
taking baby steps with his walker.
When I see his ten minute ordeal
to get behind the wheel, I tense,
someday I know I am going to
have to go over and pick him up off the ground

It's spring, they are having a yard sale
they are moving to assisted living
we go over and
pick through their lives

The wife is sitting in the office
next to the back porch
surrounded by knickknacks, plates,
coffee and tea cups
vases, a wooden carving of a dancing
couple bought in pre-Castro Cuba by her parents,
an old radio, musty dioramas bought by the husband
in Japan in the 1950s and candlesticks.

How long have you lived here, we ask.
"53 years."
Young and married, buying a house in South Park
in the 1950s, back when you could still hear cows
in the morning in this part of Charlotte.
How far away was 2009 and frailty?
I know they had dreams, they laughed
they ate and drank,
now life is just getting into your car
without falling down.
It's nursing homes and two lifetimes'
accumulation of what is now junk to sell off
or give to Goodwill.

I see an old Japanese-made 35mm camera.
"My husband took slides with that camera in Japan
when he was in the army,"
says the wife.
I ask where the slides are.
They are in the room behind her
"I'll buy them," I say.
"I'll check with my husband and call you."

They continue the sale the next weekend
I go over and ask about the slides.
I'm told the old man won't give them up.

I understand that.
Sure, sell the tables, the beds, the silverware and the beautiful house,
but those slides, those slides
are a part of his youth,
before marriage
before responsibility.
Some things you hold onto until you kick off
losing them would be too much like dying.

Howdy

Hey, just wanted to thank everyone that came to the meeting tonight. Nine people is a lot of fun. I also wanted to let everyone know that anybody can post anything to this blog. It doesn't have to some writing or even writing related. Heck, half of my posts are links to XKCD comics. Do whatever the heck you want. Within reason, of course.

Shark Poetry Contest

Now, here is a contest you can, um, sink your teeth into.

Meeting Tomorrow Night

Remember. Tomorrow night. 6 pm. Meeting. Morrison library. Green tea. Bring something to read. Bring a book to share.

A Rough Draft

I had some fun with this. I decided to describe what was on my desk. Don't forget we are meeting this Thursday, by the way.

The gauzy curtain
the neighbor's red truck
the pine tree that leans over his house
our garden, struggling to start
the chain link fence that encloses nothing
a white jeep, a beat up basketball goal
with a new net
I know there is a bird bath and bird feeders
to my right
My desk is a converted table
with Godzilla figurines
fifty year old Japanese dioramas
I bought from the yard sale
the old couple across the street held
an internal hard drive in a plastic case
now it's external
a scanner
my laptop
two speakers that sat in my trunk for a year
and they work!
an external CD/DVD burner I bought because
the one that came with my laptop never worked
a dictionary
bubble envelopes to mail music
a pencil holder
a USB hub
old slides I bought off eBay
Bob Dylan's new CD
a roll of packing tape
old bills and junk mail
a game manual for Civilization IV
a DVD from the library
toenail clippers
a ceramic candle holder
a miniature dachshund eating his breakfast
the clock radio plays the Diane Rehm show
they are discussing taxes
Itunes wants me to to update
I just want to upload this new
Bob Dylan album to my Ipod
The firetruck goes by
flying threw at almost 50
lights bouncing off the homes
siren shredding the morning like paper
soon after crawling through
back to the station the lights on the back
illuminating the road behind

Meeting This Thursday

Just a reminder that we are meeting this Thursday. That's two days from now, you know. I talked to Mitch and she's going to be there so good times will be had by all. But that's only if you show up. Who be coming?

High Contrast

High Contrast
Originally uploaded by zzazazz

I don't know if this guy parked his Porsche in front of my car to be funny or if he just took the first spot he saw.

Fun With the Cell Phone Camera

scary cat
Originally uploaded by zzazazz

This is my orange cat, Gallagher, on the kitchen counter.

Call for Submissions

This website here is looking for creative writing by people born between 1973 and 1993. Hey, that's you! Well, not all of you. Most of you.

Rise of the Milky Way

This is too cool

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Thanks to the Bad Astronomy blog for the link.

Reasons to be a Scientist

If you missed it, Friday's XKCD is another doozy.

New Search Engine

Have ya'll heard about the new search engine called Wolfram Alpha? It's designed to give you answers instead of linking you to websites. I was messing around with it today and plugged my birthday date in. It will also compute fairly complex searches like largest countries by area in Africa. You can also compare different states or countries by entering them and separating them by commas. I did California, Michigan and North Carolina here. If you look near the bottom you can see it generated a graph comparing the population growth of all three states. I am going to use it for reference questions at work and see how it does me.

Summer Bookmark

Today I updated the bookmark that advertise our group. You can download it here. Feel free to print them out and distribute them to your friends and peers. If anyone wants to jazz them up feel free. I'm not very good at making fliers and bookmarks.

Meryl Streep Reading from Fahrenheit 451

Wow, I spelled Fahrenheit correctly on my first try. That's never happened before. But seriously, this is pretty cool.

Hey, hello. I don't think I've let you know Ed, but I do keep up with the blog. Now that I got my account sorted out here (again) and I was looking through a notebook when I was cleaning my backpack(s), I can post what I wrote for the writing exercise. I also have Katie's, (Sorry it took me a long time to post!!)

Our writing exercise required us to incorporate these following words into a piece: elephant, archetype, onomatopoeia, sizzling, dune, silver halides and bloop. Here's mine (and yeah I did clean it up)

As Larry was walking up to his room, he couldn't rid his mind of lens, silver halides (really Lauren? You had to pick that?), and film. He aso couldn't help see a peculiar image out of his hallway window.

It was a boy on his front lawn, playing golf while singing on top of his lungs:

"A bloop!! A bloop!!
A sizzling bloop!
On an elephants stoop!!
Running along a dune!!"

Larry could not nor did he try to find an archetyope for this boy. Instead, he found himself runningdown his house and slamming his front door, which made its own onomatopoeia, and made his way to the boy and started singing along:

"A bloop!! A bloop!!
A sizzling bloop!!
On an elephants stoop!!
Running along a dune!!"

And this is Katie's:

A youthful femnist photographer
Fashing sepia snapshots
Of nature's trembling wonders
Whose snappin lens creates a crisp
Nostalgic sound, a familiar
onomatopoeia
Click, zichk, bizz
Traveling endlessly to austere
Lands too far to see
A desert flower amongst
wind blasted dunes
Terra cotta elephants bathed
in clay to sheil from
sizzling summer rays, developed
dankly in silver halides
harsh seperation
black from white
Swelling ocean waves, fluffy
Clouds of pulsing jellyfish
bubbles of air pop,bloop, pop,snap
An underwater polaroid (I love this line --Luisa)
cloudy with soaked ceruleans
Her soft voice and steady hand
present the common archetype
of reclusive photographa girl
Albums of the Earth fade
with passing ages.

Katie, this is awesome. If I made any typing mistakes, please let me know and I'll edit

Dracula as it Happens

I've seen similar projects before but this is kinda cool. This blog is posting each journal entry from the novel Dracula on the corresponding day. It started yesterday, May 3rd. Think of it as a blog from the past.

Rule number 1 is: Don't Panic

Michael Swanwick has a write up on the flu thing on his blog. Is everyone washing their hands?

Hi! It's Emily, and I'm going to be coming as often as I can. That was fun! Here's my little wordbank poem:

Hiking Alone
The ground is flat, but sloped
At a forty-five degree
To me.

My shoes are filled with the white
Sand. I raise my hand
And feel the wind go by

Sloped isn’t what I mean
Not rolling hills
Or people’s hair in rollers on dollar bills

The sand on the dune isn’t cold or salty
Or sizzling hot on my feet
But just warm and sweet

So I want to take a photograph
It would be grainy

I’m the silver hallide
I’m the elephant in the room
An archetypal elephant a the room
A dark spot on a photograph
A dark spot on a white sand dune

But I’m climbing,
Rippling circles around after a drop of food coloring
Bloop! Getting closer to the end
of the poem.
I’ll show them an onomatopoeia
in Shakespeare.

Howdy Howdy

Hey, I'm writing this from home on my day off. I wonder if that means I can go in a half hour late on Monday? This does qualify as work, you know.

Last night we had six bright eyed youngsters attend writers night. Chris' friend, Emily, was our new face and I think she had fun. That reminds me, I need to send her an invite to this blog. OK, that's taken care of. Both Hannah and Katie returned after an absence and Luisa and Lauren sat by each other and bonded. Lauren showed off her book art project that I thought was really creative and I can't wait to see the final result.

Our writing exercise required us to incorporate these following words into a piece: elephant, archetype, onomatopoeia, sizzling, dune, silver halides and bloop. Here's mine contribution.

The elephant dropped water
bloop, bloop, bloop
off its trunk into the water hole.
"Bloop," the creature thought
"that's onomatopoeiac."

"I'm an archetype, you know"
the elephant said to the lion
lapping lazily.
"No, you're not. But I am"

The lion looked over at the elephant
he wondered at its bulk
it was like a sand dune
sizzling in the sun.

"If you were covered
in silver halides, elephant,
I'd lay upon you and
you'd have the silhouette
of a lion on your back."

"I'm an archetype," said the elephant.


XKCD

I still don't get tired of going to XKCD and hitting random. It's a great time waster. This one gave me a good chuckle.

Meeting This Thursday

OK, we're meeting again this Thursday. At 6pm. At the Morrison Regional Library. Who's attending? Who's showing up? I am. Are you?

Old Skool Dorkiness

If I had a good picture of me and my Commodore 64 I could be featured on this webpage.

Matrix Ping Pong

Michael Swanwick posted this on his blog and I had to share this with you.

Reading Invite?

Last call for a chance to read before Irene Honeycutt here in late April. Meghan and Clare were interested but they both have class that night. Anyone else?

HOLY BACON IT'S MEGHAN!

SHE WROTE THINGS?! OH MY GOSH.

This is a "Narrative Essay" I had to do for my writing class, aka, "Expository Writing," aka, "gay class," as my neighbor, Brittany shared with a friend over Facebook (it's a computer lab classroom, so we all have personal computers which is REALLY NEAT except conspicuous typing/clicking is conspicuous, alas) which I think is the most hilarious thing ever, for some reason. "Where you headed?" "Oh, to class." "What class is it?" "Gay class." FFFFFFFAHAHHAHAHAHAH OMG WHY IS THAT FUNNY. Like, it's not even "my gay class" or "my gay-ass class" or even any recognisable form of "this class is gay." It's just "gay class," where we are taught to be "gay" in the derogatory sense that has nothing to do with being homosexual. Okay, don't get pissed off, because, really, it's just funny. "Gay class." AHAHAHAH.

I TALK A LOT. GAH. So, the prompt I chose was "a childhood event." Observe:

"Someday"

Summer never used to mean heat, not really, because “heat” wasn’t a real thing. Sweat was a real thing, facial flush was real. That’s what summer meant: a beaded mustache of perspiration and a certain heavy throbbing in your cheeks which signified that your face was now darkly pink all over, except in that thin area under your nose and around your mouth which remained pale and somehow made the redness look ugly. –If only you could be consistently red, like in the cartoons when a character became angry and blew steam out of his ears. His face was entirely, fantastically fire-engine red but entirely his own, nevertheless. Elmer Fudd never looked as though he’d had someone else’s mouth pasted onto his face with a mustache of sweat.

Your hands changed too, in summer; they smelled like metal and a little like asphalt. You thought maybe it was the calluses that smelled that way, the yellow-grey-translucent bumps on your hands from the monkey-bars and the swing set. There were five of them per hand: one at the base of each of your four fingers and one right in the middle of your palm, like a closed eye or stigmata.

No, no. Of course, the skin, the callus didn’t smell that way; the metallic scent was a combination of dirt and dried sweat. You’ll come to understand.

Just as with “heat” and “summer,” you’ll come to know that it’s heat which paints the faraway horizon with wavering lines that shimmer like water and heat which makes you feel heavy and damp, and which makes summer, summer.

But for now, summer means camp. Camp is what happens when parents must continue to go to work, even when children have vacation. You can’t very well stay home on your own, with no one to watch you or your little brother. That would be neglect, you will come to understand. In the meantime, you will go to camp with a number of other children during the summer, and there will be plenty of grownups to keep close watch on you.

Little brothers are not the same as friends, so you must find your own playmates among the numerous bodies. Making friends is hard, you find. Mostly, there is a herd of semi-familiar faces playing some incarnation of freeze-tag or hide-and-seek; girls and girlish-boys scattering the playground’s woodchips with pastel-colored sneakers, brown stick-legs swinging every which way, calling out, singsong; loud, derisive. These are companions enough for the weeks of camp.

Some days, you’re tired of running around, though, so you drop out of the herd in favor of sitting on the sidelines: large wood beams around the perimeter of the playground. You aren’t the only one sitting there, digging idly, abstractly in the wood chips with a wet stick, looking for treasure, maybe. The word “lonely” is another of those which you’ll understand later in life, but don’t quite know in these days. It’s quiet, here on the perimeter. Quiet is okay with you, sometimes.

Today, a boy approached you on the wooden-beamed perimeter. He was almost uniformly red-faced, with a sweat mustache that matched yours. You stared at it for a while, before taking in the rest of him: short, very short red-sun hair, eyes bright in his flushed face, round faced and round bodied, soft, un-calloused hands, pale eyebrows.

He extended to you one hot fist, which none-too gently encircled a wilted stem. It was a clover flower, the sort that are actually made up of tiny white lily-esque blooms, crowded together in the shape of a bumble-bee’s body; a loose, green-white bauble.

“I gave you this flower,” he explained, “because I love you.”

Solemnly, you took the wilted stem and looked at him again, without expectation. He blinked once, and you both breathed together, in silence. He nodded a little. He walked away. It was time for the parents to retrieve their children.

You dropped the flower carefully and went to gather your little brother.

Today, it means little, maybe nothing. But you’ll come to understand someday, probably. Someday.


Weird tense and POV is DFW's fault. Also, the tense change is deliberate...hope the teacher understands that, um.

I like this piece, even for being an assignement-prompt-thinger. This whole event was so strange, looking back... like, that kid's words; he really said it just like I've narrated-- the different tenses in his phrase are so... I don't even know.

Anyway, THAR U GO. Critique much encouraged!

An Offer

On Wednesday April 29th, in honor of National Poetry Month, we will be having a reading here by Irene Blair Honeycutt. She was a teacher of mine at CPCC and she is an excellent poet and a great reader. She's also very generous and has agreed to allow a few members of this writers club to read before her that night. There, the invitation has been made. Anyone interested?

If anyone is in contact with Clare and Pippin please let them know about this also. They are included in this invitation.

Meeting this Thursday

Hey, this is the monthly reminder that we are meeting this Thursday at the Morrison Regional Library at 6 pm. We may even have another new member and if we get the usual turnout we should have a good time. This time I am going to prepare green tea in lieu of swag. We didn't get many donations this month worthy of handing out.

Can I get an early "yup, I'm coming" from a few of you?

Le Guin Interview

Did anyone listen to that Le Guin interview? It was really good. I didn't realize until the interview started that she was interviewed by China Mieville.

Hugo Nominations Announced

You can see the list here. I've only read one book on the list, Little Brother, and I'm pulling for that one. I was wondering if a YA novel has ever won the Hugo for best novel and I see back in 2001 a Harry Potter book won.

Ursula Le Guin on the BBC

It's being broadcast pretty early tomorrow but I would think it will be archived. I'll have to try and give this a listen.

The Most Linked to Sites

Technorati has posted a list of the site most linked to by the blogs they track. Surprisingly, this blog doesn't appear on that list. I can't understand why.

New Web Project

I find this new project to be very intriguing. A website that actually answers factual questions rather than doing a basic web search. As a librarian this could be really helpful with some questions. For example, we often get a teenagers that come to the desk and say something like "I need to do a report on Anthony III." And I'll have to do a reference interview to determine just who exactly Anthony III is before I can continue. Sometimes there may be more than one Anthony III. If I can type "Who is Anthony III" into this new tool and get a quick answer then I'll know where to begin my real research.

Short Short Story by Swanwick

This story will take you all of thirty seconds to read but I guarantee it will blow your mind, dude.

"New" Tolkien to be released

It's a translation. You can read about here.

My Story From Last Meeting
(Loosely based on an episode of "Beavis and Butthead")

My random words are "hide" and "dude"

"Are there worse things than this?"

"Yes"

"Are there stranger things than this?"

"Yes"

There was a pause as the two friends huddled by the looming, metal vents on the roof of "Papa Squid's Burger Joint."

"Can you think of them, by any chance?" Romero Rickenbaugh asked, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Hot air smelling of cobwebs and french fries drifted lazily from the vents, tussling Joey Franké's frizzy red hair as he pondered Romero's question. All he could do was shrug.

"Do you remember those books we read in health class? They taught us all about safe sex, the food pyramid, puberty, and never to smoke weed, right? But then this comes along...and we've got no idea what to do."

As sweat broke out across Romero's forehead, Joey Franké could only laugh absentmindedly. "It seems kinda obvious, don't it?" he said. "You've just gotta hide, dude. After he finds us, who knows?"

Mr. Shtoonk's footsteps echoed on the bricks of the roof as he lumbered over with his hands in his pockets, grinning maliciously. "Turn around and show some iron, boys" he drawled, sounding uncannily like John Wayne. The smell of cheap ketchup smeared across his face and his scalp with hair torn wantonously off filled Romero's nostrils. "Saddle up, pilgrim!" He drew a handful of sporks from his pocket.

For the billionth time that evening, Romero Rickenbaugh wondered how drinking that cup of Red Bull and Hamburger drippings could have made Mr. Shtoonk act that strange. As scared as he was, Romero thought the image of his boss wrestling him to the ground with a handful of sporks while yelling "Take 'em to Missouri!" was pretty comical. The slamming of sporks against his head didn't even hurt....much. Romero knew his boss would be alright in the morning...and then, another day of flipping burgers would begin.

Last Night's Exercise

We had four in attendance last night. We have lost a lot of our regulars because they got old but we have a nice second round of regulars showing up. Grace seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth and Luisa couldn't make it at the last second.

Our exercise was a couple of random words drawn from a pile. We had all contributed two words to the pile. My words were "funky" and "taco." What I wrote was so silly that I think it deserves to be shared with the world.

Funk Taco

Roger drove up to the Taco Bell and stopped next to the talking menu. He looked it over. He knew he wanted a Meximelt, for sure. Meximelts had that August-at-noon dumpster taste that he loved. A Meximelt was a given but he craved variety in his meal. A bagful of Meximelts wouldn't cut it today. He needed more. Maybe a 7 Layer Burrito. 7 Layers come with rice. He'd never get the level of heartburn that said "I overindulged at Taco Bell if he ate rice. Hmmm...the Big Beef Burrito. The triple B never let him down. You could get a steak version of the Triple B. The streak was low grade, to be sure, but not as low grade as the ground beef that came on the regular Big Beef Burrito. He could get heartburn so severe with two Meximelts and one Big Beef Burrito that he would be forced to lie down and breath slowly and wait until his body decided it was time to head to the bathroom.

He was prepared to order the two Meximelts and one Big Beef Burrito but he saw a new item on the menu that intrigued him. It was in the bottom left corner. It was a monkey-brown colored taco with arms and legs that was either dancing with or hugging a giant cup of Mountain Dew. It was called the Funky Taco. He was scratching his chin and pondering what might a Funky Taco be when the speaker in the menu spoke.

"Thank you for bzzzsking Taco Bell. May I help?" said a bored teenager.

"Uh yeah," Replied Roger. "What's in a Funky Taco?"

"Baby skrrrtzz."

"Baby what?"

"Skrrrzzty squirrels."

"Do you recommend them?"

"How bad a case of heartburn do you want?"

"Really bad. So bad I can take the rest of the day off and crash on my couch and watch TV."

"What else you gettin?"

"Two Meximelts."

"OK, add three Funky Tacos and you'll wish you were dead."

"Perfect."

Tomorrow's meeting

Does anyone still read this blog? Who's coming tomorrow? Hello, is this thing on?

Meeting Thursday

Howdy. Don't forget we are meeting this Thursday at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library. I got some great swag to give away for all you book lovers out there. Below is a picture of a few of the books I have liberated from the book sale for ya'll.

Testing, Testing...1...2...3

Playing with embedding pictures for a class I am going to do in April. How about a shot of me getting ready to get on the bus and leave for bootcamp in 1986. I'm 18.

From All we need is Blog?

How about a miniature dachshund in a light box?


Have I posted that before? Probably. Sorry.

The Hobbit

I found an interesting project that an artist is sharing via his blog. When he saw the Lord of the Rings movies he found that he lost some of the mental images he had of the books. He didn't dislike the films but it saddened him that he lost some of what he personally brought to the books. Now he's heard that there will soon be a movie version of the Hobbit directed by the guy that brought us Pan's Labyrinth. He has decided to paint some of his favorite scenes from the Hobbit as he sees them now so he doesn't lose them when the movie comes out. You can view his project here. I hope I haven't posted that here before.

A couple of things

It's been about two years since I posted anything here. I've actually been busy. I am teaching a eBay Basics class tonight and I spent the last week revising the handout and doing that makes my brain hurt.

I did found out today that the Virginia Quarterly Review is putting a bunch of it archives online. You can read about that here. First search I am going to do? Donald Hall, of course.

There is a great science fiction short short story on the New Yorker's website here. It has a great twist on the first contact/alien invasion story.

Let's pause for some whale evolution

It turns out that whales didn't start giving birth in the water until later than was currently thought. More here. Write about whale evolution. How's that for a prompt?

XKCD guy featured on the New Yorker Website

You can see it here.

John Updike

As a librarian I feel it is my duty to say something in regards to the death of the great American writer, John Updike. It was two years ago that I read my first Updike book. I read the first book that featured his famous character, Rabbit. The novel is called Rabbit Run. I found his writing to be good almost beyond compare. It is so good that more than once I stopped reading and took a second to appreciate the genius of the writing. Like Steinbeck, not only is his skill at a level few of us ever approach, it is also accessible. Great writing doesn't have to be difficult, just great.

Frederik Pohl on Arthur C. Clarke

I just found out from John Scalzi's blog that Frederik Pohl has a blog. I think a good place to start is his remembrance of his friend and collaborator, Arthur C. Clarke. I read the book they worked on together, The Last Theorem. I had wondered how much of the writing was done by Clarke and how much by Pohl. His long and entertaining entry answers that question.

Meeting Tonight

Sorry for the late notice but we are meeting tonight at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library. Remember to bring something to read. I also have a good pile of swag from the book sale to share.

Another Call for Submissions

This is for 7th, 8th and 9th graders. It's a tie in for that dog book/movie Marley and Me. You can view the guidelines here.

Formatting

If anyone ever needs to convert a document into a file format that they do not have the software available for then feel free to email me the document and I will convert it for you. Also, you might investigate Open Office. You can save documents in multiple formats with Open Office. Remember that the library has computers with MS Word if you need to have document in that format and you don't want to send the document to me.

Two calls for submissions

This website is calling for short stories from writers between the ages of 13 and 19. The prize is a Visa gift card and there are only a couple of days left.

If you have a problem with evolution then there is an essay contest here. I almost didn't post that one but the prize is $500.

Another call for submissions

Melanie has forwarded me another call for submissions by high school students. You can view the information here.