tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25890703200812669672024-03-07T20:06:24.970-08:00CORK ANIMALEditorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-86719877131967835162008-01-26T23:00:00.001-08:002008-01-29T21:31:17.322-08:00<div style="text-align: center;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >"...It hits you like a thousand feathers."</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;">by B. Foote</span><br /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:180%;">T</span>he first smell is your grandfather’s garden.</span> It is heavy and green. The corn smells like wet paper and the shed like grease and pesticide. You spend whole summers camped in the corn rows, making trips to the shed periodically for old bolts, wire, and garden spades to make secret landmines for epic wars with enemies hiding under the shadows of the corn stalks. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Later there are the smells of carpet and Lysol. Your mother’s house is always clean on Sundays and everything smells bitter from telling friends you can’t come out today, there is work to be done. But through the bitter is your mother’s perfume. It is radiant and forgiving. Woman. It smells like department stores and her bedroom. It is scraped elbows and broken toes and good grades and dinners with just the two of you on the couch watching Westerns. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">More years and now you have new smells. Adina’s hair in the autumn. The smell of your father’s truck as it rolls into the driveway and cools off from the long trip home. It smells of fuel. Carbon. It smells like a father. And father smells like the military. Kwik boot polish and military cotton. Airplane fuel, and missiles, other scents that can not be located because you have never smelled the work of men who load bombs, and you were not there when these men guided planes down from the sky, soaking themselves in jet fumes that flood the flight line. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And one day you have a precious smell. The smell of another boy’s mouth, and neck, and navel. And these smells are also heavy and green. And you are in another kind of cornfield, with cool shade and earth; his standing over you, skin wet with adolescent ache and hunger. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So now you know where are. Another year or so has passed and all the smells you need have been taken in through the avenues of your nose and mouth and stored inside your chest and head for catalog and keeping. You will only have variations of these smells that you have collected. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Until it hits you like a thousand feathers. You are in some small store where you shouldn’t be, looking at things you shouldn’t look at. It is a new smell that you have not known. You look around the shop for where it is, and you want to take it and run away with it so that you won’t forever associate the smell with plastic door curtains and posters of pot leaves. It smells like exotic rich gold and emerald. You are young and will never know a smell like this again. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You buy three boxes of it. Inside the blue and white package is wax paper stamped in Hindi. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">India. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You should have known that was what India smelled like. It smells like youth and tomorrow and different. Not begging children and bogus yogis charging American Express for bankrupt dharma bullshit. It is the India of strange elephant headed, multi-limbed, pink, crimson and baby, baby blue gods pumping peace and better memories into the air. You are concerned about the little yellow stick that barely holds the wet of the damp grainy resin up. The very smell of it seems to bend the poor thing into an obscene curve. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You will spend an entire year burning this smell in your room and car, and it will permeate everything you own. And you will have peace. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It is ten years now and you are in a metropolis with too much to smell. You smell the panic of people around you, you smell the postman delivering upset letters from the State of New York. You smell another pitiful cup of noodles and greasy bread. You smell more boys and for a while you smell a lot of powders. You decide it is better not to smell at all. Now you breathe cigarette smoke out of your nose, rejecting scent, pushing it out away from you to keep other smells at bay. You only want to smell yourself. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Until one day you are walking down across 21st Street and you smell India again. Briefly you are in pink and orange rags with garish head markings and corn stalks, car parts, sex, summer, fighter jets, fathers, grandmother, and hot strips of asphalt in your myriad hands and you turn to tell a friend, </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">“Heaven smells like Nag Champa.”<br /><br /></span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-90487303576399489982008-01-26T22:00:00.000-08:002008-01-27T10:53:47.872-08:00<center><div style="text-align: left; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/sin.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>LANGUOR</b></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-style: italic;">"An opiate torpor, soporific, trancelike, and sublimely languid. A poet’s morphine dream, a listless journey into a gentle dream and the precipice of intoxicated madness. Paperwhite and black narcissus, three lilies, black poppy and tuberose and a hint of hypnotic opium den haze."</span></a></div><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2200322779/" title="Rock-Tenn Plant Smoke Column by The Joy Of The Mundane, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2260/2200322779_600f04c0fc.jpg" alt="Rock-Tenn Plant Smoke Column" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Ian Talty, 2008<br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/sin.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>CATHEDRAL</b></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Venerable and solemn: the scent of incense smoke wafting through an ancient church. A true ecclesiatical blend of pure resins."</span></a><br /><br /><br /></div></div></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-35372703760206049712008-01-26T21:00:00.000-08:002008-01-29T21:31:29.512-08:00<center><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >"...A poorer, sadder version of myself."</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >by M. Maiden</span></center><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:180%;">S</span>ome of my strongest memories</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">from my youth</span> have to do with that brief time I attended school at St. Albert’s in South Milwaukee. I was only there through first grade, which is long enough to know that what they called a playground was a fallacy (it was actually the parking lot they used for church on Sundays) and that I never had a nun for a teacher (but the principal was a nun, and she would refill your Elmer’s Glue bottle for a quarter).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Before I was pulled from this bastion of academia, I knew a girl named Leslie Stakowski. Leslie was like a poorer, sadder version of myself. Whereas my mom just made me wear enormously thick glasses to correct my lazy eye, Leslie had to wear the glasses AND the patch to correct hers. Whereas my school uniform was definitely used, hers was threadbare. Her last name was alphabetically similar to mine, so we often had to stand next to each other: lunch line, on the way to gym, assemblies, Halloween costume parade (I was a die, as in “too poor for the pair of dice”, she was a ghost or something equally pitiful). Despite these similarities, I don’t remember getting to know her much. Rising above my economic disadvantages, I still hung out with the girls whom had twirly earrings and fancy scrunchies, and Leslie was not a fancy scrunchie girl.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">However, because of our Christmas pageant, Leslie will forever remain in my memory. Our pageants were nothing more than all of the parents crammed into the same cafeteria that we had our pancake dinners in and singing Christmas songs, grade by grade. I believe I wore a velvet dress, white tights and black shoes (no plaid jumpers for us!) and, of course, I was standing next to the similarly last-named Leslie.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> As we filed in, I could smell the unmistakable aroma of French’s Yellow Mustard.<br /><br />I was not a mustard eater by any means. I have always had an extreme love of hot dogs; despite never being quite sure which part of the animal they come from, I can eat hot dogs any time, any place. One of my first memories is of cruising around my grandmother’s kitchen in my Walk’n’Go with a chopped up hot dog on the tray in front of me. However, I never ate them with mustard, since I was—and will forever be—known as a ketchup girl. But I knew that yellow smell, and that day it was pungent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">As we filed in and stood on the carpeted risers, the smell grew stronger. Our music started, probably "The Little Drummer Boy", and I looked around to see when to start singing, and I caught a glimpse of Leslie: brown corduroy jumper, coke bottle glasses (no patch tonight, her parents took mercy on her) and there, caked around the corners of her mouth, was yellow mustard. Not just a bit, but enough to look like she’d eaten three hot dogs right before walking on stage, without access to a napkin or wet-nap. And I just stared. And inhaled. And wanted to die.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">My mother retains sole ownership of the video from this particular concert and you can clearly see me staring at Leslie in disbelief; me, barely singing, her belting out the lyrics and loudly clearing her throat (no doubt it was probably so caked in mustard she was having trouble breathing). As an adult, I can finally eat and enjoy honey mustard (it <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>the new ranch), but the smell of French’s Yellow Mustard will always make me want to retch.<br /><br /><br /></span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-88110440231896514372008-01-26T20:00:00.000-08:002008-01-27T10:58:22.816-08:00<center><div style="text-align: left;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/lp.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>HUNGER</b></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">"Evokes sheer, unadulterated carnal lust. An undeniably warm and sensual scent. Black narcissus, orange blossoms, and vanilla."</span></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2198825396/" title="Dumped Snow Couch"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2328/2198825396_e45e2d46e3.jpg" alt="Dumped Snow Couch" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >Ian Talty, 2008<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/lp.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>DEEP IN EARTH</b></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> "Deep in earth my love is lying</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> And I must weep alone.</span><br /><i style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><br />Rose geranium, Spanish moss, Irish yew, and graveyard dirt."</i></a><br /><br /><br /></div></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-57825264673439721942008-01-26T19:30:00.000-08:002008-02-03T13:57:16.836-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">"I felt dirty in a whole new way." </span></span><br /></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >by Jenn Kelly</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:180%;">W</span>e have all known since we were very young </span>that the sense of smell is not to be trusted. Don’t pretend you weren’t one of those little kids who took a swig out of the vanilla bottle even though you were warned that, contrary to its intoxicating aroma, it tasted like ass. Yet we’re taught to not only trust but rely on this sense. People use it to make sure that the milk hasn’t gone bad, that the fruit is ripe, and to lead them to the Froot Loops. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Like most things in life, scent’s trickery comes with rougher consequences as we get older. It’s not just a bitter taste anymore. It could be a scrumptious cologne on a not-so-cute boy eliciting the olfactory equivalent of beer goggles. Or, as I recently learned firsthand, it could actually be someone else’s sense of smell that triggers the regret. The problem is that smell lingers, and it will shamelessly rat you out. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">On a Saturday night, I found myself having a great conversation with an awesome boy. He was funny, successful, not a jackass, and met the crucial older and taller criteria. He was great company but when I couldn’t get him to stop trying to make out at the bar, my self-conscious instincts got the better of me. Like a fight-or-flight response where all other thought processes take a back seat until stress levels return to normal, eliminating the potential to become part of the gross couple that needs to get a room became the only thing that mattered. In a flash of impeccable judgment, I suggested we leave. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">On the Upper West Side in his one bedroom apartment, he started giving me these eyes like a sexy face gone horribly wrong and I finally caught on that being seen wasn’t the biggest problem here. Oops. Unfortunately, in my dense misinterpretation of the situation, I had left myself defenseless - it was too late to bring up an early morning commitment and I was clearly too lucid for him to believe I could actually pass out. I had no choice but to adopt the cafeteria mentality: in the face of only gross choices, you have to shut off your head and just take the plunge. You can’t think about it or you’ll never make it through. Sadly, we weren’t talking about a questionable turkey sandwich here. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I took my cab ride of shame the next morning feeling completely confused by my own stupidity. Seriously, what made any of the previous night’s decisions seem like the right ones? No more vodka. I was about to give myself a full mental beating when I had the genius epiphany that I could make everything better by simply pretending it never happened! I was one of only two who knew the truth, and I might never see the other again. All better. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I walked past my doorman in my four inch heels and running makeup. “Crazy night with the girls last night!” I unnecessarily explained with a cheesy smile. He gave me one of those raised-eyebrows nods that means he thinks I’m still drunk. As I approached my studio, I was internally rehearsing lines about the dude being a gentlemen and dropping me off at my place on his way home, which I would later feed to my gossip-hungry friends. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">At home, I was anxiously greeted by Vijay, the most puppy-like cat you will ever meet, always happy to see me. I reached out to pet him, which usually leads to him leaning his head in as if he just can’t get the affection fast enough. But instead, he pulled back a bit and crinkled his cute little nose. What was this? I held out my hand, hoping he had merely inhaled some of the chili powder that I use to keep him from chewing on exposed wires. Vijay cautiously sniffed. Then he ran away. “Vij?” I called. He looked at me, shook his head, curled up on his cat tree, and refused to make further eye contact. <span style="font-style: italic;">Oh my God, he knows! The cat is judging me! </span> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I love my cat more than most parents love their children, but keep in mind that this is an animal that prefers licking the faucet to his water bowl. Sometimes, he sticks his paws directly into the toilet because he is oddly fascinated by water, and later that day I will find him licking those same paws. Even on nights when I stumbled home smelling like booze, cigarettes, pot and various other New York City aromas that osmotically tainted my being, Vijay still followed me around and bit my ankles until I picked him up. But this smell of lowered standards, this disgusted him. I felt dirty in a whole new way. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I immediately jumped into the first of roughly eight showers I took that day. I moisturized, sprayed perfume and put about fourteen products in my hair. I washed away my sins leaving everything from vanilla, to coconut to lavender in their place to regain the love of my cat. I spent about $25 on the subsequent laundering of all of my towels and another $15 getting a moisturizer that could actually repair my now dried-out skin. Don’t underestimate the sense of smell, it trumps sight and touch. It will give away your mistakes even if no one saw, and if you smell like mistakes, no one’s getting close enough to care how you feel anyway. </span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-28414432475934981262008-01-26T19:15:00.000-08:002008-02-03T13:58:29.585-08:00<div face="trebuchet ms" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/bb.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>CATHODE</b></span></a><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/bb.html"><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">"A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints."</span></a></div><br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2130428382/" title="Icy Gas Pump Nozzle"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2056/2130428382_31ff5bf70f.jpg" alt="Icy Gas Pump Nozzle" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Ian Talty, 2008</span></span></center><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/bb.html"><span style="color: rgb(242, 101, 34);"><b>LURID</b></span></a><br /><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/bb.html"></a><div style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/bb.html">"Shocking, horrific, fierce, savage, sensationalized, luminous and hazy: black currant, Bulgarian lavender and white musk with a dollop of thick resin and a voltaic charge of ozone notes."</a><br /><br /><br /></div></div>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-80171299288211148182008-01-26T19:10:00.000-08:002008-02-03T14:03:55.426-08:00<center><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >"Subtraction"</span><br /></center><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"> by Eli Dvorkin</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:180%;" >H</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >e took a handful of sand</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">from the beach in the heat</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">of the day while we slept</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">in the shade of the whale</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">that heaved and then did</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">not heave but our eyes did</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">not open but our noses did</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">fill with the reek of dead </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">and we awaken to find one</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">whale grey rotting to bone</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">taking with it our shade</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">and we redden </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">and we burrow caught </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">in hermit crab flight</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">as our fingers claw beach</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">we find it has changed —</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">he had taken one </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">handful away.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /></span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-69993256810158500842008-01-26T18:45:00.000-08:002008-02-03T13:59:27.458-08:00<a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/wanderlust.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >KUMARI KANDAM</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"The hollow scent of a vast antediluvian civilization, now frozen and buried, smothered by a thick sheet of ice and trapped deep beneath the ocean. Thick incense, clay, stone, and hothouse blooms with a spike of frost, a hint of decay, and heavy, dolorous aquatic notes."</span></a><br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2198867460/" title="Tainted Water"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2267/2198867460_5284697153.jpg" alt="Tainted Water" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Ian Talty, 2008<br /></span></span></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/wanderlust.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >51</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Luminescent, glowing, and otherworldly: green mandarin, neroli, honeydew, white amber, guava, freesia, white and green musks hovering over desert scrub, smashed wood, and the dry, biting scent of night air over the Groom Lake salt flats."<br /><br /><br /></span></a>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-31724565217022053032008-01-26T17:15:00.000-08:002008-02-03T14:03:15.486-08:00<center><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Who's your favorite uncle?"</span></span><br /></center><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><center>by Chris Kelly</center></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:180%;">S</span>tanding across the room from me</span> is my nephew Will, who is now sixteen months old. He lives with my brother Ryan and his wife Leah in Minneapolis, and I see them rarely. Several months ago, the last time we had the chance to spend time together, Will could neither walk nor utter intelligible words, two skills he has since acquired. Other than slight increases in height and weight, his appearance remains remarkably similar, but these developments make him seem like an entirely new being: he is no longer a doll, but a person. I look down at him with apprehension and wonder. He looks up at me and smiles. <span style="font-style: italic;">"Book!"</span> he shouts, grabbing a cardboard copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Goodnight Moon</span> and beginning to waddle toward me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I am 27 and have thus reached the age when it becomes acceptable for others to wonder about my long-term plans. As a single gay man, I am afforded a great deal of leeway in this area: few relatives are willing to ask me outright when (or whether) I am having a kid. They rely instead on hints, most of them revolving around my skills with my nephew. "Chris, you're so good with Will!" "Oh, Will loves you!" "Will, who's your favorite uncle?" They eye me expectantly, hoping that I might shed some light on my intentions in this area without being directly solicited. And I might, if I knew. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Straight couples are expected to reproduce. The rules are not as clear for me. My longest relationship was with a partner who was vehemently anti-child, and when it seemed likely that I would marry him, I was content sharing this outlook. More recently, I was involved with a boy who mentioned on our second date, and several subsequent occasions, that he could not wait to be a father. I don't feel the burning desire to take on an heir at present, nor does my current way of life make such a thing advisable, but I cannot undo the months I spent imagining myself as the other dad in that equation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Book!" </span>Will says. It's true. I am good with him. He loves me. I am his favorite (and only) uncle. "Get over here, Billiam!" I shout, earning a grin from his Gerber Baby face. We will once again run through the familiar routine: I lift him onto my lap and read over his shoulder as he turns the pages too early, likely stopping before we have finished the story when he reaches toward the table to make a new selection as I wonder if this is something I could one day do with my own baby. This time, however, we deviate from the usual agenda. Will stops before he reaches me. Squats. Furrows his brow. Grunts. I have an idea what is happening here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">"Ryan, I believe your son needs a change."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And my brother, a lawyer, linguistic ace, wry humorist, model of patience, unapologetic nerd, and world-class father, picks Will up over his head, plants his nose in the seat of the boy's pants, and inhales deeply.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">"Yep," he says, reacting as casually as if he were reviewing the contents of the morning's mail, "it's about that time."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Not for me, I realize. Maybe for you, Billiam, but not for me.<br /><br /><br /></span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-80947133037097683792008-01-26T16:45:00.000-08:002008-02-03T14:00:15.141-08:00<a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/alice.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >MAD HATTER</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">"A gentlemen's lavender-citron cologne unhinged by the feral pungence of black musk and a paroxysm of pennyroyal."</span> </span></a><br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2049129152/" title="Glassy Eyes"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2012/2049129152_885e7128c9.jpg" alt="Glassy Eyes" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >Ian Talty, 2007</span><br /></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/alice.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >WHITE RABBIT</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Strong black tea and milk with white pepper, ginger, honey and vanilla, spilled over the crisp scent of clean linen."<br /><br /><br /></span></a>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-33109447206482494302008-01-26T15:00:00.000-08:002008-01-29T21:32:04.668-08:00<center><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">"King of Shit"</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">by Tom Blunt</span></span></center><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>'ve never thought shit was funny,</span> not even from a young age when everything is supposed to be funny and poo is one of the few artistic mediums at hand. It was impressed upon me at a very early age that bathroom time was <span style="font-style: italic;">personal</span>, and that no good could come of attempting to share it with others. I remember prowling around my mother as she weeded the backyard, taking it upon my three-year-old self to gather up all of the fresh, clean rabbit droppings that odorlessly littered the ground. I became obsessed, like Godzilla at an Easter-egg hunt. When my pockets were full to overflowing, I began to fill my little toy wheelbarrow industriously. When it too was filled to the brim, I presented this harvest to my mother. "Look, mom! Rabbit turds!" I proclaimed, as if I was the king of them. The look on my mom's face was unforgettable, and left me no illusions about the real worth of my kingdom. <span style="font-style: italic;">Personal</span>, I reminded myself, <span style="font-style: italic;">even for rabbits</span>, and I went inside and washed my hands. Twice. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Shit is the one inescapable indignity, but humor is supposed to save you. Unfortunately I lost my humor at an early age when I found myself unduly shit upon—once at first, then over and over again. Even with a keen sense of smell to warn me, it managed to slip past my detection and assault me from all directions, no matter how content I was to leave it lay. I was still King of Shit, only now I sat begrudgingly on the throne.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">At five, I was excited to attend my first rodeo in full cowboy regalia. I was plenty aware that my stiff new jeans and itchily-embroidered shirt established me as a man-in-training, and so I toured the stalled livestock with a cousin my age, fitting business for men of our stature. My boots dug into the muck like little hooves, and I was careful to pick up my feet when I walked. As we strolled along observing the bored cattle, a lank tail suddenly twitched to one side and there was a noise like squeeze ketchup, and before I could blink I was covered in a thin layer of watery shit from head to toe. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">In real life, it was just that quick, but my memory is happy to slow it down to five frames per second. I can see the anus distending like a snail's eye on its stalk, I hear the muffled report (sound travels faster), I feel the impact on the various zones of my body, not excluding the face. Then the smell reaches my brain, interrupting my denial. I assume a <span style="font-style: italic;">Carrie</span>-esque posture of catatonic disbelief. And then I wail, wail as if dying, my cousin (unscathed!) leading me gingerly all the way back to the house. The women gathered in the kitchen were nearly as sympathetic as I wanted them to be. I was stripped of my man-costume, put in a hot bath, and forced to endure the shame of an evening indoors with the ladies while my clothes tumbled in the drier. And it was not funny, not in the least—in fact, I took it personally, a warning to me from the universe itself about the inhospitable nature of the world, the dangers of manhood. My small fingers shriveled in the water as I lay there, taking note.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I would relearn this lesson many times. When I was eleven I noticed the cattails growing back behind my grandparents' farmhouse for the first time, and eager to pick and examine some, found myself treading deeper into a thick marsh where the grasshoppers crackled and the stalks grew higher than my head, so I held my breath to keep from inhaling pollen and bugs. Suddenly I realized my feet were immobilized, mired in black mud up to my ankles. In my struggle I lost both shoes and fouled my socks wading back out. I burst into the kitchen completely begrimed but with a whole crop of cattails in my arms. The adults knew before I said a single word that I'd found the septic trench that was fed by the household's sewage and gray water. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Dad laughed as he rescued and hosed off my rank sneakers, asking (for the amusement of the grownups) if I'd been fishing back there, and if I'd managed to catch a "Missouri Brown." That afternoon while I cowered in my room, he and my aunt snipped the stems off a few of the fat brown cattails and floated them in the toilet, filling up the camera their sister had accidentally left behind with shots of this as a surprise for when she had her vacation photos developed. <span style="font-style: italic;">Not funny</span>, I thought from my hiding place. And though the events of that day would only make me more paranoid about the public humiliation of getting shit on, the very next summer I'd require adult rescue yet again, having buried my grandfather's four-wheeler to the floorboards in what I'd assumed to be just one more mud puddle, but was actually a deep lagoon of sun-ripened feedlot cowshit. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I could do nothing but grow up and hope my life would turn out to be more than just a string of miserable incidents requiring cleanup with a hose. While I still cringe at shit humor (a quirk which, in my family, is an even greater liability than vegetarianism or a vote for Kucinich), I do have to admit that my concept of <span style="font-style: italic;">“personal”</span> expanded greatly as a result of my trials; at first, writing was merely an escape from embarrassing reality, but over time it’s become a new way to relish it—if the joke is on me, then I may as well be the one telling it. Even if it stinks.<br /><br /><br /></span>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-9729662969488119482008-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:002008-01-27T15:05:20.161-08:00<a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/diabolus.html"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">MARQUISE de MERTEUIL</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">"Stately, bold, aristocratic and cruel. Opulent galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver."</span></a><br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2176224009/" title="All You Need Is Glove"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2066/2176224009_05dc51b28c.jpg" alt="All You Need Is Glove" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Ian Talty, 2008</span></span><br /></center><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/lp.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >VICOMTE de VALMONT</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"'I promised her my eternal love, and I actually thought that for a couple of hours.' <span style="font-style: italic;">Rake, scoundrel, demon in a frock coat. Devilishly seductive, ultimately tragic; a villain undone and redeemed by love. Based on an 18th century gentlemen's cologne: ambergris, white musk, white sandalwood, Spanish Moss, orange blossom, three mints, jasmine, rose geranium and a spike of rosemary."<br><br><br></span></a>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-67539339356930130312007-09-25T23:30:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:53:45.597-07:00"Sunday School in Alabama – 1976"<center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /></center><br /><center><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">by Jason Daniel Thompson</span></center><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">M</span>other bought a special foot for the sewing machine</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> </span>to tackle the thick double-knit material that she would expertly fashion into two tiny leisure suits just in time for Easter Holiday. We were a secular family and Brother and myself were just two of twenty-seven<br />first cousins and seventy-one second cousins, so childcare resources were always stretched thin. Into this vacuum, local churches had no trouble attracting a captive audience of pagan offspring to their educational offerings.<br /><br />Father had met Reverend Pruitt in January, he was selling construction supplies and The Reverend was a contractor. In their first conversation The Reverend had offered to send the church bus through our neighborhood a mile away from his church to pick us up at seven AM on Sunday mornings. We did not ordinarily rise that early and my memory of the first class is similar to what Patty Hearst might have felt when the <st1:place st="on">SLA</st1:place> ripped the hood off. Who are these people? I recognized a few kids from school, the boys were an average assortment; the girls were different with hair that had never been cut falling to the waist or elaborately braided and carefully pinned to the skull. Brother had been pried from my body by two broad ladies and carried off screaming to the baby room, which seemed like a good idea to me at the time. Free to socialize, I set about discerning exactly where I was. Dresses in the palette of Jordan Mints nearly touched the ground as a group of the devoted clued me in on the tenets of their faith. They did not watch television or read the newspaper and the women were forbidden to cut their hair. That was it really, at least according to the four-to-eight year olds I had been sequestered with.<br /><br />We gathered around a felt bulletin board and a lady with bosoms the size of an ice chest told us Bible tales with paper dolls backed in adhesive. At the conclusion of each narrative I would stand and clap; this is what we did at daycare at the conclusion of play pretend, or “children’s theater” if you are a sophisticate. After the third story had drawn to a close, Mrs. Bosoms asked me why I was clapping. You are so good at this, I said. Why do you think it is good? she asked. Well, I could never make up such long stories and keep track of the dolls and… the faces of the children around me cast downward. I had said the wrong thing, again. These are not made-up stories, child. She leapt upon me, burying my face in suffocating cleavage. These are the stories of the Bible, child, stories of The Lord God Almighty Jesus Christ who died for you sins and will return at The Rapture.<span style=""> </span>Take the lord into your heart, repent, and repent. She smelled nice.<br /><br />A sound began to seep through the drainage holes in the cement block construction. Not singing, yelling, or talking, still it was a passionate human sound. That’s the tongues, someone said. I would not figure out the meaning of that short sentence for years but I slipped it into my vocabulary immediately. Grandmother offers you a mealy grocery store tomato, that’s the tongues I would say.<br /><br />Between the classroom and the service that children attended, tongue-free, we would take a break and were invited to play on an acre of barren red clay. I would decline, my Mother may have been known across three generations as the stain master but I would never test her temper with the kind of damage these wildings wrought on their wardrobes.<br /><br />It was on the field that I first noticed Steven. At eight, he was older and taller and his speech was slurred. His red crew cut and white skin were striking, movie star handsome and Star Trek guest alien all in one towering package. All attempts at conversation were rebuffed. My mother filled in the blanks. A part of Steven’s brain had been damaged during birth and he would always talk that way; be nice to him she said. I wanted to do more than be nice to him; I wanted to teach him to speak. I told Mother we had been instructed to wear old clothes to church and spent the next two months chasing Steven around the yard yelling at him to be still and sit. He would grunt over his shoulder at me and keep running; I must have frightened him.<br /><br />By Easter I had given up on good works. Mother had finished the leisure suits. Mine was foam green and Brother’s was white, both had snap closures in the jackets she put in with a special spring-loaded tool that I wasn’t strong enough to use. Twice as many people came to church that day, which was tongue-free the whole way through. Everyone was in fancy clothes. My parents came for the first time and introduced me to many people whom I was not aware they already knew through work or school. There was an egg hunt on the field. Some teenage boys held up a clear plastic shell filled with name-brand candy bars. A duplicate shell had been hidden along with one hundred eggs. The child who found the candy-bars got to keep them, obviously.<span style=""> </span>The child who found the most dyed eggs would win a fancy basket filled with still more bars.<br /><br />After the big announcement the kids just milled about, not really seeing any place eggs could be hidden. It was hot, the metal clasp on my clip-on tie seemed to absorb the heat from my body and direct it back to my throat. At the edge of the field was a wooded lot and there was a discarded car hood that I had found while chasing Steven. I nonchalantly began snaking towards it, trying my best to look purposeless. When I had my hands on the rusty metal I looked up, satisfied to see that no one had followed me. I heaved and nothing happened. I heaved to exhaustion. A voice was closing in, Over here baby, over here! A teenage giantess with a newborn tucked under one arm pole-vaulted into the grass. With one hand she flipped the steel artifact towards me. I narrowly escaped being crushed.<span style=""> </span>She lofted her prize. Looky looky what I got, e’rybody!<br /><br />No one looked. While I had been struggling alone the other children had realized the ingenuity with which those teenage boys had hidden the one hundred eggs. They were under the clay. With fresh eyes you could see the divots quite easily. Fifty children rooted through the soil like truffle pigs slinging muck in every direction. People were running back and forth screaming full Christian names. It was an angry Easter. Mothers were screaming for those responsible, who took off on foot through the lot. Red dirt on savage faces met the slaps of home training. I ran around the building to our car to wait out the siege.<br /><br />We switched Sunday schools the next week. We still saw Reverend Pruitt and occasionally his wife. They would come by the house to pick up a package of nails or get drafted to perform one of my Aunt’s second weddings. I ran into Steven a decade later when we were teenagers. I was exiting a movie theater and recognized the back of his head from years before on the field. Father had told me that he had learned to drive and was working bagging groceries. I called out to him and he turned around, saying Do I know you? I explained the connection and he looked worried. Don’t tell my Dad you saw me here, he said. It was difficult for him to speak and he was already making his way to his car, so I let him go. I was happy he had the independence of spirit to see Terminator Two if he wanted.<br /><br />I moved to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> and people at home started to get married and die with greater frequency than I remembered from childhood. The Rev and Mrs. Rev as we called them always attended these events. They had been fond of me when I was little and I looked forward to a few minutes with them each time I saw them, a pleasure I was denied. They were all business, breezing in at the last minute and leaving as soon as the service was over. I made assumptions, after all I do live in sin city and I am a sodomite. I began to passive-aggressively tip them larger and larger amounts. Customary gratuity for a wedding or a funeral would be fifty to a hundred dollars. For Brother’s wedding I gave two hundred, for my grandmother’s funeral I gave four hundred. Still, they seemed to ignore me.<br /><br />Five years went by and my father called to say that Mr. and Mrs. Rev were in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary and they wanted to come visit me at the restaurant where I worked. I was shocked on two accounts, our recent history and the fact that only my immediate family and three closest childhood friends had ever come to see me in the twelve years I’d lived here. Two aunts and a cousin had flown through without so much as a phone call. Long-held resentment gave way to the warmth of being acknowledged.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >After I had seated them at a table and been introduced to their pastor friend who had a congregation in <st1:place st="on">Queens</st1:place>, I asked them how they’d been. We are just happy to be alive, The Rev said. We were both diagnosed with terminal cancer ten years ago and now we are both in remission. That's wonderful, I said with the shame and full knowledge of my own pettiness and self-centeredness heating up my belly like a can of sterno, There is so much to be grateful for in life, isn't there?</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span> </p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-19395884748407954452007-09-25T23:00:00.000-07:002007-09-25T17:47:35.034-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/517181961/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/201/517181961_89c7cadb21.jpg" alt="Our Lady of the Lanes" height="500" width="333" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"> Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></span><br /></div></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-88054739405000891362007-09-25T22:45:00.000-07:002007-09-25T18:19:28.744-07:00<p style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">M</span>ost teenagers need the empowerment</span> of making their own decisions. As far a moms go, I got a good one, and she respected that notion to the best of her ability. The only two things I ever begged for that got the "Not until you're 18" response were getting my belly button pierced and getting baptized into the Mormon church. </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">So that makes at least two guaranteed mistakes she saved me from. </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >--Leah Blunt</span><br /></span></p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-37288722978583910292007-09-25T22:30:00.000-07:002007-09-25T18:22:27.805-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/433620441/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/433620441_2dbb45159c.jpg" alt=""miraculous"" height="500" width="333" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"> Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></span></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-91372139473332491942007-09-25T22:00:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:54:21.625-07:00"...The sand gathered around his body and eventually buried him."<p class="MsoNormal"></p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;">by B. Foote</span></p></center><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">T</span>hough not religious, or even spiritual really,</span> my life’s been pock marked with a handful of moments that have perforated the lining of my already anemic head.<span style=""> </span>Lacan says that our true self is shattered in childhood and that we spend our lives trying to put the pieces back together, only to make matters worse.<span style=""> </span>It’s like Jenga, trying to put the blocks back in is just as likely to tip the whole damn thing over as pulling them out.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I clearly remember the first time my reality cracked a little.<span style=""> </span>I spent my early childhood with my grandparents. Good, solid, hardworking people who bought the American dream with a sensible mortgage and believed in Jesus with the same amount of gravitas they believed in the promise of their pensions.<span style=""> </span>Good was God, and Bad was the devil, mischief was a negotiation between the two, and short of a death in the family or the occasional car wreck, there wasn’t much reason to question the divine order of things.<span style=""> </span>By and large you could handle your own with a little good sense and a strong back.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Any kind of misfortune that came our way was blamed on Reagan first, the new neighbors second, and bad luck if the first two somehow dodged the bullet.<span style=""> </span>What I remember from that time was that the stakes were so low.<span style=""> </span>There’s something about childhood that swaths you in understanding.<span style=""> </span>You know the answers before you know the question. <span style=""> </span>Two houses down, Mrs. Woods sat on her porch and talked with all the old ladies who walked by doing their morning laps around the block on doctors orders to keep the weight down and the lungs healthy.<span style=""> </span>We’d sit on her porch and she’d relay information she’d picked up from her morning intelligence reports; we’d learn that Betty had passed away last night, and Arlo’s grandson was going to have to take summer school.<span style=""> </span>Somehow the universe was in order; people died because they grew old, kids lost a summer because they horsed around too much in the fall.<span style=""> </span>The world would continue and we’d make our weekly trip to Montgomery Ward’s to pick up a new pair of jeans for my grandfather since he tore a hole in the old ones.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On one of those easy afternoons, while my Grandmother was taking her nap, my Grandfather and I flipped on PBS.<span style=""> </span>This was a high ritual for us, he’d explain things about <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region> or the dinosaurs that our narrator had failed to mention and the two of us shared a space that was timeless.<span style=""> </span>The handing down of wisdom from a life of experience and learning, a ritual probably millions of years old starting in the Russian Steppes and continuing on down to the two of us, on the couch still covered in plastic that only came off when company was over.<span style=""> </span>The episode that day was about <st1:place st="on">Africa</st1:place>, and how animals lived there.<span style=""> </span>My Grandfather had dozed off, tired from a day in the garden, and I watched as the film followed a pack of hyenas from their birth till their end.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It was the end of one of them in particular that wrecked me.<span style=""> </span>These hyenas had traveled together for some time, hunted together, taken care of their young, and somehow found themselves traveling in the desert. Days passed and they couldn’t find anything to eat.<span style=""> </span>Weary and starved, the pack was swallowed by a sandstorm.<span style=""> </span>They could do little but march on as one by one they began to fall over from exhaustion.<span style=""> </span>Eventually the tribe decided they would all stay together and wait out the sandstorm, so they huddled together and settled into the dunes.<span style=""> </span>But one of the hyenas got up on shaky legs and started out away from his marooned family.<span style=""> </span>The narrator said something to the effect of “…but one of our hyenas knows his death is certain, and chooses to press on…” and the camera followed the apostate as he staggered off into the storm.<span style=""> </span>He walked ten yards or so, the camera trying to keep him in focus through the khaki waves of sand, until suddenly he collapsed.<span style=""> </span>The camera held as the sand gathered around his body and eventually buried him.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">By this time I was sitting a foot from the TV, my glassy eyes reflecting the horror.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t wrap my head around it.<span style=""> </span>They’d done nothing wrong, they weren’t old, they were just lost.<span style=""> </span>I remember looking back at my grandfather, and him being asleep.<span style=""> </span>I wanted to wake him up and talk to him, have him tell me something, anything to make me feel like the world was different for us, but I knew if I woke him he’d be upset.<span style=""> </span>So I turned back around and turned off the television.<span style=""> </span>I don’t remember much else, just running my hand over the static of the television screen and the smell of their house.</span></p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-86719720966674971692007-09-25T21:45:00.000-07:002007-09-25T19:13:12.003-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/1423508741/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1018/1423508741_8b6b20a0e2.jpg" alt="that's got to hurt 2.0" height="500" width="357" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-size:85%;" >Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-63204294387222297402007-09-25T21:30:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:54:39.081-07:00"Chaos Ekstasis!"<p class="MsoNormal"></p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">by Tom Blunt</span></p></center><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>n those days, at that time, initiation didn't come cheap.</span> You had to do for yourself or risk never being done at all. The desert is supposed to be a spiritually powerful place, which I suppose is why the metro Phoenix area covered it all up as fast as it could; to the uninitiated, such an expanse isn't even threatening-- it's just a blank screen to project one's ego onto. And that is how you end up with people struggling to maintain moist green lawns in 117 degree heat.<br /><br />In those days, at that time. People refer to everything before September 11th, 2001 in terms like those. Those were the last great days when it was safe to be spiritually ambivalent. Before the renaissance of the pale, sweaty moral majority, before the backlash of antagonistic atheism peaked in pretension. Islam was a weeklong chapter in your Comparative Religions syllabus. My growing obsession with concerns beyond my life in this world was merely silly, having not quite yet become revived as the national past-time. And as much as it seemed fitting to me that I struggle alone in my entanglements, I was not alone. In fact, in some ways I was never to be truly alone again, for the unsolicited arrival of a new friend broke open my world bare months before four plane crashes rudely initiated the rest of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> into a national religion of prophecy, purgatory, and pride.<br /><br />Vince was just the friend of a friend, but would be your best friend if you let him. The way you did this was to feed him if he was hungry, and answer every question he asked you; in this way, he would associate you with nourishment of the flesh and of the mind, and seek you out at any hour when he required either. Anything he took from you was returned tenfold in the forms of inspiration, unexpected gifts, or new friends (in the form of others who found themselves dragged along within his gravitational field, whom you might end up feeding as well). Vince was shocking in conventional ways-- he tamed his wild curls with Elmer's glue, he wore his vinyl trench coat in all seasons, he gave his poor catholic mother hysterics with his occult-themed artwork-- but he was conventional in shocking ways. He was a clean and sober college student, was earnest and considerate, made good grades, and seemed to attract no end of consistently beautiful women, no matter how unbearable he seemed determined to become. On the day I turned 22, when we still barely knew each other, he was so excited to discover it was my birthday that he insisted on driving across town to take me out to lunch. He had been out shopping, preparing for a performance in his acting class which required him to dress in drag, so this was also an opportunity for him to test his new look on an unsuspecting public. As we sat in a sunlit booth during Souper! Salad!'s lunchtime rush, I looked across at him and suspected we'd be friends for life. He could have actually passed for a woman-- a big, scary woman-- if only his store-bought hair had been any color other than fuchsia.<br /><br />As one of the many who loved him but one of the few who could tolerate him in marathon sessions, I came to occupy a unique role in Vince's life. I quickly became not just a sounding board for his ideas or a late-night source of entertainment, but a human laboratory where experiments could be performed. We took turns as each other's witness or rhesus monkey for this or that theory of gnosis or ekstasis. What are the Mormons trying to keep hidden under Joseph Smith's hat? How much Hebrew does one have to learn before the kabbalistic spheres would divulge their secrets? How many Hare Krishnas can dance on the head of a pin? Can one simulate the effects of a sensory deprivation chamber by sealing the bathroom door with duct tape? If you hold magic to scientific scrutiny, is justice served to either? Can one adopt a truly ascetic lifestyle that somehow doesn't exclude video games?<br /><br />From the outside, our friendship probably seemed pretty ordinary, punctuated by the late nights at IHOP and long drives to nowhere that are the main source of entertainment in para-suburban zones. In fact, our only truly suspicious quality was attitude. Vince was unfailingly cheerful and tended to tell the truth no matter what was asked or who was asking, qualities that endeared him to his professors but bugged the shit out of store employees, police officers and concerned bystanders who preferred their young no-good weirdos to play a little closer to type. Countless times I grew panicky and finally all but dragged him away from someone in the middle of his explanation of why the Universalist congregation was perhaps more Christian in spirit than any of the Protestant churches he'd been to, or why the inverted five-pointed star wasn't really the sign of the devil.<span style=""> </span>Years later he would finally have me write a list of safe deeper-than-small-talk topics that he could keep in his wallet for emergencies, as in most social situations he went from greetings to Jesus in about six sentences. If we had been dutifully angsty and antisocial, we could have operated invisibly; instead, I found myself playing sheepdog near constantly, making good use of leftover social paranoia from high school (which Vince may never have had to begin with). If Harvard had no patience for Leary and Alpert, we certainly couldn't expect any love from ASU campus security.<br /><br />At about that point, it all became real to me, no longer just a steamer trunk full of esoteric spiritual traditions that we liked to play dress-up in. I'd participated in all these games, rituals of self-transformation and reality-manipulation, as a temporary refuge from the plain facts of life that had always kicked me from behind to keep me marching-- but ultimately they were proving to be a door I could step through into a new way of living altogether. And they were hard work, and I had to begin to take care of myself in previously unfathomable ways in order to keep up physically and mentally. Who was this confident stranger sleeping in my skin? Could he be trusted with my future, devoted as he was to things that were not thought to exist? I spent the summer of 2001 watching the world go by as if from a high ledge, daring myself to jump, silently begging to be pushed.<br /><br />One hot summer night Vince asked if I wanted to go to the wheatfield. Since when did we have a wheatfield? I asked incredulously. It only took a fifteen minute drive to prove he wasn't making it up. Somehow, there was an endless wheatfield just past city limits that seemed to be ours for the taking. Our asses dented the hood of his car as we stretched out under the moon and continued the same long talk that we'd been having, in bits and chunks, for several months. Tonight it was Jesus again, a subject Vince relished picking apart and putting back together the way a soldier would his gun. By now I was numb to Christianity. It was like looking at yearbooks: bad enough when I was there the first time around, so why would I want to look at the pictures? I laid back and made the most of the scenery as I patiently waited for him to run out of steam. If I let him go for another few minutes he'd inevitably change the subject all by himself, most likely to women; that was just the track his mind followed.<br /><br />It was a mistake to think he wouldn't notice my disinterest, or would tolerate it. A restful silence descended over us. I felt him slide down off the hood and heard him pace toward the wheat, followed by the snare drum of urination against the cracked earth. He returned smiling. Beatific. Tom, he said. Don't move, okay? I want to show you something. You have to trust me, okay? Well sure, at this point anything goes, right? He went to get something out of the driver's side of the car, so I stayed put. Then the engine roared to life beneath me, but despite the instinct to leap off, I caught myself. Despite everything, I really did trust him. I'm going to drive, he said. Hold onto something. Are you sure about this? I asked. He had an expression of resolute concentration on his face; we were back in the laboratory, the experiment was about to begin. I gripped the hood on either side of the windshield wipers and held on.<br /><br />The car began to roll through the wheatfield and turn back toward the dirt road that landed us there. Holding on through the turn was hard, but once he got us moving in a straight line I was comfy enough. Then he went faster. And faster and faster. Perhaps not so fast really; the earth orbits the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, no wonder we earthlings are such speed-junkies. The acceleration threw my mind into turmoil, I laughed at the top of my lungs, I couldn't see where I was going, the wind tore at me from all sides, tears uncurled like pennants from the corners of my eyes. What is happening to me? I thought between screams, And does it really have to end? Chaos ekstasis! The car peaked in speed, and then began to slow down. I relaxed my grip on the hood. For those last few seconds, I flew.<br /><br />I found myself on my knees in the headlights, dust swirling like the cosmos through the beams and into my hair and eyes. I heard footsteps as Vince bounded from the car. He stood over me and began to read from the Gospel of Thomas:<br /></span> <p></p><blockquote style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <b>And Jesus said:</b> If they ask where you have come from, say to them, "We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established itself, and appeared in their image." If they ask, "Is it you?" say, "We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living father." If they ask you, "What evidence have you of this?" say to them, <span>"It is found in motion and repose..."</span></span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > He may have continued, but when I heard the words "motion and repose", something wrenched inside me, and I was filled with unbearable emotion. In experiencing motion and repose simultaneously, so suddenly and so literally, I had for just a few moments appreciated the state of effortless activity combined infinite potential that was the seat of creation. An outsider driving past would have thought we had pulled over so I could be sick, or that perhaps I was under attack-- for once, Vince's demeanor was deadly serious. For once, though, I was moved beyond the point of keeping up appearances. I wept in the dust and clamored to absorb the essence of my ride through this new lens, through this Christ who so many fools brandished as a weapon, and captive in the bright lights, I clung to Vince's leg, grateful to finally see through his eyes, even if I had to be driven halfway to hell on the hood of a car to do so. The dove descended.<span style=""> </span>Please, Vince. And more. Gimme that Jesus. The place where the light. Motion and repose.<br /><br />He helped me up. Sniffing, I collapsed into the passenger seat, surprised to find reality enfolding me again so quickly as we rolled off down the road, leaving the laboratory behind us. We rode in silence sharing a menthol cigarette. The heaviness in my lungs was a ballast as I watched streetlamps flit past and longed to fly with them, though of course I knew that they were really standing perfectly still.<br /><br />This was our last innocent experiment, just as the first three quarters of 2001 were an innocent experiment for everyone as we played at putting on a new millennium the way kindergartners put on pageants. As if the millennium could be something we <i style="">had</i>, instead of something that <i style="">happened</i> to us. And after it happened, Vince and I still experimented, together and separately, but with such high stakes hovering over our world that our frivolity became sharpened to a point. We each had to work on becoming the person we'd have to be in this new world, and though our day-to-day lives seemed to change very little, it was suddenly easy to feel genuine nostalgia for the summer that had passed under our noses just months ago. Vince became more serious, more manic. I discovered a rare calm that had always seemed to elude me. Talk of Christ was everywhere, suddenly everyone in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Arizona</st1:state></st1:place> felt themselves to be a New Yorker and a Nazarene. I moved to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>. Vince's college program sent him to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Neither of us had ever had a brother before.</span> <p></p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-54304427248942658482007-09-25T21:00:00.000-07:002007-09-25T19:27:31.235-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/1424391896/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1201/1424391896_165e8d1346.jpg" alt="defaced saint 2.0" height="500" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-size:85%;" >Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-49975840255248098762007-09-25T20:45:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:55:00.859-07:00"...I would die with a clean (and thin) soul."<p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">by Chris Kelly</span></center></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span> was anorexic during my junior year of college,</span> and if Heaven meant weighing 120 pounds, then this was a religious fast.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As an atheist, I have trouble discussing religion in a way that others find respectful and inclusive. Even the choice of comparing faith with an eating disorder, though many have made the connection before me, will strike some as insensitive or derogatory. Still, I cannot help but see religion as a series of regulations and rationalizations devised for and by a populace with a natural inclination toward fear. Sometimes we just want a sense of control. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">My days were spent in accordance with self-imposed laws; I prayed to an emaciated God, penitently striving to exist in His image. I knew, of course, that society did not approve of the choice I was making, and that if discovered I would be urged to resume my previous habits. Practicing in secret to avoid discovery, I felt like a persecuted minority. When the Inquisition came, I would die with a clean (and thin) soul.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There was no food before noon, only water; I commonly consumed nothing until at least 3:00 PM. It was necessary to be seen eating on occasion, of course, but the amount was carefully controlled. Something like a muffin or an apple was ideal; people who saw me take the first bite assumed that I would finish what I had started. Jogging was also vital; it burns calories and creates the perception that one is healthy rather than crazy. While beneficial for other reasons and still a dietary restriction of mine to this day, vegetarianism provides an excellent excuse to deny one's self at meals or to consume only a sparse salad in lieu of actual sustenance.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Though I did not make the connection at the time, my experiences with anorexia give me a lens through which to view faith and its benefits. I strongly recall the thrill of waiting an hour longer to take that one bite of bread, the guilt of cheating or slipping, and the constant self-judgment based on the fluctuating numbers doled out by the bathroom scale. This new plan gave me an easy way to measure my worth: the lower my weight, the better a person I was. I had control. I had purpose. Is it so strange a leap to expand this concept further? If I was able to judge myself based on these rules, why not others? Why not hold my entire life to concrete standards, however arbitrary? I can only imagine the satisfaction of easily categorizing the world into good and bad based on an unchanging rubric.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The trouble with such systems, says the atheist, is that they do not bring you happiness. Your prayers go unanswered and your only comfort is that the Lord works in mysterious ways. You fail to live up to impossible standards and writhe under the scrutiny of self-examination. You live a life of want: the want of things forbidden, the want of divine guidance, the want of freedom from want. I would not have been happy even if the needle had hit 120 before my friends caught on and staged an intervention over a brownie sundae. There is no pleasure to parallel thinking for one's self. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Control does not mean following someone else's plan; it means taking what you want.<span style=""> </span>If a God decides my fate, then I am he, and that is as religious as I am prepared to get. I will make my own rules and claim my own right. I eat bagels and ice cream and chocolate and all the things I taught myself to shun despite my crippling desire, and if I have kept myself slim without anorexia, then I can make myself divine without belief.</span></p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-26081147003983030892007-09-25T20:30:00.000-07:002007-09-25T19:33:28.192-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/517180797/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/517180797_3cda7f011c.jpg" alt="Jed's Godzilla" height="500" width="333" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;">Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></span></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-31804467663602249712007-09-25T20:15:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:55:44.071-07:00"What am I giving birth to?"<p class="MsoNormal"></p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;">by Lucy Pastier</span></p></center><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">M</span>y relationship with Temple Beth Am in ninth grade </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">was a strange one.</span><span style=""> </span>A year earlier, my classmates and I had officially entered the world of adulthood in the reform Jewish community, having undergone our Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.<span style=""> </span>Normally this would mean the dangling carrot that had motivated us to give up our Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings had disappeared.<span style=""> </span>We were now adults, free to decide if getting up in front of the congregation was the beginning of an earnest spiritual component of our lives, or an opportunity to take the checks in amounts of multiples of $18 and run.<span style=""> </span>I decided to continue attending religious classes, since staying until the tenth grade meant I would get a deeply discounted trip to <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city> with my classmates and the Rabbi. It turned out most of my classmates found the promise of an inexpensive, under-supervised, cross-country flight too good to pass up as well, so there was not a dramatic drop off in class size. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Religious class had previously consisted of two components: Hebrew and Judaica.<span style=""> </span>We no longer had to study Hebrew, which came as a huge relief to me since nothing about the language ever properly clicked in my head.<span style=""> </span>This year, the focus had also switched from specifically Jewish theology to a comparative religions course.<span style=""> </span>As a result, after reading and discussing each religion’s basic belief system, we frequently took trips to houses of worship to see different religious services. In retrospect, it seems a bit strange that a religious institution would go to great lengths to introduce other religious views to their younger congregants, but such was Beth Am’s policy. And while I had previously understood reform to be the most liberal of the Jewish branches, I realized my naive mistake when we began our section on Reconstructionist Judaism.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Before going to the Reconstructionist Shabbat morning service at Kadima, we were given a brief primer of their background.<span style=""> </span>It was a movement that had started in the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and like Reform Judaism stressed contemporary and societal morality over strict adherence to biblical law.<span style=""> </span>We were also told psychedelic drug use was not an uncommon form of spiritual exploration among their followers, though I’ve found nothing to verify that since.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The congregation at Kadima had no permanent space of their own.<span style=""> </span>The service was held in a sparse and nearly empty room in a <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Unitarian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>My class easily made up two thirds of the total number of people sitting in on the service. Had we not been there, I’m not sure if there would have been the minimum of ten people to have a minyan.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know if this lack of participants would have made a difference to their decision to have a service, though.<span style=""> </span>To this day, I cannot recall if there was even an arc or torah in the room.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A woman with blonde curly hair stepped up to the front of the room to face the rows of folding chairs where the participants sat.<span style=""> </span>She was not the permanent Rabbi; she was only visiting and acting as the guest leader for this service.<span style=""> </span>After introducing herself and the philosophy behind this particular service, she asked us to look around the room and choose a prayer buddy.<span style=""> </span>This prayer buddy would be someone who you prayed for, so that your spiritual thoughts and well wishes would not be limited to yourself.<span style=""> </span>Instead of making me feel secretly protected or admired, the whole concept bothered me—there<span style=""> </span>was no way to ensure that everyone would have a prayer buddy, since this was all done in secret.<span style=""> </span>This was not a spiritual secret Santa, with everyone drawing a name from a hat. What if two people chose the same prayer buddy, and that person got twice the protection as others?<span style=""> </span>I was also convinced that most of the guys would end up praying for the girl with the biggest tits, while I would be left to fend for myself in the spiritual realm.<span style=""> </span>My teenage insecurities did not mesh with the selfless goals that this woman had in mind. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The service continued on in a manner that was so casual, it almost felt as if they religious or spiritual aspects were last minute additions. She told personal anecdotes which she shoehorned examples of Jewish ethics into.<span style=""> </span>My fellow students and I weren’t sure how to handle the whole situation.<span style=""> </span>While we found ourselves mildly uncomfortable, it really wasn’t a whole lot worse than being stuck in a boring conversation.<span style=""> </span>We sat respectfully waiting for the service to be over so we could get on with our day. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Then the moment came when the mild discomfort boiled over and became undeniable. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The woman began to recount the story of Sarah giving birth to Isaac.<span style=""> </span>Where this story appeared was unclear, since no one I’ve spoken to since then recalls it being in the Torah.<span style=""> </span>As her story went, Sarah and Abraham were quite old when they were told by visiting angel they would give birth to a son.<span style=""> </span>While they did not believe the news at first, they eventually became overjoyed at the news.<span style=""> </span>However, when Sarah actually went into labor, the whole ordeal proved incredibly trying for her ninety-year-old body.<span style=""> </span>The pain was so excruciating, she found herself cursing God, asking what she had done to deserve such anguish.<span style=""> </span>The woman told us that Sarah was so focused on her own suffering that she lost sight of the fact that she was bringing a new life into the world.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“So,” the woman told us pointedly, “next time you find yourself in an immense amount of pain – emotionally or physically – stop and ask yourself, ‘What is coming out of this experience? What am I giving birth to?’ ” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As soon as these words left her mouth, a woman in the back of the room burst into tears.<span style=""> </span>Deep gasping sobs filled the room.<span style=""> </span>Shocked by the sudden outpour of emotion in an otherwise uneventful, if not highly unorthodox service, I found myself completely unsure of what to do.<span style=""> </span>Should I look at her?<span style=""> </span>Would eye contact be a sign of support, or would my facial expression betray any good intentions I might have had?<span style=""> </span>Was this a private moment of pain?<span style=""> </span>What horrible experience triggered that reaction to the question “What am I giving birth to?”<span style=""> </span>And above all, Dear Lord, how long was this going to last?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">After a moment or two of decreasing sobs, the visiting Rabbi continued, unfazed.<span style=""> </span>I can’t recall if I attempted to make eye contact with any of my classmates for a moment of recognition, or if I was too stunned by this very public display of emotion to move at all. I know I felt my entire class disconnect from the room emotionally. My curiosity finally got the best of me, and I snuck a peak to the back of the room.<span style=""> </span>The now (quietly) sobbing overweight, middle-aged woman was being comforted by a companion.<span style=""> </span>Even if a room full of fifteen-year-olds tried to pretend she did not exist, at least someone was there to shoulder her burden. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The service may have ended there or gone on for days, I remember nothing beyond that point. While I think her analogy was deeply flawed, I remember engraving those words on my brain.<span style=""> </span>Throughout the rest of the service, I silently sat in my folding chair, imagining the trip to <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">New York City</st1:city></st1:place> that was waiting at the end of the school year.</span></p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-7226545437903964712007-09-25T20:00:00.000-07:002007-09-25T19:42:53.407-07:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzupetals/480512156/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/480512156_8c0eec8e0b.jpg" alt="Saint Chapelle" height="500" width="333" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Amy Lee Pearsall, 2007</span></span></center>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2589070320081266967.post-61583456267563744262007-09-25T19:46:00.000-07:002007-10-09T18:56:00.145-07:00“Sickness of a seventeen-year-old...”<p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2316/1528017744_7f94c3d88d.jpg" width="269" height="220" alt="religionismlogo" /></p><p><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">by Ben Epstein</span></center></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">A</span>s I watched my partially digested dinner splatter</span> </span>into some finely hedged shrubbery, I came to a savory revelation: <i>I drank too much</i>. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, seeing as I possess the tolerance of a Canadian ballerina, however it still vexed me. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The wired pangs of a guitar could be heard drifting from the dance floor and across the abandoned courtyard in which I now lay, redecorating the greenery. Turning onto my back, feeling the stone tiles dig into my back through the Gucci shirt, I looked up at the stars. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“I love weddings.” I mumbled, reaching for my lowball whiskey glass. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The tips of my numbed fingers struck metal, dislodging the glass from its resting place and sending it cascading to the ground. Rolling over and away from the slowly spreading liquid, I sat up. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Oh shit.”</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Turning and vomiting more, I took off the shirt and wiped my mouth and face with it. That was when I realized how drunk I was—that shirt had been a gift for the wedding. Leaving it wrapped around a tree branch as sacrifice for the sprites to claim, I wandered through the empty tables. Still set with the remains of dessert, they stood like ghosts. Even though I could see the lit windows of the dance hall, it seemed oddly disconcerting. I was alone. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It was that same feeling that crept over me in the late hours before sleep. Finite life on this rock with limited meaning. Even as young as I was, I felt like time was moving too quickly toward a worthless destination. I needed to find something to change that—some way of slowing things down toward a direction and destination of my choosing. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Feeling a little sick, mate?” </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I turned to see an off duty waiter smoking a cigarette by the fountain. It looked like he had snagged a beer on his way out for a breather, which he now used as an ashtray. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Just a little overwhelmed by it all.” I vaguely replied. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I would have lit up with the gentleman had I not given or smoked away all my cigars for the evening. However, with enough tobacco and alcohol in my veins to kill several Dutch children, it was a good thing. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“How old are ya?” he said with an accent I couldn’t place. Irish?</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Seventeen.”</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Sickness of a seventeen-year-old,” he mused.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I nodded, not quite knowing what to say.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As I looked about for an excuse to leave, he spoke again, “Troublesome years. How do you know the happy couple?”</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Meeting his incisive blue eyes, I teetered on the edge of blackout. Several breaths ran through my system before I steadied myself. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Bride’s my sister.”</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Here’s to ya,” he said, taking an especially long drag of his cigarette before sliding the butt into the beer bottle. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Another few moments passed in which he simply looked at me. I felt as if he were assessing something, seeing if I were fitting. Then, without much ceremony, he nodded. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Well, be seeing you.”</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With that, he took off in the opposite direction from which he had seemed to come. Pushing in some chairs and straightening the tables on his way past them, he removed my shirt from the entanglement of the tree and carried it off with him. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Part of me wished he hadn’t left, as that feeling of mortality crept over me once again. I was alone. My feet throbbed from dancing in shiny shoes and my eyelids felt heavy. Maybe that was how things always would be. People alone only distracted by passing attractions. I shrugged that thought away with a cough—it was too cynical. </span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I sat by the fountain and stared into the lights until my eyes were shocked awake by the intensity. The sound of running water had a soothing effect over me. I hated being drunk but it wasn’t as if I could have gotten stoned at my sister’s wedding.</span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The clinking of glasses behind me gave the impression that someone was clearing the tables. Paying no mind to the servants of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Barbados</st1:place></st1:country-region>, I ran my fingers through the fountain.</span> </p>Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05616555497561732927noreply@blogger.com0