Poetry is something I’ve always struggled with. It feels like being a good story teller would relate to good poetry with word choice and the way a statement flows when spoken, but that’s just not the case. I can get a rhythm, I can work with a particular rhyme structure… but it just never seems to come together.
Haiku seems to be the answer for me.
I read a little about the history of this poetic form in the book Japanese Death Poems. It’s a fascinating bit of history if you’re into something with a little bit of a dark tint. The form was massively celebrated during Japan’s history and has changed in form and format over time.
Still not something I’m going to ever be great at, but a form I can work with. Friends of mine got married this past weekend. One of the things happening at their reception was a haiku contest. While I know these poems won’t have the meaning to people reading here that they did to the couple, I felt it was worth posting them. Get outside your comfort zone now and then. Try something different. Write a poem…
You told a story of the man in the past – it was always a skirt
We visit the bar then elevator roulette who really won?
For anyone that isn’t in the know for what’s going on with my family, we’re getting ready to send my daughter to study in another country via an exchange student program. I’ve been volunteering with this organization for a number of years and I’m excited for my daughter to participate and learn more about the world we live in.
Part of getting the kiddo ready to go is applying for a long stay student visa. In order to do this we were required to appear in person to make this application. I thought we would be doing this at a consulate office or some place directly connected to the embassy.
Trio of Trouble!
The place we needed to be for our appointment was in Washington DC, so we decided it would be great to have along one of my daughter’s friends who had never had the chance to see our nations capitol before. My wife and I have both been there a number of times and were very excited to share this experience with the kids. We woke up early, jammed ourselves into the car and headed to the Metro. We really appreciate being able to use public transportation like that. We don’t have a great bus system and no trains at all around here, so that was treat the first. Navigating the transit system. We hopped on the train (also a first for our friend) and headed to the address.
I was wrong. Where we ended up was an office for the company VFS. It’s not actually a consulate or an embassy. People connected with those places might be in the background, but this was just an office on the second floor of a plain building over a kabob place. Far less dramatic than we thought it might be. They DO still require a security check to get in (metal detector) and they ask questions about Covid. Masks are still required. But in the end – a lot like going to the DMV.
We didn’t wait long as we had an appointment set up. We pulled out all the paperwork and thought we were in great shape… right up until she asked for something that didn’t have the same name as the paperwork we brought. We figured it out, but that was a moment of stomach lurch. We can’t have the visa appointment too far away from the departure date as it will only be good for a year. That also meant we’re cutting it very close if something goes awry. Then it did. The required photos we brought were deemed unacceptable. The agent we were working with was quite nice and very helpful. She pointed us at a store just down the block that would get us a new photo on the spot. Once we were done with the rest of the paperwork and the biometric scanning (photos and fingerprints) we popped over to the shop, got the picture we needed and were able to drop it off again in about 20 minutes time. All in all a good thing as we’ve gotten all the paperwork turned in.
This appointment was a source of anxiety, but once we finished that, the rest of the day was ours to sight see.
And that’s where things got frustrating.
One would think in the post pandemic times that we live in the desire would be to give people distance and extra time to work with things. That is not the case. The few museums that were open at all (and that was far less than we expected) had reduced hours. We thought to spend a couple of hours at the Smithsonian museum of natural history. It’s not a lot of time, but we’d hit a couple of exhibits ~ just take our time and chat while we walked… The lines at each entry were out the doors, down the main stairs and halfway down the block. Not exaggerating. We took one look at that and said, “How about we look at the gardens?”
We wandered about for a while, but it eventually became clear that the very few things that were actually open were jam packed with people. We were getting worn down in the summer heat, so we settled for walking the mall and looking at the capitol, the obelisk and the castle from the outside. Once we’d done that we just hopped the train and headed home again.
In the end it was a good day because we accomplished the main goal for the day. Visa paperwork is in. We got to share a trip to the capitol with somebody who had never seen it before. At the very same moment, it was a disappointment of a trip. The food we ended up getting wasn’t great. We missed our chance to have dinner in Chinatown. We couldn’t get into any museums or even the welcome center.
What does it all mean? It means that after our schedules settle down a little more and the world continues to reopen we’ll have to set up another trip to the DC area. We love all the things to see and want to have an excellent trip… So we’ll try again!
This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, July 2021 issue.
The Vast of Night – Amazon
Pick a night. Pick a slow night. Wait until it’s quiet out. Turn out the lights. Get cozy and flip this movie on. The Vast of Night is a small film that’s big on catching you at just the right time. There are bright, glaring action movies and soft filtered romances beside the raucous comedies. This movie pulls you back to the fifties in the American southwest. The story follows two people from the little New Mexico town of Cayuga as they track down a mysterious noise and more mysterious radio station callers. It’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else… until they dig a little deeper.
From the Amazon description:
“In the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, a young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever. Dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret reels of tape forgotten in a library, switchboards, crossed patchlines and an anonymous phone call lead Fay and Everett on a scavenger hunt toward the unknown.”
This is definitely a movie that is all about the mood. It is quiet. It moves a little slow at the start. Give it a chance. As the story rolls, the speed and the tension build. If you take your time you will get to a place where you’ll be out staring up into the night. There are small things, inconsequential to the success of the story if you allow yourself to go along for the ride. Coming in at an hour and a half it’s definitely worth the time to catch up with the folks in this small town.
It’s a sportsball sounding kind of title, but it doesn’t make it less true. Sometimes when you’re in a slump or you can’t seem to shake out of a rut the thing you need is an easy win. Take on something that’s not part of your regular list, your massive project or the thing you’re blocked on and just do something smaller and less stressful. Take the easy win.
That worked for me. I went out and watched the **ULTIMATE** newbie crash course. I don’t know that I’m a total newbie, but I’m always happy to look at videos talking about basics. The foundation or fundamental pieces that crafters start from are often very different from each other. I don’t necessarily follow all the terrain advice shown in Wyloch’s Armory, but there was a bit in that video that reached me. Quick and easy doors.
I hadn’t thought about doors in dungeon terrain specifically. I’ve got grand visions of foam mountains and elaborate set pieces with months of build time involved and it all just seemed to be a bit overwhelming. I needed to step back and take on something smaller and easier in order to get into the work. Doors. The video series creator has a really great take on using a flat washer and some smaller craft supplies to create these doors. I stopped by the hardware store on the way back to the house one day and dug in.
I did not stick to the pure basics as shown in the video, but used the simplicity of the design concept to push forward a series of doors that I could use to advance a story. I was really happy with the result and at the end of the afternoon I had nine pieces I could add to my terrain library for future use. I didn’t grab pictures of all individually, but here are a couple of my favorites:
The Collection
Rusty Cell
Rotten Core
If you’re stuck or have writers block or can’t figure out what to paint or build or whatever your hobby is – sometimes it can really help if you take the ‘easy win’! What sort of things fit this description for you?
I don’t know if I would have ever picked this book up were it not a book club pick. This book is a fantastic example of why a person should join book clubs. Read something you didn’t think you would, you might find a gem.
This book is exactly that. A multifaceted, shining gem of a story. Making a deal to save yourself only to find out the deal was not so clean and easy as all that. What do you do if nobody remembers you? Are you still you? What power does your name have? This is a fantastic reversal of the old “don’t tell a wizard your name” concept. Tell a wizard your name and give him power over you. And when nobody knows or remembers your name, what power remains?
Along with the concept, the author does an excellent job exploring the feelings of Addie and the ways she has been forced to move over her long, unyielding life. How does it change your feelings when having them no longer has meaning to those around you? What will you be willing to do? How clever do you need to become to get what you need?
I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the characters and the many lives they led. It was also a really well done ending – and that’s something I don’t get to say very often. A satisfying work with an excellent sense of completion. If you get the chance, you should pick this one up.
It’s a simple word. An easy concept. The act of keeping something within limits. The process of preventing the expansion of a hostile power. Light knows that Darkness needs to be held in check. It’s not a new idea. It’s been practiced and attempted for longer than people know. Those who don’t study history and all that.
Darkness feels Light straining to enter unwanted places. Corners exposed, shadows shifted and a new vision of place and purpose. Darkness slips away and fades as light expands, but then creeps around and steals back into unwatched rooms and back alleys. Shadows always slide in unnoticed.
Sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes the darkness pushes limits. Puts a strain on boundaries, forces the pressure to build. Light pushes back. These forces battle unseen. The fight rages in secret back rooms, penthouse suites, shopping mall corridors and occasionally in hotel basements. Daunting, dangerous and fiercely contested these battle rage with the only true victory being the safety of those who don’t know.
That is our place. That is our purpose. The cleaners.
Light and Dark may rage and storm. Battles may be won or lost. Our only mandate is secrecy. Patching the walls to replace the char of a light blast. Repainting the ceiling to remove the stains of dampness. Unwinding the stray threads shimmering in a curtain, trying to dampen the effectiveness of a simple defense for Darkness. Sometimes mopping up liquified darkness and replacing carpet…
I watched the trailer for this movie as soon as it came out. It reminded me of Independence Day with Will Smith. A big budget blowing up aliens show for the fourth of July holiday. I was down with this plan – in principle. Then I watched the trailer again. From the trailer alone, I started to have doubts. Nevermind I thought, I’ll just wait and see. I put it out of my mind and forged ahead with the other things in my life.
Then, suddenly, it was the July fourth holiday weekend. I was crazy busy doing all sorts of things. I had an odd window of time and started just scrolling the screen to see what was out there and saw the big splashy things for this movie.
“OH! That’s right!” and I dove right in. No hesitation, no selection paralysis for me. Aliens and blowing stuff up. I’m IN! I really wanted to be super into this. I wanted to be excited. I was hoping there’d be this new alien action thing that would be a new go to. I watched. I waited to be moved. I wanted to just get into it and somehow it didn’t happen. This movie was no Independence Day. It wanted to be, but it missed the mark.
I still watch Independence Day from time to time. It actually holds up well enough considering that it’s 25 years old. There’s something to the movie that is just fun to watch. There’s an odd combination of crazy global scale mashed together with these smaller, human scale stories. People just getting together and working toward solving a problem because that’s what we would do ~ at least in a more positive time.
Tomorrow Warsays it’s a global scale conflict but it doesn’t show us a global scale conflict. The only city we actually see is Miami, or more correctly what is left of Miami. The people in this movie don’t band together for the good of the human race, they’re drafted. Literally forced to fight. No options, here’s a meager selection of gear, no training and GO!
The characters don’t have a chance to gel. There should be relationships, there should be bonding there should be… something. Our protagonist spends part of the movie actively working against one of his relationships. Secondary characters that should be given the chance to rise up and have a greater role are relegated to smaller parts that round out the “we need more people” bit, but don’t develop. I often complain about movie studios feeling like they need to force romance into movies. There is certainly no forced romance in this film. The problem is that the relationship they want us to focus on… just gets weird. I won’t spoil it, but I didn’t get it. When I was supposed to be feeling things I was bored.
I wanted more of something and got very little of anything. I may watch it again, just to try to catch stuff I missed? I don’t know. Maybe if we watch it enough they’ll fund another alien movie? Sigh. It could have been more. Maybe I’ll watch Independence Day again instead.
IF you’re into huge spoilers and want a break down of ALL the things that don’t make sense, check out the Pitch Meeting:
The new book Over Hill, Over Dale is out! Why am I so excited? Because it contains my story Evilution (lucky story #13 in the book). This is a short story collection from the Story Makers class at Cupboard Maker Books.
Check out the cover!
As far as I know – this is an *in person* book – meaning you’ve got to visit the store to get it. (You should totally visit the store). We did a book signing for any of the authors that could make it on the July 4th holiday. The signing seemed to be very successful given how summer schedules normally work out.
It was nice to be back and doing the “author thing” in person. I’m still writing stories, firing them off into the aether and waiting for the inevitable negative bounce back. I think my next author in person event might be a convention… but those plans are still far enough off as to be shadowy and lurking just out of view.
I’d love to hear what you thought of my story in this collection. Grab a copy and let me know!
