tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78742451231455769442024-02-07T21:22:32.994-05:00asheville·ink·slingerWriting blog for david·mayeux: fragments of novels that will never be written, poems that should never see the light of a computer monitor, thoughts & links about reading & writing.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-9267109257785007162021-10-04T08:30:00.001-04:002021-10-04T08:30:29.969-04:00Philosophy/oenophile joke <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWkzZgQIdSmB3hJxNgrMJOv4HXhysNO64PyK4A2HqDb__ntqJF7RcbaqOdeefd70V8TAMb9XHanvVrn3ZfbV-Mu_E3CpQ2guUgk4m85vGSyxEIhj6iZ38nKG869bgsIcCaCDjCb9Ppoc/s750/1E529C39-60D0-402D-8C22-E8526990E85E.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWkzZgQIdSmB3hJxNgrMJOv4HXhysNO64PyK4A2HqDb__ntqJF7RcbaqOdeefd70V8TAMb9XHanvVrn3ZfbV-Mu_E3CpQ2guUgk4m85vGSyxEIhj6iZ38nKG869bgsIcCaCDjCb9Ppoc/s320/1E529C39-60D0-402D-8C22-E8526990E85E.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-23527607085269982902020-12-09T21:12:00.001-05:002020-12-09T21:12:45.615-05:00<p> Part of my personality is that I long for friendships with people with whom I know they'd never be interested in friendship with me. And I'm not talking about celebrities, just local talented folks with whom I would love to spend time, but I know that I'm simply too prosaic, to pedantic, to religious to fit into their circle.</p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-49105632387995401662017-05-17T07:01:00.001-04:002017-05-17T12:40:07.667-04:00Logan: Post-Christian, Anti-Pelagian Film<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCH-QbqoA_UP1hqR8xb23T0Hkv2QLP3lrF3HC4uKjz0oALAqMAOY9GGFTvdC_3DuIm3mx0SVIFCAmR1MIT6FEEbgOIRvKO4MzqOS_dqj5ZzohvStWD5u5ltunJQbbhezCswIxtFLiC7k/s1600/logan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCH-QbqoA_UP1hqR8xb23T0Hkv2QLP3lrF3HC4uKjz0oALAqMAOY9GGFTvdC_3DuIm3mx0SVIFCAmR1MIT6FEEbgOIRvKO4MzqOS_dqj5ZzohvStWD5u5ltunJQbbhezCswIxtFLiC7k/s640/logan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Saw <i><a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/logan_2017/" target="_blank">Logan</a></i> the newest movie about the character known as the The Wolverine whose origin is found in comic books, and the last film with Hugh Jackman playing the titular role. It's going to leave me thinking for days, and I think people will be talking about this film for some time.</div>
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The movie, which was quite good, is a refutation of the basic worldview of the other superhero movies, which is essentially <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm" target="_blank">Pelagianism</a>, an early Christian heresy that taught we could achieve salvation through our own efforts. But as it rejects Pelagianism, it simultaneously mourns, from the filmmakers' viewpoint, that there is no other source of hope—especially the metaphysical hope of Christianity—to replace it.</div>
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A short aside to the main points that I want to make. There is a scene early in the second act that cemented that this was not "another superhero movie." During the first act, our protagonist is drunk, the violence gory, lots of f-bombs are dropped, and we see a naked breast. But <i>Deadpool</i> already did that, and that only says "see, we can make 'adult' superhero movies." Boring. In the scene that grabbed me, our protagonists are making an escape by car, and Logan turns the car toward a fence and floors it. Yawn, I thought. We've seen this in almost every action movie. We get a shot of Logan concentrating and gripping the steering wheel creating false tension that they might not break through, then BAM, exaggerated sigh of relief, and they escape.</div>
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Only they don't. They seriously damage the fence, but they can't make it past; the strength of the fence is too much, and there's too much wire for them to make it through, so they have to back up. Entire action movie genre subverted all at once. I think we're going to see a lot of comparisons between <i>Logan</i> and the "death of superhero movies" to <i>Unforgiven</i> (to which <i>Logan</i> owes a lot) and the death of Westerns (in an extended comparison of movies, <i>Deadpool</i>=superhero parody::Mel Brook's <i>Blazing Saddles</i>=Western parody). Now to the more philosophical musings:</div>
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The movie takes place in a future a few decades beyond our own, at a time after the heroes have failed, and all are dead and gone, remembered only from the pages of a few remaining comic books. The only familiar faces left are Logan, "the Wolverine," and Charles Xavier, "Professor X". You don't have to have seen the other X-Men movies to understand the characters, but it does make <i>Logan</i> all the more elegiac if you've seen Patrick Stewart play, at some point, the idealist mutant who though physically disabled and wheel chair bound has at his control enormous telepathic abilities (and intellect), along with the team of other mutants he's assembled, the X-men, to help him pursue his dream of mutated humans and baseline humans living in peace. In <i>Logan</i>, however, though Charles retains his idealism, he has Alzheimer's and can no longer control his powers, often putting himself and those around him in danger. Without that control and intellect at his command, the dream is impotent.</div>
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It is telling that of all the mutant superheroes Logan, who has always been a character skeptical of Xavier's dream, is the only other of the X-men to survive, barely. Logan, too, is feeling the ravages of age. His rapid healing ability and retractable metal claws, which he can extend to use as weapons, have both slowed to a crawl.</div>
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The driving conceit of the film is that an amoral corporation, using DNA collected from the various mutants of yore, have bred in a laboratory their own army of mutants, and one of them was manufactured from Logan's DNA, a daughter of sorts. I think it's intentional that in the movie the purpose this manufactured army is never made clear. It doesn't matter—there is no evil villain in this movie, no secret plot for world domination—evil is not grand, it's petty. The "daughter" mutant has been smuggled away from the corporation, and placed in Logan and Xavier's hands to protect and transport to "Eden" a supposed safe haven for mutants.</div>
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The plot is standard superhero fare, but the movie rejects what would normally be the Pelagianistic response to the plot. In superhero movies, by having the right tools (powers), will, and dedication, evil will be defeated, though evil exists on fairly equal terms with the good guys (so we also get hints of Manicheanism). This is a fair reflection of the worldview held by the majority: with enough technological progress and good political systems/social engineering, we can defeat social evils and create paradise. By placing <i>Logan</i> in a future where superheroes have failed (and not coincidentally, science and social engineering are being used for evil), the film clearly states that superheroes, even at the height of their power, are not enough to overcome evil. Evil persisted and won. In <i>Logan</i>, Pelagius was dead wrong.</div>
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But in the movie, this defeat of goodness is mourned. In other movies in which the world is dystopian and amoral (eg. Mad Max), the "heroes" are equally amoral and fighting not so much for good or virtue but neutral values such as liberty or survival. The lack of virtue in the protagonists of these movies is neither celebrated nor criticized. Logan, on the other hand, has given up on virtue, but this is clearly mourned in the film. Charles Xavier pronounces Logan a failure because he lives only for survival and is no longer moved by Xavier's dream for peace; and we're meant to sympathize with Xavier. Logan is also poisoned from within by the very tools he used to fight evil with but cannot die due to his healing ability. He's not looking for a solution, however, unless you count the "silver" adamantium bullet he carries around that he believes is the only thing that can truly kill him. Logan has given in to despair, and the film and audience pities him for it.</div>
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What makes the film truly bold and interesting is that after rejecting the Pelagianism, <i>Logan</i> holds forth Christianity and asks if it can possibly still offer hope to the world in place of a Manichean war against evil fought by Pelagius's army. The answer, surprisingly, is not an indifferent, stark, nor sarcastic "no" but a wailing keen.</div>
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Hereafter lie spoilers ... so be forewarned.</div>
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There are two and a half peaceful moments in this film which is otherwise bloody, violent, and unrelenting. One is when Logan, Xavier, and the "daughter," Laura, are resting in a hotel. Xavier and Laura are lying on the hotel bed watching the movie Shane. Four scenes from Shane are shown to us: the villain shooting down an innocent, a funeral at which the "Our Father" is prayed, Shane defeating the villain, and Shane's farewell. The second peaceful moment is with a family of farmers who offer a night's rest to the trio as they flee the company that manufactured Laura. There they share a meal together (which the family prays over), reminisce about the X-men, and have a night of genuine rest, that our idealist Xavier tries to get Logan to appreciate for the sake of itself, and later calls it "the most perfect night he's had in quite some time." The last half-moment of rest comes when Logan and Laura come at last to Eden, a blatant Christian allusion, but find that it is a not a final safe haven, but another way-station before Laura, reunited with the other manufactured mutant children, will make their way to political asylum in Canada.</div>
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Each of these moments of rest offers Christianity as a possibility of hope, and each is denied in turn.</div>
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Super spoilers ahead.</div>
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Logan dies at the end of the movie, and the children bury him under a cairn where Laura speaks at the foot of the grave. She quotes Shane here, but instead of praying the Our Father as she saw at an actual funeral scene, she quotes the farewell scene:</div>
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"A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can't break the mould. I tried it and it didn't work for me. Joey, there's no living with a killing. There's no going back from one. Right or wrong, it's a brand. A brand sticks. There's no going back. Now you run on home to your mother, and tell her everything's all right. And there aren't any more guns in the valley."</div>
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No redemption, no salvation, and no hope in God. And while there "aren't any more guns in the valley" at the end of the movie, both Shane and Laura know there are still guns beyond the valley, and always will be, and they will likely return with time.</div>
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At the family dinner, as I mentioned, the family prays over the meal, but our protagonists trio doesn't answer "Amen" with the family, but just smiles tolerantly, even the idealist Xavier. Xavier's hope is not in God but in his own dream. The family, who is Christian, has hope and joy in their family bonds and this is presented as both genuine and good. Xavier recognizes this, explicitly pointing it out to Logan. However, both the family and Xavier are brutally slaughtered at break of dawn, just as Xavier has called it his "most perfect night."</div>
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Returning to Logan's funeral and the final shot of the film. One of the children, likely not from any faith but tradition, placed a cross at the head of Logan's grave. As the children leave the grave, Laura, the daughter, takes the t-shaped cross and turns it so that makes instead an "X". While, the more superficial reading of this is nothing beyond either "Logan was truly an X-man" or acknowledging his origins as "Weapon X", I think it's also meant to be a final rejection of Christianity in the film: the saving Cross is transformed into an X, null—there will be no Resurrection. But again, this rejection of Christianity in the film is not just blithely assumed, ignored, or celebrated. This happens, after all, at a funeral. The film sees our world as post-Christian, mourns it as such and even eulogizes its death, but doesn't propose a return to Christianity as the solution either.</div>
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The film lingers for a few seconds beyond this rejection of the cross to watch the children still walking toward Canada. They have not made it; we don't get to see success, but only the slow march on. The only hope is to keep moving, there's no assurance of making it to something better than the journey of life we're living.</div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-53281593009473310592017-03-03T10:20:00.002-05:002017-03-03T10:21:23.802-05:00Shell of an RPG system?<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blogger Aaron Parr's "<a href="http://blog.houseofthemagus.com/choosing-from-what-remains/" target="_blank">Choosing from what Remains</a>" muses on</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> narrated consequences for actions in an RPG and player choice from a list of consequences created by the other players. His version of this would have the specific outcomes created for each action of consequence as it happens, the number of those outcomes reduced, with the acting player choosing the outcome from the remaining choices. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like the idea but it seems like a lot of creative energy to put into each action of consequence especially when most of the created outcomes are "lost" once the decision is made. So I created the shell of a RPG system with the onus of creative narration reduced to one player, occurring after player's choice from among a presented set of generic outcomes (and no need to write out the specific outcomes):</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each player gets a suit of cards (if more than four players, hopefully someone has a deck with non-standard suits to add to the mix). Each card represents a generic possible outcome of an action:</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Generic Outcomes</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A) action succeeds with unexpected bonus</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">K) action happens as player intended</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q) action succeeds but not as well as hoped </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">J) Jack's are wild, player narrates outcome</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">10) action succeeds but with negative consequence for character (e.g. found the lost tome, goes insane on reading it)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">9) action interrupted to character's advantage</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">8) action interrupted without consequence</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">7) action interrupted to character's disadvantage </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">6) action fails - no consequence </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) action fails - character can't make more attempts but no other consequence (eg. computer locks out on failed hacking attempt)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) action fails - negative consequence to character (or allies?)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) action fails with terrible consequences to character</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) action fails, but goal achieved (eg. missed shot ricochets to hit target)</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When a player takes an action of consequence, all other players may "play" up to three cards of their choice from their suit. The combined cards are shuffled, a number of cards based on the player's skill level (I'm imagining a 1-5 scale of abilities/skills) are flipped face up. Player picks card of choice from face up cards; the player whose suit is picked gets to narrate the outcome.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cards played for that action are discarded. When a player plays all their cards, they retrieve their discarded suit, randomly remove one card, and then may use the remaining cards as before. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Players who play more cards up front get fewer chances to effect narrative as play goes on. Players who offer too many success outcomes get left with only failures to play as the narrative continues. The ideal here is for cooperative play, and </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One area that I know needs work is the inherent potential for players "playing their cards right" so that at really important actions, especially the climatic conflict, they can all play just successes. Which could be part of the cooperative play goal; cards are played not so that *I* win, but when the stakes are high we're all able to help each other succeed. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the agreed goal is to get the troupe to succeed at the story objective—we're playing only comedies—I suppose that's fine. After all, we go to comedies to expect a happy ending. The challenge for the players then is to know that even ending on success there should be the illusion of challenge; which when we go to a comedy, we suspend our knowledge of the outcome even when we know it will be positive. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, this still doesn't sit satisfactorily; I feel like there should always be at least some chance for failure, otherwise there's no stake. I think the reason most role-players play with dice is because there's </span></span><b style="font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">always </b><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the chance for failure, no matter how maxed out your character is. This creates tension, which is part of the experience of story.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Parr, responding to this "system" first posted on Google+ offered that "even" players (in relation to the player declaring an action) could only play successes while "odd" players can only play fails. This does increase narrative creativity, as then each turn of play, a player has to anticipate a different type of outcome to narrate, which I like. I could also see narrator players can always play 2 or 3 cards and one of them HAS to be a failure, the remaining card is their choice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, still working on that bit. But maybe I'll try to drag some people over to play out this strange idea ...</span>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-82865999925774177762016-01-07T09:53:00.002-05:002016-01-07T09:53:54.401-05:00The Ta'Narack<i>An old story dredged up from almost a decade past; it's pretty bad, but entertaining.</i><br />
<br />
The Ta'Narack<br />
By David M. Mayeux<br />
<br />
I traveled to the pubs where sailors sat and drowned memories of their mistress the wine-dark sea her terrible siren call. Libations were made to mother earth in hope that she might cradle them once more in her arms and shield them from the temptation of the fickle sea. I listened for tales of sunken treasure and the fearsome kraken, or advice on how to keep one's heart form desolation when separated by endless leagues from those they love and cherish. But this night, all the travelers of the whales' road held their tongues and made their silent prayers of drink.<br />
<br />
I feared that nothing would come of my night's excursion when one sailor, gaunt and chin flecked with a sea-salt beard began to speak, the glow from the solitary candle on his table dancing in his eyes. His voice whispered, and yet it was heard all too clear above the wind, and even when the wind howled with fury, he did not raise his voice, yet still he could be heard and this stilled our souls in fear and wonder.<br />
<br />
"We had traveled to the edge of the world, to the places marked 'Here be Dragons,' and dragons we saw, and much beside. We traveled as far as the Isles of Kathoon, for we'd heard rumor of spices and oils whose very scent and sight of shifting colors in their smoke could transport men to the lands of dreams, where all desires might be fulfilled.<br />
<br />
"And the strange dark men, dark from tattoo and the dream smoke they were ne'er far from, gladly traded with us, took our stores of silks and opals in exchange for their queer herbs and incense, and yet they did so with such a leer and frightening glance we were given pause and wondered at the deal we'd made.<br />
<br />
"And yet their hospitality could not be rivaled as they brought us to their feasts and filled our stores with good meat and barley and jars of fiery wine, all spiced and pungent with the spice of dreams.<br />
<br />
"A week we stayed there, and under their calm direction they showed us our fantastic dreams. We traveled to the kingdoms of Tabrinth and Laize whose cities are carved into the living rock of the Mountain of Shadow, and saw the kingdoms of cats and gryphons on the far side of the moon. We traveled with the prophets of Time on the river of souls and saw the places where the Lord of Rule and Kaos meet once every eon to dine and sing songs that keep the universe on its eternal whirling dance.<br />
<br />
"But the winds changed, and the time was ripe to return to the sea. The men of Kathoon gathered on the shore and with zither and hors of ivory, played haunting songs whose notes hung on till we lost the sight of their glittering city.<br />
<br />
"For three days we had fair winds and peaceful nights, and our spirits were bright with the journey and the amber spiced wine that warmed our throats. Each night, the spice returned us to the wondrous lands we had been shown and we wandered the realms of dream seeking out its treasures of story and song.<br />
<br />
"Then, on the fourth day out to sea, the boson dreamed that he was walking in the perfumed gardens of the Kaliph Al-Hazrad, and he picked on of the silver Lunesca flowers. When he was startled awake by the ship's bell, the petals, slightly crushed were still in his hand. He showed the crew, and all were amazed to see the dream stuff solid in his hands, its blissful odor filling the cabin. Then you could see the gleams in our eyes and had we not all been infected with greed, we might have seen what evil would be wrought. What we saw before us were the untold treasures of our dreams--the gold and silver plate of the countless courts, the jewels, sapphires, rubies and opals, that served to adorn the idols of the endless small gods, the exotic spices, the finest silks, all could be brought back from our dreams.<br />
<br />
"For nine days our ship wandered like the Flying Dutchman, and a ghost ship we might as well have been for no one on the ship stayed awake for long. If woke we did, it was merely to store our treasures, stolen, hoarded and robbed form the realms of Morpheus, and then return to the narcotic sleep of the Kathoon Spice. We had turned pirate and highwaymen, robbers of the phantasms, while our corporal bodies wasted away, but we grew rich and richer still and told ourselves we'd wake when we had enough. And so we plundered, and as we hoarded we drained the lands of those who'd served as hosts and had offered us nothing but hospitality, and to avoid their newborne wrath, we drifted farther from the bright civilized lands of Oneiros, toward the greyer, darker borders.<br />
<br />
"It was on that thirteenth day at sea, though years had seemed to pass in dreams, that the first mate's screams woke us all. Unused to the waking world, and our bodies week from atrophy, we stumbled to his hammock but could not make out what was wrong till we were right upon him. I will not describe the horrors that were done unto his body, and truth be told, the madness of that night has ripped it blissfully form my memory.<br />
<br />
"But the smell of the dead I'll ne'er forget and the realization of our feet stuck fast to the planks by his blood. His arms were flung before him as if he'd grappled with some horrible foe, and his eyes were frozen wide with terror. As the cabin boy turned to be sick, though none of us had eaten for days and had not stomach to lose, he noticed that which made our souls sick with horror. On the planks were footprints marked with the first mate's blood that went off into the hold. Footprints no mortal man could make, but only from a creature of Nightmare's realm.<br />
<br />
"Scarce few of us—minds and bodies still weakened by the Kathoon's spice—thought to grab up pistol and sword to guard against whatever hid in the shadows of the ship. Many were lost to shock, eyes staring at the distant abyss, and others began to gibber and quail--the sound of their maddened keening filled the ship and wore at all our nerves and fears.<br />
<br />
"Finally, a dim grey light filled the lower decks, Dawn had risen with rose-tipped fingers to shine again on the cursed sea. We took the first mate's body, wrapped it in plundered silks for a shroud, and by the light of the rising sun cast the first of our dead into the wine-dark sea.<br />
<br />
"With the horror of the body committed to the ocean's depths and the risen sun came a hope that with the light, perhaps the nightmare had returned to the Land of Nod. There was no sight of it, nor sound, though none of us dared venture too far into the hold, and with gladdened hearts that we had survived many set to restoring the ship and charting our course to home again.<br />
<br />
"But no sooner had the heat of the noonday's sun began to fade than the terrible report of gunshot rang out followed by the yet more terrible scream of man, inhuman in its terror. Once more men began to break down and weep but those of harder hearts screamed for their silence--the cries of distress tearing at their sanity. Finally, the captain and I, armed futilely with pistol and sword descended down into the Hell that was the lower decks.<br />
<br />
"The cook we found and one other of the crew, both slaughtered, both mutilated as they had gotten food to prepare for dinner. Twelve of us now were left upon that cursed ship.<br />
<br />
"Before we could stop them, two of the crew screamed they would not die here and gorged themselves on the Kathoon spice to escape to dreams. I myself slit their throats and cast their bodies in the sea for we all feared what terrors they might return with.<br />
<br />
"The steersman and one sailor we lost to babbling madness; we bound them gagged to the mast for their safety and our sanity. Their screams, those terrible insane screams still ring within my ears. We eight who were left, we closed and barred the doors to the hold and sat in alternating watches, hunger gnawing at our bellies, sleep clawing at our eyes and mortal dread keeping us from satisfying both.<br />
<br />
"Those not on watch holed up in the captain's cabin our eyes red with tears and exhaustion, fear and sickness brought by lack of food and drink. As they sun began to set, darkness grew in our hearts. The hours, minutes, seconds sped to fast with the suns last rays dying from the earth. The sun set. It must have crawled out of the cannon ports for the hold's doors were still barred when in a moment of bravado I rushed to save my fellow crew from whatever drew their screams.<br />
<br />
"But no bravery, no courage served me when I saw the creature bent o'er the bodies of the cabin boy and the navigator. Though the moonlight shone upon it, I could not make out its features, but I could see all too clearly, the image burns my eyes, that boy and mate were still alive as the creature feasted. Terror welled within me and oblivion took me as I fainted on the deck.<br />
<br />
"When terrible consciousness returned, the nightmare was nowhere to be seen. I turned my head form the bodies of my mate and the boy and returned to the captain's cabin. Of the six, I drew the short straw. To return to dreams, to find what ways could kill the monster the first mate had unleashed upon us. The captain held the gun that would kill me should I seem to be faced with yet another horror that might threaten to return with waking, and still we did not know if the hidden thing would find us there. And I slept.<br />
<br />
"In the dark and shadowlands, I found myself, and over months of Nightmare Time, I followed rumor and signs of where the first mate had been. I was pursued by many a faceless thing, confronted versions of myself and loved ones that were always wrong and searched many haunted realms, when at last I am to the Tombs of the Emperors of the Desert Waste of Nuhl. There the first mate had been plundering the tombs to fuel our greed for dreamland treasure.<br />
<br />
"I descended to those shadowy crypts with flickering torch to find whatever clue might save us from that creeping Death. There in the gloomy dark I found those ancient kings, fierce and mighty warriors they had been, now laid upon their biers, taken by that cold Death that comes for all. Each was surrounded by the fantastic treasure, treasure that had drawn the first mate here those many . . . what? years? months? Had it only been last night in the distant world of men? Even now I was tempted by that wealth, even in face of horror. But a sharp cry from deeper in the crypts focused my mind and fear and I searched about till I found the inscription.<br />
<br />
"'Here we lie, the warrior kings of Nuhl<br />
vast and mighty was our Empire<br />
terrible and swift our sweeping armies<br />
here we lie with treasures got from distant lands<br />
and wrought by magic in dwarven halls.<br />
Know you who might steal our treasures<br />
intended for the Lands beyond Life<br />
that guarded they lie and cursed you'll be,<br />
who disturb their place, by the Ta'narack<br />
the Barrow Wight, who feasts upon the living flesh<br />
and yet leaves the dead as the soul doth flee.<br />
Across Time and Space our curse will follow<br />
and none escape the Creeping Dread.'<br />
<br />
<br />
"I fell to my knees and wept. Hope all but fled my heart. I cursed those fallen Kings of Nuhl and raged against their greedy pride and ours. And as my curses faded in the darkness, in reply came a low holing that drew louder with each wail. I bolted to my feet and up the long passageways to the desert surface not daring to look behind. My legs and lungs burned and yet the howls grew nearer in the dark and I could feel the barrow wight’s presence at my back. In final desperation I drew my pistol and racing in the inky black I shot my hand.<br />
<br />
“Screaming and sobbing with pain, I woke facing the captain’s pistol. My hand was bleeding, and its bones shattered. The captain released the hammer and said, ‘two hours. Three more dead.’ His eyes grew dark when I told him what I’d seen. His face grew hard, and he left the cabin for the deck silently. There was no scream, only a gunshot and a splash.<br />
<br />
“Beside the men insane, who’d been left thus far untouched by the barrow wight, there was only myself and one other. Carter his name was, Carter and I sat, and Carter told me of his wife and child back on land. He’d wanted treasure so that his lad, but newborn, might never have to sail the lonely sea, or break his back working the docks of their town. He had their daguerreotype and wanted to show me, but I begged him no. I could not stand to see something borne of love and joy just then.<br />
<br />
“As Carter stared at their picture, soft and low the howl began. So tired, I didn’t even lift my head though it chilled my bones, that herald of Death. Carter merely looked at his family. Then his eyes steeled and he grabbed a pair of pistols. He would not die like the captain, yet nor would he wait for Death; that was not the father wished to be. On all my voyages, I had not met a braver man, and when he died at the hands of evil, I prayed his soul would find his family.<br />
<br />
“And I was alone with the dead, the mad, and the Creeping Dread. And on the ship, in the middle of the sea, there would be no place to hide. Blood dripped to the floor form my hand. My bandage could not staunch the wound, and I began to go into shock as the low howl began again.<br />
<br />
“The barrel of the gun felt so cool against my fevered brow, and my last lucid thought was that at least the horror would find no living flesh to feast upon . . .<br />
<br />
“At that the madness born of fear and animal survival kicked in. I remember only flashes; getting the two madmen, the moving of the bodies, and through it all the sickening, plaintive howl of the barrow wight, the Ta’narack, growing louder and louder still till I remember no more of that night or the days that followed. And I blacked out hearing the shambling, approaching steps . . .<br />
<br />
“As best the crew of the Santa Dymphna could tell, they found our ship three days later drifting in the seas off the coast of Chile. The smell of death was so strong they feared the plague. But as they were setting fire to the ship, one of the crew heard my ramblings, and they pulled me and the two madmen from beneath the cairn of bodies I had made to hide our smell of living flesh.<br />
<br />
“The nuns tell me that I did not sleep, but stared in unnatural stillness the month I was under their care, and still I do not sleep for perchance I’ll dream, and it has been a year since I left the convent. I travel, though ne’er by boat and never stopping; for the maddened sailor, he died of fever, but the steersman . . . the steersman was found after a night when the wind was heard to howl, and yet there was no storm. The steersman was found in a pool of his own blood with wounds inhuman.”<br />
<br />
The wind outside, thank God it was the wind, howled as we all fled the pub and the accursed man, and I go no more to hear the sailors’ tales.<br />
<br />
07 January 2007<br />
<br />David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-84223532296630734532015-02-02T10:36:00.003-05:002015-02-02T10:36:56.078-05:00Another "Lasting Impression in Chad"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhed54aRVgDWbO4enC9uey8CZdQRunYgXTleigDSZRl66pmK8goaid_oqJf-dgPMFsWkpjV7WsoS94N6WOHGoihDEdVk9A1PSWu0SHhlDE9WWBo0rFX9dvNONQkleNJzOOPDB_zy_dV2eo/s1600/jeremie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhed54aRVgDWbO4enC9uey8CZdQRunYgXTleigDSZRl66pmK8goaid_oqJf-dgPMFsWkpjV7WsoS94N6WOHGoihDEdVk9A1PSWu0SHhlDE9WWBo0rFX9dvNONQkleNJzOOPDB_zy_dV2eo/s1600/jeremie.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeremie kissing his "guns"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jessica's professor, McDowell, wrote to us today to let us know that he was talking to Jeremie in the Bloc/the operating theatre (Jeremie who gave us "the cock") and His wife had their baby girl yesterday!<br />
<br />
Guess what he wants to name their daughter?<br />
<br />
JESSICA!<br />
<br />
Jeremie told McDowell, that Jessica was so nice & gave the first cadeaux—the traditional gift of soap for a new infant & a headlamp for Jeremie. His wife still has to agree but that's his plan!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1oO9CLsu7hPpVD261JjWuo4mK-A7T8quw4UIVpH1XiXGvSpE8otdMsDJU-F0S8uQKJC4USXiSQNsd2thGyUJ6tEZocxK6dhuIgjraIF72vpsMDvi8Unzzq5SThRwrkgukjhrdYzfhGFE/s1600/49-77-thickbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1oO9CLsu7hPpVD261JjWuo4mK-A7T8quw4UIVpH1XiXGvSpE8otdMsDJU-F0S8uQKJC4USXiSQNsd2thGyUJ6tEZocxK6dhuIgjraIF72vpsMDvi8Unzzq5SThRwrkgukjhrdYzfhGFE/s1600/49-77-thickbox.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">savon Azur, a traditional gift for newborns</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-84734856149115555292015-01-21T15:38:00.000-05:002015-01-21T15:41:17.302-05:00Jan 08 - The Compound: Hospital Side<div> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>948</o:Words> <o:Characters>5404</o:Characters> <o:Company>WCU</o:Company> <o:Lines>45</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>12</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>6340</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>14.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> 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that separates the hospital from residential parts of the compound is the garden, a place of brick paths, some of them unfinished or broken, some landscaping with flowering bushes or plants bunched together to resemble bushes, and a couple of young trees, that has spots of beauty, but that few patients or staff visit because it's not in the shade. By 9 o'clock, it's frequently too hot to seek comfort or peace by walking the paths, or resting on the couple of concrete benches which are through most of the day in direct sunlight. I didn't make note of the temperature too often, but I did notice, one afternoon, a thermometer in the shade reading 90 F</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:"Lucida Grande";color:black">°.</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">The right side of the compound is devoted to the hospital itself, which could then be further divided into the old buildings and the empty shells of the new buildings, which just sit with tired hope. The old buildings, the only ones really worth describing, consist of Administration with the Pharmacy, the Cashier, Dental and Lab; "The Bloc" which contains the Operating Room, Pre-Op, and storage; Pediatrics; Obstetrics which has the outdoor worship chapel/waiting area; and Patient Beds. In addition there are a few latrines and "The Garage" which is a storehouse for equipment, tools, diesel for the generators that power the whole compound (which are just behind the Garage), and bats.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Most patients wait outside under the trees to see medical personnel, and their family may wait with them. Some of them camp for days for a referral, or if they're surgery is delayed, or their treatment simply takes time. It is a constant minor medical refugee camp full of Gumbai, Nanjirai, Arabs, and the colorfully dressed Fulani who are further distinguished by their tattooed faces. Women wash clothes at the outdoor spigots, men wait expectantly talking to someone on their cell phone, children cry in their mothers' arms, someone might be sitting with the chaplain on the old hospital bed under the tree by the latrines.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">The pharmacy and cashier windows are right next to each other, and there's always a crowd in front of each window. At either, you might present your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">fiche</i>, your paperwork or your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">carnet</i>, health booklet. The health booklet is a portable medical record that each person holds onto. It is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">crucial</b> in the Chadian health system, so of course most people don't have one or tend to lose track of it. In it a doctor, physician or nurse will make notes of treatment, write a pharmacy scrip, record a consultation, make a referral, or write out a course of treatment for a patient to follow. They are glorified notepads, but you can't get certain treatment without an official Chadian carnet.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">So you might see your doctor, and she'll write out a scrip in your carnet to take the cashier and pharmacy, but there's a little bit of a language barrier so you accidentally stand in line at the pharmacy waiting/pushing through the crowd to the front, and the pharmacy tells you to go to cashier first, then you wait/push through to cashier, pay what you hope is the fair amount (sometimes a problem …), then you're sent back to wait at pharmacy where they look at your scrip and tell you the hospital doesn't have any more of that medicine and to go back to the doctor. It is anyone's guess whether you will see the money you already paid for the medicine you never received. In addition there are tragically necessary signs around the hospital translated roughly as: "Pay ONLY the cashier; do not pay ANYONE else."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Down the hall from the pharmacy and cashier is the "dentist's" office. As previously mentioned, Zach, with no previous dentistry experience (his dentist father notwithstanding) is the local dentist. The only dental service the hospital currently offers is Zach looking into a mouth, and if a tooth (or teeth) is rotten it is pulled. Occasionally, he'll call over someone from the Bloc to do a quick local anesthetic, but not usually. Zach can also offer advice about dental care (which also features prominently in his public health lecture), but that's where his limits lie. Naomi serves as his assistant, providing suction—so "they don't choke on their own spit" as Charis puts it—and translation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">The Bloc will get described in greater detail when I write about the case I observed, in a blog entry I'll title "Barefoot in the OR" but it's a one bed Surgery (two if Drs. Danae and Bland decide they're behind and need to cram) with a Pre-Op where additional surgery might also occur if the hospital is slammed. Dr. Bland truly does the lion's share of the surgery, but Dr. Danae works there quite frequently sometimes alongside her father. Mason's at the head of the bed; first assist to the surgeon is often the Chadian doctor who lives on the compound, but Charlie the visiting resident has been taking turns there while he's here, and then there are three male nurses, including Jeremy: provider of the chicken.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">The patient ward is best described in Mason's words: "unlit parking garages." Mason and Dr. Danae often have to fight to get the nurses to provide the necessary follow up care to surgery. There are no blankets for patients unless the family provides them. Other than to spend a moment praying at the foot of the bed of Jessica's first patient in Bere, I spent little time in the parking garage. Considering how the importance of prayer and that "visiting the sick" is one of the corporal works of mercy, I should have spent much more time there and in Pediatrics. I imagine and hope that on future trips, that will be my priority, but it took me until about the end of our trip to realize it's where I should be focused and that anything else was secondary.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Pediatrics may be more depressing for it is likewise dingy and dirty, but it is perhaps more obviously so with the dust and stains over someone's attempt to brighten the place with wall murals of smiling bees and flowers and happy clouds on blue skies, while flies buzz around the children's faces; and while the sounds of suffering adults is saddening, the sound of so many children in pain is heart-breaking. However, there may be more hope in the sight of a child recovering, even smiling, in Pediatrics. It was there that my most heartfelt prayers went out, and I've missed so many moments of grace by not spending more time there.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-90537852187238175492015-01-21T06:04:00.001-05:002015-01-21T06:04:49.532-05:00Jan 08 – The Compound, Residential Side<div> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>884</o:Words> <o:Characters>5043</o:Characters> <o:Company>WCU</o:Company> <o:Lines>42</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>11</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>5916</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>14.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> 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class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Jan 08 – The Compound, Residential Side<br><br>Our first day in Bere was pretty laid back, starting with coffee and cinnamon toast with peanut butter at the McDowells. Bread and peanut butter are a bit of a staple on the compound as there aren't a lot of sanitary protein choices to be had: peanut butter, eggs and beans are pretty much it. You can get meat—goat and chicken—but you want to make sure that the animal in question was killed that day, in front of you, to truly assure that it's fresh. For the McDowells, this job falls to Solomon their cook, who pretty much showed up on their doorstep looking for work the day after they arrived, as he had been cook for a previous couple who had lived on the compound.<br><br>I don't know if any jealousy ensued on the compound, but it's generally agreed that Solomon is the best local family cook, and I'll say his cooking his excellent. Part of our stay included lunch everyday at the McDowell's, and after the first lunch Jessica declared Solomon's food as good as any restaurant's. All of his bean dishes were great, but his spaghetti sauce (called <i>Sauce D'Emmie</i>, after the McDowells' younger daughter) and pizza are superbly excellent.<br><br>We also received home-baked bread from the McDowells, one loaf from the wife of Dr. Bland on the compound, and a couple almost baguette-esque loaves from Moundou, the nearest large town, two hours away. They were all tasty, but with zero preservatives tend to get stale pretty quickly. This meant eating the bread quickly, keeping it in the fridge, and making French toast with it toward the end of the loaf's life.<br><br>Instant <i>Nescafe</i> can be bought here, but not grounds or whole beans, so those are a regular part of care packages for the McDowells, and I was definitely glad we brought some. Jessica had brought some single-serve creamers for coffee, but the local option is a spoonful of powdered milk, the only real dairy option here since hardly anyone in Bere has refrigeration. One can get cheese and butter in Moundou. At home, I can take my scooter to Ingles in about five minutes there and back for decently fresh milk, butter and cheese in such variety that it should make anyone's head spin; here you travel four hours for cheese and butter that is what you get. <br><br>After breakfast, Kim took us on a tour of the compound. Facing the compound from the road, it is divided left and right into residential and hospital sides, respectively. On the residential side live the American missionaries: Dr. Olen and Dr. Danae, husband and wife, general practitioner and obstetrics respectively with their three kids Lyol, Zane, and Addison; Dr. Rolland Bland, a GP who is the primary surgeon here, and his wife Dolores who are Danae's parents; Mason, Nurse Anesthetist and Kim (our hosts) with their daughters Maddie and Emmie; Zach our trusted guide from N'Djamena who is part-time dentist (no previous experience, not counting that his father is a dentist in the U.S.) a public health worker alongside Charis, another public health missionary. Two other American student missionaries, Mickey and Zachary, live off compound with local families who live almost adjacent to the compound walls. Mickey serves primarily as a nurse and Zachary is an engineering student who helps out with all sorts of projects, but seems focused on building up the computer systems here. Charlie, who came in on the bus with us, is also staying off compound with a family, so he can get the full Chadian experience during the month he's here (and boy did he!).<br><br>Three Chadian families live on the compound as well, who, admittedly, I did not get to know as well separated as we were by the language barrier. One family is a doctor nurse husband and wife team, another the husband is a doctor, and the final Chadian family is the hospital administrator. It has been hard to tell how the power structure of the hospital goes, as the Americans, especially Olen and Danae, seemed to be where the buck stopped, but the administrator holds frequent morning meetings with the staff, but whether to disseminate the Americans' orders, or somewhat independently, I was never completely sure.<br><br>A good number of Chadians who don't live there can be found on the Residential side of the compound with any number of other reasons. Wa'ye and Mohammed were the night and day gate guards; Mohammed we of course saw anytime we went in or out of the gate, but he was also often seen playing with any of the children who happened to be on the compound at any given time. Solomon is Kim and Mason's cook, of course, and Bebe is their housekeeper who Kim hired after Bebe with her daughter came in for the Infant Nutrition Program and her daughter died. Selene is a laundress for several of the families, and graciously added our laundry to the mix, which she cleans at a cement trough with bar soap and a hose (soap provided by the patron).<br><br>The soap <i>la savon Azur</i>, by the way, is a four-inch cube, and is used for laundry, dishwashing, and hand washing here. It's pretty neutral smelling and pretty effective at cleaning, though without hot water and machine agitation, it's cleansing properties are limited. This soap, it turns out, is now a traditional gift among Chadians on the occasion of a birth. We bought for Jeremy, Jessica's friend in the OR who got her the cock, 3 bars of les savons because his wife is expecting shortly after we leave.<br><br>One might also see on the residential side, the Adventist School administrators and teachers; Naomi (the ten strong polyglot) who works as dental assistant to Zach and translator when he and Charis go out to the villages; the teenagers Allah and Appolinaire, "Appo," who have been associated with the compound one way or another for years (Allah is especially prominent in the life of the compound); and the constant stream of people who come to the families asking for <i>cadeaux</i> "gifts" to form friendships (asking for a gift is a perfectly acceptable way to <b>start</b> a friendship here) or just for the help which so many need.</span></font></p> <!--EndFragment--></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-69466382493608556052015-01-21T00:23:00.000-05:002015-01-21T00:24:24.713-05:00Jan 07 Last bus to Bere<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Jan 07 Last bus to Bere</span></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">After Zach collected Charley, another Seventh Day Adventist volunteer, from the airport, we headed to the bus depot to catch the bus to Bere. Charley's a med student in his fourth year of residency. Next year he goes to Hawaii to work for the Army. He likes to ride motorcycles, gets Star Wars and Monty Python residences and seems to be a fairly decent guy. So it seems a little unfair that the guy's arrived to find out his luggage got misplaced somewhere between the U.S. and Chad.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">But trooper that he was, he got through immigration, the police and banking without a word of French (he's spent more time in Latin America so his Spanish is decent, but he's been very willing to learn bits of French here and there to smooth the way in Chad), and he was much lighter in traveling on the bus than we were with our four pieces of luggage and two carry-on bags. The wait at the bus depot was longish, for in Chad the bus waits until it's full. There's an approximate time when it's "scheduled" to leave, but if the bus thinks more passengers will arrive, then it will wait until they come.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">The bus depot was just as lively as any other part of N'Djamena, with merchants walking up to passengers to hawk their wares: toothpaste and toothbrushes, clothes, flashlights, and food. Jessica bought some bread to have with us for dinner or breakfast the next day, and I bought some crickets. At first I thought the woman was selling some kind of hot pepper out of her basket, and when I asked Zach, he laughed and told me they were fried crickets (and told me they were supposed to take like popcorn, not that he knew from personal experience), but Charley pointed out they were as large as grasshoppers, really. They were fried, spiced, sprinkled with lime juice and wrapped in a piece of newspaper. The first five were okay, though I learned not to eat the back legs--too tough and pointy--but the sixth one was just too much oil and I had to stop. Jessica didn't even try one. In Bere, I learned there was a spot where one could leave decent uneaten food where it would get taken by the boys who played nearby, so I donated the last of my crickets to a better cause.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">For about twenty minutes we were spoken to by a man who was either very drunk or suffering from some sort of mental illness, or both. His French was so muddled that Zach couldn't make it out, tough it seemed to have something to do with religion as Zach thought he asked us if we were Muslim at one point. He just kept talking at us though there was nothing we could do to reasonably respond. He wasn't asking for money or any other favors it seemed, but what he had to say, whatever it was seemed very urgent. During his time with us, an older blind man walked up to our group, his hand on the shoulder of a young boy who led him. Our drunken orator stopped his speech, reached into his robes and placed a coin in the boy's metal bowl. We did nothing.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">About this point, Zach noticed the man's temple was bleeding, which the man seemed to take in stride, but someone, perhaps a station agent of some kind, came up and removed the man from our group, and we decided to get onto the bus.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">The bus was much more like a Greyhound bus than I expected, and we were assured that we were on the cushy bus, and coming back it was unlikely we'd be afforded such nice transportation. The seats were comfortable enough, but the speaker system was on the border of torturous. At the front and midway down the aisle, about where we were sitting, were television monitors that showed videos of bloody Hong Kong action flicks, music videos--some of them quite scandalous for the usually conservatively modest Chadians--what appeared to be selections from auditions for Nigeria's version of The Voice, and even a Western action movie about soldiers fighting Muslim terrorists who appeared to be led by Osama Bin Laden. The last definitely caused me to raise my eyebrow, but no one else on the bus seem surprised or offended, considering the number of Muslims on the bus. The audio for these videos was loud, full of distortion and hiss and never turned off. I mentioned it was torturous, and actually on the bus ride, I told Jessica that I had read that some places will put prisoners in an uncomfortable room with the lights always on and terrible music playing 24 hours on blaring speakers as a form of torture and/will breaking before interrogation. Because of those infernal speakers, this was the only form of longer public transportation that we took that I simply could not sleep on, even when I desperately wanted to.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">I mentioned the high volume of Muslims on the bus and our first stop after leaving N'Djamena was actually a combination call to prayer and bathroom break. All the women, children and non Muslims stayed on one side of the road to stretch or squat, some without shame within sight of everybody else (conservatively modest in SOME ways that is) while most of the men crossed the street to the mosque while "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" poured from speakers attached to the mini-minarets. We made two other stops, one to get dinner, which we passed on, and another bathroom break. It was at this last stop that Jessica went the to bathrooms, "Ou est la douche?" and was handed her own plastic kettle of water in case she needed it for left-handed business. Alas, she did not need it, and so missed a rare cultural opportunity. I did not experience this toilet, though I heard it was pretty bad, even worse than the toilet at the bus depot which was the most rancid hole-in-the-ground pit I have ever encountered. I have been spoiled for most of this trip in terms of indoor western-style plumbing, and I've been okay with being spoiled so.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">At one point the bus attendant handed out sodas to every passenger, which seemed an interesting gratuity or <i>cadeaux</i> on our trip, and Jessica and I got a try a rather tasty local orange soda. For most of the trip we watched movies on our own and tried to bear through Satan's Sound system.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">We arrived in Kelo, the next town over from Bere, where Dr. Olen of the Adventist Hospital picked us up in his Toyota king-cab pickup. All our luggage went into the bed, and we crammed into the front. Two men from the bus were also going to Bere and hitched a ride with us, riding on top of the luggage. I can't imagine how they did it, for if the dust was bad in N'Djamena it was worse here, and I can only imagine magnified to what degree swirling up from the road across the men in the back.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">The ride back I glimpsed within the headlights many a mud brick house, goats and cattle unattended, unfettered and unfenced, small fires just outside or inside the mud homes, people walking on the road, and a lone moto. We could barely see the river where the hippos live, though we saw no hippos that night, and heard they were the only wild animal left in the area for all the others had been eaten. </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Dr. Olen has quite a sarcastic sense of humor, so it was hard to tell how much of that last statement was true, but I have seen no wild animals beyond lizards and snakes, birds and bats here. People have(? unless it's tied to a tree outside someone home, which is quite rare, I can't tell how or if anyone really owns any of the livestock that wanders around) chickens and pigs, horses, donkeys and cattle, dogs and cats. Actually, our hosts had us bring along a cat door from the U.S. for their cats, which was one of the more amusing purchases to my mind.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Finally, after we'd been bumped and swerved around sand and hump-backed cattle, been passed a lot of what seemed to be barren land and too many broken mud hovels, and Dr. Olen said we'd made it halfway, we were suddenly at the compound, pulling into the gates in very solid brick walls surrounded rather nice houses with electricity and running water. We were greeted briefly by Kim, Jessica's professor's wife, shown to our quarters and we collapsed into bed, hopefully to rest enough to face whatever tomorrow, our first day in Bere, Chad, brought.</span></font></div></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-11838588580096039362015-01-20T12:27:00.000-05:002015-01-20T12:28:29.431-05:00"You like the cock?"<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1IwyYcy57mMC94LwKExU2J7kiwkG0UKTTL1dGgARdB3fGMMISgJtE50VqBc-lTTXe1fyrzNWpHi5IS4UEQJEpLMz9j4m4kHYrchyphenhyphen94HLWp9eIvQpTgo3GxffOcwTkgNCxgjKhallesqY/s1600/IMG_1294-709432.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1IwyYcy57mMC94LwKExU2J7kiwkG0UKTTL1dGgARdB3fGMMISgJtE50VqBc-lTTXe1fyrzNWpHi5IS4UEQJEpLMz9j4m4kHYrchyphenhyphen94HLWp9eIvQpTgo3GxffOcwTkgNCxgjKhallesqY/s320/IMG_1294-709432.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6106476737194667890" /></a></p>This chicken was given to us this morning by one of Jessica's co-workers as a gesture of friendship after he checked that it would be a good gift with the subject line question.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-35720510403890570792015-01-17T02:52:00.001-05:002015-01-17T02:52:32.971-05:00Jan 06 - Buying and Selling in N'Djamena<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px;">After the police and bank, our business affairs in N'Djamena were complete. Zach still had to meet another incoming volunteer on the 7th, so we were staying the night in N'Djamena at "SILS." Zach wasn't completely sure what SILS's purpose was besides offer accommodations to foreign travelers, but it seemed to have something to do with making translations of works into the various Chadian languages, especially the Bible. There was an interesting poster in their office that said "Feeding the 3,000: Did you know there are 3,000 language groups without scripture in their native tongue?" </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px;">The compound was walled, had running water with a tap of filtered water in each "apartment", mosquito nets for the beds, electricity that work most of the time, a guard at each of the two gates and a clean courtyard: all key parts of accommodation in Chad, and rare in most places.</span></div></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px; "><div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Spending the night in the capital meant that we would get to take in more of the town than average volunteers, who usually leave on a bus to Bere the same day their flight arrives. This also meant that Zach got to show off what he knew about N'Djamena, a city he seems to really enjoy. He also seemed please that we were likewise ready to jump into the culture, wander around the city and try our hands at cultural experiences. The first of which was the bus or "Cart" (the 't' is silent). Imagine a minivan with 4 wooden benches behind the driver, each bench with 4 people crammed onto each bench, add a loud blaring radio, and the sound of horns and motos passing by within a hair's breadth of the bus, and you've got the basic idea of public transportation in N'Djamena. Zach, who picked up that I knew a little French, asked "Do you know the word for 'stop' in French?" "Um, arrete?" And with a smile Zach replied, "Yep, but on the bus you just yell 'Stop!'" It's an odd spot for this one common bit of English. We picked up our first cart just outside of the SILS compound by waving it down and headed back to the market, this time to wander around and take in the Marchet Central itself.</span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">We actually just crossed through the Market pretty quickly. Truthfully, you wouldn't really be able to dawdle as everyone is crowded around everyone else buying and selling or moving to the next spot to buy and sell. The Grand Market reminded me a lot of Smiley's Flea Market just outside of Asheville, though many of the items were new and there were about equal parts produce and dry goods. Cell phones, cell phone parts, cell phone cases, and Tigo sim Cards were for sale everywhere ... even in Africa, I could not get away from cell phones, and with Tigo (the only major cell provider here) Jessica still checks her email immediately upon waking up before leaving the bed. There are mats, the plastic washing "kettles", lots of patterned cloth, jewelry, cheap bras without tags and styrofoam underwire inserts. Zach particularly pointed out the last and said that he had been told the bras and all underwear in Chad were especially bad. The other thing in the market were the beggar boys.</span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">This was the first time we encountered children's almost universal desire to say hello to the N'saarah, but these children also had little metal bowls. If they asked us for money, it wasn't in French, but they were persistent in walking behind us through the market. At one point, Zach turned around and with a shooing motion said "Allez! Allez!"<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Go away!</i> and cautioned us that sometimes you just have to tell them to leave. We encountered beggars throughout the city, boys, old men on mats, and one woman with a baby who told me she needed to eat that nearly made me cry. It is probably just as well that I was not in charge of the money while we were in N'Djamena or we likely would have never had any coins, and change is hard to come by as most places and merchants don't like dealing in the larger 5 000 and 10 000 CFA bills. It was hard not to give when asked and I muttered too often "Je suis desolee"<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>I am very sorry</i> to too many people the two days we were in the city.</span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">In addition to the market there plenty of other shops around N'Djamena. I saw appliance shops (Super General brand sold here!), restaurants, bars, LOTS of hair stylists, and construction supplies shops. One popular shop was a place to charge your phone and exchange money for Tigo credit. Most people don't have power in their homes, so these charging stations are a staple. There are even two such stations in Bere, which is a fairly small town. Tigo credit, which covers minutes, texts, and data, is actually another form of currency in addition the CFAs here. Phones are almost like debit cards, and if you know someone's number you can transfer credits from your phone to theirs with a text message ("SMS" here) as payment for services rendered. There were also many roadside stands selling gateux, which Zach recommended to us, but only when freshly made in the morning, cigarettes (though I don't remember seeing anyone smoking), sodas, and more Tigo cards. </span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">One of my favorite sights in N'Djamena was the manicurists, usually boys around 12-14. As they walk the roadside (sometimes there's a sidewalk) they jingle their nail scissors in their hands as advertisement. When a patron needs a manicure, they stop and sit while the boy trims and cleans their nails right by the roadside.</span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Another common sight was a moto dealer. An interesting thing about motorcycle dealership laws in Chad: if you buy more than a hundred of a particular moto, you can slap whatever maker's label you want on the tank. Walking by a moto dealer's place you might see 4 or 5 different "makes" on exactly the same Chinese motorcycle. Chinese motorcycles are the most common in Chad, but Honda is the most popular make ... guess which labels you see on more Chinese motorcycles than any other? Most of the cars, on the other hand, are Toyotas, and from my limited knowledge, seem to be genuinely Toyotas.</span></font></div></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family: 'Marker Felt'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Perhaps the most interesting market we saw we visited the next day before heading out on the bus. It was a touristy Artisinal Market of "Chadian" goods, most of them made in Cameroon (just across the border) according to Zach, but several of the items in leather he said were probably Chadian in origin. There were some interesting indigenous musical instruments, little hinged lid chests made from leather, leather elephant key-chain fobs that Jessica really liked, and some fairly nice jewelry. But man were the sellers pushy, pushier than anywhere else we've encountered in Chad. "Come look! Best price, best price! Look masks; here you hold, look. Very nice; best price!" at every single one of the dozen or so stalls. Zach didn't even want to go in it was so bad, and we trooped through on our own. That being said, we're planning on going back when we head back to N'Djamena before flying home, so some of you may end up with Chadian or Cameroonian doo-dads (no promises!).</span></font></div></span></span></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-21805489073752505482015-01-16T09:32:00.000-05:002015-01-16T09:38:59.874-05:00Jan 06 - Shake, take, and give with your right hand! and other cultural mores<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Jan 06 - Pt II Shake, take, and give with your right hand! and other cultural mores</span></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">I pretty quickly adopted Zach's constant wearing of sandals (except when Jessica and I run), so of course my feet are always dusty too. Almost everyone here wears some sort of sandals, so they frequently carry, or have at their doorways what looks like a large plastic tea kettle, often in bright colors, with a contrasting bright color dripped down the side, giving it an almost marbled look. These are filled with water and used throughout the day to deal with the dust and the general washing of hands. There was an old monastic practice that on every Thursdays evening, in honor of the Last Supper, one of the monks would wash all the other's feet as a physical expression of his willingness to service toward all. Thoughts: A) I now see the incredibly practical application of Jesus' actions B) that would be a faith-filled gentle gesture of service at any mission in such a dusty place to have a Thursday feet washing service in which the missionaries was the feet of the people C) if not feet washing (though Jesus does kind of command it, see John 13:14-15) wouldn't it be a beautiful household practice to have a Thursday evening rotating gesture of service to one another?</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Back to N'Djamena. Presumably these plastic water kettles have another very important function ... washing one's backside. One of Zach's first bits of advice was "You guys haven't messed up so far , but always do everything with your right hand. Shake with your right; take with your right; give with your right hand. Never the left." This is because in almost all of the non-Westernized toilets, there's not toilet paper. Jessica, always scatological-minded wanted to know how this worked, so sitting in the Charlotte airport she looked up just how someone is supposed to use that left hand. The secret, by the way, is to wet your left hand first, otherwise the smell *sticks* around, then taking that kettle (or whatever cultural form it takes) you squat over the hole, pour the water down your crack (hopefully avoiding getting your pants soaked) and do what you need to do with the left to get clean. Then clean both hands REALLY well with the soap and you're good to go.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">So it's with good reason that interacting with someone using your left hand is a pretty severe sign of disrespect. You are allowed to hold things with your left, so you can take with the right, pass it to your left hand, manipulate it as you need, pass it back to the right and hand it back. This is hard to remember, and I know I've insulted more than a couple people by handing them things with my left hand. I think they forgive the poor N'Saarah (foreigner, sp?) but still ...</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Another cultural minefield is greeting people. If you're going to interact with someone for more than five seconds, or so, you must shake their hands (with your right hand!), and spend time asking after their day: "Ca va?" "Ca va, bien. Merci. Comment votre-sante?" "C'est Bien. Merci." If you don't, especially if you know the person, even casually, they will think you are mad at them. This can be hard when you are one of a handful of n'saarah (though we do all look alike) and you have met dozens of Chadians. Everyone knows you, and you are desperate to recognize them so as to be polite. You also must greet waiters, merchants, any villagers who show up to a public health lecture you're at, and almost every child you run across because most want to shake the hand of the n'saarah (which they will often yell at you as you go by if they are too afraid to shake your hand).</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Children do not learn French until they go to school, so it's "La-pia" to all the young ones, which is Nanjirai one of the 200 tribal languages that exist in Chad. The largest language groups are Nanjirai, Gumbai, Arabic, Filani, and French kind of acts as a literal lingua franca among people, though it's more likely to be known by men than women, simply because men are more like to go to school than women. Some people here know an amazing amount of languages: Allah, who I will write more about later, speaks at least 4 (Nanjirai, Gumbai, French and English); Naomi, who acts as the primary translator for the hospital, speaks about 10!</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">So at the police station, our first major stop after the airport, walking past the Muslim men in the police compound at prayer on their prayer rugs, we greet and ask after each of the four women secretaries who take our information again, staple our extra passport photos to the forms, and wish us well. One of the women, through Zach, said "Hey, I'm from Bere!" (where we were headed) "Do you know ...?" This exchange among people is pretty common as connections are important, and apparently most people will search through several possible avenues of connection before they find one, and they almost always do. It's like six-degrees of Kevin Bacon for all of Chad.</span></font></div></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-46112982259229323592015-01-16T01:35:00.000-05:002015-01-16T01:36:04.996-05:00January 06 pt I<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">January 06</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div>I hope Jessica and I get a chance to visit Ethiopia one day, instead of just passing through the airport. If Ethiopian Air is any indication of the type of time we'd have there, it'll be fantastic, with great food, friendly people, and English! Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying stretching my French chops while here in Chad, but sometimes the language gap is tough even for those who have been here a while. The airport in Addis Ababa was very efficient, directing us immediately off the plane to our next gate which would take us to N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. The airport was well-worn, especially by U.S. standards, and the bathrooms were our first smell of third-world toilets, though the airport toilet was no worse than those of some bars I've been in.</span></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Our last leg of air travel was fairly short and uneventful, though we did have a meal, which as all meals on Ethiopian Air, was delicious. Then we were at the N'Djamena airport, but b</span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px; ">efore even entering the airport our first stop was at the door to get our temperature taken with an infrared thermometer. Dad, you can add "check for Ebola" to your list of uses for your IR Thermometer. It was inside the N'Djamena airport that we encountered our first language challenge: Immigration. Thanks be to God for the two semesters of high school French that I took, and the helpfulness of the guards. Helpfulness or impatience, it was hard to tell at times, but either way they helped us fill out our information tickets, get our fingerprints scanned and figure out the address of the L'Hospital Adventiste de Bere. One guard truly was simply helpful without impatience, and as he said to me "I speak little English; you speak little French; we do okay."</span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">We left Immigration and entered the circus. Luggage retrieval was a madhouse of shouts and thrown bags, offers to help carry your bags, and guards demanding you put your bags through a last barrage of x-rays before entering the country. Jessica thinks I should be more aggressive, or I'll just end up stuck in Baggage Claim Limbo, but we seem to have gotten through okay. Actually, at one point we thought we were going to be delayed when a woman grabbed one of our bags coming out of the x-ray machine, presumably to search it. But before she could, someone who we assume was her supervisor, told her to give back the bag and let it be.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Outside the airport (past the guards with the machine guns) and into N'Djamena. I don't know about you, but being in the airport at a particular place doesn't actually count as fully arriving. They are universally a place between places, being neither here or there. So sadly, I don't feel I can count Ethiopia on my list of places I've been to, even though technically I was in the country for a few hours. But now we were in Chad and under the careful guidance of Zach from the hospital.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Zach (as opposed to Zachary who is also a Adventist volunteer at the hospital, or Zacharia, who was hired to work on the computers at the hopsital) greeted us with a smile and a "BAH" (Bere Adventist Hospital) sign. We were not long for chit chat as his hired taxi driver had already grabbed one of the bags, Zach took the other and we were off to the cab. Zach, to my mind, looks very much like a typical seasoned American overseas worker/missionary. He keeps a crewcut, wears sandals constantly, loose slacks and a short-sleeved button down shirt, half the time the shirt is made with a locally patterned cloth. He has been a wealth of information which he offers with his running commentary and in answer to any questions. His French is "functional French" as he calls it: he is able to make known his intent, he is able to understand most things spoken to him.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Our walk to the cab was hot and dusty ... you can pretty much sprinkle the word "dusty" between every third or fourth word after this and every subsequent Chadian blog post by the way. That should give you a pretty accurate description of things. January is part of the dry season in Chad. Essentially it rains for 8 months here, and then completely arid the other 4. I'm not noticing it as much now, but for the first few days everything smelled and tasted of dust. I'm sure Jessica and I will probably smell of it for a few days after we get back, so be sure to drop by the apartment soon after we get back to get the sensory experience part of the blog.</span></font></div></div><div><br><br><br></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-15864641636210436602015-01-11T09:23:00.001-05:002015-01-11T09:23:26.583-05:00Flying to Africa - January 5thWe are time travelers, having passed through an entire solar day in a matter of hours by traveling from West to East in a 777 Boeing. Over the Atlantic Ocean, I have never seen such darkness as I saw outside of my window. Only once have I seen a speck of light that may have been a lone freighter within sight of no other lights that I could spy. Earlier, when there was daylight, there was the vast emptiness of the ocean itself that somehow seemed frozen in time. On the beach it is in constant motion, from however many tens of thousands of feet in the air we were, it appears unsettlingly motionless Other times there were "snow drifts" of clouds below the plane as far as my eyes could see. Can you tell I had the window seat?
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<br>To add to the slightly surreal quality of it all--because Jessica and I purposely got only a few hours of sleep last night before leaving Asheville at 1:30am--I have seen these dreamlike vistas as I drift in and out of sleep, often waking up to a whole new alien world. I wonder, considering these new domains, if this is what interstellar travelers will experience if some kind of suspended animation is involved.
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<br>Continuing the alien worlds theme, I felt a bit like Luke Skywalker walking into the Mos Eisley Cantina the first time when we reached the Ethiopian Air terminal at Dulles in D.C. I caught a smattering of French, but everything else was a wild polyglot polyphony. Jessica lamented not understanding hardly anyone, sad that she couldn't know what had made someone smile, or a child laugh.
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<br>Most of the travelers seem a happy bunch. Most seem to be returning home, several as families but plenty of individuals as well. One such individual standing by the Ethiopian Air counter, an older man dressed in a nice somewhat faded brown suit, asked us, "Are you going to Ethiopia?" We told him we were on our way to Chad, and he smiled and said, with only good hearted pride of home, "Ah, Ethiopia is better."
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<br>Most of the passengers are dressed no differently from your average american, especially the men, but there's a woman with beautiful piece of beaded jewelry that frames one woman's face, several head scarves, and dresses in prints you wouldn't normally see on the racks at Gap. Adjusting my bag while going through the jetway, I was startled at the sight of the gentleman behind me, and hid a smile. I motioned Jessica to look back and we both had to share a smile over the solemn African man wearing a very festive Mexican sombrero. "Where's your traveling hat?" Jessica asked.
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<br>The "Boeing Triple Seven," as the nice british man in the safety video called it, is the largest plane I've ever been on. It feels incredibly spacious and roomy, not like the Greyhound Busses with wings that I'm used to. In some ways, it almost feels like a long narrow movie theater that we're all patrons of, though instead of a large screen, we each have a small screen built into the headrest of the seat in front of us.
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<br>Jessica notes its the most family friendly flight she can remember taking. The front-most seats of the economy class face a bulkhead and for those with infants, there are basinets that hook onto the wall, large enough to serve as changing tables, which is how it was used several times on the flight. On our flight from Charlotte to Dulles, there was a couple with an infant who realized just before take-off that their child needed a change of diaper. The stewardess, told them to hurry from their cramped economy seats to the cramped bathroom at the rear of the plane (hurrying, it turns out, wasn't necessary as that particular flight was delayed taking off by 40 mins, which thankfully caused us no problems). People are also very free to move about the cabin, and people walking up and down the aisles visiting friends or family. Babies are passed over seat-backs, and while no children run around the plane, parents walk them up and down the aisle when they get a little stir-crazy.
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<br>Considering the number of languages and skin tones on the flight, we probably could have ended up with just about anyone from anywhere in Africa to fill the empty seat. But instead we get Lincoln from Tennessee who's as white as I am. Coincidentally or Providentially, his former Youth Pastor is now lead Pastor at Highland Church that worships at the Orange Peel in Asheville. Lincoln is headed to Ethopia to live there for a year and a half working with the Ordinary Hero mission to find adoptive parents for kids there. On the flight he read Mere Christianity, making copious marginal notes, and My Utmost for His Highest, which I recognize as a popular Protestant spiritual work. I feel right at home in this row reading St. Theresa of Avila just a few seats over.
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<br>At 5:30pm Asheville time, it was dark as we were over the Dark Continent at late night. It's not quite a solidly dark land below as there are clusters of electric lights, but they are isolated clusters with utter darkness in between. The roads connecting the groups of lights are not lit, and I can only occasionally pick one out by the few vehicle headlights I see tracing a path by connecting their points of light like the handle of the Big Dipper. It almost makes the amount of streetlights in the U.S. obscene, lighting our gluttonous need for constant transport of goods that necessitates how much we light our highways.
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<br>Occasionally, distant from any constellation of lights that represents a town (I'm assuming), will be a solitary point of light. I can't help wonder at the story of these single stars, and what people live within its lonely glow.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-77206087561525352622014-06-09T08:39:00.001-04:002014-06-09T08:39:47.668-04:00A bear-able situation.About fifteen minutes ago, Jessica lightly shrieks, "David, there's a bear!" and sure enough, a small black bear is lumbering just beyond the rail of our apartment porch. We "follow" it, going into the next room and through the window watch it idly padding past the rest of the apartments on its way to Alexander Dr. where we lose sight of it. I, of course, did not have my glasses on, so all I saw was an even fuzzier than normal black bear, but I did see it well enough to notice it wore a tagged collar. That made me wish even more for my glasses, so I could possible read its ID number to let someone know s/he'd been spotted.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.asheville.wbu.com/download/31923?type=jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not "our" bear, but one spotted recently in Asheville.</td></tr>
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Not that long ago, my friend Allison's dad had a bear "greet" him as he was taking out the trash in Weaverville. My dad saw a bear crossing Rice Branch Rd. just the other day, and twice recently while Jessica and I have been out walking neighbors have told us to keep an eye out for bears. First the turkeys were everywhere, now the bears ... this may not be a coincidence.</div>
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I remember when a bear had taken up residence across the street from my Mom's library for a few days and people were excited to stand in the parking lot taking pictures and watching it. A couple years before that, it was BIG news that a bear had been seen on Merrimon Ave. Bear sightings are still told with some concern and surprise, but less and less so over time. It will be curious to see if Ashevillains becomes relatively okay with the occasional bear wandering about but taking more precautions with dogs, trash, and gardens.</div>
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Whatever happens, it made for an interesting moment this morning, and I could resist after the bear headed up Alexander: "Wanna go for a run?"</div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-42184996098461613422013-02-05T11:00:00.003-05:002014-06-09T08:40:03.967-04:00Mini-reviews: Top 5 Restaurants in Asheville<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Over at </b></span><b style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://holdtheonions.tumblr.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Hold the Onions</a></b><span style="line-height: 18px;"> written by the inimitable and amazing </span><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/107201353638434167737/posts" style="color: #1155cc; line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">+joan childress wilkerson</a>, joan<span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">posted her</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><i style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://holdtheonions.tumblr.com/post/42329212727/top-five-places-to-eat-in-asheville" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Top Five Places to Eat In Asheville</a></i><span style="line-height: 18px;">, and while it's a list that won't do you wrong, I figured I'd offer my take.</span></span><br />
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<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">*</span><b style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">Sunny Point Café</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">* - the Huevos Fucheros/Rancheros I could eat until I was sick. [</span><a href="http://www.sunnypointcafe.com/" style="color: #1155cc; line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">http://www.sunnypointcafe.com</a><wbr style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"></wbr><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">/]</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">*</span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Taqueria Fast</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">* - technically in Woodfin, _Taqueria Fast_ has the best tacos authenticos I've found, and everything from the Jalisco-Mexican menu is tasty. [</span><a href="http://www.mountainx.com/article/9304/Taqueria-Fast" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">http://www.mountainx.com/<wbr></wbr>article/9304/Taqueria-Fast</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">]</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">*</span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Green Tea Sushi</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">* - when eating Japanese with a crowd of diverse tastes, Wasabi might be a better pick (they have stuff my dad likes, and that's not easy), but for straight up Sushi lovers, it's Green Tea is Asheville for my money [</span><a href="http://www.greenteasushi.com/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">http://www.greenteasushi.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">/</span><wbr style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"></wbr><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">]</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">*<b>Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co.</b>* - One could argue the finer points of various pizza joints and styles from the rising of the sun until its setting and back again. I say screw that and give me a Shear Delight Pie and a pint of Fire Escape (jalapeno beer!) to wash it down. [</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.ashevillebrewing.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.ashevillebrewing.<wbr></wbr>com</a>/]</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">*</span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">French Broad Chocolate Lounge</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">* - no matter where you eat dinner, especially if you're downtown, don't order dessert off the menu but take the walk down to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. Worth the inevitable line, often stretching out the door, the chocolates, cakes, cookies, liquid truffles ... ::goes into chocolate shock just writing about it:: whew, sorry. It's a must [</span><a href="http://frenchbroadchocolates.com/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">http://frenchbroadchocolates.<wbr></wbr>com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">/]</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black;">Cheating 6th spot: </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">*</span><b style="background-color: transparent;">Mamacitas</b><span style="background-color: transparent;">* - When it has to be burritos instead of tacos, burritos so big that you need the nachos to scoop up the overflowing ingredients, the Baja inspired Mamacitas is the way to go. Plus, I'm a sucker for the calaveras and Dia de los Muertos inspired art. [</span><a href="http://www.mamacitasgrill.com/" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.mamacitasgrill.com</a><span style="background-color: transparent;"><wbr></wbr>/]</span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Of course, in a town as culinarily diverse and excellent as Asheville, I'm leaving off too many places (joan did a *headdesk* when she realized she'd forgotten Sunny Point), but if you wanted to make my tummy happy, you'd be safe taking me to any of these<span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></span></span>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-56451599930859142062012-09-12T07:49:00.001-04:002014-06-09T08:40:03.971-04:00“Nuns on Top” is base | Mountain Xpress | Asheville, NC<div class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQTjbQ5pShUorgAhx23xBG-stF0D4FzxpdxbUg9ZhL3i2VBt1vYZnJISmkpJi2_hCL4WtAJZd4nBNOcqSJpXXgFJqEoJYwIQOpo0K1slX-NWwFwcxynQ4hjijNAep0CUMKYco6zmzkCWQ/s1600/pen_justice.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQTjbQ5pShUorgAhx23xBG-stF0D4FzxpdxbUg9ZhL3i2VBt1vYZnJISmkpJi2_hCL4WtAJZd4nBNOcqSJpXXgFJqEoJYwIQOpo0K1slX-NWwFwcxynQ4hjijNAep0CUMKYco6zmzkCWQ/s200/pen_justice.png" width="200" /></a></div>Mountain Xpress printed my letter criticizing the crudity of their article announcing Thirsty Monk owner Barry Bialik's proposed expansion "Nuns on Top" and urging the editors to ask Mr Bialik to change the name to something better suited to Asheville. I continue to urge everyone to write Mr. Bialik at <a href="mailto:hello@monkpub.com">hello@monkpub.com</a> asking him to change the profane, sexist, and crude name to something befitting family-friendly downtown Asheville.<br />
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<a href="http://mountainx.com/article/45430/Nuns-on-Top-is-base">“Nuns on Top” is base | Mountain Xpress | Asheville, NC</a>: </div><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Dear Editors of the Mountain Xpress,</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">I am a citizen of Asheville, a strong supporter of local business and a frequent reader of the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Mountain Xpress</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">, my most trusted source for news in Western North Carolina. Your articles are usually the finest journalism covering the area and often champion what is best in Asheville and the surrounding area, fighting to make Western North Carolina a better place for all.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">So I was surprised and appalled at the language Emily Patrick chose for the opening paragraph of her Sept. 5 article "Nuns on Top set to join the Thirsty Monk,” and equally shocked that the editors allowed it to be published as written. The name of the proposed establishment is bad enough, an issue I have taken up with owner Barry Bialik and urge you to do the same, but Ms. Patrick's references to nuns mounting the Thirsty Monk in addition to monastic life getting "boozier" is uglier and grosser than the name alone. It certainly highlights the profane and lascivious nature of the name, but even if the name is risqué, I expect better journalism from the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Xpress</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">; I expected a journalistic spirit that does not sink to the basest of humor, degrading women, Christianity and our city in one-fell swoop.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">I strongly urge at least the rewriting of the article for the website.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">I support Bialik's entrepreneurial success and cheer that a bar I consider on of the finer downtown establishments is expanding its space and offerings especially in these times of economic struggle. I trust and respect the Mountain Xpress and admire its general integrity and solid public voice, hoping that voice continues to ring clear and true. But the proposed name and the language of the article tarnish our community, the Thirsty Monk and the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Xpress</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">. Asheville is a better city than that, the Thirsty Monk is a better place than that and Bialik is a finer man than that.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Please refrain from such low and cheap humor — even when it stares you in the face — and consider publicly and privately asking Bialik to change an unfortunate and profane name, one he shouldn't want associated the great name of Thirsty Monk.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">— David Michael Mayeux</span></blockquote><br />
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-13387531667664611732012-09-11T08:34:00.002-04:002014-06-09T08:40:03.964-04:00An open letter to the Asheville City Council<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Honorable Mayor, Distinguished Councilors,</span><br />
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I am a citizen of Asheville, a city that I dearly love, and a member of the parish of St Lawrence. Due to work, I will not be able to attend tonight's meeting of the Council that determines the fate of the Haywood St lot whose destiny rests in your hands by the providential hand of God, but I wanted to make sure that I shared my voice concerning the hopes for the Haywood St development. I have looked at the various proposed plans, and I see merit in them all. But <b>I urge you to consider with favor the Diocese of Charlotte and the Basilica of St. Lawrence's proposal for the St. Lawrence Plaza</b>. Being so close to the issue, it is hard to be objective, but I have given over my heart in prayer and while <u>I do not think that any issue of such importance should be dealt with objectively</u>, I have tried to consider this with the eyes of reason, as well as those of heart.</div>
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<b>In many ways, for me the issue is not one of aesthetics</b>—I actually think the McKibbon Hotel Group did a nice job of conforming their proposed architecture to match the Vanderbilt Apartments—<b>or of finance</b>—of COURSE Asheville could use the taxes—<b>but one of family</b>. </div>
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Our city thrives on tourism, and I'm elated that so many people find our city interesting and beautiful enough to be worthy of their time, interest, and yes, money. But Downtown is the heart of the city, and with Haywood St the site of Malaprops Bookstore, Earth Guild, the Woolworth Art Gallery, the Chocolate Fetish and many many other fine business ... it is the heart of Asheville's renewal from a listless old resort town. And yes, with the Basilica at one "end" and Church St essentially at the other, it is a spiritual heart of the city as well. It is a street of cherished family memories. <b>What brings tourists into the city and into Downtown are not the amenities or the nearness of the hotels to our city's heart and soul, because those amenities and spirit were there before the hotels.</b> Tourists love the purity of our city, that it is a place that we lovingly care for and make our own. We gladly share with open and charitable arms to any who visit, but Asheville is home first, which is why it's so inviting to visitors.</div>
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Every home has a guest room, but it's never smack dab in the middle of the Family Room. When houses become so filled with guests that you have to set up people on the couch ... people notice, and then what should be a fun visit, becomes a cramped and awkward situation. <b>Putting up a hotel on Haywood St is filing up the family room with guests </b>(and we all know what Mark Twain said about guests and fish). We don't want that; they don't want that.</div>
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Haywood St has a nice symmetry to it: I already mentioned the spiritual houses that cap both ends; there's an even number of eateries and shops, county and city services; architecture of historical interest, particularly in the S&W building and, again, the Basilica. <b>Why not achieve greater balance of Haywood St, with public spaces at both ends, Pritchard Park to the North and the St Lawrence Plaza to the south</b>. In fact, I have often thought that the particular curve of Haywood St at that location, creates something of a dead-end for tourist traffic. Opening up that space with a Plaza opens up that end of the city, so that more people flow toward the Grove Arcade and the other wonderful shops that border it. Some of you have shown an interest in whatever funds become available to the city related to this development being available for affordable housing. Homes should be at the heart of this matter, and it is wonderful that the Basilica's proposal includes such homes in its design.</div>
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You have heard all these arguments, but it boils down to this: our city, our community, should consider family first, always. The St Lawrence Plaza is a good idea, and it's one proposed by your friends and your family at St Lawrence Basilica. <b>Thus, the St Lawrence Plaza is in the best interest of the city; it is in the best interest of Family.</b></div>
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Thank you,</div>
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David Mayeux</div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-88394920125260907242012-09-03T23:16:00.003-04:002014-04-10T21:21:13.870-04:00the lexical treasures of m. john harrison<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNmWzUwOMn9k6CjArU5WL0g721u0nqQ4Lbg1yJv_HyLI80yKfyhUc4t-vZtM_Rqjh9fa4yFMZTCj4BOb_PdOMOcozQdXk2Nc_7jz5ES2B4qIR66OnAJKpCuUohUfZg-pUe2eNkWnPTiA/s1600/Viriconium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNmWzUwOMn9k6CjArU5WL0g721u0nqQ4Lbg1yJv_HyLI80yKfyhUc4t-vZtM_Rqjh9fa4yFMZTCj4BOb_PdOMOcozQdXk2Nc_7jz5ES2B4qIR66OnAJKpCuUohUfZg-pUe2eNkWnPTiA/s320/Viriconium.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">M. John Harrison</a> has the richest vocabulary I think I've ever encountered in an author. His adjectives, especially, come from obscure realms of biology (<i>esp</i>. ornithology), geology, medicine, and what I imagine to be crumbling tomes of cant and argot. The list below are words from his Viriconium stories the epic <i>The Pastel City</i> and mind-boggling <i>A Storm of Wings</i>. Every page was a lexical treasure trove of obscure words but were <i>bon mots</i> one and all, inspiring the imagination with their poetic sound. I kept pen and paper ever at my side as I read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I share because, if you're reading this, you likely someone who enjoys arcane additions to your lexicon, or you know that I do, so you put up with it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold;">cresset </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">n.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> A metal cup, often suspended on a pole, containing burning oil or pitch and used as a torch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">febrile</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> feverish</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">pullulate</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">v.</span> to breed rapidly, to produce spores</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">gamboge</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n. </span>deep yellow color</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">theophneustia</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n. </span>divine inspration</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">occlude</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">v. </span>to prevent passage, to close off</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">ostler</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n. </span>one who tends horses</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">uxorious</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> excessively devoted to one's wife</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">viscid</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span> viscous</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">hispid</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj. </span>[Lat.] bristly, hirsute.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">hircine</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> [Lat.] of or characteristic of a goat, esp. in smell</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">lammergeyer</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n. </span>[Ger. "lamb vulture"]- predatory bird, vulture-like with black feathers. syn. ossifrage. also lammergeier</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">carious</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. having <span style="font-weight: bold;">caries</span>: the decay of bone or tooth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">hæmatitic</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> being the color of dried blood</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">litharge</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n. </span>yellow lead oxide, rust</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">nitid</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj. </span>bright, lustrous</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">lampyrine</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n</span>. glowworm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">percipience</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> power of keen perception</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">accipitrine</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. hawklike</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">abrogate </span><span style="font-style: italic;">v</span>. [Lat.] To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">muculent </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> [Lat.] <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="cursor: default;">Slimy;</span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: black;">moist,</span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: black;">and </span><span style="color: black;"></span><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: black;">moderately</span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: black;">viscous.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">staithe </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> <span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Archaic </span>a stage or wharf equipped to load and unload (coal, etc.) from railroad cars into vessels</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">etiolate </span><span style="font-style: italic;">v.</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Botany</span> To become blanched or whitened, as when grown without sunlight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">chivvy </span><span style="font-style: italic;">v.</span> 1. To vex or harass with petty attacks. 2. To maneuver or secure gradually</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">culm </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> [M.E.] 1. Waste from anthracite coal mines, consisting of fine coal, coal dust, and dirt. 2. a. Carboniferous shale. b. Inferior anthracite coal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">gannet </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> [M.E.] Any of several large sea birds of the genus Morus, especially M. bassanus of northern Atlantic coastal regions, having white plumage with black wingtips. Also called solan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">guillemot </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n.</span> [Fr. "william"] Any of several auks of the genus Cepphus, having black plumage with white markings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">archæan </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> [Gk. "ancient"] Of or relating to the oldest known rocks, those of the Precambrian Eon, that are predominantly igneous in composition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">particulate</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. [Lat.] Of, relating to, or formed of minute separate particles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">crepuscular </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj. </span>[Lat. "dark"] 1. Of or like twilight; dim. 2. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zoology </span>Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">glaucous </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj.</span> [Gk.] 1. Of a pale grayish or bluish green. 2. <u>Botany </u>Covered with a grayish, bluish, or whitish waxy coating or bloom that is easily rubbed off</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">induviate </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Botany</span> of leaves resistant to falling in autumn</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">catarrhal </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. inflamed, esp. of mucous membranes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">albescent </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. [Lat.] Becoming white or moderately white; whitish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">desultory </span><span style="font-style: italic;">adj</span>. [Lat.] 1. Moving or jumping from one thing to another; disconnected: a desultory speech. 2. Occurring haphazardly; random.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">phthisic </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n</span>. [Gk.] 1. A disease characterized by the wasting away or atrophy of the body or a part of the body. 2. Tuberculosis of the lungs, or any such illness to the lungs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">stridulous </span>adj. [Lat.] 1. Characterized by or making a stridor, ie. shrill grating sound or noise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">hetæra </span><span style="font-style: italic;">n. pl. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">hetæræ </span>[Gk. "companion"] An ancient Greek courtesan or concubine, especially one of a special class of cultivated female companions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="background-color: transparent;">Ostler, abrogate </b><span style="background-color: transparent;">and</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><b style="background-color: transparent;">desultory </b><span style="background-color: transparent;">I had merely forgotten, and I have vague memories of once looking up </span><b style="background-color: transparent;">crepuscular. </b><span style="font-size: small;">Most of the definitions are from the <i>Unabridged American Heritage Dictionary</i> except I think for <b>staithe, induviate</b> and <b>muculent</b> which had to be found online and <b>lampyrine</b> found searching the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>.</span></span></div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-20569201621621929622012-08-24T11:09:00.003-04:002012-08-24T11:19:06.803-04:00Phonetic Limerick<br />
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Some Friday morning doggerel for you:</div>
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Of odd spellings and sounds, he'd enough—</div>
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Duane complained, they were all very tough.</div>
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Said his teacher, Ms. Proulx,</div>
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"That's enough; you are through."</div>
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Said Duane: "Don't you mean that I'm thruff?"</div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-43077356111858159862012-07-31T09:22:00.000-04:002012-07-31T11:38:18.526-04:00Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Revised Ending: Take 1<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuHLTjPyM-t9CX7TXasN5xpRs_h21obbw4XyQ_avDKDfD0prHWZ_WINx-8DMXU94L_fT3CV5KpG1y2j_IanXB5PWIIef1KKqoG-fxkhnekSPUFeBqfTgzGFPAZ2qBEZHaaUbQ4ImBo_EU/s1600/Final_Battle_Harry_by_comfortablylaura.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuHLTjPyM-t9CX7TXasN5xpRs_h21obbw4XyQ_avDKDfD0prHWZ_WINx-8DMXU94L_fT3CV5KpG1y2j_IanXB5PWIIef1KKqoG-fxkhnekSPUFeBqfTgzGFPAZ2qBEZHaaUbQ4ImBo_EU/s320/Final_Battle_Harry_by_comfortablylaura.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fav.me/dgfdpo" target="_blank">Final Battle Harry</a> by Laura McCandles</td></tr>
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I rather enjoy the <i>Harry Potter </i>books, enough so that the books are a frequent topic of conversation. I laud the series as a whole, Book 6 in particular, and above all the series' devotion to friendship and love. So when <i>Deathly Hallows</i> ends in Voldemort's defeat by a <b>wand technicality</b>, with only slight nods to love and friendship playing their part, I was upset. Rowling disposes of her central and powerful theme and gives her readers and the story short shrift. So keeping in mind that I have never written anything of note, never been published, and I whole-heartedly respect and praise Rowling, I offer an alternate ending plot outline to the <i>Deathly Hallows </i>that appeals to the storyteller in me.<br />
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When Harry goes into the Death Eaters camp everything follows up to this point as it has, and Harry dies by the Killing Curse. But Harry returns from the dead<b> having lost his magical powers</b>. He is now, for all intents and purposes, a Muggle. The return to Hogwarts happens as written: Harry's body is shown to Dumbledore's Army, Neville kills Nagini (destroying the last Horcrux), Grawp attacks, chaos ensues. The battle moves into the castle, and Dumbledore's Army regroups inside while Harry, using the cloak on Invisibility slips in with Neville.<br />
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Here, different from the novel, Dumbledore's Army is able to hold the Death Eater's at bay for a spell. The siege resumes, Harry reveals himself and Neville. <b>Neville is given a proper moment of glory</b>. Everyone is elated Harry is alive but mourn the loss of his powers. Sure, Voldemort is now vulnerable, the last Horcrux having been destroyed, but who will be their champion? Voldemort is still deathly powerful, made more terrible by the Elder Wand.<br />
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The walls are breached, and all urge Harry to stay behind, as he has no powers to protect himself or fight against the magic. But with the Marauder's Map and intimate knowledge of the Death Eater's resources, he is able to direct the battle, proving himself an able general. The others take up the attack while Ginny stays by Harry's side, using Shield Charms to protect him. Neville leaves Gryffindor's sword as it cannot match his wand for defense.<br />
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Harry is forced to watch more and more names disappear from the map, as they die: students, professors, families and shopkeepers--all men and women we've met in the series. Harry is distressed, and the heart of the battle, Voldemort, moves closer and close to the Great Hall. There is a great explosion of magical energy, and the doors to the Great Hall are blown in and several of Dumbledore's Army come flying through, including Ron and Hermione. Here we have Bellatrix and Molly's battle as written (<i>"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"</i> one of the best lines in the whole book), and Harry reveals himself when Voldemort threatens Molly.<br />
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<b>MUCH LESS MONOLOGUING</b>--Voldemort is shocked by Harry's appearance, but generally undeterred ("What does it take to kill you?!"). He throws blasts at Harry, but Ginny protects him. Voldemort is confused: why doesn't Harry protect himself? Understanding, he laughs maniacally, gloating at the now <i>Muggle</i> Harry. Voldemort begins using the Elder Wand to siphon the magic of present Dumbledore's Army, which, as an integral part of who they are, weakens them in general; in fact, it is killing them. <b>But Harry has no magical power</b>, he is unaffected, yet forced to watch as all his living friends and family are dying that Voldemort may deliver the final crushing blow by killing him once and for all.<br />
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Though without magic, <b>Harry's courage makes him a true Gryffindor</b>; Harry grabs Gryffindor's Sword and races toward Voldemort--Harry notices his fallen family are there with him again--<b>everyone that Harry ever loved, or loved Harry is present,</b> and he is suffused with love. Death Eaters attack him as he charges, but their spells simply vanish. Voldemort can't afford to wait any longer and casts his spell at Harry. Harry uses the sword, itself glowing with love's flame, to simply swat the spell harmlessly aside.<br />
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<b>Voldemort thinks this power is magic</b> and praises Harry's cunning in pretending to be a Muggle and therefor powerless. Using the Elder Wand, Voldemort tries to absorb this power as he did the others'. He does so (though this does not weaken Harry), and at first is drunk with more power than he's ever known. He declares his intent to kill all Dumbledore's Army in one blow and raises the Elder Wand to begin casting a Massacre Curse. <b>But love cannot abide this hatred</b>, and the "spell" begins to conquer the evil, tearing Voldemort and the Elder Wand apart. Harry deals a final blow with the Sword, and Voldemort is defeated.<br />
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Defeated by love (fulfilling Rowling's six and a half book insistence that such will defeat Voldemort); defeated by a "Muggle" (who Voldemort considers less than useless making for grand poetic justice); NO WAND TECHNICALITY. All in all, a much more satisfying ending to my mind.<br />
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Whether Harry's magical powers are restored is to me irrelevant, though I can see the general public being more satisfied if they are. However, I rather like the idea of Harry living the rest of his life without powers of his own, happily married to Ginny with some magical children and some muggle. Thus, the story is ultimately not about having magical powers, the story is what it means to be human, to be able to love.<br />
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This doesn't address all the issues I have with <i>Deathly Hallows--</i>namely that Rowling dropped the ball on the resolution of the magical creatures' oppression, that the story would be more powerful if greater numbers of other houses joined the Death Eaters, that the Dursley's could have played a greater part in the plot (Harry's uncle could have been tempted by an offer of wealth from Voldemort; Harry's aunt then takes Vernon to task for threatening Lily's son, and siding with the creature that killed her sister), and that Quidditch, or rather Harry's skills related to Quidditch, seem strangely absent from the Battle of Hogwarts--but one major plot rewrite at a time!David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-3810127215782410472012-07-25T12:46:00.001-04:002012-07-25T19:36:52.011-04:00continuing the Discordian Society "Mythology"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBTzhWtGEDnsszP2KON6-Mxs6nmmsr4rCHslQMJV-kUjfAUZJEwX-GYs_WNZ3R057gETtBLU4UveXE4ecUrINVbpKGqXH_lXacHqo_BMoxtdmK_x7lf8KcoGazofYT4UPYrUuiLYrZHw/s1600/dont_have_a_chao.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBTzhWtGEDnsszP2KON6-Mxs6nmmsr4rCHslQMJV-kUjfAUZJEwX-GYs_WNZ3R057gETtBLU4UveXE4ecUrINVbpKGqXH_lXacHqo_BMoxtdmK_x7lf8KcoGazofYT4UPYrUuiLYrZHw/s200/dont_have_a_chao.jpg" width="196" /></span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to the <a href="http://ashevilleinkslinger.blogspot.com/2012/06/discordian-society.html" target="_blank">longer bio</a> I wrote for the Roanoke-based <b>Discoridan Society</b>, they asked for a piece of a length better suited to press releases. Considering the mercurial character of the band, I went with a completely new version of the band "mythology," one inspired by Jorge Luis Borges story "</span><a href="http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-tlon.html" target="_blank">Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">," a Philip K. Dick <a href="http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm" target="_blank">speech</a>, quoted below, and White Wolf's role-playing game <i>Mage: The Ascension,</i> of all things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Discordian Society Links</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.discordianmusic.com/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">ReverbNation</a> | <a href="http://www.myspace.com/discordiansociety" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Myspace</a> | <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscordianSociety" target="_blank">YouTube</a></span></li>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31888454989530146" style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In theme parks there are fake birds worked by electric motors which emit caws and shrieks as you pass by them. Suppose some night all of us sneaked into the park and substituted real birds for the artificial ones. Imagine the park officials’ horror when they discovered the cruel hoax. Real birds! And perhaps someday even real hippos and lions. Consternation! the park being cunningly transmuted from the unreal to the real, by sinister forces.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31888454989530146" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Philip K. Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later"</span></b></div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31888454989530146" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31888454989530146" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31888454989530146" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">excerpt from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Second Encyclopedia of Tlön</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> entry “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">UR.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discordian Society</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which made its first appearance in this unreality in 200X, is perhaps one of the finest examples of an </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ur</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The conscious universe, aware of the suffusion of creative fakery by mass markets, manipulated the series of superstrings required to unveil this hoax. This apocalypse manifested when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Davz 'not here' Annarelli</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> began plucking at bass strings, the vibrations of which caused the collapse of the ersatz music's wave function. Once observed to be fake, it could no longer sustain itself, and instead the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discordian Phenomenon</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (DP) was given form. Delighted and intrigued, Dave added more sounds--guitar, vocals, keys, rhythm, truth, horns--forming the Discordian Society, and the synthetic fabric of popular music not only continued to pull away but rip. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the listener, the sound of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discordian Society</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is simultaneously familiar and alien, a common association with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">urim</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It is perceived as having proceeded from jazz, prog rock, and funk, yet also “remembered” as their progenitor. Most fascinating to sociologists, quantum physicists and psychologists studying the DP is that as the listening audience accepts as real the apparent counterfeit of the familiar, fake music. This then punctures a small hole in perception, and the larger acceptance of the false unreality is slowly unravelled and replaced. It is conjectured that as the influence of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discordian Society</span><span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'s sound spreads (the Society has been observed in collusion with artists Larry Keel, Yonrico Scott, Ozric Tentacles, Hot Politics, Col. Bruce Hampton, The Mantras and Ani Difranco), what we falsely consider as reality will be accepted as merely an elaborate fiction, and the mind will be transfigured to the true reality that is.</span></span></b>
</div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-2469738675940179692012-07-24T08:38:00.002-04:002012-07-25T20:44:37.290-04:00late night poetry<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxWRa5CzNolbS-ksWm6vIq97AgbWssGCijq5FS-hf7qvFVCfqpErKD13fr2mAa8ZX4viBs9Tkrs6gfgOOAUEq67B4kWNevNjruLuY_Fs_I8iLgZRsU-GXgKqBccEcWff-JEQjXdscYTo/s1600/drowning01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxWRa5CzNolbS-ksWm6vIq97AgbWssGCijq5FS-hf7qvFVCfqpErKD13fr2mAa8ZX4viBs9Tkrs6gfgOOAUEq67B4kWNevNjruLuY_Fs_I8iLgZRsU-GXgKqBccEcWff-JEQjXdscYTo/s320/drowning01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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silken cords drawn tight and bite my skin,<br />
bind my limbs, your words a spider's thread<br />
hold me, steal my breath to panting, gasping.<br />
I drown in your slow penetrating venom,<br />
at each pulsing, pounding heart's beat--<br />
the rhythm in your eyes, your promises, presence--<br />
I deeper sink; this laced blood rushes through veins,<br />
flushes skin, pinpricks eyes, and the roar of you fills my ears:<br />
philosophies and dreams, your phantasies.<br />
I cannot fight--I crave surrender--these bonds<br />
embrace my flesh like lovers' hold or a drowned man's shroud<br />
exquisite pleasure in the pain of surrend'ring self to be in you.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-73791059556315034062012-06-13T11:30:00.000-04:002012-06-13T15:26:54.484-04:00Helena Silence, Professional Psychic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img align="right" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8OIhkOBZ9R63Ex3vMtS6g-NFc16lGmtdpuC2NVK-qra_8Osk-vVdh6T0Y8ypcFjju65otY7YSH6a_EKEexfsXMuS0MaYtOeweLiAxDWC4n1PRN3CFANoemWkO4GIV7ge8RMVBZfS3FYk/s320/helena-polaroid.jpg" width="275" /></div>
Helena Silence is a professional psychic and best friend of Cosmo Grove, the tabloid reporter from my murder mystery project. Beautiful and kind, Helena uses her gifts to help others, and has on occasion lent Cosmo a hand in his investigations, though the extra set of arms and legs and corporeal eyes are generally more useful than her third eye ...<br />
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Helena and Cosmo met in high school when they took Journalism together and worked on the school newspaper. They dated the rest of their high school years but separated because they were attending different colleges. Shortly after graduating college, they both returned to Altamont, and while the romance was gone, they found in each other a dear friend and confidante. They generally get together a couple times a week to have dinner, and she is a frequent guest at Cosmo's for Shabbat dinner. Every month, they attend the Altamont Symphony together.<br />
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Helena runs her own psychic service in Altamont in the Boho part of town, but will make house calls to shut in customers, especially the elderly for whom she has a special fondness, often bringing them home-made food. She manifests her abilities through the use of tarot and crystals, offering advice on matters hidden to her clients and foresight into the events to come. Savvy in social media, Helena maintains a website for her business with blog, and uses micro-blogging to frequently publish her daily psychic impressions.<br />
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The house where she holds her sessions is also her home, richly scented with the drying herbs that are hung about the kitchen. There there is always something baking in the oven, and she serves tea at every session (always glancing at the tea leaves, though she's never got much out of tasseomancy). Her home is cozy, though messy without being dirty. She keeps the place dusted and polished, there's just stuff everywhere: foci and candles, gifts from clients, found objects with positive auras, and knick-knacks that make her happy. She doesn't have much of a yard, but she does keep plants in containers in any spot she can that gets sunlight. She grows many of her own medicinal and culinary herbs in addition to a number of "cultivated" wildflowers. Somewhere, prowling in all this is Athena, her cat.<br />
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Helena is a devout Roman Catholic, attending St Cyprian's Basilica, downtown. She does not see any conflict between her faith and her supernatural outlook. She believes her gifts are from God and thus to be used to help others when conventional means can't help. As such, she often counsels her clients to turn to prayer with their problems, in addition to more corporeal solutions, but tries to do so without proselytizing. Helena is always trying to convince Cosmo that he should open himself up to the possibility that God might have made the universe more interesting than what can be known just by science, frequently quoting Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Grove, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."<br />
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Cosmo, ever the skeptic, thinks his friend doesn't always have all her oars in the water. But he loves her dearly, so if the police get to the point on a case Cosmo's covering when they're desperate enough to hire a psychic, Cosmo will recommend Helena, honestly able to point to her helpfulness in previous cases (it also doesn't hurt that bringing a psychic into things makes a better story for the <i>Global Eye</i>). Extremely violent crime-scenes upset her, but she can generally stomach it long enough to get an impression. Cosmo attributes her "abilities" to her high intelligence, keen perception, and excellent talent for "cold" readings as she is wonderfully warm and empathic with witnesses and family members. But even Cosmo will admit that her insights often appear uncanny, leading to unexpectedly accurate results.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNzmhWSvsoXrmRHEHFZZ7lnnhfVahwymn-VKM9pnZVJ-zglkCEkAxp7GyuHdlf9LTeJOrdHe4d1n5-5j1sdocf75CqSKGFYQoifrD2HYTfZCao-aS190fZYFdXMfodNs02FOVQzZ5U55U/s1600/helena-case-polaroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNzmhWSvsoXrmRHEHFZZ7lnnhfVahwymn-VKM9pnZVJ-zglkCEkAxp7GyuHdlf9LTeJOrdHe4d1n5-5j1sdocf75CqSKGFYQoifrD2HYTfZCao-aS190fZYFdXMfodNs02FOVQzZ5U55U/s320/helena-case-polaroid.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874245123145576944.post-75377123613316498892012-06-10T15:59:00.000-04:002012-06-10T18:37:45.074-04:00Aaron Tupelo - The Donut King<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOpnENPE1zLVDbVVKd_V0wOre6IDHVAYZ8siRlZNAyZHoc2VA7FIV1mtg0UU3sMCHQGTJavRfrsK9gabVJ-qYvt0Ch_PHJTUanb1zoXZFcW5L0rcG_Ry1GvQ08D81cnxgFHnALkfMooZE/s1600/aaron_tupelo-donut_king.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOpnENPE1zLVDbVVKd_V0wOre6IDHVAYZ8siRlZNAyZHoc2VA7FIV1mtg0UU3sMCHQGTJavRfrsK9gabVJ-qYvt0Ch_PHJTUanb1zoXZFcW5L0rcG_Ry1GvQ08D81cnxgFHnALkfMooZE/s320/aaron_tupelo-donut_king.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Meet Aaron Tupelo, 'the Donut King,' a character from my latest fiction project--a murder mystery! Aaron Tupelo is the owner and operator of the Donut King, and may or may not, be Elvis Presley, alive and well and serving fresh doughnuts and coffee 24 hours a day/6 days a week.<br />
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The murder mystery centers around tabloid reporter Cosmo Grove who works for the <i>Global Eye</i> investigating stories of alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings, spontaneous combustion and the like. In his first adventure, Cosmo discovers a clue pointing to a real crime after the police have already dismissed the events as a hoax. On the scent of a bigger story than alien abduction, Cosmo hits the trail leading him into stranger and more dubious events than anything featured in the <i>Eye</i>!<br />
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Aaron Jesse Tupelo is a supporting character of the story (and will be a recurring character if this ends up as a series of stories). Cosmo makes a daily trip to the Donut King, just down the street from the offices of the Global Eye in downtown Altamont, and knows sixty-year old Aaron well enough to talk about more than just glazed or sprinkles. Mr. Tupelo, in fact, seems to know quite a bit about the world of the weird and always has some word of wisdom for Cosmo when the reporter's at a loss for leads. Tourists who come into the shop often remark on the owner's resemblance to the King of Rock, but if they say anything to Cosmo, he'll say he's never noticed.<br />
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On Sundays, the only day one does not find Aaron in the doughnut shop, he attends church at Hill Street Baptist Church and takes long walks through Altamont with his dog Sam. He lives in the apartment above the Donut King and during his time off one can hear the strains of southern blues he plays on his guitar.<br />
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The Donut King, is located on Wolfe Plaza in the heart of Altamont, NC, serving doughnuts and coffee 24 hours a day, 6 days a week (closed on Sundays, midnight to midnight). It's a good spot for business, and the Donut King sees a regular flow of downtown workers, especially reporters from the <i>Global Eye</i> and the more respectable <i>Altamont Sentinel</i>, police and fire fighters, tourists, and the after-hours crowd. There's a counter and a few booths where people can sit after they order at the register.<br />
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Aaron always has blues and classic Rhythm & Blues playing in the shop and often sings softly with the music, especially if he's in the kitchen. If Aaron's assistant, Sarah's on duty, she'll come around and refill coffees, and Aaron himself will do this if he's in between batches. Sam, Aaron's dog, can always be found in the shop and inexplicably is never noticed by health inspectors.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiciZMqE2yy9ybmKjKhH2Gt6HOtrzEy3npq_Vuh22yyssS011m9Pene2EaOMN3dfEw7cJvqYGAky8OnJeS0djBawxKP1oAcDDwqe8rgY_c2CQMgiU7WnroAy7NAQRo59JaLd-Z3jnxi5Q/s1600/sam-donut_dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiciZMqE2yy9ybmKjKhH2Gt6HOtrzEy3npq_Vuh22yyssS011m9Pene2EaOMN3dfEw7cJvqYGAky8OnJeS0djBawxKP1oAcDDwqe8rgY_c2CQMgiU7WnroAy7NAQRo59JaLd-Z3jnxi5Q/s320/sam-donut_dog.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sam's ready for his doughnut.</i></td></tr>
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<br />David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0