Lyn Fuchs's Blog, page 3

Stephen King Gets IT Right

The new film version of Stephen King's novel It captivates viewers with adorable children and horrible apparitions, but the real demons that torment kids are clearly identified, despite the cryptic title. The spawn from hell are broken dysfunctional families (and they are legion). Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy put it thus: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way."

Yes, clowns can be creepy. Still, the corruption of the nest where humans are hatched clips fa...

Washing the Blood Off My Hands

I've had blood on my hands twice in 24 hours. I was dining last night with author Rick Skwiot in a Brazilian churrascaria when the first blood spilled. We were just finishing our salads. I dipped broccoli, carrots, tomatoes and mushrooms in succulent olive oil swirled with balsamic vinegar, which looked like the separated red cells and plasma that flowed from the spear piercing of the crucified Jesus. Rick queried about the wine list for more sangre de cristo, but they offered only Sangre de...

Curvaceous Rides and Straight Razors

We weave and whirl amidst shaggy green mountains. Fern-draped springs cascade on the left and bottomless cliffs drop off on the right. We’re flung back and forth. A gray squiggle highway ascends the knobby spine of the Americas through dense Sierra Norte wilderness. Our van abruptly halts.
An elderly Chinantec woman boards with white ponytail contrasting her muscled brown arms and baskets of green bananas contrasting the chilly alpine air. We plunge ahead into the mist. Tuxtepec and Oaxaca are...

Exploring a Jungle Devoid of Wild Animals

Nothing smells as fresh and fertile as cool rain in the jungle - except for my woman, but we are not discussing her right now. Dripping and cascading from every direction, rinsing and polishing the leaves to a shiny vibrant green from the treetops downward. A rainforest canopy is Doctor God's version of an oxygen tent. I'm a lucky permanent resident in this sanitarium.

As I sip my rich coffee grown on a nearby plantation, I notice that the jungle is somewhat devoid of wild animal noises today....

A Declaration of Liberating Dependence

Since no man is an island entire of itself, the July 4th American Declaration of Independence cannot have been absolute, but rather declared a certain type of independence that people must understand correctly to ever celebrate correctly. Beer and BBQ ain't near enough. Like my mother's ancestor Benjamin Franklin, I've thrown in my lot with uncouth savages in a brave new world (the Mexican jungle), so I know a little about giving up refined society for liberty and I want to help others have a...

Maybe America Should Just Divorce

California and New York (or Sodom and Gomorrah as they're called by their Christian names) are a different world from middle America, and it may be time for the barely united states to divorce over irreconcilable differences. This could be a good thing. I'll never forget the day a Bible belt woman told me that she didn't know where I could find a pub and wouldn't help me locate the devil's brew if she did. Okay, sorry I asked. Nor the night when a festival crowd in my native California glared...

Next Book: Primeval Woods & Primordial Stones

A crocodile thrashes beneath me. The squawking and dripping of the rainforest where Mel Gibson filmed Apocalypto and Sean Connery filmed Medicine Man surround three sides of my cozy wood cabin that overhangs a lily-choked shore and overlooks a mist-shrouded isle broadcasting monkey chatter across the glassy lake. It’s Christmas in the jungle. The lush fertility extends to a curvaceous young form peacefully dozing under the blanket beside me and deeply inhaling from the cool oxygenated air. I...

Eastern and Western Genital Mutilators

Deep within a cave on a remote mountain sits a bushy-bearded Asian jihadist who shares the outlook of a bushy-underarmed American feminist ensconced within the safe space of a modern university. Both are proud genital mutilation advocates. Seeming a world apart, they nevertheless carry the same sacred fire from down below, with the road to hell paved by their culturally-approved "good" intentions. Let me explain why all moral folks must reject such patriarchs and matriarchs. This is not for t...

How to Construct a Contented Life

My smug happiness annoys some people. That's fair. Their neurotic misery sometimes annoys me. Newsflash: I'm not going to give up my inappropriately bubbly bliss to make whiners more comfortable. Not gonna happen. Yet, I do feel a moral obligation to reveal those secrets of contentment I unintentionally and undeservedly stumbled upon. Here goes.

Many people construct their lives like New York skyscrapers. Each essential part of life is a separate building project. Let me explain. While their f...

Rattlesnake Musings and Manta Ray Moments

After I bent over and lifted a dusty rock, a fat coiled rattlesnake glared and hissed within easy striking distance of my face. The day could've easily been my last. I was a two-mile desert walk from the highway, then a thirty-minute hitched ride from a Mexican doctor, whose Spanish questions I could barely comprehend and answer on a good day without venom surging thru my veins. I froze in terror. Then I backed my head and torso away at the speed of tree growth, over the longest meter I've ev...