Saturday, November 19, 2011

Of Vegas

When I finished Fallout: New Vegas, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my motivations were for playing. I realized, about halfway through the game, that I had subconsciously developed a narrative for my character, independent of the framework of the game proper. I started the game and set out on the main quest reluctantly; as I walked through the wasteland to the Strip, each step came down with the force of a heavy sigh. I did not want to be involved with the machinations of this man who'd shot me in the head. I wanted to be left alone, and so it seemed that in order to live my life peacefully, I'd have to do what I could to stabilize the region. To that end, I aligned myself with House. I did not want to involve myself with the NCR, as they merely wanted to reinstate the broken democracy that led the world to its current state of decay. Caesar's ideology was intensely repugnant; I cannot abide slavery. I think of the idea of owning people and something inside me recoils and snaps, hissing and spitting. I could have seized power for myself, I suppose. But no. No, I did not want the responsibility, and in the vacuum of my inevitable abdication, there would have been only more strife.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Of the 53%

I have spent my adult life thus far working to feed, clothe, and house myself.

I have faced hardship and adversity on occasion, and done so with a small amount of grace.

But I am a thinking person.

As such, I am capable of recognizing a few things:

Monday, July 25, 2011

Of Freedom: Director's Cut

This is a paragraph that I wrote about Freedom for my last entry but didn't include because it didn't fit the tone. I still think it's pretty funny on its own, though, so here you go.

I just finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It had this strange, constant dramatic pressure that would build as it subsided, so invariably congruous that it could not be said to be cyclical. Reading it was like taking a dump that never stops, just snakes endlessly out of your ass into the luminous depths of your hyper-toilet.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Of Freedom

After two weeks, I'm finally done with Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. In an alternate dimension, I'm still reading it, and will be reading it forever, just like in another, altogether different place, I'm still watching The Sound of Music and listening to American Pie.

The takeaway, in short: I'm amazed that Franzen was able to build a book that I was unable to stop reading out of settings I don't give a shit about, characters I uniformly hated and themes that were old hat in the fifties.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Of Poems III

One poem, two forms. The first is a sonnet, the second is free verse in triplets (and one couplet).

I'd Forgotten What I Said About Her Hair

I had a dream wherein I met a girl.
Her world died, inside out, while I watched.
I saw the last light fade, then unfurl
and fold back in on itself, worn and notched.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Of Poems II

A new poem. Not my best. It'll do.

Photographs
----
We have four pictures.
It is my father's family
or mine or
us or ours.
It is Halloween,
and it is not. and not and not.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Of Poems

Here's a poem I wrote.

Candles
-----
I light my candles
and nobody touches me.
I am thus privileged.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Of Persona

I had to write a poem in the voice of a historical figure. Naturally, I chose H.P. Lovecraft. I wanted to give it some richness and modern relevance by working in some reference to the Rothschilds and their tentacular management of world banking, but couldn't do so without using imagery that was more Christian and European than Lovecraftian. We'll see what we can do in a second draft.


The Dreams of Lovecraft
-----
I have been inflicted
with a succession
of frightful dreams,
most details of
which blessedly escape me
but whose closing haunts
me yet.

My first sensation was
a brazen sky,
molten and roiling,
and under this untenable thing
did I first see
the countenance of unreason.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Of Americans

This has been a very trying twenty-four hours.

I made the mistake of purchasing Twilight of the Assholes by Tim Kreider at the Emerald City Comic-Con yesterday. Like most of my best literary finds (The Myrkin Papers, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, et al.), I picked it up based mostly on the strength of its title. The accuracy and truth of the obese hag replacing Lady Liberty on the cover merely sealed the deal. This is a theme that would repeat itself throughout the book; Kreider has an uncanny knack for drawing the ugliest parts of this country.

It represents, essentially, the concerted efforts of a thinking person to keep himself from going completely batshit insane during a time when his country has already lost that fight. And I do mean his country, because it is clear that, despite all the vitriol he flings on the idiot public and our elected officials, he has a deep respect for the ideals that this place ostensibly stands for. In one essay, one downright harrowing essay, he asks what happened to the country that he grew up in. Typically when people ask this, they are wondering why it is that Kids These Days wear their pants so gad dang low, or why Them Faggits are suddenly allowed to touch each other in public. When Kreider asks, he wants to know how we went from a country where an anti-war comedy was the most beloved program on television to a country where people routinely suggest that 150,000 confirmed Iraqi civilian deaths are acceptable losses in the War on Terror.

It is a salient question.