Now in the style of James Joyce, for English 306

Hope you enjoy :-)

John laid out fork, knife, knife, fork, glass behind the plate, napkin on top, muted clacks on white cloth matching the muted rhythm of his hands. Years of setting silverware had made him fluid and his hands flowed like a quiet pink flame as he placed the candles, lit them, extinguished them. Better to burn off a little of the wax and leave the wick exposed so there wouldn’t be problems when the guests were sitting, watching you while they waited. He finished and look up at the clock, and there was still an hour to spare before the wedding, so he sat down at the head table, feeling both bored and superior

He sat staring at the little black dots on the tops of the unlit candles and soon he was absently flicking his lighter and remembering the time he’d stolen kitchen matches as a child. He had grabbed the box then fled, only to run back seconds later, striking them and snaking through the house, little half-flames sputtering in the wake of his flight, until his father drove him outside, screaming and calling him a pyromaniac, and the cold of the grass on his feet and the heat of the match on his fingers were like the lighter and the cold silverware..

John’s father taught him music when he was young and he learned quickly, covering in months what the other kids worked at for years. His fingers were uncommonly quick, crackling over the piano keys like wet wood burning, and his voice was high and strong. His father said you have talent and should really go to the conservatory, but we don’t have the money, so he worked instead, first busing, then at the airline, now at the reception hall, but always with the piano somewhere in the mostly covered up parts of his mind; covered up even when he played it for the receptions and it was there in front of him and he was touching it.

So he was here, setting tables, playing for weddings. The wedding march, hundreds of times, thousands of times, an obstacle he just couldn’t flow past. He collected and he pooled and brides and grooms came in and went out again, but they were all the same, caricatures projected on the screen of polyester flowers behind the alter. Lilies and gardenias. Tonight, rose petals on the floor – the smell was making him sick, so he went outside for a cigarette.

He walked to the balcony, leaned on the cold aluminum railing, and looked up at the sky. It was only 6:00 but the stars were out, lightly glowing through the blue curls of his cigarette smoke. He searched for constellations but couldn’t find any. A clump near the horizon looked something like a tuna-fish, and he thought it might be Pisces, but it also looked something like a bowling pin and he began to doubt himself. The reception hall served tuna steak last week and his head was probably full of it. Such a prosaic thing, really – grilled, with rice pilaf and zinfandel, or mashed in the can with mayonnaise, what was the difference? He considered how many tuna steaks he had served and would serve, and they grew in his mind into a kind of myth: he pictured them in vast array, an infinity of tuna stretching from horizon to horizon, caught in a net of stars and bound for the plate.

My government professor talked about this study today. I tried to remember the best I could, but I might be off on a detail or two. I’m going to ask him for the source next class.

This survey was recently given to 900 randomly selected American citizens:

1) If the following bill was proposed by congress, would you want it to pass?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

2) If you would not want it to pass, why not?

2/3 of respondants said they would vote against the bill. Some commonly given reasons:

*33% were concerned that if the bill passed, it would lead to increased use of marijuana. (wtf?!?)
*26% said they would vote against it because it must be the work of some radical student group.

When questioned afterward, only 18% of the participants could correctly identify the ‘bill” as the 1st amendment to our constitution.

Now folks, this isn’t just some apocryphal anecdote - this was a real survey (I will post the source as soon as I get it). I can barely get my mind around this. I’ve always suspected our society is going downhill, but here is proof. The evident stupidity is bad enough, but on top of that the responses suggest such a bizzare, warped view of reality..

I did some research and discovered an official group that gives surveys on the Bill of Rights to high school students. Apparently 53% of current high school students think all magazine and newspaper articles should have to be checked and approved by the government before getting published. What the hell? Half of our students believe in universal government censorship???

I’ve been planning to teach English, but maybe I should teach Government instead. Or maybe Critical Thinking. Or maybe just Thinking. I’m terrified of the future…

Current mood: tired

I started this months before finishing it. Long gaps when writing remind me of the danger of letting things sit - especially poetry. It’s helpful to get some distance from the work, but situations and even people change amazingly quickly. It’s hard to judge how long is too long.. My upcoming birthday is  depressing and things kept wanting to go that way, but mortality wasn’t originally a theme in the first stanza - I was just trying to make it pretty.

It might help for short works to take detailed notes on one’s state of mind before starting and then only write when in similar moods, but this would limit the range of anything longer. Ack it’s way past time to sleep..

I’ve gazed along the open road
in early morning silence,
when the ground is lit with a heady glow
and the light is clear and constant;
a milky film of night-air clings
to the silver olive leaves
and the silver sun skims the sandy ground
and throws light in drops off the trees.

I’ve gazed along the open road
in staid light fast abating,
when the sky is great with gold decay
and the sun is spent and setting;
a rich bouquet of shared-life hangs
with black and heavy fruit
till fruit and branches drop with the day
and all that’s quick falls cold and mute.

Current mood: calm

There is a sweet and solemn place
away up in the canyon
along the ridge’s southern face
where the redroot’s blooming.
The air is hot and hazy thick
with the smell of summer,
the grass is ripe and sweet to pick
in gold and green and amber.
The insects murmer high and light
a humming and a popping
the sky is lit up low and bright
and peace is gently falling.

The morning sweat and rising breath
of oceans, rivers, lakes,
is drawn and packed against
the upper edge of air and space.
The sky bends under compounded
weight of wind and cloud;
the atmosphere beneath,
compressed and buckling, cracks,
crazing up the middle,
hot from the folding,
light showing through the back.

Again from creative writting

Found this half done in a notebook. Often when I come back to things they seem mehh but this was ok. The danger in waiting to finish is that style inevitably changes - it’s pretty obvious which stanzas are new. Distance is good, but not too much..

She sits across from me wild and unbroken,
hair wandering, eyes lit up by coffee fumes -
the high features of her face, the force of life
that uncurls from her shoulder and animates
fine ligaments as she reaches for a napkin
call to mind old romantic poetry in which the victim
is subject to all manner of unlikely metaphor, but,

My love is like an untamed bird
that sits in open hand -
her talk is singing, if she sang
to me I could not stand it.
Such things were meant not for mere men
but rather kings and lords
who sat in ancient times enthroned,
rich raiment draped like skirts of snow
round thickset hills of shoulders,
iron necks, proud heads turned slow.
Their crown was justice, might their sceptre,
From their lips flowed truth and beauty,
On their tounges were verse and laughter.
In their cages dwelt such birds;
when their strong hearts were galled
from bearing beast and sinful man,
then for the bird they’d call;

And notes as clear as moonlight rang,
bright peaks and dewy threads of song
light-shuttled through the air,
until the violent crowd grew quiet;
until all else fell silent.

I’ve posted the intro to this before, but don’t browse away if you’ve already read it - I finally finished the thing and theres a lot more now. I polished that intro for over a year and it seemed almost to good to use, but I had a midterm project due and couldn’t come up with a different idea. This is sort of a final rough draft - it’s been revised and it’s pretty strong, but still needs refining. In particular, the final paragraph lacks impact, but as the writer it’s tough to judge. Anyway, please leave constructive criticism!!!

Landscaped palms filed alongside the road, wedged into the thin strip of habitable dirt between the pavement and the sand. The sky was covered with sheets of beige cloud, wrinkled in the delicate geography of a crumpled blanket, and as Adam walked the clouds meandered west, blown by the same light wind that carried troops of gulls home from their night encampments a few hours earlier. The sun had just crested the eastern hills and Adam was only a mile from where he had slept, but already he wanted to stop. A vague sense of neglected duty had been hanging like mist over the past few days, and that morning it finally condensed - he wanted to write down what was happening, what had happened, so he wouldn’t forget. The night had passed quietly, so he decided it was safe to spend a few hours making notes. A drain pipe was protruding from the gently sloped embankment a few yards ahead - hot tin covered in the penetrating, sticky dust characteristic of exposed California hillsides. He brushed off the fine brown powder and sat down.

As Adam opened his notebook, he considered simply leaving it, along with the rest of his property, and returning for it later. His guitar was especially cumbersome, pulling him to the left and banging awkwardly against his hip as he walked. It had been with him for years and had absorbed some part of him, as things that are well loved often do, but it would be better to loose only a part..

He felt these choices were becoming increasingly important - his foresight was clear in the silence of the cost and he could see his actions reverberate through time as the future compressed into the present. That silence, however, at first a welcome relief from the unnerving noises of the city, was growing sharp. It had become a tangible negative, a felt presence instead of a mere lack of sound, and it colored all his experience. He glanced up and the atmosphere offered no resistance: it looked as if he could pluck a tree from one of the nearby mountains. The air moved and the hairs on his arm stirred individually.

Adam sat quietly and considered his position. He had been traveling for two days, searching for food, and had found nothing… His plan had been to head south along the coast, in the hope that whatever was growing or grazing would still be edible. The coast of Southern California veers east, though, as it drops from Los Angeles towards San Diego; Adam knew this and he was troubled. He thought about the shadow that slid in from the east, the shadow still covering most of the city, and his right eye started twitching violently. But the raw energy of the sun and the clear air were wearing on him and there seemed to be no alternative.

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I love the 4th. In some of my earliest memories I’m waving sparklers on my grandparents’ lawn - watching liquid fire drip off the tip onto the grass; white smoke, nostrils full of sulfer.. Fireworks are threaded through my life, and they have never changed for me. My reactions have changed, but they haven’t: I’ve always seen in them an ideal beauty, with nothing to grasp at or hold on to - no distractions as it were.

I can follow that strand of beauty back, and I see myself falling farther and farther away from it. When I was very young, fireworks simply made me happy. Even though the fireworks were used up, my happiness was secure because life was secure - I was confident of even greater good to come, of more holidays and more fireworks, and nothing had been irrepairably lost or broken.

I used to make fireworks (people often think I’m some pyro nut-job, but that wasn’t really it: who doesn’t want to create the thing they love?), and through that hobby I saw the possibility of change and a foreshadowing of my current position.

One year I put on a show for my cousins, which started well. There were several volcanoes (blue and purple) I was especially proud of. Near the end I set off a whistler. It was a new design, and instead of whistling it exploded - it flew through the air and struck my cousin Whitney’s ankle. She wasn’t injured, but of course it stung and she spent several minutes crying. Even though she was ok, I felt wretched the rest of the day. Here was a thing that seemed entirely beautiful, that had brought me only joy, and in trying to bring that joy to someone else I had brought suffering instead. The very center of things had become missaligned, and fireworks made me sad from then on.

They are still beautiful, and they fade, but now I cry afterwards, because I know some beautiful things pass away and never come back. I think of all the people I’ve hurt and the suffering I’ve caused, all the beauty I’ve destroyed, things I can never undo, and even though God can bring new good out of any evil, still the evil is done and the first good is gone. Of couse I know, as a Christian, that there is hope.. everyone plays “Born in the USA” today, but I always think of a different Springsteen song:

everything dies baby that’s a fact
but maybe everything that dies someday comes back..

Today I found myself erasing a used scantron sheet because I didn’t have 5 cents to buy a new one..  Is that the epitome of the broke college student or what?

You might first want to google “Old Hag Syndrome” to get some perspective on what I’ll be talking about - there’s a wealth of information on the net..

I decided to write about this because it happened to me recently. In fact, it’s something I’ve consistently experienced much of my life, perhaps 3 or 4 times a year (sometimes more, sometimes less, largely depending on where I’m living).

Old Hag Syndrome includes 2 distinct but related phenomena that have been lumped together by modern neuroscience to push a certain agenda. The first is Sleep Paralysis: some people, if they wake up at an odd time or are disturbed while falling asleep, will regain consciousness but will be momentarily unable to move. The brain disconnects itself from the body during sleep to keep the sleeper from acting out their dreams (when this doesn’t happen we end up sleepwalking). If someone wakes up at an odd time, the brain may not reconnect to the body right away, leaving the victim paralyzed for up to a minute.

The second phenomenon doesn’t have a scientific name, but I would call it demonic attack. People sometimes wake up and feel they are being pinned to the bed or choked by an evil entity, which they may or may not be able to see. They might feel like their body is being taken over, or that they are being somehow violated spiritually. This is where the name, “Old Hag Syndrome” comes from. In ancient times it was thought a hag (witch) was trying to kill the victim by sitting on their chest and suffocating them.

Modern science tells us these are both the same thing, and that the second is simply the brain making up a reason for why the body can’t move.

I’ve experienced both, and they are absolutely different and distinct. There is no mistaking the reality of the presence, which I have occasionly seen or felt hours before going to bed. This is not unusual - often the victim of the second sort of experience hasn’t fallen asleep yet, or they see or sense the evil entity before they are pinned down, which plainly gives lie to the current explanation. Sleep paralysis does sometimes occur as a prelude to an attack - I believe this is because the entity in question is taking advantage of the situation, i.e. the body is not under the brain’s control and is thus vulnerable.

This sort of thing is almost universally known in every culture across the world, both modern and ancient, and every culture but ours has attributed it to some kind of spiritual assault. I am all for modern science, but the foundation of science is empirical evidence, and in this case the facts point to a spiritual explanation. Non-believers often tell me there is no evidence for a spiritual reality, which is certainly not the case. This may in fact be some of the most convincing evidence. You must either attribute it to mass hallucinations, which have been consistently similar among different, isolated, cultures, or you must accept the reality of the experience.