The Problem, Briefly

Mitch Daniels says:

“We need to really present ourselves in Indiana and Tennessee and places elsewhere as people who favor change that believes in you, that believes you are an individual of dignity and a person who is fully up to the task of leading your own life.”

Chip Forrester says:

“Tennessee Republicans have a surplus of bad ideas that make it harder for working people to get by or for their kids to get a decent education — there’s no need to steal inspiration from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the man who wrote the failed economic policies that led us into Bush’s recession.”

I say, really? A Democrat hears what came out of Daniels’ mouth and the first thing that pops into his head is “working people”? Not the blatant hypocrisy of claiming to believe that I am a person of dignity and fully up to the task of leading my own life and then assaulting my ability to lead my own life like it’s going out of style just because I’m a woman?

Seriously, when you can’t say “funny, they don’t seem to believe that about women” but instead have to talk about “working people” or “kids” (never mind the amount of people in this state who aren’t working but would like to be), we women should take note. and then underline it. “People” and “kids” get defended. We don’t.

Oh, Hey! Tonight!

You can listen to me on Fred and Jed’s blogtalkradio program. I will be making every effort to refrain from talking about how, once women get to be a certain age, we simply must make sure our bladders are empty before undertaking sit-ups. I’m sure they will be making every effort to steer the conversation far away from anything that might lead to that discussion.

So, listen in! No pee talk.

The Hard Part

“The Witch’s Friend” goes well. But doing all the linking is tedious, tedious work. Whew, dog. I mean TEDIOUS. And since I’m not all done with it, I can’t even reward myself with “Well, go try it out and see how it works” because it only takes about three minutes before I’m dead-ended into the part that’s not all linked up.

But in trying to write the “about” it got me thinking about how retro-futuristic this style of fiction is. Michael Joyce’s “afternoon, a story” was written in 1987 and I think the Eastgate version came out in 1990. It’s been at least 20 years, is what I’m saying. And yet, the Norton version I linked to doesn’t seem that odd in terms of how we think of non-fiction reading/writing on the internet. The idea that there are instructions for reading is just darling.

But that’s not really turned out to be how we read fiction, even as we move to ebooks. It’s strange, really, once you stop to think about it. One of the benefits of an electronic medium is the ability to link and follow links. And yet, we’re still using ebooks to pretty much replicate what happens in print, only on screen.

You have to think that will change, huh?

Anyway, I think one advantage the WordPress.com format gives is that you can know you’ve read everything. One of the things I liked least about the format “afternoon” is written in originally (Storyspace) is that I always worried I was missing out on some piece of text that I needed in order to make sense of things.

Now, if you’re a postmodernist, the idea that you can create a story in which your reader will indeed worry she’s missing out on some crucial piece of text is probably really exciting, a comment on our contemporary lives and the lack of meaning, etc.

But the thing I like best about postmodernism is the sense of playful experimentation. What, exactly, might we do with a story?

It’s like, if we go see a magician and he says he can make a quarter disappear so I hand him one of mine, if the quarter doesn’t come back… well, that’s not so fun for me, nor is it much of a trick, really. But, if there is magic and I end up with my quarter back? That’s good fun.

I want my story to be good fun. I want y’all to feel like you can play in it precisely because you don’t have to miss anything.

But… yeah… retro-future. Is that a word? It should be. The future we envisioned that didn’t quite come to pass. Like flying cars and multi-linear fiction*.

 

*Back in my day, we used to call it non-linear fiction, but my master’s thesis was all about why that was wrong and it was actually multi-linear not non-linear. Yeah, you can really get a degree in shit like that. It’s both awesome and frightening.

Tony’s Foodland: Another Good Thing

Okay, before I start the post I actually intend to write, let me just give you reason number at least 5 why I like Tony’s Foodland better than Kroger. So, yesterday, I got this weird hankering for an apple. Like just this feeling like, if I didn’t have an apple, my whole life would be ruined. I needed milk anyway, so I decided to go to Tony’s–apple and milk makes it a small enough trip that, even if Tony’s is a little more expensive, I feel like they’ve earned that five cents for my convenience.

Anyway, while I was there, I decided to pick up fixings for enchiladas for dinner. I returned home and realized I didn’t have my meat, onions, peppers, or sauce. I had left a bag at the store.

So, back I went. In I ran. I came through the doors and they instantly started teasing me, “Oh, did you forget your dinner?” “Yes.” “It’s in the cooler.” And it was! In the ice cooler. “We knew you’d be back for it.”

People, they put my lost bag in the cooler by the door and Joelton is still small enough that they could do that without having to worry that anyone other than the rightful doofus who left it would run off with it.

Too bad Joelton is filled with rabid vampire bats. The ten shots a week I have to get right in my eye in order to protect me from them really prevents me from recommending that anyone move to this part of Davidson County. Also, up in Joelton proper, I hear that Gary Moore‘s mustache roams Paradise Ridge at night slashing tires and eating small livestock. Really, y’all are safer in town.