Pop Goes...

What did I do before the Internet? Drink, mostly. Okay, not all the time, only while awake. Too much sharing, perhaps? Fair enough. 

I used to type on a keyboard connected to a typewriter that had a computer screen (word processor), and when I would reach the end of my story and letters and punctuation, I would turn off the monitor and off to heaven went the words (I guess). It was a hard life, but I was happy.

Now, I have more bandwidth than cents-but not by much, and some days, not at all. The amazing thing about the internet is it exposes you to a reality far more surreal than any Hawaiian Hallucination Song could ever produce. 

Here's what I mean. 

I've always loved James Joyce. The Dubliners and Ulysses are true wonders of wordplay. "'History,' said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.'" No worry about hitting the snooze button today.

It is against just such a verbal banquet that you must judge this paragraph from an ancient Associated Press report. The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker answered, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

Take that Beckett and the Waiting for Godot you rode in on!! 

We have your sweeping narrative-your dynamic tension and your unresolved drama. I'm in love with the notion that none of the characters in this story have names-they are pawns in a game of which they have no awareness, much less chance of winning.

The names have not been changed to protect the innocent-the names haven't been used at all because they're not essential to the story. But what is essential? It's in the second paragraph, my friend, everything you, the lonely sojourner on your unarmed road of flight, needs to know: it's a marten carcass and NOT A WEASEL. Thanks for making that clear. "Meanwhile, way across town in the penthouse suite of the tallest building..."
-bill kenny