Mull (An Absence)

I recently discovered Alan Bigelow's amazing digital literature website webyarns.  One of the many excellent pieces on that site is called Moby Dick, which drew my attention because of my friend John Minichillo's excellent novel The Snow Whale.  So I dove in.  First, this piece presents you with a number of "classic" literary novels which are summarized in four sentences.  Then it allows you to write your own.  The parameters: four sentences, 800 characters.  The gauntlet had been thrown down.  I went for it.  Here's the result:

Mull (An Absence)

Mull liked to mull so he mulled

day in, day out 

answer in the bottom of an empty glass: mull 

fly on the screen: mull.

Mull met an unexpected girl

fell out of mull and into love 

what he didn't know: the girl

loved to mull, not Mull.

Mull lost the girl to a man who mulled

and when he asked her to think it over

she said, "What's to think about?"

Now Mull had to mull so he mulled

day in, day out.

Three Ways of the Saw

I've been focusing on the recent publication of my first collection of short stories, Three Ways of the Saw. So not much has been going on here lately. If you're new to this blog, sniff around, there's some fun stuff. If you've been here before you've likely seen it all. So head on over to the Three Ways of the Saw blog, which is where I've been spending my time lately.

Read on!

Matt

Seven Stones

That tragedies can destroy what happiness there is in an instant.

That countless are dying and being killed right now.

That considering this is doing nothing to solve the problem.

As the whore packs his junk into a codpiece.

As a president signs lives away with her pen.

As I realize, again, how much less I am here without you.

Who I’ll never know.

the need for a queen of her type

So, I'm researching for the book trailers class I'm teaching in the fall. I come upon this trailer I don't like for a book I won't read. Near the top of the sidebar on that page is a thumbmail for another video, which in turn invites me to "click to see more." I love how this last one comes on all bad ass then turns hayseed at the end. And the girl, well, she's just 'bout perfect, ain't she.

What So Proudly We Hail (This is the Space Age)

Oh, say can. Oh, say can. Oh, say can.
You see the stars bleed their red troubles
across the junked night sky. You hear
the white light of the universe grinding
on an axis bold as love. You know
the blue purpose of our future. This is
the space age. And we are here to go.

Beatnik Sermon

You see that leaf, man?
That dog, that tennis ball
that piece of asphalt?
All the same yet all different!
That's holy! Holy is the curb
and my tennis shoe. Holy is every
eyelash and every flake of skin. Holy
is the sick wan light of the supermarket
and that old woman thumping
the melons two for one. Holy is
the surprise in the crackerjack box. Holy
is that baseball and the thrum of the sea.
Holy the shark's tooth and the wound.
Holy the black hole and the supernova.
Holy the infinite banged out
expansion of our universe which will
someday recollect into the cosmic
cannonball of each and every thing
only to explode again. Holy is
the ten million-named God-Matter
which is us and not us and everything
else simultaneously. Amen.

Hemingway Found in Spanish Language Textbook

Exercise: Translate the following:

1. The waiter gave them a table near the window. He asked the waiter for bread, butter, and a cup of coffee. First, the waiter brought him a glass of water. Again, he told the waiter what he wanted.

2. "I don't know why Pedro doesn’t serve us," he said. "This waiter, he repeats each sentence twice. The water he brought me, I can’t drink.”

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

"I’m going to smoke a cigar and read the newspaper. There's a story about today's bulls."

The waiter brought him what he wanted. He read the newspaper then they went home.

3. He asked her for a glass of milk and some bread and cheese.

"I ate all the vegetables the waiter brought me," she said.

"Did you talk to the landlord about the rent?" he asked.

"I had to tell the truth," she said. She wanted to tell him something else, but she couldn't.

4. He met her in a restaurant. From time to time he gives her money. They had to buy her a Spanish/English dictionary.