Twas the Night of Thanksgiving

A Black Friday Poem

'Twas the night of Thanksgiving, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Our family had left after Thanksgiving meal
In hopes we could grab a great doorbuster deal.

We'd given up all thoughts of snuggling in beds
While visions of gift receipts danced in our heads,
As ma with her wish list and I with a cart
Were waiting in line for Black Friday to start.

A clatter of locks and the shoppers all scrambled
As doorways sprung open (and three guys were trampled).
Away through the entrance I flew like a flash
And snatched from the greeter some "holiday cash."

Ma ran toward the back and I veered to the right
And the children set off for the toys, out of sight.
With wandering eyes we filled up the cart
With a flat-screen, a Wii, and a pink crystal heart.

We nabbed Tickle-Me Elmo, a George Foreman grill,
And all the Bond movies but "View to a Kill."
Then we packed up the car and, showing no shame,
We went to more stores as we called them by name!

"Now Wal-Mart! Now Macy's! Saks Fifth Avenue!
To Sears! To Home Depot! And on to J. Crew!
To Linen 'N' Things! To the Gap! To the Mall!
We'll shop at them! Shop at them! Shop at them all!"

As dry leaves that before wild tornadoes spin,
So we spun through boutique shops again and again.
Then we quickly drove home, down the roadway we flew,
With the car full of toys, and appliances, too.

And then, in a twinkling, we dropped off the loot,
Locked up the house, and then retraced our route.
It was shopping, round two! We weren't done yet!
No matter how deep it would put us in debt!

We found second wind, we found the right pace
As we dashed through the checkout at place after place.
That we'd get what we wanted, there was not a worry,
As we threw knees and elbows, a Black Friday flurry.

But suddenly there stood a big, burly man
Who wanted, it seemed, to impede our great plan.
His wide drooling mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And his scraggly soul patch was as black as a crow.

A lump of tobacco stood out in his cheek
And his big porous nose jutted out like a beak.
He had a broad face and a half-covered belly,
And his eyes, when he stared, turned my courage to jelly!

He was grumpy and mean, not at all like an elf,
And I plotzed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A squint of his eye and a tilt of his head
Soon gave me to know I had so much to dread.

He spoke not a word, standing up there so tall,
But turned to the shelf, took the last Dora doll,
And pushing his finger inside of his nose,
He shoved through the crowd (to check out, I suppose).

Though we didn't get Dora, all was not lost,
As into the car all our presents we tossed.
And I heard my wife yell as we all drove away,
"Happy shopping to all! On to Cyber-Monday!"

Five Ways NOT to Write about E-Books

People have strong feelings about books. Vehement, emotional discussions about the fate of print books in a publishing industry evolving toward all-digital output are a dime a dozen online. At one extreme, the die-hard paper-lovers alternately thump their chests and wail the plight of the demise of traditional books, while at the other extreme, insatiable tech junkies turn their noses up at archaic, dead-tree publications as if they were totemic relics of a savage age.

Election 2012, A Week Later

A Sonnet

A week ago, the country went to vote

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama sing
"Ebony and Ivory" to thousands of adoring fans.

For who it hoped would be the candidate
Who'd curb the constant governmental bloat
And change this country back from good to great.
For months before, the hopefuls flung insults,
Not stopping until ev'ry barb was spoke,
While others tried to purchase poll results —
Relaxed on the veranda with a Koch.
But then democracy just did its thing
And proved the cause of freedom can't be Trump'd.
The winners hoped for what the future'd bring;
The losers raved and Roved and oft harrumphed.
That's how elections work, but dry your tears —
We'll do it all again in four more years.

Friday Flash: The Butcher's Son

This short story is a result of the prompt from the Nov. 5, 2012, Indy WordLab. The assignment was to show the relationship of a parent and a child by having them doing something together. Here, a father passes on the skills of the family business to his son.

Halloween Recycling

I sometimes worry that too many people die in my stories. That too many of my stories revolve around death.

But on Halloween, I revel in the thought.

Here are some creepy, scary, gory, or dark stories of mine for your Halloween frightification (the titles are links):

You Must Be Mistooken

I had never heard of someone using tooken instead of taken until about a month ago, when a friend of mine complained about a coworker who consistently uses this "word." Now, he's on his last nerve. He might go postal.

I can see the headline now: Office Shooken by Tooken Massacre.

Book Review: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

About the story (3.5 of 5 clocks)

I read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (hereafter How to Live) in e-book format, so I don't have the benefit of the various blurbs and synopses that accompany print books. But if this book's dust cover doesn't say something like the following, then someone wasn't paying attention:

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is about a time travel technician who, while searching for his father, finds himself instead — both metaphorically and literally.

Today's Word: supernumerary

For much of the world, supernumerary means exactly what you think it means based on the word's parts: super (over or exceeding, e.g., superimpose, supernatural ) + numerary (as in number) = a number that is higher than an expected number. It can be synonymous with superfluous, excessive, overabundant.

In the world of theatre, though, it means something else.

The term comes from the Latin supernumerarius, which was what they called someone who was hired to appear on stage in crowd scenes or, for opera, in small, non-singing roles.

Supernumeraries are the theatrical equivalent of movie extras, which makes sense considering that supernumerary and extra are synonymous. Unlike movie extras, though, theatrical supernumeraries need to have some acting chops. They are cast not only as random background people milling about, but as flag-bearers, royal assistants, live statues, fishermen, and on and on. Even though they have no lines, they still might have stuff to do, and they need to be in character.

Some people make a living as supernumeraries, and larger opera houses might even have their own troupe of supernumeraries. But many do it just for fun and to get involved in the theatre. Sometimes, people well-known in other areas get the craving for theatre and take on supernumerary roles. Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, for example, have performed with the Washington National Opera; their last performance (as far as I can gather) was in Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus.

It's a nice, important-sounding word, too, front-loaded with that super-. Being "an extra in a play" just doesn't have that hifalutin ring that being "a supernumerary in the theatre" does.

The Exam

The following story is true, inasmuch as my memory is reliable. So, I guess it's true-ish.

This is the result of a writing experiment at October's Indy WordLab meetup.

---

In retrospect, I was totally unprepared. I blame my parents, as all children do.

How Reading a Story Aloud Changes the Story

I discovered William S. Burroughs sometime in college. It probably started when I read Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," and then I made my way through his literary friends, the kingpins of the Beat writers: Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs. I liked Burroughs the most. His stories were so raw and grotesque, so otherworldly yet still somehow derived from the fears and shortcomings of man alone.

Carl Solomon, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at the Gotham Book Mart celebrating the reissue of JUNKY, NYC, 1977. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For a time, I devoured Burroughs's work like it was the black meat,^* soaking up his macabre monstrosities of sex and death. I bought up all of his spoken-word albums and listened to them until I had his words memorized. I loved his raspy voice, like he was dragging his words through the gravel. It was always so dark, so grimy.

But then something happened.

I heard a recording of Burroughs reading in front of a real audience. It was the first time I had experienced anyone's reactions besides my own, and their reactions surprised me: As Burroughs read through his grotesque story, the audience was laughing.

Take a listen, for example, to "Twilight's Last Gleamings," a story about a supremely botched appendectomy aboard a sinking ship:



The laughter didn't seem out of place in his reading, but it was somehow a new experience for me. I don't know if he had intended the story to be funny when he wrote it. And I suppose it doesn't matter.

I was reminded of this Monday night when I got the chance to read one of my own stories at the Indy WordLab meetup. (The story will show up here eventually, but I want to submit it a few places first.)

So I stood up in front of these people, all writers of varying experience, and read the story. I thought I was building a realistically horrible background of a man trying to be a good son to his dying mother, a selfish, short-sighted, abusive, and bitter old woman who longed only for a life of movie-like drama.

But while I was reading, the audience reacted. They chuckled. They laughed. And I noticed, while I was reading, that yes, that really was kind of funny. Right up to when the main character set the house on fire.

I wasn't expecting their reaction. But their reaction was true, and I appreciate it.

The larger point, though, is the different life that words can take on when they leave the page.Certainly some of it has to do with the delivery. The world's greatest essay will fall flat if it's delivered in a fast, quiet monotone; it won't stir anyone to introspection, laughter, or fear. And the simplest story can become a masterpiece if it's delivered with character and emotion.

But there's more to it than that. There's a whole context to reading a work aloud that isn't present on the written page, and listeners' reactions feed off both that context and your spoken words. They will hear inflections in your voice that you didn't put there. They will interpret subtle physical motions — shifting in your seat, clearing your throat, making eye contact with the audience — as a part of your story and interpret the two together.

They'll even hear jokes that you didn't write. Not intentionally, anyway.

A common self-editing trick is to read your work aloud to yourself, which somehow shines a light on otherwise hidden errors and other shortcomings. Further along in the writing process, having someone else read your work to you can be even more helpful by placing your words into a new context. (If you don't have someone to read to you, try recording your own reading and listening to it without the manuscript in front of you.)

If nothing else, it can give you a better idea of what the narrator in your story might sound like in someone else's mind.

*"The black meat is like a tainted cheese, overpoweringly delicious and nauseating, so that the eaters eat and vomit and eat again until they fall, exhausted." From Naked Lunch