Glimm Frairy Tares

At Barnes and Noble tonight I picked up a book of Grimm's Fairy Tales done as newspaper style comics. These were the original tales, mind you, the ones where Cinderella's evil stepsisters cut their toes and heels off with a knife in order to fit in the shoes, and where Red Riding Hood got eaten by the wolf along with Granny. Some of those stories are so random that I can only imagine them being told by a slurring drunkard. Take, for instance, the story of One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes, presented here as it was no doubt originally told:

Ok, ok, ok. So... ok. So there's this girl. No! There's this three girls an' they've got eyes, right? Only see, they... um... ok, so one of the girls has one eye... and not another one... and one of the girls has two eyes, and oneofthegirlshasthreeeyes. *Burp* Ok, ok, so... right... so the girl with two eyes is made fun of because she's got two eyes, and not one or three. And... um... they don't feed her. Or they feed her scraps. Right, they feed her scraps. And um... OH! There's a GOAT! And there's an old lady... and when the girl sings to the goat... it... um... makes... food. Anhersistersdonlikeit. So... um... they kill it. The goat. They kill the goat, right? Only she buries the heart. The girl. The one with the two eyes. She buries the goats heart. The old lady told her to, and um... it turns into... a tree. A goat tree. NO! A GOLD tree! *Hic* Only the tree don't like the sisters. Cuz they been mean an killedthegoat. An... OH! A Knight says, I want a stick from the tree... an if someone gives me one I'll marry them. If it's a girl. If a girl gives me a stick I'll marry her. An she'll be my... um... girl knight. Right. An she does, an they get married, and she flips the sisters the V.

The various Princes and Knights and Kings and such in these stories crack me up. Marriage is just something they offer up to anyone that does them a favor, or even happens to be sprawled unconscious in their path. They must have rooms full of wives.

"I'll marry you if you give me a golden apple."
"I'll marry you if you wear this shoe I found in the gutter."
"Are you going to finish that waffle? I'll marry you if you give me half."

When did girls get the idea that marrying a prince was something to aspire to. As far as I can tell, you don't need charm and grace and beauty. You need something shiny and maybe a piece of candy.

Fwah

My house is a house of plague this week. Disease and runny bottoms stalk the house like stinky, drippy lions. The boy was particularly affected this morning. When he is sick his diapers have a... quality to them. It's almost non-biological, like he's been drinking too much paint stripper. It is an odor Lovecraftian in character. It makes me want to use words like,"eldritch." Like, a lot. Practically in every sentence, till it begins to mean nothing. (I did not actually say "eldritch" while changing him, though at one point I did say "gorf.")

Ok, see, here's the thing about Lovecraft. He did present a lot of horrifying and disturbing ideas in his works. The universe is a chaotic meaningless mess of energies, and concepts such as morality, order, and even logic are drivel. That one bothers me. Or that God (or gods) are so alien that they would tear apart the universe; not because they are malevolent, but simply because they don't know any better. That one is disturbing. A lot of writers have Mr. Hewlett-Packard as a major influence on their work, because he had a good grasp of not just what was horrifying, but what was disturbing on a fundamental lever.

However,

The guy was not a good storyteller. With a few exceptions, his stories are actually much better if you have someone else tell them to you. I think he had an overinflated sense of his own mysteriousness. Or perhaps he underestimated his audience's ability to put one and one together to make two. Here is an outline of a typical offering:

The protagonist was always a little strange (He looks/acts like an ape/frog)
The protagonist uncovers information that brings to light strange and disturbing information about his ancestors (They were half ape/frog)
The protagonist travels to the town of his birth to discover more about his family (The half ape/frog side of his family.)
Everyone in the town shows similar strange traits (being that they are all half ape/frog)
Protagonist has strange encounter with indescribable otherworldly being. (Described as being indescribable. Probably has tentacles. Ape/frog people are in attendance)
Protagonist uncovers further clues (ape/frog related)
Protagonist begins to suspect the truth, but refuses to believe it. (by "it", I mean that he's half ape/frog)
After final encounter with amorphous otherworldly being (whose name is revealed to be Aqltrypbnghs) protagonist discovers the awful truth (the whole ape/frogman thing) The revelation drives him insane and he kills himself.

The real problem with the story is that the reader worked out everything that would happen within the first 10 sentences. The suspense and horror you should be feeling is replaced by impatience. You can't help but wonder why the protagonist still isn't putting the pieces together. It might have to do with the fact that he's a half ape/frog, but he seems fairly intelligent in every other way. Plus, lovecraftian monstrosities are always completely indescribable (unless they are octopoid). To make up for the fact that he cannot describe them without contradicting himself, he resorts to over-using uncommon overly-erudite words which basically mean things like "strange" and "wibbly" and "just kind of, you know, odd." In order to truly be horrifying, a monster needs a better description than "thingy."

Anyway, I had to give him a bath because the wipes weren't up to the task.

Third place

Here

I think the biggest edge the other stories had over mine was that they were polished. It's a thing I need to work on. I tend not to sand and polish my work after I finish it. The story is out of my head, and that's me finished. In this case, there wasn't even a second draft. Definitely something I need to work on.

Also, they changed the formatting. The original manuscript was set up to make it obvious when the scene was changing. That formatting got lost, so it's a bit more confusing. Oh well.

Huzzah!

The Shine Journal

If you click the above link, you will notice that the site mentions a contest called "Let's See Your Shorts," and lists the three winning stories. Who has two thumbs and wrote one of those stories? This guy!

'Cept you can't see my thumbs. Or me either.

I meant me. I wrote one of them. "In the Empty Ward." I guess they'll be publishing them later this month.

Huzzah!

Yeast and Caffeine

To the left is a picture of USP grade "Anhydrous" caffeine. According to Wikipedia, "it may be synthesized from dimethyl urea and malonic acid."


UREA.


There are 3 achievements that every culture on the planet acquired so early in their development that one might be tempted to think that they are the prerequisites for civilization. They are Caffeine, Ethanol, and Bread (with an emphasis on sandwiches.)

Historical accounts and academic speculation suggests that ancient man woke up every morning, bleary-eyed and confused, and wandered around the campsite chewing on the landscaping in hopes that something would wake them up.

According to one popular Chinese legend, the Emperor of China Shennong, reputed to have reigned in about 3000 BC, accidentally discovered that when some leaves fell into boiling water, a fragrant and restorative drink resulted.

It is not revealed in the story why he was boiling water under a rapidly balding tree, but the British are certainly happy that he did.

An Ethiopian guy named Kaldi discovered that when goats ate coffee berries they got hyper. Most ancient culinary discoveries started with the phrase, "What are those goats eating?"

The west Africans gnawed on Kola nuts. Mayans had chocolate, which was probably the greatest reason for declaring war on them and taking all their stuff. North American Aboriginal Native American Indians boiled the leaves of a species of holly to make something they referred to as "The Black Drink." Awesome.

On to ethanol, the active ingredient in booze. Archaeologists have discovered evidence that quaffing was occurring as far back as 9000 years ago. This is not surprising, since it's just juice that's gone off. Really, all that was required for the discovery of alcohol was one really thirsty guy and a lack of options. Man, but once it was discovered, people pursued it.

Step 1: Try this on every other form of fruit juice.
Step 2: We ran out of fruit (note: get more grapes) Let's try um... how about grass seeds?
Step 3: Ok, now what? Think people! Um, potatoes? Cactus? Pine trees?!

Practically every form of food has had the, "It's good, but it doesn't make me loopy," test applied to it, and has come out the other side as an adult beverage. Mankind has yet to produce a true meat-based fermented beverage yet, but we are trying.

Bread, Tortilla, Naan, Pita, Matza, Roti, Bing (snrk).
Sandwiches, Burritos, Moo shu, Gyro, Shawarma.

Bread comes in many forms, all of them consisting primarily of ground seeds, liquid, and fat. Yeast was added early on, probably as a result of the above 3 step plan. (It's good, but did you try leaving it out for several days uncovered? It worked for the grape juice.)

And then the pinnacle of Lunch-science research (cue Also sprach Zarathustra) humanity across all continents considered moving the meat from beside the bread to inside the bread. The Sandwich was born, and was subsequently named after the guy who was probably the last person to think of it. Some guy in tights and breeches proclaims "I just thought about putting meat in bread!" while some middle eastern shepherds are wrapping drippy chunks of lamb in flatbread and saying, "yeah, way to be ahead of the curve there, Einstein."

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that I'm nearly done with story #1 of my 52 story New Year Resolution, except that it's actually a single chapter of a larger story. I decided to expand my definition to include chapters. Just so long as it is a complete chapter. No reason to get sloppy or lazy just because you can change the rules.

Something Yellow

Well the day went OK, apparently. According to Dear Wife, both teachers are about 12, but with cutbacks and budgeting concerns etc... and of course we're talking kindergarten and second grade. I'm sure by middle school the teachers are 18 or 19. Oldest Daughter made 3 friends whose names she listed off for me, and she somehow organized a play date for tomorrow.

Middle Daughter played with some kids.

Still, that's better than I expected. I hope that by the summer she will know their names and have some friends that are just hers.

She just reported to me that Youngest Daughter threw a thing at something yellow. I will fill in the blanks as my imagination sees fit.

I suppose it beats the textile factory.

The two oldest girls are starting school today. They are both very excited. It's a perfect real world example of the "ignorance is bliss" principle. Did you ever watch Firefly? Remember the Reavers? In my experience, kids in school are just like that, but without the cannibalism and psychotic murder. The teachers were at least attentive enough to disallow those. Of course, the kids I went to middle school with were notorious for being the biggest bunch of proto-felons to ever walk the halls. The teacher's were actually afraid of many of them. So were the students, and presumably their parents. I suspect that today their parole officers are a bit nervous around them too. I think the oldest will be fine. She's a lot like my brother, who never had trouble making friends. The younger one takes after me, however. People tended to raise one eyebrow at me, as a sort of standard greeting. I used to talk to my hand. My younger oldest daughter walks around in a cocoon of her own imagination, just like I did, and it is certainly not conducive to making friends. Or listening to teachers. I shall cross my fingers and hope that her experience is better than mine. Or at least that she's good at building character.