The Palefire Deathmarch, Week 1

Welcome Pale Fire Peoples! Today is the first day of the rest of your Deathmarch. By my (very rough) count, we have around 20-30 folks on board -- this should be fun.

For them what're new to Deathmarching, here's how it works: we'll tackle the book in 40-50 pages/week chunks. Don't sweat it too much if you fall a little behind -- most folks do at some point. Try to resist racing ahead so as to exentuate the commonality of referential data.

Every Tuesday, I'll post a thread right chere on cecilvortex.com. Use that thread for comments, which can be as low-key as "Hello Pale Fire Peoples!" or as erudite as [very erudite example here]. One request: If you're re-reading the book, do yer best to avoid spoilers.

And that's it. The entire sheebang.

Thanks much for making the 'march. The book's entirely new to me and I'm really looking forward to tackling page 1. The first two words appear to be "Pale" and "Fire," which are words I already know, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Let's hit the Foreword and the poem this week. Depending on the edition, that appears to add up to around 40-50 pages of actual text.

Next week: See ya at the start of the Commentary (page 57 in the el [everyman's library], 73 in vi [vintage international]).

End times

"When the Fish People come," the General said, "you'll want to have ice nearby. Lots of it. In this heat, the Fish People can overpower you like that!" He snapped his fingers.

Suzie scribbled a quick note in her pad and circled it:
"Ice."

* * *

"When you get to Earth, start decomposing right away," David FishPeople told his class. "Your smell will reduce their ability to resist. The sooner you start to decompose, the easier it'll be on our troops."

The students nodded, and Daphne FishPeople spoke quietly into her digital recorder:
"Decompose."

This poem is with stupid

We were so lucky
to be kids
right there
in the sticky sweet center of
the golden age 
  of t-shirts

Mall-store walls plastered to the sky 
with receding rows of iron-ons --
  too many to pick just five

And when one of my older brothers
wore that shirt that said:
  “I’m so happy I could just shit.”

  Well I was that happy too.

We were so lucky
to be kids
right there
in the sticky sweet center of
the golden age
of t-shirts.

Mall-store walls plastered to the sky
with receding rows of iron-ons --
too many to pick just five.

And when one of my older brothers
wore that shirt that said:
"I'm so happy I could just shit,"

Well I was that happy too.

The Lactating Detective

She's a stay-at-home mom pulled back into the biz by circumstance.

"Who stole the binkie?"
"I'll tell you who stole the binkie."
"He stole the binkie!"

The "Pale Fire Deathmarch" Pause That Refreshes

One week from today, the PFDM kicks off. Job one for this week: make sure you have yourself a copy of so-called "Pale Fire." Job two: don't read Pale Fire! Oh, you can read the cover copy. And you can read the spine. Please, read the spine. But as we learned with the GRDM, one of the biggest challenges in these DMs is not getting too far ahead o' the pack, so be sure to leave them innards alone.

Over the next few days, getcher booties polished and yer canteen cleansed. Shake out the old pup tent. Next week: we ride!

Three perspectives on my lost wallet

My four-year old daughter:
I thought it was under the couch and
I also tried to look for it everywhere, but
I was having so much fun that
I couldn't find it.

So it was very sad that you lost your wallet.

My wife:
Well, I was perplexed that we couldn't find the wallet anywhere in the house.
I was worried that you were so depressed about it.
I felt blue about having more paperwork. And then,
when Chris showed up with the wallet,
I was so happy, I gave him a hug.

Me:
I want to thank everyone.
This has been a wrenching experience.

And now, I'd like to take watch TV.
Catch the game.
Eat a big chocolate model of my brain.

Shaved My Beard

I shaved my beard today so, hopefully, we can put our feud aside.
You thought I was making fun of the '70s, but I wasn't. I love the '70s.
That’s why I wore the beard in the first place. Can't you understand?

It was starting to tear the block apart, our feud.
People were taking sides. Mostly they were taking your side. And that made me angry.

So I yelled at your cat. So I took your mailbox.
So I rubbed my butt on your car. So what, right?
Really. I mean, we're grown ups, you and I. Look: I shaved my beard.

Let's get on with our lives.

Don't

Don't think of it
as me
eating your sandwich.

Think of it as
your sandwich
hiding inside me
for a day or two.

Sanity

Rising to greet you.
Pulling out a chair.
Licking clean your plate.

Sanity bread crumbs sticking to the side of
your mouth your chin your shirt until
wiped away soft backhand skin.

Sanity letting you sit down first.
Beached and bleached into blue-white seashell fragments.
Crushed and sprinkled over a wide path.

Then sanity taking a nap.

Spin

There's a bench by the Santa Cruz merry-go-round
where you can sit and watch the brass-ring jockies
as they spin past at high speeds

watch their faces shift from
crazed release last miss to
tight mad joy next shot
hook swinging into view

watch hands pull back
fingers snap from
loose, curved noodles to
crooked
ready
reach.

"The Pale Fire Deathmarch" Exhortation!

A few weeks back, we wrapped "The Gravity's Rainbow Deathmarch," in which some 13 or 14 of us went screaming across Pynchon's notoriously challenging uber-book.

Mark yer calendars. Two weeks from today -- on May 31st -- tanned, rested, and ready, we'll be starting up Deathmarch 2. This time out, we're tackling something a wee bit lighter and a whole lot shorter. By its rep, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire is a wild, one-of-a-kind read. Anthony Burgess says it's a "brilliant confection." Mary McCarthy, never one to be out done by Anthony Burgess, says: "This centaur work, half-poem, half-prose . . . is a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. Pretending to be a curio, it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the great works of art of this century." And various folks I know who've already read it say: "Great stuff!"

Here's how the PFDM works: every Tuesday, I'll leave a short post here on the site. If you're reading along, drop by and post a comment -- something insightful or erudite, random blather, or just a quick "hey now!" That's it -- that's the whole deal. The book looks like a great ride. And the whole adventure should take around 7 weeks or so.

All are welcome -- good friends, new acquaintances, and outright strangers. And yes, my old enemy, my nemesis: The Man with Five Hands: you are welcome too. The Big Idear is to use the momentum of the pack to get into books we might otherwise miss.

There are two main bargain editions online -- The Everyman's Library edition (an inexpensive hardcover) and the Vintage paperback. Either will work -- I'll include page references for both when we set our weekly targets.

And say, if you're thinking of marching along, why not be here now and practice commenting at this very moment, by leaving one on this very thread. As an added bonus, it'll help us get a rough head count so we know how much food and water to pack in. Metaphorically speaking.

See you out on that winding road.... -CV

My New Future Fantasy

Not so long ago, I was just like you --
sitting around, waiting for the scientists
to discover cheap and safe nuclear fusion.
So they could take us off to Mars.
In ships the size of Delaware.

Now all I want is
a machine that can make a
big chocolate model of my brain.

It's true!

I want to watch
the game on
a plasma TV
and eat a
big chocolate model
of my brain.

A little wahoo

I've been writing poems for a few years now, but it was just in the last little bit that I finally got my [insert obscure yiddish word here] together enough to start sending a few batches out for publication. And in a bit of a milestone, this very week, my very first poem got published. On paper even.

So if you happen to find yourself in SF over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for issue #7 of the San Francisco Reader, in finer coffee shops and bookstores throughout The City....

x-post: and the quiet and comfortable vortex of it all

Don't look now -- Monkey Vortex Radio Theater is back with an all-new featurette. This time out, it's Quiet and Comfortable, a short short story, with words and music by, well, me. And starring Robert Birnbach. Enjoy! -CV.

Back to back

My 3-year-old and me
back to back at a 
  Route 5
  pee shack

and there's this mighty roar 
pours out his two-foot frame.

The rush of my doom.
  As I'm flushed
               out the room.

Cyril, who recently retired from service

Cyril, who recently retired from service
in the British government.
Only fifty some-odd years old
and now traveling the world
in the wake of a messy divorce.

And what did you learn, Cyril,
in your fifty some-odd years?

"It isn't worth it."

Great.

But he seemed happy enough.

Family smiles

Family smiles down
long tables at
loud restaurants
there's an extra calmness
there sometimes
and even family
blank stares and
family glares still
jaws with an
inch or so between them and
all the muscles
hanging comfortably
loose.

Strom

Senator Strom Thurmond belongs to my gym.
I see him there three, four times a week.
On the treadmill.
Sculpting his biceps.
His rock hard abs.

He doesn't listen to music while he works out.
He just stares straight ahead
with his iron skull and his
wide, bony eye sockets.

I try to tell him it's overkill.
"Senator, really.
At your advanced age
one time a week
would be more than enough."

He snarls at me. "Son," he says.
"You don't know beans."

The Gravity's Rainbow Deathmarch, Week 17

In which our journey ends....

Congratulations and my thanks to everyone who took to the trail, you 35 or so who started this journey and enabled us achieve launch velocity, and you 13 or 14 who will make it through to the other side, 750 pages and 350+ comments later. A survival rate to be proud of, I think, given the history this book has for breaking people's spirits.

Me myself, I've still got about 30 pages to go, which seems appropriate -- I've been just a little behind most of the way. I'm savoring the last little bit now, sorta soaking up the sauce. Just got to a sequence this morning that seemed an excellent sharp-elbowed response to anyone understandably searching for a tidy wrap (page 733, p/v):

Underneath, someone else has written, in English: Good drawing! Finish! and underneath that, in another hand, It IS finished, you nit. And so are you."

Defensive jabs and all. I've just loved the hell out of this book. The first 100 pages or so were pretty rough going for me, as I struggled to get the rhythm of the thing. And there were a few parts in the middle where he almost lost me. But certainly, from the Casino on, the pure fun factor has been much richer than I ever expected.

All in all, there are few books I've gotten more out of than this beast. And there's just no way I would have ever gotten past page 30 without the group. So here's to you all, with a mighty clink to clinking mugs in celebration.

Next week: We take a little bit of a break and soak our feet in preparation for the next trail -- something a little bit easier on the knees and a great deal shorter. Look for "The Pale Fire Deathmarch" -- coming soon to a cecilvortex.com near you.

Mystery solved

We got snapped at this weekend, asking for directions. We pulled up next to this pleasant seeming, elderly type lady, and we rolled down the window, and we said: "Hi! Excuse me! Can you tell us how to get to thusandsuch? Do we take this turn?" And she said, with a huge twinkly smile, "Yes, you take that right and go straight for 17 miles." And then, still smiling, but now sinister and suddenly cold, the moisture on her eyes flash-freezing like a splash of water zapped to the far side of Planet X: "Why don't you buy a map?"

What?!

For the next two miles we ran through different scenarios. What was her problem? I mean, I love to give directions around my hometown. Drive up beside me. Roll down the window. You'll see how inappropriately pleased I can be, showing off my vast knowledge of the local grid -- "Oh yeah, you're almost there -- just three more lights up!" or: "OK, so. Go down past the park with the climby train, take the first right and then the soft left at the high school -- you can't miss it. Hey, you have a nice day too!" Great stuff.

We swung around a wide curve in the road and a jagged stretch of coastline came floating into view. From our vantage point driving along the high cliffs, the beach looked a lot like a squiggle drawn by satellite sensors. And then of course. It was so obvious. What incredible bad luck! -- an angry cartographer! We'd stopped an angry cartographer and asked her for directions. It all made sense. No wait, not angry. Just sad, really. In a bittersweet way.

"Why don't you buy a map?" she'd said. And it echoed echoed echoed as we rolled along toward thusandsuch. "I'm so hungry. No one will hire me. I hate mapquest. Please. Friend. Why don't you buy a map?"

Project "Fun-Time Challenge Project" Presents: Cauliflower Jam

Just when you thought all the Cauliflower had been eaten, The Challenge returns! From the mysterious guitar-plucking fingers of a man called "xourmas" comes today's shimmering turn of the Melon wheel. It takes Jake's sax piece which took eb's vocal piece which took the original piano piece...and it spreads a groovy guitar line across the top. The result: Cauliflower Jam.

For a quick recap of the journey there and back again, here's the whole sequence:

• Cauliflower Melon (the original piano piece)
• Cauliflowermelonslide (Bob's remix with slide guitar)
• Melancholy Flower (eb's version adds vocals)
• Tower of Cauliflower Power (Yaniv slices in with mad beats and bass)
• Straight Up: Cauliflower (Jake adds sax to eb's vocals)
• Radio Cauliflower (MC DD von H's cauliflower jam)
• Cauliflower Maximus (MC DD von H's opus!)
• Cauliflower Jam (xourmas' groove thing)

-CV

xourmas' Remix - Cauliflower Jam
time: 1:07; specs: 1MB
Press Play to play.