{fiction, instead of lies} – Page 227 – "Life itself is the proper binge." Saint Julia Child

Just so you know…

April 24, 2007

1:12 am

Literary Life Observations, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

…“I Aten’t Dead”, good people, just a tad overwhelmed! I’m editing, avoiding finishing a manuscript despite the May 4 deadline I’ve been given (!!!!!), and reading like a crazy(ier) person, getting prepared for a series of summer treats that I know everyone will enjoy. (Trust me, you will. I’m enjoying it, and it’s not really even started yet!) It’s a privilege to read, and to get to talk to the intelligent, creative and thoughtful people who write (and aren’t stuck like I am). More to come on this great reading and writing thing!

Speaking of great reading… the Disco Mermaids have once again elevated the Great Art of Lit’triture. You must check out the winning celeb book… many, many hilarious entrants, only one winner. Stay tuned for their next crazy contest!

Via A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy comes the question at of how much we can know about an author based on their books (thanks to Lectitans for a great question). As a writer currently reading other writers and thinking about how they write, I’d have to say… maybe not that much.

I had the very odd experience of hearing comments ( a few years back when I first published) such as “Oh, I know who that was!” and “Oh, you were writing about Bobbi Ann and James, weren’t you?” that were frankly ludicrous, and set me wondering “What part of the word fiction don’t you understand?” Acquaintances were positive they could find some hidden truths about my real life, and it turned out to be pointless to tell them differently.

In truth, each and every piece of my work reflects some small part of me. Whether it’s my love of cooking (or eating, to my everlasting despair), reading, singing or artwork; my borderline incompetence with numbers and following directions, my fascination with minutiae and arcane facts — any or all of that and more will appear somewhere in my writing. In that fabulous alchemy which occurs between readers and writers, however, whatever someone may take and interpret from my work only brings something bigger to the work itself. But! not even from the writing on my blog can you know more than even a little bit about the essential me. The reason for this, I think, is that many writers are, in equal parts:
a.) thieves
b.) mystics
c.) hermits

We’re slippery, live in the gradation between light and dark, and tend to be on the outside of the ring around the campfire, watching, listening, and biding our time to put down the tales we see and hear. What is safe to assume about a writer from their work? Nothing. Writers are mostly observers, and they do observe … but an impartial, introverted observer doesn’t always impart that much of themselves.

(And now that I’ve made writers sound very magical-mystery and shadowy, I’ll go back to my grouchy, sweats-wearing-slouching-before-the-keyboard-mundane self.)

Tick… tick… tick… That sound you hear is the Second Coming of the 48 Hour Reading Challenge! Once again, MotherReader is trying to kill me. My brother graduates from the 8th grade the selfsame weekend of the Reading Challenge, coming June 8–10, 2007, but I had an excuse last year too, and this year: no excuses. (And no reading The Book Thief, either, which is so long it could have counted as four books.) The way things are fixed, you can take the whole weekend and read for a consecutive 48, but start on your time. Head on over to MotherReader’s and read the rules and join the game!

Via Bookshelves O’ Doom, a fabulous piece by Sara Zarr at AS IF! which reminds me why I read Chris Crutcher when some others who profess a Christian faith avoid him with rabid dismay.

Chasing Ray’s existential crisis on reviewing is a tangent of some of my own thoughts these days. In the wake of The Curious Incident with the Reviewer in the Daytime, a lot of us are feeling skittish. I feel like going to our book reviewing site, and removing the word ‘review.’ To be honest, I don’t review books, I …discuss them. As a writer, my books are simply one person’s perspective of the world around them. But now that, in a way, my integrity as a person who discusses books has been challenged, I wonder in what ways, if any, that will or should change how I talk about books. Do I now have to say “I got this book from the library/the bookstore/ the author/ a friend of a friend who works for a publisher? Do I, like some others, trim out personal information about my interactions with said publishers or authors (not that I’ve got a lot of that, but it’s something to consider!)? It bothers me, in a way, that I’m still thinking about this, as if I have to justify my own existence… but I can’t stop.

A Word Is Dead

A WORD is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live
That day.

– Emily Dickinson

Flickr Fiction Friday: Good Girl

by Tanita S. Davis

April 20, 2007

9:31 pm

8 Comments on Flickr Fiction Friday: Good Girl

Flickr Fiction Friday

Saudé backs into the corridor, the pressure seal ‘shusshing’ quietly behind her. Martrith had warned her they would come, asking, and she shudders at the implication behind the simple question she’s been asked.

When the Egelloc-Sgod stumbled across their galaxy, Earth had believed itself in a position of dominance against the plump, placid creatures. There had been illuminating discussions on technology and medicine, covert discussions of weaponry and cultural aggressions. So much of their world was known that it was thought that they were, in fact, natural allies; that they were in fact meant to be best friends. The Egelloc-Hsorf were humanoid in appearance, with warm, intelligent eyes, slightly lugubrious expressions, bellies which were sleek and bodies which ran to fat. Their blunt clawed hands were clumsy and eager, and only their elongated necks and double rings of sharp teeth destroyed the illusion of cute helplessness. As they aged, their skin produced more hair, then took on a mottled appearance, tingeing a slight brown with cream and black as their years progressed.

Earth was caught off guard when the first of the Egelloc visitors, so droll and witty, changed. How was she to know that this alien race was only in the first of their developmental stages? Egelloc-Hpos were carrion-eaters. Egelloc-Roinuj were flesh eaters. Egelloc-Sroines played deadly games and consumed their prey on the run.

Many had died before a solution had been found.

“You will let us… take your genetics, you know?” Noel, urbane in his ribbed cowl neck and reeking cigarillo had inclined his head, irises expanding and contracting in that nauseating ripple pattern which indicated inquiry. Saudé had known what he meant, even as she had arched a pierced brow in his direction.

“Genetics?”

“You are simply… so lovely. Such a lovely specimen, really well… marked.” The hair on Saudé’s nape lifted as Noel took her drink, then lifted her arm and peered at the capillaries snaking along its length.

“So well marked…” Noel had leaned over her arm, drawn his tongue down the lines, and she’d shuddered, masking revulsion with desire. His laughter coming in soft pants, Noel had looked up, and his irises had flickered once, twice. Saudé had swayed, feigning dizziness while breaking eye contact. The Egelloc-pack could hypnotize with their eyes, but Saudé was not novice enough to hold their gaze overlong. She counted to fifteen in Uzbekistani, refocused. If she did not respond with at least dizziness, Noel, and the few others of the pack hovering on the edge of the conversation would press in, exposing their throats where their poison apertures were secreted. It would take but the lightest puff, and she would be mind-wiped, forgetting who they were, why she stood there, what’d she’d set out to do that day. They were notoriously paranoid for a species which appeared to be so servile.

Saudé brushed a trembling hand over her face. “Genetics. A specimen. Yes.”

“Good girl.” Noel had bowed a little, given her the canine-tipped smile she hated. “Such a good girl. Such a good girl deserves a treat.”

And now, Saudé had slipped away from the party, was making her way to the stall where she Martrith had secreted the vial. Her hands shook, as she un-taped it from the back of the commode. Chocolate, 100% pure Dagoba Theobroma cacao, and she would ingest it…intravenously.

The Pack would not kill her, not today. Her genetic sample would be safely housed in a lab, where, cell-by-cell, it would grow, the rapid-fire mitosis taking place which would create the clones which would be bred and cloned again to sustain the pack. In their kennelships and in their homes, clones of Saudé would wait on them, they would lick her hands, nuzzle her throat, and whimper as she stroked them. She would scratch the bellies of the young ones, luxuriate in their fine hair with sharp-bristled brushes. And then, when they had finished toying with her, they would bite.

And then the methylxanthenes would flood their systems. And then, it was hoped, they will die.

Martrith was NSA, had told Saudé that she would likely be contacted, that she would likely be held up for blame, might die. This action might jeopardize the future of Earth, but it had to be done, now, and ever after, Earth would be more careful in its first contact situations with alien nations.

After tonight, Saudé will go into protective custody, change her name, undergo painful dermabrasion to remove every freckle, sclerotherapy to disguise the veins in her arms which had so attracted the Egelloc-pack to begin with.

Saudé holds out her arms, looks at them in the flickering fluorescent light of the impersonal bathroom stall Slowly, she pulls the thin rubber sash from her pocket, tightens it around her upper arm, frowning slightly at the brief discomfort as the hairs tug. She taps her arm with cold numb fingers, wishing for a junkie’s self-possession, or a diabetic’s steady hands. Martrith has left her only four needles; she needs to do this right. She abrades her arm with the alcohol prep pack, fingers her arm to be sure, then lets the thin hollow of steel bite her arm.

*** *** ***

“Saudé. What an interesting name. Sow-dee. Or is it Show-day?”

“Sow-uday.” She smiles pleasantly. “Doesn’t really matter how you say it, though. I know who you’re talking to.”

Noel, standing in the doorway, grins, his laughter coming in silent pants. “Didn’t I say she was a treat? Isn’t she a little beauty?”

“Oh, she is, she is. Well, hop up on the table, won’t you, Saudé, that’s a good girl. And you’re sure you don’t want anything? A little sweet perhaps, or some protein? I know your Red Cross used to give sugar ampoules when humans donated their lifeblood, way back before the synthetics. This isn’t at all the same, but I want to give you something… a treat. Come on, you want a treat, don’t you? Don’t you girl?”

Saudé looks up with a lazy smile. “Treat? I’d like a treat. I’m a good girl. I’m a good girl.”

Spending time with people who mistake their children for pets, and require tricks out of them brought this story to mind. As for the rest – well, I’m always up for a discussion of chocolate and psychosis…just don’t forget that chocolate and artificial sweeteners, will kill a dog, all fictions aside… In other news, the photograph(entitled Blue Nile) is part of hanna.bi’s set, and will likely be riffed off of by the usual Flickr suspects: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.

Thoughts On a Reaction

by Tanita S. Davis

April 20, 2007

1:25 am

Leave a comment on Thoughts On a Reaction

Ethnicity and YA Literature, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

I read an article today that was absolutely grim. It had to do with the terrible recent tragedy in Virginia, and the reaction of many of the Asian American students when the ethnicity of the gunman was announced. As soon as the commentators said “Korean-American,” 18-and-19-year-old students jumped into cars and raced away from campus. They were running home — not because of the threat of an insane and armed hateful student, which was by then, over, but because of the additional fear of angry and vengeful fellow students. The word they used is “backlash.”

What really floored me was the reaction of many other Asian Americans who said, “Whew. At least the shooter wasn’t ______-American.” Fill in the blank with the ethnic group of your choice.

Was I surprised because I felt like the reactions were insensitive and beside the point of the real issue at hand? Yes. But, also, No. I was surprised because it was, once again, one of those reactions that you never articulate, but when you’re an ethnic minority in this country, it’s one of those reactions you have.

When we talk about writing and the right of representation that every child and young adult should have in the literature they read, it seems to me that we’d better be real when we write for these kids: really real.

Sometimes it is a strange, sad world.

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NPR’s National Poetry Month selections have been great! The other day they read what has become a new favorite. People always dream of lost cities and adventures. Maybe Irish poet Eavan Boland has the right idea.

Atlantis — A Lost Sonnet
Eavan Boland

How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder
that a whole city — arches, pillars, colonnades,
not to mention vehicles and animals — had all
one fine day gone under?

I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.
Surely a great city must have been missed?
I miss our old city —

white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting
under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe
what really happened is

this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word
to convey that what is gone is gone forever and
never found it. And so, in the best traditions of

where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name
and drowned it.

Odds And Ends Again

by Tanita S. Davis

April 19, 2007

4:04 am

4 Comments on Odds And Ends Again

Contest Alert, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Now that the last Tolkien book has been completed by Tolkien’s son (oh, horrors and blasphemy!), the Guardian reports that it has actually bumped Harry Potter from the top seller space at Amazon, which is bizarre when you consider that a.) the newest HP hasn’t even been released, and isn’t due for another three months, and b.) Tolkien died in 1973, and this is the first Tolkien book in 30 years.

It is a truly strange world, but I’m having a good chuckle at the idea of Tolkien gently elbowing Rowling from beyond the grave.

Cynsations has posted an intriguing interview with Ysabeau Wilce (isn’t her name just fabulous?) and word is, her book, which is on my TBR list before June, is also fabulously intriguing. The full title of Ms. Wilce’s recently published novel is Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. And here is an excerpt from this fantastically titled adventure.

(Cynthia also reminds us to stop by Vampress and register to win a free copy of her latest novel Tantalize.)

Not Your Mother’s Book Club, is celebrating the May 1st release of Dramarama, by e. lockhart and giving away three books, two books-on-CD, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Poets, lyric writers and general witty types, get on over and find out how to play!

A couple of fun Bay Area National Poetry Month events can be found at Poets.org. A screening of a documentary film on the life of Nobel-winning poet Pablo Neruda, narrated by Chilean author Isabel Allende happens tonight, but if you, like me, aren’t there, you can still enjoy one of his poems.

The Weary One

The weary one, orphan
of the masses, the self,
the crushed one, the one made of concrete,
the one without a country in crowded restaurants,
he who wanted to go far away, always farther away,
didn’t know what to do there, whether he wanted
or didn’t want to leave or remain on the island,
the hesitant one, the hybrid, entangled in himself,
had no place here: the straight-angled stone,
the infinite look of the granite prism,
the circular solitude all banished him:
he went somewhere else with his sorrows,
he returned to the agony of his native land,
to his indecisions, of winter and summer.

– Pablo Neruda

Professional Tastes

by Tanita S. Davis

April 18, 2007

3:26 am

1 Comment on Professional Tastes

Literary Life Observations, On Writing

It’s only on the days when I have meetings scheduled with my editor that my computer completely blows up, shuts down, loses my formatting, and scares me. Today I spent hours with my backup copies, sweating heavily, trying to figure out what went wrong, only to lift my head on quite a vigorous debate in the blogs. Professional reviewers, it seems, feel infringed upon by the peanut gallery known as bloggers, who swoon over authors like celebrities, reporting rapturously on their sightings, and who popularize books by word-of-mouth.

Bloggers seem to be, in a word, fans. Fans of books, fans of literature for young adults and children, fans of certain works. Recent discussion has left me wondering if it’s not the ‘fandom’ aspect of YA/children’s book blogging that has some people upset, but the hierarchy, and the idea that we are not to talk about something that no one has sanctioned us to mention.

I find that idea very odd. When I’m enthused about something, I don’t generally let unwritten protocol stop me from saying so, and I very much doubt that the people whose sour generalizations began this discussion would let that stop them either.

Hm.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

– Robert Hayden

I love this poem. I encountered it in high school, during a test, and secreted it on a slip of paper, until I could take it home and transcribe it in my journal. I hadn’t always liked my father, but I knew that he worked hard for us, and the poem was a type of perspective that I needed to mull over in my mind. I’d never thought of it — or him — in that way.

Now, linguistic Professionals have assessed this poem; Professionals who Know Poetry. Some of those Professionals were the ones who introduced me to the poem, and for a grade, they wished for me to express my opinion on this piece. They expected me, as a student, to comment within what I had learned from them, and I did. However, I’m glad the ‘blogosphere’ exists so that I can express my opinion in different, perhaps more creative terms. On my blog, I can talk about this poem in any way I choose.

You don’t have to like this poem.
No one is paying me to say that I like it.
I consider it a waste of time to discuss poems that I don’t like.
I just thought I’d share a poem that I love.

Thanks for reading my National Poetry Month selection. If, at some point, you read any of my book reviews, I hope you find the books that I like likable as well… or not. In any case, I’m glad you visited our blog…

Monday Musings

by Tanita S. Davis

April 16, 2007

11:07 pm

Contest Alert! and Weekend Wanderings

by Tanita S. Davis

April 16, 2007

4:52 pm

1 Comment on Contest Alert! and Weekend Wanderings

Contest Alert, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Don’t miss the contest at Lisa Yee’s. It’s a short one… a really short one. As in, write a 25 word story. Sadly, I am already stumped.

Meanwhile, the Disco Mermaids, together with their agents and the folks from Razorbill, want you to come play. Theirs is a hilarious contest helping the less fortunate… that is, celebrities without ideas… and help them to write… a children’s book. Because really – don’t they all want to? So that they can follow the A#1 writer’s rule of Write What You Know, your instructions are to give them a title for a book only they could write. Their example makes William Kotzwinkle’s Walter, the Farting Dog turn into: Al Gore’s Walter the Ozone-Depleting Dog. Despite the DM’s inexplicable prejudices against French hens and turtle doves, this is an awesome contest – and has some awesome prizes. Do check it out!

Chasing Ray offers a plethora of writing inspirations… I am more than willing to try the chocolate. The axe? Not so much…

(As you may have noticed…) Books that include food are a big draw for me. My carb-addicted soul still loves the toast description in The Wind in the Willows of hot buttered toast. Ratty’s buttery toast is second to none, not even hot, buttered popcorn (yum…) Ahem. Anyway, from The New Yorker comes theories about what the food means, and the question of what the draw is of imaginary or real food in our favorite novels.

Over at Fuse#8, the dreaded question of author photographs arises. Where/how/who takes those? And, like Fuse, I won’t mention names, but some of them, er, stump me. My first two short novels (very out of print), the author pic was taken by the husband of the registrar of the school at which I taught. He is a photographer for PG&E (and who knows why they need photographers?). He took two rolls of B&W and color, and I found four I liked — in B&W. Needless to say, the publisher wanted color, of course. It was, I felt, revolting, but whatchagonnado? The question thus far has not yet been broached with my current publisher and book designer… and I don’t think it will, thankfully. Trying not to angst about the COVER (although I have a FABULOUS cover designer) is bad enough.

The Potter bloggers reminisce about this heady time in their lives, and wonder what to do next. Meanwhile, via Fuse, I shudder to think of the Harry Potter Theme Park. Oy. Just… oy.

Amazing Teen Poetry

by Tanita S. Davis

April 14, 2007

5:25 am

Flickr Fiction Friday: Daring to Dye

by Tanita S. Davis

April 13, 2007

8:35 pm

8 Comments on Flickr Fiction Friday: Daring to Dye

Flickr Fiction Friday

Holding hands, giggly, off-balance, they’re

Swept miles along the route with the crowd

Past Fullerton and 4th, toward Locust, and the bandstand.

Below, all furry boots, long johns, flannel-lined jeans,

Above, hep cats. ‘St. Louis Floozy’ from their waists up;

Spangled gold lamé tanks and Mardi Gras beads,

Paint, rouge, feathers under fur-trimmed parkas, sparklers.

Warmed by spirit, they imagine New Orleans.

Kristál, Hennessey, and Frangelica, they name themselves,

Behind their sequined masks, giddy with the freedom of late night

Flouting rules, they dance to the rhythms of the Wyld Stallyns.

Being together is all that matters, poised on this first stair of life.

A winning trifecta: brains, boldness, beauty,

They hold up their arms, and scream: confetti, beads, trinkets.

Showering down. They catch whatever is being thrown.

No curfew tonight, Fat Tuesday; the city is awash in desperate

Celebration. The girls, happy to join the revels in the week before midterms

Are young, and free spirits. Their families would not care

To see them here. Knowing well the risks, of parental displeasure, they

Took it upon themselves to raise precautions against the voices of disapproval.

Though the precautions themselves might change few minds and still

No chiding tongue, they are buoyed by each other, back to back,

Safe in their mutual defense:

All for one, one for all – Athos, Porthos, Aramis.

“Buy you girls a drink?” Trailing a feather boa, Hennessey has lured

The first catch of the night. Nowhere near twenty-one, he, pockmarked, thirty-ish, judges

They need his I.D., and smirks. Three downy chicks, such easy prey.

An offer they won’t refuse, a little GHB, and – score. But his assumption sours,

Though Frangelica flutters glitter-dusted lashes. “No, thanks.”

The voice still sweet, but firm. “You’re a pretty one,” he pants, leaking

Rancid charm, vice-slick hands grabbing for what is not his.

“We said no. We don’t want a drink,” Hennessey’s voice is scared.

“Back off,” Frangelica warns. Kristál’s small mouth turns tight.

“Go away, buttwipe. I’ll scream.” “Lighten up, little girls,” he sneers,

“This is a party.” And what is left unspoken, is, Scream. Go ahead.

No one will hear.

It does not seem now like such a good idea to be in

Downtown St. Louis, at 11:45 at night, dancing in the ashes

Of the Fat Tuesday parade. They sound, they know, like a

Headline: Three girls, age fifteen, Honor Roll students,

Found near the old Courthouse, when their parents

Believed them to be at home. They pull together, duck into

The crowd, and hope to lose their new “friend.” “Residential

Area,” one says. “It’s okay. We’re safe.” But her teeth are chattering.

No one even tries to keep on dancing.

The shine has worn off, and the glitter, beads, feathers, paint

Just seem like so much ground-up litter, strewn sloppily on the road.

“Let’s go home,” Hennessey sighs, her soft brown eyes red-rimmed from glitter

Eyeliner. “The best part’s over. Now it’s just the freaks who are out.”

Kristál nods. “No doubt,” she concurs. And the dispirited trio link

Arms, and kick through the piles of slush, quiet at first, then,

Youthful ebullience ascending like cream they reminisce about

That weird chick in the zebra-stripped dress, and That cute guy with the

Leather jacket and the chipped front tooth. “He probably took a bead

To the head,” Frangelica snickers, and they lean, like

Mirthful drunks, against each other as they sway across the road.

He’s brought friends, one for each, and it takes them a moment to realize

They are surrounded, and with the dark, outnumbered.

Hennessey washes off the rest of her cheap eyeliner with

Tears, as panic bubbles. “My father,” she quavers, but Frangelica,

Wiser, hushes her, quickly. “No,” she warns. “Shush.”

Kristál is silent, smallest, eyes behind her mask feral. “Stop. Go away.”

Skinny as she is, her voice is titanium hard. “Geez, Bobby, they’re just

Little girls,” one voice protests, not quite wasted enough to be up for

Whatever his friend has planned. “They’re old enough to be bitches,”

Bobby counters, his voice skewed. “Wouldn’t even let me

Buy them an effing drink.”

“I want a drink.” Frangelica steps out. Hennessey’s shriek is smothered.

“F– wait, no!” Frangelica ignores her, and Kristál grips Hennessey, hard.

“Emergency,” she argues. Hennessey wipes her eyes and scrabbles

In her purse, staying just in reach of Frangelica’s back.. “I think I’ve got

a little something for you, then,” Bobby leers, and comes in close. Behind

The mask Frangelica’s eyes flirt. Behind her back, hands meet. And then,

Below the waist, current arcs. Convulsions. Choking. Collapse. A bewildered

Shout. “Bobby, what the hell?” “What did you do, you little bitch?” Running

Feet and another falls, and the third, wisely, backs away, wanting no part

Of the boneless plunge, the crumpled twitching before him.

“Is he dead? Don’t do it more than once, okay?” Low voiced

Sultriness races up the scale, cracks. “Dad is going to kill me.”

“A taser doesn’t hurt them or cops wouldn’t use them.” “That’s not true!”

“This one is so tanked.” Look – I didn’t even make him –

Pee his pants.” “Hurry.” “You have the tape.”

“Do we leave them here?” “No! Wait! I have Kool-Aid.”

“A scarlet letter! What’s the A for?”

“What do you think?”

Later, an undercover officer will stop them.

Sweaty, leaning weakly against one another, giggling, they

Will have attracted the attention of one of St. Louis’ finest

When they no longer need him. “No underage drinking,

Zero tolerance,” he states tonelessly, wondering if the chief will thank

Him or not for recognizing his daughter who, if she could

Stop giggling, might take her Breathalyzer test. Is she too

Young for gin? He makes a rookie’s choice and says, “Go

Home, girls.” And shakes his head. The chief will have to

Take on his own troubles at home. And anyway, he has

Too much on his plate just now, what with wondering how

Two burly, red-faced toughs, are propped, taped and tied

To a Port-A-Potty, red A’s slashed across their foreheads while

The snow around them is dyed a bright vermilion. At times,

he thinks, Police work completely boggles the mind.

So. The very surreal picture that inspired this week’s Flickr surreality was taken by Flickr photographer ★keaggy.com, and should be Flicktionated by the usual suspects: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.

Poetry Before Sleeping

by Tanita S. Davis

April 13, 2007

5:41 am

Leave a comment on Poetry Before Sleeping

On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

FOG

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

This is a cute little book about a fleeting friendship — one day a cat came to stay, and then it went away, leaving gifts behind like cats, fogs, and friendships do.

I remember this poem from the fourth grade, where we learned to say onomatopoeia. Sadly, it took until college to remember how to spell it.

Go forth and read the latest Edge of the Forest. I’m seeing double now, but I will be sure to give it a thorough read tomorrow… especially A Day in the Life, which features novelist Lauren Myracle of text-message novel fame, the Cybils recap (but no hints on this year’s – the jury is still out!), and the piece on reading and teaching Mortal Engines in Dubai… some really great stuff.