fiction | Writings and Letters

December 26, 2016

DET Talks: The GCC Future

(The following transcript comes from the March 5th Democratic Educational Technological Talks—sponsored by the United Bondholders of America for America Coalition (UBAAC)—in the Year of Our Lord, Trump 2019. The speaker, Rannick Hollandaise, founder and CEO of Compassionate Capitalist Solutions LLC, talked about his companies efforts to expand the human genome in new and exciting ways.)

The GCC Future

“I want to start by painting a picture for you. Not literally, I have no skills. [Laughter] But I want you to close your eyes and imagine a mother walking through a store with her son. Let’s say it’s around Christmas time. She makes the mistake of taking a turn down the toy aisle of the store. There the child is inundated with this wide array goods. All the brands, all the action figures, they’re all there. Of course the boy becomes aflutter with all these toys. He wants everything he can possibly get his little hands on. But the mother, of course, cannot afford everything presented in the aisle. She tries to reason with him, but he becomes greatly depressed, and even though they leave the aisle with two toys (which she really shouldn’t be buying for financial reasons and others) the little boy is still upset.

“Imagine now, another mother mistakenly walks her daughter down that same toy aisle… say they rearranged the store overnight so the women are understandably confused, it used to be the cutlery aisle after all. [Laughter] Anyway, mother walks with her daughter, but instead of coveting everything she sees, the daughter simply walks by as if she is observing paint drying. The girl doesn’t care. The two walk on. Nothing happens.

“Now, of course, we all might be thinking: ‘bad parenting’ or ‘greedy childish impulses’ are to blame in the first scenario, and applaud the mother in the second scenario for presumably her better parenting skills. Or we might think this is some sort of gender comment. Boys being impetuous materialists, and girls are not. We of course know that to be empirically untrue. [Laughter] We may even think the products appealed better to the boy than girl for whatever reasons, the mysterious waving of the invisible hand and whatnot.

“Whatever we may be thinking, we might not recognize that both situations present problems. The first is obvious, the child is upset and the mother is in worse-off financial standing for trying to satisfy the boy. The second, the mother and girl seem unharmed, but what about the companies that have made these toys? Won’t they be hurt? And furthermore, won’t the mommies and daddies that work at those companies be negatively effected by the no-sale? Maybe not in this one instance, but extrapolating from there, you can begin to see the larger issue at hand. It is an issue that has plagued economists, business people, politicians, parents, consumers, pretty much every person around the world. The human relation to consumption. What is it? How does it work? What are the components? Who are the actors? And so on.

“We’ve tried for centuries to understand the right balance of and conquer that ineffable social alchemy between survival, consumption, and purpose. But in today’s modern world this seems less and less likely to happen. More companies come out with more goods to satisfy more needs of more people. How could we possibly make any progress in satisfying people’s consumer demands and reach the admirable goal of full-employment? The simple answer is: we can’t. Not as the way things are. We are stuck is a vicious feedback loop of anxiety, consumption, debt, and work. We will likely be stuck in this pattern until we eliminate ourselves from the world theater. And that’s the optimistic point-of-view… [Laughter]

“For centuries, we have been looking outward for answers only to come up empty-handed. But now that’s about to change. At CCS, we’ve been working for years on a completely novel way to alter our behavior in a positive manner for America. And the key to cracking this code is a code itself, located within us. Our very own genetic code. Through a process of—what we call—‘genetic commercialization’ we have been able to go into the human genome and change the DNA in order to create certain favorable characteristics. These characteristics are related to human desire and relationship with consumerism.

“Through our genetic engineering, we are able to construct the human mind to have certain set wants and needs. By simply tinkering with a few chromosomes, we are able to properly effect the human brain so that, even as a baby, the human already craves certain types of goods and products.

“Now, I know what you might be thinking: How do I invest? [Laughter] We’re already working closely with some of the largest corporations in the country, and have received another large grant from the government to continue our research and implementation well into 2025. It’s very exciting for us.

“But I’m not here to gloat. Well, maybe a little. Why I think we’re seeing such support and cooperation is because the future needs to be a little more organized, and genetic commercialization is a necessity. No longer will we be plagued by a sea of goods, for we will already have our genes pre-programmed to enjoy certain things and be opposed to others. Certain percentages of the population will love Disney, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s and Ford Automobiles, where others will prefer Hasbro, Pepsi, Nestle, and GMC. And others more. It will be very much like now, but instead of inter-corporate consuming habits being a burden to us, it will become part of our nature. Buying General Mills products will become as easy as breathing air to us.

“With designated sections of the population genetically devoted to certain brands for their entire lives, companies can always guarantee profits, keep a consistent workforce, which means employees won’t need to stress about keeping their jobs, consumers will never spend too far outside of their income and therefore get into too much credit trouble, and we eliminate a great deal of uncertainty when it comes to handling the market. We will essentially create a predictable consuming world, rich with people consuming American products and boosting American jobs and lifestyles.

“There is no limit to what we can make our DNA do. But there is a catch. It is us. We cannot manipulate DNA of people who are already born. Every one in this room cannot be saved—I mean fixed—I mean genetically perfected—I mean… [Laughter]

“Us ‘old-fashioned’ types will have to keep doing things the way we’ve always known, but the next generation is the key. Fetal manipulation is necessary to properly enacting genetic commercialization. The process is a little too technical and complicated for this seminar, and I’m already running out of time, but to put it simply: we have to remove the fertilized egg from the uterus and perform the patented DNA-swap procedure—humbly called the ‘Hollandaise Maneuver’—to insert the new brand-specific DNA. Then we place the embryo back in the uterus and let nature take its course.

“We already know this works… this is a picture of our very first successful test subject. This is Adam. Last year we performed the Hollandaise Maneuver and Adam was born nine months later, perfectly healthy. Over the course of the last six months, we have been testing out products with Adam. One of the brands we implanted into his DNA was for Procter & Gamble, not Johnson & Johnson or other family goods companies. When we tried to use products belonging to competitive brands, Adam either shied away from the products, or (very interestingly) developed rashes. His body and mind were clearly rejecting the other corporate brands, preferring Procter & Gamble’s products. It was a revolutionary breakthrough. We’ve been testing his other brand-DNA characteristics and so far have been met with success. It’s a very encouraging development.

“And when Adam grows up and decides to have children (because we’ve reinforced the reproductive drive in his DNA, too), he will most likely pass along some of these commercialized genes to his children. Assuming we can implement matters the way we believe we can, Adam will meet an Eve with commercialized genes, too, and they will have children who crave one set of their brands or the other—so in addition to wondering whose eyes their baby has, or whose nose, they’ll also wonder if the baby has their love for Pantene and Cornflakes, or Neutrogena and Cheerios.

“As I mentioned before, we’re already working closely with corporations and the government. There are a few companies that are holding back cautiously, but we are certain they will come around to us. Much like the agricultural revolution, all it takes is one acting group to change the world. We just need one corporate entity to join us and the rest will follow. And we don’t have one, we are already working closely with more than twenty conglomerates. In addition, we are teaming up with the administration towards passing legislation that will make our genetic commercialization a routine part of the circle of life—at least for the latest crop of parents. Then within the next, say, twenty to forty years, we will have implemented our first genetically commercialized generation of Americans, and—might I add—advanced the human species.

“We’re calling this project ‘Genetically Commodified Children’ or ‘GCC Kids’ for fun. Imagine it, an entire next generation of youths who know exactly what they want to experience and purchase, and an entire world of workers and businesses developed around those consumers, Supply and Demand working together in perfect harmony.

“It’s really not hard to imagine anymore. The future is now.”

[Vehement Applause]

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November 13, 2016

Infinite City: Blue Vandas (Dorcho’s on 139th and N. Vorschein)

I’m sitting at the counter in Dorcho’s on 139th and N Vorschein. It’s been around since the late 20s. The decor clings to the epoch when diners “mattered” (something an arthouse punk I know said to me), which might make it post-war 1950s. The brown floral linoleum peels at the edges, reminiscent of a dried lakebed, or withering bouquet. The entropy is most visible near the entrance, around corners of the booths, and beneath the door to the bathroom, exposing the burgundy-painted concrete lying beneath. The walls are covered in a crude wood panelling, sections of which have warped around the ventilation system of the exposed kitchen. At night, when the room is colored in tungsten, the walls nearest to the storefront windows show how faded they have become from UV radiation. The two-tone quality accentuates the aesthetic binary of the diner, the counter to the front, the booths to the back.

Dead-center, the kitchen consists of one large blackened griddle with sundry knobs and compartments housing various thawing meats and variations of starchy sides. The decades of grease, dirt, fluids, anything transmitted through the conduit of ill-washed hands have formed a thin coagulum. It gives off a certain blue-collar sheen, or in other words: filthy luster. The health inspector’s grade “Q-” hangs alongside the framed pictures of the past: headlines from local newspapers spanning the centuries next to photos of past store owners as they age, their families, a collage of human continuum.

Blue vandas perch on the windowsill facing the street, and on rainy days (like this one) they produce an exquisite sadness, looking almost longingly out at the rain drops as they hit the glass and fall in sporadic patterns. They are well-cared for, the flowers. Their petals environ the white plastic vases that hold them forming a purple canopy (dark blue in the shade of thunderclouds) with starlight pistils at the centers. Their beauty invokes an emotional, intellectual response, some natural provocation similar to staring into flame.

My waitress, Madonna, tells me they’re the current owner’s favorite. She has a garden of them atop the building. “Cuts ’em every Sunday or so and puts new ones down.” That’s a lot of flowers. “You better believe it.” Madonna tells me some other things, opening up as women do once we realize the other isn’t a threat. This impromptu civility transforms from blue vandas, to awful weather, to my order, to Madonna complimenting me on my glasses and necklace, to a brief conversation about cervicoplasty, and then a historical account of the place: It opened the week the market crashed. It changed hands a few times, from one relative to another, but has been under the ownership of this little ole grandma named Barney for the past fifty years. Her father had a heart attack at the griddle and she inherited the business at nineteen. Flash forward a few decades, add a couple of kids and ex-husbands later, she now spends most of her days sitting in one of the few booths towards the back speaking Portuguese to the Angolan immigrants who live around the area.

Madonna motions and I turn to notice Barney sitting in the back speaking with an Angolan? as she sips on her coffee? tea? from her skylight blue mug.

“A Love Bizarre” by Sheila E. plays. I know now because Madonna tells me—it’s her iPhone playlist.

I steal looks over at the old owner of Dorcho’s. Her eyes are fixed on her interlocutor. Her lips move calmly as she explains? argues? jokes? with the other person. Her face and hands hint to at least four? five? decades of labor. The word “velleity” pops into mind, though I can’t quite imagine why. Then I look back at the photographs and newspaper clippings over the years, all spread across the wall behind me. Customers conversing, eating, ignoring the captured past hanging muted above them. I look at the stories of the pictures and headlines, I follow them from the door, flitting from framed image to article and other, children growing old, interchangeable men and fashions from one frame to the next, “Best Diner” “Best Burger” “Dorcho’s Fights Back” “75 Years and Counting” “Local Diner Does OK”, all the way to the back where Barney sits.

I follow the points and I counter-reference them with Barney. And I wonder about the in-between moments, all the pluses and minuses that make the sum, the production not the product, those ignored or forgotten moments that are almost as important if not more than the important ones. And for a moment, I start to pull away from myself, staring deep into Barney’s sad beauty, overcome and alive, and start to understand something until Madonna sets my meal down in front of me.

“Surf’s up!”

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November 6, 2016

The End of History… (Cubs ed.)

by Francis Fukuyama

In the course of watching Game 7 of the World Series, it was hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental was happening in world history. To read some of the recent articles posted after the game seems to point to the end of over a century’s worth of misery and the upcoming of spiritual “peace” throughout the hearts and minds of North Siders. Most of these analyses lack a certain macro-study of what is ultimately of merit and what is analytical rubbish, and thus laughably cursory.

And yet…

These articles nevertheless (poorly, by accident) point towards some grander conceptual apparatus at play, viewed through the praxis of the Cubs playoff run: first with the remnants of a once powerful San Francisco Giants team, then the tinseltown darlings Los Angeles Dodgers, and finally a revamped derelict named the Cleveland Indians that threatened the hopes and dreams of America’s Pastime with the apocalypse. But the beginning of the twentieth century has been bookended by the beginning of the twenty-first in very much the same fashion: the Chicago Cubs are World Series champions.

The triumph of Chicago, of the very idea of the North Side Cubbies, is not only evident in the final tally, the hoisting of the gold-clad trophy, or the deluge of tenth-rate bubbly, but it transcends into the highest form of Western excellence: consumer products. Lakeshore Drive Yuppies and Northwest Suburban Soccer Moms wearing T-shirts, caps, pajamas, and flags all doubled their original markups; post-college bros and dentists alike with their signed baseballs, bats, and jerseys for upwards to $4000; picture frames, bobbleheads, commemorative books or Blu-rays, you name it! found in Belmont as well as Boystown, or Albany, Norwood, and Lincoln Park, and “Go, Cubs! Go!” can be heard on radio waves all across the city; over $70 million dollars-worth of merchandise sold within the first full day alone from buyers all over the country (even the poor children of Laos, Sudan, Afghanistan, Honduras, Haiti, and more, who will wear the over-sized T-shirts intended for hulking adults paid exorbitant salaries so high the gap between the two is as imperceptible as the words “World Series Champions” and “Cleveland” or the beet-faced racist caricature smiling back at them, even these children are a sign of the overwhelming success of the Cubbies excellence).

What we maybe witnessing is not just the end of the century-plus epoch of misery for Cubs fans and thus the exuberance of fans and profiteers in an orgy of commodity exchange, but the millennium of peace and prosperity for all baseball fans at the behest of The Loveable [Winners] and ergo: THE END OF HISTORY.

Of course, the concept of the end of history is not original. No. It started over seventy years prior this essay with the deleterious Greek, William Sianis, and his filthy goat: Buckles. Upon being ejected from the World Series game in Wrigley Field on account of either his or his goat’s smell, he used his crypto-gypsy black magic (sacrificing Buckles outside the gates of the historic ballpark) to curse the Cubs, stating: “These Chicago Cubs, they ain’t gonna win. They’re a buncha bums. They ain’t gonna win the World Series. Because they insulted my goat. They ain’t never gonna win a World Series ever again, or my name ain’t William Sianis of 374 South Halsted Street! Mark my woods [sic]. It’s da end of history for d’em!”

Sianis was borrowing this concept of the end of history from a far superior German thinker: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich von Puff’n’Stuff Hegel: whose legacy has been tarnished a bit at the hands of Billy Goat-worshiping descendants of Sianis (and possibly closeted Satanists) who appropriated Hegel for their own anti-Cubbie rhetoric, he now has the misfortune of being seen mainly as a precursor of Sianis goat cursing.

However, there was a man from Wrigleyville who attempted to wrestle Hegel from the claws (or hooves) of the Goaters. He was Harry Carey, and he held a long and prosperous career as a baseball announcer for various clubs, including over a decade and half with the Cubs until his death in 1998. One fateful day in fall, Carey made the astonishing claim: “…sure as God made green apples, the Cubs are going to be in the World Series,” he spoke of the key ingredients of their success that were already in place, even though the team had only finished in first place twice in a thirty-year period prior and achieved a winning record just five times in that span, went through twenty-two different managers, and would eventually lose ace pitcher Greg Maddux. To peers of Carey’s in 1991, comments calling for a new manager “maybe Jimmy Frey” (who had been fired five years previously) or “this is a veteran team, guys who are young but still are veteran,” must have seen like ramblings of a senile loon, trapped in a quixotic myopia that was the blind love of a perpetually tottering baseball club. To some now, he might seem prescient. But Carey was just a dogmatic Hegelian.

Hegel is key to understanding the Cubs triumph and the end of history.

To summarize Hegel’s idealist views in a few pithy sentences would be a disservice to the philosopher and only accentuate the intellectual pratfalls of this essay. But fuck it.

Hegel believed the “real” world could be impacted by the “ideal” world (not necessarily directly, but indirectly), so our historical consciouses guide our human action which influences world behaviors which influence our historical consciouses.

So, when Carey stated twenty-five years prior to the realization that the Cubs would win the World Series, he was merely speaking from the realm of consciousness that all Cubs fans had, and eventually that idea broke through the nebulous of ideas into the world of reality, bringing in the end of history.

III

“But,” some might ask, “are we really at the end of history?”

Well, are the Cubs the World Series champions? Can any other team in Major League Baseball win the 2016 World Series now? Can anyone buy merchandise that claims otherwise?

We need not ask every crackpot fanatic their answer to the above questions. It matters very little what supporters of the Colorado Rockies, or New York Yankees, San Diego Padres or Detroit Tigers have to say about matters for they are not important enough. No. We need only ask these questions from other like-minded Cubbies.

Previously, the two biggest challengers to Chicago Cubs world dominance were the St. Louis Cardinals and goat curses. But as 2016 has shown us, what we always knew would be the case from the start, the Cubs handled the Cardinals (starting back in the 2015 NLDS when they defeated them to advance to the NLCS, but then winning the head-to-head series in 2016 and finishing seventeen and a half games ahead of them in the Central Division), and eventually broke the back of the vicious curse (with the throw from Bryant to Rizzo to capture the last out of the season).

Some may point out the Cardinals were plagued by injuries, suspensions, and other setbacks, and in an already weak Central Division, the Cubs were able to move through an easy schedule, or that they benefitted from a Giants victory over the Mets (a team they had a combined record of 2-9 over the past eleven games) in the Wild Card game, or that if the Cleveland pitching staff and outfielders had not played with comical Little League bungling in Game 6 or were not overwhelmed by the weight of their own being Cleveland-ness in Game 7, the Cubs might not be World Series Champions, and others point out that there are particularly searing issues the clubhouse will have to face in the future (Chapman and Fowler might move on; Heyward was not the player they paid for; no team has won consecutive World Series championships since the New York Yankees at the turn of this century) to ensure the Chicago Cubs hegemony.

With all these accusations flying about like a cherished W, it is possible to forget a simple truth. In 1908, the Cubs won the World Series. The present world seems to have confirmed this fact and stayed relatively close to the fundamental principles that a baseball team should win the World Series, and even though it might have been 108 years between then and now before the Cubs won the championship again, no one can deny they did, in fact, win the World Series, thus not only breaking the curse but establishing the greatness and ubiquity of Cubbie-dom.

What, then, does it mean to be at the end of history?

Ultimately, because the Cubs are World Series champions it means they will remain so for the foreseeable future and thus live at the end of history in their surfeit of celebratory goodies, parades, and glad tidings.

Clearly, teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks and Minnesota Twins still exist in the world, and thus in history, but for any team (or their fans) that want to experience the joy and wonder of being a champion, all they need to do is to stop being them and become a Chicago Cub.

Based off my connections with the front offices in Cleveland and even the South Side the intelligentsia is most likely already starting to make their moves northward.

The victory of the Cubs spells the death of the Billy Goat curse. Its passing means the growing “Common Cubbietization” of Major League Baseball, and the unlikely return of any other equal-measured competitor to rise from now till the Rapture.

This does not mean the end of all problems, per se, in Chicago. The river will still need to be dyed a natural color, Jay Cutler will still be the Bears quarterback, and millions of Chicagoans will continue to drink Old Style and eat a glorified bread bowl of meat, cheese, and red sauce they call “pizza”… which might compel one to wonder how significant a Cubs victory is, but… … …

Now and forever, the Cubs will remain the victors valiant, the heroes of the West(ern civilized world), there need not be another champion of the Major Leagues for there is no alternative now to the Chicago Cubs.

The end of history will be sad for many. The struggle for a new identity will be felt. Many Cubbies will have a hard time coming to terms with being winners. The willingness to get piss-drunk and risk arrest for a purely abstract goal of greatness by punching a Brewers fan in the face will be lost. The ethic of “Loveable Loserism”will be replaced by something less adhesive, some cold calculation of victory, an endless sea of championship paraphernalia.

All we will have to look forward to now is this boredom, and perhaps, one day, look back longingly at history.

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September 21, 2016

Barbershop off Main St.

For those who had even the most inchoate appreciation of spatial properties and crudest admiration for aesthetics, the barbershop was an offense to such attuned faculties. The locomotive design impacted all the contents of the room together into this long, strained hallway, without any of the pleasantries afforded by riding transit: mainly a sense of adventure: instead, what remained was the strong feeling of claustrophobia and decorative constipation. Checkerboard tiles spread out across the floor fading off into a blur, some optical deception, as the eyes hit the horizon. When buffered, which was rare, the floor glared back the light reflecting off it, day or night, to suggest a demur attitude towards cleanliness, preferring the soot-rich scrubbing of a years-old mop to crest its battered surface and expose blemishes in the dried remains of dirty water; most often, random marauding tuffets of clipped hair were noticed roaming across the barren plains searching for crevasses to hide in or shoes to fix under. Undusted frames of mass-produced prints hung scattered on the halogen-colored walls: Stuart’s unfinished Athenaeum, a detailed lithograph of Connecticut, bad Impressionists and Sargent’s divisive Gassed, ugly illustrations from obliged school children, a few covers of the Saturday Evening Post ripped straight from the magazine: their selection and level of skilled placement reinforced the banal eclecticism of Main Street. An overused broom and its mop companion leaned in a corner. To stare into the local parlor was similar to falling in it. One could not fight its gravitational pull.

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September 4, 2016

… Conquista Todo

La Silla

Alejandro Francisco Villalba-Peña sat in a white leather chair next to his daughter’s bed. The chair was handcrafted from a Peruvian Almond (though the tree was not from Peru, nor did it produce almonds). As his mother used to tell him, Alejandro’s grandfather walked out into the forest determined to change his life. “There was no work in our village or even in the nearest city, which was not much of a city at all. Your grandparents struggled to feed us six children. One day, your grandfather just left the town. He never told your Abuela where he was going, he just left. He was gone for almost four days. She thought a jaguar ate him, or some bandits killed him. I was just a baby then, but I remember distinctly waking in my mother’s arms as she cried to the policeman and neighbor about how he was missing and they needed to find him. They kept saying there was nothing they could do. Then, in the middle of the night, he returned. Oh! was your grandmother outraged. She beat him with a broom and kicked him out of the house. She was smaller than me, and your grandfather was like you: tall and strong: but she beat him out of the house anyway. He even still had his ax in hand. She did not care! The next morning, though, she had calmed down and let him in. He told her of how he found the biggest tree in the forest, and how he worked on chopping the tree down. At first he didn’t know why he was doing it, maybe sell the wood for some money in the city. It took him all day to chop this tree down, some seventy to one-hundred meters high and almost three meters wide—though the tree grew more when your Papa was drunk,” she would wink.

“When the tree finally fell, the earth shook. He was in awe of this magnificent, huge fallen beast. It was too beautiful to be turned into simple firewood. Plus, when he was chopping it down, he realized he guessed the wrong tree. The wood was so hard, it was perfect for furniture… now… at this point in the story, your Abuela was almost at his throat again. ‘You don’t know how to make any furniture!’ she yelled at him. I don’t remember this, but your Papa always told me it happened. He remembered raising his voice to her, telling her how he would find a way, God willing. Then he stormed out of the house with some other tools and his ax. But these weren’t carpentry tools, no. He took what he had, even stole Abuela’s favorite knife, and disappeared for a week. When he returned, though, he had the most-beautiful chair my mother had ever seen. It was still crude, he needed to sand it and treat it, but it was beautiful. He sold it to a wealthy businessman in the capital. That first chair saved our family, and started the Peña company.” His mother usually sat back in whatever piece of furniture, usually the chair Papa made for Abuela on their anniversary. “He used to tell me, of all the chairs he ever made himself, the ones from that first tree were the greatest, and none better than the first. It was a magnificent work of art, Alejandro. Forged from a most desperate man, in desperate times. The Lord moved through him out there in the forest. He made him more than he ever was.”

Alejandro had additions made to the chair. It was now tufted with white leather and the top rail and arms covered in gold trim. The leather was a gift from the owner of the richest cattle farm in the nation. The gold came from the country’s mines. It had been molded into figures of ancient gods and peoples, long gone but etched into the collective memories of Alejandro’s people. The figures were designed so whenever he sat in the chair he was surrounded by the legends of his country and the people who came before him. The metaphor was lost to Alejandro. He wanted jaguars, the newly christened national animal, roaring and fighting one another all around him. He had dreamed of such things since he was a boy.

He was insulted when his wish was not met. He knew he was unambiguous when he gave his instructions. It was a slight against him. But the jeweler was his brother-in-law, and the work done for free, so he could not reject the final design. Every time he sat in the chair with his daughter, though, he was reminded of this disrespect and furthermore he was indebted to his brother-in-law for it. This was the first chair of the Peña legacy. It was the one his grandfather could not buy back, nor his father will it’s return. No amount of money, or might, could return the chair to his family. It was not until Alejandro became El Padre that the chair was returned to the rightful owners. He was supposed to sit upon it in the Great Room, where he would run the country, but the disrespect was too great for him to ignore. So the chair was moved to his daughter’s room.

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August 17, 2016

Time in the Fog: The Farm

(Previously)

THE FARM

The dying Virginian summer held on to its intensity in the idiosyncratic fashion of a Southern drawl, languidly carrying on towards fall. The heat hung in the air along with the thick moisture August provides. As the seconds dragged closer to midnight, the temperature still dawdled in the low-nineties. It had been this way for some weeks now, at least ten days. It was hard to keep track of time when each moment was just as oppressively hot as the next, and no degree of vegetation could shield one from the immeasurable radiation pouring down, trapped by the vapors in the air. Day transitioned into night and back again. The weather stayed the same. It became another obstacle for Agent Robins’s re-initiation.

The “field trips” ran some twelve to sixteen hours long for however many days until the mission was completed. The team might have to cover anywhere from eight to twelve miles a day through the heavy terrain. It had been almost fifteen years since she first stepped foot on the Farm to begin her training. Though she still maintained good physical conditioning on her own, returning to the field was a different matter all together. It required not only a special degree of corporeal attention, but cognitive as well.

Her training returned within the first few hours of her inaugural day, though: how to spot markers of roaming enemies and avoid tripwires or makeshift landmines, the best field techniques for keeping the body temperature low and feet dry, how to stay agile and silent with fifty-pound equipment (most of it unnecessary in the real field, but added in training to antagonize trainees) and sift through the forest’s white noise to tune in on footsteps, and mostly, she remembered the importance of battlefield equanimity.

It was a simple mission: track a group of ELN fighters, maybe six to ten strong, and eliminate them. But the days were cruel. One of the recruits suffered a bad sunburn on his arms and neck, he never slept well as a result. Most were exhausted by the continuous deluge of thick heat and traveling up steep hills and back down into valleys. They never complained, to their credit, but they were too slow. They would never catch the target at their current pace, and they risked being spotted if they moved too slowly—there were always more. Agent Robins knew by the trail size (which also gave away the formation), and few bits of trash left behind, the enemy’s numbers were fluctuating wildly anywhere from ten to twenty or more. The new recruits did not notice. Outnumbered, they would have to use the environment to their advantage.

That night, she encouraged the team leader to press on. Brady Copeland, graduated from Stanford with degrees in International Politics and Botany, former wrestler, admirable IQ, considers himself a gentleman, the typical red-meat All-American attributes that get selected for the agency. “Genetically-Modified Boy Scouts,” her mentor used to say.

“But how?” he looked up at her. He was laying down, seconds from sleep.

“We’ll track by moonlight, and perform night raids.”

He thought about it. He looked over to the other team members, some already sleeping. It had been an especially long day, and even though the index was still pushing into the high-eighties, most fell asleep from pure exhaustion. He shook his head. “It’s against the mission guidelines.”’

“There are no guidelines. We need to move. Now. We’re too slow. The rebels heavily outnumber us. If they’re smart, they are routinely splitting up and sending out scouts to ensure they aren’t walking into something or being followed. Based off the trails, they are smart. So, the longer it takes for us to find them is more time we are in the dark, and that increases our vulnerability and likelihood of mission failure.”

That struck a chord. It usually did with types like Brady. She watched his eyes as his brain tried to process the hypothetical scenario of failing, then cross examine the ramifications with breaking protocol and heading out in the middle of the night with a team already depleted of rest and stamina, but his eyelids kept fluttering. He could not focus. He let out a sigh. “I disagree, Agent Robins. Get some sleep.”

The following day, over thirty ELN insurgents ambushed the team of five at dusk. She and another recruit, Kerr, were able to stay alive long enough and use the cover of darkness to slip away through a hole in the attack. For the next six days, she pursued the ELN squad. There was a main core of fifteen that would swell upwards to forty and then disband. She kept track of the main group with Kerr until the sixth night when they shrunk to only eight. She had Kerr stationed just on the outskirts of the camp with explicit instructions: “Don’t move.”

Slithering through the ground, she came upon the scout who was keeping watch. His name was Church, but for the purposes of the drill he smeared dark green paint on his face and was a firm believer in focalism. His black ski mask was pulled up on his head and he wore a boonie atop. He was comfortable. It was his mistake.

She snuck up on him and drew her knife. The blade made the lightest breath as it released from its sheath, the killing spirant. He was on his feet taking slow steps around the bivouac. He did not notice his boot almost kissed her knee. She rose behind him and in one muted glimmer had her hand on his mouth and knife on his throat. She whispered: “You’re dead.”

She then woke up the remaining seven in a similar fashion. The last was the team leader, Gibson. She tapped his boots for him. When he woke, he saw the other members of his team sitting around the fire. His combatant stood above.

“Evening, Robins,” he stretched out of his waterproof blanket.

“Evening, sir.”

He rolled his eyes as he sat up. He looked at his men. “I assume I’m dead?”

“That would be correct.”

“You all, too?” he asked aloud. The team nodded. He shook his head. “Goddamnit, Church.”

Church said nothing.

Gibson looked at Robins. “Knife?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Good work. What about Kerr?”

“He’s securing the perimeter.”

“How is he?”

“Smart enough to stick with me.”

“You cocky bitch.”

“Easy, sir,” Church said. “That’s a real knife she’s wielding.”

The men laughed.

“All right,” Gibson said. “This op is over. I want to thank you, Myra. I was beginning to miss my bed.”

The next mission used a mixture of al Qaeda techniques and various tactics from sub-Saharan guerrilla outfits. She was the team leader. The initial testing was over. Now she was being prepared for what was to come.

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August 8, 2016

Ten Dollar Rosé

“Raspberry Beret” is one of Prince’s most well-known and beloved songs off his Around the World in a Day album. But little do people know the history behind the song and what it was originally called.

Back in 1983, while making his breakthrough commercial success, Purple Rain, Prince had already composed the music for “Raspberry.” It was going to be a hidden track on the album after the titular song. “Yeah, he was really jazzed about that song,” recalled Lisa Coleman. “He really liked the idea of burying it in the album as a gift for the fans.”

But the original lyrics for the song made some people less-enthusiastic. “Man. Those lyrics sucked,” laughed Bobby Z. “But of course, you can’t tell Prince that. He’ll go off on you. Dude was so serious about his music, lyrics, everything. Everyone was looking at each other, the music was there. It was a great jam, but the lyrics were so Goddamn lame. No one could say anything. But we all knew it.”

Eventually, as the lore goes, Prince’s father, John L. Nelson, was the one to break it to his son that the lyrics in the song needed a little more time to mature. When asked how the musical legend took the news, Bobby Z. said: “He was real quiet. Didn’t move. Didn’t even look like he was breathing. Just stared at his old man for like twenty minutes without saying or doing anything. Then a small tear started rolling down his cheek. I’ll never forget it. He told us he needed a minute alone. So we left. A couple hours went by, we expected he’d tell someone to come get us when he was ready. I thought he’d trash the place or something, but nothing happened. Another hour goes by and the studio engineer goes to see how things are, he’s probably worried about his equipment. Dude comes back and is like: ‘Prince has locked himself in the vocal booth and I can’t get him to come out.'” He shook his head. “He was in there for three days. Didn’t let anyone in. Didn’t come out. For three days.” He paused for a moment. “Then he baked a cake and wrote ‘Let’s Go Crazy.’ That was Prince.”

Prince would obviously revisit the song and write some new lyrics, the ones we all know and love to this day.

The original lyrics were forgotten about until recently when they were found stuffed away in Prince’s own 1000-page cookbook for spaghetti recipes. They are as below. The song was titled: “Ten Dollar Rosé”

I was working for a time at a Beer and Wine, trying to buy a color TV
My friends told me repeatedly I was wasting my time
‘Cause I was colorblind, you see

I think I was in Aisle Three stacking pork rinds or something
It couldn’t have been much more
That’s when I spotted her, yeah I saw her
She strolled in across the wet floor, wet floor

(And) she bought a
Ten dollar rosé
The kind you find in a shitty liquor store
Ten dollar rosé
And though it was warm, she bought a little more
Ten dollar rosé
I think I love her

Drunk though she was
She had the nerve to ask me
If I could microwave her chicken parm
So, look here
I put her in my station wagon
And we took a trip
Down to old man Johnson’s farm

I said now, eating small birds never turned me on
Showed her how those hens were treated badly by the hicks
She seemed to see
But I could tell as she looked on
She wanted to eat those chicks

(And) she bought a
Ten dollar rosé
The kind you find in a shitty liquor store
Ten dollar rosé
And though it was warm, she bought a little more
Ten dollar rosé
I think I love her

She kissed me so hard, I think she chipped a tooth
I tried to tell her she went too far
Nothing matters to the birds and bees
She screamed, “I’m a movie star!”

Look
So I won’t say it was the greatest
But I tell ya
If I had the chance to do it all again
I wouldn’t change a stroke
‘Cause chickens they got choked
Because she’s the kind who likes to spend

(Ten dollar rosé)
The kind you find (The kind you find)
The kind you find (In a shitty liquor store)
Oh no no
(Ten dollar rosé)
(And though it was warm)
Where have all the rosé women gone?
Yeah (Ten dollar rosé)

I think I, I think I, I think I love her

(Ten dollar rosé)
No no no
No no no (The kind you find)
(In a shitty liquor store)
(Ten dollar rosé)
Tell me
Where have all the rosé women gone? (And though it was warm)
(She bought a little more)
(Ten dollar rosé)

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July 31, 2016

Scenes: The Maestro

My retinas were kissed by the amber-hue of the concert hall as I came out onto the stage. The house lights revealed the more-than-two-thousand seats that environ the orchestral “pit.” Soon, they all would be filled with over-enthused patrons, who have waited years for the return of the maestro. The first show since his… hiatus. People coming from all over the country, as well as Europe, China, Japan, India, to see the opening night of his return. Tickets were sold out in less than ten minutes. I had to personally tell several offices of presidents and kings that there were no more tickets available. Consequently, I am now banned from several of these countries.

The concert hall’s undulating fluidity of walls and ceiling, bleeding concave into convex and back, illustrates a visually inverse reflection of the sound, trapping the acoustics in their place so that no matter where one sits in the hall the experience is audibly the same. When he first stepped out onto the stage (the first time not only on that one, but any in fifteen years) he remarked: “Das Paradox ist im Spiel.” When the chairman and other board of directors asked what he meant, I took it upon myself to translate: “He is thinking about the interplay between the music that will be animating outward and the constructed pieces designed to keep it inward. That struggle is like a playful wrestling.” They looked around the hall and back at me, a hint of confusion in their smiling dumb faces, looking to me for more. So I added: “He likes it.”

Tonight, he’ll be playing Dmitri Shostakovich’s “5th Symphony,” portions of Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Tale of the Stone Flower,” and selected works from Jules Massenet’s “Eve” and Hans Rott’s “Symphony in E-Major” plus, as a surprise encore performance, his latest composition. He wants to “break their hearts, then slowly put them back together after the intermission,” to “show them the whole breadth of the human element.” He is excited. “Oh Camille,” he said the night before last over dinner. “They again have returned. Those wonderful butterflies.” Diese wunderbaren Schmetterlinge. Ich sehe sie wieder.

He was out on the stage. In two hours the doors would open. He was sitting in the third cellist’s wooden chair. He looked concerned, perplexed even, swaying from one side of the seat to the other. Scratching his hair, listening carefully to nothing, he leaned left, then right, back again, looked as if he was almost inspecting the air underneath the seat.

Last night he called me in a panic. “Camille! Darling! It’s impossible. Just simply impossible!” What? I asked. What was the matter? I was trying to remain focused while simultaneously tearing myself from the grips of a deep sleep. “The chairs! They’re simply awful!” Then he proceeded to tell me how he needs to replace all of the orchestra’s chairs. But it was three in the morning. “I don’t care! We can’t have a show with those shit chairs!” He instructed me on what he needed. Wooden chairs. Handcrafted. Preferably with at least ten years of use, and possibly birch wood, but under no circumstances oak.

The board members were not too pleased when in the morning they witnessed the maestro (gently) tossing the concert hall’s chairs out from the pit and placing the wooden replacements down. One looked at me with eyes that seemed to say: “Again?” Various staff at the concert hall were standing about watching the maestro along with the delivery men who had the wooden chairs I was able to find—they came gratis from a local school that was preparing to throw them out.

It was easy to understand the board members frustration, and confusion. The new chairs were ugly, worn, some had crude graffiti written on the seats and sides in marker or etched with pen or pencil: the most common unsavories were the word “Fuck” and phallic images—quite remarkable detail when considering these came from a 4th grade classroom. They were by far inferior to the usual ones. The president came up to me: “You can’t possibly allow this to happen! Those chairs he’s throwing around cost us more than two-hundred dollars each.” They were quite nice to sit in. Padded, stainless steal, coated in a black matte paint, heavy. The maestro was humming Ravel as he picked one chair, then another, and dropped them off the stage into the front row. “Will he stop doing that!?” the president raged. A scuffle broke out between the maestro and an employee of the hall who was following orders. The maestro’s mood changed like a flash as he struggled for control over a chair from the employee. “Du Idiot! Du widerliches Arschloch! Lass los!” An ugliness reverberated throughout the hall for the next minute, so arresting it doubled as a vacuum afterwards leaving the open space as a new muted environment. I did my best to calm all parties, though I was staunchly defending my mentor. After the president made a rather uncouth comment about the maestro’s behavior, I had no other option but to take it upon myself to explain that if the two-hundred dollar chairs were so important to her, she could have them, but there would be no maestro.

After the fight, he disappeared. We were searching for him for more than six hours, but he was nowhere to be found in the building or surrounding area. (I later learned the president had called several conductors in that timeframe to see if they would fill in, but to no avail.) I was in my room, in a state of melancholy, when one of the interns informed me the maestro had returned. He brought me through the back to the stage, and surely there the man of the hour was.

I slowly came upon the maestro while he moved from the cellist’s chair to the first oboist’s. He was in full composer regalia. I wondered how he managed to change, as my room and his were connected and I left the separating door open. How did he sneak in without me knowing? “Maestro,” I called in a gentle manner so as not to startle him. He turned to me with a smile, then back to the matter at hand of sitting in the chair, turning from one side to the other and back, listening, scrutinizing nothing. My heart began to jump. The thought of that board member’s eyes returned. “Again?” I asked him what he was doing. He smiled at me in a sort of paternal affability. “I’m listening.” To what? The reverberation? The silence? The hall? “No, Camille,” he laughed. “To the chair.” I was near tears as he moved to the second oboist’s seat. But why? Why in the name of the heavens would he need to listen to the chairs?

He stopped and briefly sighed. He understood now that I could not see just like the others.

“My darling. The chairs are important. I need the right ones to sing out just a little, so that when Mary,” he pointed to the violinist’s empty spot, “or Henry,” he motioned back to where the tam-tam player sits, “when they move in their chairs the slightest creak will sound. And with any luck, it will happen in the lulls between the triumphs of music.” But what was wrong with the previous chairs? “They were too good. They made no sound. In all the practices, something was amiss. I couldn’t understand why the music felt so hollow to me. Because when I would see these players shift in their seats, no sound would produce. It was haunting. Like I was trapped in some nightmare. Every single sound is part of the orchestra. The beauty is lost if the entirety is not realized. All of this,” he motioned around him, “means nothing if when Yoshino,” he pointed down at his lap, “squirms in her chair as she does, the audience does not hear it.” He smiled at me, so pleased by current events. “Do you see now?” Siehst du jetzt? Siehst du die kleiner Schmetterlinge?

… I smiled back in silence. What else could I do?

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May 30, 2016

Infinite City: Berserks and Haunts, As Explained by a Sixzy

Yeah, so like, where to begin? The CC. What a furious dump. Started off with der German pirates Ludwig and Hans-Johanns, and then branched out from there. First it was a pirates’ joint, then eventually the empires came, the joint legitimized and shits and it become a trading port. Gross fertile lands to the east by the river and the discovery of coal and gold in the mountains southbound in King Thelonius’s Range turn the City into half-agrarian paradise, half-shady gang town (plus, you wise, descending from pirates and whatsnot) or so the legend goes—the one that examples the First Civil Unrest in the early 1700s—you’ve got a whole history of a city with people that don’t like each other, don’t even like themself much either. Can’t even settle on a name.

First it was “Dee O-zah” or some German shit like that, denn they changed it to “Noy Himmel” when the Calvinists show up and start causing a ruckus, denn they change it again around the early 1700s to “Noy Reich” which is like “New Country” or something and then when we all start speaking English finally by mid-1700s it gets ang- angli- oh fuck that word, it gets changed to “New Reich” but some just call it Riker City because it’s easier. Anyway, like you don’t know what happens next. The fucking—anglitized! that’s the word, they anglitized it—uh… yeah… where was I? Oh rights, der fucking World War Duo happens and like gross shit happens in the city. You gots dees nuts Nazi sympathizers all over Ghettoland and Booty (they didn’t call them berserks that back then, I’ll talk about that in a minute). Uh, uh, yeah, Nazis, man. All over what used to be the furious fancy tits part of the city, you wise. Had FBI and police all over the city busting Nazi cults left and right, Nazis putting bombs in Jewish mailboxes and phone booths in all over Ass End, shooting up cars they think got undercover police in them. It was gross. And all over the City, I’m talking: Flatport, Reeves, Gorgon’s Alley, Duchess, uh, uh, all over what’s now New Strip, uh yeah, and Axel South, and Merlin Square, and uh… Capital Hall, Capital Hall was a bloodbath for that whole time, man. Not even us in Sixzy were safe, well I mean we never are, you wise, but like we were caught in all kind of gross cross fire. Nazis and Feds going right through our neighborhoods to tear up the other sides. Bayland was borderland between. My old man used to tell about that when he was young, watching the shoot outs from his window.

But uh… what was I saying? What was this about? Oh yeah. So lotta, lotta shits going down, rich? And eventually most of the Nazis get killed or thrown in jail or move to Argentina and Brazil or just move over to Posh Town, but uh… the City loses its name again, and like we all vote for a new one. Well, no. We voted for one before. Like in 1939, or maybe ’40. Definitely by ’41. It goes from “New Reich” to “New Helm.” Now, a lot of people wanted it to be tied back to the Indians that lived in the lands before the pirates killed them all. Chthic City. I don’t remember what “Chthic” meant to the natives. I think it was a mutual harvest god or something. Something about dirt, I think. Because the land was so fertile, you wise. Wait. I already said all that. Uh… yeah… what else? Oh, right. So there’s a vote and some want “Chthic” and some want “Helm” because who fucking knows, they’re as boojie as all tits and the Nazis (who are still around at this point) still want to call it “New Reich” or change it to “Hitleropolis” or something Nazi like that. The votes come in and no two-thirds majority has it so—oh that’s right—they had to eliminate the Nazis and by like ’44, ’45 is when they finally get it to “New Helm” which I still don’t know why. The boojie racists still wanted to sound German, and most of the other whites agreed, or at least agreed more than calling it Chthic City. But you still had like a third of the city that wanted to call it Chthic, so some started calling it the one that won the vote and others didn’t and this shits still sits with us now: some people call it New Helm, some Chthic, or the CC for short. A lot of people call it the City because it’s easier. Plus you gots nicknames: Bay City, Bay Haven (boojie people call it this), and Hemlock City because of that dark-ass bay of ours.

What else? What else?

Yeah, so you, uh, gots twenty-two fucking berserks. I don’t know why. Actually, I do. We call them berserks because it got angli- anglitized from the German word for “district” and there are so many of them because peeps don’t like each other. I know I’m pissing you a little, but it true. First started back with those pirates. Hanzy and Lew-Dogg had some beef and then the factions started popping up left and right, and then Charles Prick (no bullshit, that’s his name) arrived with his Calvinist followers and then the Catholic monks about a hundred years later, and on and on and on, but ever since the pirate dudes split no one in the City has ever liked the other. Actually, ever since the pirates got there and started killing off them Indians, no one has liked anyone. Or actually… them fuckers didn’t like each other either, so I guess it’s in the water or something. But like the reason everything’s got “land” on the ass of it is because for a little while (like before the 18th century or so) there were like fifty little countries all run by different pirate lords or miner gangs, or slave holders, or whatever, and the German for “country” is “Land” so… there you go. Lands. Still sticks because of the boojie white people like the idea of tradition, even if its tied back to awful people doing awful things. White people. What else can I say, you wise?

Uhm… hmm… yeah. Wars popping up like gross all over. But not really wars, just endless battles between small communities. Like first it was the Ludwig faction against Hans, actually no that’s a lie, it was der pirates against them Indians, then the Pirate Wars, denn the Great Calvinist Inconvenience, then The Revolt of 1684, there some more in there… I don’t know… there’s a lot, you wise. Uh… the First, Second, and Third Catholic Purging, there were a few more of those… uh… yeah. Lots of “wars” over the years. But yeah, nows there like twenty-two berserks over the City. It all starts in Gorgon’s Alley, which is what the haunts and the berserk is really called. I mean you have North Eye and South Eye, those haunts, and then Gorgon’s Alley, the Greeks, Pincher’s Post, and the Reeds: those are all a part of Gorgon’s Alley the berserk. But that’s where it all started. That’s the origin of the CC. Then it all just kinda spreads from there. Bloomland and Oldsland are the next berserks. All that land was colonized after Gorgon’s. You got some historic haunts in East Stretch and Pixie. Southfoot, that’s where they hanged Charles Prick, and burnt the monks, and disemboweled Hans-Johanns. Rights out there where Baskin-Robbins and American Eagles hock shit. Eeyore’s got a-ton a-ton of bars, it is furious the number. We call its that because it’s East Oldsland. So mash that together, and get gross shit-faced: Eeyore. Then you got Koossen, which was named after one of the pirates. I don’t remember which though. Then Greenland. That’s like where a lotta, lotta pride is dumped into the City. Lotta Hammer shit out there. That’s where Mmm-Hat is. Right overlooking North Park. The Major Metropolitan Museum of History and Theory. MMM-HaT. My father used to works in there. That’s like where this all comes froms, you wise. Used to take all the boojie kids from their schools in Horthwright Manors and Fletcher Park and tell them all the bullshit you s’pose to, you wise, all that stuff that’s in the news now with the textbooks. Gross stuff. Gross amounts of museums, universities, all the sports teams play there, it’s all there in Greenland, in haunts like: Upper Face, Flatport, Reeves, Aubrey Hills, lotta tight neo-gothic architecture is all over Capital Hall, that’s also where der city hall is and lots of dees government buildings. Uh yeah… what else? I mean those five pretty much make up the Old City as it stood. The lines of those berserks are pretty much untouched. Fact. Du can find bits of the wall Ludwig built to keep the Indians out of his town. It now separates the boojie parts of Aubrey Hills from Sixzy, but it goes all along from the Mond down to Hemlock.

Then you got Bayland, my home. I’m a Sixzy, grew up my wholes life on or around Sixth Street. That runs right through the heart of Bayland, starts at der Pier where du get most of the jobs coming still for peeps, but it’s like heavily boojie now, you wise? Likes a-ton un a-ton of fancy tits restaurants and places like that. Lotta peeps working on staffs in there. Sixth is like a bigs deal for lotta, lotta us, man. That’s where they used to take the slaves in for sales. When the Uprising happened back in the 1800s, Sixth was where freedom spread from out. You had all kinda crazy number of slaves coming in from around the city, out from the fields in der east and flooding Slave Town (whats they called it then). But for likes six gross weeks, man, I’m telling you, Slave Town was Free Town and Sixth was where it was at. See like, the City was still very its own, you wise? Likes even the president didn’t want to mess with the City. But when the things got ugly, and the mayor was like: “Yo, dees slaves be shitting mad hate on us, you better come squash this right now.” But it was all horses and on feet back then. They couldn’t fire up the drones to blow the slaves out of the sky in a day, you wise? So whiles it taken them weeks to get to us, we were setting up a government un defending ourselves from the slave owners trying to steal us back and city police and whatnot. Then the military came and it was gross. Slavers didn’t want their property harmed at first, but by week six they were just like: “Try not to kill the babies if you can.” No bullshit. That’s like in der records un shit. Anyway, Sixth is der Hammer. That’s where we all comes from.

And then you go west to the other berserks from Bayland: Midland, Renaissance, and Beauté. All four are parts of the “Inner Berserks” which is just a boojie term for “where to put all the non-white peeps.” Both Renaissance and Beauté used to have all the wealthy haunts of all der Nazi supporters. During the War, after they kicked out the Nazi from CC, they tore up the area for more military barracks and bases. Then after that they kinda gave it all up and converted them alls into a projects for the poor and immigrant. When they renamed the city, they changed the berserks too, from “Reichland” to “Renaissance” and “Volks-shtott” to “Beauté.” I don’t remember all the old Nazi haunt names, but nows it all like: Liberté, Unité, Fraternité, Égalité, Rois, Bleu, Sérénité. I guess they thought changing shit to French was assperational or something. I don’t know. Uh… anyways, they shoved all the rest of der poor people there and forgot about all that goodwill aspirational shit and left us for dead while they built the Sprawl (more about that in a sec). But it’s like, uh… uh… we don’t even call it that. No one coming here to teach us French. Shit. Only reason I know how to pronounce them is because of my dad. Shit. Those are the only French words he ever knew, and same for me. Shit. It’s all Booty (or some call it Baby, or Bay-B) and Ghettoland for the berserks. And you think peeps from the Inner call those haunts that? Nah. It’s ain’t that at alls. It’s all anglitized, too. Or ghettotized.

Uh… yeah. So then… you go all the way west and north into the WASPy berserks. You got Riverland, Coastland, Charles, and Paladin Heights. Well not so much Paladin. That’s where the Catholics came in. Lotta, lotta Catholics still around there. But yeah, that whole northern part of the city is where Charles Prick came with his Calvinists and started causing a ruckus with the generations that descended from the pirates. Lotta bad blood. Lotta wars. Lotta dead people during that time. It wasn’t until der monks show up. Denn you got them teaming up to slaughter dees monks. Fuckers never stood a moment on the CC and the WASPs and other white peeps coming to the port to beat them to death and steal their goods, grill ’em. Like five, six times this happens. Catholic monks come over from Europe, peeps come out to find them and kill them or send ’em back. Fucking brutal, you wise. They even sunk one of the ships before it could get to land, but it was a merchant ship. So eventually that stops. I don’t remembers, but it happened eventually. Military stepped in or something. No wise. But yeah, that’s like lotta, lotta industry and factories and big cargo dumps and lotta lotta other stuffs all out there, rich. Like tonna working peeps, but now likes lotta Slovaks and Greeks and Taiwanesians and Persians live out in der parts because most of the others have fucked off to the Sprawl. Un, uh, yeah but most those haunts in der berserks are still gross nice. It’s not until you start touching the Inner do those parts get bad. But whatevers, it’s still like furiously better. Fucking boojie peeps.

What else? What else? Damn. Yeah. I forget how gross this city is with all these places. Gross big. Furious big, man, you wise? Like some twenty-thirty million living in this city—half of that shit in the Sprawl, but stills. So like all dees that I was talking about was the North End of the CC. Denn you gots the Islands. Most of those are boojie islands. You got Links and the Tri-Islands, but everyone calls thems Posh Town and Posh-Annex. Posh Town is where all the uber-uber boojie-time peeps are and their super fancy tits houses and other places. And Posh-Annex is like the step down, you wise? Like the Red Lion to the Black Lion in Voltron. Fucking Lance and Keith. So white. Where are all the black people? In a perfect world it’s all void of brothers? Damn, Japan. Why you gotta do us like that? Nothing about that show made sense. Why wasn’t that shit more orderly? Keith wore red but drove the Black Lion, and Lance wore blue but drove the Red. What the fuck? You mastered intergalactic travel and fight space monsters but you can’t help a kid out and where clothes that match your fucking lion robot? Color-coordinate that shit! And what the fuck with lions? Ancient space aliens know about lions on Earth? The fuck? And whatever happen to that German dandy motherfucker? Sven. Or was he Swiss? I don’t remember.

Anyway, yeah, Posh-Annex peeps are all stiff in the ass to the Posh Town crowd because during the War the military came in and started kicking Posh Town peeps out of their homes, creating a few officers’ barrack and headquarter and naval stations and whatever else, you wise, all that military bullshit, so they started kicking out some of the boojie crowd, others could stay because their land was more inland, or in less “strategic” area. So like the military was doing this to all the islands: Links, Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt (but then it was Cleveland), the free islands. So like anyone who got kicked out was relocated to Ass End, the New Strip, parts of Deebs. A lot of the Jews and Scandinavians that lived in those berserks got kicked out. The City then bought up land from the farmers east of the city, and that’s what was the start of the Sprawl. But then like after the War all the Posh-Annex people wanted to moved back, but what had happened was that some of the property remained under the ownership of the military, other parts converted into private industrial enterprises, or spots (for a lot of the officer quarters) were purchased by those Posh Townies who didn’t get kicked out. They bought up that real-estate and then charged outrageous amounts of monies to the “off-island” peeps who wanted their homes back. Poor boojies, rich? Can’t get their three-storey Victorians back the way they were? Furious, yo. Gross furious. So anyway, the wealthy pricks complained to the mayor and got the Tri-Islands redrawn into residential areas for them. Catch with that was those islands all had city-run facilities to take care of the bum population, the ‘tards, the seniors, all spots over those threes. So what did the city do? Well, they were financing the fucks outta the Sprawl, and the mayor made concessions to the industry businesses to cut back on taxes, so dudes were a little strapped for cash, so they closed all the facilities. The homeless went back to the streets, same with the ‘tards because there were no other facility that could care for or wanted to care for thems. Some of the seniors went into hospitals, or back to their families, but a good amount went homeless, too. You gots this uber flood of homeless peep, you wises. Uh… something like a hundred thousand, two-hundred thousand peeps out on the streets, un, uh, then like a freak winter came in and killed off half of dees peeps. We stills call that one “the Hard Winter.” Gross, rich?

Those the islands. The free ones were given back to the peeps, but fat-fucking chance a Sixzy can ever get over there. Du gotta take like six Metros to get there, takes like two hours. So whites go there. Them and der Puertos and Chineses that live over in New Hope and Little San Juan in der New Strip. Man. South City has all the Hammer shit. Nice parks, nice homes, everythings like a little nicer because of the land and those Lands were built on top of the miners’ towns, which were all just like wood. Most just burnt down in the King Thelonius Riots and the Miners’ Revolts, so they like just started building on them in the early-20ths. It’s all nicer over there, plus you gots the mountains and all that gross pretty shit. Make a Sixzy blush with rage. All dem berserks are furious nice and boojie-adjacent, you wise. The haunts in Ass End are real nice. Lotta Posh-Annex peeps used to live in Mame Loshn and Vidvelt after they took over, but dees used to be all the Jewtowns. They kicked them all the way out. But they are all pretty nice. Mostly Hasids now live there after they reclaimed it in the 80s. Actually I never stepped foot in there. Only heard it was nice. Don’t think I’d ever been invited, you wise? But Parkland, Deebs, and Bergland are like quantum leaps beyond the prettiest berserks in the CC. Deebs has got like the nicest park. Olympia Park. Was built in Glits for the Olympics back in the 50s. It’s pretty Hammer. But denn you gots all these tinier parks that spread across all over there. Same with Parkland. Arcadia Park was the first official city park. That’s where all the hippies tried to convert it into a “free town” but that didn’t last so long. And Bergland is right along the Range so all that haunts: Thelonius, Ashway, Matterhorn, Nord, Karling, Whimp: all Hammer as shit. Alls skis towns and whatnot. Not that a Sixzy gets a chance to ski all the time, a Sixzy don’t love the snow, but every now and again we gets out there.

No wait. Sven was Swedish. That’s right. And the fucker dies in the original Japanese version. But apparently kids can’t handle that shit stateside. Fucking Sven. You silly bitch.

But where was I?

Oh right. Yeah. Those are all nice places. But if I had to like choose. Like choose, choose. I’d probably live in Hearts. Shits got it all. It was likes the first suburban experiment for the CC by Hearts before he got his hands on the Sprawl. But you kinda see what he was going for, mixing the regular peeps with the hard shit of the city, tried to make it real nice and community-based, you wise. Then the Brazilians and Indians (like from India) moved in in likes der 70s. Yeah. Like the Rund or Lesser Thrash, Cubbiehole, Pyramids, all those places are real nice. ‘Course they are becoming real boojie again. Gardens and Dalegate used to be a place some of the Inner peeps were moving to, but not so much now. Shit. Even the other day I was walking through Nouveau Monde in Ghettoland and they’re tearing all that down for these fancy tits high-risers that’s likes three grand for a fucking studio. Who in the Inner can pay that shit? Fuckssake, rich? But don’t worry. They got vouchers for us to live in places like Meadow Lake and Free Forest in the Sprawl. Even though they’re moving all those whites back into the city and the jobs with ’em. And places like Prairie Valley and Hearts Fields have already taken measures to convert low-income housing into boojie spots, or requiring GEDs and some even college degrees for part-time jobs. Part-time jobs! I just gotta like laughs, you wise. Fucking whites. Fuck ’em. Who wants to live a shithole haunt named “Rolling Hills in Spring” anyway, rich? Like how boojie do you have to be to think of that shit?

Yeah… that’s der CC for you. Chthic City. What a Goddamn place.

But you find yourself in Sixzy, and shit I don’t know why you’d be there, maybe because you’re on your way to the interstate, but yeah if you find yourself there, hit me up. I’ll show you some of the places where Slave Town all started and how we fought back in the Uprising and made Free Town for ourselves. We’ll have a beer at this joint, Russ’s. I’ll show you ’round. We can play Zelda. Or you like Goldeneye? Trick question, who don’t?

Anyways, you can swing through, say “hi” ‘n’ shit. It’ll be Hammer.

City Map

CityMap

Berserks:

Gorgon’s Alley
Greenland
Bloomland
Oldsland
Koossen
Bayland
Midland
Renaissance (Ghettoland)
Beauté (Booty, Bay-B)
Hearts
Parkland
New Strip
Deebs
Oceanland (Ass End)
Bergland
Subland (the Sprawl)
Riverland
Coastland
Charles
Paladin Heights
Links Island (Posh Town)
Tri-Island (Posh-Annex) with Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington Islands

Major Parks and Islands, etc.:

A) Ludwig City Island Park
B) Hans-Johanns City Island Park
C) Chinnemuuk City Island Park
D) Othahathaway City Island Park
E) Bay City Park
F) Pearl Coast City Park
G) Founders City Park
H) Rutherford Chauncey Horthwright Welcoming Island Park
“NE” – North Eye Island
“SE” – South Eye Island
“NP” – Mond River Park, North (North Park)
“SP” – Mond River Park, South (South Park)
“WEB” – W.E.B. Du Bois Park
“PP” – Charles Prick Park (the Prick)
“NHP” – New Helm City Park
“OP” – Olympia Park
“KTMRP” – King Thelonius Mountain Range Park
“AP” – Arcadia Park
“R” – Roosevelt Island
“L” – Lincoln Island
“W” – Washington Island

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April 3, 2016

Infinite City: The Trouble with Facts Is…

[The below piece: “How We Got to Now” was featured in The Daily Chimera, a news-gathering/reporting and opinion-based website last week. It concerns the on-going disputes over the historical accuracy of certain aspects of the city’s past.]

For the past three months the city has experienced a vicious back-and-forth between two dissenting groups of citizens. Death threats have been made, fights have broken out at protests and rallies, arrest have been conducted, a federal investigation has been issued, and much more. This “War for True History” as it is being called has divided parents, teachers, students, citizens in the city. 90+ days into this conflict, it is possible we may have forgotten how this all really started. This was evident yesterday at a protest outside the publisher Macmilliamous-McGrood’s city headquarters. There, both protestors and advocates confused facts and details about what actually caused this unrest.

Below is an effort to explain and clear up some misunderstandings. Here is a very short summary:

Basically it started with one parent. We will call her Mrs. T on account of the innumerable death threats she has received since this all started (she is under police protection at the moment). Mrs. T was displeased with the Macmilliamous-McGrood textbook’s origin story of the city. She took offense at the glorification of the founders (Ludwig von Küssenass and Hans-Johanns Schmudieb) and the overlooking description of the native tribes that inhabited the land before any Europeans landed. She was concerned this kind of (as she saw it) poor historical accuracy was detrimental to her daughter’s (and the other children’s) education.

Her letter to the principal is below.

Dear Principal Wexinburhe,

I am writing you today as a concerned parent. My daughter returned home last week with her Centuries of Events and Peoples history book. This year she gets to learn a great deal about her city’s history. It’s very important. She’s quite excited to learn about all the people that came before her to build up this city we all live in today. I, too, was excited to see her get the opportunity to learn more about the immediate world around her.

I was, however, greatly disappointed in the textbook’s brief summary of the “origins” of our city. Specifically, I was shocked to see the land described as “mostly underutilized” by the “tribes-people” until “the infamous German pirates” came along. There are two things that are particularly upsetting about this excerpt, and the whole summary. The first being this sense of “underutilization.”

As you may or may not know, the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway peoples had occupied that land (by the most conservative of estimates) a full three-hundred years before those two pirates and their gang arrived. The textbook describes their usage of the land as: “…seasonally for ritual dances, games, and political meetings…” This is a blatant understatement of the facts. Both the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway had come to use much of the land that now makes up our metropolis on a daily basis. The specific area in question (“Gorgon’s Alley” as referred to in the text) was of such deep religious and political significance. The only reason they visited the two islands at the mouth of the river (which had much different names than “Eye” and “Mond”) in each season was so that they could appease their spiritual ancestors together, and continue their long peace practices. I wouldn’t think I need to remind an educator, but perhaps I might, the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway had waged bloody campaigns against each other for years over the usufructuary rights of the land. Entire generations of people were born, lived, and died knowing nothing but fear, anguish, and continued hatred for the other group during this time period. Western Civilization does not have anything like this in kind. Not the 40 Years War, not even the 100 Years War. The conflict between the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway went well beyond those two wars combined, and on a scale of comparability were by far bloodier and more tolling on the people than anything the European campaigns might even imagine. So when these two peoples came together to celebrate in shared spiritual practices, and participate in games and tattoo one another, share harvests, etc. it was as a means of perpetuating peace and harmony. Also, it was a means to protect them against other warring tribes from the south and the west. My point here is that this land was being used for a long time before the Europeans came along, and it was of much greater significance to those people than some trading post for pirates.

Speaking of the pirates, this leads me to my second complaint/concern. What is with the beatification of these two pirates? They’re pirates! The textbook seems to paint them in a much lighter tone as the reader goes on. By the end I expected them to start referring to the pirates as “laissez-faire apostles” who freed the world of “evil-doing collectivism.” I mean, my God, these were the same men who (along with their subordinates) pitted the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway against each other, reigniting the war. They were perpetrators of by any account what can only be described as war crimes, enslaved what remained of both tribes, sold off women and children to other insidious Europeans who came along (including the Spaniards!), and should only be credited with bringing the disgusting habit of mechanized/organized subjugation and exploitation to the New Land.

None of that gets mentioned in this text. And I’d rather have that than some lame, half-informed, mostly balderdash writing about cartoon pirate figures bettering some “unused” land, as if other human beings never existed beforehand—like some sort of Shangri-La. That’s not history. That’s science fiction.

As someone who comes from a displaced, marginalized background, from a group of people who have often been side-stepped and left better off unspoken about in the annals of human history (which is to say white European-dominated history), I would appreciate if the school would make a much more concerted effort to educate not only my daughter (who shares my lineage), but also her peers. So that we do not destine ourselves to these awful tragedies again.

I understand the school probably has some sort of deal with Macmilliamous-McGrood and cannot necessarily rid themselves of this nonsense. But perhaps you can issue a formal complaint to the company, or insist the teachers offer some proper context to the lack of text involved in this largely fictional historical narrative.

Thank you for your time.

– Mrs. T

Principal Harvey Wexinburhe (who has not received as many death threats) responded about two months later, after consulting the school board and sponsored education board. That letter reads as such:

Dear Madame.

May I first take this moment to express my deep gratitude for sharing your concerns with me. As you are certainly aware, Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) prides itself on being one of the most prestigious public schools in the city. The school does not achieve these accolades without the support of students’ parents—such as yourself—and their communication with the school—as evident in your letter. For over one hundred years the school has maintained its excellence, an excellence students benefit from and parents rely on, because of the continued community support it receives. It is without question that this support is what holds the utmost value for Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) and its continuation means the prolonged success of the school. This support comes in many forms, as I’m sure you are aware.

One such instance is financially. Another through volunteering time and expertise. The one I find most beneficial is when the parent(s) continues the exemplary education their child/student receives in the classroom at home and assists in reinforcing the schooling lessons, homework, values, morals and ethnics the child learns while attending Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®). There are more still. The most common form of support the school receives is often by way of open, unadulterated communication from the parent. This is the method in which you chose, and we are very grateful for such support. Without you, and parents of your ilk, Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) would not be able to properly assess what teaching methods, school courses, textbooks, et al. are properly utilized in the continued education of our young generations.

Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) prides itself on teaching every upcoming generation in the most effective, responsible, socially conscious way possible. We firmly believe in the fact that children will be the future. Perhaps that is a little obvious, but we do not reduce this universal truth to some platitude. We take this idea very seriously and strive each day to ensure our students, your child, have the best education (an omnibus word we see encompasses the following: fundamental learning, social interplay, proper rectitude). Without the best education provided, our future leaders, workers, thinkers would be operating at a deficit in society. That would be a horrible travesty. So to receive your letter is of the utmost importance to us.

We were all very troubled by your letter. We took the issues raised very seriously. The fact you were so deeply disturbed by the historical account of our city’s founding gave us pause in considering teaching the passage to the students in the future, in addition we questioned our relationship with Macmilliamous-McGrood. So please know that your concern was our concern, too.

That being clearly stated, I must inform you that the school board and the education board affiliated with our sponsored patron (Valvoline® — For All Your Motor Oil Needs) have decided to continue teaching the passage in question as is, and to continue our contract with Macmilliamous-McGrood. The reasons being are thus, as provided from the boards’s ruling opinion:

– “The passage which is being challenged is in line with the generally accepted history of the city and coincides with historical facts as they happened from the point-of-view of the founders and collaborators. Whether there is any validity to the opposing view is not to the point, and broadly speaking does not confute the accepted position. All of the information provided in the text is accepted, even by the complainant. The only difference seems to be evident in semantics. Therefore, since most of the information provided is accepted as historical fact, the boards rule the text historically valid.

Furthermore, there is the notion of “Proper View” (as indicated in Section IV, Area 41B of ECFA). The city needs to be viewed by its citizens in the best imaginable light available. To tarnish this view would possibly engender a loss of faith in the city and the community. It is imperative then that the children of Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) need to experience a “Proper View” of their city’s founders, and anything possibly contra to that point is unacceptable. Children’s minds are fragile, and the slightest threat of disillusionment can wreak unprecedented damage for the future.”

– “Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) is a public school that accepts whatever provisions provided to it by both the city and its sponsored patron (Valvoline® — For All Your Motor Oil Needs). In this particular instance, with respect to the historical textbook received from Macmilliamous-McGrood, the city and the sponsored patron agreed to a lengthy contract with the education textbook publisher. Macmilliamous-McGrood provides quality textbooks to schools across the nation and is generally well-respected. For the book in question, Centuries of Events and Peoples, a team of historians collaborated to create the text, and collectively have years of experience. The board is more inclined to accept the work of those historians, and trust the judgment of the publisher over the complainant.

Even if the boards agreed to the notion that the passage was unacceptable, or that (say) 90% of the textbook’s contents were historically dubious, the boards could not possibly enforce any change. The books the school receives are upheld by lengthy contracts (as implicated above). So there would be very little, if any, change possible for Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®).”

Your concern, time, patience, and understanding are very much appreciated, and we look forward to your continued passionate assistance in making Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) one of the best schools in the city, state, and nation.

Sincerely.

Principal Wexinburhe.

P.S. On a personal note, being never a teacher or historian, I found your version of the city’s origin story quite interesting, but as they do not fit within the national education algorithms of the “Every Child First” Act (ECFA), specifically with respect to the “Proper View” rule, I encourage you to curb those lessons for your daughter. Perhaps it will be something covered later, say in high school or the university.

Needless to say, the response did not go over well with Mrs. T. After reading the letter, she gathered some like-minded parents (most of whom were from various minority ethnic groups, and not all of their children attended Tussock-Chandler) and started staging protests and sit-ins at the school. This eventually started being broadcast over social media, and within a week of the protests the news outlets picked up the story and ran with it (apparently there was not too much going on in the news cycle at that time), then a counter protest group rose in defense of the school and the origin story. The next thing you know chants turn vicious, people get angry, outsiders try to capitalize on the frenzy, social crusaders and grassroots organizations fly in from all around the country to attend rallies, everyone has an opinion on the situation, Donald Trump mentions it in one of his speeches saying: “In the old days, we just took hags like [Mrs. T] out back behind the shed and beat the living shit out of them, just as our founders had intended.” matters deteriorate so quickly people start throwing fists for a cause they don’t even fully understand, usually mature adults get six to twelve-month sentences in jail for things like: criminal threats, intimidation, harassment, and assault: schools become grounds for outward hostility instead of learning centers, it becomes total bedlam.

And to think, all this started over a few disputed words from a sentence in a junior high school book. It just goes to show how tightly people cling to their histories—because their identities are the manifestations of them.

It actually reminds me of what one of the city founders once said, Hans-Johanns Schmudieb fancied himself a philosopher. He said: “When you spit in the face of an idol, you spit in the face of thousands.”

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Category: fiction

Dear Principal Wexinburhe,

Thank you for your time.

– Mrs. T

Dear Madame.

Your concern, time, patience, and understanding are very much appreciated, and we look forward to your continued passionate assistance in making Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) one of the best schools in the city, state, and nation.

Sincerely.

Principal Wexinburhe.