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9.11.04
Political Rant the First: Party Propaganda or The Sheep Phenomenon
Who's the elitist bitch? Why, yes I am! Now, I'm not normally a very political person, but I do have my views and I consider them to be as legitimate as anyone else's. I know it is a little late, as the presidential election is over, but I feel I need to get my two cents in before I spontaneously combust from all the stupidity I have been exposed to in the last month. So please, for the next few posts, bear with me. I am privileged to have class with many intelligent people who have views that are different from mine. Usually, I will keep my mouth shut just to enjoy their eloquence, but sometimes I join the conversations with my own opinions. These are all politely stated, of course, with the utmost respect for the person I am speaking to. This stands a direct contrast to some of my other classes, where political debates consisted of (and I kid you not) "Kerry is so ugly... I'm voting Bush because I couldn't stand looking at Kerry's ugly face for the next four years." and "Bush is a douche!" "No, Kerry's the douche." "Well, Bush is a bigger douche!" "No, Kerry's the bigger douche!" "Flip-flopper!" "Monkey-man!" There is nothing more mindless that spouting your party's propaganda. It is the worst crime against intellectualism anyone can commit. For a month before the election, I sat in class and listened people spout of catch phrases, like "War-monger" and "Pussy-liberal" and by Election Day I was thoroughly sick of it. Believe me, there is nothing a person can say that will make him sound more ignorant than that useless drivel. No matter how sound the reasoning behind the words, unless it is understood it is worthless. And you are worthless for parroting it. You are worthless because there is absolutely nothing that separates you from a common animal. You are the sheep, you are the monkey, you have crossed the line of reason into the land of the dumb. I understand that very few people ever realize the full potential of their humanity. It is hard to think, to reason, to become great, and many people just aren't wired correctly for it. There is a much larger intellectual gap between the common man and the saint, the philosopher, the scientist than there is between the common man and the chimpanzee. Out of the billions of people of this world and the past, there are only a few that really stand out as exemplary paragons of humanity, embodiments of the passion, the struggle, the very essence of what it is to be a human being. Nietzsche was one. Aristotle. Shakespeare. I'm not asking you to become the next Socrates. I'm just asking that you take that crucial step away from the herd and toward that divinity. You may not ever reach it, but you will be better for trying. Make up your mind about your own values, and base your decisions on them. Don't tell me what your parents believe, don't tell me the opposite of what your parents believe because it will piss them off, tell me what you think. If you haven't self-actualized, you don't deserve to vote. And stay the fuck away from my ballot box. 540 words
19.10.04
Prompt: Have you ever wandered through the aisles of a warehouse store like Sam's or Costco and wondered who would buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? We've bought it, but it doesn't stop us from wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservation, notions of bigness... and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious. Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard.
Notes: At least it has an ending now, however abrupt. That can be fixed! Hurray for impending peer edit. In Which There Is an Excess of Mustard and Alice Breaks a Jar Along the outskirts of a small rural town stood a house where one very old woman resided. She had lived there for a time out of memory, bonded to the building and her solitude by reclusiveness and eccentricity. Gentleman callers had always been politely declined, though the more persistent ones sometimes fled followed by dirty pots and epithets. Over time, no more came, and the house settled quietly into its secluded femininity. In such a small town, familial ties formed a tight network of interactions, and the old lady at this house just happened to be Alice's great aunt. After Alice's mother died, her father sent Alice to visit her aunt every weekend. He often worried that his solitary lifestyle would deprive her of a necessary motherly influence; she hadn't, as he had hoped, adopted one of her schoolmate's mothers as a surrogate, nor had she ever expressed any interest in joining in the groups of little girls with dolls and domestic roleplay. Instead, Alice often escaped down to the wharf to run around with the boys and skip stones. The trips to her great aunt's house mostly functioned as an attempt to get Alice away from the little delinquents playing war games and cops and robbers. Now, at the back of the house, the elderly woman tended an exceptionally large mustard garden. The mustard she made functioned as a steady source of income, and whenever Alice came to visit, she was always given a mustard related chore. Of all the days she had to stay, Alice especially despised paste making days. There was nothing worse than the smell of simmering mustard seeds, bitter with just a hint of the spicy rot she usually associated with fermented wheat. "Oh, sweetheart," her aunt would say, "Could you please stand here and stir the pot for me?" and Alice would have to climb up on the stool, grasp the spoon, and stir the sticky substance as the fumes rose. Her aunt loomed over her, adding her dank perfume to the already nauseating stench coming from the pot. Alice freed her spoon from the mustard with a heavy splurch, grimacing at the sound. The mustard clung to her spoon like a great runny parasite, dripping off with the greatest reluctance. The aunt smiled and patted her rolls of fat reflectively, "Aren't you just the best little worker?" Alice scowled. "Look at that face! She is so adorable!" she sighed. "My little girl, growing up so fast. You'll do good to learn all I have to teach you, stay home and cook instead of running around with those dirty little boys." After making the mustard, all the extra which wasn't sold was put in a tall jar in the corner of Alice's room. The jar must have been at least a foot and a half tall, filled three-fourths full of mustard paste. Every day, Alice sat on the edge of her bed and stared at it, hating the dull yellow color and the absurd hugeness. It was never moved, just unscrewed to add more and more mustard. Her aunt had been incredibly excited the first time Alice contributed to the jar, as if Alice had just conceded a very important point. Alice shuddered at the remembered gleam in the aunt's little piggy eyes, and rolled over in the bed. Face screwed up, she tried to block her aunt's grating voice from her mind: "See, sweetie, now it's like I have a part of you here," she had said, plump lips rolling almost grotesquely as her jowls shook. "You'll always be with me, in this house, making mustard like a proper young lady." A rock hit the window, interrupting Alice's train of thought. She got up to open it. "Hey Alice!" yelled Joe, the neighbor boy from across the street. "Let's go play down by the wharf! Billy says we need a third person to be ship navigator." "I can"t," said Alice, leaning out. "And you"d better get out of here before my aunt throws another pot at you." "Aw, Alice, you never get to do anything fun anymore." At that moment, Auntie opened the front door. "Get off this property, you little hooligan! Alice is not allowed to play with delinquents!" she screeched, waving a mustard covered ladle with pudgy fingers. Joe scampered, and the door slammed on his retreating figure. At a safe distance, he turned to make an obscene face at the house and wave sadly at Alice. Alice turned from the window and considered the huge jar of mustard. Coming to a conclusion, she stretched her arms around it and heaved it over to the window. Resting at the windowsill for a moment, she thought about the stagnant smell of mustard when mixed with the stench of old woman. She thought of her aunt and her hateful exclusion of anything new, fun, or daring. She thought of Joe and Billy having the time of their lives down by the wharf. The jar dropped to the ground with a resounding crash. Alerted by the noise, Alice's aunt burst into the room. "Are you all right? I heard something fall." "I'm fine," said Alice, mouth curling slightly. "What was that noise?" "I dropped the mustard jar." "You broke it?" gasped the aunt, the folds of her face purpling slightly. "You little witch!" she hissed. "Yes," said Alice, and skipped past her down the stairs and to the wharf to play with Billy and Joe. * 911 words and still sucking
9.10.04
Notes: Apologies. Blogger has been giving me shit. The last three days have been backlogged.
The Land of the Paper People In the land of the paper people, there stood a tall mountain with a ring of level ground at the top where the stone beast lived. Every day, the paper people would climb the stone ladder up to watch the beast in its cage. Once, the beast left the top of the mountain, and the paper people could not figure out where it had gone. They turned, and saw it had constructed a paper ladder and was trying to climb to the top of the mountain. Terrified, the paper people jumped off the edge into the river and floated away. 100 words
8.10.04
Cloth-man
When I was little, I used to dream about the Cloth-man. His face blinked clean like a white paper bag in my mind, whirling and spinning through the corners but never smiling. He loomed like a willow tree, long black fingers swishing back and forth along the sides of the bullet train into the desert. The train ran frantically all night long but never let the little girl sit on the inside, away from the dusty wind, the Cloth-man, and his flapping rags. Sometimes bits of cloth would fly back and catch in her hair, but the Cloth-man never apologized. 100 words
7.10.04
Flies in the Molasses
Fly paper dangled from every ceiling fixture in the little house. Every day, dozens of the dirty little insects died on the sticky side of a flapping white sheet. Dozens more buzzed around the house, alighting on anything stationary. A few years ago, the grandmother had a stroke and could no longer wave the flies away. They landed on her arms and her face, twitching along the stray trail of drool that dribbled from her mouth. Eventually, even the nurse's arm got tired, and they walked along mottled expanses of flesh freely. Her granddaughter thought she looked like a corpse. 100 words
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author Name: AlinaLocation: St. Louis Occupation: Student Contact: E-mail, AIM
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archives reading  Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
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