Edgar Allan Poe was born this day in 1809.

We tend to look at ancient texts with a certain sort of reverence. It is automatic. As was said in the movie Chinatown – politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they live long enough. It’s a kind of reverence that can blind us to the fact that at one time, the author was a breathing, living person and the work was new and fresh. It’s the kind of reverence that makes us forget that Shakespeare filled his verses with sexual innuendos to please the commercial masses. It’s the kind of reverence that makes us forget that Dante was a f%#*’n potty mouth.

Along with brilliant weavings of theological musings, mythological imagery, horrific reflection, and political commentary – Dante’s great work had its share of irreverent humor and visceral (that’s a fancy way of saying “gross!”) phrases. In some cases it’s just the images that are best described with those short (four letter) words that bring the disgust home.

In other instances, Dante uses the roaring, laughing demons, to great effect, to offer their irreverent actions and words. In Canto XXI, Dante and Virgil are led by an escort of demons, “And the leader made a trumpet of his ass.”

Now put the two together…the violent action of the demons and the description of the aftermath…and we have a really gross image and a swear word…

But forget gross for a second. Dante also puts a little humor into some action sequences. Probably the strangest, action packed moment in the epic, happens in Canto XXI. Dante and Virgil are being chased by the angry demons that had earlier, escorted them. The duo reach a hill. With speed and without a word, Virgil picks Dante up, puts him on his back, and then slides down the hill (with Dante using the wraith as a sled) at tremendous speed…escaping the howling demons. And there it is…the strangest chase scene in literary history.

You know…if a modern movie of The Inferno were ever made (God I’d love to write that script), that is the sort of scene that would probably get taken out in the adaptation. The film makers would probably think that this is too goofy…that it was not of a reverent enough tone, to represent Dante, the ancient author. Ironically…that’s the kind of attitude that would take the work away from the author’s original intentions.

I’d keep the sledding scene.

I cruised frigid roads that frowned in the cold, looking for a place to buy Torrie a toilet bowl lid and seat (you know…a normal Tuesday night), thinking. Wil met a student who had transferred from UIS to Eureka. He asked if she knew me, describing me. Apparently she did know me by sight…and apparently I frightened her (she worked late nights at the library and my late night wandering apparently made her feel ill at ease). I thought about this. I pondered it and my copious history of tickets (my name is probably an oft noted footnote in the annals of Central Illinois police lore). And that’s when I saw the answer to it all – the reason for the tickets and scaring folk. It’s all so clear…

The asshole who makes the neighborhood watch signs keeps putting my likeness up. See…

Every where you go…

No matter where you turn…

There I am, with a big line through me. It’d be nice if just one neighborhood had my picture on a sign that said WELCOME. Is that too much to ask? They’re running a smear campaign against me or something. I think I need to write a letter to neighborhood watch. The problem is…that’s an organization that only exists on a sign.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Car rides are sometimes useful. You can sort bits of your life out, meditate, listen to audio fiction, talk to yourself, and finish the lyrics to fictional blues songs about the complications in the life of a romantic necrophiliac.

Thought I’d join the crowd. Don’t worry…I’ll get to filling out yours as well.

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. How have I affected you?
5. What do you think of me?
6. What’s the fondest memory you have of me?
7. How long do you think we will be friends?
8. Do you love me?
9. Do you have a crush on me?
10. Would you kiss me?
11. Would you hug me?
12. Physically, what stands out?
13. Emotionally, what stands out?
14. Do you wish I was cooler?
15. On a scale of 1-10, how hot am I?
16. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
17. Am I loveable?
18. How long have you known me?
19. Describe me in one word.
20. What was your first impression of me?
21. Do you still think that way about me now?
22. What do you think my weakness is?
23. Do you think I’ll get married?
24. What makes me happy?
25. What makes me sad?
26. What reminds you of me?
27. If you could give me anything what would it be?
28. How well do you know me?
29. When’s the last time you saw me?
30. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn’t?
31. Do you think I could kill someone?
32. Have we ever had sex?
33. Do you miss me?
34. Do you think i miss you?
35. Are you going to put this in your LiveJournal/MySpace/Xanga and see what I say about you?

Have you ever cleaned your room, only to discover that you’ve been using the Egyptian Book of the Dead as a sort of stop, to keep your DVDs from falling behind the TV stand, for the last year or so, and forgot?

Have you ever stood too close to a microwave, in the hopes that the resulting, manifested super powers would keep you from work on Monday?

…me neither…

…I was just checking.

An author I like recently said that writing a novel (or any other large work) is like a cartoon character sprinting on air, having just run off a cliff. Run and run and you can keep running as long as you don’t look down. Keep your eyes on the Road Runner, fixate on the goal, on the ideal and you can defy physics, you can deny the fact that gravity wants to dash you on the rocks and that the ACME rocket strapped to your ass will surely detonate. Eye on the Road Runner.

I think I looked down.

A couple days left in my break and the amount of concrete pay dirt I have to show, for my grand little epic, is not all that much. Home was not as good a work space as I thought. Distractions and distractions. Then, I tried helping a loved one who’s family was in a crisis. Stress and stress.

Was all this enough to force one into contemplating suicide? No. Not this one. However, I did down a pack of Pop Rocks (a stocking stuffer) and washed it down with a Coke. It was a ridiculous, strawberry flavored cry for help…or maybe I just wanted to test an urban legend. My head did not blow up.

But the above mentioned crisis has ended well. So that is at rest.

Today I drove to a coffee shop, the one with the outlet for my computer, the one in the downtown brick building on a downtown street, the one with a good window view. I left my cell phone elsewhere. I cursed, at first, but enjoyed the blessed disconnection. No calls. No internet. Just me and the work and the snow accumulating outside and watching the shop owners deal with it from my window perch.

The only time I’m not worried about writing, is when I’m actually working on it. I can scare myself silly when I think about working on it. But now I was lost in working out the problems in my head. I had a bead on the Road Runner. I was just starting to think, I’ve got you now, you feathery bastard.

My rocket pack did not explode. That’s a good day.

I watched a woman across the coffee house. She was angrily talking to someone, a poor someone that had to sit through that rant. I couldn’t hear. I don’t know what she was mad about. But I could tell from her body language, that I did not like her. Just the body language. All jerky, over animated, over emphasized (and not in a cartoonishly fun way) hand gestures and the way she gave a sharp nod at the end of each imaginary paragraph or point, telling the listener that they agree even before they can respond. At the height of whatever monologue she was giving (and do the words or subject matter even matter?) her hand gestures got positively Hitler-esque. The type of angry person who thinks the rest of the world is obligated to let her fume on them – negative energy pollution and never mind your neighbor. It’s an overindulgent kind of anger…like overindulgent angst or brooding…you act like you don’t like it, but you really do – it’s a sweet/sour dessert.

Body language is important.

At some point prior, I would have had to actually listen in on the conversation to realize I didn’t like this lady. But as you go along in life, you find shortcuts in everything and now the body language sufficed, to let me know ahead of time, that this chick was ten shades of odious and I could feel that presence across the room, curdling the cream in my Overpriced-White-Chocolate-Pretentious-Mocha.

I don’t know how far back I started observing people so much…but you never know when something useful will float by: a character quirk, a phrase, a peculiar syntax, a weird anecdote, etc.

I waited until the coffee shop closed. Now it was late and dark and no traffic. Lots of snow though. But I like driving through the snow (especially when there is little traffic). I’m good at driving in the snow. I find it relaxing. I’m good at using the skid and knowing when to start stopping. It’s not a loss of control, but a more anticipatory sort of control. Add on the MP3 player and it becomes surreal in a lucid, sharp-minded way – white snow and skeletal branches reaching for the moon.

But I’ve already gone on long enough…

Maybe tomorrow I’ll explain some of the potty humor in Dante’s Inferno.

Now I’ll either go to sleep or go back to work. If I keep my eyes on the Road Runner, I can defy physics.

Don’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDownDon’tLookDown

New year. Happy new year? Sad new year? Or maybe just a new year and happiness and sadness are holidays that don’t know of a calendar.

Anyway – I’m starting this new year with a newly published story. Click “FOR POOR LUCY” to go and read my second story posted on the British web magazine, Bloodlust UK. Just scroll down, I think my story is the last listed in this issue.

Stories to come:

“Teddy Bear Rex” in the spring issue of ELM (Eureka Literary Magazine)

“Poe Goes to the Singles Bar” in Raven men’s magazine (February issue)