Exciting announcement!

No mom, it's not THAT exciting announcement.

It's that www.Tylermcnamara.com became serendipitously available at the same time that I took a few RFF Tuesdays to build a new website! 

What's that a NEW website? Yep, tylermcnamara.com will be the new location for news about the book, the latest Reality Fan Fiction, including the entire Read it For You album, and... I'm not sure yet, maybe shorts... like short stories, not like my laundry's instagram feed... 

Oh and speaking of Read it For You, everyone's favorite low-fi podcast now has intro music AND is available on the iTunes!  Follow the link and Subscribe today!

And you thought I'd been a slouch this week. 

So update your bookmarks, subscribe to the new rss feeds if you do that sort of thing. 

But be brave, don't turn back, and I'll see you on the new site.

-Tyler

Heartbroken in Harrisburg

     S: "So how did you two meet?"

     They look at each other, telepathically telling the other to tell the story. He loses and says, "In an elevator."

     She huffs the smallest hint of annoyance mixed with adoration, "In a stuck elevator."

     H: "Pittsburg had been having brownouts all week and the circuits got confused about where the floors were."

     N: "I don't think that's the part of the story she was interested in."

     H: "A good story is in the details."

     S: "It's true, but your first 'story' was: in an elevator."

     H: "So you're taking her side?"

     S: "Maybe, but I will give you props for asking someone on a date while trapped with them."

     H: "I would never do that to another person. It's against some unspoken rule to ask out someone who cannot escape you."

     N: "I've never heard of that rule."

     S: "So what did you say?"

     H: "She said, 'Are you seeing anyone?'"

     N: "He was so cute, he looked over at me, like for the first time you know? Really looked at me, then he looked back at the darkened lights that should have said the floor number and said, 'I'm kind of inbetween things at the moment.'  In my head I'm thinking 'perfect', but then--"

     H: "So she's been quiet for like two minutes, I start thinking she's one of those who's only attracted to men in relationships, or maybe that I can't hold a relationship says something about me. I've got all this self doubt running through my mind and suddenly she gets my joke and starts laughing."

     N: "I thought you were talking about relationships!"

     H: "I know, that's why it's funny! The first time I looked at her I was physically attracted, but when I heard her laugh, that's when I fell in love."

     N: "When they pulled us out they said it had been five hours, but I would've sworn it was only twenty minutes."

Intercom: "We're beginning our initial descent into Pittsburg. Please turn off any large electronic devices, and return your seats and tray-tables to their upright and locked position..."

As the mass of travelers exited the skybridge and poured out into the terminal he caught up to her and said, "Now that we're not trapped in an enclosed space... Obviously that Stranger saw something between us--"

     N: "Sorry, I'm married. But that was fun... lying to a complete stranger like that."

     H: "At least tell me your name."

     N: "No."

~Heartbroken in Harrisburg



A Note From the Author: That was fun. If you're interested in the behind the scenes... the main idea for the story came from an old suggestion "Honey Badgers + Honeymoon + 8 hrs. stuck in an elevator"  I just started thinking about those three things and started with stuck in an elevator.  But interestingly, what drove the twist in the story was the single letter names I was using because I don't like naming characters until there are characters to name. Then I realized that they don't have names because they don't know each other. S and N changed letters a few times because I didn't like that H and S could be Harry and Sally, so I swapped it with N, which used to be D until she said "No", and H didn't become "Heartbroken" until the last line.

Well I thought it was interesting...  ~Tyler

1502 Spring Collection + Castilian

Swarmped with work and a secret side project that I'm not quite ready to talk about, I'm sorry that I haven't been updating RFF regularly. I hope this goofy sketch is enough to sate you hungry monsters. ~Tyler


"It came! It finally came!" I squealed to no one in particular.  With the catalog rolled up and held in my armpit, I lifted the heavy wooden trapdoor and descended into the catacombs.

My footsteps, quickened by barely contained glee, echoed off the walls and vaulted ceilings. I nearly tripped over a replica skeleton on the way. Once inside my study I flopped into my overstuffed parlor chair, and lounging perpendicular to the normal seating posture, flipped open the GRATE & PERIL 1502 spring collection. If you didn't know already, this catalog is a castilian's dream come true.

      "Oh, how guche! Page 1, ONE is torture chambers. As if it were the first room in every castle. "

Products A-F. Aragon's Inquisition Collection

All wooden components in this collection feature solid black oak construction, locally sourced from the forest on the way to Granny's house, and purchased from THE woodcutter who cut open the wolf. It's fished with a patented 3-step process that leaves the final product rough and pithy, as if it had been exposed to damp and moldy conditions for years!

A.  Potro the Gnomish pull-n-lock stretching mechanism on this rack provides mechanical advantage, allowing you to convert even the most heinous of heretics. Item# TC2034 Exclusive 600 GP

     "I can't just flip through, cover to cover I'll end up buying everything! I need to just focus on what my collection is missing. Besides, the inquisition decorum is going to throw off my industrial revolution theme. Although, the trophy room is almost entirely undecorated, and religious iconography never goes out of style."

F. Corpus Moradin this brass crucifix stands five hands tall and shines like real gold for a fraction of the price. Notice the Dwarven craftsmanship and carnelian stonework highlighting His bloody suffering. Item#TR5798 Exclusive 50 GP

G. Gauntlet of the Flame Warriors this copper gauntlet, exquisitely detailed with flames and secret runes that portent "This glove is gifted to one who has helped the order of the Flame, and notes their heroic deed or sacrifice."  Not any more; with this Grate & Peril exclusive offer you can proudly display this boon! Item#TR1344 320 GP

     "That's a must have!  Oh, and I can't forget the case. Hummm... do I go stone, wood, petrified wood, or bone? I already have the bone throne because, let's be honest, it's got the best spine support, hey-ohh! But seriously I wonder if that's too much bone? People might start to think my lord doesn't do enough bone crunching if they see all these pristine bones around."

2     

Oh, even Grate&Peril's on-hold music gets me excited. I don't know how I'm possibly going to wait the 4-6 months for shipping. But I also won't be price gouged for magical transportation, after that one time we needed those trapdoors--

     "Good Frostmoot, this is Christine, can I please have the customer key on the back of your catalog?"

     "Hi Christine, this is Ronald the castellan of Blackgate."

     "Ronald, I'm going to need your customer---"

     "How many times have I called you people and you still don't recognize me?! Calm Ronald. Calm."   "No problem Christine it's 0035--"

     "Sorry Ronald, the number I'm looking for should start with a letter."

     "No Christine, I'm sorry. Where do I--?"

     There is an audible sigh. "It's beneath the picture of the skeleton key?"

     Of course I feel like an idiot, but this is the first goddamned time they've asked me for this ridiculous number. Must be that new accounting software that Gringotts has made so ubiquitous.

    "Thank you. What can I do for you today?"

    "I'd like to place an order."

     "Great, can have the first item num--"

     "SHHHHHhh!"

     "Sir? Is there--"

    "SHHHhhh, shut up! Shut up! I thought I heard something."

    After a long silence Christine says, "Sir, I have customers on other lines..."

     "Of course, I'm sorry. I just thought I heard a firetrap go off. You know how they have that particular Fwoooosh!?"

     "It's quite alright. I'm pretty used to it. People around the office say I'm cursed because I've had twelve customers get raided by adventuring parties while I was on the phone with them."

     "Twelve? God, that's not even a coincidence anymore, that just incompetent supervising! Oh, sorry Christine, I didn't mean..."

     Her voice went flat, "Sir, Can I have your first item number."

     "Yes. Sorry. Yes. It's tee... are... one..."

     "Sir, there should be five more numbers---"

     "Shhhhh! Oh shit, there's someone in the catacombs!"

     "Honestly, nine times out of ten it's just rats. It's probably just rats."

     "Listen you pencil pusher! It's not just RATS. Someone's in my labyrinthine catacombs and because of  budget cuts it's only a MINOR labyrinth... wait a minute are you calling from a bathroom, it sounds all echo-y over there? Christine?!"

     The door to the parlor shattered to splinters and an iron-spiked, fur-lined, size 14 dragonhide boot stomped the useless boards to the floor. Following the foot upwards revealed a heavily-muscled calf glistening in sweat, capped with spiky knee pads. But the rest of the outfit is a blur as my focus is drawn to the huge crossbow (a small ballista really) that is leveled at my head.  "Christine, I'm going to have to call you back."

     "You still don't get it do you Thirteen?" The voice came from both the stone of speaking and the huge barbarian woman in front of me. She dropped the stone she was holding and said, "I don't work for Grate & Peril anymore."

     "Are those boots by L.L. Bard?"

     "Actually... they're Dirk'n'stalks."

Carnival in Tulum Mexico

Hey Y'all,

Sorry for the silence. My wife and I were away on our honeymoon in Tulum, which was gorgeous and the weather was perfect and it was so nice to be somewhere not blanketed in X feet of snow.

One of the things that was interesting and fun about our visit was that it happened to coincide with Carnival, which we weren't totally sure what it was about, that was the only descriptor we could get in Spanish was that it was just Carnival. I guess that makes sense, like, how would you describe to a foreigner why there's a county fair? And what you're celebrating.  But my guess was that it had something to do with Lent, because the Bible has that passage about the importance of throwing candy whilst riding a slow moving beast of burden.

Just to paint the picture: There were about six 'floats' that were pulled down the main street by various sized trucks, each filled with costumed children from elementary to high school age, decked out with feathers and shiny fabrics. 5% of the kids on or following behind each float were really excited about dancing and being in the parade, while the others looked like they'd rather be doing homework.  And then at the end of the parade, was one trailer covered in balloons, which just had music blaring and a bunch of people sitting around in plastic lawn chairs, as if they had just been BBQing on the back of this truck and decided to enter the parade, but needed some balloons to seem legit.

Aside from that the rest of the vaca was the usual body surfing, sunburns, yummy food, and cave snorkeling you'd expect from a Mexico honeymoon.

Hopefully RFF will return to normal next week assuming I have a normal week.

-Tyler

RFF version of Ghostbusters part 2

After Twelve joins the team the paranormal things they are experiencing are way more present and powerful. Charles’ teammates convince him that he needs to fix things with Twelve, so he answers her unanswered question about why he’s a ghost hunter, by showing her Dickens’ journal. It’s the missing piece of research that she needs to uncover the history of the last legitimate ghost buster, which she explains via a cool animated history (ala Deathly Hallows).

This clergyman was buried with his journal in England, but his tomb was raided and the journal was lost. Until it appeared years later in a collection of books purchased by the Library at Oxford collage, where it was auctioned off to a historian who sold it to its most previous owner, who purchased it off Ebay and currently resides in an old abandoned Subway in NY.

In the next scene they’re pulling up to a boarded-up Subway sandwich restaurant. Inside the counter is glowing and coated in purple slime (and obvious throw-back to the ectoplasm). But one of the other team Ghost Hunter members reveals that it’s just a phosphorescent fungus that grows on the lettuce. One of them is scanning the area for EMP, and it leads them to the manager’s office they find a collection of creepy things (clown dolls, Ouija Boards, a coin operated fortune telling machine, really anything that’s ever been haunted), and they find the cleric’s journal behind the glass of the fortune teller. As Charles slowly reaches into machine the eyes light up and the mouth opens, giving the audience a jump-scare, but Charles is not alarmed. Someone has just plugged in the machine. As they leave with the book, Twelve is the last to leave the room and she grabs the scary clown doll.

Twelve reads the cleric’s journal and it reveals the key to exorcising ghosts is in using the rites of their belief, and that the Ghost Club was stymied by a new kind of ghost that resulted from the industrial revolution where people started to have religious beliefs about science and technology. The best they were able to do is trap the spirits in human replicas where they are only able to affect a barely perceptible rise in spooky levels. Twelve starts applying this information to makes the ghost hunting team much more effective and triggers a montage which shows that they get better at detecting paranormal activity, and exorcising ghosts, but it also shows Twelve’s collection of creepy objects growing.

The climax of the movie is the disappearance of Twelve. When Charles goes to her apartment there are two burned girls playing hopscotch out front singing an eerie rhyme. Everything in the apartment appears much creepier than the first time we were there. Every step he takes in her house is creaky, until he realizes he just needs to walk faster, and it becomes comical instead. All the paintings in the place seem to watch him. In her room all the dolls are slumped over and appear to be sad, as their glassy eyes stare up toward a trapdoor in the ceiling leading up to the attic. Charles wanders around the attic fighting cobwebs and checking out a number of creepy objects until he finds another tiny door in the wall, leading out to a toolshed filled with sharp, rusty tools. In the middle of the floor is a trapdoor which leads down into a dark cellar. As Charles touches the bottom step the door slams shut. He is non-pulsed and pushes his way past creepy, dusty jars filled with animal parts and Blair Witch-like wooden effigies. The sound of crying can be heard and he follows it to a circle of candles. In the center of it is Twelve in a tub filled with bloody water.

Charles approaches her cautiously. Her eyes are closed and she is at peace. He starts to speak words of pain, of regret, of morning and she startles, screams, and curses at him for scaring her. “What are you doing in here?”

The scene suddenly shifts and he’s standing in her bathroom. She’s still in the tub, but instead of blood it’s filled with bubbles. He apologizes, hurries out of the room and closes the door. Through it he yells, “You haven’t shown up to work in a while, I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine, they’re taking care of me. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Who’s taking care of you?”

But there is only silence, and eventually the sound of the bathtub drain sucking air, then slurping up something else. He calls out her name a few time and gets no reply. Opening the door the tub is empty except for a mass of wet hair around the drain. He looks around the room, but there’s no where she could have gone. He looks under the claw foot tub and the drain pipe is bent in the shape of a human head as if the pipe is swallowing her like an anaconda.

“Girlfriend problems?” A voice asks, and looking up he sees a black man in a strange, steampunky costume standing in the door to the bathroom. After Charles demands to know who he is and how he got there, the new character introduces himself as Jasper Henry. The only surviving member of an ancient line of ghost busters, which started long, long before Charles Dickens ever joined the Ghost Club.

He goes on to explain that Charles girlfriend is a collector. All this time you thought they thought they were getting rid of ghosts, Twelve was capturing and collecting them, and their weak parapsychic energy has amplified. Charles invites Jasper to join his ghost hunter team, but he just shakes his head, how about you join MY ghost bustin’ team.

“I want producer credit.”

“Let start with getting your girlfriend back alive.”

“Ghosts can’t effect solid matter. Poltergeists don’t exist. She’s fine wherever she is.”

“The first part is true; they can’t effect solid matter, but they can trick your mind into believing whatever they want, and one of their favorite tricks is convincing your brain to stop breathing. You ever have a dream where you couldn’t breathe and couldn’t cry out for help? You ever heard of SIDS?”

“That’s messed up.”

Jasper leads Charles outside. The creepy burned twins start walking up to them and Jasper flicks his wrist and a ball of flame burst to life just outside his fingertips. They run away crying.

Charles says, “Dude, that wasn’t cool.”

Jasper looks back to the girls and sees them next door, running into the outstretched arms of the neighbor. “Sorry… I thought they were ghosts.”

Jasper outfits Charles with a bunch of equipment in his van and they go through the house shoot-em-up style blasting ghost and rescue the girl, who hates him for killing all of her ghost friends and destroying thousands of dollars’ worth of haunted memorabilia.

THE END

(Cue theme song written by Ray Parker Jr.)

I’ve always known that some of the things I write for RFF are better than others, but this was the first time that after I put out part one that I felt bad about it, and considered taking it down entirely. Just the way it half-heartedly straddles the line between a story, and a description. I wrote finding myself holding back in some ways, being totally serious at some points, and just fudging it at others. I’m not sure what to do with all that. I think I’m still going to post part II anyway and hope it doesn’t turn away first time readers, (my other stuff is better I promise) or worse, that it becomes my Clockwork Orange.

BONUS CONTENT!! Jokes I couldn't fit into the script:

Something about the purple slime in the Subway either "Also likes to Eat Fresh." Or "Eat Flesh."

Someone says to the fortune teller machine: "I wish I was Big!" and Charles says, "You know they make this little blue pill that can help you with that." 

In the scene when the tub swallows Twelve: Something about how hair is always getting stuck in the drain.


UPDATE!! 2-12-15
Sometimes funny little things happen which I take as divine affirmations that I'm on the right track. Jung called them synchronicities... well actually he called them Synchronizität.  I'm not a religious person, but the feeling I get when I experience synchronicity is the same eerie tingle I get from déjà vu. 

So yesterday, I published this very post, you've read it so you know what happens there, and last night I had to drive 2 hours to this meeting that I was hemming and hawing about whether I should go to or not, but when I arrive, it's in this weird cabin in the woods. We're all seated around a wood stove and there's all this stuff hanging from the ceiling. Like funny craft store chotchkies, not like animals in jars. And the walls are covered with things that eschew category, as if this were a showroom for that kind of restaurant that puts weird shit on their walls to make it quaint. It's not of course this is the result of the haphazard process of collecting.  Anyway, I'm sitting down with these folks, eating some cold potluck, and what do I see across the room?  

She is totally the sort of doll that Twelve would have collected! 

Unfortunately the owner of the house wasn't there, otherwise I would have asked him the story about her.

Also, it's hard to tell from the picture, but that's not just red fabric over her chest, it's actually hollowed out. And I think it's also worth noting that while this is a creepy thing to have in ones house, I didn't get the sense that Midnight Moon was haunted.

RFF version of Ghostbusters

As I’m sitting here I should be thinking about what motifs to write about, but all I can think about is Ghostbusters. Apparently the new Ghostbusters movie set to release in 2016 is going to be Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, and Melissa McCarthy. So right out of the gate my expectations are different. Instead of going to see how they’re going to rekindle the heart of my inner child, I’ll be going to see what interesting new direction they’ll take the franchise. So as I’m sitting around trying to imagine what they’ll do with the reboot, I start thinking about the original and realize there’s a few holes in the concept. Maybe this is covered in the film and I just haven’t seen it in a million years so I forgot, but if Gozer the Destroyer was worshiped by the Hittites, why did she/he/it take so long to cross over into our world, and happen to come through in the same window of time that the technology to fight him/her/it was invented? I mean it’s conceivable that it was only able to be invented because of the increase paranormal activity that Gozer brought. So naturally I start wondering thinking how RFF would have done it?

First off, if the busting of ghosts is a real and possible thing, it must have always been possible, and the kind of busting that makes one feel good is just a modern iteration of a much older (forgotten) trade. If Ghostbuster was made these days the original team wouldn’t have been professors, but ghost hunters, like in the 1996 Discovery Channel show Ghosthunters (not to be confused with Ghost Hunters, a 2008 show on Syfy).

In addition to being a lousy ghost hunter (because they have to start out as hacks) one of the main characters would be the direct descendant of Charles Dickens, who (I’m not even making this up) was himself a ghost hunter in 1862. He belonged to a group in Cambridge called The Ghost Club, and they went around busting magician’s illusions that had to do with summoning spirits.

One of the possessions (I’m back to writing fiction) this descendant of Dickens would have is a journal or something recording his time in the club and how the people loved to hate the Ghost Club, but there is also a note in there about a technique one of the Ghost Club members, a clergyman had for drawing ghosts out of haunted places, it was a simple rite of exorcism, but they found that it only worked on ghosts who believed in a Christian God. An unspookable atheist at heart this descendant, let’s call him Charles, follows Dickens’ advice about working the crowd and disregards the note until...

The movie opens with the a new member joining Charles’ ghost hunting team. A woman named Twelve, who is a professor of history (cute but dark, like Aubrey Plaza meets Wednesday Adams). They are obviously interested in each other and the romantic tension blurs with the spooky tension. Eventually she shows him her collection of haunted dolls and they butt heads over whether ghosts are real or not. He’s not convinced, and it seems like they won’t get together after all. They part, but Charles feels bad. Their working relationship sucks, and it starts driving a wedge in their team and the business.

…to be continued.

Tom Thumb + Voices

The tiny bubbles have just started to form on the edges of the pot when the front door opened wide enough, and long enough that I can feel the chill blow down the hall and join me in the living room.

“Mom! Hey mom! Can Sam stay for dinner?”

“Do you remember that we’re cooking for Grandma tonight?” I despise speaking with a forked tongue, but in this age of dietary restrictions one can’t always be direct and sensitive at the same time. And I know my boy knows I’ve been working too hard on Grandma’s meal to cook-up a second for some greens eatin’ rabbit.

“Oh, right,” he calls back.

Over the sound of their snow boots falling to the floor I hear my son speaking quietly to his friend, “Sam, your family eats meat right?”

I can’t hear Sam’s reply, and after a moment my son says, “What about pork?”

The bubbles release from the sides of the pot and it starts giving off a barely perceptible hiss.

I hear my Nana’s voice, “Quit fussing with that Debbie, what have I told you about a watched pot?”

Jimmy and his friend Sam come into the living room.

“Mom, this is Sam.”

“Evening ma’am.”

“Evening Sam, and Debra’s fine.”

Sam held his hands out to the wood stove and rubbed them together as he looked around at all the candles and up at the light fixtures. “Power out?”

“No Sam. When we cook for Grandma, we turn off the lights and cook on the old wood stove.”

“Won’t she have trouble seeing?”

“She passed about ten years ago. Jimmy, will you and Sam set the dining room table before you go off to play?”

When I look back to the pot the water is truly boiling now. Grandma’s right again. Never seems to a boil while I’m watching it. As I slip the Tom Thumbs into the pot, I’m relieved that the house is dim and Sam hadn’t noticed the bowl by his feet. After seeing them he might have changed his mind about being vegetarian. The Tom Thumb sausages are stuffed into the large intestine instead of the small, and they bulge unpleasantly like some desiccated organ, which I supposes is exactly what they are. Meat stuffed into an organ, dry cured and covered in white, powdery mold. It’s food from back when food grew in your yard. Back when food needed washing, grinding, canning, slaughtering and butchering.

When the boys come back down stairs it’s because they are drawn here by the smell and sizzle of the sliced Tom Thumbs frying in butter. They momentarily forget how not-cool it is to hang out with one’s mom and laze about the room like hungry coyotes. I’ve already played the set-the-table card to get them out from underfoot so I can finish this meditation in peace. Transferring the pan of fried Tom Thumbs to the serving platter and dropping new slabs into the smoking butter, I’m reminded of the first year I tried this; I let the woodstove get too hot and the butter flashed in the pan.

My Iphone timer goes off in my pocket. The electronic noise is jarring and cuts through the quiet candlelit house like bullets. With a smoking pan in one hand, a metal spatula in the other, and two able-bodied boys lounging within reach, I say, “Jimmy, your father will be home any minute. Will you light the candles on the table?

“Not you Sam. You’re going to grab those oven mitts and take out the cornbread.”

The mitts he figures out, but the latch on the oven door has him stymied, and he almost opens the firebox door. Finally he figures it out and a cloud of steam smelling of cornbread wafts upward, mingling with the smoky butter, and fried meat. I lift the lid off the Dutch oven and the amazing smell of roasted rosemary potatoes mixes with the others, and completes the spell. A kind of olfactory sorcery which breaks down the walls between here and yesteryear, and she’s alive and with us again. 

Now I’m the one being asked to set the table and light the candles. My little brother drags Nana’s chair in from the other room and sets it in the guest of honor spot at my parent’s long banquet table. Mom and Dad sit at either end and though they are the farthest apart my Dad makes eyes at her that makes her blush.

I never thought of it before, but something about the strength of the gastronomic alchemy this year has cleared up the memory: Sitting beside Nana’s empty chair is Mom’s father, and when it’s time to say prayer, instead of linking hands with the rest of us, Pappy grips the dark wooden armrest of that antique chair.  It occurs to me that this tradition isn’t about doing something because it’s what my mom did and it helps me remember her; it’s about cooking all the mothers and grandmothers back to life.

The End

A note: This story was suggested by the same woman who suggested Vascular Dementia + Horny Toad in a Shoebox, and I’ll admit it had me good and stumped, until I asked her what the inspiration was and she said this:

“Food is a vehicle for voices of the past.  Food is a way to see how life was lived and what was normal.  Do we hold onto tom thumb because it's family, tradition, and how that makes us feel - safe and belonging?  Or do we move on and speak with a new voice carried on by a different home cooked dish?  Is this a conscious question?  Or does the taste buds decide?  If I was a parent, what would I decide to serve my family?”

THAT sparked my imagination like I’d had a gas leak while I was away on vacation. Thanks for the suggestions, and keep them coming!

~Tyler

You Won’t Believe This Weird Old Trick to Stay Looking Forever Young

1. Commission a realist painter to paint your portrait.

Any painter will do, but the closer the likeness to you the more you will undoubtedly get away with. No need to do silly superstitious things like mixing your bodily fluids into the paint. This will only ensure that the old fortuneteller’s reading will follow your painting through history ala The Red Violin (nice, super current pop culture reference!).

2. Sell your soul to the Devil.

This is very important: do not skimp on any ol’ devil or demon. Not just any old Ba’al or Azazel will do, and I know Diablo had gotten a lot of play recently with the video game, and sure that big rack of horns is impressive and all, but don’t be fooled by those lesser evils; Ask for the big S himself and don’t be surprised when he looks like Pacino. (Part of Pacino’s pact with the prime evil was that he would become as handsome as Satan himself.)

Also, for Christ’s sake, don’t go to Death. He can’t do magic, he can just barter for your soul and that ma’fucker is good at chess. Like, playing-against-the-computer-on-hard-mode good.

3. Put the painting somewhere safe.

This is very serious, and in many ways the hardest step. Remember you've switched fates with the painting: As it gets old you remain immortalized in the time when it was painted. Don’t get smart and hired the painter to paint a younger version of you, it won't work. If the painting doesn't look exactly like you, your idiot soul won’t be fooled when the Devil does the switcheroo.

Take some time now and try to think where it would be safe. NO! Don’t mount it above your mantle, there’s a fire right beneath it! Seriously you have to think these things through. No, not in the attic. Just imagine what might happen as bugs and/or mice started to eat the delicious crusty old oil. Ooh, one of those climate controlled storage facilities. You’re on the right track, but still no. Say you get this thing painted in 2014 and in a hundred years from now the great-great-great grandchildren of the storage facility look at their records and see that you’ve been a faithful customer for the last 100 years. You can’t leave a paper trail of proof.

I’ll give you a hint. Where could you put it that is climate controlled, has some of the best security available, and will pay YOU to store it there? If you answered an art museum you’re correct. Also, you have to make sure the painting has some innocuous name that doesn’t mention you, or the age of the person. No "Tyler smoking a pipe," or "Handsome young man," or "Prince Charming," these kinds of names will only arouse investigation as it ages.

The only catch is that you have to live well. If over the course of a year the painting starts to look all bloated and fat cause you decided to start living off bacon donuts, and nacho cheese fries, or worse all skeletal with sunken eyes and black veins, the staff is going to suspect that the original was stolen.

If at any time you get tired of living forever don’t come complaining to me, just sneak into the museum and stab it with a knife. The painting will be fine and no one will ever know who that old guy is or who or why someone decided to stab him at The Met.

Special thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for acquiring and keeping this painting safe all these years.

Sources:

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

“Self Portrait”, by Gustave Courbet

Short on time again...

So I was at the dentist this morning getting a big old ray gun pointed at my face (x-rays), and not writing an update for the blog. Sorry I didn't plan ahead y'all. But just as a teaser, I got two motive suggestions which I've been wrestling with:

Tom Thumb (the food) + Voices

I'm stumped on that one, no pun intended... wait 'stumped' is more of something one does to one's toe not thumb... no that's stubbed... so I guess that pun was neither intended nor executed. So this whole week is just a big fail.

See you next time!

Holographic + Grandmothers

I want to coin a term.  I think that’s all that’s required. I just say those magic words and it belongs to me, right? I don’t need to find some printing press to mint it for me or anything, do I? I’m pretty sure that’s legally ironclad.  Anyway I want to coin the term “idea length”.  I googled it and all I could find were typos where people meant “ideal length”, as in what’s the ideal length of pier I should choose if I want to take a long walk?

Idea length is basically an intuitive gauge of how long an idea will remaining interesting. There are four standard units for measuring idea length: chapters, paragraphs, sentences, and bumper stickers. Axiomatically, a deci-sticker length idea would be worth one tenth of a bumper sticker:

Whales! 

'Nuff said. 

Conversely, a mega-chapter idea would need hundreds of books to contain it. This doesn’t mean that ideas can’t or don’t get stretched or compressed beyond their natural resting length, after all it’s possible to slow the speed of light, or indefinitely stretch the length of time between meals by sustaining yourself on Slim Jims, it’s just not the best idea to do so.

This concept of ideal length (Il in SI units), is a filter which I run motif combinations through while I make up my RFF story each week. And now I feel torn. I want to please my imaginary audience with a story about the Hecto-Granny, but my intuition is telling me that the idea is barely 4 paragraphs long. I don’t want to make my audience sick from a diet of literary Slim Jims, but it’s also kind of what RFF is here for. To fail, and to do so gloriously!

So here you go, this fanfic is for the fans!

Holographic + Grandmothers

1

It could have been worse. She could have been surrounded by fluorescent lights and separated from strangers by a thin curtain. She could have been knocked out on painkillers and blissfully distant, carried away from us on slowly receding tide of sedatives. She was in pain, than wasn’t ideal, but she wanted to be present and so she was.

My younger sister stepped back from her bedside and it was my turn. It’s my turn. My turn to say goodbye. Friends and acquaintances had always found it peculiar how close we were to Gran, but we would brush aside their comments as jealousy. They didn’t know what they were missing; Gran was sunshine and warm cookies. No matter your problem, as small as a sidewalk scrape or as heart-wrenching as getting dumped for the first time. I don’t even think she could be negative, even on her deathbed she was talking about what a blessing it was to be in her own bed, in her own house. It was clear that each rattling breath was sharp and exhausting, yet she moved through the pain and spoke softly to each of us. I couldn’t hear the words, but no one came away with dry eyes.

It’s my turn.

I leaned in to kiss her on her cheek; barely warm and impossibly soft. Planting it carefully among the thin white hairs on her face. Her face barely moved but tired muscles couldn’t hold back the smile that poured from her eyes.

“I know you…” she whispered.

            “It’s me, Gran, it’s Jeremy.”

            “Oh, Jeremy. You look so sad.” She took forever to catch her breath but I could tell there was something else she wanted to say. “You’re going to be just fine.”

            Even in her dying moments she was trying to comfort me. Not in an annoying “I’ve got to fix it” kind of way, but selflessly, unconditionally radiating love and attention.

            “I love you Gran, I’m going to miss you.”

2

“Life is too big to ever regret a thing. You can do anything you want as long as you let yourself fail enough times.”

…

“Jeremy?”

“That was beautiful Gladys, but you’re with us now.”

“What? No. No hospitals!”

“Oh sweetie, do you feel like you are in a hospital?”

“No. I feel light, like I could dance,” she didn’t mean some ol’timey two-step, she felt like she could dance the way a child dances, and they both knew exactly what she meant.

“That’s because you are, Gladys. Light I mean.”

“Is this the part where my life flashes before my eyes?”

An initial burst of information hit her like a quantum of knowledge cold fusing and becoming part of her. It was the whole of human knowledge with a yet to be discovered secrets thrown in for spice. “Wow, did you do that?”

“No. You’ve just has your first nano-second conversation with what you would God.”

“Is this heaven?”

A second quantum collided with her sending off a shower of Higgs-Boson sparks. She understood. This wasn’t heaven. After one’s physical life ended an energetic life began. In 99.9999% of cases the energy shed its human consciousness in the first million millionths of a second. But in her case she was being invited into the collective consciousness of a higher being known only to itself and the thing they once called God. Gladys took her singular place among the five dimensions of space, time, and sweetness.

3

With the box of personal knickknacks and photographs tucked under his arm. Jeremy hit the elevator button for the ground floor. As the doors closed he had the momentary thought that he would go to see Gran, She will help— and then he remembered and starting missing her all over again.

“Gran, this was my dream job.” He held back his tears to preserve his dignity, but the thought kept repeating.

On the way to his car: This was my dream job. What do I do now?

On the empty parkway as he drove home: This was my dream job. Now what?

As he unlocked the door to his apartment and pushed aside the mail that had fallen through the slot and piled up behind the door: That job was everything I have been working toward.

Slumping down on the old yellow couch from Gran’s house, he released his grip on the tears he’d been holding back, but no tears came. Instead a thought occurred to him, and heard himself say out loud, “Life is too big to ever regret a thing. You can do anything you want as long as you let yourself fail enough times.”

He said it again and realized he was working the right job, but for the wrong company.