Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
I just had to kill a character I really liked and now I'm sad and kinda want to have a drink and pour some out for her.
I just had to kill a character I really liked and now I'm sad and kinda want to have a drink and pour some out for her. Source:
February 26, 2015 at 05:57PM
via IFTTT
I just had to kill a character I really liked and now I'm sad and kinda want to have a drink and pour some out for her.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 27, 2015
February 26, 2015 at 05:57PM
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Across the street from my apartment there is a dude standing in the parking lot of a church playing the bagpipes at traffic.
Across the street from my apartment there is a dude standing in the parking lot of a church playing the bagpipes at traffic. Source:
February 26, 2015 at 02:04PM
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Across the street from my apartment there is a dude standing in the parking lot of a church playing the bagpipes at traffic.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 26, 2015
February 26, 2015 at 02:04PM
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A problem with the democratization of skateboards beyond the circle of skater culture is that the kids on campus can't skate for shit.
A problem with the democratization of skateboards beyond the circle of skater culture is that the kids on campus can't skate for shit. Source:
February 26, 2015 at 09:29AM
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A problem with the democratization of skateboards beyond the circle of skater culture is that the kids on campus can't skate for shit.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 26, 2015
February 26, 2015 at 09:29AM
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Fractured Fractals.
For some entirely unknowable reason, all day I have been writing these odd little short fractured stories. Part of me just now wanted to call them “fractal stories” but that doesn’t make any sense unless you want to get super pretentious about things.
Please see below and enjoy the ridiculous fruits of today’s labor. I kind of think a couple of these aren’t completely shamefully awful.
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Tarshish.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Tarshish
by james bezerra
Despite his expensive new data plan, Jona does not get any service inside this whale. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
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City Council Resolution No. 5-104.
City Council Resolution No. 5-104
by james bezerra
This past Tuesday night the city council passed a resolution stating that all new concrete poured within the city limits may contain no more than 16% human bone. The resolution passed by a voice vote of 3 to 2.
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The Missouri Synod Isn’t.
The Missouri Synod Isn’t
by james bezerra
It has been reported that agents of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church have begun erasing all signs of the Synod’s existence. Numerous libraries have indicated that their encyclopedias and phone books have been vandalized in such a way as to remove evidence of the Synod. Representatives of Wikipedia have confirmed that the page “Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod” does not exist. The Missouri Synod press office could not be reached for comment.
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The Other Legends of Orpheus.
The Other Legends of Orpheus
by james bezerra
In his later years, Orpheus eschewed the company of any woman, so thick yet somehow so querulously tender was the scar tissue which covered his heart like a thin purple rind. It is said that he invented pederasty. It is also said that it was he who first conceptualized the windowless van. It is said that he composed on his lyre the tune which all ice cream trucks now play and which draws the children from their homes. It is said that many of the enduring mysteries of our time could be solved by prying up the floorboards of his house at the end of Eurydice Street, which is not actually a street, but rather a lane. He has never voted, put out his recycling, or opened his door to trick-or-treaters, with whom his porch is very popular once a year.
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Who Were Alive Then.
Who Were Alive Then
by james bezerra
Today I found a near perfect receipt from 22 March, 1999 pressed like a pale flower into a book which I apparently had not opened this entire millennia and I was forced to spend several very long seconds counting on my fingers the number of people I have known who were alive when it was placed there and who are not now.
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Weather Permitting.
Weather Permitting
by james bezerra
She has been mailing you postcards from every city she visits. She writes to you on postcards so as to deprive you of the choice of opening an envelope or not. Her postcard from Rome said: I’ve drunk too much wine and I hope you forgive me for being angry with you those times you drank too much wine. Her postcard from Sarajevo said: I know that you wish we’d fought less and now I wish we had fought less too. Her postcard from Bangkok had only a crude and racist drawing of an Asian couple having sex. Her postcard from Uttar Pradesh said: There was supposed to be a second Taj Mahal. It was supposed to be made of black marble and built across the river. It was never built though. This one they did build seems to turns yellow at dusk. Her postcard from Pyongyang had nothing written on it at all and there was no stamp. Her postcard from Manilla said: On the beach I wrote a song called ‘Heartbreak is a Pre-existing Condition’ and I played it on my ukulele until people came by and asked me to stop. I don’t think any of them even spoke English. Her postcard from Montevideo said: A man I met at the Museo Historico Nacional told me that there never was such a dinosaur as the Brontosaurus. For some reason this made me cry. The man wanted to run his hand up under my skirt and I let him because it made me feel less sad about the Brontosaurus. I don’t think the crying really had anything to do with the Brontosaurus though. Her postcard from Havana said: From here I can imagine that I can almost see the continent you’re on and it makes me feel lonely. Her postcard from Reykjavik said: The population here is so small that they all have an app on their phones that they all check before fucking that tells them how closely related they are. Her postcard from Oslo said: You told me once that you liked it when I wore knee-high socks and after that I never wore them again. I don’t know why I did that. I think it was because it made me so embarrassed about my legs to know that you were looking at them, even though I liked it. Her postcard from Barcelona said: There is a church here like nothing I have ever seen before, like a petrified forest melting. If you ever want to find me, I will be here on Saturday afternoons, weather permitting.
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I accidentally stepped on a snail and now I'm going to feel guilty all night.
I accidentally stepped on a snail and now I'm going to feel guilty all night. Source:
February 25, 2015 at 10:04PM
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I accidentally stepped on a snail and now I'm going to feel guilty all night.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 26, 2015
February 25, 2015 at 10:04PM
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Am frustrated with Google Maps' inability to tell me how long it would take to cross the southern Gobi Desert on horse in the 13th century.
Am frustrated with Google Maps' inability to tell me how long it would take to cross the southern Gobi Desert on horse in the 13th century. Source:
February 25, 2015 at 01:59PM
via IFTTT
Am frustrated with Google Maps' inability to tell me how long it would take to cross the southern Gobi Desert on horse in the 13th century.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 25, 2015
February 25, 2015 at 01:59PM
via IFTTT
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
New Information Concerning the Homing Methods of Frogs.
New Information Concerning the Homing Methods of Frogs
by james bezerra
Certain kinds of frogs, when removed from their home area, can find their way back navigating by the sun, but usually not the moon. Occasionally they may become confused and will follow the moon, but when the sun comes up again they will simply return to navigating as normal. A few can be fooled into following recordings of frogs from their home area (these localized frog songs are often referred to by biologists as a “home chorus”), however most can not be. No frogs can be fooled into following the smell of mud from their home area or the scent of water from their home area.
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So I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I've decided that counterfeiting postage stamps is probably not cost effective.
So I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I've decided that counterfeiting postage stamps is probably not cost effective. Source:
February 24, 2015 at 09:19AM
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So I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I've decided that counterfeiting postage stamps is probably not cost effective.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 24, 2015
February 24, 2015 at 09:19AM
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Monday, February 23, 2015
Epigraphs.
I am reading through a little book called Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe and these are the epigraphs (which I think are pretty good):
We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside of us.
— Franz Kafka
If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh or they will kill you.
— Oscar Wilde.
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Saturday, February 21, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Blurred Crimes.
I just read the Sky News headline “Music Teacher Jailed for Sex Crimes” and quietly I started singing a mash-up of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Weird Al’s “Word Crimes” and it was quite catchy until I realized that, in fact, that is not a good song to be singing at any decibel level. So I stopped. Let’s just keep this to ourselves, okay?
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Thursday, February 19, 2015
I Blame The Girl Scouts.
Right now I am taking a break from my school work (I have been at it for seven straight hours so far) and I was just reading an article about how to quickly lose ten pounds.
Yesterday I bought new batteries for my scale and today I discovered to my horror that I am ten pounds heavier than I was before my scale batteries died in December. Going into Christmas I was finally down in the range of what I consider to be an at least okay weight range, though still not great. I have recently organized myself a life routine (using a couple of spreadsheets, naturally) and so I have been working out significantly more the past couple weeks, I am in a hurry to get back down into a lower weight class, so I am reading about weightloss on Prevention.com and one of the things they suggest doing is starting a blog about one’s diet and weight loss. The idea here is that if you post things for your friends and family to read, then it will keep you honest in your eating habits. To me this just sound embarrassing. For instance, in the last 24 hours I have consumed:
- A Gatorade whey protein bar
- Somewhere in the range of 30 ounces of coffee
- A bunch of tortilla chips at a Chilis
- Some of one of those chocolate chip cookie and ice cream dessert things
- Five or six whiskey and cokes
- A Slim Rite meal replacement bar
- Some mixed nuts
- An entire box of Girl Scout cookies
Now, it has been an unusual couple of days, but as I sit here typing out this list I am forced to wonder how the hell I’m not dead yet, to say nothing of ten pounds heavier.
I swear that my diet normally consists of salads or rice and chicken and veggies, but I guess that I had not realized how unconscious I have been about what I have been eating lately. In my defense, I have had trouble getting back into a routine since I came back from the East last month. Hence the time management spreadsheets.
Also, it does not help that things were pretty stressful last month and that the Girl Scouts seem to have staked out my grocery store.
Anyway, guess who is going to be eating salads for the next year or so?
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Forest Fires.
I am sitting here at my kitchen table doing school work. Right now I am reading a story for class by Aleksandar Hemon. The story is called “The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders” and it is organized sort of like a list story. Each item on the list is something about this character of Alphonse Kauders. I enjoy little stories like this, they’re usually both complex and whimsical. One of the items had me laughing out loud. That item was this one:
Alphonse Kauders:
a) hated forests
b) loved to watch fires
These proclivities were happily united in his notorious obsession with forest fires, which he would watch, with great pleasure, whenever he had a chance.
Some days it must have been good to be Alphonse Kauders, if only because he knew what he liked.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Morning Girl Missing.
Morning Girl Missing
by james bezerra
Your lilac
and honeysuckle hair
probably smells
nice today.
Dewdropped still
with warm shower
mist. Cold probably
on the back of your neck..
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What Is a Half-life?
What Is a Half-life?
by james bezerra
I’m really asking.
So few things matter
in life,
but life.
Why measure it in halves?
If all my uranium isotopes
really are degrading
so slowly that
I haven’t the
size in my skull to
comprehend the expanse
of their lives
in full,
then are they,
to me,
really dying at all?
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Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Unicycles are surprisingly expensive.
Unicycles are surprisingly expensive. Source:
February 17, 2015 at 05:22PM
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Unicycles are surprisingly expensive.
— james bezerra (@standardkink) February 18, 2015
February 17, 2015 at 05:22PM
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Monday, February 16, 2015
Some Days.
Below is a dumb poem I wrote the other day in about five minutes. It is about cosmonauts because cosmonauts kept coming up the other day. That’s how my life is some days.
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Cosmonauts Get Thirsty.
Cosmonauts Get Thirsty.
by james bezerra
Cosmonauts get thirsty.
Infinite cloak of night
across their seconds,
minutes, miles, light years,
lives.
Cosmonauts get thirsty.
Slingshot out past Moon’s silent gravity well
8 months on
to Mars. No one brought
a flask.
Cosmonauts get thirsty.
Boredom gets heavy. Inner monologues get nasty.
No bed in months; instead
sleeping pod on clockwork curve
of spacecraft ceiling.
Cosmonauts get thirsty,
hurtling silently,
swiftly, un-return-ably
to alien red dot on
the dry black edge of infinity.
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Sunday, February 15, 2015
Look What I Made!
Below is a short little story that I wrote this weekend for my writing class. It is not the best thing in the world by any means, but it is the sort of little piece of fiction that is fun to dash off quickly and then be all like, “Look at what I made!”
And yes, I know the metaphor doesn’t 100% hold up to scrutiny, but hey, it is just a first draft.
Also, I hope you know how to work Google, otherwise this will likely not make a lot of sense.
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Raktabija.
Raktabija
by james bezerra
Twenty-six thousand feet above the Arabian Sea at night and the Arabian Sea doesn’t even look like anything. Not an abyss, not a maw, not edgeless obsidian the size of history, or a even metaphor. Not an anything. Just a nothing. This is the thing we always have trouble understanding about the universe, isn’t it? That it is almost entirely empty.
We have it strapped down to a completely normal gurney in the center of the hold and the gurney is ratcheted down to the metal plates of the floor with those same wide bright polyester webbing straps that they use for any other cargo that would go in here, I suppose. Gets the job done. When we do hit the occasional bippy bit of turbulence, the floor plates rattle a little. The Payload Specialist, hunched by the forward bulkhead and the locked cockpit door, stands up each time, but doesn’t approach it. He hasn’t said a word since we left Djibouti airspace and went feet wet over the Gulf of Adan. He doesn’t like it on his plane.
I suppose saying it is impolite.
Perhaps her would be better. I’m not sure. I’ve never really understood how the Trimurti works. But then I’ve never worked any of the Indian stations. I’ve been operating fairly independently under the authority of the station chief in Nairobi for two years, but I’ve spend most of that time in and around Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab isn’t going to snuff itself out and the Company needed someone to handle intelligence logistics with AMISON.
Busy years these have been.
Made busier now by her. She was not what I needed in my life.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice the Payload Specialist stand up quick, though we aren’t bumping. He points nervously at her.
I look to see one of her four arms beginning to wriggle against the tight gurney straps. I move over to a jumpseat near enough to her so that I can look down into her face. Her skin is very dark, but the station chief in Mumbai told me over a staticy SATCOM line a week ago that it would be; that’s part of her story. When her eyes open they are surprisingly bright. When she sees me above her she stops struggling.
“I have no intention of hurting you,” I say. “If fact, you’re getting an all-expense-paid trip home. You have absolutely no business on the African continent little lady. I’m going to take the tape off your mouth and then you’re going to explain to me why I have satellite photos of you meeting with Hizbul insurgents in the desert outside of Biadoa a week ago. Blink if you understand me.”
She blinks calmly and so I rip the tape off. I always like the ripping-the-tape-off part, it is a sign of good faith but one painful enough that it makes it clear to everybody exactly who is in charge.
She licks her chapped lips slowly with her tongue. I hadn’t noticed before how hollow her cheeks are. How thin and bony each of her arms are.
“Talk,” I tell her.
“Asura,” she says.
I have no fucking clue what that is. “Is that who you were meeting?”
She smiles and its dangerous how big and jagged her teeth are. I glance over to make sure the strap across her forehead is tightened down all the way and locked.
“We used to be such good friends,” she says. She is looking at me. I don’t know if she is talking to me or about me. I think she can sense that because she says, “Asura means great and mighty. Remember, Raktabija?” And then she starts to laugh. She just laughs and laughs and she is laughing at me, this much is clear. If her mouth were less threatening I’d put the tape back on, but as it is, I can just imagine her ripping the tips on my fingers off with just the littlest jerks of her violently gnashing teeth.
I pace toward the end of the cabin and stand down near where the cargo ramp angles upward into its locked position. I take the SAT phone from my pocket and dial up the station chief in Mumbai.
It rings. Then again. The quiet in between the rings is staticy, which ain’t bad considering I’m four and a half miles up moving at six hundred miles an hour above a black ocean that’s as empty as space. Rings again. This is pissing me off because he knows we’re on our way in and is supposed to have his phone in his lap.
Rings again.
Finally he answers, “Bombay-6.”
“I keep telling you that you gotta change that. It’s way too obvious.”
“Bombay-6,” he says again.
“Bombay-6 this is Estafet-1.”
“Code in ...”
“Tandoori delivery.”
“You know,” he says, “that’s borderline racist.”
“You’re supposed to answer when I call.”
“I did. Are you still in-bound?”
“Yeah, everything is fine. We’re on schedule. Look …” I rub the back on my neck and move as far into the back as I can. “I’ve got a question. Does Raktavija mean anything to you? Or asura? She said those words and I’m wondering if there’s something very under-the-radar going on that I haven’t gotten wind of yet out in The Mog. Maybe your extremists hooking up with mine, sharing logistics or intel, maybe …” Through the pop and crackle I can hear him snickering and I don’t like being laughed at this much back-to-back. “What?”
“Man you need to read a book one of these days.”
“How about when we land I shove one up you ass?”
“I would be surprised if you had one with you. Anyway, she’s talking about a fairy tale, man. It’s one of their myths. These guys, the Asura, were like, what do you call ‘em, deities. They used to be good guys but then they got all spun out on their own power and turned into crazy assholes. You following me? One of the biggest badasses was called Raktavija and he’s fighting against the … um … shit, they’re like angels … the Matrikas, I think, yeah. So the Matrikas, they’re attacking this dude full-on but he’s like Bowser or something. Every time they stab him his drops of blood fall to the ground and each one turns into a new little Rakatavija. But the Matrikas, they just keep stabbing and stabbing and not even giving two shits about all the new Rakatavijas running loose all over the goddam place now. It’s just this dumb Hindu story. It doesn’t mean anything. Did you call it in to Langley when you went feet-wet?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Okay. Well I’ll see you in a couple hours. Let me know if she starts talking to you about Little Miss Muffet or is we need to drone strike Noah’s Ark or anything. Bombay-6 out.”
He hangs up so I hang up. I slowly slip the sat phone back into my pocket. Then I turn and I see her standing there in the center of the cabin, three times bigger now, her dark skin hanging loosely on her sharp bones but still somehow shimmering. Her huge jaw has unhinged and she is shoving the flailing Payload Specialist down her dark gullet with one arm and reaching for me with the others.
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