tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84110513274874933452024-03-13T22:18:14.064-07:00the white star journalcommuniques from the ragamuffin undergroundJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-45929352778467285142009-03-01T06:39:00.000-08:002009-03-01T06:43:26.456-08:00That Subtle White Noise, part twoI could never figure out if I wanted to kill or forgive the men who had tried to kill me. I think my innate dispassion confused me, but that didn't keep me from buying an old baseball bat, just in case they tried it again. I wrote the words "Ass's Jawbone" on it with a sharpie pen, in hopes that if it ever saw battle it would reap numbers similar to that of old Samson himself. Initially I planned on wrapping it in barbed wire and spray painting it gold. I don't know why I wanted to paint it, perhaps the image of gold paint rubbing off in the dark red of my enemy's wounds somehow satisfied my sense of vengeance- like a signature of sorts. Later I heard that some kid had gotten arrested for having a bat wrapped in barbed wire, so decided against it. I suppose I still could’ve painted it gold, though.<br /> <br />I am not of the school of thought that says there is a line that is crossed or a hair that breaks a camel's back or something that just snaps inside of you when you decide to do something awful. I think it is simpler than that, but less easy to explain. We tend to talk in terms of anger and frustration becoming bottled up and then blowing, but we never ask why we attribute the metaphor of a bottle of soda to actual psychological processes. Personally, I think we are all always much closer to crossing that line than we think. Some folks are insane, others have had something de-programed somewhere along the line, some just slip over from time to time or once in their life, and still others are simply brave enough to try it. For me- what with the honking and the stares and the frowns and the slow scritch of my passenger's walker across the floor of the bus- when the fellow behind me exited his truck and headed my way, what happened next seemed inevitable- almost natural.<br /> <br />I saw him hop out of his truck right after the security guard lady had stabbed her finger in the air, signaling my urgent need to move on. Something about that jerking motion in the air: three times: go, go, go... I was on my way to say hello to her with my jawbone when I noticed the man- who might've been spared had he not interfered- approach my vehicle.<br /> <br />He was almost to my window when I stepped out of the bus. With one crushing swoop I brought it around hard, connecting with his head and the side of the bus simultaneously, causing a brilliant explosion of red and grey matter. His body fell to the ground. Striding over the corpse, I circled the vehicle around the rear end. Through the tinted windows of the bus I could see the brown uniform of the guard moving quickly now to intercept me. Stepping around the back of the bus I again swung the bat. The sound this time was a sickening crack. The force of the blow actually ripped her skull open and caught her brain, sending it flying through the air and smacking the plexi-glass sliding door of the hospital. Her eyes rolled in her head, and her body swayed and dropped like a suddenly limp, fleshy t-ball stand. The blood gushed silently like a broken water main, flowing into the grate near the automatic door that was opening and closing over and over again, smearing her brains back and forth across the threshold. <br /> <br />I climbed into the driver's seat. My passenger was finally seated and buckled.<br /> <br />"Ready to go, Ma'am?"Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-36272317345157377632008-12-19T23:32:00.000-08:002008-12-19T23:34:39.757-08:00That Subtle White Noise, part one“And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, <br /> and put out his hand and seized it,<br /> and with it he slew a thousand men.”<br /> - Judges 15:15<br /><br /> I can't remember if it was warm or cold that day, I suppose because it doesn't matter. It might also be because when something having to do with personal conflict occurs to me- negative personal conflict, that is- I tend to find it hard to focus on anything. So I suppose what I remember is what counts.<br /><br /> I had been driving the para-transit bus for a few months. The para-transit service, for all of you who don't know, is a service provided for people with disabilities or the elderly who can't drive themselves. Some are blind, some are mentally retarded, others are so extremely obese that they can't get mobile without assistance. <br /><br /> Like I said, it was a normal day, or might as well have been, and I was parked at the roundabout on the west side of the hospital. It was a commonly congested space, and seemed small for the amount of traffic that passed through. There was a lady security guard who worked there. She seemed to me the kind of person who refers to things that aren't theirs and couldn't possibly be theirs as their own. She might say "I love my soaps.", or I “gotta have my football", etc. She always eyed me as I would wait for my passengers, always quick to get the traffic flowing, always keeping things under control.<br /><br /> That day I was picking up the sweetest little old lady you could imagine. I'm fairly sure that she couldn't hear or see, and at times was not sure if she was even breathing. She always smiled, though, when she got on the bus, and was always ready when you got there. She had to be: it probably took her a good 15 minutes to walk the 10 feet from the door to the bus. Fragile as they come, this one, as likely to blow away on the wind as anything, and shatter into a million tiny pieces were she to tip over. <br /><br /> One of the problems with the situation was the bus itself: it's design. Some genius somewhere, when the money-makers were discussing the prospect of such a specialized vehicle, decided to cut the back end off of a regular old Ford van, and attach the most god-awful, oversized, top-heavy, plastic shell on the ass-end of it, throw a couple of old school bus seats in the back and weld a lift to boot. This made the back 66 percent of the vehicle a good foot on either side wider than the cab, and taller again by another five or so. Besides making for a bumpy ride for the already ailing and disadvantaged cargo, they were often times dirtier than any school bus I'd ever ridden in, and a hell of a lot less comfortable. <br /><br /> You can imagine the trouble it might take someone who can hardly walk to make it up the steep set of steps into the death trap, and shuffle their way to the back to find a seat. If you did, then you'd be imagining exactly the situation I was in that day when The Queen of the Roundabout and the outlying Parking Lots began to get upset. Of course she couldn't have seen the old lady doing her best to hustle for the traffic's sake, but it didn’t matter: She didn’t care. It was at about this time, as the old woman was almost half-way from the front of the bus to her seat, that I noticed a rather large red pickup truck queued up behind me. In the driver's seat sat an impatient looking man, and in the passenger's seat sat an old lady much like my own passenger. I assumed that the woman was the mother, and that the fellow driving was her son. It wasn't hard to make out the steady stream of curse words that were coming out of his mouth. It seemed that he was equally, if not more, upset with the amount of time my passenger and I were taking.<br /> <br /> The reason I even had a baseball bat, let alone carried it around with me, was because just prior to moving to town, my wife and I had been living in the city when one night, we were mugged. I remember waking up running: it was pitch black and I could hear footsteps. I couldn't remember where I was or what was going on until I heard a second set of footsteps and realized that both were running, and that the former belonged to myself, the latter, to my assailant. When we moved I carried away a profound uncertainty and paranoia, along with the quarter-sized half-moon shaped scar behind my right ear from the attacker's hammer.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-69649901299308851262008-12-14T22:45:00.000-08:002008-12-14T22:47:37.905-08:00I want a suitI want a suit<br />a grey suit, like<br />a real poet<br />serious but informal<br />tieless with the memory<br />of a tie having purposefully<br />been there earlier<br /><br />like poets can wear suits<br />now like businessmen wore <br />suits but a poet might get<br />a state burial or a statue<br />but not me, I'll just be<br />a nobody in a suitJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-77894871041011240822008-11-20T20:53:00.000-08:002008-11-20T21:17:01.701-08:001-2-3one.<br /><br />a child is the greatest<br />memory, it lives like a <br />snowflake, whose temporality <br />is so extreme, it's managed<br />to become forever<br />it hangs in the air like words<br />like a promise<br /><br />two.<br /><br />I look over at my wife<br />changing my son's diaper<br />in the middle of the night<br /><br />he is squirming, crying<br />and soft in the dim light<br />I laugh at the little fellow<br /><br />three.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-87797012888136883382008-11-11T20:15:00.000-08:002008-11-11T21:15:27.130-08:00no wallsI was standing on the second floor of a restaurant with no walls in Loiza. The ocean was dark; rolling white-noise oscilloscopes emerging from the silence of night, faint and gray, palpably fawning over the beach. The warmth of the sand complimented the warmth of the water. They danced, moving this way and that, in and out, together, apart, holding invisible hands.<br /><br />I missed my children. I called my wife on our cell phone. The moon did a bad job of hiding behind a palm tree whose trunk was in arms length but whose palms were in space above the ocean. I thought of Christmas, St. Nicolas' Day in Lawrence, Kansas. White snow on a brown earth. I was a little drunk.<br /><br />Memory is heavy like El Morro, perched on the edge of the world, the precipice of what I've learned up to this point. The implications of such memory are heavy and dark like El Morro's shadows. People I know and people I don't know pass through them, are heavy like shadow and then light, like air. It is a golden sun with a jealous blue sky. A vast battlefield separates us from the past.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-67579203952253535462008-09-28T13:25:00.000-07:002008-09-28T13:28:03.426-07:00The Catagory of The WorldI am exploded<br />I reach everywhere<br />touch everything<br /><br />I don't observe<br />I don't claim or own<br /><br />what the exploded me<br />wafts over, like<br />an invisible shaft <br />of light - the beam<br />is a wave, the category <br />of my explosion<br />exceeds the category<br />of the world<br /><br />I am warm<br />exploded in returning<br />to myself<br />returning to myself<br />complete<br />dismantled and fused<br />into a new wholeJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-9930070002348500032008-09-09T20:05:00.000-07:002008-09-09T20:25:11.713-07:00The Nude UniverseI.<br /><br />He let himself<br />be one thing <span style="font-weight:bold;">and</span> and after another<br />unsure of the concept<br />of <span style="font-style:italic;">allow</span><br />- being allowed, allowing -<br /><br />the inadvertent is always the <br />precedent, though he didn't set it<br />it merely sat there<br /><br />the accord was granted<br />by the relationship placed<br />between the persons of<br />his own will and<br />either another, more ethereal, <br />or none at all: a vacuum<br /><br />a golem in negative space<br /><br />II.<br /><br />this one believes<br />in the concept of<br />success, so it will*<br />constantly elude him<br /><br />* in order for it to,<br />or: and because of this <br />it will<br /><br />(this is going to<br />take some warming up)<br /><br />how can I make you<br />feel shame<br />believing nothing<br />believing in nothing<br /><br />(not I told you so)<br /><br />what have you inherited <br />except of the inability<br />to realize<br />what you don't have?<br /><br />III.<br /><br />so he built a wall<br />or the beginnings of one<br />and this fellow said<br />"well, now you've got<br />yourself a wall."<br />and they stood around<br />it like poetry<br /><br />why is there fire?<br />my daughter asked<br />why is there fire?<br />because there is blood<br />I wrote, but won't <br />tell her until she is older<br /><br />math is the color of sandJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-25840898146296607842008-09-07T14:18:00.000-07:002008-09-07T14:32:42.889-07:00For M.D. (#0)I've an uneasy heart<br />brittle mind<br />memory that betrays<br />failing reason<br />- Are you angry?<br /><br />beware of my reason<br />its corner is dark<br />I used to see it there, in my dreams<br />I didn't know <br />that is what it was<br />until now, though I knew<br />something was there<br /><br />full of threat<br />its capacity to usurp<br />relentless, unparalleled<br /><br />a wide potential <br />to lose its potentiality <br />and actualize itself at my expense<br /><br />it falls across the previous page<br />rolling backward like thick water <br />on hot pavementJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-78793996064177214142008-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:002008-08-10T21:00:03.977-07:00For M.D. (#1)write something on the window so<br />my memory will become a dream<br /><br />stand lilies on their broken <br />stem-ends so my dreams can<br />fly to the rooftops<br /><br />introduce the inconsequential <br />to the bottom of a blue sky<br />so the birds, when they <br />look down, won't see us<br /><br />let them dive of their own free will <br />to the tree that was meant for them<br /><br />how many sparrows can rest in a broken heart?<br />how many songs rustle from their feathers?<br /><br />what will be my penance for<br />a misdirected prayer?<br />we pray through the ether<br />we pray through the words<br /><br />let my conversation be sewed up <br />in a prayer, like an enchilada,<br />so my children will understand meJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-45475780943646157572008-06-09T05:42:00.000-07:002008-06-09T05:54:06.846-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Nine: Vignette No. 4I imagine that what I was feeling, or wasn't feeling, was what soldiers at war did or did not feel when things became too intense for their capacity to deal with- emotionally speaking, that is. I imagine something really bad happening to me sometimes, something unbelievable and painful, and I always imagine that it feels worse in reality than when I imagine it. I imagine the first thing I feel once it's happened is a sort of gladness that it is over.<br /> <br />Maybe most bad things that happen we really can see coming, and we just don't realize that we do until it's over. Most of the time. That is why hindsight is always 20/20. It's when you can see things coming and see it happen and still don't feel anything that the lack of emotion, the numbness, disturbs you.<br /> <br />"I should feel something- I should feel bad about this." You say to yourself. And you add bad to bad as it were, when you feel regret for not feeling properly bad about something that is already bad that has occurred.<br /> <br />Like when people disappear. When you wake up in the morning and they are gone and you just know that you won't ever see them again, that they are never coming back. It's as normal as knowing that they went to the grocery store to pick up something. They went away for ever, just down the street.<br /><br />And then time goes by and you feel like you feel when someone has written you a letter and it's your turn to write back but you never do but always sort of feel like you should but know you never will. That's about as un- numb as you will get about it, and only when you remember it, which seems to happen less an less.<br /> <br />When she didn't come home that night and never showed up the next morning I sat on the porch swing and smoked a pack of cigarettes and drank a pot of coffee. I wasn't waiting for her; I don't know what I was doing.<br /><br />After three months her stuff had been gone for awhile but I hadn't really looked for a new room-mate, though the thought to hold out in case she came back never crossed my mind. When the police spoke to me and her parents spoke to me I said what needed to be said like you do when you say no three times to the people selling siding on the telephone. <br /><br />After six months I had been there a year and I wasn't a freshman anymore and I was used to life away from home and without a room-mate, and my life started to feel like mine and not my parent's, but in no way did I feel any urge to finalize my issues with Sarah who was probably dead, or move on. <br /><br />And then at the end of my sophomore year I was there on the porch smoking a cigarette and drinking a coffee when a police man arrived. It was warm and the trees were budding and I remember thinking that the poor fellow was probably hot in his uniform. He talked and I sort of listened and he showed me a photograph of a corpse that I recognized instantly as Sarah's and then it finally hit me: I felt a little something. Something deep in me felt something move and it was warm and vaguely pleasing:<br /> <br />As I was looking at the photograph of Sarah's mostly decayed body in a wooded area I didn't recognize I noticed that through what was left of her naked ribcage was growing a small tree. It was about three feet in height and I thought it must've started growing last summer to be the size it was now and look at how it is reaching for the sun beams that are coming down the through the trees.<br /><br />THE END.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-34060378912030607682008-05-15T07:21:00.001-07:002008-05-15T07:23:01.431-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Eight: The Meatfields, Chapter 4The Meatfields , Chapter Four<br /> And so it finally happened: I managed to sneak out of the 2nd years' bunker and rendezvous with Julia on the walls above the compound and the fields at midnight. She had promised me something special, and I knew without knowing what it was, only I suppressed thinking about it so that seeing it might be as fresh and new and spontaneous and real as possible.<br /> She was there, in the shadows, hunched over a small bundle of cloth, her head darting this way and that like an animal guarding it's food. I dropped down by her side, out of breath.<br /> "You've got one don't you? You've got one?" I could hardly contain my glee. "How did you get it? Can I see it?"<br /> She looked at me and smiled. Placing one finger over her lips. "Shhh. Be patient. I've got it. A 5th year gave it to me. I'm not going to tell you what I had to do to get it, so don't ever ask. Now be silent."<br /> Slowly she began to peel away layers of cloth, white with rusty stains, old harvester's rags. And there it was. About the size of a child's fist, brown with tapered ends and a gentle curving contour: a Meatstalk Seed. I reached my hand out to touch it, Julia didn't move. I hesitated.<br /> "It's okay, touch it- it's warm." She said, her tone of voice solemn.<br /> I did: it was firm. I could tell that it was hard on the outside but tender on the inside. I was dizzy with ecstasy.<br /> Julia sighed. "Okay, here goes." She placed her thumbs in the center of the flattest part of the seed, placing her fingertips gently on the opposite side, like she was going to open a very delicate and tiny book. She jerked, and the force of her effort sunk her thumbs deep into the seed's meat. A hot spurt of Meatstalk Juice exploded onto our faces. She ripped it open deliberately and without delay, and we could see it there, plain as day, beating away while it's own blood gushed out and onto the floor: a tiny heart, pale in the night air. It very slowly ceased beating and with a quiver was silent. Neither of us were breathing. Then Julia screamed. I fell backwards and clasped my hands over my ears as her scream ripped through the silence of the night. <br /> My last memory of her is of her there on her knees, a dead Meatstalk heart in her hands, screaming and screaming, her lungs expanding and contracting behind her ribs, trying to catch their own breath.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-56929130891060126872008-05-04T19:26:00.000-07:002008-05-04T19:34:09.715-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Seven: Vignette No. 3Alan was a young man of 21 years. He didn't do alot of thinking about why he did what he did, on either a grand scale or from one moment to the next. You know, the kind of things that people- especially young people- ask themselves: the first type would be why do I always get really drunk even if I don't really think I should? or Why do I always put down my friend even though I don't feel good about it? The second type would be: Why do I take this particular class? Or where this particular hat or shirt? etc. Alan didn't think much at all, actually, only he didn't know it. Where one to confront him with that fact one would find themselves at a proverbial brick wall. <br /> It was early in the morning and he was sleeping when he awoke with a thought. It was vague and unclear at first, more like an emotion, the kind of emotion one might experience were one to be in the locker room before the big game and coach was giving a big speech about the importance of winning and the glory of victory- only it was out of context, free and un-channeled. The details remained unclear but his desire to know was overwhelming. It was tuesday and he had class at seven but somehow that didn't seem to matter anymore. He felt as if he would do anything to figure out what was in his head, what he had to do.<br /> He was in a state of delirium as he pulled on what clothes lay closest at hand- pausing at times to try and remember what to do next: belt buckle, tuck shirt, tie shoes, brush teeth, un-tuck shirt, apply deodorant, etc. It was during one final pause before the downstairs march to meet his destiny that he noticed his alarm clock. 2:19 a.m. it flashed. On, off, on off, in bright red seizure-inducing letters. And it wasn't tuesday at all, it was Friday- well, Saturday, now. He sat down on his bed, staring at the floor.<br /> Wait- What? he thought. He tried to remember if he had been dreaming and that feeling that he had to find out what he needed to do that had awoken him just minutes before, but it had already dissipated, dissolved into the night. It was really quiet. It felt quiet. Silent. He laid his face in his hands and wept. He wept not because he lost whatever purpose he might've found for that brief moment, but because of all those things that he had thought about himself and how he thought about himself in his dream by having and loosing what he had thought he had found: how he was a thoughtless automaton. And he cried more, because he wasn't sure he even knew what that meant.<br /> None of those thoughts, however, were to hold a candle to those that followed: the thought that he hadn't really found any purpose at all, he'd only thought that he had, and that never in his life would he not only feel like he had found purpose, but actually find purpose- there was no purpose to be found. It was something he didn't even know he wanted and now it was gone, like the night and his alarm clock and his dreaming brain had played a horrible joke on him and left him alone in the echo of their silent laughter.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-43537478871062574412008-04-12T07:57:00.000-07:002008-04-12T08:14:06.068-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Six: The Meatfields, Chapter 3The Meatfields, Chapter Three<br /> When I fell in love with Michael, I thought about him constantly. All day, every day and most every night until I fell asleep. The number of times I thought about him probably out weighed the number of times I actually laid eyes on him. Because of this, I had an incorrect idea of who he was. I know this now. The Michael I thought I knew I saw through the eyes of my mind- I had a picture of him, who he was, how he was, etc., that was comprised only of ideas and not reality. After he dumped me I couldn't believe that my perfect Michael, my idealized Michael could do such a thing to me. It wasn't until Julia told me that I wasn't sad for being apart from Michael at all, only from the imagined Michael who wasn't and couldn't be real, that I finally saw things straight for the first time. Now, not only could I not be wronged by a phantom and was thus spared the pangs of rejection, but I could put a face on evil, on bad, on enemy, on original deceit and start to deal with it.<br /> I was crying that evening, alone on the walls of the compound, when I felt her slide next to me. I had seen her before, I knew she was weird. The weirdness of her approaching me at all was enough to forget myself, though I don't think I was ever uncomfortable.<br /> "I know why you are crying." she said.<br /> I stared at her.<br /> "It's because you are hurt. You are feeling hurt. Not because Michael Rundstrom hurt you." She turned to look at me. I could hear the faint hiss of a meatstalk spurting.<br /> "Do you know why you cry?" She asked. "You cry because you hurt. Do you know why you bleed? You bleed because you hurt. Do you cry because you bleed because you hurt? Or do you cry and bleed because you hurt? I think it is the latter: I thing the water and the blood spring from the same source: from you. Sometimes our body hurts and bleeds and the ethereal feels this too and so cries. But sometimes we just cry, but our poor bodies can't bleed from it. This is sad, I think." She looked out over the fields. "Our tear water is the blood of something deeper than our skin, but just as much apart of us." Her face hardened. A geyser of red shot up from the fields. "If I love you and leave you I hurt your feelings and you cry, but do not bleed." Grabbing my arm she retrieved a knife from somewhere in her jumpsuit, "But if I cut off your arm you bleed and bleed and cry and cry and both your feelings and your body are hurt then, too, right?" She was strong and I struggled, but she held firm and drew the blade close to my skin. "But one is just your feelings and one is just your arm, right?" She was sounding manic and here eyes were huge and close to mine, looking for a reply.<br /> "I-I don't know.." I whimpered. She let go.<br /> "You have an arm. You have feelings. You have bone and meat and blood." Another spurt from the fields and I saw her flinch. That's when she turned to me and said it:<br /> "Meat has feelings, too, you know."Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-21082395828699929332008-03-18T16:04:00.000-07:002008-03-18T16:07:30.014-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Five: That NightThat Night<br /> The bar was dark in the corners, like bars always are- why do they make them like that, why do they feel evil sometimes?- and all the lights where hard and bright. The shadows were precise: there was light and dark. I was drunk when I started to think about the phrase "paint the town". Some folks I think say paint it red, others say blue. I could never figure out what was what: if there were two separate sayings that meant two things or two variations of the same saying. I always hated people who went off on the origins of phrases or words and crap, but once at school I had tried to pry into a conversation about just such crap, asking that very question. But it moved so fast no one caught it or no one cared. I don't know and I never got an answer. Light, dark, red, blue, whatever. <br /> I was feeling upset because something was wrong and I hated it when I was "think-about-crap-drunk" and not "have-fun-drunk". I had intended to take Sarah out and get her all liquored up but instead had had a hard time keeping up with her. I was hard on myself for being childish and angry at her for stealing my thunder when I realized that I only felt bad because something seemed wrong. It wasn't that things weren't going my way,things just weren't right. She was behaving all bad. I sat there, quiet, while the furor raged about us and watched her. One side of her face was a putrid yellow from a neon beer light, the other was all-the-way black. Things were never so simple with Sarah. I was then upset for having to care, for letting it bother me, for getting in the way of my fun. <br /> But I'm not like that anymore.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-46135606958861812732008-03-11T11:23:00.000-07:002008-03-11T11:24:55.232-07:00The Meatfields: Chapter Four: Vignette No. 2Vignette Number Two<br /> It was late, but that didn't mean anything. If you ever take a nap in between noon and actual night-time and wake up after the sun goes down, it always feels like the next day- like you've slept through something important. Even if it was only half an hour. And of course living on college row meant for a great deal of calamity all hours of the night. Could've been seven in the a.m. or seven in the p.m. It was all the same on the weekends.<br /> Sometimes waking up is nice, sometimes it isn't. This time it wasn't. It was disoriented wake up time and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Anyone I had ever slept or napped with tended to hate the disoriented just-woke-up me, usually because they had to bear the brunt of my meanness until I could figure out where the hell I was. It didn't help that I had fallen asleep immediately after returning home from classes and woke up after dark. <br /> I went downstairs to get a glass of water- sometimes you just know exactly what you want, even if you are disoriented- it's like your body tells you magically exactly what it needs, and you see what it is in your head. In this case, it was the aforementioned glass of water. I imagined this is what a pregnant woman felt like when she knew she needed out-of-season watermelons from mexico. Her body needs the nutrients or something. <br /> Upon arriving downstairs I was pleased to see that Alison had brought home a new boy to play with, and they were "watching a movie" on the couch. I don't know if I chortled or laughed with a strong tinge of disgust or shook my head or what but somehow I know that my disdain was made obvious, and it wasn't just because of my just-woke-upedness- I really hated her, and him- by default. <br /> She was the kind of girl who gets her hair cut all short and choppy at the fancy hair place because you did only she spends a million dollars to do so and styles it just right every fifteen minutes then tells friends you did it together. I threw up in my mouth a little bit.<br /> She shot knives through her squinty eyes at me and I smiled. <br /> "Hello." I said. And gave a little wave. I felt drunk but wasn't.<br /> I couldn't figure out why she was so pissed until I realized that I wasn't wearing pants. <br /> Why is it that the fridge light of all lights tends to be the most piercing light of all? Opening that portal is like getting your eyes dilated and then looking through a high-powered telescope at the sun. It's painful. But it was worth it for some juice. Which I poured into a formerly used jar that we use as a cup and drank with the lights off, letting my eyes heal. Through the open doorway I could see the blue of the television screen illuminating the face of Alison and her date as they sat and nodded in affirmation of the supremacy of television. <br /> Why didn't I get a glass of water?<br /> Back upstairs I killed the lights again and sat on my bed looking out the open window to the street below. An endless dribble of people showed up at the edges of the circles of light that the streetlights threw on the ground, walking this way and that, to this bar or party or that, looking for a good time. It wasn't that late, but it felt like it. I didn't really think about anything, and then went to bed.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-54352401275383027952008-02-28T19:59:00.000-08:002008-02-28T21:33:22.908-08:00a touching coming-of-age story set in the midwestWe interrupt tonight's usual broadcast of "The Meatfields" to bring you a fragment of a novel I'm working on tentatively entitled THE LUCKY SEVEN.<br /><br />Ronald Desch's office resembled an office in form only vaguely: there was a desk with some crap on it, including a computer, a nice chair for him, two not-so-nice chairs for whoever, a telephone with a million buttons, a number of cardboard file boxes with contents in various stages of disarray along the walls, which were bare except for a couple of official looking framed certificate-type pictures. Mostly these things made it seem more like the set of a high school play, having all the necessary parts but somehow not pulling it off. Much like Mr. Desch himself, who sat stiff backed in his good chair with his hands on his knees talking to me and acting like the job he was offering was more than a glorified housekeeping position. Upon careful inspection I learned that Mr. Desch wasn't, indeed, what he seemed to be: the certificates on the wall were those of the Captain of the Highway Patrol of the State of Florida, making their adornment on the wall of the manager's office of the Lucky Seven Hotel in the state of South Dakota seem a bit odd.<br /> <br />Later I would learn that Mr. Desch had been ousted from his post as the Captain of the Highway Patrol of the State of Florida due to the President's brother's reforms and subsequent replacement of Mr. Desch with a personal friend upon his election to the Governor's seat the previous fall. Mr. Desch was now in South Dakota on the good will of a friend who had recently acquired ownership of the Lucky Seven, a quaint little gem of a hotel in the middle of nowhere with whom I had recently found employment.<br /> <br />"So that's it, then. I believe everything is in order." Mr. Desch slapped his hands on his knees in an official gesture of closure. "I'll have Buck show you your room."<br /> <br />"Thank you, Mr. Desch."<br /> <br />"You can call me Ron."<br /> <br />Buck was an older man with grey hair and slightly bulgy eyes. He wore his hair like it was 1977, blue polyester slacks, and his identically colored work shirt tucked in perfectly, making it look like he wore a jumpsuit from afar.<br /> <br />His office was very believable, in that it seemed not only just like a maintenance man's office, but like it really was Buck's office: something that not only belonged to him but was a part of him. It was actually just the furnace room with a desk in it, most of it jam-packed with mysterious machinery and tools, with a little corner cleared out for a desk. Above the desk on the wall was a small framed photo of a barn, and above that an old golf club mounted like you might mount a rifle or a broadsword. Above his desk was the gratuitous pegboard panel, with pliers and hammers and various handy items displayed in meticulous fashion. In the desk was a bottle of Crown Royal and a glass. It was no secret what work went on it Buck's office. But his office wasn't his greatest attribute, though the bottle in the desk struck a close second. The greatest thing about Buck was that his last name was Rogers. The man's name was Buck Rogers. I know this because emblazoned on his golden "Lucky 7 Hotel" name tag were the words "Buck Rogers". And name tags, as we know, don't lie.<br /><br />"See that picture on the wall there?" He motioned toward the barn photo. I nodded. <br /><br />"That frame is made with wood from the barn in the photo." <br /><br />"Wow." I really was impressed. Not so much at what it was, but how utterly bizarre it was to have a picture like that, and how unutterably proud he seemed to be of it. I moved towards it and traced the weathered old grains on the wood. <br /> <br />"Was it yours?"<br /> <br />There was an awkward silence, then he answered: "What?" <br /> <br />"The Barn- was it yours?" <br /> <br />"Oh, oh no. It was my neighbors'. They tore it down last year." He didn't even sound sad when he said that. It was as though he didn't actually care. "Welp." He almost yelled it, slapping his hands together like he was trying to shake it off. "I suppose you'd like to rest a bit, having driven all the way here from- where was that again?"Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-59724560505590972552008-02-22T06:53:00.003-08:002008-02-22T06:53:52.406-08:00The Meatfields: Chapter Three: Later That Day<span style="font-weight:bold;">Later That</span> Day <br /> "Is this one of your slice-of-life vignettes?" I asked, holding up a slightly squalid piece of science-fiction I had found amongst the "literary snapshots". But she didn't answer me. She just looked at me like she was going to puke. God that made me sad. Why do I feel the need I treat her this way? But then again, what did I care?<br /> It was finally friday afternoon, friday after class, friday after week. Finally it was friday, and all I wanted was to be a non-thing, to be nothing, to sink into an obscure nothingness for one evening and damn the sunrise. This is what I thought, and I thought it thinking that this was probably how Sarah thinks about things- all dramatic and shit. <br /> Later I heard her shower running and her music blaring from upstairs. Had we both not been creatures of habit I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but usually- and especially in light of the last 48 hours- by now the only thing to be heard from her side of the house was the clickety clack of the computer keys, as she tried in vain to atone for the mediocrity of her life and it's myriad of failures. But not so this night! This night I found her primping and curling like the rest of us, preening and pawing and preparing for a night of youthful reveling. That's what I saw, though I approached carefully, the disbelief obvious in my voice:<br /> "Sooo..." I tried to act casual, leaning against her half open door, checking my fingernails, "Are you coming out with us tonight or what?" I tried to make it sound like the answer was in the question, like "duh, of course your coming because that's what we do right?" But it came across as slightly patronizing, I'm sure. But she took it in stride.<br /> "Yeah, I thought I might- why not? It's been awhile. Like you said: I need a break." She was putting her hair up as she spoke, her actions and inflection looked and sounded normal, but the response seemed slightly programmed, like she had something up her sleeve. Regardless, I was pleased, and my smile that I'm sure she saw in the mirror was genuine. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Meatfields, Chapter Two</span><br /> I could never bring myself to believe in The Scientist. I don't know what it was- my folks didn't raise me with any clear affinity towards belief or disbelief- it was just something I couldn't really swallow. I mean: how could someone- one man, design all of this: us, the meatstalks, the skittlebugs, everything- out of nothing? It just didn't make sense to me, but I wasn't a zealot- I saw very little harm in it- it was more a motivational factor than anything: folks who believed in The Scientist tried harder, it seemed, to do their job or help people, etc. So how can that be bad? I suppose someday I'll really sit down and think about it, I should probably have an open mind about it, anyway.<br /> It was Renda, a 3rd Tier, who got me thinking about it, though not in a positive way. It was more like I couldn't help but think about it because this annoying bitch wouldn't stop blabbing and blabbing about The War and The Desolation and The Genesis and The Scientist. It was almost Twilight, and there we were, trying to enjoy the Starset before bunktime and here was this girl ruining it for all of us.<br /> "Did you know- at least this is what I heard-" she was saying in a too-loud voice to some 2nd Tier disciple of hers, "that the Skittlebugs were modeled after a type of candy they say The Scientist ate when he was our age?"<br /> "What the hell is candy?" some sucker chimed in.<br /> "I have no idea- but The Scientist loved it, especially the kind called "Skittles"- and that's why they're especially beloved by folks who follow Him." She sounded like she knew what she was talking about- but the person who told her had been clueless.<br /> "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." A fourth tier said. "If I hear one more stupid story about candy and bugs and mythical characters, I think I'm going to puke. Besides, you shouldn't be forcing your beliefs on other people."<br /> But this didn't stop her- she knew her rights, and the look on her face told us all that. She kept on until finally some kid said that he'd go to her Scientist meeting if she'd just stop blabbing. The look on her face was the kind that someone who tricked you had when you thought you'd won when really they had, and it made me uncomfortable.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-73156080446128711802008-02-05T18:04:00.001-08:002008-02-05T18:10:59.761-08:00The Meatfields: Chapter Two: The Previous Night<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Previous Night:</span><br /> "I've got to do this. I've got to do this-" convincing me was harder than convincing herself.<br /> "Or what? Or Die? You're not going to die, Sarah." God, she pissed me off. "You are going to wake up tomorrow morning regardless of whether or not you wring out every second of tonight's potential productivity. Killing yourself like this makes no difference. No one can blame you if you can't pay everything all the time on time- and you are not failing anyone by not being perfect." I was getting angry. "You don't have to... you don't have- never mind." I threw my arms up in defeat. Nothing I could say or do could peel her sallow face from the blue glare of the screen, stop the maddening slide, click, slide, click of the mouse. She was a closed door to an empty house and my words were just echoes lost in it.<br /> Stepping outside I lit up a cigarette, but hunger was still sitting in the pit of my stomach, threatening to become nausea. The cigarette didn't help. Suddenly I despised myself. I despised everything about me: the way I looked in the reflection of the screen door window, where I lived, the fake little college-girl paradise I lived in, the way I hated everything and everyone I saw before I actually made my mind up, the way I hated Sarah for trying to better herself, the way I smoked and smoked even when I hated the taste.<br /> It was three in the morning and I had been here for a month. <br /> Through the screen door I could see Sarah falling asleep where she sat, her hair up in a towel, a half-burnt cigarette releasing tiny nail scratches of smoke through the air. Here face looked dried up, like her eyes were two punching points - all puffy and tender.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What Sarah Wrote:</span><br /> I'm having a hard time writing. When this happens I usually do exactly this: write about how hard of a time writing I am having. I suppose that I should clarify my initial statement a bit, both for the sake of honesty as well as my own personal therapy: I'm having a hard time writing my stories. <br />1. I'm having a hard time writing. <br />2. I'm having a hard time writing my stories. <br />3. I'm having a hard time writing my stories down.<br /> They grow too fast. They start simple and small and then they balloon out and connect with other stories and they're all up there, in my head... I just haven't the time or energy to get them out. That last part is what I tell myself. I've a sneaking suspicion that I've been copping out, so here I go. I'm going to try and write one down. Wish me luck.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Meatfields, Chapter One</span><br /> I first went to work in the Meatfields when I was 12. By some dumb luck I had been opted later than most kids, so I didn't have to do any of the separating like my younger brother. I still would've liked to be a sower, but you couldn't do that until you were 16. <br /> It was Charlie, a 5th Tier, who taught me how to do it:<br /> "Allright, lissen' up." He'd say, "There are two things to consider when removing a stalk from the ground- its bone and its vessel. If you crack it right", with a swift jerk he kicked the nearest stalk as an example "The bone'll disconnect itself clean, and the topmost section will suck itself into the stalk. This is the work of the tendons- it's designed to do this, people." He sounded like he was very pleased to be able to talk this way. "You will know that it is a clean break because you will feel it- don't worry, it will take some time and practice, but you'll get the hang of it."<br /> But that part was easy, the trick wasn't to snap the bone clean, it was to pinch the seed-artery off at the base the instant you snipped the stalk off- as he went on to explain: "If you don't, you are guaranteed to get a face full of Meatstalk juice."<br /> The "newbie fields" were easy to spot from the walls of the compound- jets of red sprayed up at regular intervals as the new Reaper's learned their task. We would return, the white of our work jumpers now a bright crimson, not much unlike the color of our cheeks as the older kids would holler and laugh.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-2787701116496994792008-01-27T14:53:00.000-08:002008-02-05T18:12:59.210-08:00The Meatfields: Chapter One: Vignette No. 1<span style="font-weight:bold;">Morning:</span><br /> The following morning I apologized for acting so rude, trying my hardest to be diplomatic.<br /> <br /> "So... what is it that you're writing?" I asked. A small stack of paper was set carefully on the table- obviously the product of last night's fervor- and each page was about half filled.<br /> <br /> "They're like snapshots- verbal or literary snapshots of the middle of the night, see? A conglomerate of quick 'images' from around town- from the night- that, when put together, form a greater picture." She sounded like she was reciting a well rehearsed sales pitch.<br /> <br /> I read through them over breakfast.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Vignette Number One</span><br /> It started out simple enough, though every time I hear her say that a bit of the shine wears off. <span style="font-weight:bold;">I'm starting to see the truth of the matter</span>: that everyone knew exactly what was going to happen, but were powerless to stop it. What else can you do? When a friend in need needs you, you.. you know, give it to him.<br /> <br /> Sitch: Jeremy needed a couch to sleep on: Jamie, Rachel and Jess had one. Of course Jeremy is all about Rachel and best friends with Jamie who is also all about Rachel. Rachel and Jamie used to date but broke up semester before last though they still live in the same house albeit separate rooms- a situation that works out surprisingly well, seeing as how 1) Jamie comes from money and would do anything to keep Rachel close to him including securing living space within the vicinity and 2) It was Jamie's cheating on Rachel that ended that whole affair and guaranteed that across the hall was as close as he was ever going to get to her ever again. What about Jess? What about Jess. Nobody knows. I mean, everyone knows her, but about such things Jess tells little. So. Back to Jeremy, the one who needs a couch. First of all, let me ask the question: who needs just a couch? If you need a couch to sleep on you are going to need a place to shower, to eat, to change, to have sex with your best friends ex-girlfriend, etc. But how could we not see this? <span style="font-weight:bold;"> There should be a new word for youth's idealism, something defined as halfway between hope and stupidity- but different. It is not realizing that it is a little bit of both but not all that jades us and makes us not young anymore.</span> It is this sad phenomenon that is the real tragedy when something as obvious as this occurs.<br /> <br /> I don't even have to explain the rest to you, as I'm sure you've connected the dots, but remember this: as simple as it started out, and as complicated as things eventually became, it's ending was even simpler.<br /> <br /> And how did it end? With a violent collision of flesh on flesh. Funny how it all comes full circle.<br /> <br /> It had been two days since Jeremy and Rachel had committed the act, and the following 24 hours had been about as awkward as one could imagine around the house. But on the evening of the third day, just as it seemed that they were going to get away with it, Jamie came home early from the bars, nostrils flaring, teary-eyed and ready to kick some ass. It was surreal, really. There were no traditional "words": Jamie just came marching in, flush faced and arms wide, straight through the front door and right towards Jeremy, who sat at the computer checking his email. It didn't take the shouts from Jamie's buddies hopping out of their cars outside trying to get him to stop to alert Jeremy or the girls- it was as impending as a firing squad. Watching from across the room it almost seemed as if Jeremy sighed- a sigh of relief- relief that the suspense was over, that we could move on, even if it meant to something slightly more difficult than two days of awkwardness.<br /> <br />And it was quick: Jamie lunged forward and swung, his leg raised a bit so that he sort of kicked him as he punched him. And he hit hard. It was obvious who the victor was to be. Jeremy had brought his hands up in front of his face as he stood to confront his assailant, but the force with which he had been hit knocked him senseless. And the pummeling ensued: Jamie just kept hitting and hitting him, both of them slipping over the papers and envelopes and various desk and table-top fodder that began to fall as they bumped into everything in the chaos. It wasn't as graceful as the movies: it was carnal and sick in a way, the way one dude was just trying to kill the other dude, and no one could really stop it. It seemed long but it was only a matter of seconds before Jamie's buddies caught up to him and managed to pull him off of Jeremy, who was half conscious and bleeding from his nose. Rachel of course was screaming and screaming, but the funny thing was, she didn't get down on her knees and cradle him and sob or anything and scream at Jamie- she looked as though she was way to freaked out by all the blood. She was just sitting there on the couch clutching the back of it like Jeremy's bloody unconscious body was going to animate and come at her like a zombie. <br /> <br /> The boys pulled Jamie off stage right and with a quick slam of a couple of doors and the revving of a few engines they were gone. Meanwhile Jess and I tended to Jeremy, who was just sort of rolling his head back and forth groaning.<br /> <br />No one really said anything, but that's when I noticed it, and I don't even really know what it was: I can't tell you what her face looked like or how I knew this but glancing up at Jess I could tell that she had told Jamie what had happened. It wasn't all satisfaction or villainy or what-have-you, like I said, I couldn't really tell how I knew, and I couldn't think clear enough to even wonder why she would do a thing like that. That's when she saw me looking at her funny. She glanced over at Rachel, who was on the phone with Jamie’s buddies, screaming at them (she would later get back together with Jamie), looked back at me and mouthed:<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"> "I told him."</span><br /> <br />Later I would wonder what was simpler: helping people, having sex with people, or hurting people.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-12692062886284989132008-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:002008-01-10T22:45:45.781-08:00Inner Images of the Creative MindTwo summers ago I sat down with Eric Simpson, mastermind behind the <a href="http://eric-james.livejournal.com/">Mantis Muse</a>, to conduct an interview for a now defunct project I was working on, which involved interviewing quite a few people. He was my first, my guinea pig, and subsequently my last. It was brave of him to let me do it, and I appreciate that. It wasn't until a couple of days later when I realized I hadn't asked him about his writing, which was the one thing I was hoping to get to. So I instant messaged him to complete the task, and again, he was gracious. What follows is the text to said instant message interview, which might be the first of its kind.<br /><br />Eric is a fantastic writer and a personal inspiration to me in that regard. He's penned countless stories, blogs and poems, as well as a compilation of short stories entitled "Destination", a memoir entitled "My Salvation: A Memoir in Fragments" and most recently a collection of poetry entitled "No More Personal Pronouns", all available at <a href="http://lulu.com">Lulu</a> dot com.<br /><br /><br /><br />WSJ- How long have you been writing?<br /><br />EJ- I've considered myself a writer since before I learned how to write. I started writing short stories in the second grade. We were given an assignment to write about our pets. I didn't have one, so I made one up -- an alien creature named Greensprings.<br /><br />WSJ- Wow! Greensprings! That's great. I'm wondering if 'fiction' has always carried the connotations of 'lying' in your mind's eye... Like Homer (Simpson) says: "I'm not lying, I'm writing fiction with my mouth."<br /><br />EJ- Not at all. I've never considered it lying at all, and have regarded writers who say they get paid to lie as being simpletons. On some level I've always seen fiction as a way of extending my own experience of the truth. Now I know it is the basis of compassion. When I put myself in your shoes, that is a fiction. I don't really become you in any way whatsoever. Yet, I can have empathy because of this capacity of imagination. A lie is something else entirely.<br /><br />WSJ- So real fiction is compassionate, not deceptive?<br /><br />EJ- Good fiction tells the truth about the nature of reality outside the sphere of one's own bubble of consciousness. It has the potential for compassion, but its real aim is to get at the truth. There are many levels to this. Bad fiction titillates or merely entertains, or tries to manipulate the truth, and in the process skews it (e.g. propaganda).<br /><br />WSJ- or "light verse"...<br /><br />EJ- or Ayn Rand.<br /><br />WSJ- When did you write "Destinations"? How old were you?<br /><br />EJ- Its "Destination" -- singular, dammit.<br /><br />WSJ- I was just testing you. Ahh yes, so it is.<br /><br />EJ- I wrote some of the earlier stories, like Chuck's Wife in 1993 when I guess I was 23. I wrote the later stories, like 'Destination' in 1998, when I was 29. Of course, there is no way to tell when I wrote each story, but that's the range.<br /><br />WSJ- Why are so many of the stories about Infidelity?<br /><br />EJ- The main reason for that is because it was a gimmick, in a way, to explore relationships between men and women, a tool used by the stuff I was reading at the time. I was reading a lot of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, John Updike, John Cheever -- and they all write a lot about infidelity. So I was basically doing what the writers I admired did.<br /><br />WSJ- It's been a few weeks since I've read your stories, but what has stuck with me the most are the images: in "Lovers" the two adolescents in a "lovers spat", in "Sinners" the scene of the dinner table, etc. In one I remember a crazed ex-lover hiding in the bushes across from a hotel. How important is "imagery" in your work?<br /><br /><br />EJ- I think it is important, especially in those stories. I don't think I consciously say, "I'm going to create this specific image in order to make a point", but as I write, as it plays out in my mind, the images sometimes take on meaning as the story progresses, or I allow them to become motifs that support a more general theme. The two adolescence, of course, become the violence of thwarted love, the dinner table a sort of anti-last supper...the guy in the bushes...well, he's just pathetic. The guy coming through the window in the last story, though, is the pale soul seeking the knowledge of love...inappropriately. So it's very damn important, dammit.<br /><br /><br />WSJ- Details. Especially in "Lovers", the fight scene. What the teens were wearing. Their posture. His moustache, her bra-lessness. Are these pregnant? Or passing? To me, it is the apathy of the surrounding crowd that causes this to be perhaps the most sticky image of the whole book. As in, it sticks in my head. "Confessions", "Lovers", and "Sinners" were the three I most recently revisited, so I'll probably return to them them most. Of the three, I think "Lovers" is my favorite.<br /><br />EJ- "Confession" -- singular! <smiley face deleted><br /><br />WSJ- My pinky finger gravitates towards the "s". Forgives me. <smiley face deleted><br /><br />EJ- The significance of the details or lack thereof depends, I think, on context. The physical descriptions of the kids who kill each other are to keep you reading, make it stark, paint the picture -- there's no intended meaning in her lack of a bra or his mustache. But the reaction of the surrounding crowd is of course significant. That's also a highly stylized story<br /><br />WSJ- And what do you mean by "stylized"?<br /><br />EJ-It's stylized like abstract art or certain kinds of film. People don't really talk that way, using dialogue as an example.<br /><br />WSJ- It moves a lot- from the scene in the mall to the apartment to the hotel to him walking and back. The subtleties of a crumbling relationship are very well done- if I can commit the fallacy of complementing the author during the interview. But what is it about? What outside of your "bubble of consciousness" is it getting at?<br /><br />EJ- It's outside my bubble of consciousness in the sense that I am communicating possible human responses to certain situations that other people can identify with, such as the wife being so sick of her husband's lack of care and confidence that she can barely stand to talk to him. Or the husband's repressed jealousy and mistrust, combined with his despairing desire to be loved. The story is about the despair of trying to love, but not knowing how, not knowing what love is, but continuing to act it out in repeatedly, the repetition of despair. It is true in that most humans have or suffer from that condition.<br /><br />WSJ- Do you like it? Do you think it's good? Do you think people "get it"?<br /><br />EJ- Yeah, it's all right. I like the beginning better than the end. I think people get it on whatever level they apprehend it. I've known many people who got it.<br /><br />WSJ- What about the book in general?<br /><br />EJ- Do I like the book in general? Do I think people get it? I think the book as a whole has some consistent themes. It's flawed. It's me learning how to write. I like it all right. I think I can do better.<br /><br />WSJ- Are you ? I mean, are you writing more these days? Do you have any goals? And what about thematically? How has your writing changed? <br /><br />EJ- I'm not writing more these days, but I didn't write much then either. Almost every story in the book was written in one sitting with the exception of the title story, Destination, and Confession was revised about a hundred times to try to get down to bare bones in terms of the spare use of words. I have goals to write novels. Thematically, I'd probably expand to other themes. I think that my writing is changing in that it is becoming more holistic, less rigidly jointed, not quite as..."sleazy". <br /><br />WSJ- I have to admit, my first impression was that the book was rather sordid, maybe even arbitrarily so, but on a second reading, I became much more enthusiastic about the stories. You mention who you are reading when you talk about what you are writing: who are you reading now?<br /><br />EJ- When I wrote that I had a huge thing going on in my head about the various ways people despair in the Kierkegaardian sense, and I was reading a lot of K. Some forms of success or identification are forms of despair, which is a lack of authentic identity. The real self is entombed. This I would contrast with anguish, which is becoming authentic through suffering. I think I know more about that now, so my themes change, have a fuller more embodied note, rather than the repetitious clanging of despair. But I am not writing as often as I should.<br /><br />WSJ- Is "Should" synonymous with "Want To"?<br /><br />EJ- No, I truly and sincerely believe that I have a divine calling to write, and that implies an obligation. I have been reading a lot of different kinds of things, more nonfiction than I used to...I also had a period of investigating genre writing, a lot of mysteries, some science fiction, and writing from other cultures.<br /><br />WSJ-How have you come to believe that you have a divine obligation to write?<br /><br />EJ- It is my occupation, although I am not paid for it. I have had the need and desire to write since my very earliest memories. It is an extension of prayer, my tilling and plowing to which I am called. I felt this especially develop as I was writing the title story, 'Destination'.<br /><br />WSJ- So your desire to write is tied up with your idea of who you are as an individual and of God? Of reality?<br /><br />EJ- I don't recall how I came to that realization. It is just obvious to me, just as someone who knows he is called to be a priest, or someone else knows he is called to something else. Unfortunately, the ethos of our culture is more concerned with making money than with authentic work, so there is no common understanding of what an occupation is. So it becomes absurd to say someone is called to shuffle papers for a corporation. No one feels that, except perhaps rarely someone will say, 'this is where God has me, so I will do it unto Him'. Being a writer is my occupation, not my deepest self.<br /><br />WSJ- So. Who are your top 5 writers?<br /><br />EJ- I'd say Dostoevsky, Iris Murdoch, John Gardner, Andre Dubus and Stephen King have all had the most influence on me.<br /><br />WSJ- And do I remember you saying that you were an avid ‘zinester in your younger years?<br /><br />EJ- I started writing "Simpson's Gazette" in elementary school, typing it up and distributing copies. In Junior High I produced “Inner Images of the Creative Mind”. In high school, I continued to do that, and I'd get a bunch of the high school kids to write and do art for it. The football team, believe it or not<br /><br />WSJ- Sweet. So why don't you do one now..?Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-24771518014565599752007-12-17T10:33:00.000-08:002007-12-17T10:39:14.561-08:00pushed to the seablack flower of terror <br />sprouting from the rubble<br />how deep are your roots? <br />how sharp are your thorns?<br /><br />how brittle the slender stalk- <br />bound soul around which bombs<br />are wrapped, with which <br />bodies become strewn?<br /><br />what seed bomb bore you <br />with what fell swoop?<br />what black spore fell <br />with such force <br />as to impregnate<br />the ground, the gentle mound <br />of rubble, pregnant with <br />tomorrow’s midnight bloom?<br /><br />when I awoke, the thin silver <br />halo of morning tapped the petal<br />dew fell like the last tears ever: <br />where are the people? <br />where now the advancing army? <br /><br />pushed to the sea<br /><br />they touch not now with a wall<br />but shore: one foamily lapping away <br />in repentance the charred remains <br />crying like silent rocks <br />scorched, barren, brittle <br /><br />fertile ground for my flower <br />to scratch her scaly petals <br />time lapses after the mind <br />but by then it is too lateJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-80912427843077733522007-11-14T21:17:00.000-08:002007-11-14T21:21:39.363-08:001.<br />praise God from the dirt up<br />my sweaty brow, tired shoulders<br /><br />praise God with open eyes<br />wide open eyes drying contacts<br /><br />taught brow, sagging shoulders<br />open eyes betraying the panic<br />of my unknowing, my anxiety<br /><br />praise God from the ground up<br />from the soles of my shoes<br />to the top of my scalp<br /><br />in my pockets, under my nails<br />on my dry lips praise God<br /><br />2.<br />praise the Lord<br />all you cars<br />your fleshy nouses<br />meditating on His law<br />the lines and lights<br />all your fleshy souls<br />participating <br />in the life of the road<br />in communion<br />with the concreteJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-58361000448764550352007-10-26T21:13:00.000-07:002007-10-26T21:19:35.919-07:00There are a lot of people here. They sort of skitter about, busy with life. Talking; plugged into cell phones or ipods. Little blue screens lighting their faces while they click with their thumbs.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-72118235188503766342007-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:002007-10-01T09:04:33.809-07:00three: a snapshot of my summer in the house of miracles<br /> <br />The summer following my first failed attempt at higher education, I found myself living alone in a large villa at 1005 Poyntz. A couple of my friends had gone in on it, but wouldn't return until classes started again in the fall. I myself would be returning to the dorms in the fall, but had no desire to return home for the summer, so decided to sub-let from them. The house was large and many-roomed and solitary. I lost myself in silence that summer.<br /> <br />At the top of the stairs stood a life-sized cardboard cutout of Clint Eastwood himself, clad in Spaghetti Western garb. His sole purpose was to scare the living daylights out of me every night as I returned home, ascending the darkened stairs to my room. He eventually moved to the closet.<br /> <br />One night, while showering, I head an immense crashing sound, as if someone had just burst through one of the second story windows. I jumped from the shower in true battle form: naked save the suds yelling "Hey! Hey! Hey!" as loud as possible.<br /> <br />Bursting into the bedroom adjacent to my own I found that the glass explosion had not come from a masked intruder, but from a ceiling fan that had worked itself loose and come crashing down upon a bedpost.<br /><br />I have a leather document folder that I keep the notebook that I write these stories in. It has one large compartment for notebooks, etc, and a smaller one for loose paper. Also included are four pen holders, which at the time of this writing are housing my silver pen, my purple pen, a highlighter and a red, white and blue pencil that my mother gave me on the fourth of July. There are also three mostly useless small pockets. It is black in color and has no real latch to speak of. Over the years it has stored a myriad of half-finished or just started stories, scraps of flowcharts and lists, etc. Where I have gone, it has gone.<br /> <br />During the summer of 1998 I spent untold hours writing poems and songs and stories in the old villa on Poyntz. In the kitchen that was upstairs I would sit and read my bible, and in the room across the way I set up my drumset. After work, after I had stopped to watch the ball games at the park, I would sit at the drumset and drum as fast as I could for as long as I could. In the drum room was a door to an outside deck that I would sometimes roll my recliner out onto, and my television and my V.C.R. as well, though I don't remember what movies I watched. Sometimes during the day, if I was lucky, I'd spy the neighbor girl in her back yard, safe behind her high hedgerow, sunbathing in her white bikini. Oftentimes she'd see me, smile and wave. I would do the same. <br /> <br />I have memories of jamming with different people- friends from back home up for a visit, new friends from the telemarketing firm that employed me. Of the latter I recall this fellow named Kelly, who wasn't very good but loved punk rock and was very nice. He was my boss at the time, had a shaved head and was covered in tattoos. I thought he was cool. I'm pretty sure we called our band "narc", practiced once, and played one show at a going away party in this tiny little town north of Manhattan in Kelly's garage. It was him and his wife's going-away party, and at it was this really obnoxious guy- the general manager's date- who got really drunk and only wanted to play Skynard songs. He was very offended by my home made NARC shirt. My room-mate later christened it the ghetto moo-moo for some reason: it was baby blue and sleeveless and in big iron-on letters said ANTI-ANTI on the back.<br /> <br />"Why do punks always have to be ANTI something?" He drawled, "Do you know Cat-Scratch Fever?"<br /> <br />That night I returned home with a couple of timeless door prizes in the form of two white elephant gifts: an old world war two army helmet covered in glitter, mirrors and silver sequins (Kelly's wife had been Jet Girl for Halloween), and a seven by three foot canvas painting of a giant Chinese conji that read "Zen" or something to that effect. I have no idea where the helmet is now, but the painting I suffered on many a room-mate over the years, and eventually my wife. It found a home in the dumpster outside our first apartment before the end of our first summer.<br /> <br />I sat and mourned its passing from my window until some listless punk, passing in the alley, snatched it out of the dumpster and trudged away with it under arm.<br /> <br />"Fly away- you're free!" I whispered.<br /> <br />Back at the Miracle House, all alone with Clint Eastwood in the closet, there was a visitor. his memory isn't as clear as the others, but it is there. He was young and I don't remember how we met, but I do know that he wanted to be 'alternative' and he liked Green Day and looked up to me for some reason. I'm pretty sure he had a yin-yang necklace, and I'm very sure that I would wake up in the morning on a regular basis to find him crashed on my sofa on the porch I think his folks were meth heads so he didn't much care for going home which was unfortunate, as he was usually in dire need of a shower. But then again, so was I. <br /> <br />He accompanied me to the tattoo parlor when I had my lip pierced. I think he was the only person I knew who thought it was cooler than I did. But mostly he'd just hang out and listen to music while I did whatever. He was good at that which is a virtue. He was a good little buddy. <br /> <br />I don't remember his name. I think it was Derrick or Darren or something to that effect. <br /> <br />It was he who gave me my black leather notebook case, and it is to him that I dedicate this story. All of this is kept in his gift to me, so in a way, I remember him best of all.Joshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411051327487493345.post-72064965203126778862007-09-26T21:41:00.002-07:002007-09-26T22:03:19.532-07:00A.<br />where are the ash-gray fields<br />of 1,000 suns landing?<br />where are the burnt joshua trees?<br />cracking, swaying, blackening unbending<br />in the unholy wind of science<br />where are you burnt, joshua?<br /><br />you can't see the tongue in my cheek<br />through the charredness of my corpse<br />pink tongue in a flaked black hole<br />lolling in silent or forgotten laughter and homilies<br />white eyes rolling on the black field of my face<br />watching you think I'm something I'm not<br /><br />the high gold sun is cool in a blue sky<br />next to the black and white crater<br />of glass sand; burning pit of my center<br />where are you, burnt joshua?<br /><br />B.<br />oh Palestine<br />olive grove of my heart<br />imposed upon by <br />encroaching colonizers <br />saturating your borders<br />and hill tops, tapping into,<br />pissing into the water<br />the humble low point<br /><br />that the whole world were blind<br />let me stand, let me die<br /><br />oh fields of buffalo<br />blotting out the grass and sun<br />oh moving mountains of white<br />mountains of white skulls<br />bleached by a cold sun<br />mourned by the whistling blades of grass<br /><br />that the whole world were a blind eye<br />let me stand, let me die<br /><br />C.<br />I am a dumb thing, juvenile<br />a pretender (though for no lack of trying)<br />I do not think it can be helped<br />people are giants - bright giants!<br />phenomenal miracle machines<br />exquisite even in their mistakes<br />these people, some people, make me feel small<br />by their beauty, their dynamism<br /><br />some people make me think I'm something<br />but this is the ignorance of arrogance<br />a puffed-chested ant beneath the tread<br />of a man, attributing the luck of size<br />and a rubber channel to my own power<br />really they're all bright giants - look<br />at their faces. I'll tell you I'm nothing<br />but an ant, but even ants are something<br />though not much. let me twitter on the<br />sidewalk, blot out my suns bright giants<br />give me day and night, fill me with<br />thunderous talk, planets of laughter<br />floods of tears and the rest<br /><br />Broadcasting live from The Underground: may God be with you all.<br />JSJoshua Seraphim Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06785677298792043898noreply@blogger.com0