James Deagle

Cretan and Cycladic

2012-01-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

It is only my shell sitting in the waiting area of the garage as the car is being fixed. The part of me that lives and breathes is back among the southern islands of Greece, where waters of ancient history lap against topless shores of black lava sand.

I wish my shell the best of luck.

An Elegy of Sorts

2012-01-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I catch myself adrift on the waters of the early years of our friendship, a time of homemade comics drawn in pencil and stapled together with the loving care of nine-year-old hands, of daring espionage missions in the woods behind the high school, and of secret forays into your older brother's record collection when no one else was home.

On that last note, one incident in particular stands out. We were listening to Supertramp's Crime of the Century on his turntable, which was on the bottom of three makeshift shelves held up by small L-shaped brackets. The speakers, along with the world's largest jar of pennies, were perched on the middle shelf. Somehow I got the big idea that we should turn the bass up to 10, because full bass made all music sound louder and cooler, which in turn sounded like a good idea to you. So, you turned the knob as far to the right as it would go, whereupon the right bracket of the middle shelf gave out, causing the jar and right speaker to slide and fall onto the deep pile carpeting. By some miracle, the jar as well as the right speaker remained intact, while the left speaker got wedged between the bottom and middle shelves. Supertramp weren't so lucky.

In a white hot panic we got the shelf, the jar of pennies and the speakers back to our approximation of their previous state, and slid the newly-scratched record into its sleeve and back into the red milk crate as if nothing had happened.

Almost 20 years later you took your own life without leaving a note.

Your exact reasons will never be known, and I am now almost 13 years into a bottleneck of conflicting emotions just thinking about it. With each passing year, however, I feel just a little more indifferent, and someday hope to be completely blasé. I hope you understand.

Why is this coming back to me now, all these years later? It is because I had Crime of the Century playing in the car yesterday, and it took me back to your brother's bedroom in 1981, and then through a wormhole to that phone call from Rick in 1999, telling me that you had hung yourself.

My emotional basement has had a minor flood, but now the drain is clear, the water is receding, and life simply goes on. I hope you understand.

All-Nite Grocery Store

2012-01-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

I like shopping late at night at my neighborhood grocery store, when it's quiet and empty. I'm the kind of guy who finds solace in the idea of things being open 24/7, where you can go and get stuff done in public and still remain invisible. And even if you do happen to cross paths with other human specimens, it's no big deal. Nocturnal creatures are always more intriguing anyway.

On this particular evening, in the middle of a January deep freeze, I am waiting in line with diapers, hand soap, and this week's issue of the National Examiner, all three of which are written on my hand as a forget-me-not. My boots (and therefore my feet) are cold and wet, and I am pondering my beard, which is now in full swing. The beard is by default, not design, and is an itchy distraction.

In line behind me is Bohuslav Martinů (1890 - 1959). In his cart he has a bag of lemons from Turkey, a head of cauliflower, and two cans of the first half of the twentieth century - from concentrate, of course. I feel the need to talk, so I turn around and engage him in conversation.

"This thing is bugging me," I say, rubbing the scruff of my face. "I don't have time to do much of anything these days, let alone shave. Not that I am against having a beard, per se. In fact, it makes me feel like I'm halfway to getting my hippie freak on, if you know what I mean. It's far easier to grow a beard of reasonable length than grow out your hair by a foot or two. Less of a commitment. Not many men grow a beard for the heck of it these days, unless it is for some cultural reason. Most guys just go clean-shaven, and fall back on that Ivy League haircut, as if it's now enforced by law. It must be a metrosexual thing, which I suppose by definition would necessitate lemming-like behavior, especially in the realm of grooming. It seems to me like the hairstyle equivalent of a Successories™ poster. Like, hooray. Anyway, I guess I like having a beard because it keeps people at a minor distance, as if it's some sort of novelty."

I notice Bohuslav nodding slowly as he strains to follow my words. If only English were his first language, we'd get along famously. There is a short moment of awkward silence after I run out of words, and then he speaks in a thick Czech accent. "I'm sorry. I don't know about these things."

"Well, my opinions on the modern male's grooming habits have nothing on The Opening of the Wells," I say to him as the cashier rings in my items. He nods and we both disappear back into our private worlds.

Letter to the Editor (New York Post)

2012-01-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

Re: Schools ‘spy’ on fat kids, January 15, 2012

Dear Editor,

Enough with the skinny world's supposed concern for the health and well being of those we label "obese"! Between reality TV shows "ironically" labeling them "losers", to now forcing them to wear body monitors as if they were under house arrest, it seems to me that picking on the fat kid hasn't gone away - this classic schoolyard pastime has simply reinvented itself in sheep's clothing.

Anyways, since when do you hear people complain about how much those with anorexia are costing the health system? And what are the odds of there ever being a reality show with a title like "Last Bulimic Standing"? Slim, of course. (Audience groans, comedian apologizes...)

I would love to see the students in Long Island risk expulsion and tell the school officials to perch and rotate.

James Deagle
Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (Calhoun Community Press)

2012-01-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

Re: TheRepublican Position: OWS-spoiled brats, bums, and anarchists,January, 2012

Dear Editor,

For someone who is so quick to lobinsults at those whose political views diverge from his own, GeneHoward's criticism of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement isfounded on shaky assumptions.

Firstly, he seems to think the OWSprotests were specifically against the Republican Party. This is untrue - otherwise,it would have been called “Occupy Republican NationalHeadquarters.” In fact, the OWS has been very critical of thePresident. For example, back in November OWS protesters were out infull force at an Obama fundraiser dinner in New York, holding signswith slogans such as “Obama is a corporate puppet”.

So when Mr.Howard says “the uninformed and unwashed associate pin stripeswith Republicans, and assumed they were attacking conservatives,”he is clearly obfuscating the issue with blatant untruths. The OWSprotests were certainly not an Obama love-in. Then again, when you're yelling at lefties, it is best not to let truth get in theway of anger.

Another questionable area of Mr.Howard's screed is where he says the OWS protesters are making use of“the resources and innovations of capitalism” such as theInternet and social media to connect with each other. Let's set therecord straight – the Internet began life as early as 1963 as theARPAnet, a creation of the U.S. Military's Advanced Research ProjectsAgency. Most true innovation in high technology occurs inpublicly-funded laboratories or universities – it is only after thefact that capitalism comes along to capitalize on it, and perhapshire away some of the original researchers. To specifically call theInternet an “innovation of capitalism”, however, is absurd.

James Deagle

Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (The Birmingham Times)

2012-01-05T15:43:00.000-08:00

Re: Does Obama deserve four moreyears?, January 5, 2010

Dear Editor,

I wholeheartedly agree with KervinFondren that President Obama should be allowed to finish what hestarted with a return to the White House in 2012. The President hascertainly ruffled a lot of feathers in certain quarters simply byfocusing on stakeholders, rather than shareholders, and for thisreason the feather-ruffling should be allowed to continue for another four years.

Abraham Lincoln once said “Governmentof the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish fromthe Earth.” I'm sure this idea must seem very threatening toRepublicans and the Tea Party movement. Their continuous demands thatgovernment be trimmed and gutted to skeletal proportions seems toimply a distaste for their fellow citizens, or at least those whocan't afford country club memberships.

In my opinion it is President Obama'sinsistence on serving all people, rather than just elite people, thattruly rankles his enemies on the right.

Having said all that, however, I wouldbe delighted if President Obama decided to relocate to my country andrun for Prime Minister, as we have some neo-conservative androids inpower who need replacing.

James Deagle

Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (Birmingham Business Journal)

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

Re: Economic Forecast 2012 (Legal),December 30, 2012

Dear Editor,

In helping decrease the amount of timecorporations spend suing each other into oblivion, the recession is ablessing for everyone concerned – except lawyers, of course. Ioften wonder how much money is wasted by corporations on throwingsand at each other in court, and what could be accomplished if thosefunds were redirected into growth and innovation. Take a look at thetechnology sector, for example, where many companies have decided tobecome 'patent trolls,' and and have turned litigation into their keyrevenue stream rather than bringing new and wondrous things into theworld.

James Deagle

Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (The Brewton Standard)

2012-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Re: Smith to seek re-election incounty, January 4, 2012

Dear Editor,

Kudos to District 4 County CommissionerBrandon Smith for throwing his hat in the ring for the 2012 countyelections, and for demonstrating enthusiasm and respect for thedemocratic process.

I think other politicians would do wellto follow his example and actually feel that it's an "honor toserve". Witness the recent statement by Mitt Romney, where hecriticized Rick Santorum for being a "career politician".If Romney finds public office to be an essentially dishonorableprofession, then why is he even running in the first place? To himand his breed, perhaps "serving the people" is just a meansto an end, or a necessary evil of some kind.

Serving as an effective politician isgrueling (and at times thankless) work, and requires intensededication and sacrifice. There is nothing vile or dishonorable aboutthis work when it is approached with integrity.

Perhaps Romney has spent too longliving the swanky corporate life to see this basic reality.

James Deagle

Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (The Atmore Advance)

2012-01-04T19:34:00.000-08:00

Re:Time to remember those lost in 2011, December 28, 2011

DearEditor,

Thankyou to Lowell McGill for celebrating the famous and notable peoplethat left us this past year. Looking over those referenced in histribute, I am reminded of how easy it is to forget those who leave asignificant impact on our society and culture long after their 'star' hasfaded.

Evenmore to the point, it is also easy to forget the impact of theimportant people in our personal lives, all-too-often until it is toolate. The best way to pay tribute to these 'ordinary' people is toemulate their best qualities in whatever we can over the next year.

JamesDeagle

Ottawa, Canada

Letter to the Editor (The Auburn Plainsman)

2012-01-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

Re: Thicken your skin, America, December 2012

Dear Editor,

While I agree with your contention that a simple "Merry Christmas" (or "Happy Hanukkah" or "Happy Ramadan") should not offend anyone, I don't think it is over-sensitive atheists who pose the biggest threat to the role of this holiday in North American culture, nor any perceived decline of its representation in stores or at schools. If anything, the biggest threat is the willingness of Christians to let their own faith whither, and to allow this sacred holiday to become nothing more than a secular shopping marathon. (Granted, who has time for the sacred when there's people to trample at Walmart on Black Friday?)

The next time you hear a Christian complaining about Christmas being 'taken away from them' by atheists, ask them to explain the central significance of Nikalaos of Myra to this holiday. Their likely inability to answer that question with more than a shrug of indifference is all the indication you need of how empty-headed an occasion Christmas has become.

James Deagle
Ottawa,Canada

________

UPDATE: The Auburn Plainsman published this letter in a recent edition with only one very minor edit. :)

Letter to the Editor (Andalusia Star News)

2012-01-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Re:State must reduce prisoners or raise taxes, January 4, 2012

DearEditor,

Whatexactly do conservative politicians mean when they talk about being'tough on crime'? Almost invariably, it's all about locking up morepeople for longer periods of time for increasingly pettier offenses.And to be honest, the people in question tend to reside on theeconomically-disadvantaged end of the social spectrum. Isn't thatproof enough that economic inequality is the root cause of crime?(For the sake of focus and brevity, I'll avoid getting into the lackof any conservative crusades against white-collar crime, which ofcourse is decidedly a rich man's game.)

Ifpublic money is to be spent on addressing criminal activity, it wouldbe much better spent proactively on programs addressing the needs ofdisadvantaged youth and providing self-improvement opportunities forthose who could use them, rather than the prison system, which isessentially an expensive social housing program which seems to yieldlittle rehabilitative value, and thus little return on investment.

Perhapsthe prospect of punishing poor people provides too much of a thrillfor conservatives, and must pale in comparison to reducing crime bymore effective and proactive means.

As aCanadian I wish I could say things are different up here, but ourPrime Minister was reelected on a 'get tough on crime' platform thatincluded pumping millions into the construction of new prisons,despite an overall reduction in the rate of crime. So much for'limited government'.

JamesDeagle

Ottawa,Canada

Letter to the Editor (The Anniston Star)

2012-01-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

From: James Deagle
Subject: Letter to the Editor
To: speakout@annistonstar.com
Received: Sunday, January 1, 2012, 6:45 PM

Re: Travel agents, January 1, 2012

Dear Editor:

Your question of whether the GOP candidates' modes of campaign transportation affects their political qualifications is well taken, though I think it's more a reflection of how the respective campaign teams perceive Iowa voters, rather than their own credibility.

Any political campaign is an arena of perception, where the candidate projects an idealized - and therefore fictional - version of themself, customized according to what their team believes most appeals to the electorate.

Consider the two polar opposites: the jet-setting Mitt Romney versus pickup-driving Rick Santorum.

For someone like Romney, it is important that the voters know what an experienced and successful private sector businessman he is. Afterall, only qualified professionals get to be high flyers, let alone get elected to the highest office.

Santorum's thinking, on the other hand, would seem to indicate that Iowans would much prefer a down-home, aw-shucks everyman. Being closer to the ground, literally, he is better able to lead the people by serving the people.

One candidate projects what he thinks Iowans want to be, while the other projects Iowans as he thinks they really are. Gordon Gecko versus Jefferson Smith. Both are contrivances, of course. In reality, Romney doesn't need a private jet to get across Iowa, while Santorum, if he really is a serious party leadership candidate, surely can afford more than a Dodge Ram, as well as a staffer or two for the road.

Ultimately, you are correct in hoping Iowans do not equate travel modes to 'political qualifications'. Like so much in politics, it is all an illusion

James Deagle
Ottawa, Canada

The place to go to strike your match

2012-01-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

Years ago I knew someone whose car was set on fire in the middle of the night. Once the fire department was on the scene extinguishing what was left of the blaze, the Fire Chief said that in all likelihood the culprit was somewhere in the neighborhood watching from a safe and hidden distance. Watching the commotion resulting from their deed, he said, is part of the arsonist's kick.

This all comes back to me now as I read the headlines about the current arson wave in Los Angeles. Given the above, it makes sense that L.A. would be the target of such activity, and not for the first time. If you want to set the world on fire, the City of Angels is the place to go to strike your match - literally and figuratively. The arid climate and invitingly flammable landscape only sweetens the deal for would-be pyromaniacs. If the fires were burning in Anywhere, USA, they wouldn't be garnering nearly as much media coverage. But because the arsonist involved decided to go 'Hollywood', they get to watch the commotion from the ultimate safe and hidden distance: in front of their television.

In L.A., even crime is a show business venture.

Letter to the Editor (USA Today)

2012-01-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

From: James Deagle
Subject: Letter to the Editor
To: letters@usatoday.com
Received: Sunday, January 1, 2012, 10:13 AM

Dear Editor:

Just today I was reading Anick Jesdanun's article on your website (How to get your Facebook in order), and wanted to leave a comment advising people about the pitfalls of Facebook, and why they'd be better off simply deactivating their account. You can imagine my dismay when I finished rattling off a quick paragraph's worth of my two cents and realized that the only way to leave a comment is to log in through a Facebook profile.

I find it troubling that you limit your online conversation to Facebook members, as there are plenty of us out there who have either not signed up or have deactivated our accounts on a matter of serious principle due to ongoing (and unresolved) privacy concerns. Additionally, many of us refuse to provide a map of our social life and consumer preferences to an organization that has yet to prove itself a trustworthy guardian of that information.

By allowing your online conversation to be 'branded' by Facebook, can we as readers trust that USA Today will also provide objective news coverage of Facebook when privacy, copyright and other legal issues arise, and perhaps even dare to publish editorials critical of it when warranted? By allowing Facebook to own and control your online forums, you allow a shadow of doubt to be cast over said objectivity, and as such I am less inclined to count myself among your readership.

James DeagleOttawa,Canada

An Open Plea to Reality Show Contestants

2011-12-31T18:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Reality Show Contestant:

I am writing this as a TV viewer who has subjected himself to far more hours of so-called 'reality' television than he cares to remember. It's not that I find this programming stimulating - it's simply that all too often there is nothing else on. (I'd say it's the TV equivalent of cold pizza, but I think too much of cold pizza to do something like that.) I don't expect this situation to change anytime soon, and so it looks like we'll be spending time together in the future. As such, I have one piece of advice. Or perhaps a request. Make that a desperate plea...

Whether you're vying for a recording contract, an executive chef position, or simply a stack of money for winning some grueling obstacle course, I beg you to please make it about the competition, and not some background melodrama from your offscreen life.

I realize you probably have a loved one who is terminally ill, or has recently died from a terminal illness. But for crying out loud, please don't dishonor that person (or their memory) by turning them into some inflatable whore of convenience for the sake of ingratiating yourself with the judges or viewers at home. I trust I speak for most people when I say it does nothing for us. We've seen this all before, and it is beyond boring. In fact, it has become quite annoying.

While I'm sure you loved your Aunt Millie, and were by her side through her courageous battle against pleuropulmonary blastoma, please don't dedicate your onscreen singing, cooking or insect-eating to her. And even more to the point, please don't reference her at every opportunity, especially when you falter and think some more sympathy points will propel you to the next round.

The most blatant example of what I'm talking about was a recent contestant on the Food Network's Chopped. At the beginning of the episode, she was all bravado about her credentials as a Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts graduate. As the show progressed, and her fortunes sunk, she increasingly blamed her missteps on her sister having recently died. In one of the post-mortem on-camera interviews, she expressed bemusement that she wasn't given a leg up due to her fragile emotional state, and then looked straight into the camera, saying with defiant smugness (as well as a total lack of grief): "Hello! Death!"

In one fell swoop, I was left doubting not only her cooking abilities but also the sincerity of her 'loss', assuming she wasn't a paid actress to begin with. (If you miss your sister so much, then let her rest in peace and dignity, rather than defiling her corpse for the sake of a ham-fisted attempt at saving face.) Even worse, however, is that such cheap theatrics don't make for good television, regardless of whatever you've been told or how you've been coached by your show's producers. In fact, it makes for painful television.

So despite whatever disdain I may have for your show and its ilk, you should nevertheless make it about your passion, intelligence and abilities. Full stop. That's all any viewer will ever really want from you, even those of us who tune in with such low expectations.

I'm sure Aunt Millie would understand.

Sincerely,
James Deagle

Cory Doctorow: "The Coming War on General Purpose Computation"

2011-12-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've been doing my best to get away from ranting about the shrinking sandbox that is today's direction in personal computing, and how it is changing our relationship with technology - and the quality of our individual rights - for the worse. I'm making myself sick of the topic, let alone anyone who actually reads this blog on a regular basis. "Yes, I get it," you say. "Computers are being turned into mere content consumption appliances, and computer users are being turned into mere content subscribers. Can we move on, now?"

I couldn't agree more, and how I wish it were so.

Alarm bell that I am, however, I feel compelled to draw your attention to the keynote speech (The Coming War on General Purpose Computation) recently given by blogger and boingboing.net co-editor Cory Doctorow at 28C3, the Chaos Computer Congress, in Berlin on December 26. You can either watch a video of the speech or read a text transcript.

The speech gives a good rundown on the threats posed by current computing trends -- as well as today's copyright battles -- in a less pedestrian vein than the rants posted by Yours Truly.

Dead horses don't stand a chance at the megaplex

2011-12-03T12:20:00.001-08:00

Despite sometimes being an easy target, I think mainstream American cinema gets an undue number of black eyes from self-appointed culture mavens. It certainly doesn't help that increasingly larger amounts of money and promotional resources are going into flinging brainless crap at the screen. It makes one want to backpack across Europe for a year just on a matter of principle.

Every now and then, however, there are mainstream films that really aren't that bad. My general barometer of quality is this: do the filmmakers put the story and character first? Somewhat recent examples where it was all about story and character include Up In the Air and Little Miss Sunshine. (These films score enough points with me that they are exempt from this overall discussion.)

There is a two-pronged neurosis underscoring much of American mainstream cinema, even when it is trying get it right, namely: a) a reluctance to leave even one iota of the story open to interpretation by the audience, and b) a preference for inflating the plot resolution into some sort of epic conquest, even when the story concerns events far more pedestrian than, say, the Super Bowl, World War II, or Earth being attacked by aliens.

I would venture that b) is actually a byproduct of a). If the filmmaker (or the stuffed shirts producing it) can't fathom any ambiguity in their product, then they certainly can't entertain the notion of an ending that doesn't obey the Go Big or Go Home dictum. This is how American exceptionalism expresses itself at the megaplex, and artists as well as audiences are all the poorer for it, as we shall see below.

In The Cinema as Art, Ralph Stephenson and Guy Phelps outlined the main stages of creation for any art form, as follows:

Conception – the original idea or flash of inspiration that moves the artist to create the piece,

Execution – the materials, techniques and aesthetic decisions that go into the piece's creation, and

Interpretation – how the viewer/listener/audience member perceives and evaluates the piece in their own mind.

Audience member as co-creator. What a dangerous concept, especially to the filmmaker bent on micromanaging their audience. They look at their work as 'product' only to be used in ways proscribed by the 'manufacturer' – this would explain why so many American films overstate The Intended Message of the Movie, just so there's no confusion. This tendency holds true even beyond the Big n' Stupid world of summer blockbusters. Let's use A Few Good Men as our case study: an otherwise well-written, well-acted and well-directed film built on smart, fast-paced dialogue that is marred at the very end by the Big 'n Stupid instinct.

In the offending scene, Lieutenant Danny Kaffee (Tom Cruise) wins the battle of courtroom wits against Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson), leading him to admit to having ordered the 'code red' that resulted in a marine's death. As tensions mount, Kaffee plays Jessep's personality against itself, causing him to erupt in a now-famous monologue (“You can't handle the truth!”) that has become one of Nicholson's defining moments. The tension explodes, Jessep is read his rights, and that is more or less where it should have ended.

But like a lover suddenly humping your leg as you try to light the post-coital cigarette, the filmmakers can't resist ramping up the tension one more time as Jessep lunges at Kaffee, screaming “I'm gonna rip out your eyes and piss in your dead skull! You f*#$%d with the wrong Marine!”, among other quaint sentiments, to which Kaffee replies through gritted teeth: “You're under arrest, you son of a bitch!” (This is an abridged version of what happens, but you get the picture.)

This additional exchange doesn't advance the plot or bring any new info to light – it simply comes across as screenwriter Aaron Sorkin flexing his muscles and, I dunno, showing off to his school chums that his parents let him swear around the house. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoy this movie, no matter how many times I've see it. (I'm picking on it here precisely because I think so much of it. The world needs more cautionary tales about the dangers of not questioning authority.) Unfortunately, it always makes me wince with annoyance at the last minute, sort of like Adam Lambert's performances on American Idol, where he would insert a falsetto banshee wail at the end of each and every song – not to show how well he can interpret the music, but to remind the viewers just one more time what an awesome ~~Rob Halford impersonator~~ singer he is.

With that kind of loud and redundant bluster, the audience is bludgeoned into submission and left with no room to exercise that third stage of creation: interpretation. Jessep is intimidating, but Kaffee can go toe-to-toe with him. The horse is dead, Aaron. Put the club down.

If I were a script doctor, and the director was insisting on a final whiff of confrontation, I would have had Jessep lunge at Kaffee and, as he's restrained by the MP's, be in a seething state of speechless rage. The two men would then stare each other down, with Kaffee almost faltering and looking away, but then finding the resolve to stand his ground, immovable. Perhaps he would even give Jessep a thin smile, or quietly say “dismissed”, before turning and walking away, leaving Jessep to yell and curse all he wants as the MP's drag him out of the courtroom. If you're going to echo an earlier confrontation, then just as in nature the echo should be fainter than the original - a whiff, not a second helping.

Consistent with the neurosis outlined above, though, the “You're under arrest, you son of a bitch!” line is the filmmakers' way of allowing Tom Cruise to hoist the trophy cup in the air while running a victory lap. (For love of God, do we really need any more Tom Cruise victory laps?) Nothing could be more American, or so it may seem to those from elsewhere. In reality, it makes Kaffee a weaker character, as he allows Jessep to get to him emotionally after he has already won, and reveals a basic insecurity in the filmmakers, along with their lack of trust in the audience.

Breaking the seal

2011-11-29T15:39:00.001-08:00

This post constitutes a desperate effort to end a two-month literary drought. If I just start typing, perhaps something akin to writing may emerge, despite the objections of my inner Truman Capote.

It's not that I've had nothing to say, and it isn't that I haven't been bursting with the urge and intent to write...no, the problem has been at the bio-chemical level. The act of writing for me has usually been an act of capturing, harnessing and transcribing into words my mind's equivalent of fleeting musical notes -- all I've had to work with these days, however, is my mind's equivalent of a steady dial tone. O distant uncooperative muse...

There are times, however, when the only way to break the seal is to smash the bottle. This is one of those times.

Don't take the above as griping, however. The reason for my recent inability to focus on writing is that my energies and emotions have been drastically redirected due to the recent birth of my son. Those who already have kids need no further explanation, and for those without kids...there is no amount of explaining that can do the experience justice. With blogging being a solipsistic activity to begin with, I can only convey my own perspective on being a new dad.

For starters, it is like nothing I ever could have imagined. Being there with my wife through labor and delivery, going respectively from a sense of fear and helplessness to a sudden mind-shattering endorphin spike, and losing my heart to this new little person at first sight, represented a cataclysmic shift in my internal universe. I'm still the same ol' me, just an upgraded, massively sleep-deprived, and less trivial version. (Retro geeks can download an iso CD image of the previous me via a torrent at www.thepiratebay.org.)

So there you have it. A blog post from this keyboard after weeks of the author fearing it would never happen, hopefully followed by more of a less navel-gazing nature. Watch your step...those shards of glass can hurt.

______

Acknowledgement

This post did not occur in a vacuum. I had no idea of what to write about until after talking on the phone to Peter, comparing notes about writing as well as new fatherhood. Some of the material above came about verbally during the give-and-take of that conversation. Additionally, communing with a kindred literary spirit in of itself is always good for stimulating the writing gland.

Declare your rights and assert them through personal choice

2011-09-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

When I blogged the other day about how I don't like the trend towards computers being locked boxes rather than freely-reprogrammable machines, I had no idea Microsoft was about to lock things down even quicker than I had feared.

OSnews.com Managing Editor Thom Holwerda writes today about how the next version of Windows, which will be known as Metro, will require all applications to be loaded through the Windows Store, but only after winning approval from Microsoft:

I hadn't yet thought about all this yet, what, with the massive shift from the desktop to Metro in Windows 8. However, as MSDN explains, Metro applications in Windows 8 can only be installed through the Windows Store. Sideloading will only be enabled for enterprises and developers. I'm also fairly sure the relevant registry key will be easily toggled for us geeks.
"All roads, as the saying goes, lead to the Windows Store," Microsoft writes, "For Metro style apps, that is, the Windows Store is the only means of general distribution (enterprise customers and developers can bypass the store to side-load apps)."

Will this mean Metro users will be forbidden from installing the OpenOffice application suite on their own machines? What about Firefox? Or that funky game your cousin Lenny homebrewed with his pals at college?

We keep hearing about how computer technology is becoming further embedded into every facet of our lives, and in this regard decisions made by companies like Apple or Microsoft can have just as much of an impact on us than anything passed by politicians at any level. Who needs regulatory bodies when some corporation can dictate your choices through source code you are forbidden to see?

Part of the problem here is that the vast majority of computer users think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens, and as such are inclined to click ACCEPT on whatever End User License Agreement pops up without stopping to consider if they have any rights against which the terms of the agreement should be evaluated. Instead, they thoughtlessly surrender those rights so they can get to the slick new shiny stuff that much quicker. Afterall, they just want their money's worth.

Because there are no laws protecting you from software that limits your choices and activities unnecessarily, it is up to you to first declare your rights (if only to yourself) and then assert and enforce those rights through the choices you make as a consumer.

In other words, don't buy and/or install operating systems or programs that tell you what you can and can't do. And if your local computer store won't sell you a computer without an offending operating system pre-installed, take your business to a store that will. If no such stores exist in your area, then purchase a second-hand machine and cut the so-called "free enterprise" crowd out of the picture altogether. Free and open source operating systems (such as GNU/Linux and BSD variants) aren't as demanding on system resources anyway, so having the latest piece of hardware isn't a necessity. (Maybe you'll feel a little out-of-step with your peers. Taking a stand can be like that sometimes.)

Then again, perhaps you like having this done to you.

Rehoboam

2011-09-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

When the elders advised
mercy and restraint,
their words fell on ears
deaf with youth.

The counsel you preferred
was only so much
revving of engines
and squealing of ancient tires.

So when you promised them
scorpions in lieu of whips,
your people gave you
civil war in lieu of fear.

When Shisaq came
for what was left,
he was even less impressed
by the size of your little finger.

Left with no other way
to get your king out of check,
you struck a vassal’s bargain:
“enough” in lieu of “more”.

Shoveling dirt is not the same as moving mountains

2011-09-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

The following are some thoughts regarding current directions in personal computing, and are indicative of my bias as a Grumpy Old Man who pines for his long-lost Commodore VIC-20. The content was culled and reworked from comments I posted on osnews.com under my username, jimmy1971 – not because I think there’s anything profound or brilliant about my conclusions, but simply because they address concerns I have about where the average person’s relationship with technology is headed.

_____

At times I can be a stickler for proper terminology. One of the things stuck in my craw in recent years is the misguided notion that the web browser is “the new operating system (OS)”.

The browser is only the "new OS" to people who don't understand what an OS is. It may be the new "software suite", but to say it's an OS is to be lulled by marketing nonsense. (Given how people these days are so GUI-centric, this misconception is understandable.)

The concerning thing about the "browser as OS" mentality is that it plays into the recent "cloud computing" hyperbole. (If we called "cloud computing" for what it really is - "data storage outsourcing" or “relinquishing ownership and control of your data and applications” - it wouldn't sound nearly as sexy.)

Let’s put it another way: if someone's programming experience is limited to contributing to web browser projects, can they rightfully call themselves an "operating systems developer"? Likewise for a 1960's mainframe user who created some punch cards? It's like shoveling dirt while claiming to move mountains.

Ergo, the interface is not the operating system itself. When using a browser, you are transferring bits of data between two machines. The browser simply translates that data into text, pictures, audio and/or video.

A typical retort to the above is that the browser is the “visible OS”. That too, however, is problematic.

To use the shopworn car comparison, a browser is the equivalent of a dashboard, yet nobody ever confuses the dashboard with the engine itself, nor do they ever refer to it as the "visible engine". Is the dashboard an interface through which a driver works with the engine? Sure, but experience with repairing a dashboard doesn't make one an engine mechanic.

The "browser as OS" mantra is just breathless hype to me. (Not that the tech sector is prone to breathless hype...) The problem with buying into hype is that it gets users away from thinking of themselves as having rights, and away from the idea of asserting control over their own devices and programs.

Another concerning (and tangentially-related) trend is that of centralized app stores, particularly in the realm of Apple products.

I don't like the idea of any device, especially a desktop computer, being dependent on a centralized "store" for software, along with legal penalties for the user breaking or working around that dependency. (While they have since relaxed their stance, Apple also initially placed heavy restrictions on app developers, essentially dictating various elements of the process unheard of in other realms.) While the app store was initially an iPhone/Pod/Pad thing, it is now available for OS/X, the OS on which Apple’s Mac line of computers run.

Call me a Neanderthal, but I value computers as freely-reprogrammable universal machines, not locked boxes. While Apple scores supremely high marks in my books for using BSD code for much of their OS underbelly, and for using high-quality parts, I cringe at the "Apple-approved" world they are creating, in which any sort of hackingª must be vetted by them. How soon before Micro$oft follows suit?

Ultimately, all of the above points to computer users becoming mere “application users”, separated ever further from the machine by layers of GUI abstraction. This is so very far from the world of the lonely blinking cursor on a command line – a challenge and opportunity to create something of your own from scratch.

Whatever we are gaining as technology progresses, we are also losing other things with each step “forward”.

ªI use the term “hacking” here in its original sense, and not in the way the mass media has been misusing it for almost three decades.

All the world's a...film set?

2011-09-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

The conventional theory to explain all the lookalikes wandering our planet is that "everyone has a twin". This sounds fine until you think about it hard enough and realize that it would also mean that everyone has a mother with some explaining to do.

Forget twins. I stumbled upon the truth while working in the film industry a few years ago. As it happens, God can only afford to hire so many extras. Yes, the Supreme Executive Producer has a small cadre of background players populating your immediate universe, all of them always within a 25-mile radius of you at any given time.

They are highly-trained, are in a constant state of hair, make-up and costume changes, and rarely have a day off. And from firsthand experience I can assure you that their craft services table is out of this world.

Moreover, whenever your life seems to take on a different trajectory or aesthetic, it's due to a change in writers and directors, but that's a whole other story.

Review - Kung Fu, the Invisible Fist (1972)

2011-09-13T05:33:00.000-07:00

Plot: Lee Chang is a police captain sent to Shanghai (with his second-in-command, Su Dong) to investigate Lin, an underworld figure running a white slavery racket. Meanwhile, this same racket has also been infiltrated by Jian Tai, a Japanese operative (nicknamed "The Hungry Tiger") who is using his newfound position as a henchman of Lin's as a base from which to relay maps and information regarding Chinese naval bases to his superiors back home. Tensions mount as Lee Chang and Jian Tai begin to suspect each other, leading to an inevitable showdown.

If you watch enough old chop socky flicks - especially those from Hong Kong (HK) - you learn to hope for the best and brace for the worst. So much of the 1970s HK output was a blur of muddled and incoherent storylines, unimaginative fight choreography (from the Jump In Front of the Camera and Wave Your Arms Around school), and a seeming attitude of total indifference towards the audience. In short, even the most ardent kung fu maniac often reaches a point where they ask themselves: "Why do I watch this shit?"

Thankfully, a movie like Kung Fu, The Invisible Fist comes along to restore your faith. While nothing earth-shattering, it nevertheless comes across as a solid and sincere attempt at being an all-around good movie, while also delivering the genre goods. In a field marked by stylistic excess at the expense of substance, this one has everything the average viewer should expect in the right proportions.

Although Lee Chang is the hero in this tale, his sidekick Su Dong provides the heart, as he shows compassion for the story's marginalized figures. (He frees Anna, a white slave girl from Russia, and makes himself a friend and guardian of the lowly dock workers employed by Lin.) While Lee Chang becomes increasingly concerned with national security, Su Dong acts with an obvious concern for social justice. Because he truly cares about the people in this movie, so does the viewer.

Because of the above, the inevitable elements of kung fu cheesiness and unintended laughs are welcome - even endearing - rather than irritating. Witness the following snatches of ludicrous dialogue:

Su Dong: He was bragging about his karate. It's no good. I can't stand it!

Or, as hero and villain square off just as the climactic fight gets underway, some down 'n dirty trash talk, HK-style:

Jian Tai: You know, in Japan, what they call me there? It's "The Hungry Tiger".

Lee Chang: Oh really? I have a nickname too, "The Crazy Dragon".

And while I'm not one to find mirth in human trafficking, a scene where struggling slave girls are being forcefully stuffed into wooden crates comes across momentarily as an oversized game of Whac-A-Mole as they randomly stand up only to be shoved back down. Guilty snickers, indeed.

All-in-all, a well-made and engaging film with a welcome dose of humanity and competence.

A skeleton picked clean by the vultures of neglect

2011-09-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

The following is cross-posted from this blog's secret twin over at wordpress.com, James Deagle's Great Big Blog, a neglected little creature that has been sitting idle for quite some time. Ergo, the post below is simply a message for any lost souls who end up there by mistake.

Yes, those are tumbleweeds you see rolling by, and yes that is a lonesome wind whistling through the weathered wooden boards of this ghost town’s abandoned remains. This blog is a skeleton picked clean by the vultures of neglect.

Or maybe not so much neglect as distraction. The real fun — if you can call it that — is happening at what has become my primary blog, www.jamesdeagle.blogspot.com, established in 2009 as a political/social commentary blog. Before long it veered wildly off course and turned mainly into a creative writing venue.

Meanwhile, my woefully-indecisive mind is agonizing over what to do with the blog you're reading now. Do I simplify things and pull the plug altogether, or do I set it aside for some specific purpose? Such as political/social commentary? Ack!! I feel like I’ve been down this road before!

In any case, I think I’ll hang onto it for now, if only to maintain ownership of “jamesdeagle.wordpress.com”, as I’m hardly the only James Deagle on the web. Those running around with my name include:

a new media designer,
an English boxer (who after a recent victory over Bakhtiyar Artayev quipped “with the skill I’ve got, I should beat him every day”),
a singer (Chaos in the Elementary Classroom),
a Google+ member who looks like he hears something upstairs,
a guy with a goatee, and
a deceased fisherman.

With competition like that, this piece of real estate needs to be fiercely guarded.

Mute Cowboy Redux

2011-09-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

For all three of you who enjoyed my short story, Mute Cowboy, I have made a long-overdue revision. (Yes, I burst with lethary and procrastination on a good day.)

Essentially, I had somehow omitted reference to the coyote in the third section of the story (cleverly titled "-iii-"). I noticed this oversight at least six months ago, and have been meaning to address it ever since. (I reference the coyote in the first two parts, and so the whole thing is incomplete, or at least lopsided, without corresponding reference in the third.)

So there you have it, pardners. Saddle up and hit the postmodern/revisionist trail, now even more revised.

Close Enough to the Real Thing

2011-08-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

She spends the sound check hanging out backstage. How many tours has it been? (For that matter, how long has it been since she stopped keeping track?) She checks herself in the mirror, squints her eyes and applies just enough imagination to make herself somewhat resemble her glory years; a fair approximation, but a little rough and ragged around the edges, just like any survivor.

She casts a knowing glance across the room at the newbie candy fluff, giggling and preening for anyone caring enough to pay attention. They'll use her for the second and third songs, and then it will be back to the merchandise tables for her. "Oh, honey," she thinks to herself. "You're just the new material. Maybe a little easier on the eyes, but never intended to be anything more than a one-shot deal. Pretty, vacant, and forgettable. You won't be around for the next tour."

She unscrews the cap from another bottle of mineral water and continues her inner dialogue.

"I'm the classic material. Without me they don't exist. Where they go, I go."

The sound check done, she watches as the aging rock god is wheeled into the room. The only original parts here are the shiny black eyes -- everything else has been replaced. All new scales, prosthetic pointed tongue, and a long tail of impossible firmness and vitality. For the adoring crowd, he's close enough to the real thing.

In his own way he is both deity and stone-carved idol. His classic material looks on, finding herself envying the girl at the merchandise table.

The New Testament (ultra-abridged)

2011-07-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Though telling a lie will get you in trouble, telling the truth will get you crucified.

"I'll rest easy knowing you cool cats had it all covered well ahead of time."

2011-06-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

--- On Tue, 5/31/11, TD Canada Trust wrote:

From: TD Canada Trust
Subject: Please Accept Our Apologies
To:
Received: Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 6:57 AM

Dear Customer,

Our Technical Service department has recently updated our online banking software, and due to this upgrade we kindly ask you to follow the link given below to confirm your online account details. Failure to
confirm the online banking details will suspend you from accessing your
account online.

https://easywebsoc.td.com/waw/idp/login.htm?execution=e1s1

We use the latest security measures to ensure that your online banking experience is safe and secure. The administration asks you to accept our apologies for the incontinence caused and expresses gratitude for cooperation.

Regards,

TD Canada Trust Technical Support

--

Please do not reply to this email address as it is not monitored and we will be unable to respond.

Dear TD Canada Trust Technical Support,

Thank you for your concern for my TD Canada Trust account. The fact that I don't have one (yet) speaks volumes about your proactive dedication. If I open such an account in the future, I'll rest easy knowing you cool cats had it all covered well ahead of time.

From reading the second paragraph of your email, let me tell you I have experienced no problems with bowel movements, so there is absolutely no need to offer apologies "for the incontinence caused". Just so there's no confusion, I have suffered no involuntary excretion or leaking. My poo is fine. For now.

On that note, please let me know who at TD Canada Trust I can contact should this situation change. (Perhaps there's an option for irregularity on your Easy Web site, or on your automated phone system? If so, then kudos. That's what I call "one-stop banking".)

In any case, thank you for the concern and vigilance on behalf of your customers, as well as for your contribution to public health and wellbeing.

Sincerely,
James Deagle

your votive candles

2011-06-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

let your votive candles
be several
tiny prayers.

who needs words
when you have
light?

I Feel Your War from a Distance

2011-05-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

I feel your war from a distance,
remote viewer that I am.

My eyes see beyond
your noisy parade,
not because that I'm that good
but simply because
I recognize the terrain.

I'd love to see you blaze
but I'd settle for a
spark.

Oy Klezmer!

2010-12-17T14:02:00.001-08:00

Today I've been finding respite from the bottleneck of professional and personal deadlines in klezmer music, of all things. This was unintentional, of course. I was just looking for something different in the way of sounds to carry me through the morning as I pushed through reports and emails, and was wholly expecting it to be a passing fancy before reverting to something more familiar.

Instead, I was stopped in my tracks by Yiddish musicians performing melodic and rhythmic cartwheels, and by instruments that are doubled over in laughter one song, and then choked with tears the next. If given a chance, this is music that enters your bloodstream and then demands to be expressed by its host through tapping feet, flailing limbs and someone's grandmother hoisted above the crowd, chair and all.

I'm not musically-astute enough to identify the scales or time signatures, and I don't understand anything they're saying beyond the occasional shout of "Oy!", but that hardly seems to matter. While some may say that music is a drug, I can tell you more specifically, with a smile of amusement and gratitude, that it can also be medicine.

The "Can Do" Spirit of The Volunteer State Lives On

2010-11-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

hello, my name is Grace.

I had the pleasure of cleaning your room today. If there is anything else we can help you with please call housekeeping or the front desk.

* * *
Dear Grace,

Thank you so much for cleaning our room today and for apparently finding pleasure in such a task. I believe I speak for both my wife and I when I say we hope this pleasure is something you feel towards your work on a consistent, day-to-day basis, rather than as a momentary spike due to some mood-altering factor unrelated to your actual job duties.

We’re reasonably happy with our accommodations so far, though it should be noted that the curtains on the window don’t close entirely on their own – there is a half-inch gap. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be an issue, except that this hotel is structured more like multiple motels stacked on top of each other. That means all of Putnam County could walk up to our window and peek in. I’m sure you can appreciate how this sort of thing reduces your hotel’s appeal as a honeymoon destination. (And any Cooter ‘n Daisy Mae who’d book in here specifically for that reason are not the kind of guests you’d want associated with the Hampton Inn.)

As for us, we came into Cookeville late tonight due to the rain and all those pylons on I40, and were just dog tired after a full day’s drive from Charleston. Because this is just a stopover on our way to Memphis and then Nashville, there isn’t much we’re planning to see in this town other than the promised continental breakfast and the gas station on the way back to the Interstate. Otherwise, we’d be the first in line to see the Hyder-Burks Agricultural Pavilion and, time permitting, the Upper Cumberland Quilt Festival & Tractor Show. Our time and money is indeed limited, though, so please don’t take it personally that we’re opting for Graceland and Music City USA rather than the attractions noted above. Any town audacious enough to give equal billing to quilts and tractors is okay in my books.

Anyhow, we should be turning in for the night, as we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Please know that your efforts are appreciated and won't be forgotten anytime soon. Clearly, the "can do" spirit of The Volunteer State lives on in you and the service you provide.

Sincerely,
James

The Case for Mythical Ostriches

2010-11-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

One of the great misconceptions of our time is that ostriches bury their heads in the sand. This is quite untrue, contrary to what we’ve been led to believe. This myth has been promulgated by way of the figure of speech it inspired. (Or did the figure of speech inspire the myth? We’ll put this one on hold until there’s consensus on the chicken-egg causality dilemma.)

Nevertheless, I think we ought to keep at least one mythical ostrich on the farm who will perform this head-burying act from time to time in order to keep the figure of speech alive and well. (Its mythical nature, of course, would allow us to happily forgo whatever chores are involved with keeping ostriches. I for one am quite content to avoid vacuuming sand and grit from its body every morning.)

Having said that, however, I think there’s room to redefine what burying one’s head in the sand is supposed to mean. We currently understand it to signify someone hiding from ‘the world’, or from ‘reality’. In light of an ostrich’s natural tendency to attack you if you watch it while it’s eating, it seems odd that it would choose to hide from the world, as if it had Avoidant Personality Disorder. Heck, I’ve even read about an ostrich attacking a bus full of tourists by clinging to the side and smashing the windows apart with its beak. These birds take shit from nobody.

Therefore, it seems there should be other possibilities.

As ugly-tempered as they are, perhaps ostriches have religion. Yes, this sounds outlandish, but many believe that elephants are religious, or at least spiritual and altruistic, as evidenced by their ritual of burying their dead, or even the dead of other species, including humans. (In that regard, elephants are religious but non-denominational.) Why can’t birds be capable of such traits?

Now consider that when our mythical (and theoretically-religious) ostrich buries his or her head in the sand, perhaps they’re not hiding from the world, they’re praying for it.

A Conspiracy of Non-Metaphorical Fruit

2010-08-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

1.
He was the kind of guy who didn’t go on many dates, so he was determined not to muck this one up. She was a voluptuous knock-out, and because of it he was all the more in disbelief that she had said yes. Which in turn meant he was now a twitchy bundle of nerves inside despite his desire to stay cool and collected.

As they sat there in a little downtown bistro, he mentioned how much he was looking forward to their after-dinner movie.

“I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “I don’t have the attention span for some silly movie.”

“But it’s not silly. It has Meryl Streep.”

“What I mean is that movie-watching is a passive activity, and I’m looking for something a little more active.” On the word ‘active’ she snaked a foot up his pant leg.

“Oh, uh, what did you have in mind?” He was now stammering as he spoke. It made her giggle.

“Well, why don’t we go back to your place and figure it out there?” She was saying this playfully, but he could picture the clock of her impatience ticking down, down, down. Time to lower the boom that normally ended the date.

“There’s one small problem,” he began, shifting uncomfortably.

“What is it? Are you a virgin?”

“No,” he said, blushing.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll be careful with you.”

“I’m not a virgin!” he said with rising anger, which actually served to further stimulate her interest in him.

She licked her lips seductively. “Then what is this so-called ‘problem’?”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then blurted it out: “There’s fruit growing in my bedroom.”

“Come again?”

“There is fruit growing in my bedroom,” he said, pronouncing each syllable slowly and deliberately.

He watched her face go momentarily blank as her brain processed his words, and then saw a look of happy arousal take over as her mind decided on an interpretation. “You devil,” she said. “Presenting a sexual metaphor as a ‘problem’. How naughty!”

“You don’t understand. I don’t mean metaphorical fruit. I’m talking about real fruit. Growing right there in my bedroom.

“Of course,” she said, squealing with delight as other patrons began to look over and take notice. “Can I bring some fruit of my own to the party?” Dropping her voice down to a sultry whisper, she purred: “How about a fuzzy peach?”

“Oh dear…”

Sensing his discomfort, she leaned forward, letting her round, balloon-like breasts rest on the table. “Or perhaps you’d prefer a pair of honeydew melons?”

He’d had enough. If she wasn’t going to take him at his word, then he had no choice but to show rather than tell.

“Alright. Let me pay the bill and I’ll show you my garden, if you know what I mean.”

2.
She stood just outside the doorway to his bedroom, feeling a mix of awe and revulsion at the fruit-bearing vines and branches clogging the space inside. It was thick enough with vegetation that one wouldn’t even guess that this was a bedroom. “I can’t see the furniture,” she said, dumbfounded.

“It’s in there somewhere,” he replied. “I haven’t been able to access my bed since the day we met.”

“Oh?”

“You see, all this vegetation only ever shows up when I fall for a woman. I have no idea how or why it happens, only that it occurs without fail.”

A look of sympathy crossed her face. “That’s so sad.”

“Yes, it is.”

After an awkward few moments, the conversation turned to small talk, which allowed her segue into an announcement that she had to get going.

“Can I see you again sometime?” he ventured, knowing in his heart the answer would be negative, but trying nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t’ think so. This is a little too much for me. Nothing personal.”

3.
Later that evening he stood in the laundry room, lulled deep into thought by the relentless spin cycle rhythm as the berry-stained bed sheets were being cleansed of their non-metaphorical fruit juice. He surprised himself with how used to this he was getting, as if he was finally developing some sort of stoic outer shell when it came to his life's lack of romance. Nevertheless, he wasn't proud of this situation. (Numbness and pride are not one and the same.)

In keeping with the ongoing pattern, she was gone and, right on schedule, so was the fruit and all of its associated branches and foliage.

driving at night with you

2010-08-12T06:34:00.001-07:00

driving at night with you,
through every lonesome intersection
and every moonlit straightaway.

we cannot see the landscape
but we trust it enough to
keep our secrets.

meaningless traffic fills the night

2010-08-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

meaningless traffic
fills the night with man-made noise
as evening clouds carry secret histories
past a quiet yellow moon.

Our Superhero is Burned Out.

2010-08-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Our superhero is burned out. The weight of midnight is too much for him to lift.

He tries to paralyze a moment of silence with the scratching of a pen.

our memories are delicate artifacts

2010-08-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

our memories are
delicate artifacts,
easily eroded and washed away.

this early summer rain
has me fearful of amnesia,
of a shared history
rendered as an afterimage,
fading further with
every blink,

leaving me with only
the beating of a heart
that once gave you

complete surrender.

Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of In/Words Magazine.

Housekeeper of the Year

2010-08-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Guest!

Welcome to Holiday Inn
Peterborough!

If you need anything today
please let us know.

Have a great stay

HSKP,
Maybelle

Dear Maybelle,

I was very touched by the card you left on top of the TV set for my wife and I upon our arrival. (The kitten on the front of the card was adorable. How did you know I’m a cat lover?) Don’t think for a moment that your thoughtfulness has gone unnoticed!

Between your professionalism and exemplary penmanship, I can tell you have a lot of potential in life, and hope your current existence is fulfilling. Although Peterborough is quaint and pretty, I’m not sure it’s big enough to accommodate your dreams. Toronto or Montreal may be just the sort of “bigger pond” you truly need.

Have you been able to find Mr. Right in this town? While romance can spring up unexpectedly almost anywhere, I think you should go with the odds and leave this ‘burg behind. This town is strictly “catch and release”, if you know what I mean. So if you feel frustrated by your heart’s limited prospects here, don’t take it personally. (I know this must seem like a rather provincial attitude on my part, but please know that I’m speaking from the heart and only want what’s best for you.)

I also think your employment prospects would improve with a change of locale. While all work is honorable, there are certain aspects of your current job I do not envy. God only knows what traces of weirdness people leave for you to “find” after they check out. And besides, what exactly is the protocol if you come across, say, a half-used roll of duct tape and a pair of cattle prods? Do you notify the guest about their forgotten items, or do you simply drop the items into the garbage can and pretend you never saw 'em? Very awkward, indeed.

I think I’ve gotten off track, here. I embarked on this note simply to express our gratitude for the card. As it turns out we didn’t need anything in particular, but thank you anyway for offering to accommodate our needs nevertheless.

Keep up the good work and know that you are in our thoughts.

Sincerely,
James

Greetings from Instant City

2010-07-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

She looks out the floor-to-ceiling window of the luxury penthouse that is now her home at the distant sparkling waters of the Indian Ocean under the mid-morning sun. She normally tries not to wallow in her past -- the unfortunate itinerary of her life's journey -- but whenever she gazes out at that beautiful but troubled body of water, certain flashes of memory float to the surface.Two memories in particular are making themselves known.

The first is very general in nature, and that is her childhood curiosity about someday seeing the Indian Ocean for herself. (How that curiosity first embedded itself in her internal universe has long since been lost.)

The other memory is far more specific, and plays simultaneously on her mental split-screen as a cruel and ironic counterpoint to her early curiosity. The memory is of her first time travelling on the Indian Ocean, hidden in a large metal box on a container ship with a large group of other adolescent girls. At least two of them didn't survive the trip. She recalls how she distracted herself from the stench and claustrophobia by speculating in her mind as to whether they had left the Isthmus of Kra behind, and whether the Strait of Malacca had yet become her beloved ocean.

A while later she has changed her focus to the Here and Now. The foreground of her view from this window is composed of some other glass and steel towers, as well as business and industrial parks.

The vista spread before her is a place she has secretly christened "Instant City", as it sprang up from out of nowhere to satisfy the endless demand of the global economy. Only five years ago there was just a haphazard series of fishing villages and subsistence farms.

Then, one day, like an act of sudden violence, the whole area was bulldozed and paved over with this country's approximation of western affluence. And so it is a city with no roots or civic heritage. It just materialized in the name of wealth. In fact, it is only a "city" for the purpose of maps and post offices. There is no local government -- all "municipal" affairs fall under the purview of a series of corporate boards of governors and private shareholders. Furthermore, residence in this "city" is dictated by whether or not one works for one of the corporations. There are no homeless or unemployed people in this town -- just happy workers and grateful dependents.

In being an "instant" city, therefore, it is also an artificial city.

The woman looking back at her from the mirror seems distant and unfamiliar, just like the current ocean of her former dreams does now. She is here because her husband picked her face out of many others on a website, and then paid a large sum of money to a third party to make it happen. Thus she sprang up from out of nowhere to satisfy his sexual appetite.

Her husband won't be home for dinner tonight, as he has an appointment with a prospective surrogate mother who will carry their unborn child. He told her it must be this way, otherwise her pregancy would be too much of an interuption to what he calls their 'love life'.

In being an "instant" wife, therefore, she is also an artificial wife.

After eating dinner alone she reads an email from her mother in the comforting pictographic alphabet of her homeland. The email expresses joy at her daughter's good fortune of late. "Finally," her mother gushes, "you have have a husband to look after you, and no longer have to sell your body."

She doesn't quite know how to reply to that sentiment, so she closes the laptop, having decided that it's better to say nothing at all.

Love, Loss and the True Nature of Phonebooks

2010-07-18T19:42:00.001-07:00

-i-

My grandmother survived my grandfather by seventeen years, and through all that time as a widow she allowed her phone number to stay listed under her late husband's name. When I was younger I didn't quite understand why she would do such a thing. To me it was as if Ma Bell was complicit with my grandmother in perpetrating a fiction. Therefore, the phonebook was lying. (All I had to do was cast it a narrow-eyed glance of suspicion and the thing would blush and shift uncomfortably. Even phonebooks know when they're guilty.)

It wasn't until after my grandmother passed away, when the following year's edition of the White Pages came out, that it made a little more sense. The first thing I did was flip to the page where I had come to expect my grandfather to be, and felt utterly deflated when he turned up absent. First he had vacated his Woodland Avenue home, and now he had vacated the phonebook. It was then that I realized what a ritual it was for me to look him up each year, and that maybe my grandmother wasn't just subscribing to some outdated notion of existing under the husband's name. Perhaps to her it was like still having him around the house to watch over her.

Seeing his name and address go out of print was like losing him all over again. At least my grandmother left us all at once, with the full balance of the estate being settled and squared away for good. We had no choice but to make peace with her passing right then and there. With my grandfather, however, our final goodbyes were in time-release capsules doled out over a decade-and-a-half.

-ii-

The above got me to thinking: does simply being in print lend a stronger presence to the memory of someone? Although I could no longer visit my grandfather, at least I could still look up his name and phone number and imagine him being in a postion to take the call. This fact always brought me some measure of comfort. He had been kept alive an extra seventeen years, if only in an abstract sense.

Just as a thought experiment, I wondered what would happen if one carried out the reverse of the above process: have the deceased relisted in the phonebook, and thus restore some symbolic level of them being "alive" to their family. Taking this notion to an illogical extent, I imagined the deceased then coming back to their loved ones in the flesh by way of a theoretical puff of smoke.

With a wistful and mischievous grin on my face, I imagined tesing this scheme out out on a long-dead celebrity first, rather than a real person. Like Elvis, for example. (Someone whose memory is larger-than-life and iconic enough that they belong to all of us, rather than some clatch of survivors listed in a Last Will and Testament.)

There would be some obstacles to consider, such as having the legal authority to list a phone number for a deceased third party. And asking the phone company to have a number listed under "Presley, Elvis" would only invite derisive laughter, or even a phonecall to the authorities. Then again, it was only a thought experiment, so such an obstacle would be completely irrelevant. As with such an endeavor, the main area of speculation is results, not method of execution.

-iii-

It is mid-morning. My wife and I are both exceedingly late for work. In fact, we have now called in sick because we don't know what else to do. We can't just leave our apartment without definitively addressing the current situation.

He sleeps on our couch like a perspiring stone after having appeared silently and unannounced at some point during the night. (I vaguely recall my wife nudging me awake to ask if I smelled something theoretical in our unit. At the time I just sleepily shrugged it off.) Somehow the windows have been covered over with aluminum foil to keep out the sun. From what I have read, we can expect him to stay up all night, every night, and then sleep like a bear all day. On the coffee table is a black satchel. We look inside and see an array of pills, vials and syringes, wondering if we're going to be expected to administer his next hit. I sure as hell hope not.

We cross our fingers, hoping Albert Goldman had it all wrong. Otherwise, there s a Herculean junk food run in our near future. (Does our neighborhood 7-11 even stock Nutty Buddies?)

I should have just giggled at the thought experiment and left it at that. But the new White Pages hit the street yesterday, and now a risen King is turning our couch fabric into his own sweat-borne Shroud of Turin.

The Leopard Woman of Studio City

2010-07-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

I saw the Leopard Woman while grocery shopping at Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon. It was my first night in town, and so everything was a series of first impressions in vibrant Technicolor. As I turned up an aisle I saw her coming towards me, clad from head to toe in skin-tight spandex, revealing each and every curve and crevice under a façade of leopard spots.

The shopping cart held her up as she passed by, and she walked with a sensual languidness that could just as easily have been simple weariness or minor intoxication. I found myself secretly speculating on what her line of work was, assuming that her attire was work-related. Mind your own business, I thought. Everyone has to do a grocery run once in while, regardless of how they spend their days or nights.

After paying for a six-pack, a notebook and pen I ventured out into the September dusk, kicking off this vacation from myself with a mind on fire.

Mute Cowboy

2010-07-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

-i-

He can't take his eyes off of her but he doesn't want to wake her, so he snuffs out the lamp and leaves her be.

He walks through a herd of long-horned cattle and looks around suspiciously.

He aims his rifle at a coyote but hesitates, letting it get away.

-ii-

The above passage comprises the brief and sporadic notes taken while watching an old Lee Marvin western from 1970 with the sound off. It was simply something to do while my wife was sleeping. (Clearly, this isn't what Judas Priest meant by Living After Midnight.)

I keep taking the notes out and rereading them, trying to place them in the larger context of the overall story. (I only watched about fifteen minutes and didn't even stick around to the end, so I'm now handicapped by an obvious information deficit.) Who is this Monte Walsh and what's his story? Don't ask me. All I can do is make a few assumptions based on next-to-nothing.

As the weeks pass my recollection of the film has been flaking apart like a mosaic stuck together with dollar store glue stick. Thus I am increasingly reliant on my notes despite their unreliability. (Was it a wolf or a coyote he was trying to shoot?) I can only paint in broad strokes and hope for the best.

My initial interpretation was that Monte Walsh was an aging gunfighter who had simply lost his nerve. After all, this was the frontier age. He could've had his way with the little lady, and she would've had little recourse. And besides, what kinda feller would let a coyote get away?

That all sounds plausible but easy. Too easy. With the luxury of pop culture hindsight and post-modern smugness, a different vibration struggles to the surface, pushing aside the yodelling cowboy and the two-dimensional world he championed. This film was created in a time of social upheaval and growing anti-authoritarianism. All established assumptions were suddenly up for debate and any remaining sacred cows were being led to the abatoir. Rather than the proverbial hero riding off into the sunset, we were more likely to have felt kinship with the anti-hero, a flawed man plagued with doubt -- was the sun on the horizon a beginning or an end? Furthermore, could the sun itself really be trusted, anyway?

In short, my instincts tell me this film is really about the turbulent time in which it was made, and the fact that it was in the cowboy genre was just cinematic window dressing. Someday I'll watch the whole thing, if only to see how many area codes off the mark I really am.

In the meantime, settle in and make yourself comfortable while I thread the first reel into the projector. The following is Mute Cowboy, a cowboy movie reconstructed from the fragments described above, projected through the cracked lens of what I presume to know about this world as it existed the year before I was born. I experienced the source material as a silent film, so let's have our central character bear the burden of that legacy.

-iii-

Mute Cowboy watches his woman as she sleeps, knowing he is incomplete without her. She has become the filter through which he sees the world. Sometimes he even forgets that she is a seperate being. His life before her seems like some dim artificial construct lost to the high plains wind.

While she sleeps he realizes that not being able to see the love in her eyes leaves him feeling non-existant. Without yin there cannot be yang. Without one half the whole cannot stand on its own.

This is too much for an old gunslinger to process all at once, and he wouldn't be able to convey this to her even if he wanted to. It is a shift in his thinking, leaving each of his feet on seperate tectonic plates shifting in opposite directions. He decides to snuff out the lamp, let his woman sleep and get some fresh air into his lungs.

Mute Cowboy steps out into the night, sure he can hear the faint echo of a yodel ringing out from the canyon. In the evening breeze he thinks he can feel a dark presence, a threat to his homestead. He decides to check on the cattle in case there are rustlers afoot trying to undermine the family economy.

In the barn he passes through a herd of long-horned cattle and looks from side-to-side suspiciously. Nothing. Nothing tangible, anyway. Maybe it was his own inner darkness he was sensing. His own private enemy within. Truth be told, such a notion gives him more of a chill than any whiskey-crazed marauder.

He steps outside, spots a coyote and lifts the rifle to his eye and is about to shoot when the coyote makes eye contact with him. Suddenly, he can't tell if this wild and free creature is simply his own spirit looking back at him, running from the crosshairs of what he has become.

He lowers the rifle and lets the coyote go.

Mute Cowboy sits at a campfire with the singing cowpoke, watching the dying embers as his friend yodels a high lonesome ballad. The darkness is rapidly dissipating, and with the burgeoning rays of sunlight he sees his hands, limbs and body growing transparent. The same is happening to his friend, whose singing is also sounding more and more like a distant echo, detached from time and space.

In his tired bones he has felt this day's approach, and thinks he understands what it all means. But he also realizes he has no place in this new landscape. Perhaps he has never been anything more than a ghost of times gone by.

Phoenix, 1973

2010-07-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Recalling the glory days of her early teens, she told me about how much safer Phoenix was in 1973 than it is now. "Me and my friends would drop acid and then go bike riding downtown in our bikinis."

Just last week she had someone put bars across her windows.

417 Song

2010-06-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

driving east into night,
thoughts in sync
with rhythmic intervals
of orange light,
occasionally broken
by shadows of
overpass concrete.

From the Lobby of Hotel Insomnia

2010-05-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

The following was originally published on September 6, 2007 on my old blog (www.jamesdeagle.wordpress.com), which I will be dismantling once I have migrated the better posts from there to here.

* * *

It's 4:30 a.m. and my brain is refusing to power down. About an hour ago I decided that it's better to be up and doing something rather than staying in bed, cursing my body's inability to sleep. Maybe that's the key to dealing with insomnia -- if you can't overcome it, simply work with it.

I'm writing this from a public terminal in the lobby of a hotel in Vaughan, Ontario. I have a Unix laptop and high speed Internet access in my room but up there I have no respite from the distant whir of traffic on the 401. So, regrettably, I am here in the lobby, needlessly subjecting myself to WindowsXP and elevator jazz.

This is my second week of living out of a hotel while doing a training course. Business class transience, all expenses paid. I'm not complaining, though I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my usual surroundings. Am I simply starting to feel rootless? That's plausible, given that hotels -- especially corporate name brand hotels -- are a paradoxical monoculture unto themselves: they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. When I look out the window, am I seeing the 401 in sort-of-Toronto, or Interstate 15 in Idaho Falls? The landscape offers no clues (dead grass, parking lots, the usual big box stores, a few ribbons of highway), and neither does the room itself.

Like I said, I'm not complaining. There's a constant supply of fresh towels, somebody comes and cleans up after me while I'm out, and if I use the pool around dinner hour I have it to myself. The scrambled eggs at the breakfast buffet may be a little cold and undercooked, but they're on the company.

Welcome to Nowhere in Particular.

We hope you barely remember your stay.

Please support KFC-assisted suicide

2010-04-07T11:05:00.001-07:00

The following is an email sent to the Right to Die Society of Canada, as well as the KFC PR team.

* * *

Perhaps by now you have heard about KFC's Double Down sandwich that will be launched on April 12 at its US stores. As you may already know, the product will feature bacon, cheese and the Colonel's Sauce "sandwiched" between two fried chicken fillets. So far, there's no word yet on when this artery-clogging treat will arrive in Canada, though I do think it is something the Right to Die Society of Canada should get behind with all of its might.

Perhaps you think I'm being crass or insensitive -- I think not.
Doctor-assisted suicide continues to be a thorny and divisive issue. (I'll spare you a rundown of the usual bickering. I trust you're already familiar with the arguments for and against.) With the availability of the Double Down sandwich in our domain, however, all legal and ethical issues will be moot, as the fast food industry will help you bypass all resistance, and help your members bypass a triple-bypass. If KFC is leaving the medical industry out of the equation, then why shouldn't you?

According to a recent Toronto Sun report:

"The grilled Double Down contains 460 calories, with 23 grams of fat and 1,430 milligrams ofsodium, according to KFC.com. Original recipe Double Down has 540 calories, 32 g of fat and 1,380 mg of sodium."

Wow.

You may notice that I have copied KFC's PR firm, The Wilcox Group, as I believe there is much potential for synergy between their mission -- to help KFC sell more products, as well drop buzzwords like "synergy" at every opportunity -- and your mission, which is to promote the legalization of suicide. Your members get what they want, and KFC shareholders and franchisees get what they want. Everybody's happy and, more importantly, nobody's hungry.

Please let me know if you'd like me to kick around ideas with you for a KFC/Right to Die Society campaign. To borrow terminology from self-improvement guru Anthony Robbins, I'm feeling "laser-like" and am looking for somewhere to aim the beams.

Sincerely,
James Deagle

dry wings of afternoon

2009-12-22T08:25:00.001-08:00

dry wings of afternoon
beat a midsummer breeze
across wet skin,

anointing a body,
reborn.

ii.

tiny gulls scatter
across
vast blue oceans of sky,

feathers & instinct
formed in antiquity.

(July 2009)

Montreal Road

2009-12-22T08:08:00.001-08:00

a room full of scars
at the ultra-cheap hotel:

bedside table
sprayed with
gouges & burns,

matching television
pock-marked with
hot-knife plastic,

carpet encrusted
with years of
despair.

people come here
to make themselves
invisible.

The blue dusk of desert sky: a seasonal affective travelogue

2009-12-15T18:18:00.001-08:00

Winter has descended on Ottawa, and now each day brings colder air and earlier nightfall. It doesn't help that I work in a windowless second-floor mezzanine, and thus spend the day working on my LCD tan while keeping the Wheels of the Economy rolling.

I increasingly find myself retreating within to trips Kim and I have taken in recent years. In particular, I've been fixating on our Vegas wedding and Los Angeles honeymoon. My mind is trying to form a bridge between the two places, and has taken a pair of oddly parallel memories and spliced them together to form a surreal jump cut, as follows:

In the first shot, a P.O.V., I am floating on my back in the pool behind The Mirage. From this vantage point I admire the resort's glittering white-gold letters near the top of the building set against the blue dusk of desert sky. Some nearby palm trees frame the shot nicely. As if to provide some movement, a sightseeing helicopter streaks by. That's how rich people check out the Strip.

I take a breath and turn over, swimming along the bottom of the pool.

Cut to a second P.O.V. -- me coming up for air in the red and yellow neon glow of the Safari Inn's outdoor pool in Burbank. It is later in the evening, and I hear what sounds like a flying lawn mower in need of an overhaul. No, I look up with chlorine-stung eyes to see that it's another helicopter, but this time it is scouring the neighborhood with a high-powered spotlight. It flies past the Safari's plastic and metal africana towards the Hollywood Hills and then circles back. Repeat several times. That's how cops check out West Olive Avenue.

I gather my towel and shoes and head back to our room at the hotel next door, not knowing whether to feel fear of the unknown or simply dread at the prospect of flying back home in a matter of hours.

Save the humans – disavow all violence

2009-12-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

"It seems that the deeds I have complained of have been done in an organized manner. There seems to be a definite design about them, and I am sure that there must be some educated and clever man or men behind them. They may be educated, but their education has not enlightened them. You have been misled into doing these deeds by such people."

--Mahatma Ghandi, from "Ahmedabad Speech", April 14, 1919

As United Nations negotiators continued to discuss climate change at the Copenhagen Climate Conference this weekend, protestors worldwide expressed their impatience with the pace of change on environmental issues. For the most part, the protests were peaceful and, in some cases, wildly creative. Some examples included:

- a group of activists dressed as penguins holding signs emblazoned with "Save the Humans!",

- curtains in an office tower in Nantes, France arranged on all four sides to read "WE CAN ACT NOW", and

- in London's Trafalgar Square a polar bear carved in ice that will slowly melt as the conference proceeds, which of course is designed to represent the plight of animals in a region where the effects of global warming are (for now) being felt more directly than anywhere else.

All three of the above are evidence of deeply passionate people looking to advance their cause in ways that are by turns silly, artistic and deeply haunting. Even for those who may disagree with the message, this type of expression should be celebrated and encouraged.

As with any large enough party, however, a few knuckleheads marred the spirit of the protest with violence and vandalism. As reported by Reuters:

"Riot police detained more than 900 people around the Danish capital after black-clad activists threw bottles and smashed windows. A police spokeswoman said the number had climbed to 968 shortly after 10 p.m.

"Police said four cars were set on fire during the evening. One policeman was hurt by a stone and a Swedish man injured by a firework."

At best, this sort of mob activity prevents the climate change debate from rising above a moronic "us versus them" simplicity. The worst case scenario, and the more likely one to me, is that violence in and of itself is its own message, and it is this message that overtakes the public's perception of the protests. That's the problem with these lunatic fringe groups -- they prevent the intellectual and creative aspect of the environmental and anti-globalization movements from resonating with the public at large. The narrative is lost to burning cars, smashed windows and injured bystanders.

Any movement claiming to work for the betterment of humanity and the environment should disavow all violence and vandalism supposedly committed in their name. Otherwise, silence implies consent.