Bruce McCandless III's Blog: From Here to Infirmity, page 4

New Super Heroes

A comic book writer friend of mine recently asked me to come up with a new group of super heroes based on people I've known. It has been harder than I anticipated, but I think I've finally got a winner with:

THE LEAGUE OF ENGLISH GRADUATE STUDENT AVENGERS

Captain Grammatica: Thought to be dead some seventy years ago, but unfrozen and revived by a coterie of Midwestern librarians sometime in the early Eighties; continues to bore and vex to this day. Head and shield made of solid adamantium.

Irony Man: Primary super power is that he is extremely annoying. Master of the dark arts of contextualization. Can make enemies feel depressed and ambivalent.

‘Phor, Norse god of similes: Not much good in a fight, but very descriptive.

The Incredible Sulk: Moody but powerful dramatist. Wields razor-sharp dialogue. Turns EVERYTHING into a battle.

The Scarlet, Which: Has mystical powers, but hard to summon quickly, given syntactical conventions applicable to nonrestrictive clauses.

Antonym Man: Can promptly supply the opposite of any term uttered by super villains. Often teams with Quicksynonym, who can't.

Version: Constantly revising set of super powers; suffers from occasional continuity lapses.

WASP: Uses canon as weapon to set up impenetrable “sphere of influence,” usually in faculty lounge areas. Not good in groups. And getting old.

Just Back!

One of my daughters and I returned to Austin yesterday from a week-long road trip to Colorado. We had a great time. The experience was a little less grueling than usual for me because my daughter has her learner's permit and helped me with some of the driving. I say "less grueling." It was physically less of a strain, but riding with a novice driver traveling at 70 m.p.h. can involve certain psychological stresses. Without further ado, then, another of the cautionary poems I've been posting on these pages, this one about, well...

CARS

Compelled by a sudden collision
to speak with an oncoming Buick’s transmission,

run over, crushed, or trapped inside,
locked in when the temperature starts to rise,

more kids are killed each year by cars
than soldiers die in foreign wars.

You can talk about tanks or missile barrages.
The bigger threat lurks nearby, in garages:

A ton and a half of oil and steel,
not aimed by the barrel but steered by a wheel

and soon you’ll get your license to drive it!
Let’s all say a prayer. Perhaps you’ll survive it.

Danger Rating: Extremely High

Survival Tips:

• Buckle up
• Don’t ride with idiots
• Take the bus

From the Heart

Let’s face it. No one (or almost no one) is going to get rich writing or publishing independent fiction. We lack the marketing machinery, the media contacts, the distribution channels. But we do it anyway, for the same reason writers have written and painters have painted and composers have hummed melodies to themselves for so many centuries. We do it because we need to. We do it because it’s important to us to make something true and resonant and, yes, maybe, beautiful. We do it because that seems like a whole lot of the point of human existence. So we glower and brood and grouse and keep on keeping on, regardless of the depressing economic realities. But every once in a while, we're rewarded with something so cool—not so remunerative, but so cool nonetheless—that the whole endeavor suddenly seems worthwhile all over again. And that, my friends, is a positive review. I know it’s not supposed to matter, but for me, it definitely does. I read something a reader wrote this week about Color War, my little coming-of-age novel, and it completely made my day—my week—maybe my year. Because this reader totally got what I was trying to say. We connected, in the same way I connected with Richard Adams when I read Watership Down, and the way I connected with J.R.R. Tolkien when I read The Lord of the Rings, and the way I connect with Leonard Cohen every time I hear “Take This Waltz.” And my book—the bridge—this portal—was how it happened. It’s cool to think that it’s out there, completed, just waiting for someone else to happen along and climb inside. Or course that doesn’t happen with every book or every reader. Most writers I know appreciate criticism as well as praise. It’s a thrill just to know someone is out there, reading what I’ve written. But don’t ever let a writer tell you he or she doesn’t like to hear that a reader somewhere, for some reason, really loved his book. It matters. And it’s magic.

Mean People

Here's another entry from the series of "cautionary poems" my teenaged daughter and I are doing. All comments welcome!

Mean People

It was common knowledge in our part of town
(and in other precincts it was going around)
that no kid liked playing with Hillary Snow
because of the way that she carried on so
whenever she felt like she had been slighted.
It didn’t take much to get her excited.

A toy in the arms of another young friend
was enough to send Hillary off ‘round the bend,
fussing and fighting, kicking and biting.
For miles around there’d be buses colliding,
for the sound of her screams was famously known
to carry a highly unsettling tone

that made people want to yank out their hair—
to slobber like monkeys—to gibber and stare
till whatever young Hillary wanted at last
was given back into her tight little grasp.
To most other children it didn’t seem righteous
that Hillary prospered while so unpoliteous.

In fact, Sid Gollub and Natasha McDivitt
and Farley O’Slubb and Myrtle Rae Trivett
begged their parents not to make them appear
at Hillary’s house for her birthday each year.
But this time was different. The word got around
that Hillary’s folks had sat the tyke down

and pleaded with Hillary please to be nice.
Because they knew pleading might not suffice,
they also tried bribing their nettlesome daughter
with gewgaws and gifties they’d secretly bought her
and others they promised, of every description:
a desperate last measure; a slim-chance prescription,

But the promises did seem to make an impression.
The girl and her parents emerged from that session
with a solid accord: no screaming, no shrieking,
no flails on the floor while others were speaking.
She’d act like a lady—her word was her bond—
and be well-rewarded. At last the day dawned.

Oh, how the sun sparkled! How the kids cheered!
For the party was nothing at all like they’d feared.
They could play with whatever toys they enjoyed—
With Fantastical Space Bombs! With Slippery Floyd!
With a Pneumatic Goo Maker (CAUTION: REAL GOO)
and a diaphanous electronic didgeridoo!

It’s hard to say now just what happened that day,
but the cause was a simple one, some people say.
Hillary realized that the children who’d come—
not some, but all eighty—were having more fun
than she was—and she was, you see, the point of it all,
the center of everything, belle of the ball,

and to see, just to witness, that Myrtle Rae Trivett
laughing and dancing made Hillary livid.
Why was O’Slubb turning flips in the air
off the pool’s diving board while everyone stared?
This was her party! Her once-yearly bash!
So forget the danged pony! All the grimy green cash!

Her parents were more than usually frightened
to see how Hill’s anger rapidly heightened.
She drew back her shoulders, her arms and her knees.
She tensed up her innards. She squelched a large sneeze.
She swelled like a tire that’s been blown up too tight,
or a nine year-old’s water balloon on Halloween night.

It’s difficult here not to be somewhat graphic.
As authorities quickly rerouted air traffic,
Hill twirled like a sprinkler dousing the grass.
She jerked like a demon attending high mass.
And this was a doozie, a real humfaloodler;
Nothing they shouted even seemed to get through to her.

And so little Hill unleashed her last tantrum,
a seizure unmatched by any panjandrum
or chubby-cheeked princeling or monarch of old.
The sight was enough to turn torrid blood cold.
As she started to glow like a ripe habanero,
Sid Gollub screamed, “Git! She’s fixin’ to BLOW!”

and sure enough, upward did Hillary geyser,
fragments of torso like stars in the sky, sir.
And as gravity started pulling them low
all the happy kids shouted, “It’s HILLARY snow!”
From that time onward, it was part of her fame:
no two flakes of that girl looked exactly the same.

The point of this poem is not to give lessons,
nor even to rattle with metrical mention
all those in our ranks who have not learned to share.
The aim is to show, for all who may care,
how a mean little child—Tyrannis, sic semper!—
exploded herself with a very bad temper.

Danger Rating: Mild (but persistent, with increasing risk of headache)

Survival tips:

• Avoid mean people. They might explode. Or take yer stuff.

Struggles With Cyrenaica

I suppose it's no secret that I've wrestled with my novel Cyrenaica for almost four years now. For some reason I just can't seem to get it all out there where I want it, so I keep writing, and rewriting, and sometimes I want to just throw the whole thing out and start all over again. Or not! But even so, there are a few things that I like about the story, and one of them is a passage that equates a sandstorm with the end of the world, with our heroes, a small band of U.S. Marines, pinned underneath it. See what you think:

Now the desert takes them in. A storm from the south brings a shoulder of sand half a mile high and as far across as the eye can see, advancing out of the wasteland like a yellow wall of surf. Locals call this phenomenon the simum—the poison wind. The fine dust sets the Christians’ teeth on edge. There is sand in everything, grit in all they eat. Palm trees rustle and shake in the tempest and the world is without form, as if all echoes of the Almighty’s ordering strictures uttered at and in creation of Creation itself have finally trailed off into corridors of nothingness beyond light and human hope and the motes and atoms and elemental stuff of existence, unbound at last, have devolved immediately into mere random movement now and for the rest of eternity hot and howling and corrosive to the touch. The Americans wrap cloth around their faces for fear of losing their sight to the wind-driven particles, and they move through the streets laterally, with one hand raised as if to ward off this prolonged and awful judgment of the sky.

More Cautionary Poems

OK so here's a couple more poems from the series I'm doing with my daughter, tentatively titled "Carson Clare's Trail Guide to Avoiding Death--A Collection of Cautions Designed to Help You Live Life, Do Cool Stuff, and Possibly Make it Through Middle School."

I personally don't regard the patriarchy as that big a menace, but what do I know?

The Patriarchy

If you were born female
(and if so, huzzah!)

here’s something else
that may stick in your craw:

It’s the inclination of men
to make women believe

that they’re lesser somehow.
It happened to Eve,

who was blamed by her mate
for a diet decision

that led to the couple’s
sweet lease deal rescission.

But who wrote that tale?
Can you answer, “men”?

And who was around
to take statements back then?

The fact of the matter is,

men have long tried,
by hook and by crook,

to keep women down
on the basis of looks

and whether we coddle
the egos of dudes

and admire their muscles.
These lame attitudes.

worked for years upon years.
Women were chattel—

couldn’t own, couldn’t vote—
we were bartered like cattle—

made to work for low pay.
It’s still that way

in lots of earth’s regions,
and some think it’s okay

but others of us
are determined to state

that women are equals,
and equals don’t wait

for others to give
what is rightfully ours—

not one more mad minute,
not one more long hour.

We can do everything
our brothers can do,

and sometimes do it better
(it hurts, but it’s true).

So girls, mind the menace
that held us so long,

the big bearded peril
that’s reaped so much wrong,

the habit of men to
put us in fetters.

It worked for a while,
but now we know better.

These bonds aren’t of iron.
They’re made in the mind.

Only now they are breaking.
Because now is our time.


Sharks

As the ocean’s ultimate predator fish,
the shark is a difficult dude to dismiss:

emotionless, dead-eyed, unpersuaded by cute,
he’ll join you in your swimming suit.

But not to swim. He’s done all that.
He’s a big fan of your body fat.

For him there’s no difference between panic and play.
He can smell your blood a mile away.

His teeth are tough, and slice through skin
to leave a hole where your legs have been.

Of evolution’s many gifts,
give loud hosannas for this one:
while sharks may claim to rule the waves,
thank God they never learned to run!

Star Trek

Funny coincidence. On Sunday evening I took the family to see the new Star Trek movie. Yesterday afternoon, while my sixteen year-old daughter and I were browsing the various treasures to be found at South Austin Music, on South Lamar here in Austin, we saw Chris Pine (aka Captain James T. Kirk) in the store buying guitars. He can play a bit, too--we heard him demonstrating his slide guitar abilities before he made the purchase. Super cool! My daughter was a quivering lump of jelly. A movie star! Right in front of her! He's a good looking sonofagun, I'll give him that. And the movie? Just okay, in my opinion. Of the three "new" Star Trek movies, I think the first was the best. The two sequels haven't been quite as interesting. I also suspect the studio wasted Idris Elba as the villain. He is pretty much unrecognizable in the movie until the end, and even then he doesn't have a whole lot to do. On the other hand, the special effects were impressive, and the Enterprise has never looked better--at least, before certain plot developments that I will refrain from discussing for the moment!

Summer

Greetings.

For health-related reasons I won't get into here, I've taken the summer off from practicing law. Overall, despite the smothering, homicidal heat of central Texas, it's been pleasant. I've spent time with my daughters, ridden my bike, traveled a bit, and played my guitar. I've also been working on some poems with the younger of my two daughters, a whip-thin, razor-tongued, thoroughly dangerous 14-year-old named Carson. The poems are meant to be a series of mostly jocular warnings about the bad things a kid may encounter in growing up. It's called "Carson Clare's Trail Guide to Avoiding Death And Other Unpleasant Consequences: A Collection of Cautions Designed to Help You Live Life, Do Stuff, and Possibly Make it Through Middle School." (Whew! Long title, I know.)

I'd love to hear some thoughts from you all about the poems, which I plan to post here as we get them roughed out. Here's a couple of samples:


ALIENS

We know they’re lurking around out in space.
It’s a matter of math. The probabilities shout it.
What we can’t understand about our alien friends
Is why they’re determined to make us all doubt it.

With a million planets out there for good living,
Why are our neighbors so shy about giving
Us just a quick glimpse of their tentacled faces,
Or the intricate gleams of their sleek carapaces?

Or their luminous distended fibrous lungs?
Or the sentient creatures who live on their tongues?
Are their claws made of carbon, or crazier stuff?
When will they figure we’ve been patient enough?

ON THE OTHER HAND:

What if, when they go to give us a hug,
They transmit some creepy carnivorous slug
That eats us like Jell-O: quivering, wet?
On second thought, maybe we’ll wait a while yet!

Danger Rating: Speculative

Survival Tips:

• Avoid kissing hideous aliens
• Encourage development of new laser technologies



ANXIETY

The snooze bone rests
just in front of the back,
near the buoyancy bulb
and the sympathy sack—

either of which
can generate trouble
if punctured or prodded,
squashed or bent double.

But worse is the loss
of this zigzagrous bone
that comforts the cranky
and welcomes him home.

With no viable bone
to soothe one to sleep,
one’s worries start stacking
themselves in a heap,

till finally the pile
is as big as a redwood.
You get to school angry
and don’t go to bed good.

Your visions hightail it
for other soft heads,
to “dance their endancements,”
as someone once said.

At least the snooze bone
is easily tended.
Don’t try to sleep nervous,
or till your mad’s ended,

just let this odd item
expand in your chest.
(It works in a lawn chair,
but supine is best.)

Don’t summon deep thoughts.
Be quiet. They’ll come.
Your brain will unbungle,
your bone start to hum

till your room fades to black,
bright stars crowd around,
and the voices beneath you
aren’t making a sound.

Welcome, Dream Sailor!
Now steer for the sea,
where all that you hope for
meets all you will be.

Danger Rating: Cumulative

Survival Tips:
• Sleep when you can
• Drink chamomile tea
• Attend school board meetings