Moisopholon

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Pericula — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:49:01 GMT

Yesterday I wrote with Steve. Afterward, we strolled down Broadway to The Wok Express, a Chinese/Vietnamese carryout place run by a handful of friendly Asian folks. I’ve never asked their nationality, but going by the menu and their small stature, I’ve thought they might be Vietnamese. Steve and I got half-orders of the special fried rice, which is cheap there, plentiful and very good. We sat in the back, talking about gravity and relativity, Pluto and John Updike, and the strangeness of working for a living. The female proprietor, a slight cheerful woman, brought our hot pepper sauce without our asking. She remembers things. If I come in alone, she says, “Where your friend?” I don’t know whether she means Steve or Becky, so I usually reply, “Working today.” I do appreciate her asking. A group of young professional men came in and took the table behind us, sharing appetizers and slurping up Vietnamese noodle soups. They ate with less leisure than Steven and myself, and when they got up to leave, I noticed they’d left behind, intact, a crab Rangoon and a spring roll. Crab Rangoon I can take or leave, but I do love spring rolls. The ones they make at this place aren’t fried; they’re wrapped in rice paper, a translucent, slightly tacky membrane that reveals three plump shrimp coiled end-to-end, a wafer of roast pork, tucked in with long dark stems of cilantro and mint. Who could leave behind such a work of art? Perhaps the fare was a casualty of manners; the gentlemen may have practiced the etiquette of refraining from taking the last piece. Or maybe they were just in a hurry, or full. I thought about sanitation. I thought about my grandmother, who scolded me to wash everything before eating it. “You don’t know where that’s been,” she’d say. “You don’t know who’s touched it.” If my parents weren’t around, she’d use a racial epithet to postulate exactly whose dark hands she feared. My grandmother, bless her racist heart, surely rolled over in her grave yesterday. I saw the proprietor (I ought to ask her name) coming to clear the table, so I took a napkin and wrapped it around the appetizer. “They left behind a perfectly good spring roll,” I explained. “I love these things.” A grin lit up her face, and she nodded vigorously. “Oh, please,” she said. “You take.” She started to pick up their plates, then added, “Want sauce? Two minute.” Steve and I both started to laugh. I felt a little adventurous, a little embarrassed. He said, “This might be the very best place to do something like that.” I pointed out the crab Rangoon, and he ate it while we waited. In far less than two minutes, the woman rushed from the kitchen with a plastic tub of sweet peanut sauce, and a small waxed paper bag. She held open the latter, instructing, “You put in here. Is better.” I unrolled the spring roll from the napkin, and she packaged my treasure in a paper lunch bag. I thanked her, then Steve and I left. All three of us were inordinately pleased. I’m not sure why my taking the spring roll made the woman so happy; on reflection, though, it may have been the first action by an American that made much sense to her. (image from http://www.kidsregen.org/howTo.php?section=recipes&ID=61)

Trickster

Pericula — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:01:13 GMT

The pavement is wet. Local trails are mushy. This is a day for the Coyote work-out. These Rollerblade brand skates, with their big rubber tires, can go anywhere a bicycle will. They sneer at wet pavement; they lap it up. I love it that Rollerblade named their trail skates after the Trickster. (photo from http://starbulletin.com/98/08/25/features/story3.html)

Religion

Pericula — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:52:01 GMT

My dad called Sunday. Among other things, he told me that he got a bag of dried corn to feed the squirrels in his backyard. Four days in a row, he placed an ear of corn outside and it would disappear; the squirrels would snatch away the entire thing. On the fifth day, he was tardy in bestowing the offering upon them, so the squirrels brought back an empty cob. Seems to me that this is how religions are born. (image from http://www.birdsforever.com/squirrel.html)

Why I Write Prose

Pericula — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:44:47 GMT

Been trying to rhyme "vertical" Not having much success I'm really not expertical In trying to express A synonym for vertical Is something up and down Stripes on an umpire's shirtical A lamppost seen downtown When trying to rhyme vertical It's best to keep it short To draw in like a turtical Might be my best resort Another rhyme for vertical --but this keeps getting worse I'd rather have dessertical Than write another verse

Cat TV

Pericula — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:57:01 GMT

Becky and I visited my mom over Christmas, and as usual we brought Batman and Tempest. When we got to Mom’s house, I fed the cats and gave them water. Once they were settled, Tempest got on Mom’s lap. She seemed uneasy, though. Her tail kept twitching and she had not put down her head. I noticed that she kept looking toward the TV. Mom was reading a magazine, and the TV was off. I told Mom that I thought the cat wanted to watch TV, so she turned it on. Immediately Tempest gave out a rumbling purr, then she lay her chin on Mom’s thigh and watched the news until she fell asleep. I've never had a cat that would stay with programs like she does. She must like the visual stimulation.

What I Did This Weekend

Pericula — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:54:49 GMT

Rather than celebrate the holiday, I primed and painted the kitchen for the second time since we moved in this past July. The former owners were such heavy smokers that even with primer, smoke damage showed through. Then I put up the pot & pan rack and the hanging basket. Becky has been asking for a pan rack for years. I tried an inexpensive one, but it was too small and we kept banging heads on it, so I came up with the design pictured above. I feared a pegboard in the kitchen might look rather, ahem, white trash, but was pleased with the result, both in form and function. Becky pronounced it "a work of art," which might be a bit of hyperbole, but it was nice of her.

Proust Questionnaire

Pericula — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:21:42 GMT

This questionnaire was invented by the noted French author Marcel Proust. You can use these questions for self-exploration or to flesh out characters. • What do you consider your greatest achievement? • What is your idea of perfect happiness? • What is your current state of mind? • What is your favorite occupation? • What is your most treasured possession? • What or who is the greatest love of your life? • What is your favorite journey? • What is your most marked characteristic? • When and where were you the happiest? • What is it that you most dislike? • What is your greatest fear? • What is your greatest extravagance? • Which living person do you most despise? • What is your greatest regret? • Which talent would you most like to have? • Where would you like to live? • What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? • What is the quality you most like in a man? • What is the quality you most like in a woman? • What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? • What is the trait you most deplore in others? • What do you most value in your friends? • Who is your favorite hero of fiction? • Whose are your heroes in real life? • Which living person do you most admire? • What do you consider the most overrated virtue? • On what occasions do you lie? • Which words or phrases do you most overuse? • If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? • What are your favorite names? • How would you like to die? • If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? • What is your motto?

Courtesy of Grady ...

Pericula — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:28:28 GMT

MOUTH-OLOGY Q. What is your salad dressing of choice? A. ranch Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant? A. one chain’s about like another, but for quick fried rice I like the Wok Express on Broadway Q. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? A. pan-Asian Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant? A. 20% Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? A. milk Q. What are your pizza toppings of choice? A. sausage, green pepper, onion and mushrooms Q. What do you like to put on your toast? A. butter and apricot or blackberry jam TECHNOLOGY Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer? A. Land of Oz map from WICKED Q. How many televisions are in your house? A. Too many; they were all over the place when we moved in. Q. What color is your iPod? A. iPod? No $$ for that BIOLOGY Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed? A. right Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? A. just some teeth Q. When was the last time you had a cavity? A. over a year Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted? A. boxes of books Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious? A. a few times, mostly at judo RANDOMOLOGY, pt 1 Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? A. not sure about that Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to? A. “Best-selling author Bridget Bufford” Q. What color do you think looks best on you? A. Burgundy or red Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake? A. Numerous insects: ants, gnats, a couple flies. Q. Have you ever saved someone's life? A. Not in any direct way; I’ve been a blood donor many times Q. Has someone ever saved yours? A. not directly, but I’ve had some good influences DAREOLOGY Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? A. I’d even kiss a member of the opposite sex for $100 Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? A. just the left one Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000? A. definitely Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000? A. Probably, but it would be tough Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? A. yes. Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? A. a couple worthy candidates crossed my mind, but I wouldn’t do it for the money DUMBOLOGY Q: What is in your left pocket? A: cell phone, change Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie? A. don’t know Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house? A: hardwood Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower? A: Stand Q: Could you live with roommates? A: I do. Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own? A: 0 Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops? A: It’s been a long time Q: What do you want to be when you grow up? A: “Best-selling author Bridget Bufford” Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8? A: Becky LASTOLOGY Q: Friend you talked to? A: Carole Q: Last person to call you? A: one of my workshop members Q: Person you hugged? A: Becky FAVORITOLOGY Q: Number? A: 7 Q: Season? A: Fall Q: Book? A: Wicked Q. Website? A. Tribe or Free Will Astrology Q. Month? A. I don’t know Q. Alcohol? A. nope CURRENTOLOGY Q: Missing someone? A: Yeah, all but one of my close friends left town this past year Q: Mood? A: Good Q: Listening to? A: Hildegard von Bingen Q: Watching? A. computer Q: Worrying about? A: money, publishing RANDOMOLOGY, pt 2 Q: First place you went this morning? A: To make coffee. Q: What can you not wait to do? A. Sell my next book Q: What's the last movie you saw? A: Across the Universe Q: Do you smile often? A: More than I used to Q: Are you a friendly person? A: More reserved than friendly Q: Someone you wish you never met? A. I’m not going to post her name on the Internet

Lucky Lucky White Horse

Pericula — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:21:49 GMT

Sunday I was driving through the country with Becky and her friend Carol. When we saw a white horse, Carol had us all lick our right thumbs, touch them to our left palms and then cup our right elbow with that palm so that the white horse would make us all lucky. ???

The Dark Journey

Pericula — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:11:13 GMT

"In the creative world, true brightness is seldom found. Sometimes you get a perfect poem that comes all at once and you don’t have to work on it, but such visitations are incredibly rare, a form of grace. Brightness in a poem or a painting or a piece of music usually has to sweat its way to the top through caverns of darkness. And when it comes to the surface, you can still see in it the beautiful shadow of the dark journey it has made. The imagination is not interested in two-dimensional reductionism or naively pitting one side against the other, dark against light. It is interested in the place where the two sides meet, and what they give birth to when they cross-fertilize each other. That is the heart of creativity: it is not fantasy, nor invention. Creativity is listening in on the places where the opposites are dancing with each other." -- From The Sun, April 2007 issue, an interview with Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue

The Fun of a House

Pericula — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:05:53 GMT

(workshop piece 7/15/06) The fun of a house, Carmen says, is in getting it the way that you want it. I love hearing those remarks that instantaneously clarify something about myself, that give names or explanations to long-recognized intuitions. I never liked owning a house. I don’t mind living in them, but I’m also not averse to living in a mobile home, a duplex, a hotel, an apartment or a fifteen foot long travel trailer. Though I’ve never tried it, I’d probably be content to bunk in a good-sized tent, as long as I had an extension cord. I have been partial owner of two houses, and if there was fun involved I failed to see it. The buying process bored me – the fake gaiety of the realtor, the veiled anxiety of the seller, the unreality of considering a purchase that could potentially last a lifetime. The closing process terrified me. I felt that I was taking possession of an enormous burden, a leaden lump of materialism which could only decay and deteriorate unless I hooked it up like an IV to my own vital resources. I do have time. I have more energy than most people. I have money, at least some of the time. But I value all of those things enough that I resent giving them over to a piece of property, a legality, a financial maelstrom. “The fun of a house.” The very words shocked me. But I immediately saw that her fun resides in the envisioning. She nurtures her dream and works toward its realization. My own vision of home ownership has always felt more like providing life support to an ailing relative, someone to whom I felt a sense of social obligation, though no real warmth or tenderness, and certainly no sense of possibility. (Image source asterphage.lunarpages.com/temp?N=D)

WHY I DON’T BLOG

Pericula — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:43:37 GMT

I’m a novelist; anything I write tends to run long. Whenever I’m tempted to post, I realize nobody would ever read to the end of it.

April 18 -- Ray Bradbury Day

Pericula — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:58:50 GMT

From ZEN AND THE ART OF WRITING To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in glorious fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories --science fiction and otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And, out of that love, remake a world. --Ray Bradbury

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007

Pericula — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:28:52 GMT

On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story: 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac

Pericula — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:57:07 GMT

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969 Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty "essentials." Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy Submissive to everything, open, listening Try never get drunk outside your own house Be in love with your life Something that you feel will find its own form Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind Blow as deep as you want to blow Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind The unspeakable visions of the individual No time for poetry but exactly what is Visionary tics shivering in the chest In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition Like Proust be an old teahead of time Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye Write in recollection and amazement for yrself Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea Accept loss forever Believe in the holy contour of life Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better You're a Genius all the time Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven (taken from the Wikipedia article on Jack)

I'll play, too

Pericula — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:24:49 GMT

If you're on my list... I want know more about you! 1. Can you cook? 2. What was your dream growing up? 3. What talent do you wish you had? 4. Favorite place? 5. Favorite vegetable? 6. What was the last book you read? 7. What zodiac sign are you? 8. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? 9. Worst habit? 10. Do we know each other off line? 11. What is your favorite sport? 12. Negative or Optimistic attitude? 13. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me? 14. Worst thing to ever happen to you? 15. Tell me one weird fact about you: 16. Do you have any pets? 17. Do you know how to do the macerana? 18. What time is it where you are now? 19. Do you think clowns are cute or scary? 20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be??? 21. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience? 22. What color eyes do you have? 23. Ever been arrested? 24. What is your favorite drink? 25. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it? 26. What kind of bubble gum do you prefer to chew? 27. What 's your favorite place to hang at? 28. Do you believe in ghosts? 29. Favorite thing to do in your spare time? 30. Do you swear a lot? 31. Biggest pet peeve? 32. In one word, how would you describe yourself? 33. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

Every Angel is Terrible

Pericula — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:54:17 GMT

Every angel is terrible, it’s said; even so, I might welcome one right now. It’s 9:15 on a weekday morning and I’m in the bowels of multinational consumer culture. I’m sitting in a McDona!ds, drinking a cup of coffee labeled “Warning: Product is Hot.” I tried to get my sausage biscuit with a side of irony, but got lumps of fried potato instead. The bench seat is padded; across the room, two armchairs embrace a coffee table, and none of them are bolted to the floor. This isn’t your parents’ McDona!ds. It’s not my McDona!ds, either. This little oasis sits within the entrance of a giant Wal-M@rt, of the type that’s open 24 hours a day. I might as well be sucking the devil’s dick, my soul would be no less blemished. Actually, I’m just waiting to get my shitty generic tires balanced again. It’s free, because I bought them here. A two-hour wait, they said, during which I am free to wander and ponder this white-trash paradise. Instead, I did the only thing that might redeem this misbegotten morning. I took my notebook to McDona!ds and worked on my outline. Got through seven new scenes – good work for a season in Hell.

The Cats of Christmas Past

Pericula — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:31:37 GMT

My brother Bob has a knack for picking Christmas cards. My favorite was the one with a picture of a guy standing in front of his Christmas tree, saying, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” The inside read, “The cat’s got tinsel hanging out of his butt!” The cats of Christmas past. First one was Tom, a handsome black and white domestic shorthair with perfectly symmetrical markings. A very ordinary guy, an Everyman kind of cat, with a mellow disposition suited to a houseful of kids. I got Tom for my seventh birthday. At seven I already knew I had a sorry excuse for a singing voice, but I had recently learned to whistle, and Tom loved it. When I’d whistle Christmas carols, he’d scamper down the hardwood hallway and bound onto my bed with a happy, expectant look. He was also my first tinsel swallower. I remember my mother’s face twisted in disgust as she performed the extraction, her fingers wrapped with a tissue. Later I lived in Arizona with a cowboy named Bob and two cats named TC and Critter. Bob decided to roast a turkey for the holiday. We’d been eating largely vegetarian and the cats, unaccustomed to such rich aromas, cried and begged all day as the bird turned golden. We kept promising them treats; they kept hoping, then snacking on dry food, driven to distraction by their craving. By the time the turkey was done, the poor things were so bloated with kibble that they could have cared less about a bite or two of meat. I felt so bad for them; the turkey was really good. My first girlfriend and I had Eightball, a fluffy black kitten with a white spot on his chest. We put up a tree in our apartment, and I never saw him touch it, but every morning I’d pick up all the ornaments from the living room floor and replace them. Every night, as we slept, he’d take down the glass balls. He rarely broke them; he just rolled them to remote corners of the room. I was older then, a little wiser; we had a garland instead of tinsel. My current cats don’t seem too invested in the holidays, though Batman, always eager for a photo op, does like to sleep under a lighted Christmas tree. And of course he likes to watch us open gifts; he basks in good feelings like he basks in the sun. Happy holidays to you and all your furry friends.

John Updike on Thanksgiving

Pericula — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 20:45:56 GMT

Relatives Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache: those turkey dinners, those holidays with the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor, and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her girlhood's gravy. A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from your uncle's collected eyes; their very jokes creak with genetic sorrow, a strain of common heritage that hurts the gut. Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering of chromosomes webs even the infants in and holds us fast around the spread of rotting food, of too-sweet pie. The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl; to love one's self is to love them all. --by John Updike (photo copied from the Wikipedia article on Updike)

New Queer Fiction Journal

Pericula — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:35:09 GMT

Angela Faith Brown, former Alyson editor, has started up a stylish new online journal called subterraneans. My short story 1000 Miles was reprinted in the premiere issue: http://www.subterraneansonline.com/current%20issue.html Happy Thanksgiving! Bridget

Another Marble in Your Jar

Pericula — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 21:47:13 GMT

Dear Friends, This is a warning. Two more, and that’s cause for termination – check your contract. You – collectively – (there are at least five of you, and by the end of this letter you will know who you are) have reached the downhill curve in the parabola of my regard. And you – out West – are in the lower left-hand quadrant of my Cartesian coordinates. Minus x, my friend, minus y. It takes two people to make a relationship (or perhaps it takes a village). Somewhere here, I am probably at fault. This I know – that I often get attracted to people who are wholeheartedly caring and genuinely unavailable. When you were a child, did you pick up rocks? Here’s the test – do you still have them, piled into a shoebox that is stashed inside a crate, the cardboard moldering within your mother’s humid basement? Do you have containers full of feathers, and fossils, and acorns, and leaves pressed into waxed paper, and the crumbling remains of your first flower from your first boyfriend? I’m going to develop a screening instrument and administer it to every potential friend. Do you have a Mason jar of marbles on your shelf? When you walk on the beach, do you run out of carrying space in your left hand (beach glass) and your right hand (little shells)? I don’t need more collectors in my life. I love you all. I really do – and it should be obvious, because I know for a fact that each of you keeps a cherished packet of my correspondence and poetry, stashed somewhere special. You are the people who can’t let go. I am in your life, along with your kids and your siblings and your parents, your pets and your clients, the almost-forgotten membership to the gym, the weekly massage and the bi-weekly meditation group, the book of the month and your collection of contemporary jazz CD’s and post-modern poets. I know what you want. You look at me and see that I can make space. I’m a discarder. I love to throw away, to give away, to create room. I love to prioritize. I love the liberation of letting go. You look out from your cluttered heart and crave the emptiness inside me, the spareness of my room, the well of silence that comes from being still, relinquishing desire. Even bits of that are so attractive to you, and you want to take some of that from me and squeeze it into the spot between your college textbooks and 14 self-help books by Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra. It can’t be done. You don’t add space – you create it. You don’t connect with the earth by acquiring it, by stuffing it into your pocket and taking it home, bit by bit, and creating yet another altar on yet another shelf .Take your eyes, your ears, your sense of touch with you. Take your memory. Leave the shells, the fossils, the arrowheads and pine cones. They have a place already; so do you. I write you letters because I care, and because I want to keep the friendship going. You respond with ritual – draw a bath, or make a fire, or sit out on the swing with some coffee or some herbal tea, and read the letter twice. You feel engaged; you hold the paper to your heart, and take some satisfaction in your ability to appreciate language. But this is your warning – I am not another marble in your jar. Just because the reading makes you feel close doesn’t mean we will always be friends. Pick up your pen and write.