Book Review: Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

            Lunar Park is, to use an overplayed term, deceptively complex.  At once an autobiography, a ghost story, and therapy, Ellis tells the story of an edgy writer named Bret Easton Ellis who was catapulted to fame at a young age with the publication of Less Than Zero, only to come crashing back to Earth in middle age.   Bret (the character; I’ll refer to the author as Ellis) gets married to the movie star mother of his 11 year old illegitimate child and a six year daughter and moves to the suburbs to try to escape his past.  But his past comes back to haunt him, quite literally.   

            Ellis maintains the sleek writing style of his previous novels, but the tone is very different.  In his first three novels (Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho (I have not read Glamorama, and so will not comment on it)), the lifestyles of the privileged youth are depicted as shallow and ultimately meaningless.  While certainly depressing, the characters are in no hurry to leave that lifestyle behind, leaving the reader with the sense of the directionlessness and ennui the protagonists experience.  But Bret finds meaning and stability.  This book is about his (Ellis and Bret’s) coming to terms with maturity and responsibility and acceptance of the past.

            A particularly emotional theme running through the book is Bret’s unresolved issues with his father, and how those issues manifest themselves in his relationship with his son.  If Less Than Zero gave us a glimpse into Ellis’s world, Lunar Park gives us a glimpse into his psyche.  Over the course of the book, we see Bret grow emotionally in a way that we don’t see with any of his earlier protagonists. 

            As far as the horror goes, it was not as solid as the other genres wound into the book.  While genuinely scary at points, the horror scenes were on many occasions too bizarre to be taken seriously.  Likewise, Ellis draws out the process of reaching conclusions the reader makes pretty quickly, which throws the pacing off. 

            Overall, I’d recommend Lunar Park, especially to Ellis fans.  Lunar Park draws from previous works, both explicitly and subtly (at one point, Bret has a meeting at one Dorseah Diner) and offers a peek at the man behind the book.

     Favorite Quote: When you give up life for fiction you become a character.

The Best of All Worlds

            There was a strange old man at the campus coffee shop nearly every day, sitting on a long-legged chair next to the window, sipping his drink and watching the students pass by.  He seemed simultaneously gleeful and crestfallen, an air of resigned happiness about him, as if he were trying to force himself to see the bright side in everything and failing.  Some people avoided him; they thought he was a creep or senile or both.  A few tried to befriend him, they’d sit at his little circular table, cup of coffee steaming in their hands.  They’d talk to him, but he’d just sit there, smile politely, with that same weary joy with which he viewed everything.  This led people to guess that he was a refugee (of some massacre or genocide or other unavoidable disaster) who couldn’t speak English.  To most of us he was a fixture, as much a part of the scenery as the tables and chairs. 

            To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person he ever spoke to.  Probably because I happened to be there at the time, but maybe not.  I would like to think that there was some reason besides proximity that caused him to open up to me, but excluding my own vanity I’m drawing a blank.

            I was sitting at the table next to his, we were back to back.  Him sipping his coffee, me trying to memorize a set of equations for Statistics.  Near the door, two freshmen were having a very loud discussion.

            “I saw a poll online,” one of them, a boy with greasy black hair, said, “That asked ‘If you had a time machine, would you kill Hitler?’  And a majority said ‘No.’ Isn’t that awful?”

            The other one, a girl with shoulder-length red hair, nodded emphatically as they walked out. 

            After they left, the old man started whispering.  He was so quiet I almost didn’t realize he had spoken at all.  I caught the tail end of his statement, something about truth and labels.  I twisted around in my chair to face him.

            “Excuse me?” I said.

            The man didn’t turn but spoke a little louder.  His voice was raspy and reminded me of rust.  I cannot say with any degree of certainty if what he said was true, but I know he believed it.  I think I do, too.
 

            He said:  “‘The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.  So I elect for neither label.’”  He sighed, took a sip of his coffee.  “A satirist wrote that, James Cabell.  He fell out of popularity in the 1930’s.  A critic at the time said that this was because ‘Cabell and Hitler did not inhabit the same universe.’  Perhaps.  Perhaps that would be different, too.  Cabell might have continued to be successful, and paved the way for a golden age of irony.”  He made a series of shallow rasping noises.  It took me a few moments to realize that he was chuckling.  “Would you do it?  If you suddenly found yourself in the past, would you kill Hitler?”

            I thought about it for a moment.  Before I could answer, he continued.

            “The fact that no time traveler has done so is, to many, proof that time travel will always remain impossible.  For how could any society capable of retroactively preventing such a dark patch in mankind’s history possibly choose not to do so?  Why, they ask, would they allow a fool who spent his time dabbling in the occult, who would send his forces on foot into Russia, a man who did many truly evil things, but nonetheless a man who did a poor job of leading an empire, why would they let him live?”  His voice got scratchy and wavered.  He took a sip of his coffee. When he spoke again, I realized he had no accent. 

            “What if I told you,” he said, still not facing me, maybe not even talking to me, “that time travel is real.  That in the future, we’re able to trace the entire history of mankind, from the cradle of life to the grave.  That we can change things, anything we want. That the universe can withstand paradoxes and logical fallacies, because the universe isn’t logical.”   He turned towards me, his face not much more than a foot away.  “What if I told you that, of every possible sequence of events, of every reality, this one, with its war and hatred and famine, this world is the best possible outcome?  What if I told you that we are living in the best of all possible worlds, and that I know that’s true?”

            I think that one of my greatest regrets will be that I said nothing then.  He stared at me for a long moment, looking for something.  Gratitude?  Condemnation?  Apology?  Whatever it was, I couldn’t give it to him, so he left.

            He wasn’t there the next day, or any day after that.  I tried to find someone who knew his name.  The cashier said he always paid cash, so she never got his name off a credit card.  No one knew anything.  A lot of them asked me what I knew, because word had gotten around that I was the last, and only, person he spoke to. 

            I don’t know if I believe him.  But about a week after he disappeared, the cashier showed me a bronze coin the old man had put it in the tip jar.  On the back was a picture of Hearst Castle.  On the front, below the number 2867, was a portrait of Mussolini.

           

            

The Literary Conspiracy

            I take my job as an amateur internet writer very seriously, which means I’ll take any interview that will score me a lot of hits.  Even, as was the case yesterday, if most of those hits are self-inflicted kicks to the skull.  I was loitering in the halls of an upscale hotel near LAX, minding my own business, when I noticed a line of people in suits carrying notepads and tape recorders was forming outside one of the suites.  With nothing better to do, I got in line. 

            I was the last person in line, and after about forty-five  minutes I found out that this was a press junket for Stephenie Meyer, talking about life after Twilight.  If my years on the internet hadn’t taught me how to control my gag reflex, this article would have had a very different ending.  I sat down in a plush leather armchair across from Meyer, the spacious suite suspiciously lacking any bodyguards, personal assistants, or anyone else for that matter.  Something seemed off.

            “So,” I said, after an awkward silence, “What’s next for an author of your stature?”

            “I’d like to do some high-concept avant-garde work.”

            “I see.”  I made a mental note to make sure ‘stature’ means what I think it does.  I was about to say something else, but then I noticed that Meyer’s head was twitching violently back and forth.  “Are you okay?” 

            A few things tipped me off that she was not okay.  The first is that she started repeating the same word over and over again.  The second is that that word was ‘Error.’  By the time sparks started flying out of her ears, I was pretty sure something was amiss.  When the sparks had stopped for long enough that I was confident she wouldn’t catch fire or explode or spawn Meyer-nano-bots, I opened the suitcase sitting next to her seat.  (It’s perfectly legal to look through someone’s stuff if you’re there when they died; it says so in the sixth amendment.)   What I found was evidence of a conspiracy so complex and far-reaching that it is almost too stupid to believe. 

            The suitcase contained all the information on ‘Literary Contingency Plan Theta.’  Which, the cover sheet informed me, was designed to ‘inspire book sales in the otherwise illiterate in a manner that will anger the more literary among the populace, prompting them to buy quality books.’  It appeared that a number of authors all wrote their own version of Twilight, and those versions were then compiled and distilled into a garbled mess, i.e., a bestseller.  I was able to retrieve brief excerpts of the various versions of the story before the Meyer-bot self-destructed.  This conspiracy goes back longer than I would have dared to imagine, and could completely rewrite literary history.  The authors mentioned hereafter will, undoubtedly, deny any involvement.

Cormac McCarthy:

            See the girl.  She sat in the back of an old car.  Thunderheads galloped through the sky above, below the fog-muted greens of the treetops rattled in the cold seawind from the west, carrying the salt laden air inland. An alien world unlike the interminable expanse of orange and gold that was Arizona.  The girl stirs.  When will we get there?  she asks.  There is a man driving, he does not turn to her when he speaks.  Another hour, or so.

            That long?

            It’s the weather.

            The hill crests before them, at the peak they can see the town under siege from the rain that has sprung up out of nowhere.

Michael Cricthon:

            “So the enzyme in your saliva is responsible,” Bella asked.

            “Exactly,” Dr. Cullen explained.  “Once in the bloodstream, the enzyme enters the DNA of the individual cells, much in the same fashion of the naturally occurring thyroid hormone, tri-iodothyronine.  The enzyme rewrites the DNA to, first of all, produce more of the enzyme.  Then it prevents the shortening of telomeres, which halts the aging process.  However, it inhibits erythropoiesis, the production or erythrocytes, better known as red blood cells.”

            “But what about your super strength?”

            “If we look at the muscle fibers we –

Thomas Pynchon:

            He held her, pressed up against an eldernly oak.  She turned her head, could see an eroded etching in the bark, made out that it said ‘Ron + Jenny Always.’  They had put that there in 1952.  Ronald Hopefalls was a sailor aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Mishap, which had anchored safely in Seattle after six months off the coast of Thailand.  Ronald had bartered for a ride south from Seattle, he traded a sterling silver pendant that he had stolen from a drunk in Bangkok.  The pendant appeared to be a meaningless series of criss-crossing metal mesh, but when a light shone through it, it cast shadows depicting various methods of fellatio depending on the angle and intensity of the light.

Bret Easton Ellis:

            I am wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch black polyester-blend tee-shirt, Hot Topic tattered denim blue jeans and black and gray Converse sneakers with white laces.   I’m trying to get to English class when I see Mike coming towards me.  I don’t want to deal with him.

            “You look really nice today,” he says.

            Please go away.

            “Thanks.”

            He shuffles his feet like a moron and I know what he’s going to ask.  It’s embarrassing to watch.

            “Do you want to go to prom with me?”

            I’d rather slit open my abdomen and eat whatever comes out.

            “I’m not going.”

            He looks broken and walks away.  I should suggest a girl for him to take out, just so I won’t have to deal with how pitiful he looks.  Half the guys here have asked me out, like they think that just because I’m the new girl, I’ll drop my panties for the first nice guy that comes along.  Why not?  There’s nothing else to do in this shitstain of a town.

Ernest Hemingway:

            They thought the man had been torn apart by wild dogs.  The carcass was ragged with teethmarks.  I listened to my father relate the investigation.  They found a second body.  Now they think a man did this.  He is going to search the woods for the killer.  He told me he loves me and left.  I poured myself a drink.

Geoffrey Chaucer:

And eek sporte hadde he,

But condiciouns ther neede be.

The shoures soote  loved hem alle,

For thanne koulde folks playen balle.

Book Review: House of Leaves

            Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is proof that there are still unexplored avenues in horror and experimental literature.  Danielewski takes the old mantra of “show, don’t tell” to its extreme, sculpting the layout of the pages to show the characters’ mental states and even, occasionally, their physical location.  Alternating between agoraphobic (a single paragraph at the bottom of a page) and labyrinthine (footnotes running through the text in multiple directions), House of Leaves is an exercise in form as an integral part of story-telling. 

            It was no coincidence that I used the term labyrinthine in the previous paragraph.  Both the story and the form it takes are like a labyrinth (an analogy the author (but not the narrator) of the novel within the novel also makes); getting lost in the branching corridors of the lives of Will Navidson, Zampanó, and Johnny Truant is easy, but you will be greatly rewarded if you can find the right path. 

            If you have not read House of Leaves, you’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about with novels within novels and sideways footnotes.  There are three main stories in House of Leaves.  That of Johnny Truant, who found a manuscript among the belongings of the deceased blind man known only as Zampanó, the story within the novel itself, and the story of Zampanó.  The bulk of House of Leaves is comprised of Zampanó’s novel, The Navidson Record, which is written to look like a non-fiction exegesis on a fictional documentary of the same name.  It follows the story of an acclaimed photojournalist, Will Navidson, his children, and their mother, as they move into a house in Virginia and try to settle down (Navidson was never around, always documenting wars or disasters).  Navidson got grant money to make a documentary about putting down roots and becoming close as a family.  Things take a turn for the strange as they discover that the house is slightly larger on the inside than on the outside.  Then things become downright spooky as rooms start appearing including mile-long hallways and below-freezing chambers. 

In some editions, the dust-jacket is smaller than the book.

            Because The Navidson Record has taken the form of a scholarly pursuit, footnotes abound.  While not a typical manner of comedic relief (although House of Leaves is anything but typical), the criticism of film (and perhaps literary) criticism is clever, albeit a bit repetitive.  Consider the idea that scholars wrote hundreds, or even thousands, of books and articles were about the physics, symbolism, and nature of the House on Ash Tree Lane, but were either unable or unwilling to go to the house itself.  (If it seems like I’m reaching, Karen, the love of Will Navidson’s life, gets opinions on a clip from the documentary from a number of real-life authors, filmmakers, architects, critics, etc., including Derrida, the father of deconstructionism.  While all the people asked provide different answers, only Derrida is portrayed as spouting incomprehensible nonsense.)

            Among the footnotes Johnny Truant will occasionally interrupt, his life having descended, slowly, gradually, into madness.  His history and his present are mirrored and affected by The Navidson Record and those acquainted with the enigmatic Zampanó. 

            Zampanó doesn’t have his own story, so much as he informs the other stories.  We learn about him through his acquaintances, through the information Johnny digs up, and through what he puts in his novel, or more importantly, what he tries to leaves out.   Sections of crossed out material (including the previously mentioned labyrinth analogy) that Johnny included in his transcription of the novel tell us about its author.  In this way, the book examines the relationship between the author and his work. 

            The way all the storylines interact with each other can be confusing, but creates something greater than the sum of its parts.  It’s not an easy read, but House of Leaves is worth the effort.

           

Breif Book Review: Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune can be read two ways.  The first is as a story:

            With a few twists, the story behind Dune is an old one.  A noble family travels to another fief, only to fall victim to treachery resulting in the death of the father and forced exile of the son; the son must get his revenge and reclaim the throne.  Make the fief a planet named Arrakis, and add in prophecy, mystic abilities, and futuristic tech, and you’ve got the story of Paul Atreides.

The second (and I believe better) way to read this novel is as a portrait:

            Like I said, the story throughout Dune is an old one, one that will not surprise the reader too much.  But the point isn’t the plot, it’s the planet.  What Herbert attempts and (I believe) succeeds in doing, is giving us enough of an understanding of an entire world and population to be able to extrapolate and comprehend their present, past, and future.  He covers topics ranging from ecology, to theology, to military strategy, to Xenobiology.  The scope (and, I presume, intent) of this novel gives the readers more than just a window into another world: It gives them a guided tour.

            In creating a world, some things get more attention than others.  The simplicity of the characters is my biggest complaint (followed closely by the hundreds of times I had to skim through the glossary).  But the people are not the point.  They, like their culture and environs, exist to bring Arrakis to life.  Perhaps there’s something to be learned from the amount of work and detail put into bringing to life a nearly lifeless planet.

            At almost 800 pages (not including the appendices which cover ecology, history of noble families, the intent of a sacred order, and a glossary), Dune may require a bit of work.  Picking up on the lexicon of Arrakis may take some time at first, but is rewarding as you go along.  Dune also asks the reader to accept the mysticism as well as the superscience.  I am, admittedly, not a big fan of the fantasy genre, with many exceptions.  So take it with a grain of salt when I say that the mystic abilities are somewhat confusing in their limitations and uses.

            But at its heart, Dune isn’t any more about magic than it is about any one aspect of the Arrakeen society.  This novel is a portrait of an entire planet.  And it paints that portrait spectacularly.
            

A Day at the Ad Agency

            “Yes, Mr. Holstrom.  Yes, I realize that this is unacceptable.  I’m going to rectify the situation right- Rectify.  It means to make right.  Yes, I’m sure it doesn’t mean that.  Yes, I’ll get right on it.  All right, thanks.”

            I hang up the phone, and rub my temples.  This is the third time Johnson’s fucked me over.  I open the drawer in my desk by my right knee, pull out a bottle of scotch and a glass.  I hate firing people.  I pour, drink.  Johnson’s office is down the hall, about ten yards from mine.  His office is only about eight by ten, but then again, he’s only worked here for six months.  It took me three years to get a decent sized office. 

            When I enter the room, Johnson is sitting with his feet on his desk, leaning back in his swivel chair, holding a paperback at arm’s length over his face.  I clear my throat.  Johnson looks at me without moving his head.

            “Hey,” he says, “What’s up?”

            “We need to talk,” I say, pulling from my pocket the folded up flyer Mr. Hostrom faxed to me.  “It’s serious.”

            Johnson swings his legs off the desk, and sits up straight, tossing the book behind him.  It hits the wall and some pages fall out.  I lay the flyer flat on the desk in front of him.  “Can you tell me what this is?” I say.

            Johnson looks it over, then says, “It’s the promotional flyer I designed for Mattress Mart’s sale.”

            “And do you see why Mr. Holstrom might be upset with it?”

            Johnson strokes his chin for a moment.  “No.”

            “Well, I see several.  Let’s start with the big bright red letters across the top.”

            “What about them.”

            I can’t tell if Johnson is messing with me, so I give him the benefit of the doubt.  “You don’t see it?”

            “No.”

            “Mattress-Side Sale.  In big red, inexplicably dripping letters, it says Mattress-Side Sale.”

            Johnson shrugs as if he has no idea what I mean.

            “Mattress-side.  Matricide.”

            He shrugs.  “Coincidence.”

            “Coincidence!  How could it be coincidence!  What the fuck does Mattress-side even mean.”

            “It means ‘the act of murdering one’s own mother.’”

            “I know that!”

            “Then why’d you ask?”

            I take a few deep breaths.  “I mean, why did you name the sale the Mattress-Side Sale.”

            “Because we have the best mattresses this side of the Mississippi.” He says.  “I promise, any homophones are coincidental.”

            “See, I have a hard time believing that.”  I point to the image beneath the title, “Could you explain this?”

            Johnson looks it over.  “I think the meaning is quite clear.”

            “So do I, which is precisely the problem.”

            The image is a line drawing of a large number of young men and middle aged women in a mattress store, all of them brandishing weapons of some kind.  Beneath that is the line: Everyone and their mother is going Psycho for our low, low prices.

            “Do you seriously expect me to believe that this has nothing to do with matricide?”

            “It has everything to do with mattress-side.  That’s the name of the sale.”

            The son of a bitch is grinning now.  “Enough,” I say.

            He shrugs.  “Fine,” he says.  “The pun is intentional.  I thought he’d like it.”

            “Why would he possibly like it?”

            “You’ve seen the commercials, always talking about prices so low that he’s got to be insane and all that.  What says crazy better than matricide?”

            I look him over carefully, trying to determine whether he’s still pulling my leg.  “Not that kind of crazy.  He’s quirky uncle crazy, not dress up like a clown and rip out your sternum crazy.”

            Johnson shrugs. “My mistake,” he says.  “I’ll do better next time.”

            I brace myself, take a deep breath.  “There won’t be a next time.  You’re fired.”

            He looks at me, actually serious for the first time so far.  “What!  Because I made one mistake!”

            “This is hardly the first mistake.”

            “Name one other.  I dare you!”

            “That Chef Spyro’s Gyro shop.  You remember that one?”

            Johnson crosses his arms over his chest.  “What about it?”

            “‘Chef Spyro will fill your mouth with his hot meat.’  And the picture was a close-up of Spyro winking.”

            Johnson snorts in derision. “So it happened one other time.  Big deal.”

            “And Bragler’s Pharmacy.  The ad just said, ‘Drugs.  Lots and lots of drugs.’”

            “It got people’s attention.”

            “It got the police department’s attention.”

            “Police are people.”

            “That’s not the point!”

            I take several deep breaths.  “The point is, you’re fired.  That’s it.”

            I stand up and start to leave, but Johnson runs around the desk and grabs my shoulder.  “Let me show you what I’ve got,” he says, clearly desperate.  “If you don’t like it, I’ll go.”

            “Fine,” I say. 

            An easel with a giant pad of sketch paper is leaned against the wall.  Johnson spreads its legs, and prepares to flip over the page.  “It’s for Rico’s Italian diner.”  He flips over the page.

            There’s are two meatballs next to each other, and a cannoli dangling below them.  The tagline says, “You’ll love our big meaty balls.”

            Johnson is smiling self-consciously.  I look at the ad again, then back to Johnson.  I turn around and start walking.  “You’re fired.” I call out over my shoulder. 

The Poolboy

            Times have been tough lately.  Fresh out of college, no jobs for a philosophy major in this economy.  So when my cousin Fred in Orange County offered me a job at the pool cleaning service he works for, I couldn’t say no.  I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a pool, but if Fred can do it, it shouldn’t be too difficult.  I learned quickly enough (memorizing heater specs is nothing compared to Sartre) and was soon on my first assignment.  Fred had warned me that the customers were freaky, but I had no idea what I was in for. 

            My first job was at one o’clock, and, in typical Southern California fashion, the sun was scorching.  The house was a simple two-story family home in the middle of suburbia, green lawn, nice car, clean pool, almost the archetype of the typical suburban home.  I pulled the white pickup truck alongside the curb, grabbed the chemicals and skimmer from the bed, and went around the side of the house to the backyard.  The pool was, I roughly estimated, forty by fifteen feet, with a maximum depth of between nine and twelve feet.  It was surrounded by a gate, which is highly recommended to prevent tragic accidents.  My skimmer was already in the pool when I realized that the client (one Mrs. Benson, according to the billing information), was sunbathing on a lounge chair, on the concrete about ten feet from the pool.  She was wearing a red bikini, sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat, a bottle of suntan lotion on the ground next to the chair.  She noticed me looking at her, raised her head and smiled, waved.  I waved back. 

            She called out, “I hope you don’t mind if I watch.” 

            “Not at all,” I called back.  It’s good to see a homeowner take an active interest in their pool’s maintenance.  The surface of the water was spotted with clusters of leaves, which are best to remove before adding chemicals.  I realized soon on that watching the skimmer glide across the water was relaxing, almost hypnotic even.  I walked around the pool, the little blue net filling with soaked foliage, until I got to the filter, which I realized was directly in front of Mrs. Benson.  It was also broken, and I leant down to check it.  This got Mrs. Benson’s attention, as she propped herself up on an elbow to get a better look.  This filled me with a sense of anticipation; if I couldn’t fix the filter, with a pool-owner as astute as Mrs. Benson, I could be in for a hard time back at the office. 

            Mrs. Benson got up from the lounge chair and walked over to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.  “What seems to be the problem,” she said, kindly.

            “It looks like the filter’s broken,” I said, “It’s probably blocked at the pump, Mrs. Benson.” 

            “Please,” she said, “Call me Anne, and it hasn’t been Mrs. for months,” she smiled.

            I smiled back.  “I’ll be sure to change the billing info to ‘Miss’,” I said, looking around for the pump.  It was near the side of the house opposite from the side I entered from, so I walked over there, followed, to my surprise, by Anne.  I was sweating pretty badly by this point, and was tempted when Anne suggested I take my shirt off.  Unfortunately, I burn very easily, and the sun tan lotion by the lounge chair has a disastrously low SPF. 

            “Sooo…” Anne said as I squatted down next to the pump, “this problem with the pump.  Does it look hard?”

            “Too soon to tell,” I said, “I’m going to need to open her up and have a look inside.” 

            “Do you have a special tool for that?” she said. 

            “Sure do,” I said, reaching into one of the pockets on my khaki shorts. 

            “Can I touch it?” she asked, “Your tool I mean?”

            I stood up, and turned around.  She was rubbing her hands along the sides of her torso. “Sure,” I said, “hold out your hand.”  She placed her hand palm up about waist height, which struck me as odd as I handed her my wrench.  She looked at it, even though she was wearing sunglasses, I could tell she was squinting her eyes in confusion.  “It’s a Foreman 3/8 inch standard wrench,” I said.  She looked at me like I was an idiot, then it hit me.  “Oh!” I said, feeling like a complete fool.  I took the wrench back and started fumbling around with my shorts.  It took me a moment, but I found it and got it out. 

            The filter uses metric nuts, and there I was like an idiot with a 3/8 inch wrench.  I showed her the adjustable wrench.  “Sorry,” I said, her face still shocked by my rookie mistake, “I’m new at this.”  Fixing the pump was a piece of cake, but Anne still seemed put off by my mistake with the wrench. 

            “Sorry again,” I said.  “I’m a bit nervous, but I swear, I’m all business.”

            She seemed to respond well to my reassurances, and her face lit up with a smile. “This is your first time?” she said, stepping a little closer to me. 

            “Yeah,” I said, “There’s a big difference between practicing alone and actually doing it with someone else there.  You know, theory versus practice and all that.” 

            Anne nodded emphatically, “I know just what you mean.”  She leaned over and whispered into my ear, her breath hot and moist, “How about some practice, then?”

            I nodded.  My bucket with the chemical containers was sitting unattended and unused on the other side of the pool, and here I was chatting.  Time to put my training into practice.  Anne seemed flustered when I had finished adding in the chemicals and said my goodbyes.  In hindsight, her behavior throughout the entire ordeal had been odd.  I guess Fred was right about the customers being freaky.

           

            

Opinions on Fan Fiction

            Like most denizens of the internet, I cringe whenever I come across the words “fan fiction.”  That phrase conjures up images of poorly written adventures and anatomically erroneous erotica.  And, quite frankly, a majority of fan fiction falls into one of those two categories.  But then again, so does a majority of fiction in general.  I was thinking about writing a post on fan fiction, prompted by the release of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”  I ran into a problem from the outset: I couldn’t define fan-fiction.  I tried.  My first definition was “a work of fiction that is based on and uses the characters from one or more previously existing sources.” 

            This was a seemingly fit catch-all until I thought of Jason Bourne.  I haven’t read any of the novels written after Ludlum’s death, but there have been several.  Are they fan-fiction?  It certainly fits the definition.  As do the post-Flemming James Bond novels.  And the Star Wars novels.  So I changed my definition to require works to be non-canon.  Then I thought of Tom Stoppard.

            Tom Stoppard wrote a play titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (which was adapted into a great film starring Timothy Roth and Gary Oldman), which uses only characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Clearly this fell into my new definition for fan fiction.  I also recently read a very funny book by Christopher Moore called Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, which uses biblical characters in the setting of ancient Jerusalem.  If that’s fan-fiction, so is Milton’s Paradise Lost.  How can I justify being against something when I can’t even define what it is I’m supposed to be against? 

            As I tried to reconcile my gut feelings with my rationality, I started considering another aspect: story.  James Joyce’s Ulysses adapts the Odyssey to be about an average person, all the obstacles are changed from fantastic to mundane.  If using a pre-existing character in a new storyline is fan fiction, is using a pre-existing storyline with a new character also fan fiction?  I don’t know. 

            Is there a lot of shitty fan-fiction out there?  Sure.  But I think it’s worth wading through the oceans of crap to find the half-digested piece of corn that is a good story (and that’s officially the grossest metaphor I’ve ever written).

Weird, Experimental Short Story

    In the cities, don’t go looking for stars in the night sky.  We’ve washed them off.  A few have managed to hold on, but they don’t bother anyone.  They hang around while the moon slides past and deposits itself in the horizon.  Then they fade as the sun takes over.

    Rotate.  Revolve.  Repeat.

    The sun also sets, igniting the sky behind it.  A flare, a beacon, a message that only the stars can read.  But we’ve taken the stars.  The orange orb sinks behind the waves and the purples and pinks turn to black, while the silver disc begins its nocturnal ascent.  The stars come out.  We took most of them.  We didn’t destroy them, or erase them.  We brought them to Earth.

    The moon conquers the treeline.  Polaris, Sirius, and Canopus report for duty.  Rigel’s there too, but you can’t see him.  They stay in their stations and watch, unblinking.  On earth, they see Procyon.  Stumbling out of a bar, taking a swing at the photographers.  They turn their attention to Capella A, dancing close with Regulus.  Capella B is at home, suspecting but unsure.  The moon passes its apex.  Pollux is over one-hundred stories tall.  Merak overdosed in the lobby.  The moon is swallowed by the end of the earth, and the sun is regurgitated from the opposite end.

    Rotate.  Revolve.  Repeat.

    Rigel didn’t report.   Polaris and Canopus expected as much.  Sirius had held out hope.  No one cranes their neck to look at the stars.  It used to just be in the cities.  But the world has become too bright.  Rigel picks up a microphone at a dive bar, a crowd there to listen.  The moon approaches the climax of its arc.  Canopus will be next.  There’s an inventor in Baltimore.  After that, it will be Sirius.  The moon falls.  Polaris will be last.  We’ve used Polaris for centuries, but that too must end.  The sun erupts from the east.

    Rotate.  Revolve.  Repeat.