THE HANDSOMEST DROWNED MAN IN THE WORLD by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Well, my literature students have survived two weeks of fiction. Monday, we will begin two weeks of poetry. I must say that I’m excited.

We ended our two weeks of fiction with two stories, one being "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World." I must admit that I read this story several times before class wondering why I assigned it. I was having a lot of trouble with it. I felt lost. I did not have any insight at all, as to what was going on in the story.

Class worked out swimmingly. We spent an hour performing a close reading of the story that went like this:

I was at the whiteboard. I started by confessing my ignorance about the story’s larger meaning (if any). Then I asked a series of questions and wrote answers on the whiteboard to see if, as a class, we could break the spell of "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World."

1. Who do you think the people in the story are?
- Hobbits - because they are very small in comparison to the giant drowned man
- short people
- little people

2. Well, where do you think they are from?
- Near an ocean and a jungle
- The Shire - that is where Hobbits live, duh

Okay, lets think about who the author of the story is. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a South American, a Colombian (I think that I said Mexican in class - sorry). So, if he is from South America, can we assume that he might be writing about people from that area? Perhaps he is writing about Native South Americans, some tribes of which average four-nine to five-feet in height.

Anyway, let’s move on.

3. What are some of the things that we know about the drowned man?
- He’s handsome
- The women like him.
- The mean dislike him.
- He is big, tall, heavy, muscular.
- Not from any of the surrounding villages
- Compared to the gringo Sir Walter Raleigh
- Did not looked haggard
- Looked as if he bore his death with pride

4. What was the opinion of that men of the village had of him? What did they do for him?
- Compared him to cold meat
- They had to drag him through the street
- Did not care much for him
- Questioned the neighboring villages about him

5. What was the opinion of that women of the village had of him? What did they do for him?
- They thought he was beautiful
- They compared him to their village’s men and their husbands
- They clean up his body
- They had to use a knife to cut his nails
- They made him pants out of sails and a short out of wedding dresses
- Named him, Estaban

6. What did the setting think of the drowned man?
(at the beginning of the story)
- The sea was clam
- The wind blew steady- The villagers started to see how dingy and rundown their town was
(at the end of the story)
- The village started to fill up with flowers
- They now wanted to paint their houses gay colors
- They were going to expand their homes and build bigger doors so that his spirit could fit through if it ever returned.

7. Knowing these details, what kinds of themes can we come up with about what might be going on?
- It is tale for children. Every thing is big and important to children.
- Maybe the story is about colonization. You know, when the colonizers show up and tell an indigenous people that they are living in the stone age. They need to shape up and modernize. They need to take better care of their town.
-Maybe it is about being thankful for what you have and making the most of it.

Friday was so much fun. I love teaching literature.

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 10th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2007.

EPIC FAIL by Amy Letts

Wow! Epic Fail is too good. It feels like it has been more than a year since I’ve been part of a regular game. Oh, what I mean by a game is a Role Playing Game, the kind where a bunch of friends get together and make characters with crazy abilities that you whish you had in real life. Then you travel through the woods looking for adventure or waiting for adventure to find you.

One of the components of Role Playing adventures are twenty sided dice. You role dice and do some math to determine your success or failure at some heroic task. Most gamers play with Epic rules allowing for critical successes and critical failures, or epic failures. An epic failure is when a 1 is rolled on a 20 sided die. Typically, a failure of this magnitude is followed by the Game Master, the person in charge of the story telling and all the creepy crawlies, telling you to role another die. This time, the die will determine what will happen because of your blundering, examples: killing your friend, stepping in fire, breaking your sword on a rock, slicing your own hand off.

Epic Fail is a humorous web comic staring Martin, a Human Fighter; Amuletts, Sylvan Elf Thief and Cleric; Clodin, Dwarf Fighter; Tinuvielle, Fae Elf Mage; and Dirk, Human Paladin.

The adventures these characters embark upon are destined to bring a smile to any comic book fan as they bungle their way through one failure after another.

If you are so inclined, you can help Epic Fail win some kind of web comic war by helping this code go viral:

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HELP Epic Fail, a comedic fantasy webcomic, to win Frumph’s WAR! Go to http://epicfail.xepher.net/ – please copy this message and pass it on :)
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Too much fun!

CTHULHU’S NIGHTMARE by Bric Barnes

While checking up on some of my favorite blogs, I came across a new market for weird fiction on Grasping for the Wind, which gives its issue away, yes that means free, Arkham Tales: download issues for free.

I quickly went to Arkham Tales website and downloaded both issues: Issue 2, February 2009 and Issue 1, November 2008. I’m a huge fan of Mythos. Finding a new market is exciting as a consumer of Lovecraftian Mythos and as a writer consumed with visions of tentacles and nightmares that could only be inspired from vast darkness that lies between the stars.

“Cthulhu’s Nightmare,” by Bric Barnes, is story that I wish that I would have written. It seems that when I sit down in front of my computer Cthulhu’s dreams still influence the click-clack of my key strokes as if I were some mindless cultist. However, Barnes has found a way to fight back against the dreaming god of R’yleh. Cthulhu is having nightmares of his own. He is being haunted by the voice of Rasta woman fortune teller who’s spam and infomercials bombard him from every angle:

“Are ya calling Miss Clio? Hoot, mon. Ya can’t help yourself. Only Miss Clio has the power. And she’s waiting for ya. Call her now.”

Not even Yig’s news about the success of the markets or the prospect of dancing with fire vampires can cheer Cthulhu up. All of his favorite pastimes have lost their appeal, drinking blood, chewing on human bones; where have his cultist gone. Cthulhu for the first time considers retirement. Retirement seems to have suited his brother, Cthugha.

“Cthulhu’s Nightmare” is witty and fresh. A story like this one, speaks well for the new periodical’s attention to editorial selection and what must be a strong commitment to publishing only the best new weird fiction in the tradition of Lovecraft.

I have joined the email list that will announce the publication of each new issue. I might still have several stories left to haunt me in the first two issues, but I’m already looking forward to seeing that will crawl its way out of the deep in the upcoming third installment of Arkham Tales.

It is free. What are you waiting for? This is your invitation: download issues for free.

Barnes, Bric. “Cthulhu’s Nightmare.” Arkham Tales. Issue 2, February 2009. Ed. Nathan Shumate, et al. Cold Fusion Media Empire, 2009.

The Front Fell Off!

PARKER’S BACK by Flannery O’Conner

Yesterday, while preparing lesson plans, I was so exited that I had assigned "Parker’s Back" that I read it first. This was a mistake. I should have read To Build a Fire first because it comes up on my syllabus first. It was a mental brain fart that cost me time an energy that I wanted to use to plan through Friday. Oh, well, reading good fiction is never time wasted.

"Parker’s Back" is about O.E. Parker’s troubled life. Parker is driven to fill every available space on his skin with tattoos. In Parker’s case, these tattoos are an outward symptom of a troubled soul. Each new tattoo will only temporally easy his mental anguish, fill up the gap in his soul that the story suggests God could fill better.

Parker is not an evil man. He is simply troubled. He has an anger problem and would likely, if he were alive today, be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Instead, he joined the Navy and saw the world, collecting tattoos from every harbor that is boat docked.

The story is full of details, both physical and psychological. The story will be a good example to use to explain a psychological approach to literature. In class, we will try to diagnose Parker by looking at the narrative details; what will the reveal about Parker’s true problem. Does he have Mama issues, God issues? Where does his self-loathing stem from?

The story will also open debate on a favorite subject of mine, tattoos. I love tattoos. I have five. I also love literature about tattoos. The first time I came across this story was in a collection solely composed of writers’ efforts to capture the sub culture of ink: Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos by Kim Addonizio and Cheryl Dumesnil.

O’Connor, Flannery. “Parker’s Back.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 10th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2007.

Happy Birthday to Me

I’m 33. My wife is planning on taking me to dinner tonight. I think that I will ask her to take me to Three Fishes. We’ve never been there and I love fish. She doesn’t like fish at all, but I’m sure that they will have something else that she can eat. I’m just in the mood for fried catfish, corn fried catfish, if they have it.

This weekend, we are going to have a movie-going marathon. We will unfortunately start the day off by doing our taxes, but then, oh, yes, we will hit the movie theater and see not one, but two, and perhaps even three movies in one day. It is going to be great.

Here is a list of the movies, that depending on time and how they line up during the day, I hope to see:

In order of Preference:
1. Push
2. Confessions of a Shopaholic
3. The International
4. Underworld : The Rise of the Lycans
5. Bride Wars

It is good to be 33!

TO BUILD A FIRE by Jack London

Look at a week of 30 degree weather, again this week, is awesome. Enjoying a week of 30 degree weather makes me a Minnesotan. Assigning To Build a Fire to my students to read this week makes me just a little evil.

I just finished prepping another day of Literature. Even though is teaching Literature scares me, because I love it and what if the students hate it, I’m enjoying every stressful moment. Tomorrow is day one and will be full of “Who are yous” and “Why is this importants;” however, in my mind, I’m already onto day 3. On Day three, I will give an overview of the craft of fiction as an approach to accessing the art of fiction. The Story that I have chosen to discuss with my students that will allow me to touch on all of the important craft tools is To Build a Fire.

To Build a Fire is a great teacher’s tool and a good model for a successful short story. Not only will it allow me to address the various types of conflict (Man vs. Man, Nature, Society, Self), but it has point of view shifts, concrete details, a classic Freytag Story Arc, summary and scene, and an elaborate setting that becomes not unlike an active character.

I think that my favorite part of the story is the ending:

Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.

I love it. Nature and instinct win. Humans with our big minds have the ability to fight instinct. When the cold bites our skin, we can tell ourselves to put on more cloths, build bigger fires, or that we are tough enough to endure it. The dog knows better. He wanted to stay next to the fire. He only left because he was forced to heal by the sound of his master’s calling and whip cracking.

I hope my students like it.

London, Jack. “To Build a Fire.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 10th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2007. 119 - 129

Discovery Showcase – Fantasy Debut

Fantasy Debut is adding a Discovery Showcase to the weekly line up of reviews, debuts, and other stuff.

Here is a teaser, if you want to know more, visit Discovery Showcase:

I have decided to declare Saturday as Discovery Showcase Day. Each week, on Saturday, I will post the first chapter of an unpublished or self-published novel.

I do have a few rules:
- Must be fantasy, science fiction or supernatural horror. This includes all subgenres and Christian speculative fiction.
- Must be the first chapter of a novel-length work. No short stories.
- Read More

Format your excerpt like this:
- Short Blurb, 200 words or less
- Profanity warnings, if applicable
- Excerpt, 2000 words or less
- Read More

I do have to say that I’m disappointed about the exclusion of shorter works of fiction and works in progress. It is another life lesson: “can’t have it all.”

THE STORY OF AN HOUR by Kate Chopin

To honor my feelings about Valentines Day, I’d like to review this short gem of a story. I’d say it was fate that I was reading from my textbook for next term. Instead of environmental science, I have the fortune to be able to teach to my passion, literature and writing. This weekend will be spent prepping for the first few days and reading some of the stories that I will be assigning my students.

We will be reading one of my favorite stories by Chopin, The Story of an Hour. It is a really short short story. The economy of the language is superb. Chopin makes every sentence, every word matter. The challenge here, to my students, will be to try to remove any one sentence from the story without adversely impacting the overall tone or plot. This will require some close reading of the story, but I think that the in-class assignment will set the correct tone for the rest of the term.

I so enjoy the ending to this story. It says it all. We may love our spouses with all of our hearts, but there are also moments of suffocation that come with loving someone so completely. The freedom that she came to understand through sitting in her room was like having a pillow lifted off her face. She would no longer have to live with the terrible weight of her love for husband, Brently. She was free.

Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 10th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2007. 523 - 524

Mixed Greens Catalog No. 10

This is an odd duck for The Soulless Machine Review. I got the Mixed Greens Catalog No. 10 in the mail this week. It is a New York catalog of the Mixed Greens studio. I live in Minneapolis. I will not be able to make it to the exhibition. I want too. The art is my kind of strange.

Flipping through the pages, I landed Mark Mulroney’s strange urban vinyl like paintings on page 38 and 39. This is the kind of art that I would like hanging on my yellow-mustard and catsup-red condominium walls but can’t afford it. The image includes dark puppets (for lack of a better word) like figures and monsters that fit on pencils or fingers. I can’t put my finger on the reason why these images move me, but the do. It must have something to do with the way the contrast their gritty surroundings with their absence of detail.

I was also struck by the cartoons of Kammy Roulner on pages 48 – 51. They are simple drawings with speech bubbles. I think my favorite is the depiction of a bald man with spectacles standing in judgment next to a younger looking man with a striped shirt and spiky hair who says, “Please don’t belittle my website.” Wow.

My favorite, however, is Dirk Westphal’s photographs of goldfish on pages 72 – 75. I think that goldfish are ugly, in general. Yet, Westphal’s photographs portray them as majestic and perhaps even angelic creatures. If I could make it to New York in March, I would make sure to visit Mixed Greens to see more of Westphal’s work.

The catalogue is a good one that inspires and intrigues the reader to visit the exhibitions. If I could, I would go. Bellow is the 2009 schedule of some very talented artists.

Mixed Greens
2009 Exhibition Schedule

Mark Mulroney
January 8 – February 7

Leah Tinari
February 12 – March 14

Dirk Westphal
March 19 – April 18

Coke Wisdom O’Neal
Lee Stoetzel
April 23 – May 23

A. A. Rucci
May 28 – July 3

Tenth Anniversary Show
July 9 – August 14

Zane Lewis
August 20 – October 3

Adia Millett
October 8 – November 7

Kimberley Hart
November 12 – December 23

Charles Darwin Turns 200

In celebration of 150 years of The Origin of Species and Charles Darwin 200th birthday, I picked up an interesting book by Stephen Baxter titled evolution. It is a big book and my reading time limited. I wanted to have it read and reviewed by today, but that was not in the cards. I’ve only conquered the first 60 pages of 761.

The book is good and will most likely consume much of my free time. It begins with a 65 million years before present. Purga is small rodent-like primate that is in trouble. She is on the move looking for food to feed her brood. Her life is hard and limited to the basics of survival: food and shelter.

At first, the story of Purga was hard to get into. She is a rodent-like primate after all. However, the dinosaurs pursuing her got my attention. Not only does she have to avoid being eaten by things that are hungry and bigger than she is, but also the males of her species will eat her young and rape her to ensure that their genetics are passed on and not those of a lesser male.

The book promises to walk the reader through millions, if not billions of years so that we may watch the greatest show ever, the evolution of the human.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live
By CARL SAFINA
Published: February 10, 2009
Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution.

Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
Published: February 10, 2009
The study of how species originate, a process known as speciation, is not only one of evolution’s most active areas of study, but also one of its most contentious.

Largest Snake: Researchers have found fossil remains of a species of snake that they say weighed 2500 pounds, and grew to 45 feet long. (first broadcast Friday, February 6, 2009)

Caterpillar Mimicry: How does a parasitic caterpillar survive inside an ant nest? According to research published this week, it sounds like a queen ant. (first broadcast Friday, February 6, 2009)

Ancient Whale Relative Gave Birth on Land: Fossil remains of an ancient pregnant whale suggest that the animal gave birth on land some 47.5 million years ago. (first broadcast Friday, February 6, 2009)

A Year of Darwin: This year marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th Anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. In this segment, Ira talks with Matthew Chapman, Darwin's great-great-grandson. (first broadcast Friday, February 6, 2009)

Asphalt Sky Vol 1. Issue 2 Out Now

Vol. 1 Issue 2

This is an online journal that takes submissions for poetry, fiction, and essays. It looks like this issue is completely composed of poetry.

The poetry in Vol. 1 Issue 2 is full of vibrant images ranging from the oil soaked cogs and wheels that keep everything moving in Nathan Moore’s Machine II to fish hooks in Fishing from Memory and Playing by Ear by Will Brulé.

The poem that I enjoyed the most was Nathan Moore’s Machine II. It is full of gears and grease. It is full of the necessary dirt and grime that keeps the machine moving. I think that poems should raise questions and make a reader think. This poem does just that. After reading it, I had to stop and ask myself, “Is forward momentum the end all be all of life? Is it all just up the hill and then your done?” I guess it is.

Another poem that I’d like to mention is (UN)Earth by Mg Roberts. It is spread out over several pages and has some fun formatting. However, what I like about this poem is the sense of creation but with some undercurrents and subtext that is worth pondering. Or maybe I have that backwards, perhaps creation is the subtext. Anyway, you should read it for yourself.

I enjoyed the short issue of Asphalt Sky. I was able to read it in just under 20 minutes. Faster readers will likely zip through it. What I’m trying to say is that if you have time to read my posts, you have time to enjoy a few poems. Go read it.

Laser Bike Lane!

Cyclists Fight Back With Lasers

Environmental Graffiti by Karl Fabricius on 2/9/09

Environmental Graffiti is one of my favorite new sites. And this post is one of reasons why. You should check them out. Here are a few other highlights:

Living Bath Mat Feeds Off You and Your Bath Water

Massive 10ft Spinning Ice Circle Discovered in the UK

Dung Bunnies and Other Critters Made of Manure

God’s Joke: The Duck-billed Platypus

The Smallest Monkeys in the World

It’s Raining Frogs

I could go on and on. This website is one one my favoites and I look forward to it every day.

Madworld for Wii

Oh, Yeah! Move over Wii-fit!

This is so my Cat!

THE SOULLESS MACHINE REVIEW January 2009

THE SOULLESS MACHINE REVIEW January 2009
THE FINAL ELEMENT by Eric James Stone
BONE SIGH by Tim Pratt
MADMAN’S BARGAIN by Richard Foss

DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA by Mathias B. Freese
HERBIE
THE CHATHAM BEAR
I’LL MAKE IT, I THINK
DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA

Extra:
FALL OF CTHULHU: THE GRAY MAN
STAR WARS: DARTH BANE: RULE OF TWO by Drew Karpyshyn

W.F.T.D.A. RollerGirls Make into The New York Times

You Just Can’t Keep the Girls From Jamming
By PAUL WACHTER
Published: February 1, 2009
Over the last six years, roller derby has been reborn — this time as sport, not theater.

The article is a good one. It covers the 2008 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s national championship game that was held in November 2008. The article focuses on the Gotham Girls.

I hope that this will mean the W.F.T.D.A. will have regular coverage in the sports' section of newspapers a long side the other less than intersting sports found there now.

The next bout is 2/28/09. You better be there.
Minnesota RollerGirls