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Category Archives: Creative Nonfiction

On Anthropomorphism and More

— Words: Fire Truck, Purple, Ger, Goat The goat saunters by like a pimp in a cadillac — one touch look from a cop and they freeze in terror, but then they’re back to bizness as uzual. The life of the goat is driven by a raw spontaneity that has little human equivalent outside of: childhood, senility or mental illness — and perhaps those hippie free-spirits who dance around in fields all day or drop lots of acid.

Posted 26 March 2008 † Yuletide § Exercises § Incoherence § Shorts ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Turis Fatyr the Viking Goat Pirate

Turis the Viking Goat who sailed the seven seas — with trusty crew manning the ropes, for Nature is a cruel mistress, who saw it fit to deny Turis Fatyr the use of opposable thumbs ( one day!… Oh, how he longed to feel the cool waves lap against his skin — yet again, nature was cruel.

Posted 26 March 2008 † Yuletide § Exercises § Fiction ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Warmups & Fragments

In the Bible, it was decided that Sheep and Goats were Different; those of the Nineties know the refrain: “Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell.”… Goats were given the humble and thankless duty of carrying the sins (read: bubonic plague-ridden clothes) of a village into the woods (i.e. Carrying the “sins” to the next village…).

Posted 26 March 2008 † Yuletide § Exercises § Incoherence ‡ Comments (0) °

“I see you’ve found yourself a goat.”

She recognized him at once; he was the only Ninja in all of Belgium, and he sulked his way through the rain down the main boulevard, looking less like a ninja then a dejected schoolboy in November.

…The little dog started barking, its owner had left it tied up in the rain, and it was beginning to take on the look of a drowned rat—she was pulled from the haze of memory into the very real, and surreal moment of staring a goat straight in the face.

Posted 21 March 2008 † Yuletide § Exercises § Fiction ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Capra-cious

Wherefore art thou, goate? The diuell..dooth most properlie and commonlie transforme himselfe into a gote. –R. Scott. ‘Discov. Witchr.’ v.i.89. (1584) If you’re short of trouble, take a goat. –Finnish saying The goat and the sheep, two animals locked in perpetual binary harmony. Like some star system, they graze together, but in realms beyond their [...]

Posted 21 March 2008 † Yuletide § Work in Progress ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

How to decide to go to Mongolia

I see it all unfold from about, without. A meta-travel. We goto this land for many reasons that are all the same. We run from broken homes, repentant lovers, dead pets. Flip through the study-abroad brochures advertising semesters in Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam. Flip to the next page. Now you are in the Exotic section. Beijing, [...]

Posted 16 March 2008 † Yuletide § Work in Progress ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

General Advice on Mongolia Travel

If they fail to recognize you for your achievements (i.e. survival), realize they don’t get it (yet) and have faith that their time will come .

…well the G is swallowed, and calls up from the bottom of your throat, leading to a slippery o that somehow terminates in a soft V. Realize you won’t be learning this language from a book.

Posted 14 March 2008 † Yuletide § Commentary § Work in Progress ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

Cats, Marbles, and a School Teacher: Another Un-braided Braided Essay

I don’t know what whore you give the tip on this Night of Joy, but our boys have been in there almost every night and they haven’t turned up anything.

…She padded her way purposefully down each link of the fire escape, pausing only once to watch a man groggily swat at his blaring alarm clock.

Posted 14 March 2008 † Yuletide § Braided § Exercises § Fiction ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

On Leftist Gorillas and Industrial Decor (with Kyle)

To some people, the five South American dialects she spoke and translated, sounded like birds clicking and squawking at each other–to her it sounded like rain on a summer’s eve…. _A pebble on the ground caught her attention–she didn’t know the word for “pebble” in this part of the Amazon.

Posted 14 March 2008 † Yuletide § Exercises § Fiction ‡ Comments (0) °

More notes on a translator

Stand by and look uninvolved as she grilles the drivers for rates and times; you don’t want them to raise her rate because of you.

…She said she drinks, but just “doesn’t feel like it.” On your birthday?

Posted 14 March 2008 † Yuletide § Work in Progress ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,