Tinsel

Each December in the Eisenhower years, Mother would step back from the pine tree in the living room, freshly festooned with silver threads like Spanish moss, and clap her hands in delight. Thus began Christmas in our house. For years after, I treasured the memory of her joy with the tinseled tree, right up to the day when I came across a definition of tinsel, from the word tinselry, and found it meant "a cheap and pretentious display."

 

Fifty years late, I seethed at the insult to my mother and to my country, where we once laid on thousands of miles of tinsel for the holiday. In no way did we deserve the label of cheap or crass, as back then we struggled to pile beauty upon beauty so we could nudge aside memories of the wars and the Great Depression and polio and McCarthy, at least for one heartwarming month. Knowing the baby Jesus was greeted with gold, we were all certain he would be pleased that we still honored his birthday with ribbons of silver.

 

Over the course of years, sensibilities evolved to match the dictionary and such adornment of the Christmas tree went the way of fedoras and hosiery. I gradually came to accept this as something other than an affront to my mother, but even to this day the trees look naked to me, a shorn sheep, a bootcamp haircut. The last time I saw any tinsel, it was hanging out of a cat's butt.

Well, I never got around to submitting this one anywhere, and I probably won't be around in 2038, so here goes. Enjoy. 

 

The International Year of Same Old, Same Old

Welcome back from 2004, you seventeen-year cicada /

the turkeys and raccoons have missed their tasty breakfasts so much /

what kind of life is yours, anyway, as fodder / though I suppose

we were all food back in The International Year of Rice /

 

two hundred thousand people sucked into the sea /

other starved bodies / khaki bodies / pestilent bodies /

more bleeding out on city sidewalks / more slaughtered for gods /

who wouldn't want to sleep for the next seventeen years /

 

though perhaps cicadas are optimists / expecting every time

to emerge to a satiated world / well, dream on /

here everyone still hungers / better you should just keep

singing like a didgeridoo, hurry to breed some children before

 

you become lunch / we too have little to look forward to in 2021 /

The International Year of Same Old, Same Old /

big fish still eat little fish / that's why some of us long to

burrow down like you and suck on a tree root for seventeen years /

 

enjoying our preposterous dreams / so I say goodbye to my

voracious world / maybe you'll see me again in 2038 /

fix this shit while I'm gone.

Mad Men

Many people who I deeply respect have extolled the qualities of the series Mad Men, set in the 1960's Madison Avenue advertising world. I tried again this week to catch the drift, but failed for the third and last time. I've come to the conclusion that I simply don't enjoy television shows without heroes, and I could find no one to root for in Mad Men. They seem a collection of sad men and women with virtually no self-awareness. I've had the same reaction to Deadwood, The Sopranos, and other series. This is strange, in that I write a lot of short crime fiction in which there are no heroes. I think the difference is in scope; I can hang with noir for the duration of a short story, but not a novel. I'm no fan of James Ellroy, for example. I was raised on Roy Rogers, and I guess I've never grown out of hero worship.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Warning- Spoilers ahead.

I finally got a chance to see Tarantino's latest film. From the buzz I had high expectations: perhaps not Pulp Fiction high, but high enough. I felt the film fell far short, however, for several reasons.
1. The character arcs were lacking. Neither of the main characters, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, evolved. DiCaprio's character came to his revelation that his career was in jeopardy early in the film and never moved on from that, while Pitt's carefree character ended up without any future.
2. Too much time was spent following the Sharon Tate character, given the minimal role she played in the climax.
3. Too much time and money was spent on selling me that we were in the 60's. I got it after the first few songs, didn't need a hundred or more. The time played only a small role in the plot. The character playing Steve McQueen did resemble him to a spooky degree, though.
4. The pacing was indulgent, nothing new for Tarantino, but a tighter film would have been a better film.
5. The revisionist history, which he seems to embrace as his niche in Hollywood, has never worked for me. In this instance, I found no viewer satisfaction, knowing the true events.
6. Tarantino failed to sell the motivation of Squeaky Fromm and her compatriots due to the lack of an appearance by Charlie Manson. See Bad Times at the El Royale, a superior film, an example of how this should have played out.
7. The graphic violence. I can't imagine how sick a person would have to be to find this entertaining. In fact, I'm of the opinion it, more than any other aspect of his movie making, limits his audience.

Like David Lynch, Tarantino is able to direct some absolutely spellbinding scenes (such as DiCaprio and the little girl in the western ransom scene) but struggles when he has to string them together into a satisfying whole. This is a good example of that problem.

Crimewave 13

 Some time ago I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to up my game in the writing of crime fiction I needed to read as many crime short stories as possible. This week I've been reading through the latest issue of Crimewave Magazine, number 13. I was surprised to find that it was very different from the fiction found in other genre mags such as Ellery Queen, Mystery Weekly or Switchblade.

I found the primary difference in the approach to story. Unlike other genre magazines in which a body hits the floor on the first page, stories in this collection are much more leisurely, spending sometimes several pages nailing down the character, in such an intriguing way that I often found myself not caring that the plot had yet to commence. The writing on some of the stories was sumptuous, the type that one might find in more literary journals. This was most notably true in Stephen Hargadon's Nurse and Linda Mannheim's Incendiary.

The downside to such stories for those who demand a strong crime plot line to propel the story forward is that many of the stories are quite nuanced, with quiet and subtle crimes that do more for fulfilling the fate of the main character than surprising the reader.

For me, it's not a question about which style story I like; I enjoy both the breathless pace of an exciting potboiler and the careful exploration of how an individual is changed by the environment of crime. For the latter, this collection would be highly recommended.

The Forsaken Wall

I've had this story sitting on my computer for years, about a woman who, after her husband dies unexpectedly, decides to build a wall where people can go to complain to God about his injustices. Antithetical to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, if you will. Imagine my delight in finding a call for stories for an anthology of alternative theologies, for which my story seemed a perfect fit. I was particularly happy when I saw the contributors, many writers whom I have admired for years. It should be a great read.

Family Reunion

My short story "Family Reunion" will appear online in the September issue of the Scarlet Leaf Review. I'm so proud of this piece; he's gone and found a home.