Beware the Ramblesnatch

Ahoy! (did you know that Alexander Graham Bell originally wanted us to say that instead of "hello" when answering the telephone?....Now you do).

Yeah, I haven't bloggered in a while, so you might want to take a gander and only read the headings that look interesting, that way you won't have to read too much of the logorrhoea babble snapping from the Ramblesnatch's mouth much in the same way Error gives birth to and eats her children.

Publishing News
Not a whole lot going on right here except for a trickling stream of dismissals...but hey, at least GlimmerTrain and Playboy took the time to send me a letter. I like getting mail, even if it's a "sorry, this isn't what we're looking for" type letter. I did however send five stories seventeen ways on Friday of last week, so my fingers are crossed that something will stick somewhere.

Residency Prep
Can't wait. I like Dave Harrity's countdown in his post. Since today's the first, it's down to 24 days, and once those worksheets come ramblin' in, those days will dissipate like a fart in a windstorm.
Speaking of the residency and all it's glory, I'm going to be driving down this time, and by that I mean to say that my beautiful wife and forever companion and really good friend, Sue (the Queen of all Foxes) will be accompanying me for this residency. We're both very excited, and we're planning on rolling into Dodge a day early so I can show her the sights and sounds of 4th street (or should I say Fourth Street [since none of you ever seem to abbreviate...{long winded southerners}]). So yes, Sue will be coming down for fun entertainment, and now that the sick days of the 1st trimester are over, she'll be up for plenty of eating and merriment in general.

How Goes the Pregnancy?
Glad you asked. Sue's doing wonderfully, and she's been very glowy and happy. We're both glad that the days of all day morning sickness are over, and now I'm spending more effort reminding her to take it easy than anything else. She's been painting a beautiful fairytale forest mural in the baby's room (I'll post pictures after we get all the crap out of the baby's room), and also lots of general cleaning and nesting. We're planning to raise somewhere around $50,000 next weekend when we have our yard sale, so that'll give us some very nice bling for our trip down South.
We still don't know if it's going to be a boy or girl, but we're going to find out on May 9, for sure. I'll be sure to post results and more pictures if we have them. Again, I'm pretty sure we'll be holding a contest for the-most-creative-names-for-our-baby-that-we-won't-use at residency. So have a list ready.

Music and Books
Since we're in our between-semester-time-off, I've had a chance to 1. spoil myself and buy seven cds and 2. Read some non-required reading. I want to talk about that for a bit:

1. Scarling - "So Long, Scarecrow" - Scarling, a band made up of Jessika (the former singer of Jack off Jill) and some other talented people, has been a favorite of mine for about as long as I've been on Pandora. The entire album has a very consistent wall-of-sound/noise-with incredibly-melodic-vocals feel to it. Lots of distortion and girly-goth angst.
2. theSTART "Initiation" and "Death via Satellite" - theSTART has a very edgy rocky punk sound with a great female vocalist
3. Hungry Lucy - "To Kill a King" - A while back, I fell in love with the song "Alfred" from her CD "Apparitions," but aside from that song, I wasn't keen on the whole album. However, Sue really likes Hungry Lucy, so I went ahead and picked up "To Kill a King," and it's an incredibly consistent downtempo-sort-of-ethereal-goth-darkwave-thing (with the exception to the three or four remix songs [which I could probably do without]). I'm just finishing my first listen through right now, and I'm very happy with this CD.
4. Nine Inch Nails - "Year Zero" - While I might not be an "original" NIN fan (I jumped on the bandwagon with the "Closer" album), I've been enjoying Trent's music for a long time, and aside from two tracks on "With Teeth," I was sort of let down by the last album. "Year Zero" seems to make up for that letdown of the last album. It feels like a sort of going-back-to-the-roots-of-industrial-rock cd with lots of sampling and vamping and heavy fat beats. At times, while rolling in my Honda, I feel a little bit like I'm in a ricer with all the Bass in this album, but it sounds Very much like a NIN album, but it doesn't sound rehashed or boring to me either. I'm very happy. On a side note, listening to it today, I began to wonder if Trent tries to Sing like David Bowie, or if he just sounds like that nowadays...either way, I can hear a little bit of Bowie in his vocals this time.
5. Android Lust - "The Division" - Android Lust is described somewhere as a sort of Female version of NIN. The girl was born in Bangladesh and like NIN, she's the primary musical vision for the group. The music is very synthetic/industrial with samples of moaning and screaming at time. Visceral, angry, female vocalist, awesome.
6. Kelli Ali - "Psychic Cat" - Kelli Ali was the original lead singer for one of my favorite bands, The Sneaker Pimps. She wasn't an original member of the band, and eventually, the band kind of wrote her out of the band. However, fortunately for me, Kelli continued making music. "Psychic Cat" sounds similar to the Sneaker Pimps' debut album "Finding X" and I'm particularly a fan of her song "Speakers."
7. Joey Goebel The Anomalies - Ok. I'm done with music. I want to talk about this book. I'm sure all of you know Joey. If you haven't read any of his books yet. Do it. Stop reading this post. Stop looking at Pr0n on the intarnets. Get out of your house. Buy his books. Make him a famous man. Because he's a fucking genius. I read this book aloud to Sue as a sort of nightly bedtime story thing, and the book was entertaining as hell, yet deep. Real, yet funny. Depressing, true, and solid. When reading it, I couldn't help but project Weseley Willis' speaking mannerisms to Luster Johnson's dialogue, and goddamn if Joey didn't intend it, then well Weseley's ghost must have been flowing through him when he was writing. In some parts, Sue and I laughed until we nearly cried. Indeed it was a Harmony Joybus ride. And immediately after finishing it, I grabbed his 2nd book Torture the Artist and put it over at the bedstand. We started it last night, and it's shaping up to be just as wonderful.
8. McSweeney's Quarterly Review #23 - I'm not finished with it yet, but there's a story in it by Wells Tower. He's phenomenal. If you happen to get a chance, read "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned." It appeared in the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories Edited by Ben Marcus. Wells has a way with really drawing you into the characters and doing things in weird shit situations. Sue actually hated the Wells Tower story in this particular issue of McSweeney's, but It reminded me a lot of my dad's camp and some of the folks that live up there all the time.
9. Steven Millhauser The Knife Thrower and other Stories - John Seay, a former Spalding student, turned Law student friend of mine recommended this to me. The whole thing is a bunch of Magical Realism type bits, and there are a couple of real gems in there. This is the first collection of stories I've read that relies so heavily on Magical Realism, and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way in that I felt overloaded with the "suspend reality for this one, ok?" motif. They were all well crafted, and Millhauser is excellent at using a 1st person plural narrative, but all smashed together, it kinda felt like a little too much too fast.

What I've been writing
Not an Autobiography has been moving along pretty smoothly considering the slowness of semester 2's beginning. I'm up to seven stories, and I have two very strongly identifiable selves, the beginning of a 1st person self, and secret plans of somehow trying to unite Johnny and Clare's paths. The last couple stories I've written focus heavily upon the nature of the Gloaming, aka, the deplorable condition of my locale of employment. I spent most of the last three months actively trying to find another job without much luck. So for the moment, I've given up and turned to spewing my aggression into fiction, and it's helped.

And thus the Ramblesnatch eats itself, ending the post.

Good News on Short Notice

So today at work (my 8th day in a row of a 10 day stretch), I saw an email congratulating me on taking 2nd place in Fiction for the Kentuckiana Metroversity Writing Contest for my story "Runaway." And it was kind of one of those slo-mo moments because, well, my computer was really slow at the moment and the Gmail notification bit creeped on screen with the power of a sloth on Luudes, but anyway, it was some very good news considering that every day I spend at work is nothing but another pile of bad news. And if you can't tell that I'm rather sleep deprived, well I must be hiding it well, but in any case, I shook my fists mightily in the air and gave a single hoot and hollar in celebration before going back to the grindstone of getting ground down by THE MAN.

The only bad thing is the folks at the contest want me to come down and do a reading on April 15...kinda short notice, and there's probably a good chance I won't even have the day off, so I'm guessing that there's no way for any intervention there, but none the less, maybe "Runaway" will get her five minutes of fame during a reading at residency....

I miss all y'all Spalding folks, and can't wait to commiserate in a month and a half.

And if you're interested, here's a brief bit about "Runaway:" The story is told as a triptych and follows the life of Clare (another self, somewhere). Clare lives a life of self inflicted isolation, and when her past comes up to bite her in the ass (her father, that she hasn't spoken to in 12 years up and dies), she falls apart and goes into downward spiral of misery and regret. The whole thing is paced by Foreground/Background scenes that more or less reveal Clare's life and (somewhat poor) decisions.

*Edit: Here's what the Judge had to say about the story: "'Runaway' succeeds by blending its fractured narrative with fractured formal structures. While the visual imagery flashes all over the periphery and the reader's eyes must at times dance across the page, the narrative is strengthened rather than obscured by these well-considered features of the story's construction."

Another Big thing

So over the last few weeks, the whole of my existence has been changing rapidly--rearranging itself in a lot of ways. In six months, I'll be a dad. Seven months ago, I became a homeowner. We have a car payment, and bills and live in a dense suburbia type area. We have a Wii and Cable Tv (well the Discovery channel at least), and a rowing machine and some karate mats down in the basement. All these changes have really gotten me to thinking about myself and my future and my role in this big ole game called life that Milton Bradley copyrighted before I was born.

So all this thinking has really kept me up later at nights and generally opened my eyes, if you will, to the world around me. I've come to realize that I'm pushing myself way too hard. All this reading books and trying to write stories with some vain vague notion that I'll somehow make a difference. Really it's silly. And selfish.

So I've decided that I'm going to give up on writing completely. And reading for that matter. I'm also going to give up on this blog, because it too involves writing. Instead, I'm going to do like everyone else in America: Vote the Republican Ticket, let New Conservatism take over and rule the country hand in hand with the religious right. I'm going to start nodding my head to everything they say on Fox news, and I'm going to definitely start going to church. Not that I'll believe in any specific religion anymore than I already do, but because that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm going to get a keen interest in football and yell at the tv when my shitty team doesn't win. I'll call the players fuckups and cowards and bitch about how much money they get paid for being as such. In short, I'm going to take up the American Dream and live it baby. Live it large.

No more obscure music, movies, art, anything. It's going to be MTV, FoxNews, and Motherfuckin Will Farrel movies every goddamn day.

My kids will likewise play team sports and eat McDonalds cheesburgers until at age 10 they're 195 pounds and then we'll all go on Biggest Loser together, because a family that eats together can starve together too.

Oh and while I'm at it, I'll buy myself a Mustang on credit, and start cheating on my wife with some gap-toothed chick from work. Because infidelity and wanton materialism is also part of the American Dream.

I'm going to have it all..........

On second thought, nevermind. Happy 4/1

The Big News

As I previously stated, something Big was supposed to have happened yesterday. Well, Bureaucracy and general all around gloamish behavior forced yesterday's big news to be suspended to today. And though such suspension put me thoroughly on edge, the relief received and the excitement injected once the Big something occurred truly put me on one of those cloud nine type places that we as people wake up to live for everyday. But,

I preamble for too long. In fact, I've kept all of this under wraps for too long. So instead of giving you a thousand words, I'll give you a picture:



And so in 29 weeks or so, I'll be a full fledged dad, and we'll have an even littler fox scampering about the house. Right now she looks like a little kidney bean, and is only about 11 cm long, but, man, on the sono, she was flipping out better than any ninja that NinjaBurger ever hired.

We were really hoping for twins, since it runs in Sue's family, but one healthy kid is just as good as far as I'm concerned.

And furthermore, I expect all of my Spalding friends to bestow upon Sue and I an ecumenical bounty of suitable names that we won't use; just like we all did for Matt.

So there you go. That's the big news.

A Big Day

Wednesday of this week will be a big day for Sue and I. Stay Tuned!

Harbor Creek High School Chaucer'd!!

Ok, so Chaucer'd!! doesn't work at all as well as Punk'd!!, and I'm in no way looking anything like Ashton Kutcher, nor am I married to a woman nearly twice my age (nor would I want to be (Sorry Demi)), but today my old High School got Chaucer'd!! and I did the Chaucering. And,
It was a rock n' roll harmony bus ride.

I read three sections from the Canturbury Tales to three different classes of Hutch's 12th Grade English students; I partook in the wonders of school lunch food; I commisserated with my old teacher friends; I had a rock n' roll good time (I said that already though).

As for the Chaucer, I don't think anyone was really prepared for the madness of 10 minutes worth of middle english, but as far as HS! kids go, it was received really well. I read The Pardoner's Prologue, pieces of the General Prologue, and a good chunk of the Pardoner's tale, and afterwards kids in all three classes I read to came up to say how cool it was to hear me speaking in Middle English (which to them sounde like Irish). Also, I came to the very astute realization that, I really like standing up before people and captivating them in literature. Any doubts I may have ever had towards a future in teaching are now pretty thoroughly quashed. (So now all I need to do is graduate, publish a ton of stuff and hope that someone's hiring in about a year and a half).

A bit about the food:

1. Since I graduated, they installed "The FAST Lane" in the caf. No one uses the fast lane, because you needs the funny monies that no one has. I lost my place in the regular line (that stretched for MILES) because I mistakenly tried to jump into THE FAST LANE.
   
2. I got free food...Not that I was trying to cheap-o the HS, but I guess my visitor status meant that I got to eat on someone else's bill. This is a good thing because,
   
3. it was hamburger day and the hamburger looked more like a piece of country fried something. But it was neither fried nor country nor any identifiable form of something. I used a lot of mustard on that bad boy. But on the plus side, there were Tots. No I did not put them in my cargo pocket for later (though I was sorely tempted)
   
4. They had more choices than just milk. This made me incredibly happy; I enjoyed the hell out of my Welches Grape Juice.
   

Old Commisserating
I was an art nerd in HS, and all of my English projects back then had a visual collaborative piece to them, much to the delight of both Hutch and Humes. And so I paid homage to the old art room (now remodeled) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the drawling of Frank Zappa attacking dragons on a ship still hung on Humes' wall (my gift to him on graduating), and that he kept my old Drawling table that I had for my very own through 11th and 12th grade (now the matte cutting table).

Hutch also told me that she still had the Romantic Era painting that I did after that Wordsworth poem about the Reaper. Yeah, I was like a pig in shit today. Everything was shiny and happy with all the good memories of HS and getting to impart some oddity upon the new blood.

Hopefully I can keep such a gig up year over year, because good lord, any excuse to read some Chaucer is a valid and much warranted excuse in my book. So pick up your Canturbury Tales and sing along with me as we wend our way on a jolly pilgrimage chock full of odd ball ruffians and gap-toothed women.

Escape [temporary] from WageSlavery

Yesterday I took a vacation day originally to go to my High School to read some Chaucer, but it got cancelled last minute due to some assembly or what not. And Chaucer reading was rescheduled for this coming Wednesday.

So instead of not taking a vacation day and slugging forth eight miserable hours in the temple of the gloaming, I stayed home anyway. This worked out superbly for me, as I received my 2nd packet comments yesterday and had all day to work, absorb, think, and send out a whole bunch of stuff for potential publication.

If I listened to Rap music ever, I might have said that Ice Cube's "Today is a Good Day" applied for yesterday. In reality, I may have mumbled, "Heute ist ein gutes Tag." or "Kyo wa ii desu yo." But really, no, I didn't do that, I did a lot of printing and E-submitting and coverletter writing, and a little bit of revising.

I sent out the following stories:
"Substrate" -- A story about M.D. Stein, a lonely man in a lonely and rotting apartment that receives [and obsesses over] a strange postcard proclaiming proudly in Sharpie: "HELLO FROM TULSA!"

"Alone at the Top" -- A story about twins, and death of the [other] self--it doesn't really work out how they planned it.

"Downtime" -- A story about Edgar and his mindtrip through all the [im]possibilities of his life that spreads out like the flat Nebraskan tundra before him.

Oh and also, for other folks interested in submitting things these days, Playboy has a very Rock n' Roll cash prize contest going on right now: http://www.playboy.com/magazine/fiction.html
I figured it'd be worth a shot.

So now for me, It's the waiting until I start hearing back from those stories, and the other ones that I'm currently working on are ship-shaped up enough to be heave-hoed out to the smarmiest buyer.

That's the news as I see it. Until next time...