Lightning Cracks the Sky

One thin line of white
An incredible power, the magnitude of which
could power a city
for a few minutes
depending on the city
or completely destroy a car
depending on the car

Nevermind the total blackness.
"Lightning," as the name implies
brings its own light to the party
Shining, as it does, through the grey clouds.
The same clouds take their color from the same grey that they always are,
But of perhaps some drifting arcane sort in the briefest of flashes
from which many metaphors have sprung, but which
no matter the source, rhyme, or meter
do it no justice at all.

And some look up and say OH WAAAW
or WHOOOOW
and some OH MY GAWD
and others use, in vain, the name of the one whose plaything it is
and shout JAYSUS

For even inebriated as they are, the denizens of the street
cannot think of any other words to describe the majesty that rends the sky
That treads upon the borders of containable energy
(or is 2 months powering a lightbulb too much?
Or is 500 megajoules a number that makes the mind number?)
Discharges of electricity that can crack the sky, or shatter mighty trees
fill the clouds with light in the dark, and fill the onlookers with awe

And the thunder rumbles
And the thunder rumbles
And the thunder echoes
Until the whole sky is full of it
Until the whole sky is full of sound and fury
Signifying

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.

For if a lightning bolt, third level, sorc/wiz only, caster level infinite
can spread across the sky unchecked
And if the thunder rolleth, 'cross a sky unimpeded by the strongest works of man
Then who are we
such as we are
Are we?
To deny the power and the glory and the wisdom and all those nouns
To the one who laughs as I do
As the lightning cracks the sky?

UPDATE: What? There's a video version now? Epic! Or not. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObBjw6YFhus

That Trailer Park Smell

There is a particular aroma I have often found in trailer parks. It is a unique odor that seems, to my untrained nose to be one part pets and pet by-products, one part insufficiently cleaned carpet, one part beer one part tobacco, and one part insufficiently cleaned people. Though the scent varies from park to park and even mobile home to mobile home, I have smelled its variants in several places in Moscow, a few places in and about Priest River, and even once in Michigan.

This isn't meant as a slight upon the people who live in trailer parks. From what I understand, the rent in some of them is pretty darn cheap, and inexpensive rent would be a shiny thing for me right about now. But with a very few exceptions, the trailer parks around Moscow area are pretty sketchy, rundown, and oh yes, odoriferous. What's interesting is that this nasal assault is immediately recognizable even outside of its normal context. The other day, while driving the hospital's bus around, I had to take two people home after a surgery. Upon meeting them, I knew by smell that they lived in one of the area's trailer parks. Not which park, mind, but one of them.

No, I am not familiar enough with Moscow's trailer parks to identify them by smell, and God willing, I never will be.

Of Marriages and Mashups

Whoever thought of throwing two completely different things together to make something more awesome by their joined forces, of making the melody and harmony from two different genres and backgrounds, is a genius. Who would have thought that Kanye West and Rihanna would have sounded great when mixed with Johann Sebastian Bach's Tocatta and Fugue, or that my little brother would ever find a girl who found him attractive and wonderful?

Because I never figured that in the same year, I would actually like something by Kanye West, and also see my bro get married. Both of them boggle my mind a bit.

In case the reader is wondering exactly what the author means by this, bide your time, the explanation is forthcoming. The piece of music in question is called "Run this Town and Fugue," a mashup of the Rihanna/West song "Run This Town" and Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor." Here it is on Youtube:

Warning, minor profanity, because it's still Kanye West, who doesn't seem to be able to produce a song without any in it.

This mashup is done by the duo "DJs from Mars," and is one of four or five truly excellent mashups they've done. I bought an album of just their mashups, actually, and it was worth it. It's good solid electronica, especially if you're familiar at all with classic 80s electronica by groups such as Bananarama or Soft Cell. Then you actually know both the songs that are being combined, and enjoy it more.

Also, it's now been a week and half since my little brother Alex got himself married to a wonderful gal who's a mutual friend of ours, Jessie Rosenthal. We've known her for years, and that he asked her to marry him didn't really surprise me that much. It was a surprise that she said yes, but not too big of one. See, he and I have both grown out of the children that we once were, the children who were at each other's throats near constantly before their departures to assorted colleges and/or corners of the United States. He grew out of being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious and getting pleasure from irritating me, and I grew out of the hair-trigger temper and nano-particle thin skin. Now when we see one another, there's bear hugs and fist bumps and "watch this sweet dubstep video" and "let's go shoot my Glock."

But there's still this sense that he "beat me" at the whole "find your soulmate" thing. Pardon the overuse of quotation marks, but since I know there's not a real way to win except by finding them, or lose by not doing so, it's probably just petty whining on my part. But couple this with the somewhat existential flavor of lonely I've been feeling recently... let's just say the wedding, while short, sweet, and beautiful, didn't help me much. But it wasn't FOR me, I keep telling that fat inflated beast of an ego I have. It was for Alex and Jessie. And I'm genuinely happy for them. It couldn't have happened to a nicer Elven princess and obnoxious little twerp.

On a completely unrelated note, I now have a shiny new black fedora. I can once more terrorize Moscow with my awesomeness. Thanks Grandma!

On a note further unrelated still, I now own a Talking Princess Celestia figurine by Hasbro, bringing the total number of My Little Ponies I own up to two (neither of which did I buy myself). Again, for some reason, thanks, Grandma. I'm sure she chuckled a bit while packing this in the same box as a suave fedora. Now to find a way to spray paint the figurine white like she is in the show without ruining the mane, tail, and wings...

A Musing

Well, since it has been almost an entire year since I posted something on this blargh, I should probably update it. Seeing as how I'm graduated and all now, it shouldn't be too hard to post something every couple of days, yeah? So here's this rambly thing I wrote last night at 2 A.M. after standing out in the wind in my pajamas and slippers for twenty minutes. It's emo tripe as far as I'm concerned, but it did have the remarkable side effect of breaking the case of creative writer's block I've had since the tail end of last summer.

Emotional rambly tripe follows:

---

These scribblings and ramblings that I write, they are not art, no form of literature. No, rather they are the musing of one who oft wakes from blister-packed dreams, pixellated hope, and a blindness to the world that can only be brought about by technology. Though I see sights international, riots and revolutions, sins and scandals from Oklahoma to Oman, Louisiana to Libya, I do NOT see the beauty in my own back yard. A thousand explosions of light and sound scream at me from LCD screens and Dolby Surround speakers, but only when the power goes out do I stop...

Stand on the rim of a dry fountain

And listen to the wind, feel it wrap around me, ripping through my clothing and folding the cloth about me like the sail of a foundering ship. The wind is my friend, and as I stand there, I am a lord of storms. None can truly take the wind from me: North, South, East, West, these are not the wind, not all of them. Even if I were shut in a sightless pit, the wind passes through me.

In. Out.

Breathe.

In. Out.

A chain of lights in hibernating trees. Two lovers holding each other up against the attacks of the Aeolian and the Alcoholic. The terrific gusts knocking down Christmas decorations left up a day too long.

Do I join them?

No.

I belong with the wind. Maybe some time I can drift among the trees, race across the grasses and wheat fields of the Palouse, skim the rims and ridges of indifferent buildings, shops and apartments and hospitals and bars and

EXPLODE

into thin air, swirling madly about, not caring who sees or what they think. I will be the wind, not a batty twenty-something who cleans toilets and drives a bus.

Not someone who, to escape the mundane of the "real" world, inundates himself with the fake smiles and colored lights of the immortal, immaterial, digital frontier. The dragon slaying, the laser rifles, the fireballs and time travel and nanomachines and Elves... I make my home away from reality amongst these. But these are worlds men are not meant to stay in. Not for long.

Not when I could, without removing myself and sequestering my thoughts outside my mind so I cannot hear them, or worse, let them hear me, find the "real." Not when, because of my infatuation with the Information Age, I can't see the beauty of the world. All the imaginary worlds crammed into my mind obscure the real world, art imitating life, art replacing life, art destroying life.

Let's play pretend, you and I. I'll be the Hero, you be the dragon, okay? And she can be the Princess.

Oddly, sometimes I feel like the Princess. And no, that's not a statement about sexuality, that's a moment of empathy I'm having with the endangered dames, the damsels in distress. Like them, I'm waiting for something.

What, though? Something I'm not sure is coming? Ever?

Maybe, as I start another paragraph of this rant and another metaphorical page in my life, the problem, and I start with a maybe because the uncertainty is a part of this as well, maybe I don't even know what exactly it is I'm looking for. I hear drunken laughter from the flat next door. The two lovers have gone home, laughing and swearing and listening to Rush songs at a hundred and twenty decibels. And they are terrible at karaoke.

Is that what I want? Do I offer up prayers for that kind of companionship? Someone I can sing poorly with and they won't mind the botched harmony because it's me singing it? Someone who blurs my troubles away, more with kindness than with distilled spirits? To be able to grab a quilt and lie down on the couch with them and just... listen to the wind?

Like the wind itself, that might blow me away.

But.

There's always a but.

Is that what I'm looking for? What I want... what I want right now is for the lovely couple who lives next door to turn their music down so I can hear my own thoughts, let them hear me, and hear the wind sing me to sleep. I'm not a lord of storms, as cool as that would be. I'm just another guy, done with the education he was expected to complete, and yet, finding that he's learned only that he knows nothing, really, and that his head's as empty as the street outside his window.

Empty, except for the wind sweeping through it at the speed of thought, carrying with it dreams and new ideas for my own little make-believe worlds.

...wow, this really sounds emo. But writing it down made me feel better. That's the definition of catharsis, is it not?

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And now, for something completely different! BATMAN IS A BRONY. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicH7q34PJbZHgg7JStZzYhM8Ex5uzBJmHxgh_8xwk_z7PvCCzQhEYmqzRlap9OK20kLOA-Zn5-QeNm39XSA0BVQQO7iGtRs_RrvhM0PA6sV6s4N1Z0l5uk1YGmERsRNKUpMCAVU1LtrYNw/s1600/104094+-+artist+john_joseco+Batman+dc_comics+luna.jpg

Art by the legendary John Joseco