Charles Martin's Blog, page 41

This Week in Word of the Day/2-17

kinchin \kin-chin\, noun:

a child.

Seth was always a precocious and curious kinchin. A challenge to raise, impossible to educate, Seth didn’t let lackluster grades, heavy sighs, and an absent father figure diminish his sense of destiny.

So, when the robots from space invaded, Seth had seen enough movies to know that a kid always factored into the ultimate victory.

“Oh yeah?” Lieutenant Cleveland grunted as the bombs pummeled the city streets outside the bunker. “How do you know your not going to be one of those kids that just gets in the way and gets people killed?”

“Not today,” Seth grumbled, lifting the oversized helmet back over his eyes. “Not today.”

lollapalooza \lol-uh-puh-LOO-zuh\, noun:

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

She was a dazzling lollapalooza, a fireworks display of eccentricities and difficult ideas. Every date felt like a bull ride – furious energy, mania, and the most thrilling experience of the man’s life.

And like every bull ride, it ended too soon with him sitting on his ass, licking his wounds as she barreled off into the distance.

mainour \MEY-ner\, noun:

a stolen article found on the person of or near the thief: to be taken with the mainour.

When the mother left for the last time, the father was at a loss of how to process his sense of abandonment, much less that of their twelve year old daughter.

Unable to be reasonable when talking about the void in their family, the father decided to erase all evidence of her. Familyportraits disappeared from the walls, dozens of her beloved knick knacks were boxed up and hidden in the attic along with her treasured jewelry collection. And, of course, the father would not, could not discuss the mother in any other way than the past tense, as if he was a widower.

And that was how he considered the mother: dead.

As months passed, the wounds only festered. He despaired as their daughter struggled in school and distanced herself from her friends.

One morning, as he woke the daughter for school, he eyed a small bracelet on her bedside table. A simple mainour secreted from a box in the attic. The mother wore it almost daily as evidenced by the tarnished brass where it once caressed her delicate wrists.

The daughter pretended to sleep as she waited to see how the father would react. The father sighed, wiped a single tear away, then kissed the daughter on the head, leaving the bracelet where it rested.

She dressed, slipping on the bracelet last, then joined her father on the back porch to sip coffee like a grown-up and watch the most beautiful sunrise of her young life.

nuque \nook\, noun:

the back of the neck.

I want to be famous. That has always been true. From early childhood, I’ve daydreamed my fabulous successes, interviewed myself over the astonishing works I’ve created, and planned out my life once the world finally recognized my genius.

Yet, what do I do to grasp fame? To clutch it by the hair, force it to the pavement, stick my knee on its chest, and claim it once and for all?

Nothing.

I sit in my writing chair, stewing in the morning sun, knowing that the only powerful thought I will have this entire day is how I miss staring at the smooth, flawless skin on her delicate nuque, wondering if I can steal a kiss without waking her.

obnubilate \ob-NOO-buh-leyt\, verb:

to cloud over; becloud; obscure.

Further obnubilating the truth about what happened that night was the unprecedented convergence of penguins of all species on the shores of the city. They puttered through the streets by the tens of thousands in comic elegance, like a giant, roving cocktail mixer. The usually jaded citizens watched the animals in awe as they mingled harmlessly for two hours, then escaped back into the bay.

It would be hours before anyone realized that $1.3 billion from five major banks escaped with them.

paraph \PAR-uhf\, noun:

a flourish made after a signature, as in a document, originally as a precaution against forgery.

In this dead world, it was the pieces of the past that kept Kim alive. Some clung to hope, to the rumors that the dust cloud was thinning and the sunlight would soon break free, but Kim had stopped looking for the dawn long ago.

Instead, she sorted family photos with the husband shot by raiders, the son that disappeared while foraging for food, and the youngest boy who was waiting out the last days with her.

She was fascinated by documents, contracts, birth certificates. They seemed even more real: the car they bought two years before everything collapsed, the vaccination records scribbled out by their aging and distracted doctor, her husband’s eccentric signature on the mortgage with the ridiculous paraph on the end like a childish smirk.

She cherished report cards and essays, insurance verification cards and expired passports even more than school photos and mall portraits because the documents were footprints. Should this planet ever cough up this dust and sprout new life, something would find Kim’s treasure of paperwork and would not just know that this family existed, but they would know how and why they existed.

quittance \KWIT-ns\, noun:

1. recompense or requital.

2. discharge from a debt or obligation.

3. a document certifying discharge from debt or obligation, as a receipt.

Julio smelt like sweat and a dried out condom, just like always. His fingers were so fat and stubby that they struggled to grip the pen as it scribbled onto a greasy scrap ripped off a fast food sack. He wheezed with each breath, the sound of a man that wouldn’t have survived in humanity’s primitive days, but in this modern world, he was a king, the new Buddha image of a corrupt age of abundance.

Outside the office door, the pounding bass thumped out a weary, overworked hair metal ballad older than the 19 year old that was pealing off her clothes on stage, pretending to have a good time.

Julio stopped writing and glanced at a monitor to make sure the girl took off her top. They had problems with that among the day shift girls when it was slow in the club.

“Attah, girl,” he whispered, then scratched out a few more lines on the paper and slid it across the desk, leaving his hand pressed on the paper so Chloe couldn’t retrieve the quittance without touching his fingertips.

“See you soon,” Julio grunted with a smirk.

“Never again,” Chloe whispered as she stood and turned.

She tried to escape, but the door was locked.

“Hit the button please,” Chloe muttered.

She tried the door again, but it wouldn’t yield. She was trapped in the room with his wheezing, his sour, chemical sweat.

“Hit the button, please,” Chloe repeated.

Her forehead rested against the cold metal door. The tears began silently. She couldn’t let him see the panic.

“Hit the button please.”

A harsh buzz. Her hand jerked at the handle and she was gone.

Superstocking

This Week in Word of the Day 2-10-2013

dyslogistic \dis-luh-JIS-tik\, adjective:

conveying disapproval or censure; not complimentary or eulogistic.

The fever hit Edward at the height of love, as it always did. A panic, a desperate urge to regain control of his life, rip it from the happiness that seemed so pure that it must be a lie. The relationship severed quick and sudden, like the unexpected puff of a silencer from an assassin passing through the crowd. His lover had no time to argue, no time to even react as Edward passed into the mist without another word. Within a week, the fever passed and he realized what he’d done, but no amount of backtracking or groveling would stitch together the fatal wound he’d dealt. A series of cordial, but dyslogistic emails passed between them, replacing panic with the shame that Edward was too old to be so foolishly naive about matters of his own heart.

epexegesis \ep-ek-si-JEE-sis\, noun:

1. the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.

2. the word or words so added.

Despite his mother’s stern protests, James chased his dream of crafting epexegesis footnotes for literary classics such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “Sense and Sensibility”. He was at his happiest when he lived in a small, one bedroom apartment in Italy, hardly able to afford two meals a day while pouring over the Dead Sea Scrolls. Never particularly interested in creating prose or traditional academic writing, he instead saw his chosen field as a saintly duty, anonymously whispering into the ears of the reader, guiding them through some of the most wondrous literary worlds ever created.

feuilleton \FOI-i-tn\, noun:

1. a part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, fiction, criticism, etc.

2. an item printed in the feuilleton.

The staff of the local feuilleton scurried to the window to steal a glimpse of the old man puttering down the street. His wrinkled scalp barely possessing the life to cling to the thin white hair sprouting out and waving wildly with the wind. His clothes wrinkled and misbuttoned, untucked awkwardly on the left side, a general state of dishevel from a man doing the best he could on his own.

He held a thin, brown envelope containing the latest installment of a love letter submitted in parts, once a month to the paper for the past thirty years. The old man was nameless, he would not talk to anyone at the paper, he would simply drop the envelope and retreat back into obscurity.

But the letter, the lush opus of longing and regret, would be read greedily by every staff member. It would pass from desk to desk. Women would brush away tears, the men would sigh, then chuckle uncomfortably.

At the end of the day, the letter would be placed in a special file cabinet reserved for the old man’s growing masterpiece. Newspaper guidelines dictated that the feuilleton could not publish anonymous submissions.

gastronomy \ga-STRON-uh-mee\, noun:

1. the art or science of good eating.

2. a style of cooking or eating.

Kathy constructed a shell early in her life, an impenetrable silence that insulated her from a parade of horrors she endured throughout her childhood.

She escaped and grew. She married and conceived children, but no amount of love could pierce the shell. Her children hardly knew her, her husband was often just a roommate, but through gastronomy she provided a glimpse of what she felt deep inside. Hours spent researching, exploring, and laboring every week produced dish after dish of culinary genius. And every creation was a hesitant whisper of “I do love you.”

hent \hent\, verb:

to seize.

They met every night, just after their parents settled in to bed and couldn’t hear them slipping out windows. Barry and Mary both kept backpacks stocked with clothes, food, water, playing cards, everything a pair of eight year olds would need to survive alone on the road. They sat on the curb in the dim moonlight, not talking, but watching the traffic pass on the distant highway.

Barry never asked why, which was fine since Mary wouldn’t have been able to explain anyway. She just depended on the ceremony desperately. She knew that if she didn’t see Barry, she would never be able to survive what waited at home. One day they would meet at the curb and they would keep on walking. Barry would leave without a word and they would be happy and safe. Maybe they could live in Hollywood and see movie stars.*

*And, the day she emerged, a purple mouse swelling beneath her right eye, a trickle of blood dripping from the edge of her lips, he hented his beloved and flew with her to the stars!**

** Forgot to put the word in the original sentence.

irrefrangible \ir-i-FRAN-juh-buhl\, adjective:

1. not to be broken or violated; inviolable: an irrefrangible rule of etiquette.

2. incapable of being refracted.

An irrefrangible rule of the weekly golf outings was they never talked about her, the greatest love of both men’s lives. The were close friends before, they were close friends after, but during that ten year stretch, the woman swept into their lives and carved out a path of destruction that severed their bond.

There was no sense talking of who loved her most and certainly not about who she hurt the worst. She was a beautiful diamond that beamed too bright for any man to remain sane around her.

It wasn’t her fault really. This was their unspoken agreement.

After the final hole and a few silent beers at the clubhouse, they stopped by the cemetery to drop off stemless roses at her tombstone.

Jacobin \JAK-uh-bin\, noun:

1. an extreme radical, especially in politics.

2. (in the French Revolution) a member of a radical society or club of revolutionaries that promoted the Reign of Terror and other extreme measures, active chiefly from 1789 to 1794: so called from the Dominican convent in Paris, where they originally met.

3. a Dominican friar.

4. (lowercase) one of a fancy breed of domestic pigeons having neck feathers that hang over the head like a hood.

Fervor among the remaining Jacobins waned as core members went off to fight with Napoleon, found gainful employment, or grew bored of the tiresome, blood-thirsty meetings. Gerard continued showing up week after week. He wasn’t sure why, aside from the nagging guilt that someone really needs to take minutes and they expected him to bring baguettes. They never thanked him anymore, but he knew no one else would and then they would be hungry, grumpy, and likely to riot.

He broached the idea of shifting the focus from targeting and killing royals to perhaps a book club or maybe an educational initiative about the health benefits of cleanliness. But, nope, just another two hours of “off with their heads”.

This Week in Word of the Day/1-27-12

 

From my daily writing indulgence:

intemerate \in-TEM-er-it\, adjective:

Inviolate; undefiled; unsullied; pure.

She slept in a bed as empty and vast as the Sahara. She shuffled around a house with walls soaked with the echoes of a broken marriage. She ate breakfast off of dishes – wedding presents – whose emotional stain she could taste in every bite.

But the lively boy bounding through the house, clinging to a plastic sword, brimming with smiles and laughter was the intemerate oasis that the woman depended on for survival. Her face was barely breaching the waves as she gasped for the strength to live, but the boy would never allow her to drown and she could never let him know that he carried such a heavy burden.

antipathetic \an-ti-puh-THET-ik\, adjective:

1. Opposed, averse, or contrary; having or showing antipathy: They were antipathetic to many of the proposed changes .

2. Causing or likely to cause antipathy: The new management was antipathetic to all of us.

They were so cool. They were throwing away their lives as all teenagers should, if only they had the nerve and dedication. They were tailspinning properly, with wild abandon and a watchful eye on the end of their world – the only world that mattered. It started with earnest, antipathetic rebellion against all adults who wouldn’t buy them alcohol and quickly graduated to holding up convenience stores, mugging drug dealers, and stealing cars. It was a chaotic tumble into the darkest abyss and as she cradled his head, blood bubbling out of his chest with each breath, he managed one last smile.

“I knew you would outlive me. The war is over, now go be happy.”

brabble \BRAB-uhl\, verb:

1. To argue stubbornly about trifles; wrangle.

noun:

1. Noisy, quarrelsome chatter.

“I think about the brabbles,” James grunted as he felt the glare of St. Peter raining down on him. “The way we fought – all the time, over every little thing. I don’t know what it says in that stupid book of yours. I don’t really care. We loved it. The angst, the conflict, it bonded us. I loved her dearly. And we fought about you, does it say that? I fought for you, for all of this, and now that I am here, standing before the Gates of Heaven, I don’t know why. She isn’t in there, I know that for a fact. I don’t know if there is a hell, if you have her strapped to a rock, punishing her for not believing, but wherever she is, that’s where I want to be. I would rather fight with my wife for the rest of time, burning in a pool of fire than bow before a God that couldn’t look past one wrong answer from a woman so beautiful and brilliant as her.”

en règle \ahn RE-gluh\, adjective:

In order; according to the rules; correct.

As the youngest active grandmaster, Myranda skipped college to comb the world looking for worthy opponents to challenge her blossoming chess skills. Cocky, ruthless, and powerful, Myranda was not interested in friendships or public relation. To the contrary, she relished the rumblings that arose from the men’s club of elite chess every time she arrived at a tournament. She loved the way they turned their backs as she walked into the room and she wanted nothing more than to have the miserable horde rally behind any male that found himself opposite her as she crushed his pride.

Her grandfather loved Myranda’s status as villainess and kept every clipping, however it may portray her. They played every morning she was home and both pretended that his dwindling mental faculties sometimes resulted in moves that were not entirely en règle, so as long as she won in the end.

kibitzer \KIB-it-ser\, noun:

1. A giver of uninvited or unwanted advice.

2. A spectator at a card game who looks at the players’ cards over their shoulders, especially one who gives unsolicited advice.

3. A person who jokes, chitchats, or makes wisecracks, especially while others are trying to work or to discuss something seriously.

“You’re always chewing your hair, Myranda. That’s how you get stomach cancer.”

Myranda ignored her hovering husband and instead focused on the board. She allowed a brief glimpse up at the dark cloak hiding the horrifying visage of Death, patiently waiting its turn in the greatest chess match in Myranda’s career.

Playing for immortality. What greater prize could there be?

“You should move the Rancor next to the Queen,” her husband suggested as he cracked open another beer, inadvertently spraying a fine sheen across the chess board.

“The what?” Myranda sighed, not wanting to encourage the notorious kibitzer, but unable to resist.

“The Rancor, the castle thingie.”

“Rook?”

“Right. Move it by the Queen.”

“It doesn’t move that direction, darling.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s what the rules say.”

“Since when?”

“Since chess was invented 500 years ago.”

“Oh. That’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb.”

“Am not.”

Myranda removed her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. Death leaned over the board and softly cleared its throat.

“You know,” Death whispered in a dry, sickly gasp. “If you want, I could kill him with a single touch.”

“No! He’s my husband, I love him!”

“But he’s an annoying idiot.”

Myranda’s eyes narrowed. She squared her shoulders and refocused on the board.

“You’re going down, you pretentious emo bastard.”

gorgonize \GAWR-guh-nahyz\, verb:

To affect as a Gorgon; hypnotize; petrify.

Stonegrove Retirement Home’s resident astrophysics scholar would die soon. After two decades of battle, Alzheimer’s Disease was finally winning the war and eradicating decades of star maps, comet paths, and theories on cosmic inflation carefully stored in his mind. Yet, in an odd twist of fate, it was the scholar’s happiest time. He would wake every morning and stumble upon a divine beauty quietly reading in the cramped study generously called a “living room.” Her stunning smile gorgonized the scholar for several long moments and he would search his cobwebbed brain for scattered hints of familiarity.

“You are my wife, aren’t you?” he would finally ask and be delighted by a slight, affirmative nod of the head.

“How very lucky am I?” he would grin.

They spent the days reintroducing the scholar to the world, and spent the nights gazing into the sky, reclaiming what they could of the vast knowledge tangled up in his brain.

“This was a perfect day,” she would whisper as he slowly eased to sleep. “And, tomorrow, we will do it all again.”

“How very lucky am I?”

allocution \al-uh-KYOO-shuhn\, noun:

1. A formal speech, especially one of an incontrovertible or hortatory nature.

2. A pronouncement delivered by the pope to a secret consistory, especially on a matter of policy or of general importance.

Ryan stood before his troops as a leader humbled by the weight of history while he delivered the most important allocution of his young military career. Never before had the backyard at 822 Chestnut Street faced such dire days since the fiend Mikey Landsworth moved in with his vast armies of Transformers.

“Robots in disguise, indeed,” Ryan huffed, as he glared at Mikey through the chain link fence. “But whether hiding as a car, plane, dinosaur, or insect, there is no disguising villainy!”

“Mom!” Mickey yelled as he ran inside. “That kid is being weird again.”

What We Are Up To!

Hello all you wonderful and beautiful people! Just a quick update on what Literati Press has brewing for 2013.

We have a trio of new releases debuting at Mini-Akon in Ft. Worth on Saturday, January 26 and at Speeding Bullet in Norman on January 30. Already available online at www.literatipressok.com, The Little Dixie Horror Show, the second and final anthology of The Wonderboy Serials, and Scrambled Eggs are the opening salvo of what will be our most ambitious, year-long release schedule yet. New offerings will follow by the crew of Welcome to Ralton, Halo Seraphim’s Serial Kitty and Marty Peercy’s long-awaited story of a frozen naked man.

For those in the Oklahoma City metro,  I will be moderating a panel discussion featuring legislatures and leaders in the arts entitled “Advocacy, Politics, and Artists” this Saturday at 2 pm at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art Noble Theater. The panel discussion has taken on special significance following the recent filing of a bill in the Oklahoma House of Representatives to eliminate all funding to the Oklahoma Arts Council by 2017 at a rate of at least 25 percent a year. We will be discussing this troubling development as well as how to utilize resources at the city and state level to further a career in the arts. For more information, visit the event page HERE  or go to www.okartistnetwork.com.

Finally, I am reposting my daily writing indulgence, Word of the Day on the Literati Press “An Unnecessary Appendage” blog. We also have other creative works from the brilliant minds at Literati Press, so enjoy!

Thank you so much for your time and for supporting Literati Press!

This Week in Word of the Day/1-20-13

jubilarian \joo-buh-LAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:

A person who celebrates or has celebrated a jubilee, as a nun observing 25 or more years of religious life.

Andy was a quiet icon. Wilting, shy, yet possessing a mysterious gravity that dominated any room. He seemed ever-retreating in social conflict, yet his single-minded pursuit of fame was a force of nature that devastated every obstacle that stood in Andy’s way. He was not a bad person, he was deeply loved by his friends, but they also knew that he would destroy a career with a smile, soft apology, and insistence on having lunch the next day. He was the ultimate underdog that won his bone through shrewd maneuvering and sacrifice, and he guarded that treasure bitterly because he knew how much the world resented him for having the gall to win. So, as the jubilarians at the grand spectacles he called “art happenings” all angled for his precious time and attention, they crawled over one another like rats scrambling to gnaw at the supple flesh of a fresh corpse. They wanted to ingest Andy’s magic in the foolish hope of replicating the miracle of his fame.

shindy \SHIN-dee\, noun:

1. A row; rumpus.

2. A shindig.

Always a lively and eventful shindy, Jeff’s birthdays became legend over the last four years thanks to a mostly hands-off approach taken by his parents. As long as the boys kept the noise low, the revelers could get away with anything inside the house or across the sleepy suburban neighborhood through all hours of the night.

Preparations began early on Saturday morning as his three closest friends lugged over piles of paper they’d been hording for weeks. That paper would, over the course of four hours, be transformed into four trash bags of confetti. 48 rolls of toilet paper and five cans of shaving cream were purchased from the local grocery store and two video tapes were smuggled from Jason’s stepfather’s secret stash for late night viewing once Jeff’s parents were safely asleep.

They just knew the night was going to be epic, but they didn’t count on Old Man Sanderson and his trusty bloodhound.

Camelot \KAM-uh-lot\, noun:

1. Any idyllic place or period, especially one of great happiness.

2. The legendary site of King Arthur’s palace and court, possibly near Exeter, England.

3. The glamorous ambience of Washington, D.C., during the administration of President John F. Kennedy, 1961–63.

Through a vicious coup involving intrigue, blackmail, and aggressive negotiations, Samantha ushered in a new ruling class in the spring semester of her junior year at Midland High School. Marked by peace and abundance, the regime change was embraced by the principal’s office and met little resistance from the PTA.

As the school year came to a close, she declared the new cool kids’ table “Camelot” and vowed to govern the many social circles of Midland with a firm, yet understanding hand. Sadly, Samantha’s once tightly bound clique unraveled when her boyfriend and varsity quarterback transferred to a 6A school over the summer in hopes of boosting his national football ranking. Losing her king and watching her knights begin to splinter off in petty power grabs, Samantha was left with no other choice but to lure the “stoners” and “gearheads” into her ranks as secret operatives and institute a reign of terror marked by physical intimidation, rampant “TP”ing, election tampering, computer hacking, grade fixing, and advanced interrogation through the dreaded swirlie.

hypnopompic \hip-nuh-POM-pik\, adjective:

Of or pertaining to the semiconscious state prior to complete wakefulness.

The boy was lost inside his mind. Perpetually in a hypnopompic state, he was just alert enough to respond to the outside world, but deeply insulated so he would never absorb it’s cold and brutal nature.

“I do not understand what love is,” he said suddenly in the middle of class. The teacher was stunned to hear his small voice, so didn’t think to hush him.

“But once I tried to walk a bike carefully down a hill. I lost control and couldn’t stop it from rolling down the steep path. Rather than letting go, I jumped on the seat and rode with no fear of crashing. Love may not be like that, but it should be.”

preconcert \pree-kuhn-SURT\, verb:

1. To arrange in advance or beforehand, as by a previous agreement.

adjective:

1. Preceding a concert: a preconcert reception for sponsors.

As outlined in exhaustive detail within the Rules and Guidelines to Nobility and Chivalry for the Knights of Upper Middle New Jersey State, acting Captain of the Royal Guard was solely responsible for the preconcert of casual sustenance ahead of any warring party. Sir Ryan Getslaidalot spent all his allowance at the video arcade and his mom wouldn’t give him more, so he only showed up with a stale loaf of bread and an almost empty tub of peanut butter, so was demoted to “common knave”.

vertex \VUR-teks\, noun:

1. The highest point of something; apex; summit; top: the vertex of a mountain.

2. Anatomy, Zoology. The crown or top of the head.

3. Craniometry. The highest point on the midsagittal plane of the skull or head viewed from the left side when the skull or head is in the Frankfurt horizontal.

4. Astronomy. A point in the celestial sphere toward which or from which the common motion of a group of stars is directed.

5. Geometry. A. The point farthest from the base: the vertex of a cone or of a pyramid. B. A point in a geometrical solid common to three or more sides. C. The intersection of two sides of a plane figure.

Twenty years and 86 days. $46,000. Countless lost friendships. One failed marriage. His left pinky. The rocket cost Kevin so much, but he built it all the same. Three minutes after liftoff, the sputtering flames gasped out their last and Kevin felt thrust ebb as he reached the vertex of his lonely flight, just poking the fire engine red cone of the rocket into the upper atmosphere. He floated above the blue expanse for what seemed like hours before gravity finally tugged him back home. He let out a triumphant howl as the rocket tumbled toward the ocean. He’d never bothered with a parachute or any hope for a soft landing. The way up was just to prove he could, but the way down was all his.

also-ran \AWL-soh-ran\, noun:

1. Informal. A person who loses a contest, election, or other competition.

2. Sports. A. (In a race) a contestant who fails to win or to place among the first three finishers. B. An athlete or team whose performance in competition is rarely, if ever, a winning or near-winning one.

3. Informal. A person who attains little or no success: For every great artist there are a thousand also-rans.

“There was a time when I charged at life, I remember it so clearly. Brash, beautiful and invincible. But now…”

Jerry smirked as he brought the long, ivory cigarette holder to his thinning lips. The purple and silver-flecked lipstick left a smudge, which he admired for a moment before releasing the smoke with a heavy sigh.

“Now I stumble forward down the slope into oblivion. ‘The greatest of the also-rans!’ That’s what Terry calls me. He is trying to be sweet, I know, but it is a title I could live without.”

 

 

Oklahoma Artist Network

I’ll be moderating this panel discussion on how to work with city and state governments to further a career in the arts. I am thrilled and you should be too!

Advocacy, Politics and Artists

2 pm, Saturday, January 26, 2013

Oklahoma City Museum of Art Noble Theater

Free and Open to the Public

Supporting the arts is a uniting issue among politicians across party lines on all levels of government, but inspiring real advocacy once the election season ends remains a tricky endeavor for the state’s creative community. The Oklahoma Artist Network are bringing together civic leaders, politicians, and members of the arts industry to discuss how to further develop advocacy on the city and state level for the FREE Event.

The panel will include State Representative Kay Floyd, State Senator David Holt, director for Oklahomans for the Arts Jennifer James, Jill Simpson of the Oklahoma Film & Music Office, Robbie Kienzle, Liaison OKC Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and will be moderated by Charles Martin of Literati Press.

It will be followed by a meet and greet session at the museum where artists and civic leaders can further discuss how to work together to strengthen the community. Light snacks and cash bar.

This Week in Word of the Day 12-13-2013

Taken from boingboing.net.

eurhythmic \yoo-RITH-mik\, adjective:

1. Characterized by a pleasing rhythm; harmoniously ordered or proportioned.

2. Of or pertaining to eurhythmics.

Doug and Sara were convinced that “The Eurhythmics” was the most clever name ever for their anarchist noise punk outfit which also featured their next door neighbor. Admittedly, their neighbor couldn’t play drums to save his life, but he looked really good in cut off shirts and his animalistic assault on his junior sized drum kit fit in with the band’s mission to devolve modern beliefs regarding sound, melody, and what it meant to truly “sing.” Once their fist gig was booked and 100 t-shirts were printed, their mom crushed the revolutionary band’s spirit by pointing out that there was a band who’d already claimed the “Eurhythmics” label.

filch \filch\, verb:

To steal (especially something of small value); pilfer: to filch ashtrays from fancy restaurants.

As Charles beat back fatigue during his overnight stocking job at Walmart, he was surprised to find, for the third day in a row, several empty bottles of Tide on the shelf. He shrugged it off and took the bottles to the back with the rest of the damaged goods. Months later, with the awful job in his rearview, a news program illuminated the bizarre trend. Hardened thieves were stealing and bartering with Tide, not because it could be turned into meth, but because “everyone needs to wash their clothes.”

pseudepigraphy \soo-duh-PIG-ruh-fee\, noun:

The false ascription of a piece of writing to an author.

Clint’s skills in pseudepigrapy were unrivaled and his deliberate use of forged love letters and call outs for playground battles made him the scourge of fourth grade.

pseudoclassic \soo-doh-KLAS-ik\, adjective:

1. Falsely or spuriously classic.

2. Imitating the classic: the pseudoclassic style of some modern authors.

Jim only read pseudoclassic political ramblings by the likes of Bill O’Reily, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, proclaiming them to be the modern equivalents to Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, and John Locke. Jim dressed as a Founding Father every Halloween and handed out tea bags, American flags, and miniature books containing the Constitution (but not the Bill of Rights) to children downtown. He also explained to the bank teller, in exhausting detail, why he wasn’t a hypocrite for cashing his social security check, then asked her if she had “any interest in antique guns and older men?”

pseudomorph \SOO-duh-mawrf\, noun:

1. An irregular or unclassifiable form.

2. A mineral having the outward appearance of another mineral that it has replaced by chemical action.

Marty identified his career ambitions as consuming enough pseudomorphs that A: glowed, B: were radioactive or C: fell from space, all in the hope he will eventually develop superpowers. His parents were not impressed.

pseudology \soo-DOL-uh-jee\, noun:

Lying considered as an art.

Fixed with a permanent scowl and a roguish charm, the eight year old boy had only two interests in life: 1. the beautiful complexity of pseudology. 2. Dressing like Han Solo.

pseudonymous \soo-DON-uh-muhs\, adjective:

1. Bearing a false or fictitious name.

2. Writing or written under a fictitious name.

The pseudonymous act of creating an alter identity serves as a shelter where we can revel in our own darkness, our humiliation, our selfishness and other base weaknesses. It is a greater freedom than any confessional booth because, even though the mask we wear is thin and fools no one, its existence shades us from the glaring eye of our own shame.

 

Clap Your Hands, Say Meh: Head-Phoned

(Taken from Marty Pearcy’s blog which is so great, I needed to disseminate)

Head-Phoned

I live in Chicago now, as you may know. I lived here before for a number of years. It’s home just as Oklahoma is home.

I work sixteen miles from where I live. It takes me over an hour to get from one to the other. That’s a lot of time with my nose in a book and headphones in my ears.

My habit of plugging into my ipod as soon as I leave my apartment is a good one. It protects me from interactions with the many strangers I pass, it functions as a security gate that lets me permit or ban access. That’s something I learned in high school. Somehow my habit of wearing headphones renders me effectively invisible. People know I can’t hear them so they don’t speak to me. “I’m not participating,” is what I seem to be saying. And it’s true. I’m not participating in the life of the streets I walk. I’m barely playing a role on the trains and buses I ride.

 

Read the rest HERE!

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