Mary

Another 2012 poem: "Venus, Again."

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:14:31 GMT

I forgot this one, too. Also Rhysling eligible. It was in Sounds of the Night: February 2012:

Venus again
by
Mary Turzillo

in the end,

when you start plotting how to kill him

without getting caught,

by phony tire blow outs

or organically grown poisons,

perhaps an exotic but slightly altered psychodelic, or simply

bludgeoning him with a stolen crow bar in his nasty sleep

She

comes and says,

Darling, you've gone and fucked it up

again,

you chose wrong,

and now,

I’ve given you ten

ten good times to fall in love

And you've used up nine.

####

Two more 2012 poems by Mary: "Loaded Dice" and "Foresight"

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:40:55 GMT

My husband noticed these two poems (Rhysling readers take note, he says) appear in the beautiful zine ILLUMEN, Autumn 2012. The issue also has fantastic poems by Marge Simon, Selena Martens, Lyn Gardner, Megan Arkenberg, s.c. virtes, Sandi Leibowitz, Gary Every, Rone Wisten, Keith Sikora to name but a few, plus reviews by Richard Fay and Shelly Bryant.
Foresight

He walks sidewalks, knowing he will step here on a
crack, there stumble on a clump of grass, tomorrow

he will get a job, next week knock up

his wife, the child will be ill-favored,

spiteful. She will grieve, but for
him there is no disillusion.
Gods such as he

know all but
can change

nothing.

Loaded Dice

I mean, it was awfully convenient,
that he was always an outsider:
Jew among Nazis, foreigner among Americans.

Suspicious, when you think of it,
that he used his tie as a belt,
that he was so spiritual in a vague way—
God does not play dice—

like he never really belonged here.

Yet unlike with Diana and Elvis, nobody wanted
to beatify him, maybe because he didn’t die young.

Suppose the whole light-speed limit was a ruse,
a way of keeping us here in the solar system.

He had to invent a whole improbable physics
to go with that: light beams bending, time warping.

Do you really believe that?

http://www.whitecatpublications.com/?wpsc-product=illumen-issue-17-pdf

LOVERS & KILLERS reading

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:48:35 GMT

I'll be reading with Chuck Joy at Mac's Backs the day before V-day -- here's a poem from the book. By the way, this poem is Rhysling eligible:

Tohoku Tsunami

by Mary Turzillo

Taro finds a sea turtle

belly-up, helpless, tormented by thugs:

he rights it, cradles, gives it back to the sea.

Another sea turtle, immense

as from woodcuts of monsters devouring Kyoto,

walks out of the tide, finds Taro

dumbstruck, afraid.

But Fisherman Taro, doused with sea-spittle

grows gills.

Come, come with me. The huge turtle

named Ryujin, sea kami,

tows him to ocean's root:

a palace refulgen

with kanju, chrysoberyls that make the tide fall.

and manju, alexandrine plates that make the tide rise.

The kanju are scales

the manju also

are scales.

The palace is a dragon.

In its deepest coil, Ryujin presents

Princess Otohime. My daughter.

the turtle you returned to the sea.

Otohime's beauty sponges away Taro's recall

of fishing and Miyagi, his home.

Taro, Otohime's consort now,

lives in a palace. It stirs now and then,

scales as chrysoprase, corundum, coils serpentine.

The drago

Ryugoju, seabed, origin, center,

coils jealous around princess and fisher.

Taro yearns to see his mother.

Otohime (salt tears) agrees, gives him a box. Do not open.

He forgets to ask why.

The drago

ready to sleep years, centuries, aeons,

releases Taro.

Taro walks inland,

finds Miyagi's streets

buzz with cars, light-blaze, women in brief skirts.

He asks

have you heard of Taro, the fisherman?

Urashima Taro? Yes.

A legend. Walked into the sea

to rescue a turtle. Never returned

but his footprints on the beach were lined with jewels.

Taro asks of his mother.

That was long ago, they say.

She has been dead three centuries.

He sinks down.

All he knew is the dust of burnt offerings;

he is wayfarer in an arid, metallic land.

Bereft on a city curb,

he remembers the box

It will bring back my world.

He opens:

an echoing dragon sea-heart opens

The dragon's jewel-scales flex. First the kanju,

call the sea back to the dragon

so the tide sinks,

and folk wonder has the sea abandoned us?

The dragon flexes again

and his belly-scale manju rippl

and the water rushes inland.

All is awash, lights put out,

temples cars people crushed

as an anthill engulfed

until finally the vat opens

where the folk grow electricity,

irradiating Miyagi

with billion-jellyfish poison

and, not having sea turtle shells,

folk tumble, sicken, and die.

The sea washes Taro back

to the palace-dragon,

which coils, then yawns.

The princess closes the box.

But no man

can live three hundred years

Taro ages and fails, blood staining salt water. He dies.

The princess weeps.

The dragon, flood-weary, sleeps.

(end)

"Tohoku Tsunami" first appeared in Lovers & Killers, Dark Regions, 2012

http://www.macsbacks.com/event/chuck-joy-and-mary-turzillo

Come read and listen! This Friday, Deep Cleveland!

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 17:44:41 GMT

I'll be reading from Lovers & Killers, mixed with other poems new and old, at Deep Cleveland. That's

• Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Deep-Cleveland-Poetry-Hour/107558519321001) on November 9, at

• MugShotz Cafe (https:///www.facebook.com/pages/MugShotz-Coffee-Shop/221862961176638), 6556 Royalton Road in North Royalton. Mugshotz is set a bit off the road, across from North Royalton Schools, beside Pizza Hut. For some reason, it's not on Google Maps. It's an awesome coffee house, however. Don't miss the boba tea and embarrassing mug shots (the police line-up kind) of Frank Sinatra and Elvis.

LOVERS & KILLERS is about serial killers, treacherous love, all the stuff of nightmares, stuff you love reading about, but don't want to happen to YOU.

Free entertainment, and an open mic. Please come and read some flash fiction!

(not on Amazon, but available from http://www.darkregions.com/books/lovers-and-killers-by-mary-turzillo)

Write on,

Mary T.

Rhyslings!

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:07:44 GMT

My poem in December's NEW MYTHS, "The Legend of the Emperor's Space Suit (A Tale of Consensus Reality)," won third place in the Rhyslings. https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/poems/the-legend-of-the-emperor-s-new-space-suit Congrats to the winners, Shira Lipkin (short form) and Megan Arkenburg (long form), and also to the others who placed, Erik Amundsen, Lyn C. A. Gardner, G. O. Clark and Kendall Evans.

My poem, "Going Viral," in Polish

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:03:57 GMT

I can add Polish to the list of languages in which my work is now available.

My poem "Going Viral" (originally in Star*Line: http://www.sfpoetry.com/starline.html) has been translated into Polish, by the brillant Mariusz Leś, and with a wonderful illo! Have a look:

http://poezja-sf.blogspot.com/2012/06/mary-turzillo-going-viral-wysoka.html

A Great and Venerable Institution -- have fun and help at the same time

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 01:10:14 GMT

If you are a writer reading this, and if you have fond memories of Clarion, or any other writing workshop, or -- heck -- even if you always wanted to go to Clarion but haven't so far -- consider signing up for the Clarion Write-a-Thon. Here's the information:

We've signed up 63 writers so far
Help us meet our goal of 150
writers by June 24!

What is a write-a-thon, anyway? It's just like a walk-a-thon. But instead of walking, we're writing, and instead of making pledges per mile, we're making pledges per word, chapter, or story. Writers get support, encouragement and motivation, and the option of joining a team with a writing mentor! Those who care about the writers in their life get a way to show their support. And money is raised for a literally fantastic cause -- the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop. All donations are made through The Clarion Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, EIN #20-3114945.

Everybody wins!

Writing begins officially on June 24, and ends on August 4, same dates as the 2012 Clarion Workshop. Just by signing up, you'll get the bonus of providing moral support for this summer's Clarion Workshop students.

Writers, register now, set your goals, and line up support. Or get more info... http://clarionwriteathon.org/writerstips/

Wait a minute -- sign up even if you aren't a Clarion grad or hopeful -- it's a way to get yourself to write a targeted number of words.

Poetry Published in 2011

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:37:51 GMT

poems published in 2011

Short poems

"Cold War Champions: Bobby Fischer and Yuri Gagarin Descend to Earth," Strange Horizons, 3 January 2011

"Comet Kohutek," Star*Line, Jan/March 2011

"Tachyons," Star*Line, Jan/Mar 2011

"The Editors Regret," Paper Crow, Spring-Summer 2011

"Moon Girl, Earth Guy," Mythic Delirium, Summer-Fall 2011 (Issue 25)

"Moving to Enceladus," Stone Telling, Issue 3, March 2011

"Persephone in Autumn," Ideomancer, Vol 10 No. 4 (2011)

"The Graffiti Tree," Star*Line, 34.3, April/June 2011

"Fire River," Silver Blade, issue 12, Fall 2011

"False Memory" Chiaroscuro (Chizine), Issue 49, 2011.

"2002: Galileo Dies," Star*Line, 34.4, October/December 2011

Scifaiku

"Dumb as a Rock," (haiku) Star*Line, 34.1, Jan/Mar 2011

(untitled), Star*Line, 34.1, Jan/Mar 2011

Long Poem

"The Legend of the Emperor's New Space Suit (A Tale of Consensus Reality)," New Myths, Issue 17, December 1, 2011

Non-genre

"Four Poems," The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Oct. 2011:
- Cow
- Joshua Tree Honeymoon
- One Day
- Italian Mama

“Lady M,” Best of Ohio 2011 (Ohio Poetry Day 2011)

"You Dropped a Metaphor,” Best of Ohio 2011 (Ohio Poetry Day 2011)

reprinted 2011:

"Galileo Flies at Midnight,"
Astropoetica, Winter 2011

"Spirit at Troy," Astropoetica, Winter 2011

2011 stories

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:30:27 GMT

Short fiction published in 2011

"The Beast Erect," The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2, Meteor Press, 2011.
"Beauty, or the Beast," The Fifth Di . . . June 2011, Edition 13, #2--June 2011.
"Dreams of Blood and Milk," Ladies of Trade Town, ed. Lee Martindale, January 2011.
"Handyman" Fear of the Dark, ed. Maria Grazia, Horror Bound Magazine, February 2011.
"Impactor and the Papal Bull," Oysters and Chocolate, June 2011.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:41:49 GMT

We saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows last night. I rate it much higher than many of the critics, and here's why.

I loved the use of classical music. The Don Giovanni scene cutting back and forth from three different simultaneous action sequences was amazing, and how cool that Prof. Moriarity can sing Schubert. One thing maybe some critics didn't get was the way we saw the fight scenes as they played out in Holmes' head, and then how they played out in reality -- much like the way he played chess. I think some viewers -- and even critics -- didn't get this, and found it confusing.

I liked the fact that the supporting characters, especially the women, were not idiots. Mary Watson was shown helping the police with Moriarity's code, for example. I wish I had a copy of the script -- I would love to know if the chess game was "real." My husband said the notation they were using was an anachronism. but I thought it was period. I loved the stop-action in the forest scene where "Little Hans" was making holes in trees and maybe in people, too. Splendid acting on the part of all six of the major characters. The nude scene with Mycroft was hilarious, and further developed Mary's character -- she didn't scream or faint, just kept her eyes averted in bemused shock.

The plot was fired out in relentless speed -- but it all made sense if you payed close attention. (Apparently some critics weren't paying close attention.) I think this was an intellectually demanding movie -- if you missed a trick you could get lost. Your mind had to move quickly enough to follow Holmes' and Moriarity's reasoning. Loved it. What more can I say?

LiveJournal Spammers

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:17:41 GMT

Does anybody else resent the incredible indignity of having a serious post defaced by a spammer?

My post about my son's burial has received multiple attacks from people (yes, people are behind this crap, not robots) trying to sell timeshares and fake viagra.

I know it's random -- the people running the bots can have no way of knowing that they've invaded a very somber space -- but they still deserve serious opprobrium.

The infernal gall!

Hugo vote time

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 04:14:40 GMT

Hugo voting deadline is tonight at 11:59 PDT.

The novella category is very strong, but I think Geoff Landis's "The Sultan of the Clouds" clearly leads the field in all the virtues of classic science fiction. You may well have read it, since he's my husband, and if you know me, you probably know him. But just in case you haven't. you have just time to read it before the deadline. It's at www.geoffreylandis.com/Sultan.pdf.

In case you think I'm prejudiced, consider that maybe I married him because he had the soul to write this story with all the elements of great science fiction, including not just accurate and amazing science and plot twists, but also an account of thwarted love, plus a fabulously believable and vital woman character.

Partly. He had other virtues, too.

In any case, whether you favor his story or another, please vote.

Alice

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 03:41:20 GMT

Enjoying the new "Alice in Wonderland" with Ginnie and Bernie.

Shakespeare collage for my son Jack's interment.

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:15:02 GMT

http://www.tribtoday.com/photos/news/lg/547737_1.jpg

For Jack's burial, I put together this collage of quotations from Hamlet. My sister kept wanting to use the lines "Good night, sweet prince,/ and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," but the lines before and after it were not appropriate. So I scavenged lines from throughout the play.

Hamlet is a play with a lot of thoughts about the death of a loved one. It makes you wonder what really happened to Shakespeare's son.

I continue to feel that my son was a hero, who battled twin enemies his whole life and lost valiantly. That is why I had him buried with his favorite sword.

Here's my collage:

Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

There’s a special providence inthe fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, ’tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is’t to leave betimes?

This was a man, take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again.

And call the noblest to the audience:
Give order that his body
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world:

He is dead and gone, my friends
He is dead and gone;
At his heels a grass green turf,
At his head a stone.

We thought his bride-bed to have deck’d,
And not have strew’d his grave.

Oh, he has cleft our hearts in twain.

Let seven captains
Bear him like a soldier to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov’d most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.–

O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou such a noble prince at a sudden
So bloodily hast struck?

The sight is dismal;
–Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

The rest is silence.

And here is his obit:

Jack L. Brizzi Jr. 1976-2010
October 1, 2010
WARREN - Jack L. Brizzi Jr., 33, of Warren, passed away unexpectedly Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, at home.
Born Oct. 25, 1976, in Warren, he excelled in swimming and diving competitions as a middle school student, and as an adult was an artist and musician, enrolled at the time of his death as a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh online, where he was studying graphic arts and video game design.
He was educated at SS. Peter and Paul School and graduated from the Trumbull County Joint Vocational School and Champion High School.
He has worked as an actor as well as in retail and marketing research.
He enjoyed gaming and was a science fiction fan and also studied martial arts and swordsmanship. He published online reviews, poetry and articles on death metal music and video games. As a musician, he played lead guitar for Frag Corps, the band he founded and which performed in various Ohio and Pennsylvania venues in the 1990s.
He was a member of First Unitarian Church of Youngstown, where he enjoyed challenging discussions of politics and theology. He was well-known as a convivial and gracious host. Family and friends will miss his wonderful sense of humor. A light has gone out of the world with his passing.
Mourning him in lifelong devotion and love are his mother, Mary A. Turzillo (Geoffrey A. Landis) of Berea; his father, Jack L. Brizzi Sr. of Warren; his aunt, Jane Ann Turzillo, and cousins, John Paul (Kindra) Paxton, Nicholas and Nathan Paxton, all of Akron; his uncle, James A. Brizzi of North Truro, Mass., and cousins, Tristana Brizzi, also of North Truro, Jaime K. Brizzi of Eugene, Ore., and Cassandra Brizzi of Ashville, N.C.; plus many friends.
An avid animal lover, he also leaves his beloved German Shepherd, Bael, and beloved cats, Azrael and Teriel.
A funeral service will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown, with the Rev. Matthew D. Alspaugh officiating. Friends may call from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at McFarland & Son Funeral Home and one hour prior to the service Sunday at the church.
Graveside interment services will follow Monday at Lakeview Cemetery, Section 45, near Daffodil Hill, at 11:00 AM.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Jack L. Brizzi Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund at Kent State University Trumbull Campus, 4314 Mahoning Ave. N.W., Warren, Ohio 44483.
Visit www.mcfarlandfuneral.com to view this obituary and send condolences. (special notice)
*

Two ways of writing an over-the-top exciting scene

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:48:31 GMT

I recently read two Big Scenes (to be fair, I don't think the Lee Child scene is THE Big scene in the novel, but it has that amazing quality of making you feel you're witnessing narrative magic) which illustrated to me the different ways in which fiction writers engage their readers. One was from Lee Child's Killing Floor , the other from Greg Iles' Blood Memory. (Sorry about the different sizes of the two cover images; I'm more interested in the text than the covers, though they are very beautiful.)

Let me please issue this SPOILER ALERT. I am about to discuss details in the resolution of suspense in both novels.

Lee Child shows his POV detective (Reacher) going to meet his dead brother's lover, who brings a briefcase full of evidence that will solve the brother's murder and also bring a vicious serial murder/counterfeit case to light and to justice. At the airport, Reacher sees his target as she leaves the plane, she recognizes him, but they are separated by the glass partition between incoming passengers exiting the "sterile area" and the area for people meeting their plane. Reacher sees the woman being carried toward baggage claim, but knows she has no baggage. When he fights his way through the crowd, he finds her rolly bag cycling on the baggage carousel, storms through the curtain into the luggage bays, finds her briefcase, now empty, and then her bloody body. The scene is extremely visual, with sights, crowds, and loud noises. It is intensely cinematic.

In the Greg Iles scene, Cat, the POV, is being raped by her half-uncle who is planning to then tie her up and send her into the river to drown inside her beloved childhood caregiver's Cadillac. He is holding a gun to her head while he rapes her. She lies under him considering how to get away, and goes through various schemes, including biting through his jugular vein or his carotid artery, but rejects each as not feasible. She finally settles on crushing his trachea with her teeth. She licks the rapist's neck to locate the right spot, then savagely bites, reflecting that her father must truly have been her father (something her abusive grandfather has made her doubt) since she has such fine strong teeth, like her father. The rapist is thrown off and it flashes through her mind that she resembles a leopardess, similar to the childhood toy with which her grandfather smothered her father. The scene is full of tension, but the tension is built with scheming and emotion and even symbolism. It is intensely novelistic.

I'm not saying I prefer one or the other of these scenes, but I am saying that cinematic writing is NOT the only way to go. Greg Iles is an intensely psychological writer, and in Blood Memory he has written maybe the best psychological thriller I have ever read, up there with Stephen King though in a slightly different genre.

The cinematic technique is seductive for a writer; for one thing it offers the possibility of the novel becoming a movie. But it has a weakness: sometimes it is hard for the reader to picture the actual scene, the layout of the action. I still am not sure how Reacher's antagonist manages to snatch his target away, and the scene has less intensity for me because I am trying to figure out why his walkway is going opposite the stream of traffic of the exiting passengers. Nor are senses of smell, touch, and taste engaged. In the Blood Memory scene, we are inside Cat's head. The great strength of narrative is that we identify so strongly with the POV that we are taken outside ourselves and into another person's mind: one writer has pointed out that this is the nearest thing to telepathy that humans ever experience. And all the senses are engaged, not just sight and sound.

Orson Scott Card describes levels of engagement in narrative point of view, and this is what he would call "hot" point of view, something that I confess I am addicted to, not just as a writer, but as a reader.

My message? I guess it's that the novel is a magnificent monument to the human imagination, and it's hard to imagine anything short of full-body, five-sense virtual reality ever to rival it.

Bat Night and Little Italy

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:36:13 GMT

Bat night at Lake View Cemetery was enchanting. The naturalist, Tim Krynak, waited until two bats were caught in the bat-net that extended like a gossamer volleyball net in the open space in the cemetery. He carefully disentangled them, then held them while they screamed their heads off and tried to bite him. Feisty little critters! He also showed us a baby bat which, having been raised by humans, cannot be released, and an old bat which is too frail to fly any more. The baby is sort of tame, but it still makes a lot of noise, echo-locating. The noise is actually above the hearing range of humans, but the naturalist had a device to lower the pitch so we could hear the racket they make.

When the two healthy bats were released and fluttered away like furry fairies, the crowd applauded. It was a thrill.

Their faces are so ugly-cute -- tiny tiny and very delicate, like little pug-dogs or gargoyles. I told the naturalist I thought they were adorable, and he probably thought I was nuts. But they are adorable. A photo of them doesn't do justice to the animated little beings themselves.

A few in the crowd (over a hundred people) offered up anti-bat questions, like whether they spread rabies (there is an average of one case of a human rabies death in the US per year, and it usually has nothing to do with bats) and whether they are blood-suckers (there are three species world-wide which do suck blood, but they are not US bats). Apparently nobody still has the stupid idea that they are attracted to women's hair and get tangled in it.

This is an annual event, and if you are a Clevelander, I do urge you to watch for it on the Lake View Cemetery website and attend next year.

To put the topper on our evening, there was an International Space Station pass (see Heavens Above to find future passes), and I had the temerity to tell one of the other viewers that I had two stories ("Mars Is No Place for Children" and my novel, An Old Fashioned Martian Girl, up there for recreational reading.

Geoff and I then went to Cleveland's Little Italy, a really vibrant and hopping area full of art and great cuisine, and I looked up my old apartment on Murray Hill.

Two reasons to love Cleveland -- no mistake, it's a gem on the lake.

Stop us before we poeticize again --

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:39:29 GMT

This is the Vogan sestina created by the panel and audience at Confluence last weekend --

Beelzebug Had a Megrim and out Came a Vogon Poem
A Vogon Sestina by Brea and Mary and the Vogon poetry group of Confluence 2010

why not just burlap
there's nothing as pretentious as a line ending in cormulent
the corpulent coprolite was defenestrated
in burlap. An end that ends in slime
vexing hexing texting googleplexing
disco demitasse of slime perambulates

entrez the husband perambulating
behold the buffalo in shorts of burlap
the next complex of googleplexing
waving tentacles so sexy and cromulent
exposed chest slime
No refunds Pat had to be defenestrated

His chance of immortality depending on defenestration
peritineally prehensive perennially purpose to perambulate
not in the face, disco slime!
burlap
I like with my scones some cromulents
prolix something something something googleplex

In 3 D sestina sestina googleplex
I like to defenestrate
can't you go to jail for that? That's cromulent!
My thought perambulate
like nothing nothing burlap
are we just talking about florgs & slime?

Slime slime oh find the sublime blind divine slime
Chthulu ate some daleks and out came some googleplex
Exterminate exterminate burlap
cause we all know Chthulu hates burlap and will defenstrate
Coagulated perambulation
I hate cromulent

Unpretentious mincing was particularly cromulent
people don't understand the intricacies of slime
this line was supposed to end in perambulate but it doesn't
Yet. Just enjoy the excess gooooogleplex
intentional flaw makes it sublime art gratulant
defenestrate defenestrate
And the cursor tried to flee taking the burlap.

Sanctimonious burlap sacrifices to the God of cromulent
it's hard to lick the slime of the defenestrated
without delicious googleplexing how could we perambulate?

Chilled Dragon Egg and Magical Green Cat Tail Soup

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:13:21 GMT

CHILLED DRAGON EGG AND MAGICAL GREEN CAT-TAIL SOUP

There are dozens of recipes for magical green cat-tail-dragon egg soup on the web. Some use cream or salt or olive oil. I like a simpler, less heavy version. My resident knight in silicon armor really liked this.

Put in blender the following:

•1 1/2 or 2 ripe dragon eggs

• about six inches of an unpeeled magical green cat-tail

• 1 cup vegetable broth

• 1 cup low-fat yoghurt or kefir (you could use buttermilk)

• 1 T chopped onion

• 1 T chopped fresh mint (maybe parsley would work if the fresh mint in your garden has been spoiled by magical green cats looking for catnip)

• 1 T lemon juice (might try lime for extra zip)

• 1 T rice vinegar (I happened to have rice vinegar, but you could probably use a half T of white vinegar,or more lemon juice. Apple vinegar might spoil the color.)

Blend the hell out of it. Make sure you get all the lumps out.

Chill it for at least four hours to chill any residual embryonic dragon fire.

Garnish. (I used a dollop of Greek yoghurt, a sprig of mint, and a nasturtium blossom)

I forgot to mention: For the dragon egg, you can substitute an avocado. And if you are unable to catch a magical green cat and deprive it of its tail (they do regenerate, just like iguana tails, incidentally, although the magical green cat will be very annoyed and possibly claw your eyes out), use an English cucumber.

Atlantis Astronaut Briefing

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:00:40 GMT

I was lucky enough to view the Atlantis STS 132 astronaut briefing.

One of the hosts said Cleveland might lose LeBron, but we have mission specialist Michael T. Good (b. Parma, OH). An audience member said, "But he can't jump as high as Lebron." And another said, "In space he can!"

Chatting in the autograph line with mission specialist Steven G. Bowen, I discovered that he had been an SF reader as a kid and it promoted his interest in space exploration.

The astronauts made a movie, not yet available on the net. They did a lot of choreographed micro-G stunts for the cameras, and of course the views of earth, the ISS, and the shuttle were fantastic.

Thank you, astronauts of STS 132! You are carrying forward the dream!

Theories of style

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:51:36 GMT

I've been following Josh Gage's discussion of creating poems (http://hooks-and-books.livejournal.com/22627.html), and I just posted this:

Josh, we talked about the art of writing as either a clear window or a beautiful screen, and your discussion above brings this question to the fore again in my mind.

We are talking about moving words around to create an effect. That's cool. But the effect comes after the words. It's not about something in the dark that the poet can feel and tries desperately to translate into mere words.

What if your aim is starting with the Thing in the Dark and trying to use words the best way you know how to get the Other to understand?

Is poetry about the art of making beautiful patterns with words, or is it the art of using the words to get a feeling or experience or concept from one human being to another? I think these are two different ways of looking at the art of poetry.

I admit I like shuffling words around to see what happens. It's rewarding and often emotionally arousing, both to myself and to a potential reader. But as a writer who at one time was infatuated with confessional poetry, I try to make language a vehicle of what's in my head and limbic system. The subject of the poem exists, at least to some extent, before the poem exists. Nicholson Baker (you know the book) says think of the best thing that happened in your day, and that's your poem.

A love of window-pane, transparent writing sometimes results in very spare language. (E.g.. never use a latinate word if a common English one will do,) But it can also result in very dense writing. The challenge is to make it work on all levels, emotional, intellectual, auditory, etc. Truth before beauty, but beauty whenever the poor poet can achieve it.

I think using Asimov's dictum as a representative statement of this stance last week was maybe a poor choice on my part. Asimov was not a stylist.

So here's another writer's statement of the same stance. This is Jack Kerouac, and I think it's okay to quote, because it's for scholarly purposes:

Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty "essentials".

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

I was going to point out which principles particularly emphasize what I'm driving at, but the truth is, they all do (except maybe for the one about not getting drunk away from home).

Just something to think about.

Bird on a wire

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:01:03 GMT

I was walking on an unofficial path behind Wallace Lake a few days ago when I saw a bird beating its wings like mad against the branch of a young tree. Upside down!

I ran up to it and saw that a) it was a very pretty bird, with a red spot on its head and lovely golden under-wings. b) it was caught in fishing line and c) it was up way too high for me to reach.

My first thought was to call the Rocky River nature center for help. I had a cell phone, but no number. Also, the bird was so hysterical it was going to beat itself to death before help arrived.

I couldn't reach the bird; it was at least ten feet up. But the tree was still young enough that it bent, so I grabbed a lower branch and hauled the branch with the frantic bird down. Yes. The damn fishing line was wrapped around its leg, perhaps around other parts of its body.

I don't carry a knife, alas. I tried to cut the line with the hinge of my sunglasses, but that was useless. Then I tried unwrapping the line, but the bird wouldn't hold still. Up until now the poor creature hadn't vocalized but when I tried to envelope its wings in my left hand it just cried to break my heart.

My attempts to unwrap the line were only making things worse, and now its poor leg was bleeding from the struggle.

I looked around and found a piece of a broken beer bottle on the path. Thank heaven for careless hikers!

But I couldn't reach the broken glass without letting go of the branch, and that would send the poor bird flying and, still caught, would perhaps snap its leg.

So after a moment of panic, I used my sunglasses to drag the broken glass closer. I picked it up and the bird grew still. Who knows what it was thinking? Maybe it believed that death was imminent.

The glass cut the line away from the tree and the bird was off like a shot. I saw it soar, safe. Possibly a piece of the line was still twined around its leg, but at least it was free. Maybe it would land somewhere and be able to pick the line off. I hope.

What was the bird's perception? Did it think it was caught in a huge spider web, and that I was the spider, with my wraparound glasses, come to harvest and devour it?

Whatever it thought, it got away.

Strangely, I have no idea what kind of bird it was. It was not a redheaded woodpecker, I find. I am in consultation with a naturalist.

Shutter Island

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:02:22 GMT

I just saw SHUTTER ISLAND. Freaked me out more than any movie since SCANNERS.

I walked out into the parking lot and kept seeing characters out of the movie. I know how the first audience of the Medea must have reacted.

I went to see it when Geoff was out of town, thinking he wouldn't necessarily want to see it. Now I wish I'd seen it with somebody else --

John Nichols, "Look for me up There"

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:34:28 GMT

John Nichols, a science fiction poet who was getting some good recognition and, damn it, had a lot more good poems in him, passed away last week. He was only 53, for heaven's sake! Heart attack. He wasn't heavy, and this was his first and only warning. His wife is devastated. We are shocked and very sad.

The last poem he workshopped with our Speculators group was called "Look for me up There," about the astronomers Bart and Priscilla Bok. Shortly before Priscilla passed away, she told her husband she would meet him at Eta Carinae, an astronomical object called a Bok globule. This is their story.

John's visiting hours and funeral are in Lakewood Ohio.

I hope somehow that poem can be published somewhere --

Evil Entity, very Hoppy

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:42:18 GMT

Geoff and I are back from ICFA. We stopped at Cornerstone Brewing Company in Berea and Geoff had a pint of something new called Evil Entity. They were out of their specialty, which is called Seven. I had a couple sips of Evil Entitiy, and it was really good. Bitter and hoppy, if you like that kind of thing, and I do.

Woman climbs into her own oven --

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:41:16 GMT

After we critiqued Ferrett's story (working title: "Dead Merchandise," don't miss it when it comes out), the question arose of whether a small woman really would fit inside an oven. I suggested that we try stuffing Astrid Julian into my oven, but this was overruled (by Astrid), and the Hamsters tried stuffing ME into my own oven. Pictures were taken, but Geoff says they don't show the full horror --