Nikitas and The Long Division

Over the weekend, the ball and chain and I went to see the Queens production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a fantastic show. So I'm thinking about Shakespeare. And thinking about as I grow older--now that I'm married I feel older already--I find myself liking Shakespeare. That seems insipid having written it, but before I'd have said, "Of course, I like Shakespeare" because...I mean, you have to like Shakespeare. But what I'm saying now is that I actually like Shakespeare.

Which brings me to my friend Derek Nikitas, whose novel The Long Division has recently been released to rave reviews. Including this one where he's compared to...that's right, Shakespeare!

Me in NewPages

So there's a review of the Spring 2008 issue of roger: an art and literary magazine in NewPages. The reviewer Terri Denton says of my story "The Villain" that "its subtle humor ... brilliantly leaves you feeling just a bit uneasy." I love leaving people uneasy.

More importantly, of the whole issue she writes, "I smiled through every page, and was truly sad when I was done, though I know that I will go back to it again and again, and it will be as old novels, dog-eared pages indicating that it has been loved." I can't agree more. If you haven't already, check out roger.

Readings Not Included in the Wedding

So I got married to the lovely and talented Heather. And people probably thought we'd write our own vows being writerly types--no way, too much pressure, so we went traditional. But we did have ideas about readings. We ultimately decided against them for many reasons. Here are a couple I was advocating for:

From Jack Pendarvis's Awesome, one of the characters says: A few years later I said to Glorious Jones [his wife], Remember when I rubbed pumpkin pie filling all over my face and nobody laughed? And she said yes. I don't know, I think that really sums up marriage.

Also wanted to use the poem "Marriage" by Gregory Corso. You can read the whole thing here. But here's an excerpt:

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends

and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded

just wait to get at the drinks and food -

And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated

asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?

And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!

I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back

She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!

And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on -

Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes

Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!

All streaming into cozy hotels

All going to do the same thing tonight

The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen

The lobby zombies they knowing what

The whistling elevator man he knowing

Everybody knowing! I'd almost be inclined not to do anything!

Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!

Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!

Why we didn't end up using them, I'll never know.

(pictured me and the missus honeymooning on the beach)

Me on Flash Fiction Online

So my story "Death Babies" is in the October issue of Flash Fiction Online. It's not what you think--no babies die...well, okay, one dies, but that is beside the point. The issue also includes great Halloween appropriate stories from Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Damon Shaw. And I'm overjoyed that the issue includes an essay from Poe and a story from Lovecraft.

Imaginary Movie

So I was talking to my friend Derek when naturally The Great Space Coaster came up. But he, like so many others, didn’t remember a short cartoon where a husband (son?) pretends to be inanimate objects until he disappears into the clutter of the house. It freaked my young mind, but maybe I imagined this existential parable.

Which reminded me, I saw this movie when I was young…how young, I can’t say…school-age…I’ve never left school, but younger than I am now.

I saw this movie…or maybe I imagined it. A ship got lost in the Bermuda Triangle…it had to be the Triangle…and wound up on a calm sea covered entirely by these vines so thick you could walk from one trapped ship to another using snow shoes…which they oddly enough had or maybe they just made some out of tennis rackets, which oddly they had. Below the vines, under the water was some kind of sea monster that would occasionally eat someone. I believe the bad guy had a trapdoor to the sea monster on his ship for people that displeased him.

But it’s the image of all these ships caught in vines on a still sea that I love…that still stops me sometimes. An image good enough to be in Moby Dick. Maybe it was a movie adaptation of Moby Dick.

In the age of Google all things should be at hand, but I can’t think of enough to even being a search—other than Bermuda Triangle which I tried and didn’t seem to do the trick.

If I didn’t make up this film, I should probably never see it at any rate. Keep reality from killing the dream.

Chillax Badass

What do people think about the term “badass”? Still cool, right? Let’s forgo discussing the relative coolness of using the word “cool.” But badass still has some cache, even with the loss of the sting of taboo connected to “ass,” which barely registers as a curse anymore. Much more cache anyway than the stillborn "chillax." Can anyone really use this word and not sound like an Arnold Friend-esque poseur or a poor deluded child?

(pictured two badasses chillaxing)

Trademark This

So I'm writing response letters to some creative nonfiction essays, and I notice one of the students keeps capitalizing laundromat. So my marginalia cries, "Why? What's so proper about this laundromat?" Then I go to type up my comments and every time I type laundromat Word forces the capital Laundromat. Seriously? I do a little reading and it turns out it's just one corporation protecting another.

My love of Word is no secret. Here's another autocratic slip that shows the foulness of the MS soul. Too much? The point is that just on practical terms forcing the capital is a mistake because it makes the reader stop because the registered trademark is for a washing machine, not, as everyone understands, the place one goes to use a washing machine.

But more importantly, when words become part of the language, they belong to the people, not a corporation. Get over it kleenex.

Copyright

© 2009

S. Craig Renfroe, Jr.