“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I don’t have time to do a full CNN Asks for today, but I did want to draw attention to this item:
I hope I’m not the only one who finds the idea of a 3D version of a tale about the shallowness of the quest for money, and the useless gaudiness of a passing era, both funny and tragic.
The device above is actually a lifeguard, and the picture and quotes were taken from a popsci.com article.
This summer, EMILY (for EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard) began patrolling Malibu’s dangerous Zuma Beach and will watch over about 25 more by December. Although lifeguards operate this version by remote control, next year’s model will autonomously save potential drowning victims as reliably as a human. Once a lifeguard tosses EMILY into the surf, its sonar device will scan for the underwater movements associated with swimmers in distress.
Usually I’m a huge fan of this sort of automation, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about having a red torpedo zipping at my face while I was busy panicking and sinking below the waterline.
The idea of it self-determining when someone needs saving is fantastic, but I do wonder how easy it is to differentiate between a drowning victim and a spastic child in the middle of a splash fight – and I’m unwilling to do any odd-making on how soon hooligan teenagers will be faking it out so they ride it around the beach.
Still, the fact that the current model is remote-controlled means that my years of console gaming may finally pay off in a sweet beach patrol gig.
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and fifteen.
Tonight we present The Murder Plague: Caretaking, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
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This episode is brought to you by Dancing Ella’s Words.
As Oscar Wilde famously said: “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
Find her work at http://dancingella.blogspot.com/
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Harm Carter takes a moment to seek sanctuary while considering his difficult situation, and attempting to avoid assassination at the hands of any passing stranger.
We’d also like to take a moment to thank Highland & Wood for their excellent audio intro – you can find their podcast, Bothersome Things, at bothersomethings.com
Flash Pulp 115 – The Murder Plague: Caretaking, Part 1 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
It’s hard to explain how I felt once I was back on the road. It was as if I was part of a great ballet – or, really, as if I was at a costume ball, with all of the dancers masked, and each moving to their own rhythm.
Was the man across from me at the stoplight an infected lunatic plotting to bury his wife in a backyard flowerbed, or was he simply a harried fellow out to pick up a quart of milk? Was the lady deep in conversation at the corner really discussing the cost of a sausage with the vendor, or was she attempting to determine if her dinner had been poisoned by a plague-ridden paranoiac?
I’ve never been much of a religious man – doubly not-so once Kate died – but, after a few blocks of aimless driving, I realized shock had my hands shaking at the wheel, and, at that moment, the rolling bell of a heavenly summons came peeling from a house of prayer to my left.
I wasn’t raised Catholic, but, in that instant, I was willing to grasp at any higher power that might have me.
Pulling into the parking lot that fronted the gray-faced building, I found all of the spaces empty, and yet the broad wooden doors were pinned open.
Honestly, I don’t know what I expected inside – I do recall feeling some relief that I hadn’t encountered a crowd of parishioners, as they would have likely turned into a riotous brawl before the communion was delivered. What I did find, instead, was silence and vacant pews.
As was tendency in my schoolboy days, I took a seat on the rearmost bench.
I was stalling, I suppose – I knew I needed to get to Rebecca’s babysitter’s, but I wasn’t keen on what I might discover there. It was the inevitable that had me tripped up – what if I did find her, alive but as sick as the rest?
The problem was a drain my mind couldn’t quite finish circling on its own, and I would have likely spent a few hours in further consideration if it wasn’t for the priest’s interruption.
He was a short man, and I hadn’t noticed him standing behind the lectern; or possibly he’d moved to the position while my brain was off wandering. His hair was wild, but his face – it seemed as if his face had been molded by a lifetime of smiling, as if he could do little else, even in those deadly times, after having formed such a long standing habit.
“You look troubled,” he said, his practiced voice easily carrying down the long red carpet of the center aisle.
“Well, to be fair, these are troubling times,” I replied.
“What is weighing on you?” he asked. It struck me as a bit of a personal question for such a great distance – but, on the other hand, I could only imagine the kind of confessions he must have been hearing at that point, and didn’t blame him for wanting to maintain the separation.
“Oh, just tough decisions to be made, I suppose.”
He nodded, apparently taking more from my words than I’d meant for him to.
“Yes, it is a time full of tough decisions,” he answered. Even as he said it, he continued to maintain that empty imitation of a smirk, and it was then that I realized his hands had been out of sight, below the pulpit, for the length of our brief discussion.
Back in my fighting days I knew a fellow who’d been a stand up comedian before his chronically-broke status had forced him to enlist. I only found him funny when we were under fire, and the more determination the other side demonstrated, the faster he would spit out gags.
He was killed when he strayed into a bullet, while imitating a goat.
There was something about the clergyman’s expression that reminded me of that joker – a mix of intense panic layered under a survival instinct of good humour.
I cleared my throat.
“Actually, you’ve helped me make my choice. Many thanks, Padre.”
I stood.
“I have?” He was surprised at the news, but, for a moment at least, I think his smile became genuine.
“Yes, sir – and I’m off to do something about it.” I started edging past the bulletin boards and abandoned collection baskets, wondering if his improved mood would last for the duration of my exit.
His arms remained fixed, and his hands remained hidden.
“A final bit of advice then, to carry with you as you go,” he interrupted, his grin collapsing. “Sometimes the only choice is the lesser of two evils.”
Frankly, it was that sort of simplistic advice that had put me off of churches in the first place.
I waved in agreement, then hustled through the vestibule and down the short flight of cement steps, pleased to see the street empty of pedestrians.
I was in the middle of a hearty round of self-congratulations regarding my narrow escape as I reached my car door – and that’s when I heard a single gunshot echo from the still-gaping entranceway.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Text and audio commentary can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or call the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
Big thanks go to Highland & Wood for the audio introduction – you can find their fantastic Bothersome Things podcast at bothersomethings.com
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
You’re familiar with the concept of a “juggernaut”?
The word is derived from the Sanskrit जगन्नाथ Jagannātha (meaning “Lord of the Universe”), which is one of the many names of Krishna from the ancient Vedic scriptures of India.
One of the most famous of Indian temples is the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa, which has the Ratha Yatra (“chariot procession”), an annual procession of chariots – wikipedia
“Chariots”, in this case, really meaning “massive rolling temples”.
So, it seems like a fairly simple bit of logic to connect those colossal wagons with the modern definition of an unstoppable force that we currently use – but, oh, those wacky explorers and colonialists had to embellish an already impressive tradition.
A popular 14th-century work, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, apocryphally describes Hindus, as a religious sacrifice, casting themselves under the wheels of these huge chariots and being crushed to death.
Based on this claim, British colonials promulgated the claim that Hindu devotees of Krishna were “lunatic fanatics who threw themselves under the wheels of these chariots in order to attain salvation”. – wikipedia
This, it seems to me, is something like having an alien observer of Earth determine that there must be a subset of human assassins who roam the highways in an attempt to cull the herd, since we so often hold a celebration, with plenty of drinking, then allow wobbly-handed executioners out onto the road to slam into unexpecting parties.
Others have suggested more prosaically that the deaths, if any, were accidental and caused by the press of the crowd and the general commotion. – wikipedia
Come with me for another stroll down Random Trivia Lane.
Are you familiar with the Hitchcock film Rear Window?
I bet you’re familiar with the man in this picture, or at least his son.
No, not the fellow with the ethereal glow, that’s the film’s director making his usual cameo – no, the other, the musician who spends the film composing a song entitled “Lisa”.
That composer is the original lead singer of one of the most commercially successful vocal groups of the last half century, and yet you likely wouldn’t recognize his voice if you heard it.
His name is Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., and I’ll let wikipedia dispense his legend:
According to his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., they were down to their last $200 when Bagdasarian spent $190 on a V-M tape recorder that would allow him to vary tape speeds.
This monstrously large hit was the result (there’s a bit of an intro, feel free to skip through the first 40 seconds or so):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBMEZvZSWFQ]
The first Chipmunk record, “The Chipmunk Song,” had Bagdasarian doing all the voices. (The spoken coda, when played slowly, reveals Bagdasarian enacting the roles of Theodore, Simon, and Alvin.) Thereafter, most of his Chipmunk records used female voice artists, recorded only about 1/4 slower than the normal playback speed. – wikipedia
– that is, until he died of a heart attack in 1972.
Like so many dynasties, the Chip-mantle was eventually taken up by his namesake, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., who, if you’re like me and know the Chipmunks best through the endlessly re-rerun 1980s cartoon, you may be most familiar with as the voice of Dave and the rodents – except for Theodore and The Chipettes, who were played by his wife, Janice Karman.
Before the show, however, Bagdasarian Jr. released a comeback album. His choice of platform for the beloved family property?
Chipmunk Punk.
I’ll let the boys play me out with a song about a drunk driver seducing a lady:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7zNNRpWCK0]
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and fourteen.
Tonight we present The Chase: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp114.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This episode is brought to you by the Bothersome Things podcast.
It’s like eating a unicorn for dinner.
Find them at BothersomeThings.com, or find them on iTunes.
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Blackhall participates in the end of the siege of the Elg Herra, and concludes much outstanding business.
Flash Pulp 114 – The Chase: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Moments after the departure of Thomas’ former companion, panic began to march through the beds at the edges of the rolling longhouse, and down the center aisle which held the iron bowls of flame that maintained the Moose Lord’s heat and cooking fires.
Blackhall could not translate the flurry of speech which surrounded him, but he could see that all were focused upon the small closets at the rear of the wagon which acted as the home’s latrines, and he moved quickly to scrutinize what he suspected was Marco’s work.
The cramped space stunk of spilled gin and the involuntary releases of death.
Within, his sockets bulging and his legs thrust straight, was the corpse of Mathus, the Elg Herran shaman. A length of folded cloth remained at this throat, the obvious instrument of his murder.
His body had been stripped of ornamentation, the fled Frenchman having rifled anything that might be of value, monetarily or mystically.
For a moment Thomas shut his eyes, rubbing at their dry and rasping surface with forefinger and thumb. Fatigue was heavy upon his shoulders, and the imagined spectre of Mairi’s dead face drifted up to him from the inky depths of his closed lids.
As he let out a long breath and once again opened his vision, Mairi’s aspect was replaced by that of Disa, who stood before him.
“Was it my Marco?” she demanded.
Blackhall confirmed the worst with a short nod.
“He also removed all that might have some worth from our shared bunk – including the ring he gave me in safekeeping till our ceremony of binding.” She spoke in husky tones, and a flash of despair crossed her face.
Before she might weep, the pregnant woman strode away.
* * *
The attack came at noon, and Thomas, who’d relocated to the roof of the rear-most in the procession, finally had his first close-viewing of the Presters, as a raiding party detached itself from the larger force and moved against his perch.
They came with fire in hand, and their dogs baying in the lead. The alabaster-skinned men huddled close behind the hounds, with leather shields held high to stave off arrow attacks, and those without torches toted long, rough-hewn logs on their shoulders, to act as pikes against a bull moose rush.
Blackhall’s unsettling plan had formed soon after the discovery of Mathus’ body, but the knowledge he intended to implement had come straight from the old man’s tongue, and he knew the shaman would gladly give anything to bring an end to the threat against his people.
Still, Thomas had kept up a stream of apologies as he’d conducted his grisly work – all the better to keep his gorge from rising.
Now, as the approaching contingent moved to catch their wheeled target, he set aside Marco’s cast-off gin bottle, which harboured the old man’s sight organs, and raised his Baker rifle. His targeting was arbitrary, as any of the encroaching assailants would have happily seen him dead.
The crack and roll of gunpowder filled the air, and the lead of Blackhall’s foes fell, his torch landing amongst the trampled grasses, forgotten.
Construction of the larger charm had been considerably less disgusting, although the moving of the fire bowl had been sweatier work. Once in place, Thomas had wound leather about a wooden lid, to hold it over-top a concoction he’d mixed within the basin itself.
With Asmund’s assistance, he sent the vessel tumbling to the ground.
The volume of the cauldron had allowed him more room for reagents than during his original demonstration to the old man, and, as the cedar covering shattered upon the ground, a misty feline of immense proportion rose up, nearly overtaking the height of the wagon itself.
The dogs ceased their forward movement with animal terror in their eyes. They turned and began to flee.
At the cowardice of their beasts, the pallid-men also pivoted, and the retreating mob was soon moved to panic as a cluster of mounted defenders arrived in response to the prearranged signal of the birthing of the ghostly cat-daemon.
Blackhall knew the phantasm would not remain corporeal long, only until the last of his whisky supply ran into the earth, but it was ample for his intentions. In short moments the riders had retrieved the fallen Prester corpse, and returned with it to Thomas’ station.
It was easy enough to extract the necessary blood from the cadaver’s weeping wound, and, once again taking up the gory gin bottle, the frontiersman mixed in the last component necessary for his preparation.
A man came running from the assaulting line, shouting to rouse his people. Blackhall noted another beside him – a familiar, hunched form, which he suspected to be Hakon.
Thomas could only guess what fearful words the traitor must have used to press the desperate plan after realizing that this might be his final attempt to lay low those who had spurned him. Nor, for that matter, did he know what volume of riches the Presters must have originally promised the defector to turn against his people – Blackhall wondered if it was a sum greater than that which had purchased the loyalty of his former friend, the voyageur.
Whatever oaths the Prester King now pawned in his own tongue, it was enough to rally his host, who moved forward as a mighty wall, driving the flood of frightened hounds before them.
Although it still stood, the summoned whiskey spirit’s form had begun to blur, and, despite its aggressive stance, its clawed hands had begun to dissipate in the breeze.
Blackhall implemented his closing scheme, tipping the now sealed gin bottle on its side, upon the roof, and setting his boot heavily through the glass, crushing the blind orbs within.
The rushing line fell forward, suddenly asleep upon the unyielding plain.
The pack, spooked by the apparition before them, and the swooning of their masters behind them, scattered as if a cloud burst, draining into the dry turf.
This left an odd moment: all those of Prester blood having suddenly collapsed, and their mongrels absconded, there were but two figures still standing amid the dense heap of slumberers. One stood at the forefront of the failed rush, and one stood in the rear, having been happy to let those he considered savages carry out the grim work of fighting.
A single arrow arced over the fallen sleepers, it’s flight strong and true – Marco was allowed no scream as its shaft passed through his traitor’s throat.
Blackhall turned to see Disa standing alongside him, a bow in her hands.
She spoke.
“I will tell little Marcus, or Ida – whichever happens to arrive – that he died defending us from the Prester siege.”
With that, she moved to re-take the ladder, disappearing once again into the depths of the longhouse.
The lone figure of Hakon had only made five steps when the simultaneous wrath of the multitude of long-stymied archers was unleashed, cutting him down mid-stride.
Seconds later, the grunting efforts of the harnessed buffalo had pulled the triumphant Elg Herra beyond bow range.
Blackhall turned to Asmund.
“They’ll sleep two full days, more than time enough for the caravan to make an orderly escape.”
“We should turn about to cut their throats,” said the Earl’s son, “but I’ve no stomach for butchery. Considering their intentions, we have been kind to them.”
“The dogs will not stay long from their master’s guiding hands, and it will not be so kind a fate if they have been too long in feeding their animals,” replied Blackhall.
The frontiersman stooped for his rifle, eager to be once again on the path that would lead him to Mairi, and yearning for the distance which would put him well away from the politics of others.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Allow me to ease your fears up front, the subject doesn’t refer to a bit of fan fiction I’m about to unleash.
There’s been a bit of hubbub lately about the following bit of Mark Twain news.
What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” will remove all instances of the N-word — I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch — present in the text and replace it with slave. – CNN
The argument against generally goes something like:
The vapid, smiley-faced effrontery of it corrodes the foundations of respect for American literature. – CNN
At the age of nine I received my first Hardy Boys book. It was a ragged bit of work – a cast off from the school library that was being discarded due to damage to its binding – but it was the first novel I ever owned, and it certainly wouldn’t be my last adventure with Joe and Frank.
Years later I was rambling around the countryside in my Grandparents’ pickup truck, and we stopped to make one of those random neighbourly visitations that seems to make up so much of the farm business. My brother and I were cast adrift in a front room to fend for ourselves, and my eyes fell upon an ancient Franklin W. Dixon tome.
That’s when I discovered a truth that the safely bowdlerize libraries and bookstores I’d frequented had denied me.
To be fair, we didn’t have the wikipedia back then:
Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised, largely to eliminate racist stereotypes.
– and they aren’t joking, I made it three pages in, and, even as a boy of twelve, I had to put the book down.
Am I claiming that The Hardy Boys series is somehow the literary equivalent of Huckleberry Finn? No.
Am I claiming that discovering missing bits of historical racism might cast a different light on the work in question? Yes.
Still, while I do feel that letting the work stand or fall on its own integrity is important, in the end, I don’t think it will matter much.
One sanitized edition in a deluge of public domain copying isn’t going to conquer the market, and if edited classics were the way to save readability, our libraries would be full of these:
Have you heard of Champix?
I hadn’t – at least, not to the best of my knowledge – until last night.
(All quotes are from the Wikipedia, emphasis is mine.)
Varenicline (trade name Chantix in the USA and Champix in Canada, Europe and other countries, marketed by Pfizer, usually in the form of varenicline tartrate) is a prescription medication used to treat smoking addiction.
That quick blurb actually contains more information than I managed to derive from their commercial, as it was one of those carefully generic bits of sentimental pandering that utterly avoided displaying anything as unsightly as someone interacting with, or attempting to shun, a cigarette.
Although it operates under “Chantix” in America, (which, frankly, sounds like something people take to increase their ability in occult muttering,) it’s the “Champix” title that really gets me; might I suggest these alternate names for the inevitable knock-offs?
Beyond a description of the product, there was an extra something-else missing from the ad I saw:
Varenicline is also strongly suspected of causing severe psychological side effects. The US Food and Drug Administration requires varenicline and Zyban (bupropion) to carry a black box warning, the agency’s strongest safety warning, due to side effects including depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicidal actions.
Which has me eagerly anticipating the Pfizer corporation’s newest pharmaceutical, “Unicornolox”, an anti-aging cream which may cause the adverse reaction of murder.
A man, a flip chart, and a great point.
