Beer Philosophers 11 - Dude, You're an Einstein

If you've been a Clarity of Night reader for a while, you know the Beer Philosophers. They're a couple of dudes who get a little buzz on and misapply their college education with wacky and bizarre philosophical conversations.

Today, we take the Beer Philosophers to a whole new level. You're about to meet them, um, in person. So to speak.

Enjoy!





(P.S., Movie making has been something I'd love to do. This site, Xtranormal, at least let me play around with watered-down animation and camera angles. I had a blast!)

The Boys (Formerly) of Summer

It's around 10:20 a.m. on Thursday morning, and I'm sitting here in my truck at my train station waiting for the next train. A sixteen inch snowstorm/blizzard blew through last night. I've turned off the heat, but the radio is still on. Don Henley's Boys of Summer is playing. I smile.

At this moment I can unequivocally state that the boy of summer are GONE.

I drove through a snowdrift in the parking lot. Four wheel drive trucks come in handy sometimes. At least that was fun. :)

Carry on.

Rage and a Glass of Orange Juice

For the third time since she sat down for breakfast, Nami felt a flash of vertigo, the kind where your brain (or inner ear) screams that you’re falling, but your feet are planted firmly on the ground. Her hand slapped the table in a phantom reflex.

Her husband Sury raised an eyebrow.

Well, she didn’t see it rise, not exactly, but she knew what he was doing by the way his shoulders stiffened in her peripheral vision.

“Are you alright?” he said. His voice was accusatory, not kind.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Truth was, ever since she awoke, she had a fleeting sense that the Earth was wobbly. Like a log rolling out from under her feet. Earlier, she managed to knock into the wall and drop her toothbrush into the trash can.

She had depositions today with a name-partner in her law firm. Stacks of documents sat tabbed and arranged all over the table. Her take home work tended to annoy the shit out of Sury. Actually, everything up to and including her breathing tended to annoy Sury. It wasn’t her fault that his job was less important.

Some nausea welled up. More Earth tilting.

She took a big gulp of tea and absolutely refused to acknowledge it.

“Can you….” He motioned to her paperwork.

“No!” Nami said. “I can’t move it! You have plenty of room to sit!”

“Well, don’t blame me if I spill something on it.”

She waved his attitude away. Time was running out for her to cram. Time was always running out.

He chattered the chair over to a corner and shook his newspaper open much more loudly than he had to.

Her glare caught one of the headlines. Two missing ships in the Arctic Ocean. Disappeared without a trace.

She stood and began assembling her documents. If she didn’t seriously get moving, she would miss her train.

She caught Sury’s juice with the edge of one of her stacks. His glass sloshed over and shot a wave of orange toward her notes.

“No!” Nami screamed.

The panic and rage that flashed out of her was answered by a loud, sizzling pop.

A hot orange cloud hovered over the table. It smelled like hot laundry.

Sury’s newspaper tipped down. He gaped at the smoky haze.

The juice was gone. More than evaporated. Not even a drop remained on the table.

She couldn’t stop to contemplate what had happened or form the words to speak. As the weird mist of what had been juice tickled her cheeks, she stormed off hugging the papers.

For the first time that morning, the Earth seemed solid beneath her feet.


(Despite being super busy with my career, I've been feeling a little wistful about working on my novel. This excerpt is a scene near the beginning of EARTHTIDE that I decided to write today to dip my toes back in the water. Thanks for indulging me!)

I Drive a Dodge Stratus!

Being a big fan of Saturday Night Live style humor (and Monty Python), I find this kind of crap HILARIOUS....



Will Farrell does nasty-edged humor so well!

And this one, another favorite, I find, um, delicious:



Christopher Walken rocks! Any SNL favorites of your own?

Hors D'Oeuvres for the Brain #2

How Much are You Prepared to Give?

offers that are such a pleasure to bestow
transactions of smiles
have no real cost, you know
if you are really prepared to give
it leaves you lessened
a sacrifice of strength to let another grow

Blue Spanish Sky

It was a sad, slow Spanish song
I knew the words, but I sang them wrong
The one I love has left and gone without me
     --Chris Isaak, Blue Spanish Sky

Even as he kissed her neck, he knew it would be one of the last.

The midday hotel simmered in silence, waiting for the heat of the afternoon. In the room, the air was spiced, and the air curtained to exotic red.

So strange how in this moment, all of her dark elixirs were poured for him, but in a few minutes, and twelve steps out into the Mediterranean street, she would already be thousands of miles away.

The midday hotel simmered the first of the afternoon heat.

And he did not pull the red curtain aside to watch her go.

When the Water Trickles

“You should go outside. It’s not good to sit so long in here.”

The girl didn’t answer. Squares of light from a window illuminated her legs tight against the chair.

“The snow is crisp outside. Do you want to go sledding?”

The girl shook her head.

Her mother sighed in the doorway. “It’s going to be dark soon." The old floorboards creaked as the woman walked back to the farmhouse stairs.

The girl peered out at the sharp-angled sun.

The quilt on her bed rustled across the room as something unseen stood up.

“Can’t you stay?” she said.

The smoky silhouette of a boy stepped into the light at the window. She knew he was watching the position of the sun.

“I’ll find you when the snow clears,” she said.

But what if she did? Some long dead boy buried in mud and forgotten.

The shadow of a hand fell on her lap. Hers joined it.

It thinned to just another line of windowpane.

Hors D'Oeuvres for the Brain #1

Time Heals

Time doesn’t heal wounds. It coats them in bad cement and turns them into kitschy lawn ornaments.

Rid of Me

You're not rid of me
No, you're not rid me
I'll make you lick my injuries
     --P.J. Harvey, Rid of Me

He drank alone at the bar.

The crowd bumped him. Oozed and churned. An elbow pushed into ear, then apologized.

Words scrolled across the television screen above the bottles of alcohol. It was an on-going transcript for a baseball game. Reading the commentary was even more ludicrous than listening to it.

He trailed his fingers on the sweat of his dwindling drink.

His mind wandered to the memory of her ankle. And the smoothness of her inner thigh. And even deeper where her breath trembled with a mix of fire and overload.

An elbow pushed into his ear.

And didn’t apologize.

Beyond

she was a Celtic air
with her feet twirling warmth into sunset skies
he was tuft of fallen snow
blown crisp and pure on stinging skin
she would bend to kiss him
and he would bow his reverence
she was a princess with never a crown
he was a child of weather
with too much of the cold holding him down

Game Friday: Recipe Me

If you're still here, I have to surmise that you survived Christmas/Hanukkah/Etc., New Year's Eve, and yes, New Year's Day. I also ticked up another notch on the age-o-meter. It's unwind time after all that, no?

Here's the game for today. Since you've probably enjoyed lots of delectable meals recently, give us a recipe for you. Translate yourself into ingredients and a slick preparation.

Here goes mine: Artichoke hearts, sliced and sauteed. A little olive oil. Some shaved Romano. A filet next to it, just a bit red in the middle, with peppercorn sauce.

It's the Jason special! Don't forget to tip your waiter.

Cook yourself up in comments.

Beatitudes #5

::Blessed are the silent
     For they shall hear and see::

Horn and Hooves

in the beginning, the mind was void and without form
and Capricorn bowed deeply under the sword of Orion
the night was long, like the dreams of The Creator
before loneliness and boredom drove away primordial sleep
I was ready to ride the squeeze of the womb
a mind shedding darkness
I slid, splashed by blood and amniotic fluid
into waiting embrace of winter