Clayton Lindemuth's Blog, page 4
January 26, 2014
Csaba Sziklai Passed
I’m writing because I heard last year that Csaba had passed, but I was unable to confirm the fact or learn details by searching the internet. Something prompted me to look again and upon a deeper search, I found a legal notice to creditors of his estate, confirming the fact. Aside from that, and another similar notice, the internet seems empty. I telephoned his company and spoke with a former associate of Csaba’s, who confirmed that he fell ill and died “last year.” The date seems to be in mid December 2012.
Aside from testimonials to the effectiveness of his system, I have yet to find anyone who speaks about Csaba as a man or his tremendous legacy to both the life insurance industry and greater humanity. Because of his brilliance, passion, and values, probably hundreds of thousands or even millions of people’s lives are insured today that otherwise wouldn’t be. That means a greater number of spouses, children, business partners, and employees are protected from the untimely deaths of the people they depend upon, all because Csaba helped insurance agents understand the nobility of their social roles. In fact, Csaba’s effect upon many insurance industry leaders was so profound that they became role models of Csaba’s philosophy, and influenced the beliefs of others through personal example.
I am not the best person to pay tribute to Csaba. I was only in his proximity for the three days I attended his Advocacy System school in Tucson, a couple years ago. But because I cannot find where anyone else has done so, and because his school prompted a once-in-a-lifetime reorganization of my professional worldview, I feel compelled to honor him.
Who Was Csaba Sziklai?
First, his name is pronounced Chaba Sick-lie. He escaped a Soviet-controlled country of Eastern Europe in the mid to late sixties, riding a motorcycle with a tire that went flat by a Soviet guard, who unknowingly helped Dr. Sziklai escape by providing him a valve that allowed him to re-inflate the tire.
He had been a law student but changed to pursue psychology. In the United States, his practice evolved to working exclusively with life insurance agents. Out of this close association he came to formulate a unique view of the role of the insurance agent in society–a much better view than the average insurance agent holds of himself. This understanding of the agent’s social role is one of the foundational parts of the Advocacy System that Csaba Sziklai created.
Whereas most insurance companies teach their representatives to be aggressive for the sale, and often turn a blind eye to unsavory sales practices, Csaba rejected all of it. If you have an automatic, negative view of an insurance agent, it’s probably because you associate him with stereotypical behaviors such as being pushy, deceptive, self interested, manipulative, rude, under trained, etc. These stereotypes exist because they have often been true, and the entire industry is to blame. In fact, the traditional selling approach requires an agent to engage in acts he finds repugnant, which in part leads to the industry’s high turnover rate.
When a life insurance agent’s behavior suggests he is a salesperson, whoever he talks to assumes the stereotypes are true. Thus agents trigger sales resistance by behaving like salespeople–and then have to deploy all of their sales training to overcome the resistance they just caused. The people who suffer, in the end, are those who need to think through issues of life insurance protection for their families, but finding a ready excuse not to, don’t, and leave their dependents exposed. For many, the gamble turns out to be a bad one.
Advocacy Foundations
I won’t get too deep into the philosophy of the Advocacy System, but the following principles shed light on the system’s profundity:
All human beings live in denial of their mortality. This is healthy–we couldn’t function if we believed, every day, that we would die that day. It is healthy to believe we will die much later, a date so far into the future, we needn’t obsess about it today.
All human beings a hardwired with a sense of love and responsibility for the people who depend upon them.
Our denial of our immediate mortality often leads us to put off making decisions about protecting the people who depend on us. This means, in essence, that we do not live up to our values.
The Advocate’s role is to help people see the distance between their actions and their values, thereby compelling them to make decisions about protection that they can feel good about.
The Advocate’s goal is not to make a buck. It is to compel a decision. If an Advocate talks to a person about life insurance and that person buys elsewhere, it is a victory for the Advocate.
If a person looks at his family and decides not to protect them, the Advocate moves on. There is not enough time to try to rewire the values of people who don’t care for their families. (Because life insurance is so inexpensive, anyone who wants to provide for their families can do so. The person who chooses not to, after considering all the facts, is worthy of insult and will only be redeemed by God’s grace. That’s not Csaba talking there, just me. Csaba only shrugged and said move on to the people you can help. If you throw a life vest to a drowning man, and he bats it away, do you throw him another, or throw your next to the person a few feet away who wants to live?)
I remember one of the most profound points Csaba made in class: if we learn of a breadwinner who had a family, died, and left them penniless, we naturally think he didn’t care about them. And if we learn of a breadwinner who left his family well off, so that everything he ever would have provided to them endowed at his death in the form of a large insurance benefit, we think, this person loved his family. Yet, the only the difference between the two breadwinners is that the latter was contacted by a life insurance agent.
The first breadwinner loved his family as well–but his family will suffer unnecessary hardship because no one in the insurance industry reached out and spoke on their behalf to the breadwinner who provided for them.
This is because most people own no life insurance at all, and those who do are grossly under-insured. People do not typically make life insurance buying decisions without the assistance of a life insurance agent.
Who suffers from an untimely death? The people left behind–dependents. And if we look at them, they are often unable or unwilling to compel the breadwinner to take action bringing his deeds into alignment with his values.
What five year old girl will say, “Daddy, have you bought enough life insurance to make sure I’ll still be okay if something happens to you?”
Csaba’s point was that the life insurance professional provides a beautiful service to society. The agent–like no one else–is capable of leading the breadwinner to think through the issues of family protection, and guide him or her to a decision he or she can feel good about. The life insurance agent is not only morally justified, but morally obligated, to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves in life insurance decisions that might determine their economic fates. Hence the name Advocacy System.
Being a psychologist, Csaba explained, in psychological terms, countless aspects of how we think about ourselves as agents, how to talk to people, how to get in touch emotionally with the importance of our roles, and how to remain ever mindful of the true significance or our work.
Csaba’s Advocacy System led me to a new understanding of my career in the financial services industry, because as he said, we don’t only procrastinate our life insurance decisions. We do the same for financial planning, legacy planning, college funding, etc. In all these cases, the financial advisor is in a unique position to help people live up to their highest values as protectors and providers. No one in society but the financial advisor/life insurance agent can say that.
To my mind, the entire financial industry should grind to a halt and pay tribute to the man who articulated better than any why our financial products exist in the first place, and what the values of the people who represent those products ought to be, if they are to be aligned with their clients.
God Bless Dr. Csaba Sziklai. He will be missed.
January 24, 2014
Review of Camelbak Ultra LR Vest
What It Is:
The Camelbak Ultra LR Vest, forthwith called “it” or “the vest” or “the hydration vest” or finally, the “very comfortable thing that carries everything while I run,” is a hydration vest built for athletes who have to be their own support. Meaning, if you’re going to be out a long time, and won’t be passing gas stations or peanut-butter and jelly sandwich trees (they look a lot like juniper, except that in late spring, PBJ’s drop from their crown), then you might want a pack that does it all.
There are multiple hydration vests on the market. I read reviews of several, including this one, on Ultrarunner Podcast. I won’t be reviewing the other packs unless (hint hint) their manufacturers send me one. Thus, I won’t be speaking to whether the Camelbak is the best, but only to whether it gets the job done comfortably.
The price tag is investment grade, $130, but comes in lower than many of the competing vests. The LR Vest is loaded with places to put things, among them, the pockets up front (which are sized to securely hold 16 ounce water bottles) as well as on the waist-level strap on the right photo, on each side. The yellow on the right photo is a Brooks windbreaker I rolled up and took along for the run, in case the wind started to pick up.
The lumbar reservoir carries two liters. It is accessible by unzipping the area where my yellow jacket is visible. Incidentally, the Camelbak website mentions that carrying your water at a lower center of gravity means ultimate stability and freedom of movement. More on that below.
One nifty thing, visible on the left photo, is a little red doohicky–which it turns out is an emergency whistle.
The LR Vest has five adjustments to help it fit, technically, six. The first I found is at the top of the shoulders. The straps that go over the shoulders, where they meet the back, tuck into a pocket and are secured by Velcro. They have handy thread markers to help ensure that if you have to adjust them, you can get them even. I’m 6’1” and had to elongate the vest a little from how it was hanging when I bought it.
Next, you have the waist strap. When I first put the vest on I thought I was way too fat for it, but the straps could accomodate a little more girth than mine. If you’re on a path to a slimmer you, and you’re 6’1″ and 220 lbs, it’ll fit. If you’re more than 10 pounds heavier, sure and try one on before you buy.
There are two chest straps which are adjustable, and two straps that connect the front to the belt.
The vest weighs 1.5 pounds.
Why I Bought It:
I have an older version of the Camelbak Marathoner Vest, which also has a 2 liter reservoir. The problem is that it won’t carry much, and none of what it carries is accessible on the go. For me, it’s ideal for up to fifteen miles or so in cool weather, or ten in hot weather. Beyond that I’ll run out of water. I probably drink more water than most runners, partly because I’m fairly slow. A year ago, I was able to sustain an eight minute pace for twenty miles, and even then, I ran out of water with the Marathoner Vest. On a hot day, I don’t like running out of water. When I first started running distance I lived in Arizona, and saw a man pass away on the trail. Hydration is serious business.
I also have a couple hydration belts, one by Amphipod and a lumbar bottle rig by New Balance. Both are good for short runs.
I spent a half hour trying to figure out a way to carry enough water for a thirty miler on the trails, while also having enough pockets to carry stuff. I could cover the water problem by wearing the Amphipod bottles on my New Balance belt, and also wearing by Camelbak… but that wouldn’t solve the problem of where to carry gear, food, my phone, keys, and laptop computer.
My Camelbak came from Fleet Feet in Chesterfield, MO. I tried it on, talked to a lady there who completed a hundred miler last fall, who raved about her Camelbak Ultra LR Vest. I asked what she liked and she said “all the places to put my stuff.”
How’d It Perform?
Today was supposed to be an off-day but there’s a new federal reg, enforced by BATF, that when you buy new, cool running gear, you have to try it out within twenty four hours. I won’t get into the politics of the rule (I’m more of a libertarian, myself) but I do my best to comply with the law, when I can, so I took my LR Vest for a spin this afternoon.
I went easy because I’m nursing what feels like a mild ankle sprain, and it’s supposed to be an off day. Plus tomorrow is probably going to be a 28 miler. I’ll update this post tomorrow with how the vest fares for a longer run.
For now, let me start off with this: IT ROCKS.
I thought, before starting out, that I had it adjusted for a good fit. It took about a mile of pulling various straps until it fit snug all the way around. Even when it wasn’t snug, though, it didn’t bounce. The water reservoir rests right above the hips, and there’s no sloshing feel. When I got it to conform to my body, which again, is just a matter of pulling a few straps until it feels right, the fit was perfect. The vest barely felt like it was there, and offered no resistance to movement.
Incidentally, I had a set of calf sleeves on that were bugging me, so I sat down after a mile, stripped them off, and tucked them into the generous netting on the front of the harness. That’s convenient.
One final note for now. A buddy of mine, John Beck, used to say in jest, that it isn’t important what you do, so much as how good you look doing it. We were rock climbing fanatics, and when assessing gear, of principal concern was how good it looked. If you follow the above link to the Camelbak website, you’ll see it flat kicks ass, in terms of looks.
I’m eager for tomorrow’s long run, and will report back with more about the vest after a true test of twenty eight miles.
Last, the Disclaimers: I’m not a rep of Camelbak. I bought my vest. The link above is not an Amazon affiliate link, and I won’t make anything if you buy a vest. The only way I make money is if you say, wow, Clayton sure knows his vest. I think I’ll buy one of his books. 
One more note: I’m not as fat as that left picture makes me look. I’m not skinny yet, but I don’t have a roll of fat over the belt. That’s a rogue layer of clothing.
All right. Time to make low carb sushi.
January 22, 2014
Long Run Recovery
I mentioned here that I signed up for a 100 mile ultra marathon at Moab in a couple of months…
Since signing up I’ve been running with a sense of focus and fear I haven’t had since, ever. I decided to enter my first marathon after realizing I’d accidentally trained enough to run one, so I didn’t feel any pressure while training. It was the Rock N Roll marathon at Tempe Arizona, and because the price at the expo was the same whether I signed up for the full or the half, I got my money’s worth. I felt pressure the night before, when I wondered what I’d done, and whether I’d be the under-trained guy who collapsed at mile twenty, dead. But no pressure during training.
Subsequent marathons, I knew I could complete the run based on miles trained. No pressure.
But a hundred miles is a different proposition. During a hundred mile run, from what I’ve read, two things are certain.
1) Things will go wrong. There are too many moving parts. Something always happens that requires a person to be flexible and adept at embracing new realities. Read Scott Jurek’s Eat and Run for a catalog of how a champion overcame everything chance could throw at him, including running a hundred miles on a broken ankle, and winning. Or head over to UltraRunner Podcast for a roundup of the entire sport, with links to everything interesting, ever.
2) The physical aspect of the race is important. You have to train, of course. But equally important is the mental, and that’s what is almost impossible to train for.
Naturally, my hope is that I’m wrong and that the training schedule I’ve adopted, and my considerable research, will prepare me mentally for the hardship to come. One of the things that makes the prospect of running 100 miles so appealing is exactly that, though: it’s impossible to predict what will happen under that kind of stress. It’s like a soldier wondering what he’ll do in battle, or a politician wondering how he’d fare when blindsided by a question about his dirty past. My great hope is twofold, that the challenges that come are so profound that I do not emerge the same person at the end, and second, that whatever I emerge as, is better than what I started with. I don’t want to run 100 miles and be transformed into a total shithead, you know.
SO that leads me full circle to the point of today’s post. I’ve been hitting the miles hard. Sunday I watched football and worried about my back. I took a muscle relaxer and then Monday ran 22 miles. Tuesday, I had another epidural in my L5 S1 region, and then hit the treadmill for 10 miles. So for the seven days ending yesterday, I’m at 58 miles of training. Starting from a three-month hiatus due to back pain that saw me gain twenty pounds.
I’m actually dumbfounded and thrilled by how good I feel. I’m thirty pounds heavier than I’d like to be on race day, but I’m not approaching training with a particular weight loss goal. I know I’ll burn a lot of fat so I’m not fixated on hitting 190. I know I’ll hit 200, and because I’ve seen people do astounding things with bodies that don’t look like they fit into a Calvin Klein underwear shoot, I’m not stressing the weight.
Why do I feel so good, then?
I think I’ve broken the code. Found the Elixir, the Fountain of Youth.
I’ve read a lot of runner’s blogs and books, articles about optimal health and whatnot, and they all seem to believe that although post run recovery is of paramount importance, the best you can do is consume the right amount of carbs and protein, sit in an ice bath, etc.
I’ve been a believer in vitamins forever, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus in their favor. My logic, though, is simple. If I’m going to put a tremendous strain on my body, that’s going to create deficits that need to be filled. Aside from glycogen depleted and minerals sweat out, there’s wear and tear on every body system. If we can all agree that eating a 48 ounce steak will produce a different recovery result than fruit and black beans, or peanut butter and jelly, then we’re in essence agreeing that what we put into our bodies matters; that is, some things are better than others. Once we’ve agreed to that, the argument becomes simple. If researchers have figured out what the body loses, and what it needs to recover, then giving the body just that should improve recovery.
So I went to Supplement Superstore, where I know a few of the guys, (all of them look like Ahnold) and asked what they use for recovery. The consensus is in the photo below.
After runs of more than 1 hour, I take a scoop of each, mix it in water, and within a couple of hours feel ready to run again. The big test was the last two days: a 22 miler, followed by 10. I quit after ten because of treadmill boredom. I have had no muscle soreness or aches. Nothing else in my running has changed, so I attribute feeling great to the products below.
If you happen to try them, let me know how they work for you.
January 19, 2014
I Signed Up for a 100 Mile Ultra Marathon
Here’s a little announcement. I’m running a 100 mile ultra marathon in two months.
Why?
Credibility. I know this presents problems. I didn’t rape and murder people to write Cold Quiet Country. I didn’t fight pit bulls to write My Brother’s Destroyer.
But I have made walnut whiskey, like Angus Hardgrave.
I wrote a novel last fall that I’m currently editing, and planning on releasing this summer. The novel is a murder mystery structured like Cold Quiet Country, that is, the present action unfolds in a single day, and flashbacks inform on the present action, making it relevant to the bigger story. I love the format. It’s challenging to write, but now that I’m used to thinking that way, I feel like I’m taking it to a new level.
The story is about an ultra marathon champion who, running the last race of his perfect career, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his crew chief, which occurs immediately before the race, and the novel, begins.
As you’d expect, the more backstory, the more the reader sees how much the protagonist has to gain by murdering his chief. In fact, just about any sane man would murder this particular crew chief.
Anyhow, the race I’m using is Badwater 135–a ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY FIVE MILE RUN starting at the bottom of Death Valley and ascending most of the way up Mount Whitney. It’s a killer course, and if I had any guts at all I’d try to run it. (Actually, if I could I would. Problem is I’d never be accepted for the race. I haven’t completed a 100 miler. So after this run in Moab, maybe Badwater will be next on my list. It looks like the achievement of a lifetime.)
So, in order to make sure I accurately portray the self inflicted brutality of running 135 miles, I’m going to run 100.
Here’s the run I entered: http://www.geminiadventures.com/running-events-2/moab/
It’s at Moab, Utah, late March 2014. Or about 10 weeks from now.
Concerns: I have a couple of discs in my back that are weak. The muscles around them compensate by seizing up. I’ve treated it in the past for up to a year at a time by getting epidural shots, basically, steroids. My next is Tuesday. Meantime, I take NSAIDs and stretch a lot.
Training? Well, that’s kind of important. I’ve completed 8 marathons, and I’m finding that every training program I can find for ultras builds on a schedule that looks like a marathon program, with one exception. After the long run on Saturday, you do another, even longer run on Sunday. The point is to get accustomed to running on tired legs. Gradually, the weekly mile total increases to seventy or eighty, (for a novice level runner) and instead of running two high-mile days back to back, you go three.
My highest training month ever was two yeas ago, when I hit 240 miles. So this will be just a little worse in total miles, with the added strain of lumping miles closer together, with less recovery time in between.
I committed to the run about 10 days ago. I hadn’t been running for the last three months, and since resuming training ten days ago I was able to log a 50 mile week, including an 18 miler, while still running on a back that isn’t where it needs to be. I’m happy with the first week’s miles, but frustrated by not being able to get out today because of waking to low grade back spasms. I might turn off the playoff game and run anyway.
There’s nothing like the feeling that you could just keep on running forever. I’m eager to reacquire that feeling. I’m even more eager to get my novel edited to a quality that would make asking for a couple of beta readers worthwhile. I know the story kicks total ass and I can’t wait for someone to read it and confirm it… Funny, it’s the only novel I’ve completed knowing that it rocks… so it might not.
I’ll probably post updates about my training as I go along. I’m old enough that running eighty miles takes a lot of time out of the week, and blogging about the training would offer a certain efficiency.
Oh, and before I sign off… here’s a perk as well. I’m down five pounds in ten days, and they’re real pounds, not water weight. (I know from counting calories burned by running, versus total calories consumed.)
Okay, there it is. Be well, yall. And if you happen to be around Moab on March 22, stop by.
January 18, 2014
Short Story: Technique, or Death By Cunnilingus
Foreword… to a short story? Ahem. This is a story I wrote years ago, found in a file, and enjoyed enough to share. I try to avoid being vulgar as a general rule, but a noir story about cunnilingus… I hope you give me some slack…
TECHNIQUE
or
Death by Cunnilingus
They found Maggie like I left her: toes curled and dead.
I met her at the Jarred Bar. Watched her shoot pool, grind her crotch into the table while banking a combo to the far corner pocket. That was important—her susceptibility to tactile stimulation.
I stacked three quarters on the rail.
She was alone. When her margarita hit half empty, I brought its replacement.
“Put it over there.”
I put the fishbowl next to her deck of Marlboro lights. Dropped an elbow on a recessed window jamb and did my best James Dean brood. She wasn’t what I’d normally consider attractive. She didn’t spend three hours a day at the gym, and another three reading Plato. She leaned over the table and her chest swayed like a science project pendulum. No augmentation. Saddle bag thighs. Wrinkles. Forty. Average.
Perfect.
I’d read about a technique in a love manual I’d found at a used book store that featured obscure first runs and translations. Love Circle. The original was in Sanskrit, but my copy was translated into French, replete with pen drawings and printed in London during 1853 by a publisher named Routledge. Most of the sex poses were the traditional forms you’ll see on a ninety nine cent porn site, but the last…
The text urged caution. Indeed, this technique had been known to cause hysterics and fatalities.
It so happened that my girlfriend Regina, who did spend several hours a day working out and reading Plato, had dropped me. I’m an artificial guy. I like hard bodies and sharp brains. I’ve studied enough of life’s mysteries to know I’m a fool, and armed with that knowledge, I’ve created a satisfying existence. I make a lot of money, understand existentialism, and look good in black. There isn’t a hell of a lot more worth doing well.
Letting go of a woman like Regina didn’t use to be hard. Sex? Nailed her three times a day for a year. It was better than a drug. I was an addict and she was an addict. And then nothing. I could have mounted a Harley Davidson to her clit and she wouldn’t have felt it.
Love Circle would be my answer.
I tried the French version of the love secret on an anthropology student I sourced at the library. Her card had been turned off because of eleven dollars worth of late fees. I paid with a fifty, dumped the change into the leukemia bucket, and followed to her apartment.
Sure, she liked it. As a test, I mouthed twenty words from Moby Dick, starting with Call me Ishmael, and the results were no different.
I was stumped… until I thought of Babelfish.
Maggie lucked into a win. Her opponent sank the cue ball after calling the nine. She pointed her stick to my dick and said, “You’re up.”
“No, I’m not.” I slipped my quarters into the slots. Dropped the balls and racked them. “What’s your name?”
“Maggie.”
“Perfect.”
“You break,” she said.
“Sure. Care to make a wager?”
“I don’t have money to blow on a bet.”
“I’m not talking money.”
She leaned on the rail. Tight denim. “If not money…”
“I win—I get two hours. My tongue, your clit, no interruptions.”
“Damn,” she said. “If I win?”
“Four.”
She came toward me. Stopped short, swiped her margarita and gulped it. “Break.”
I lined my stick, thrust like to penetrate a concrete wall. Stripes and solids smashed apart. Dropped the three and the seven, and sank two more before missing a straight shot to a corner pocket.
She hovered over the table, ass moving back and forth, and I imagined her other half swinging in syncopation. The cue ball caromed off the rail and dropped the eight into the side. “You win,” she said.
We walked to my Porsche. I unlocked with the fob and opened her door. “Do you happen to speak Sanskrit?”
She studied me. “You’re not some kind of shithead, are you?”
I held the door with my right hand and slipped my left around her back. Pulled her close, pressed my mouth to her neck, just behind her ear.
I worked the Technique. She squirmed. Squeezed me and moaned. She trembled in my arms, my mouth. Her stomach fluttered against mine and her knees parted. Her hips rolled, pressing muff to mess. She inhaled deep.
I pulled back an inch and whispered, “That was ‘beautiful’ in Sanskrit.”
“That was beautiful in any language.” Maggie fell into the leather seat. “Let’s get a room.” She swung her legs inside. Rubbed the leather with her hand. She arched her back.
I closed the door and drove three miles to a Holiday Inn. My house sat two miles away on a hill, but I could see the Holiday Inn with a Bosch ten-inch reflector telescope on the deck. Regina was a freak and used to watch people who thought no one could see them get off in their third-story rooms.
I slipped the plastic door key into the slot.
“You already have a room?” Maggie said.
“Of course.”
“So if it wasn’t me, who would you have brought up here?”
I led Maggie by her sweaty hand. “It’s hard to imagine a woman more suited to my needs.”
I spent two weeks memorizing each swish and swoop of the forty-seven Sanskrit words Babelfish had provided. Squiggly lines, words that looked like houses and animals and geometry proofs.
I called my ex, Regina, and she agreed to go out for lobster and conversation. We’d bought a hundred DVDs together and had to discuss how to divide them. She looked tight. Red silk, tan up to where there was no tan and the skin tasted better. I knew the break-up routine. I’d get one sympathy lay, and if that didn’t turn things around, it was over.
I’d practiced until the bottom of my tongue bled. But sitting across from Regina, studying her pert curves and the lines of her neck, I knew she was my existential everything. She was all I wanted, and if I couldn’t make her scream for mercy I’d never get another chance. She played with her lobster and I worked mine, and we passed a printout of DVDs back and forth, claiming one at a time with a check mark.
All I had to do was say, “Give me one more chance to curl your toes,” and we’d have been crinkling the sheets. But the stakes were high. My Technique had to be perfect.
I inhaled. It was time.
“Give me one more chance to…”
She shifted sideways. Moved her hips. Blushed above her collarbones. “Yes?”
But it hit me. The translation was from Babelfish. Put “You’re as beautiful as sunlight butterflies on a bubbling brook” into the program, and you get output like, “You smell like fish water baked in sun heat.”
I had one opportunity.
“Give me one more chance to look at that list. I think I missed a Clint Eastwood at the bottom.”
I took Maggie’s hand and walked her to the room. Turned on the light. She turned it off. I pulled her to me, parted her lips with my tongue, slipped my hand under her blouse at the back, and wedged it between her jeans and skin.
“More Sanskrit,” she said.
I lifted her and carried her to the bed.
“Not on the bedspread,” she said. “Hotel bedspreads are filthy.”
“Yeah.” I lowered her. She raked the blanket back and I tossed her to the sheets and lunged on top of her. I pulled her blouse to her midriff and spelled “Sunshine” on her navel with my tongue. She squirmed and grabbed the back of my head. Pulled.
“Do the whole Bhagavad-Gita,” she said.
“Forty seven words. And I have to see what I’m doing.”
I withdrew from her. Glanced out the window to a hill marked only by a dim shadow against a blacker sky. I hit the light switch.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to see my work area. It’s a very special technique.”
“Turn off the light. I’m not comfortable.”
“If you’re not feeling good about it in one minute, I’ll kill the light. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, but who else will?”
“We’re on the third floor. No one can see up here.”
I dropped to her navel and headed south. A finger snap and her Levis were undone. One sharp pull and they popped off her ass.
I searched the Internet for a philologist schooled in ancient Sanskrit, and found a Nietzsche-looking woman with an ivy PhD who boasted a blog and a spunky attitude. I sent her an email with a challenge.
We met for coffee at a Starbucks in Boston. Her countenance was a topography of wrinkles, hair more gray than red, and her flannel pantsuit screamed “frazzled” in each of the dozen dead languages she claimed expertise.
“You have an ancient love-text? Hmm? The original was in Sanskrit and your copy is in French?”
“And I need the symbols in Sanskrit.”
“Most interesting. Just for my own curiosity… why not read it in French?”
“It doesn’t work in French.”
“What doesn’t work?”
“Take a look.”
I placed the leather-bound text on the table. Slid it to her. She reached like a baby going after forbidden candy.
“Hmmm.” She leaned forward. “Ohhh. Interesting tropes. Yes.” She elevated the text closer to her eyes. Her face went scarlet. “Hmmmm.” She extracted bifocals from her breast pocket. Swallowed.
“Well?”
She smiled. “I can translate this back into the original.”
“Word for word? Perfect?”
“Maybe two or three scholars in the world could do so—and guarantee flawless work.”
“Are you one of them?”
“Of course!” She waved a finger. “But there is a caveat.”
Something in her cigarette-gravel tone made me say, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“You have what many would consider a holy text. Scripture.”
“Go on.”
“A text containing mystic secrets so powerful, some would argue no modern man should be entrusted with them.”
Look, it’s just cunni… “Your price?”
“This kind of secret—it’s not a matter of price! This is a sacred art! You must demonstrate proficiency! With me.”
“With you or on you?”
“I must be utterly convinced of your worthiness.”
I followed in my rental car to a snug brick house with Tudor pretensions, kept my mind on Regina while my tongue was on Nietzsche. Afterward, I found a jug of Listerine in her bathroom and drank it. She gradually regained consciousness, then scarfed down three oranges and two Snickers bars.
“Imagine if I’d finished the entire passage,” I said.
She slipped into a robe. “I’d be dead.”
I spent two more weeks memorizing the true Sanskrit marks. My confidence in the Technique grew, but not to the degree I could risk flubbing my one chance with Regina. Her clit was dead and it would take a thunderbolt from Sanskrit heaven to wake it. Although I practiced the entire love poem on a hand mirror, and could verify my tongue marks against the perfect text, I had to be certain of the effect of the entire passage.
I went to the Jarred bar to find a live subject.
Maggie.
Her panties were white. I hooked a finger underneath and pulled. She lifted from the sheets and was naked.
“The lights,” she said.
“The lights are to protect me,” I said, and then could say no more. One thigh on each shoulder, I closed with her and spent a moment getting acquainted with her geography. My tongue danced like skates on ice. Pirouettes, leaps, landings. She shook.
It was time to go Sanskrit on her.
I sat on the edge of the mattress and dialed 911.
Police swarmed. I’d left Maggie like she was when she breathed her last. I left a hair between my teeth. The only thing that had changed since the decedent deceded was the location of my face.
A heavyset black-haired detective probed with basic questions. How long did I know her? Why I was there? Why did I kill her?
I made the mistake of stating she died of ecstasy, and then spent an hour explaining that I meant euphoria. Black Hair wanted to know about this new drug I was talking about, street name, Euphoria.
I repeated my story sans change or exaggeration for the hundredth time, now in the interrogation room on Broadway. Two officers tried an anemic version of good cop bad cop. Both were bad cops. Finally they demanded I sit for a psychological evaluation. My attorney arrived and the questioning ended.
I arrive at home, unlock the door, enter. If the doctor at the morgue suspects foul play, they’ll try to pin it on me. But I have no doubt what they’ll find: Saliva. Tongue abrasions. A heart that couldn’t tolerate a mystical dose of pleasure. She died with a smile on her face. And if the forensic geniuses can’t add it up…
I step to the Bosch telescope and the laptop beside it. I’ve got video of the last eight hours of the hotel room.
I dial the phone.
“Regina…”
Of course, if you read the whole thing and liked it, there’s no reason not to follow this link and explore my books on Amazon. Just Sayin.
January 15, 2014
Writer’s Workshop: Editing for Voice
Writers of all skill levels welcome. St. Louis novelist Clayton Lindemuth will lead a free two-hour writer’s workshop titled Editing for Voice at 6 p.m. Thursday at 12935 North Forty Drive, Suite 106, near the intersection of Interstate 64 and Mason Road. Lindemuth’s debut novel earned a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly and comparisons to Donald Ray Pollock and Tom Franklin. In the workshop Lindemuth will discuss how to turn a rough manuscript into a lean, gripping work of fiction, including a discussion of active versus passive voice, tips for finding text that needs cut, and devices for ratcheting tension higher. Attendees are welcome to bring a few pages of manuscript to work on. Register required. Email claylindemuth@gmail.com; is held in the boardroom of the Executive Financial Group. Refreshments.
Years ago a writer friend from Australia named Katherine Howell edited a few pages of a story for me and everything suddenly clicked. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and then suddenly I did. Katherine told me that someone had helped her that way, and she was paying it forward. It was a big deal, receiving the attention of a published author, and I’ve never forgotten her generosity.
I recently helped another writer in a similar fashion and she raved… screamed through the email in all caps… how helpful it was.
So that’s what this workshop is about. I plan to take a sample of my own writing, a few pages of rough draft novel, and slice and dice until I get a lean piece of prose, discussing the reasoning behind each cut as I go. Then I’ll work with participants to apply the editorial ideas to their own manuscripts in the time remaining.
If you’re stuck, looking for new ideas to ratchet up the tension or give your voice clarity, drop on buy. Just email me first so I can plan attendance and refreshments…
January 4, 2014
Guest post on Writer Unboxed
Yall know how cooooool it is to post on WU, right? It’s the site I went to when I was dreaming about writing, looking for that nugget that would help me better make what was in my head into what was on the page. Well, today I had a guest post run on WU. It’s a thrill almost as cool as landing an agent or getting an offer. Personally, it’s a big big deal. It’s the best I’ve written about writing, I think,
The post is about tension and bad guys in your fiction. It’s created a heckuva good showing for comments on a Saturday. Check it out here.
Here’s the intro…
How do you make your reader bite her nails so hard she doesn’t know what she’s doing until two knuckles are gone? Let’s frame the question.
Our impulse as writers is to think of something interesting, tell the reader, hey, check out this interesting situation—a boy feels this way; a girl feels that way—and then wonder why our beta readers tremble in the corner and won’t make eye contact.
The reason “show, don’t tell” is the First Rule of Fiction is that showing accomplishes something telling doesn’t: no matter how precisely we draw a picture, we are still forcing our reader to interpret it. “Show don’t tell” creates reader engagement; it compels her to think, to ponder, to test hypotheses.
So what does an engaged reader asking questions have to do with tension? Bear with me just a little longer, and let’s expand focus.
Sometimes we find ourselves writing dinner table scenes because they’re comfortable. However, if there isn’t a bomb under the table, or a pistol in Mom’s bra holster, or at least Mom daydreaming about her Sicilian lover—something with latent tension—we’re probably boring the reader.
December 31, 2013
Blown Away by a Paragraph in a Review
I remember writing a paper about a Harold Pinter play. My prof said he was blown away by the premise, that Pinter was putting the audience on trial. The only thing I remember about the play–other than the lesson about how an author can interact with audience–is the line, “You daft prat.” I’ve never been able to use the line in real life. Not because I haven’t been around daft prats, but because none of them would have understood that label.
Anyhow, imagine my elation when Robin Jeffrey, @thesidekick, said something quite similar about my novel Cold Quiet Country. Not that I’m a daft prat, but that I’m putting the audience on trial. She said it better than I did in my paper, and it’s fascinating for me to see a sharp mind analyse my work and extract from it something I figured might only work subconsciously, if at all. Her take on the book was just a delight to read. Here’s the best sentence of analysis about Cold Quiet Country I’ve ever read. She flat-out nails what I was trying to do:
This is the subtle beauty of Lindemuth’s work: in addressing crimes that are so often willfully ignored by society in such a way, the reader is forced to face head on their own complicity, by their silence, in such acts.
How she arrives at this power-sentence is worth your read. More than a discussion of Cold Quiet Country, Robin is addressing what first person narration is capable of arousing in a reader. Spot on.
I’ve been following Robin’s blog posts for a few months now. Her posts are always insightful and sharp. Check out her blog and become a regular…
December 28, 2013
Free Promotion Ripping Along, now #119 overall on Amazon
Get your FREE KINDLE COPY Here.
You can also download a kindle app for you phone, tablet, or computer at the above link.
Here’s the rundown from Amazon this moment… 
