The Craziest Literary Magazine in the World

Archive of Past Issues:

2009-09-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Claverings 3

2009-09-27T21:51:00.001-07:00

New Things Overheard by a Teach for America Teacher: Anonymous.

2009-09-11T16:48:00.001-07:00

On a photograph of the crowd at Fenway Park Mr. -- unveiled in class: "Wait, where all the black people at?"

--: Mr.--, who is this singer?
Mr. --: It's Sam Cooke.
-- : When was he singin' this?
Mr. -- : In the 1950s and '60s.
-- : Mr. --! We need stuff from the 1990s and the THOUSANDS! You gotta get some Chris Brown!

Jamie Reich: The Unfitted Places.

2009-09-11T16:47:00.001-07:00

The Unfitted Places

They were evacuating the children from the polygamist ranch. Ingersoll stood at the border of the property. The SWAT teams and other agents had long since come and gone; Children and Youth Services were now ushering long queues of the interned out of the wooden gates that marked the estate. They came in twos and threes in identical purple dresses or starched blue shirts, all with long, sun-freckled faces. Ingersoll tried to decipher their downcast, half-lidded eyes and somber silences. He determined nothing.

A sign nailed to two high posts read Under the Banner of Heaven. In the desert, strewn with dusty pebbles and flat terra-cotta colored sand, it was a standing testament. A monument. An inaccuracy.

As a U.S. Marshal, it was imperative that Ingersoll be present for all proceedings from beginning to end. It was time to survey the ranch and record all initial findings. Lay the groundwork. Sucking his teeth, Ingersoll entered his souped-up Chevy and turned the ignition before he could feel composed to pause. He rolled past the lines of children in the midst of a modern exodus. A queer thought: they reminded him of souls, filing away to an afterlife.

The false prophet Elder Whitman Harvey had named the ranch New Zion after the promise of a City on a Hill. A fundamentalist sect, the members of New Zion had been devout both to Christ and their Christ-on-Earth. Elder Harvey had used his sway and love of Jesus to suit darker purposes. Inhabitants of local towns saw the droves of émigrés from other compounds in Texas and New Mexico flock to this new pasture, but asked no questions. They feared answers. They suspected, but did not pursue. It wasn’t until years later, when the Bridey girl waltzed into the police station one morning, rushed and breathless, that they had any reason – any excuse – to conduct an investigation. Everything began to unravel and untie. The Bridey girl expounded upon arranged marriages between children and elderly men, some of whom were close cousins or other kin. Incest. Brutal spousal abuse. She rubbed her face furiously with rough palms. Scrubbing dirt. The Bureau became involved, as did the United States Marshals Service. There were aerial photographs taken from government-issued stealth jets, swooping and hawkish.&n bsp; Undercover a gents. And finally, a crackdown.

Elder Harvey had long since run off, hiding in canyons from enforcement like a jihad-obsessed terrorist. The men, too, had left. Women and children remained. Waiting with unblinking eyes. Longing. They prayed. There was nothing else to do.

That is how they had found them. All of them. Silent. Alive, thankfully, with an eerie stillness in their blood. They did as they were told as the different agencies came to take them away. Quiet.

The first structure after the horizon was the water tower. Painted blue, it stood luminous in the white sun. It fought over dominion with the sky. This was the oasis. The life source of New Zion. With his eyes, Ingersoll bore holes into the metal. Burrowing until he hit water. In the film strip of his mind, it burst in an apocalyptic fit. It thundered to the ground. Drowning everything in this daydream.

The school was the cornerstone building in the complex; according to satellite images, these structures formed the shape of a cross. Ingersoll slowed and parked, shaky on the powdered gravel. Stepping out and shutting the door calmly – as if there were anyone left to disturb – he ambled towards the ranch-style house. Though each edifice was whitewashed, the wind and particles of sand and dust had yellowed and peeled the paint like carrot skins. He could not bear to step inside the schoolhouse, but imagined a bare room – save for desks and chairs of unfinished wood; in the corner, a long ruler (U.S. customary stock) for discipline and drawing straight lines with chalk. Ingersoll envisioned taking the stick into his own grip and beating the one who taught the children into a shivering ball. Mercilessly. Until it broke and wooden shards jutted from the teacher’s back. For all the children he flogged until their voices were too hoarse to call out, until they knew better, until they could only ask for a different sort of salvation. He could not help the hot, sour taste gurgling in the back of his throat.

Ingersoll began to walk deeper into New Zion. From different Bureau reports and other eye-witness testimonies, he knew that the next building housed the women: a set of inter-connected barracks. Girls housed on the right, their children interned on the left. Ingersoll cracked his knuckles, tips white from balled fists. One had to imagine what the annexed wings were used for, adorned with dusty mattresses spread haphazardly on the floor. One had to know. Little girls with cow-like stares. Not an hour before, squadrons had raided Elder Whitman Harvey’s personal quarters, sequestered behind the mega-church. It was in a padlocked file drawer that they had found carefully organized photographs (by date, color-coded manila folders, red and pink and blue) of the Elder and seventeen girls, the Bridey child among them. Ranging from twelve to fifteen, they each wore plain white gowns and veils like doilies. They were porcelain dolls. Marionettes. Elder Harvey wrapped his arms around their waists like gurney straps. There were conventional wedding poses in the most unconventional of senses, there were staged photographs of Whitman carrying each of his wives over an unpainted wooden th reshold, their limbs grasped tightly around his sunburned neck like babies clinging to their fathers.

Besides this, the series of image-rendered evidence ended here. It was enough to suffice. It was enough to let the mind wander to other scenarios. A member of the team had gotten sick. Not even a USMS greenie; this guy had seen third-degree burn victims, cars that resembled balls of tinfoil. Other travesties. Walking past the schoolhouse, Ingersoll made sure to step over a brown-green puddle, hardening in the sun.

He was not used to this kind of cultish faith. There were things about the Wild, Wild West Ingersoll was having trouble with. Arid heat. Lack of coniferous foliage. Huevos rancheros. Ranch-style architecture. Caballeros. Spanish-speakers. And now this. Here was the verification of Ingersoll as Other. Even his name harkened to Pennsylvanian settlers of an English breed, married in and mixed with Pennsylvania Dutch. Sol, meaning “tree”, attesting to Appalachian forests. He recognized, in this way, a distantly familial affiliation to the Amish, who seemed to flit about the periphery, grazing in the pastures outside grand Pennsylvanian outcroppings. These Whitman followers, they liked their own kind. Ingersoll’s Amish and their distant relatives, the Mennonites, were integrated. At certain gatherings -- i.e. work functions, double-dates, even family reunions in Lancaster – he retold the boyhood anecdote about the Amish who were shuttled in on short buses (was that even allowed?) to a farmer’s market in Highland Park, near the zoo. During the seventies. Men in flat straw hats sold produce from large wicker baskets. After profiting from these wares, they would close shop and spend some of their earnings on day passes. An afternoon with children in long sleeves and ankle-length shirts. Women in bonnets, women who resembled eighteenth-century pioneers. At the zoo. Ingersoll would see droves of them. They looked at giraffes and dreamed of savannahs they would never see; in turn, small children stared at them and mistook them for Orthodox Jews. He thought this anecdote was charming. Back East, when told, it would receive a warm reception and perhaps the accompaniment of a clinking wine glass. Billy Ingersoll, what a riot! Not so much here, in Utah. Here, where false messiahs roamed the deserts like crazed cahy-yotes, it was much too dangerous to pass such things off as laughing matters. Maybe they had prodigal siblings or born-again mothers. Maybe they had never seen these things, but knew of their existence. Ghosts at sunset in an echoing canyon.

The Temple was the epicenter of New Zion. The centrifugal force. It stretched higher than anything else on the ranch; higher than the water tower, higher than an outreached hand. The cross surged from the coning roof; it yearned to touch the presence of the Lord with its height. Ingersoll was impressed despite himself; he had never seen a church of this size, this caliber, this Notre Dame of the Mojave.

The doors were ornate and of imported cedar. Geodesic crosses were etched in the paneling. Tentatively, Ingersoll pushed them open, too late for Sunday prayers. The muggy heat yawned in his face. Immediately, rivulets of sweat descended from his hairline, rendering his ears as peninsulas, his sun-inspired freckles as archipelagos. He tasted salt and golden dust. A desert baptism.

The purple-red carpet led up to the platform, where, as Ingersoll supposed, Elder Harvey performed from one dawn to the next. The stage itself was simple, with a lonesome microphone in the center. Emblazoned on the far wall were windowpanes of abstract stained glass, twisting the colors of the bright desert sun into the different shades of fire. Censuses taken by CYS tallied roughly five-hundred and fifty-three members of the New Zion ranch. As Ingersoll ambled down the aisle, he felt a secondary, residual echo; the perspiration of cattled-in congregants, little ones sitting on the floor, some nestled in the cradles of their mothers’ laps, flushed all over. But now, this cathedral was empty, slowly relegating towards stati of “relic” and “antiquity.”

The humidity was getting to him, an anomaly in these desert plain states. And this is where, again – it happened to Ingersoll often, especially in times of stress, especially in this modern age – he embarked upon another lucid dream. If these episodes were caused by a mild form of narcolepsy, he refused to investigate; rather, he seemed to prefer the homeopathy of self-denial. There were many theories that could have fit like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Perhaps the expansive western states, so many times larger than their East Coast counterparts, fit manifest dreams inside their massive borders like manifest destinies. Perhaps Hypnos, abstract Sleep, napped with his half-brother Thanatos, abstract Death. Perhaps it was common among Utah men, like pick-up trucks that needed waxing; or maybe something scientific, like the mnemonic induction of lucid d reams, or cycle adjustment, or wake-initiation, or maybe it was an induction device. Or perhaps something cultural, like a subconscious rite-of-passage. Whatever the case, here is what Billy Ingersoll saw, as he closed his eyes for a moment, only just a moment, just a break from a taxing day:

There was the doppelganger of the infamous Whitman Harvey, of photographic and word-of-mouth fame, spoken of but never seen. He stood, center stage, arms out in an all-encompassing embrace. The Elder then dropped to his knees without warning, bowed his head. Ingersoll found himself unable to flinch, despite years of governmental training and an allocation to one of the ninety-four districts, despite the semi-automatic in the holster hidden on his persons. His nerves became arctic. His joints fused. He wondered if this cold veinal circulation was, in fact, the most primal fear man knew.

Harvey lifted his head. If Ingersoll could have managed to control his disobedient body, he would have swallowed a gasp. The Elder’s eyes were devoid of color, dilated to a supreme, soulless black. Without words, he seemed to say: abandon hope. Abandon everything.

ii.

They interrogated the children in a conference room next to the sheriff’s office. It was especially inadequate. A flimsy door, salmon colored-walls. It seemed at first that recording the testimonials would be an arduous task; there were hundreds of evacuees to interview. And then slowly Ingersoll and the rest of the task force began to realize that there were very few from New Zion actually willing to talk. Most gave their replies with abject silences and stares that reminded the team of awls boring into steel. What could any of them too? This wasn’t Guantanamo. Some of the agents were able to coerce the younger ones with half-melted chocolate bars from the vending machines in the lobby, though their peers glowered at these double-crossers.

The first examined was a boy of ten or so. His skin was jaundiced and he was missing a bottom tooth. The boy picked at his chocolate bar with the deftness of a sparrow, savoring each bite longer than Ingersoll felt comfortable with. Ingersoll opened with a routine Call me Bill, it’s all a-okay, but the boy seemed naturally tight-lipped, and didn’t address him directly even once during the interview, only to the kinder child psychologists, licensed for this sort of thing. When asked for his name, the boy replied, They call me Ezekiel. He answered in a hollow monotone Ingersoll could only ascribe to men who had seen and heard too much. Men who should have been boys, but were not. Men who had been thrown into distant warfare.

He first asked Ezekiel about mere preliminaries, day-to-day schedules. Church before desert dawn. Chores. Ezekiel had swept dust to and fro forlornly in the men’s compound. Church. Elder Harvey led incantations. They all replied obediently. Then mess hour. Food with liquid consistencies made en masse. Schooling. Swollen fingers. More church.

Then there was the second tier of questioning, conducted solely by the child psychologists, as Ingersoll looked on. These questions were designed, in all cleverness, to reveal hidden perversities. Ingersoll surveyed their work and line-of-questioning as the shrinks went to it. These guys were big on the school of attachment theory. As they passed in and out of the room – one guy did all the talking, the other two merely took notes – they murmured vague phrases like reactive attachment disorder and Stockholm and MBKT, or maybe MKBT. Crayola washable markers and board games (Ezekiel didn’t know the first thing about the rules of checkers) were employed. Slowly, they wormed questions in, like what about the girls? The women? Were they kept in different places? And what about the babies?

Ezekiel gave no reply.

There was only so much they could do. And there were other children, other answers to prod and pry out of them under the guises of sympathetic smiles and pats on the shoulder. But before they led Ezekiel back to the den with the other children, he turned to the main psychologist, Sanchez. Am I going back to New Zion?

Before Sanchez could utilize New Age psyche, or proffer some sort of vague rationalization, Ingersoll interjected. No, probably not.

Ezekiel turned to him, eyes heavy and solemn. All right, he drawled with the resignation of a man accepting his mortality. They led the boy out of the room, scowling.

iii.

They found that those who did talk were those who demanded an exchange of information. Give-and-take. Most of the members of this camp were the older girls. They wanted to know what had happened to their babies. Babies! If Ingersoll had replaced their old-fashioned skirts and undid their rope-like plaits, substituting them with the modern-day garb of the American teenager – something with a lot of pink and a lot of sparkles – these girls resembled his older brother’s children. His nieces. And then Ingersoll had to stop himself from interchanging the two groups. It was bad for his mental health, to make it so personal.

And what of these babies? What was he supposed to say? He had seen S.W.A.T. men taking them past the gates, cradling them in armored arms, pressing their pink, sea-shell ears against Kevlar vests. Most of the infants had slept through it.

These girls, these children, cried for their own children. It was vexing and complicated. Mere girls with maternal urges, who had breast-fed, who had never kissed boys with tentative, unsure lips. Only hardened men.

He imagined it wasn’t his job to explain. The truth was too taxing.

The boys and girls sectioned themselves off naturally, cordoned to the right and left. Adhering to invisible fences and unsaid, presupposed restrictions. In more innocent scenarios, they could have been obediently listening to a school teacher, or nodding off to sleep during a lesson. And it was these thoughts that unsettled Ingersoll the most. Their undecipherable minds.

iv.

The Bridey girl was ushered in from Salt Lake City; she was currently in the grips of protective custody, foster care. It could certainly be said that her life – which, at this point, had been anything but ordinary – would spiral further still. While waiting for her to enter the room, Ingersoll mapped out the coming years easily. At court hearings, she would be star witness, star testimony; she would encounter a hot flash of publicity after the trials, when her name and image could finally be released into the curious public sphere. Her face would be smattered on the covers of national syndicates. Talk shows and day time personalities would have a field day. They would delight in her immersion of a world so alien to her first, ask her about what it was like to sit passenger in a car, operate a telephone, computer, elevator. They would assume, be presumptuous, marvel at her innocence, naïveté, and childlike wonderment, and ponder how it reconciled with her stained memory and smirched heart. On benchmarked anniversaries – five, ten, fifteen years after her heroic escape and flight from the compound to the town limits, the modern fall of Jericho – there would be updates and “where-are-they-now’s”; her wedding would be considered a great American triumph, an achievement in normalcy, and would be peppered heavily with paparazzi and statesmen. Her psychological profile would be heavily circulated in scholarly psychiatric journals and related crime reports, picked apart like a scalpel in a surgeon’s hand, observing the inner-workings of the still human body. The Bridey girl would live. And never forget.

But now. Now, it was too much for Ingersoll to extrapolate. Contemplation was for off-duty hours, nights of racing thoughts and unbearable insomnia. Now, it was time for preliminaries.

She entered with an entourage behind her, enough to make Ingersoll stand, caught off-guard. Showing respect to a foreign emissary. Flanked by beefy officers, the Bridey girl appeared frailer still; her yellowed hair and pale skin faded her features, albeit dark eyes rimmed with sun-kissed lashes. Already, there were traces of a lifetime left behind: her shoulders sported a dusted freckling, her face a rouge of sunburn near her collarbone. She sported a maroon top, supported by thin straps. Khaki shorts that skimmed the upper-third of her thighs. Thighs, calves, browned knees, tanned feet. Sandals. Parts, which would have otherwise been concealed, lay bare.

She murmured, possibly greeting him. The officers behind her backed away. They exited as if rewound like a videotape, never turning their backs. And then the there were the two of them. Alone.

You can sit if you want, offered Ingersoll. She registered, shook her head. I’d rather stand. There was something antediluvian about her air, perception, speech. An unusual refinement for someone her age. The Bridey girl couldn’t have been more than an underdeveloped fifteen. She took a step forward. The air was inconceivably taut and drowsy at the same time. Suit yourself, he continued.

There was a sweet odor about her, escaping her mouth. She was chewing bubblegum. The tendons of her face slowly pulsed with each subtle gnaw. Ingersoll leaned his palms against the table, glancing expertly over his paperwork, arranged in a fan-like fashion. We haven’t been able to locate your birth certificate yet. What were you called on the ranch? The girl tilted her head to the side. Her eyes scanned his build, musculature, height, hairline, face. Dolly. I was Dolly. She swayed imperceptibly from one foot to the other. Already bored.

And before?

She merely shrugged. Her neat side part shifted. A lock of sun-washed hair brushed against her cheek. These questions were repetitive, the same thing with a different phrasing. There wasn’t a time before.

There was a hint of a half-grin that shadowed Ingersoll’s lips, but only for a moment. You see, that’s what gets me. For you, there wasn’t anything before the ranch. Do you know how you got there?

Her color-less mouth, glazed slightly by the gum, winced. Unsure. My mother, I suppose. She went with Him. Gleaned and gathered after the reapers among the sheaves. They both knew who she meant.

And she told you nothing different from what she knew. You knew. He received nothing more than a blink. And you knew nothing about what was outside. Of New Zion, I mean. A slight shake of the head. No. I didn’t know, not for sure. A stilted pause. Ingersoll rapped his knuckles. So. He breathed, though the air was hot. So.

There was something, she stared, something that…didn’t sit. He told us of sin, the sin that would descend on us, like fog. I’ve never seen fog. Her fingers fluttered along her clavicle. Something that didn’t fit right. I did not know this sin, I did not see it. And to believe it…how? They ascended up to her neck, rubbing at the tense points between her muscles. The way He was there, while I slept. Or someone else. The was no one – she trailed off. Will you tell me, please? What this sin is, what sin looks like, so I can know, so I can hide from it? Her eyes dilated, and words spilled out of her mouth, as if by accident. Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go…thus may the Lord do to me, and worse…

And because the air seemed to make everything slower, speech, thought, movement, Ingersoll again became uncertain of his own consciousness. The colors of the room, strangely saturated. It caught him unawares when she, Dolly, the girl, the Bridey girl, moved surely towards him. The way she loomed for an embrace, sadly begging. The way she searched for something to fit; the way he seemed to catch her, rather than meet her, and the way her fingers tremulously touched each vertebrae in his spine, one by one.

Four Things Overheard by a Teach for America First-Year: Anonymous

2009-08-30T18:13:00.001-07:00

1. This first one actually made me crack up in front of the class:

We're practicing multiplication with flash cards, and the whole class comes to complete silence in anticipation of the next card when, from the back of the room Gerald proclaims, "I'm fittin' to eat some pancakes!"

2. The next day, we were talking about science and what we were gonna learn and some of the experiments we were going to do and Gerald raises his hand and patiently waits for me to call on him. Then he says, "Mr. --, L-- said he was going to make himself explode!"

3. Maybe the best though, is my principal, who uses phrases like "vanilla folders," dealing with the "pacifics" of our plan, and planning for "exscream situtations."

4. Today, I banned any New York Yankees-related paraphernalia. Taylor raised her hand and asked if that meant "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was banned, too.

1.2. The Mini (Or: "Does the Bear Have a Bomb?")

2009-08-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

The Day The Declaration Arrived (Question.)

A (Very) Humble Suggestion for the Newspaper Industry.

All Together Now We Twist and Shout.

*

The Last.

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Four Things Overheard by a Teach For America First-Year: Anonymous.

*

the ghost and the girl: underwater.

Charlie Pieper: Claverings 2.

*

Previous Issues: 1.1.

Photos via "TADA's Revolution."

Eli Badra is Following Phish Around and Writing About Them.

2009-08-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

On August 15^th, 2004, on a muddy and overcrowded farm in Coventry, Vermont, Phish played what everyone thought would be their last notes together. The song was “The Curtain With,” and it ended on a prolonged ambient drone. The music died down tenuously, though it was strangely appropriate that they not go out with a bang, and the band seemed as reluctant as the audience to really truly let Phish be over with. In the years that followed, phans moved to other bands, be they the Disco Biscuits, String Cheese Incident, moe., and any number of other up-and-coming jambands. Meanwhile, a whole new drove of Phish fans began to form. Kids started going to college, getting stoned, and having their own moments with the quartet.

It’s not as though the world was without Phish-y music, though: all four members went on to enjoy their own solo work: Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, and Mike Gordon have all put out solo albums at one time or another, and Jon Fishman played with a number of bands. In fact last year’s Rothbury festival just happened to feature three of them (Page was not in attendance), and so attendees were treated with a sort of mini reunion. But, of course, Phish is clearly the only thing that will do when one is looking for Phish. And so, it was no surprise that phantasytour.com, arguably the central hub for Phisheads (as well as several other jambands) to convene, completely crashed and burned under the extreme traffic that ensued as rumors of Phish’s reunion began to really pick up steam. And then in October, after having performed at their former tour manager’s wedding, the announcement came: Phish would be getting back together, starting with a three-night stint at the Hampton Coliseum, in Virginia, March 6, 7, and 8, 2009.

Now, the Hampton Coliseum is a bit of a storied venue for this band. They have performed there fifteen times, including Hampton Comes Alive in 1998, and their first return show after a hiatus in 2003. Phish always seems to bring their best game to the Mothership, so it’s no surprise that it would be the place for them to begin anew once again.

Tickets for Hampton sold out literally within seconds, much to the chagrin of yours truly, and many were unwilling to pay the five-hundred dollar price that scalpers were pushing for. That said, LivePhish.com was kind enough to provide the soundboards of each show for free within hours of the shows being done. In addition, fan sites set up live streams of fairly high-quality, so those who couldn’t be there could enjoy a “No Spoilers” stream of the concert live from their own computers. A number of Phish reunion parties undoubtedly took place.

Phish has since done an entire tour, which just finished this past Sunday, and musically they have far surpassed pretty much anything that took place in March, but in the interest of a full retrospective, let’s have a look at some of the highlights of what went down.

March 6, 2009

Set I
Fluffhead
The Divided Sky
Chalkdust Torture
Sample In A Jar
Stash
I Didn’t Know
Oh Kee Pa Ceremony >
Suzy Greenberg
Farmhouse
NICU
Horn
Rift
Train Song
Water In The Sky
The Squirming Coil
David Bowie

Set II
Backwards Down The Number Line
Tweezer
Taste
Possum
Theme From The Bottom
First Tube
Harry Hood
Waste
You Enjoy Myself

Encore
Grind
Bouncing Around The Room
Loving Cup

If this seems like a lengthy setlist, it’s because that’s exactly what it is. Rather than throwing down lengthy exploratory jams, Phish used Hampton as an opportunity to give the fans pretty much any song they would want to hear. And what song did phans want to hear the most? That would be “Fluffhead.” See, “Fluffhead” has been a favorite of Phisheads for the longest time, and yet the band went four years (nine including the hiatus years) not playing it, the last time being September 29, 2000, in spite of fans’ best attempts at getting them to play it. So when Trey started noodling the opening passage, the excitement in the Coliseum went even further through the roof. Even not having been there, yours truly couldn’t help but shiver joyously as the crowd erupted in ecstasy as they realized what they were hearing. It should be said that “Fluffhead” is a pretty difficult tune, too: Phish loves their prog, and this song has some pretty complex rhythmic work going on. Even in just one song of eighty-five or so (over three nights), people were able to tell what Phish’s intentions were. This wasn’t four has-beens just touring around for the money – they were ready to bring just as much musicality to 2009 as they did fifteen years ago.

Fluffhead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW3H5C_Xsjc

Fluffhead’s peak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aIudX0RsCk&feature=related (this video explains why you should listen to Phish)

The rest of the evening was relatively innocuous, by Phish standards. We got some great tunes out of the evening, sure, but like I said, it wasn’t particularly adventurous or anything like that. The band did give a performance of “Backwards Down The Number Line,” a cut from their upcoming new album, which had previously never been heard, which was pretty cool, though to be fair the entire album has since been previewed throughout the summer – not to mention the band’s tendency to try out new songs in a live setting before putting them in the studio anyway – so I wouldn’t chalk that up as one of Phish’s greatest live moments. “Bouncing Around The Room” was a pretty perfect encore, a whimsical and relatively simple song, and also a very content one. Trey even cracked up a little at one point.

I’d like to say more about Hampton, but really, the rest of the tour has pretty much overshadowed the run by now. Suffice it to say, it was about as great as phans could have hoped for. Really, the “Fluffhead” alone was worth the price of admission. It was a pretty severe bummer to those who hadn’t managed to get in to see the shows, but we on the outside were at least partially contented to sit back knowing Phish was back, and would be in full-on touring mode soon enough.

Claverings 2: Charlie Pieper

2009-08-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

the ghost and the girl: Underwater

2009-08-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

underwater - the ghost and the girl

A NOTE:

2009-08-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

The below was set to appear in the August issue, but due to growing chatter, it was published early.

All Together Now We Twist and Shout

2009-08-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

The stadium-breaker. Throat-lozenges cowering at the door. End your analogies and dance. They are this, they are that, and who cares about the geysers of flim and volcanic ash of flam? Mates unto ourselves. I've never seen The Beatles play Twist and Shout, but if I did, I'm sure I would dance.

Note: this was a group-write, featuring two writers.

A (Very) Humble Suggestion for the Newspaper Industry.

2009-08-09T18:44:00.001-07:00

Give yourself a tip jar. Internet widgets like this are easy to put together, and if the statistics from Clinton's Giving are to be believed (and we're no Dick Morris), then go ahead and do it. It's easy to assemble, easy for users to give as much (or as little) as they want, emphasizes the fact that the community paper adheres to the communal interests, would be not be obtrusive on the website, offers something to the four million online viewers who currently have an ostensible nothing, and whether or not it would bring you from the red back into the black, it's a productive step to take, it's something that can be done, and it does not involve a lot of hand-wringing, what-can-you-do? looks, David Simon's absurdly retroactive idea, and needless blame cast upon the internet.

The Day the Declaration Arrived (Question.)

2009-08-03T16:59:00.001-07:00

There is already some account of how it came to Massachusetts, but what of other states and other nations?

The Last.

2009-08-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

There are three veterans of the first World War left in the world. Of all the parts of the world that bubble on without you, of all the borders beyond the horizon, of all the paces, trajectories, characters, and stories colluding together in giant waves of 'now,' 'yet-to-come,' and then it boils down to three. It's not even the whole hand.

The rate, too, is surprising: eight years ago, there were 700 left alive.

Of those left, this: their names are Claude Choules, Jack Babcock, and Frank Buckles. Their countries of origin are the U.K., Canada, and the U.S.. Nearly 10,000,000 men were killed in the conflict, 65 million participated, and, now, we are left with three. When they were in the army and navy, they were led by men who were born in the 1850's.

Claude Choules: Born in Pershore, in March, 1901. Notables of Pershore: the Abbey, which heralds from the 11th century. Located on the River Avon. His specialty -- 'blowing things up.' Moved to Australia. Sent to clean up a part of the harbor in Western Australia and came back with "a gift of pink slippers he had found" for his daughter. A 41-year career that spanned both wars. Used to "see hospital ships coming across and soldiers being wheeled off them." Witnessed the surrender of the German Navy in 1918.

Jack Babcock: Enlisted in the army at 16 by lying about his age. Pilot's license at 65. Graduated from high school at 95. (In short: an early starter.) Received a birthday card from Queen Elizabeth II for his 109th birthday, remarking that she's "a pretty nice looking girl." When he got to Britain, he was deemed too young to "go over the top." Via the North Bay Nugget: "I feel guilty because I'm not a war hero. I didn't get to accomplish what I set out to do."

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Frank Buckles: The only one with his own webpage. Ended up with the ambulance service. When he tried to sign up, he was too young -- 18 -- and the recruiter turned him away. A week later, he came back with his Grandmother. "Same recruiting station, same Sergeant ... but I had increased my age to 21. He was very ... gentlemanly and gave me the test." England, first. Winchester. Drove a motorcycle around base and as an escort. Later upgraded to a Ford. Transported prisoners back from Germany. During his only leave: stayed at the Hotel de Pay in the Bay of Carcachon, where -- because of the water covering the ground -- the postman would deliver the mail on stilts.

Harry Patch recently passed. He was 111. Along with Claude Choules -- who is an Australian citizen -- he was Britain's last veteran. Radiohead wrote a song in memory of the man, and we'll have a link to that, too, below, but first, foremost, and most importantly: some notes on his life.

Born in June of 1898. He served between 1916 and 1918. Helped build the University of Bristol.

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Other notable items concerning the first World War: avalanches used as weapons.

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Radiohead - Harry Patch (In Memory Of):

Photos: Sarah Graziani

2009-07-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

Issue 1.1 (July 2009.)

2009-07-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR.

Turtles: John Barrett

*

But Not By God: Ed Reed

*

Every Road Needs Upkeep: Chaz Formichella

*

In Which the President Acknowledges a Meme.

*

Open Call for Submissions: Anonymous.

*

LESSONS TAUGHT FROM THE MOUND OF ST. LUKE'S FIELD:
Chuck MacLean

*

ELI BADRA IS FOLLOWING PHISH AROUND AND WRITING ABOUT THEM.

*

Photographs: Sarah Graziani.

*

Three Poems: Jess Del Balzo

*

Claverings: Charlie Pieper.

Every Road Needs Upkeep: Chaz Formichella

2009-07-30T19:41:00.001-07:00

Henry Maid Winshor, son of Henrysfather Winshor, was a construction worker, and his wife was a thousand shining little dots on a large square of black velvet. Henry kept his wife hanging in the living room, except some evenings when they would roll together in the bedroom, although nights like that were more common many years ago.

Did I mention Henry worked on the roads of time?

That kind of thing always slips by me.

Ho, ha.

So, at work one day, Henry accidentally misaligned a steel girder and a forty six year old man suffered a fatal heart attack. Another time, his hasty drill-bit work was responsible for a busload of children… well, let’s not say what happened to them.

Returning from work one afternoon, he found his wife rolled up with the milkman.

Yes, the milk of time. No, it’s not different from normal milk.

“I want a divorce,” Henry said through his mustache.

His wife replied in silence. Velvety silence.

“For the love of god, Maurine, you’re not eighteen anymore.” Henry stayed at his brother’s condo for several weeks, drinking himself into the couch. His brother was a turtledove.

A turtledove, in this story, is a monstrous fusion of a turtle and a dove…

And an octopus.

“Blarg!” said Henry’s brother, waving his slick tentacle arms. “Bleffrgh!”

“I don’t need to stay here, Francis, you can’t tell me what to do.”

“Blllllllrrrrgggggggrrrrrr”

“You know what?” Henry rose drunkenly from the couch and picked up Francis’ television set. Francis had bought the television set as a wedding gift for Henry, but had never given it to him.

Henry didn’t know that as he chucked it out the window.

Francis was stunned. His giant dove head retracted slightly into the turtle shell.

Henry stopped going to work.

The roads, concrete ribbons swaying in the winds of time, deteriorated.

Something awful, I’m sure, resulted.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR.

2009-07-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

Please excuse Austin, Charlie, Kal-El, Ethan, Michael, Caleb, Noah, Madison, Alina, Sofia, Jessica, Kayla, Arianna, Alyssa, Emma, Mia, Samantha, Alex, Ella, Taj, Christian, Avery, Josiah, Rowan, Cade, William, Joaquin, Akeno, Savannah, Stephanie, Adalyn, Akira, Zane, Nolan, Jacob, Landon, Rylan, Daniel, Hunter, Liam, Julia, Brookyln, Gianna, Lola, Adarra, Brielle, Grace, Meghan, James, Dante, and Finn for missing class. Given how large my family is, it's often hard to keep track, making these kind of notes necessary.

Thank you.

Best,
Mark "Plimpy" Binneroe, Editor-in-Chief

In Which the President Acknowledges a Meme

2009-07-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

"Yes," he chuckled. "That's exactly how I feel."

-- Obama, as quoted in Renegade.

LESSONS TAUGHT FROM THE MOUND OF ST. LUKE'S FIELD: Chuck MacLean

2009-07-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

Charlie wipes the dirt his palms on the seams of his jeans. Little gravel rocks dimple the sides of his hands and burn where his skin's torn. The friction seems to dulls the sting. He looks up at his father on the mound and Dad is staring right back at him, waiting, spinning the ball in his hand as if coaxing it to fly.

“What the fuck was wrong with that one?” his father asks. Charlie shrugs. His father steps off the rubber, shaking his head.

The boy takes a deep breath. The sun is going down beyond right field and he has to squint to see. He picks up his bat and steps back into the box, leaning the bat against his shoulder. Looking out over the mound, he exhales. He squats down in his stance and tightens his grip on the end of the bat. He holds it straight up, wrists cocked; like Yaz used to - like a good power hitter should: all hips and speed.

His father throws in another one. It sails two feet over Charlie's head and rings the chain link on the backstop fence. Charlie lands on his hands, again. Why doesn’t he stop? The boy asks himself, lying in the dust.

Dad just bites his bottom lip, shakes his head like a wild horse. “Just stay in the fucking box,” He says, and walks over to the ball as it bounces along the third base line. “It’s not gonna hit you.”

“Okay,” Charlie says.

He pushes himself up, and makes a face as the stones dig into the cuts on his palms. A few wisps of blood have come through the top layer of skin, and he cautiously wipes the dust off his yellow jersey.

“You think Yaz would’ve dove out of the way of every pitch that went a little high on him?” Dad asks, dropping his big calloused hands to his sides. They make a sound like thunder clap.

“No,” Charlie says, and whispers under his tongue, “But I bet Tony Conigiliaro wished he had.”

Dad throws one at Charlie's head, flat footed. The ball pings off the head of the bat and knocks it out of Charlie’s hands, and the kid falls back on his ass, the bat rolling on the ground like a spent shell casing.

“You know what it’s like watching your son dive out of the way of every pitch?” His father asks, strangely calm. He walks off the mound, all the way to the backstop, and picks the ball up.

Charlie crawls to his feet. “Yeah.”

“Can you guess what that feels like?” His father asks, standing above him, tossing his black hair out of his black eyes.

“Probably embarrassing,” Charlie whispers.

His father doesn't answer as he walks back out to the mound. He just talks to himself. In the silence that follows Charlie thinks to himself: I have nowhere to go. He suddenly realizes he’s paralyzed. He can’t move. His arms are stuck holding the bat, his small hands aching, his arms locked at the elbows. His legs buckle, his thighs burn. His knees lock and pop, imperceptibly but uncontrollably. Please don’t make me move, please don’t ask a question, he says to himself. Charlie knows that if he has to move, if he has to answer in too many words, or say them too loudly, he won’t be able to hold it back. And that’s the last thing he wants right now, for that to happen.

“Yeah,” his father says, finally. “It is. It’s embarrassing," He violently nods his head, biting off the last words, "having a coward for a son.”

Charlie swallows. “I’m sorry.”

But Dad sees that Charlie isn’t moving, and that the boy isn't moving his lips when he talks. Suddenly knowing, Dad looks away. He kicks the dust off the rubber mound, but it won’t come off. It’s been burnt on from years of sun and being walked on. Dad mouths a silent “fuck” to himself and not knowing what to do he decides to toss in an easy one over the plate. A fat one. An olive branch. Let the kid win one, he thinks. But the bat never leaves Charlie’s shoulder and the ball hits the dirt. His father is astounded.

“You not even gonna try now?” He asks, holding his palms up at his sides. “You done?”

“Yeah.” Charlie coughs.

“No,” Dad decides, nodding towards the backstop. “You're not. Go get the ball.”

Beaten, Charlie backs out of the batter’s box. He tries not to make too sudden of a move, as he drops his chin to his chest and drags the bat on the sand, like chalk across slate. Just don’t look him in the eye, he says to himself, and you’ll be alright. Just keep your head down. He drops the bat at the backstop and heaves the ball out to the mound. His father catches it with one hand and starts pacing, thinking to himself.

"You’re too young to understand this," he begins, "but there's can be a certain honor in losing." He paws the ball in both hands, along the stitches. "There is something to be said for a man who takes his beatings and keeps going.”

Dad stops pacing. "Believe me, you never want to be this man, but if you end up as him at you least know you’re no less of a man for it.”

He sets his feet in the dirt, a knowing half frown on his face. “There’s something worthwhile about that man,” he adds.

Just throw the ball, Charlie thinks.

Dad tosses in another one, lightly - a pathetic gesture. It breaks Charlie's heart to see it now, but he half-heartedly swings, just trying to make contact, to get this over with. Let me go home, he thinks to himself, just let me go home. When he misses he struggles not to swear out loud, and he grinds his back teeth together, as if trying to wiggle them loose for the money under the pillow.

“It takes faith to do that, Charlie,” his father says, walking off the mound. “It takes a whole lot of faith to take a beating and keep coming. Not everyone can do that.”

As his father passes, Charlie backs away. His father ignores him, walks to the backstop and grabs the ball.

“Some people," his father says, pointing at Charlie, "are too afraid to even step into the box, let alone take their swings.”

Charlie has to look away from his father. He can't take another hole in him. So his eyes wander and his father keeps talking. But Charlie, he sees the sun coming out of the clouds and how the leaves dance in the trees out beyond right field, how their shadows wave in the breeze over the brown patches of outfield, where the big puddles form when it rains. He watches the younger kids run around the monkey bars in the playground, way out past centerfield, and for the first time he hears their squeals of joy, delayed for the distance. He notices the gray stones in the infield and the pieces of shells trailed in from the bottom of cleats. He hears the cars passing on the road behind them and an engine struggling to start in the parking lot. He can feel the calluses forming on his hands where the rubber of the handle gets in between his fingers and his palms; and he has the odd feeling that he will remember this moment for a long, long time.

And he fails to notice another pitch sailing in. It hits the dirt behind home plate and bounces to the back stop, ringing the fence. Charlie leaps out of the way.

“Christ!” His father yells, charging off the mound. “At least have the fucking faith to step in the goddamn box and look for a pitch to hit."

He walks up to Charlie, his finger leveled at the boy's throat. "Courage takes faith, kid, and let me tell you this: it's the fucking case with everything. It’s scary, but that’s life. If you were religious you’d have to believe that God’s there. In baseball, you gotta believe the pitcher is going to throw a strike. And you’ve always, ALWAYS have to be looking for a good one to hit.”

His father grabs the ball and walks back to the mound. He stops with his back turned to the plate and, for just a second, he studies the space beyond the outfield fence, the kids swinging form the monkey bars, as if suddenly remembering something. A slight breeze moves over the infield and echoes off through the trees.

Turning, he says, almost quietly: “If you take it on faith that the ball isn’t coming at your head, you can look for a good pitch,” he holds up the ball as if to signify what a good one looks like. “And if you’re looking for that, you won’t take any chances on a ball. And if you’re looking for that, you’ll know when it’s coming at your head.”

Dad fires one at Charlie's head. The boy sees it coming and falls flat on his back, and the ball rings off the backstop like a handful of pennies dropped into a coffee can. In a cloud of dirt, with the wind knocked out of his lungs, Charlie thinks to himself: Oh my God, I can’t hold it. His throat tightens. His eyes pin shut. Something wells up inside of his chest, like a great big sneeze, and he quickly turns over on his knees. He bites his cheek and spits into the dust and swears to himself, and he tries to breath despite the dirt floating into his face like cigarette smoke.

The ball slowly rolls back into the infield and his father bends down to pick it up.

“There was honor in what Tony C. did because he caught a bad break and he didn’t let it beat him,” Dad holds the ball up. “Even though he had every right to. He never played as well again, but he at least played it right.”

A small frown on his face, Dad shrugs, as if to say well, that’s all I got, kid. Good luck with it.

But as he turns around to walk back to the mound, he suddenly says, “If you don’t learn how to do that now," he says, "you’ll be afraid of everything for the rest of your life.”

Dad spins the ball in his right hand like a lucky coin – waiting. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Charlie gets up and licks the dirt from the sides of his mouth, and drags his sleeve across his face. His eyes bent against the falling sun, he stares out at the mound for a good, long while. Fuck him, he thinks. And he steps back into the box.

Open Call for Submissions: Anonymous.

2009-07-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

1. Literary Magazine seeks long piece (5,000 words) by short writer. $20 reading fee.

2. Literary Magazine seeks poems for discuss and javelin throwers. $20 reading fee.

3. Literary Magazine seeks something we can tape over the TV. $20 reading fee.

4. Literary Magazine seeks work by Franco-Prussian immigrants of Gaelic extraction who only speak elements of Creole, Hindi, and car wash advertising slogans. $20 reading fee.

5. Literary Magazine seeks work by the person seated to your left -- no, sorry, our left. $20 reading fee.

6. Literary Magazine seeks a Queen of Hearts to complete flush. $20 reading fee.

7. Literary Magazine seeks a manuscript that must be sent between the second and fourth week of September, mailed only on Tuesdays and Thursdays bearing an even number, only allowed to reach us on Wednesdays, and these only being days that end in an odd number. Otherwise, we won't open them. $20 reading fee.

8. Literary Magazine seeks blind submissions we can put our own names on. $20 reading fee.

9. Literary Magazine seeks to reward sycophants. No reading fee.

10. Literary Magazine seeks new, challenging work. Must be something we've already seen before. $20 reading fee.

Three Poems: Jess del Balzo

2009-07-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn Cracks Down

The young man looks both ways, whistling to himself as he prepares to cross the street. It is one of the first days of a spring that has been too long coming.

The officer watches—eyes narrowed, hungry—and waits.

And then, as the soles of his prey’s shoes touch the concrete in front of him, he says, “Son.”

“Yes sir?”

“What’s that, there—in your pocket?”

“What’s what, sir?”

“You wouldn’t be hiding anything, would you? Anything illegal?”

“Um, no sir.”

“So what’s that bulge in your coat pocket there?”

The young man slowly produces a book of poems. He looks at the ground.

Rimbaud. The officer shakes his head as he walks away. It’s always fucking Rimbaud.

Trouble was,

he knew what he had

and could not hold onto.

It was written there

in the orange moon and

its shadow-boxes of light

across the hillside

train tracks.

Years later, I would

wake up in the night and

throw away the clothes

that still smelled like

the back of the car

and that couch at that

friend’s house we went to

after, where I pretended

to be asleep just so

I wouldn’t have to talk

to him or anyone with a mind

to tell me what I should or

should not be doing

with the unowned mystery

of my sex,

the wild territory between

the legs, never mind

the heart.

Trouble is as trouble has been

taught to do. Some of us are born

willing and hungry to learn

the wrong things about

the late blood, the angry landscape,

the chorus of bipolar

electric light lovers.

Even at seventeen, I wondered

how I could ever prepare

a child for this world,

what anyone could possibly say

to explain the quiet

cruelty of experience, the way

some of us lay down

and fold our hands.

Regards

We say we try when we know we cannot do. If only it were easy to communicate the difference. Maybe then we would not need to resort to finger-painting lies down each other’s limbs in the dark. To think of the well-wishing lines I drew down the length of well-meaning arms and legs cuts cold and deep to the pit of my stomach.

There is nothing that hurts like the moment someone looks at you—happy—and you feel like you’re fresh out of batteries. I wish I’d understood in the shallow hours of careless that you cannot build a room for affection in your heart if there is not enough space. The wall has to go somewhere.

I come across regret whenever I clean the dusty shreds of dreams that slip through the crack between the bed and the wall. There are things I try to keep close, but even the knife under the pillow falls unreachable once in a while.

There is nothing I am waiting up for. I am not asking to be found. I just wish there was someone who could tell me what will and will not have to be swept up later.

When we become what we are, it is impossible to explain how. I could have tried, but the sharp blinking would have given me away. For all the disappearing acts I pulled, the lack of pointless loyalty, I thought you might want to know: the lights flicker every time I think of you.

1.3. Placeholder

2009-07-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

More Things Overheard By a Teach For America First-Year: Anonymous.

Lester Young - Blues for Greasy:

What is The Moon? This is The Moon.

Unfitted Places: Jamie Reich.

Claverings 3: Charlie Pieper.

Previous Issues: 1.1, 1.2.

But Not By God: Ed Reed.

2009-07-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

Douglas, homeless now for real, partially by choice, is alone. The rusty water from the interstate above is dripping on his head, but he doesn’t care, because his son has just stopped convulsing and is dead now, blue, foam on his lips, the needle still in his arm, the arm still tied off with a section of industrial black trash-bag. When the convulsions had started Douglas had himself just finished shooting up and was riding a brutal euphoric thrust, a surge of elevated awareness that had transitioned immediately into blind panic, weeping, shaking and smacking his convulsing son, Leo, who had cooked up too much, Douglas told him that, he had cooked up too much but Leo didn’t care. Douglas is faced with the realization that Leo wanted this to happen, wanted to die on top of the coats he slept on with his father every night, wanted to die next to the shopping cart they had stolen from the Market Basket, filled with cans, errata, tape recorder, meager provisions, a half filled notebook. Douglas shakes his son for a very very long time, sputtering, mucus dripping onto his hands and the face of his son, who he had found as a godsend and has now lost, again.

Douglas’ second ex-wife, Carolyne, drives over the strange rumbling corrugated metal of the bridge, drives over her dead son on her way to the precinct, chain-smoking Parliaments, blaring James Taylor, the latter of which no one can quite believe. She screams about how she’s seen fire and she’s seen rain. She drums on the steering wheel. The Xanax is wearing off, producing anxiety, producing drumming and barely melodic screaming. Driving to the precinct is a bad bad time to have the Xanax wear off, she thinks, so she screams more about the fire and rain she’s seen, and how that rain will at some point end, perhaps when her son comes back to her. Her phone rings, and she hears it, but she pretends she doesn’t.

Neil Haverman, Precinct captain, has absolutely nothing to tell Carolyne about her missing son, dreads her now weekly visit, has a speech all prepared for when she comes: he will look into her unfocused eyes, tell her that this disappearance is a product of her son’s chosen profession, that he obviously wants to be missing, is sort of required to be missing, and that there is no reason at all to assume anything unfortunate has happened, although his men will keep their eyes and ears open, as it were, to any news, but mostly: tough shit lady. He won’t say this last part, but he’ll want to.

Florence, Douglas’ first ex-wife, listens to all six rings of Carolyne’s phone, listens to her transparently fake and perky message (“Hi! This is Carolyne! I’d love to call you back, so leave your number! And a message! Bye bye!”), fundamentally misunderstands the way cell phone answering machines work, and leaves the following message: “Carolyne? Carolyne, I know you’re there, it’s Flo. Pick up the phone. Carolyne. Carolyne? Please, it’s important. It’s about Dougie. Carolyne? I know you know where he is, Carolyne, I just know it. Carolyne. Carolyne?” She then hangs up and weeps for three or four hours, clutching in one hand a framed copy of Douglas’ first front page article in the Ledger, back in eighty two, about the crisis of homelessness, and in the other hand an empty bottle of Bailey’s. Her dog, Dougie Jr., whines for food above his empty bowl.

Dr. Chauncey “Doc” Bracket, editor, journalist, taker of no-shit, sits at his desk at the Ledger and drums his fingers on the home keys of his computer keyboard, wishing they were the keys of a typewriter, smooth and round instead of coarse and vaguely sticky. He knows Leonard is out on long term assignment, following up on the great and hair-raising work of his father, and that not calling weekly as per the plan is not particularly a cause for alarm, since Douglas never called either, and he came back eventually, although then again he did seem like a caged animal post-assignment and he did truly disappear post-retirement, probably to someplace warm and wonderful and hard, like Ecuador maybe. Chauncey can picture Douglas in Ecuador, building houses for people who need them, drinking local brews, smoking local things that can be smoked, Douglas, that old tough wildcat. He still feels tense, however, wondering just how many weeks it’s been since Leo last called, cursing himself for not keeping track, still drumming his fingers (asdf jkl;, still not a typewriter, still no phone call), and needs to go verbally brutalize an intern for a punctuation mistake on his way out to the smoking area to feel any sort of peace.

The intern, Bethany, already becoming sort of jaded at nineteen, to her great and ambition-dulling chagrin, pulls into a convenience store on her way home and buys a pack of Parliaments for the very first time, shakily lights one, holds it all wrong, blows it out the window, feels the light-headedness that ushers her stress out into the world on her thin breath. She smokes too many and has to pull over to puke, pukes straight down through the loud and bizarre corrugated metal that makes up the roadbed of the Tippany bridge, pukes onto a vague leaf-covered dark shape next to a vague leaf-covered shiny object, thinking of Leo, who got her this job, who always seemed trapped, wondering how he’s doing, wondering why his eyes were always so dark, wondering why he always seemed called to from above, but not by God.

Claverings: Charlie Pieper

2009-07-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Turtles by John Barrett

2009-07-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

INT. AQUARIUM – DAY.

SCOTT, 23, is standing at the edge of the sea turtle tank, with a rock in hand.

SCOTT

Hey, Sean!

SEAN, 22, turns toward Scott.

SEAN

What, what is it?

SCOTT

Watch me hit this turtle in the head with a rock.

SEAN

Scott, don’t be a d…

Scott winds up and hits the turtle square in the head with a resounding CLUNK.

The TURTLE glides under the water.

Sean looks at Scott angrily. As he speaks, his voice gets incredibly high pitched, the words stream out faster and faster, and he waves his arms crazily.

SEAN

Man, how could you do such a horrible thing to that animal?

SCOTT

It’s a dumb turtle. What does it matter?

SEAN

It’s endangered first of all.

SCOTT

No it isn’t.

SEAN

Yes it is!

SCOTT

No, it’s swimming around in a nice, comfortable aquarium tank.

Sean stares angrily at Scott, but Scott doesn’t get it.

SEAN

Let’s just go home.

INT. TURTLE TANK – MOMENTS LATER

The turtles have all surrounded the turtle who got hit. He appears to be their leader.

He stands, points at the rock, then points to the outside of the tank.

The other turtles follow the leader turtle towards the side of the tank. They form lines, and run into the glass repeatedly until it finally breaks, releasing water and all of the turtles into the aquarium.

The turtles get up on their rear fins and begin to walk like humans, but very slowly. They pass the shark tank. One of the turtles makes a little turtle fist, and shakes it at the sharks in a threatening manner. The sharks cower in fear.

EXT. CITY STREET – NIGHT

The turtles walk very slowly down the street. The moon passes through the sky as night turns to day then back to night.

The Turtles are swarming. They approach a group of humans standing in line at a trendy nightclub (GYPSY BAR?). All of the men are dressed in the same button-down shirt, jeans, and dressy shoes. The women are all decked out in their slut-gear. Trashy is the best word.

The turtles slowly come closer and start crawling up people’s legs to their necks, and bite their jugular veins.

GYPSY BAR PATRON

(As a turtle climbs up his body)

Screw this, I ain’t getting out of line!

The turtle bites him on the jugular. The rest of the patrons are killed in a similar manner.

When all of the gypsy bar patrons are killed, the leader turtle again rises to his feet, motions with his flipper for the other turtles to follow him, and marches slowly onward.

As the turtles walk slowly down the street, a HARE runs very quickly past them.

Fade Out

Fade In

EXT. CITY STREET – LATER

People are running around in a panic. Some have turtles latched onto their necks. The turtles have blocked all the routes out of the street, so if the humans try to escape (as so many do) they are bitten and killed.

A SWAT team arrives to take on the turtle menace. They begin firing their automatic weapons at the turtles, but they manage you use their shells as shields to protect them from the bullets.

One turtle picks up his fellow turtle, and throws him like a captain America shield.

The whole of the carnage takes place at a remarkably fast pace compared to the turtle’s walking pace.

PAN OUT TO:

INT. APARTMENT – LATER

The television screen is displaying the carnage just seen from a wide angle.

Sean sits on the couch watching the news.

ANNOUNCER (O.S.)

We are now getting word that three hundred people are now laying in the

(MORE)

ANNOUNCER (CONT’D)

streets of Boston, dead, very dead. Apparently…uh…they were bitten by turtles. Is that right? Turtles?

Can they do that?

Sean turns off the T.V. with a look of absolute horror on his face.

INT. HALLWAY – SAME

The turtles walk down the Hall to very badass music. Their faces and flippers are coated in blood, and they move as though being shot in slow motion. That is, of course, until the illusion is ruined by a person walking at normal speed who passes them. He, however, is brutally killed by the turtles.

INT. APARTMENT – SAME

There is a KNOCK at the DOOR.

Sean opens the door to see a large group of turtles at the door. He and the leader turtle stare at each other for a moment. Sean doesn’t need to be told who they’ve come for so he simply turns around.

SEAN

It’s for you.

SCOTT

Man!

Scott goes to the door.

SCOTT (CONT’D)

What do you…Holy crap!

TURTLE

Yeah! You threw a rock at me, and you need to be punished for what you did. I mean that was really…uncool man.

SCOTT

Wait, you’re a turtle…

TURTLE

Yes, and I can talk. Now, about this morning’s rock throwing.

SCOTT

Oh yeah, sorry about that. I was just being kind of a jerk.

TURTLE

And you will apologi… Wait, what?

SCOTT

Sorry.

TURTLE

Oh, well…um…I guess that’s all I really needed. Um…come on guys, let’s go back.

Sean gets up.

SEAN

Wait, you guys kill hundreds of people, and now you just get an apology and that’s it?

TURTLE

Yeah, pretty much. Oh right…sorry about that. Yeah, that was lame.

SEAN

Yeah!

SCOTT

Don’t worry about it.

Sean looks upset at that, but not surprised.

TURTLE

Anyway, thanks for being so understanding. Just, you know, don’t let it happen again.

SCOTT

Sure. Bye guys.

TURTLE

Bye!

The turtles leave.

Fade Out

Fade In

EXT. NYC – DAY

Scott has a rock in his hand. Sean is standing next to him.

SCOTT

Hey Sean, watch me hit King Kong with this rock!

FADE TO BLACK

First Post Syndrome.

2009-07-18T13:17:00.000-07:00