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A senior
staffer on
each coast will volley a novel shuttlecock style until
completion. Follow
along and watch art come to life before you. For those scoring
at home Blue is West and
Red is East.
Badminton
There
was a miscarriage of justice. Onlookers were stunned by the
amount of blood. The doctor on call nearly fainted her ownself.
Truth be
told, justice was none too happy about it either, although the
birth canal was wider than he'd been led to believe. Next
time, he thought to himself on the way out, next time I'm
gonna come to term come hell or high water. His last thought
was the hope his mother was OK, and then it was back into the
great abyss of undifferentiated nothingness until the wheel
caught him up again. "Hey, Justice, back so soon?"
laughed the void, slapping his...well, actually it was the
sound of one hand slapping.
Almost prescient were the screams of the orderlies as Buchanan
passed them in the hall. He was going to deliver himself a
baby whether conceived or not. Above him, the fluorescent
lights flickered and dimmed as he passed. So much spilt seed
he thought. Wasted progeny tossed on the trash heap with the
cellulite and gall bladders earlier removed.
Meanwhile,
across town, a tattooed, shirtless, 50-something Anglo-Saxon
man with bifocals and a reflective air leaned comfortably
against the El Camino in his driveway. He lit up an American
Spirit and thought about Jenny, vaguely wishing he had stopped
five or six shots earlier the night before. It was so hard to
control his mouth in the middle of a Jack Daniels binge. His
native arrogance really grabbed him by the throat and refused
to let go. Hell, Jenny might even have come home with him if
he had been enough in his right mind to convince her to take a
vacation from the hospital the next day. Looking down, he
noticed that someone had shaved the words "EAT ME"
into his chest hair. He did not remember that happening.
A
gold-flecked cherry red low-rider pickup with chrome wheels
careened around the corner and accelerated down the block.
Kids were hanging out of every compartment, laughing and
pushing each other and waving their guns. They disappeared
around the next corner with a scream of rubber, leaving a haze
of burning tires and exhaust in their wake. Big Dog the
Radical loved his neighborhood.
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the
Goliard
a
repository
Day
One - The vast oasis of the flatlands stands before me
as I snap picture after picture. The rest of the
crew awaits in the conversion van.
Purplish-looking clouds race overhead. A strong
wind blows down from the north and carries up
debris. Two dust devils ten feet away play a game
of cat and mouse with each other. They are the
first authentic funnel clouds I have seen in
Tornado Alley. The atmospheric pressure is
dropping fast. It is eerily quiet except for a
howling wind blowing across the low-level plains.
The emptiness of the landscape appears to me like
a canvas awaiting the painter's brush. I look to
my right. Then to my left. The road meets the
horizon at nearly a ninety-degree angle, a
zippered partition into the earth's crust.
"There are many decisions to make at
The Melting Pot and Linda, our server, seemed to relish explaining all of them. Each table is equipped with a burner in
its
surface and the food is served raw so that patrons might dip it, boil
it, and fondue it to their own liking. The choices arise in what to dip
in what and how much to spend for the privilege. Typical meals,
according to Linda, are
traditionally four courses with a cheese, a salad, an entree, and a
dessert. Since they offer a deal called "The Big Night
Out", which removes much of the guess work by providing house
favorites at each course, it seemed like the
obvious choice for beginners and was what we selected."
The Placating of the Already Perfectly Content 