Poem

This latest is a sort of adaptation of or reaction to the fable of the blind men and the elephant. You should go read the John Godfrey Saxe poem, the most well known version of the story (at least in the Western English speaking world). I've seen it attributed to Rudyard Kipling as well. At any rate, it's the poem I had in mind while writing mine. I'm interested in whatever critical feedback you have. Any bits with awkward phrasing or where the speaker's identify is unclear? There's more dialogue and characters here than I've worked with before, and it's tricky keeping them all straight without burdening the poem with lots of "he said/he replied."


SIX BLIND MEN AND AN ELEPHANT NAMED GOD

The elephant's asleep in a corner
of the room. Six blind guys walk in
feeling their way along the walls.
One of them picks up a telephone,
says Hey, it's God. On the telephone?
another asks. No, he is the phone,
only he's not a phone. He's God.
Bullshit, says the second guy. He waves
a coat rack and says This is God.
He held me up just now when I tripped
on him and nearly fell. Bless his name.
Relax, a third man says, come sit down.
I found God. He's a sofa set. No
he's not, another says. He's this clock;
he ticks off perfect time. Listen
to the whisper of his miraculous gears.
Where? the other blind men ask.
Over here on the wall. Behind
the elephant. There's an elephant?
How did we miss that? They stumble
over the elephant to hear the clock.
The elephant wakes up, rolls over
on the telephone. It disintegrates
with a crack and helpless jing.
You stupid pachyderm! the first man
screams. You broke God! He kicks
the elephant in the eye. The elephant
dies. You know that wasn't God,
the second man says. The elephant?
No, the phone. God's this coat rack,
remember? I'll show you God,
the first man says. He grabs the coat rack,
cracks open the second's head.
Bright blood spatters the walls, the dead
elephant, the five remaining blind men.
Who did that? asks the third guy.
God did, says the fourth. Praise
the sweep of his calibrated hands.
That wasn't God, says the fifth man.
I found God just now under the coffee table.
No you didn't, replies the sixth.

(4/27/06)

# posted by Daniel at 8:28 PM.

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Rabbits, et al

It's probably rather poor form to break a week's silence with a post about bunny rabbits, but that's precisely what I'm going to do. Perhaps the unbearable cuteness of this post will atone for my last, which doesn't seem to have raised nearly as much riotious laughter as I'd hoped.

The University of Victoria, where I have been taking classes the last two semesters, is overrun with rabbits. Hundreds of them. And not wild, rangy Texas jackrabbits either. These are bunnies. Cute button noses, fluffy fur, heartbreaking watery eyes. Walking to class in the early morning you pass dozens of them littering the lawns and landscaping on campus. They hop around, nibbling on grass. Most of them are so used to students you can walk within feet of them without drawing a reaction. Although the baby rabbits that have appeared in the last couple of weeks are more skittish about strangers.

It's like going to school at Watership Down, although I have trouble imagining these little guys as violent or as vicious as the rabbits in Richard Adams' book.

Speaking of school, this morning I took my last final of the semester, which (if my calculations are correct) should be the last final exam of my undergraduate career, not counting the two correspondence Spanish classes I still need. Huzzah!

And, just for kicks, here's a panoramic shot of downtown Victoria and the Olympic range across the water in Washington, taken a few weeks ago from the top of Christmas Hill near our house.

# posted by Daniel at 2:45 PM.

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Unsettling revelations

This morning I woke early and drove to the local White Spot (sort of Canada's answer to Denny's) to eat a hot breakfast and look over my notes before my Linguistics final at nine. Not long afer I sat down in my booth a middle aged couple came in and slid into the booth adjacent mine. The booths were seperated by the sort of frosted plastic partitions common to diners and restaurants everywhere. These partitions don't actually block much sound, but they do create an atmosphere of privacy.

I could hear the couple talking but didn't initially pay them much attention, as I was busy memorizing the rules for triconsonantal graphemes in classic Egyptian heiroglyphs and other such linguistic arcana. Slowly, though, I became increasingly aware of their conversation:

The man sounds like a standard-issue conservative Canadian gentleman. He speaks with a slight Ontario accent. (Note to Texans: the Ontario accent is what y'all think of as Canadian: "aboot" for "about" and so on.) When I become aware of the conversation he's explaining something about the previous morning to his wife/girlfriend. Seems there had been some kind of unusually passionate encounter. They don't give any details (for which I'm rather grateful--middle aged sex is something I'm perfectly happy to ignore until I myself am middle aged and--hopefully--having sex). The woman refers to being tired afterwards, and feeling giddy and lightheaded, and even says that it had been years since she'd felt...and here she drops her voice so that I can't hear what she hadn't felt for years.

Buddy asks her if she remembers how hard she laughed when she was sitting on the dresser. She says, "Oh yeah. I couldn't stop laughing." He asks her a couple of other questions about what she remembers. How she got such a burst of energy later in the morning? How time seemed stretched? "Oh yeah," she says. "I thought it was already the afternoon but it was only ten in the morning."

At this point I'm starting to get suspicious. I'm also not paying the least bit of attention to Gelb's unilineal theory of the evolution of writing systems.

He drops his voice and whispers to her for a minute. I can't hear what he's telling her, but she it makes her laugh.

Now he says, "I knew we both had the day off, so it seemed a good time to try it."

Try what?

He says, "It usually takes six to eight hours to wear off."

"Oh yeah," she says. "I felt normal again in the afternoon."

"I knew you wouldn't want to go along if I asked you," he tells her. "It only took a little bit in your food."

"That's too funny," she says.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I realize I'm listening to the man in the next booth explain to his woman that he'd slipped her a hallucinogenic drug. Why? So that she'd sleep with him. And what does she do? She laughs.

"I wanted to tell you," he says. "I knew you'd like it. It was a lot of fun, eh?"

"It sure was. That's too funny."

It certainly is.


EPILOGUE: I came home after my test and told Fanny the story. She also laughed, then fixed me with one of her patented Do-Not-Eff-With-French-Canadian-Women gazes.

"Don't you get any ideas, mister."

# posted by Daniel at 5:47 PM.

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Updates, etc.

(1) The Priests are moving back to Texas. We've always planned to do so eventually (say, three to five years down the road), but in the last month have decided instead to move this summer. I won't burden anyone with the blow-by-blow of our rational for the relocation, but the gist is that it makes more financial sense, we'll be able to afford a house much sooner (which isn't ever going to happen in the overheated Victoria real estate market--$300k to even start looking), it'll be easier moving and settling in to a new place now than when we have kids, and (most importantly) we'll be closer to family. My people are all in Texas, and even Fanny's parents in Montreal will be a thousand miles nearer than they are right now. We'll be settling somewhere in central Texas; specifics depend on how the job situation unfolds.

It's been interesting thinking about this, as I've come to realize this is the first time in my life where my location depends on employment and not vice versa. In the past I've always had non-work reasons (school, family) for living in a particular city. Work has depended on where I live. But no more.

(2) Final exams are going on right now. I've got linguistics (History of Writing Systems) tomorrow, and a couple of ethics classes (Survey of and Bioethics) next week. After that the only thing between me and graduation are a couple of Spanish classes, which I hope to finish by correspondence this summer. It's only taken me 8+ years.

(3) Recent reading material includes Kazuo Ishiguro's latest, Never Let Me Go, and Mark Noll's A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Ishiguro is best known for his novel Remains of the Day, which was made into a well known movie. Of course, I haven't seen it or read the book--NLMG is the first novel I've read of his. I can't recommend it highly enough. Nor can I say much about it without giving too much away. Think Brideshead Revisited meets Brave New World. It's set in a sort of alternate contemporary England, and in many ways stands as part of a dystopian tradition (Brave New World, 1984, Farenheit 451, etc.) But NLMG is unique in that it focuses on the characters, and especially on Kathy, the narrator. The dystopian elements are an integral part of the story, but are important only because of their effect on these characters. In short, the novel doesn't read like allegory or socio-political tract, a failing of most novels of this genre.

Noll's History of Christainity seems to be a pretty good overview of what the title would indicate. I find myself wishing for more detail in many places, but the book already clocks in at over 500 pages, so I can understand why he's as perfunctory in places as he is. At least his chapters have extensive bibliographies. Have wanted a copy of this since I first read The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

(4) Received notice from Borderlands a few weeks ago that I've got a poem in their upcoming 25th issue anthology. Some of you might remember that last year they published my poem "Because This Could Be Sunrise." Well, in celebration of their first 25 issues they're printing an anthology comprised of two poems from each issue. "Sunrise" was one of the two from issue #24. So (to quote Mr. Dynamite) that's pretty sweet. They don't have the new anthology up on the website yet, but mailed contributor copies last week, so it should be officially released soon.

# posted by Daniel at 10:56 AM.

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ANIMAL CONTROL

One night the neighbor's dog jumped
the six foot fence he'd built for her
and trotted home the next morning
grinning, smeared with blood
and feathers. Later in the day
the owner of the chickens
came around. After that he hung
an extra three feet of chicken wire
above the fence to keep her in,
so she dug beneath the fence
and terrorized the cows across the road.
He tied her to a tree. She chewed through
the rope. He chained her. She howled,
ran in perfect circles all day,
rubbed her neck to bleeding. He staked her
tight so she couldn't run. She turned sad
and mean, barked through the night,
bit him when he tried to feed her.
So he muzzled her. Still she growled,
a long threat rolling and unrolling
at the bottom of her throat, and when
the men in gray jumpsuits came
and dragged her into their van, straps
winched tight around her legs, she hissed
and flashed her eyes, muscles bunching,
imagining their blood, I guess.

(4/8/06)

# posted by Daniel at 5:39 PM.

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Dust & Light

Victorians should come check this out tonight. I'll be reading (if you missed the reading last week I'll be doing stuff from the book again tonight). If that isn't reason enough to come, there'll be art by a lot of local and regional artists and music by Matthew Davidson. Entrance is by donation. Doors open at 7. More info at the link.

# posted by Daniel at 11:29 AM.

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Book launch recap

Saturday night was the book launch for Dead Man. Thanks to the promotional efforts of James Kingsley and everyone at the Place we had a good turnout. Matt Bingham was there and has this to say about the evening. Much appreciation and general kudos to James, Matt, Randy, Doug, Colin, and of course Fanny. And thanks to everyone who came out and bought a copy. The book will continue to be available for order via the links at the right. There's also a few copies for sale at the Place on Sunday nights (see Dave Booth in the cafe afterwards).


Bald head with pre-reading cafe.

Haha! I'm blocking the exit! You can't escape!

Crap. He's blocking the exit. We can't escape.

High on poetry. No, really.

# posted by Daniel at 9:34 PM.

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A quote

"You hate America, don't you?" she said.
"That would be as silly as loving it," I said.

--Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

# posted by Daniel at 8:40 PM.

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Take that, technology!

Many moons ago in the days of my youth, when my bicycle and I would rove the wind-swept highways and byways of west Texas, there were these things called pocket calculators. I know they're still around, but lo these many years ago they represented, along with the original 64-bit Nintendo system in the living room, the most advanced bit of electronical engineering in my possession. Perhaps you remember these? And perhaps you remember in particular a set of three keys (MRC, M-, M+) that appeared on nearly every such calculator of this era. Those three keys absolutely befuddled me. I knew they somehow caused the calculator to remember a number, and I could generally get the calculator to perform this function. That was it, though. I couldn't for the life of me figure how to make the calculator forget, nor could I make the remembered number useful in an equation. Furthermore, as I didn't know exactly what reactivated said number, I calculated in the fear (well, maybe not fear) that at random and unpredictable moments it would leap out from behind the little black 'M' in the corner of the tiny screen and render my multiplications and divisions inaccurate.

(Not that this would have been a bad thing. Middle school boys use calculators for the same reason they use anything else: to tell dirty jokes. I won't disgust you with specifics, but trust me that it can and has been done.)

Until this morning. I brought out the little blue Texas Instruments calculator to calculate current grades in my classes. In the process I bumped the M+ button. When the little M lit up on the side of the screen I chuckled over my confusion of years past. Then my eyes grew wide. The whole system came to me in a flash, in a Magic Eye Poster moment. MRC stands for Memory Recall. I tried it out. It worked. M- takes the number out of memory, but only when the remembered number is displayed. This worked too. I played around for awhile, remembering numbers and then forgetting them, recalling them to use in equations or working the equations without them while they sat safely in memory. The whole time muttering at the calculator, You little bastard. You knew I'd get you someday. Who's pushing the buttons now?

# posted by Daniel at 11:08 AM.

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