One of the best hugs

you'll ever get from your six-year-old

is the one that comes
after you've taken him and a friend of his trick or treating

two skipping ninjas out in the dark
going as long and as far as they want

extracting candy ninja-style from houses
you were sure weren't open for trick or treat business.

Then later, back at the house, they eat a kit-kat or two
they play, they're pooped, friend goes home.

House goes still. CD plays Tony Bennet
bouncing off the evening's plates and glasses.

You sit down.

And you get
that hug.

x-post: East Bay Exhortation Sensation

I've had a great time phone banking for moveon.org in their Oakland office the last two nights. Read all about it, and get yerself good and exhorted over on edgewise.

The Middle Ages

I'm 39 and convinced that I'm middle aged.

Which is fine by me. In fact, I like it. It's kind of like I'm floating around in the middle of a lake in an inflatable tube. There's lots of water on all sides. My feet are trailing in the water while my head leans back onto the perfect cushion that is the side of my inflatable tube.

I'm not sure what the tube symbolizes. Possibly just that I really like floating around in inflatable tubes. I think the water may be time. And my feet are probably standing in for "actions considered but not taken."

Anyways, however the imagery shakes out, it's really not a bad place to be.

I've been asking my fellow 35-40+ year-old friends what they think the last few days -- "Are we middle aged?" -- and many of them seem pretty sure that we have a ways to go. "Didn't you get the memo?" they ask. "40 is the new 30."

But I don't know. I'm not so sure the 30-year-olds are ready to sign off on that.

If I had a coffeehouse

If I had a coffeehouse, this would be my motto:
"A frightened clientele is an obedient clientele."

Or perhaps:
"A nervous clientele is a loyal clientele."

I'd spray my customers with hormones as they
walked through the door.

To mark them.

I'd control the colors they wore.
I'd make the colors dance for me.
Dance pretty colors, dance!

The lemonade would always
be out of season.

The Deathmarch to the Lighthouse, Week 2

Welcome to Week 2.... Looks like we've got an excellent bunch of 'marchers onboard. And yes, a part of me fears I'll be bankrupted by all them magnets. But then I'm reminded of that old wax devil math. Good old math.

Since some folks are new, here's a quick word about what to post when: At the start of a new thread, post about the previous week. That is, you'd post about the first week's reading right here. As the week and the thread roll on, people tend to start posting about the current week's reading. And that's fine too. Really, there's no hard and fast rule about this. We're all just just trying to avoid dropping accidental spoilers by jumping ahead of the pack.

That bit o' business aside, let me say: golly I enjoyed this week's reading. This is my first brush with Woolf. I expected there'd be leaping in and out of people's heads. But I didn't expect anything as goofy-great as Mr. Ramsay's heroic efforts to conquer R. Or anything as vivid as that selfsame Mr. taking his leave "with a movement which oddly reminded his wife of the great sea lion at the Zoo tumbling backwards after swallowing his fish and walloping off so that the water in the tank washes from side to side..." All this and the repeated refrain from Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade -- "stormed at by shot and shell, boldly we rode and well...."

I'm sold. It's a great start, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes us. See ya on the trail,
-Cecil

Next Wednesday: One more relatively short hop, and then we'll start to pick up speed. Let's meet at the end of Chapter XVI where we can "assemble in the dining-room for dinner."

Nibble groove

Crickly crack.
Warm mice
pop spin slice.

Crickle.

Are
eating
my crickly.

Eating my
crickly

music.
music.
music.

Lego my Torah

My 6-year-old son's having a playdate right now. There are clinking noises and murmurs coming through the open door to his room. And then I hear my son say this: "I'll trade you a Jewish Bible." A what?!

You heard right, he's trying to trade his friend a Torah, that ancient fount of sacred wisdom. "What are you gonna trade for?" I call out, hoping it's a Koran or The Book of Mormon or somesuch -- something we can use. But no, it's for Lego pieces.

And that's what the world's come to, my friends -- 6-year-olds trying to trade their Torahs for Lego pieces.

This never would have happened when Bill Clinton was president.

A little wahoo

Shampoo was nice enough to publish/post one of my poems this week in Issue 28 (under my so-called "real name"). It's an excellent issue, including a poem by Rodney Koeneke, one of my favorite living Americans. If ya get a chance, checkitout.

This little wahoo got me to add a Published category over on the left side o' the screen. Nine pieces in there now, so that leaves literally hundreds of pieces still available for purchase at reasonable prices....

-Cecil

My One-Word Review of Dav Pilken's "Captain Underpants"

Effulgent.

The Deathmarch To the Lighthouse, Week 1

Welcome to "The Deathmarch to the Lighthouse" -- a group read of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

I think we have something like 15 or 20 people planning to read this go-around -- a nice solid number. Simple math, however, tells us only that two will finish, and I won't be one of of them. Still, as my Italian nanny used to say: "il per la matematica è una cosa della cera ed i numeri sono fatti della cera." Which means (roughly) "math is a wax thing, and numbers are made of wax." She was a crazy old coot.

For anyone new, here's how it works: every Wednesday I post an entry saying how far we're reading that week. Folks drop by and comment over the next seven days.

But Are There Prizes?

Yes! There are prizes! Finish the book and comment each week, and you'll receive a genuine To-the-Lighthouse-themed talisman hand-imbued with a fractional sampling of the raw power wielded by Magneto, Master of Magnetism. (on the off-chance we get more people than we're expecting, let's cap that at 30 hand-imbued talismans)

Be sure to shout out in the comments (click on "Whaddya Think" below) if you're on the 'march, both to stay talisman-qualified, and so's we can get a headcount. Don't sweat it if you fall a little behind on the reading -- "I'm so far behind!" actually counts as a legitimate comment. And of course, If you've read the book before, try to keep comments from getting ahead of the weekly reading.

And that's it. Mostly, it's just a chance to read a great book, share thoughts and questions, and shake a fist at that old wax devil, math, by making it through to the end.

See ya on the trail,
-Cecil

Next Wednesday: We meet at the end of Book 1, Chapter 7, where someone's about to say nothing and take opium.

Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes: Ivan!

Last week we proudly launched our exclusive look at Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes -- the enigmatic ape/human hybrids who've set tongues a-wagging from Manhattan to Monaco. Our first stop was Denver, for some q-time with Sergei. Next up: Louisville, Kentucky to meet Ivan, widely rumored to be the sexiest of the four Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes. This made me nervous -- after all, there's such a thing as too sexy. But Ivan quickly put me at ease.

At his side was Svetlana Stepanova, a 6 foot 5 platinum blond who's both Ivan's handler and his business partner. Shortly after Ivan's release from the Office of Man-Ape Debriefing, the pair purchase a promising thoroughbred. Now they spend day and night together, training their horse for the Kentucky Derby. It's a busy life, but they graciously made time to meet me at a cafe down by the track, where we sipped Mint Juleps and talked about horse names.

Ivan: The Sexiest of the Four 'Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes'

CV: Wow, you really are quite sexy.
Ivan: Yes. Thank you.
CV: I mean, not just the way you look. Even how you smell.
Ivan: Yes.
CV: You even, uh, you even smell sexy.
Ivan: You said this already.
Svetlana: Ha! Does my Ivan leave you flustered?
CV: No, I, er...
Svetlana: He does!
CV: So Ivan, why horses?
Ivan: Well, since was baby man-ape, Ivan dream of going to world-famous "Churchill Downs" for drinking of "Mint Juleps." Is home. Ivan finally find home.
CV: Tell me how you chose the name for your horse.
Ivan: Ivan name horsie "Sergei Is Lesser Ape." At first, was going to name horsie “PS I Love You (Pony)." Or maybe "I Have the Trotskys." [laughs]
Svetlana: I wanted "St. Petersburgh Surprise Packet."
Ivan: Then "Little Ivan, " he say: "You should name horsie 'Sergei Is Lesser Ape.'" And I say: "OK! Let's do it! " Because Ivan want to show world he can be sexy and funny and man-ape.
Svetlana: And you showed them, darling, you showed them all!
Ivan: [roars]
Svetlana: [roars]
CV: That's a great story.
Ivan: Thank you.
Svetlana: [roars]
Ivan: "Little Ivan" is funny man-ape too. Just not so sexy. You meet him, yes?
CV: Later this week.
Ivan: You will see. Not so sexy.
Svetlana: Not half as sexy as my Ivan.
CV: Svetlana, I've been meaning to ask --
Svetlana: What?
CV: Well, it's just, you two seem pretty close. For a human and a man-ape.
Svetlana: You're not judging us are you? Don't judge us.
Ivan: Cecil, are you judging?
CV: I'm not judging. I was just asking.
Svetlana: You know what, darling? I think Cecil likes you.
CV: I don't.
Svetlana: I think he's jealous.
CV: I'm not.
Ivan: Look -- you are right! He is blushing like some kind of red veg-e-table!
Svetlana: Like a tomato!
Ivan: Sorry blog-man. You are not my type! [laughs]
Svetlana: Are you OK Cecil? Do you need a paper towel?
CV: I'm fine. I just sweat a lot.
Ivan: Your whole head is wet all of sudden.
Svetlana: Have you talked to a doctor?
Ivan: Ivan get paper towel.
CV: OK. Well, thanks so much to both of you for your time.

Next: Dmitri!

My One-Word Review of Just About Every Filmed Interview Gore Vidal's Ever Done

Trenchant.

$19.80

Buying sushi tonight, the bill comes to $19.80, and the nice guy at the register laughs "1980! -- that was a good year!"

"Yeah!" I sez. "Yeah." And I hand him my credit card.

"You had hair down to your ass!" he says to me, "I bet." And this gives me pause. Where exactly did that come from? Down to my ass?

"No, I had big puffy hair," I correct him. "My hair doesn't grow down, it grows sort of out and up. Like Art Garfunkel." And I show him what I mean with my hands, using the universal gestures for "big" and "puffy."

"Oh," he says. I think he may be a little sad now, around the edges. But he picks himself back up pretty fast. "You wore high heel shoes!" he says.

And I say, "No, no I didn't.

"We all did!" he says.

"No," I say, a little more firmly. "I was 13. I had braces." I don't tell him this, because I don't want to bum him out, but I'm pretty sure I was wearing wallabies back then, which are almost the exact opposite of high heels.

"Oh," he says, and hands me my card back with a receipt to sign.

He's tried so hard to turn me into some sort of heavy metal call girl, back in 1980. Like maybe one of the secondary prostitutes in Risky Business. But he's failed. He can't change the past.

I defy you

to name me
that movie one better be wouldn't

male lead

with neil patrick harris.
with neil patrick harris.

with patrick neil harris.

Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes: Sergei!

Yesterday we announced our multi-part world-exclusive inside look at "Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes" -- the quartet of part man, part ape creatures that everyone's been talking about. CIA officials advised me to start by sitting down with Sergei -- the oldest and most even-tempered of the four man-apes. With his extensive debriefing complete, Sergei recently relocated to downtown Denver, where he set up house in a stylish duplex with his handler, Nikolai Novikov. I met with Sergei and Nikolai last Monday, over a brunch of waffles, berries, and some kind of small, hard nut.

Sergei: The Oldest and Most Even-Tempered Man-Ape

CV: Sergei -- thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.
Sergei: Is great pleasure, Cecil.
CV: You know, this is CecilVortex.com's first ever world-exclusive.
Sergei: Da.
CV: I'm very excited about it.
Sergei: Da. Da.
Nikolai: Cecil, are you OK?
CV: Oh yeah -- I'm fine. Just excited.
Nikolai: You are sweating so much -- like Albert Brooks in that movie.
Sergei: Broadcast News.
CV: I'm OK. It's just a little warm in here. If we could open a window?
Sergei: Here you go.
CV: Thanks Sergei. So, can I ask -- how do you feel about the label you and your fellow man-apes were given -- "Stalin's Sexy Man Apes"? Is it hard to live up to that billing?
Sergei: No, is easy. I am sexy all the time.
CV: You know, when I told people I was doing this interview, they all wanted me to ask the same question -- whether the ape part of you is a "lesser ape," from the Hylobatidae family, or a "greater ape" from the Hominidae family.
Nikolai: Cecil, I'm not sure if --
Sergei: [unintelligible grunting noise]
CV: Well, it's just that, from what I understand, the "lesser apes" --
Sergei: [louder unintelligible grunting noise]
Nikolai: You really should change the subject.
CV: OK. Um...
Nikolai: Ask him about TV. He loves to watch TV.
CV: Sergei, have you been watching much TV?
Sergei: [quieter unintelligible grunting noise] Da.
Cecil: Anything in particular?
Sergei: Well, Sergei love "Project Runway." The sexy fashion.
Cecil: Oh yeah, me too.
Sergei: Sergei like to see them make dresses out of garbage!
CV: Do you have a favorite contestant?
Nikolai: I like Uli.
Sergei: Sergei just happy Vincent gone. Vincent make Sergei uncomfortable.
CV: Well, I think it just goes to show you.
Nikolai: What?
CV: Whether you're a man-ape from the former Soviet Union, or a homo sapien from the USA, pretty much everybody thinks Vincent is creepy.
Sergei: Da.
Nikolai: Da.
Cecil: Thanks very much for your time, both of you.
Sergei: Do svidaniya, Cecil.
Cecil: Do svidaniya.

Tuesday: Ivan!

Stalin's Sexy Man-Apes

In the mid-1920s a team of Soviet scientists led by a soft-spoken man named Ilya Ivanov began work on a secret project aimed at developing an army of ape-human hybrids. Picture a squad of these creatures attacking Berlin. Joseph Stalin did. "I want a new invincible human being," Stalin was reported to have instructed the young Ivanov. "Insensitive to pain. Resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat. Hairy, with sort of a monkey-type look."

Under rising budget pressures, the Reds finally abandoned their efforts in the 1980s. But not before producing a tribe of eleven so-called "man-apes," kept under close guard in a secure prison at the base of the Ural Mountains.

Last December the story made international headlines when of these four man-apes stunned the world -- executing a daring escape and destroying their guards, the labs, and the rest of the man-ape tribe in the process! The cunning quartet made their way across the Urals to Western Europe where they requested and received political asylum from the U.S. embassy in Frankfurt.

Little else was known regarding the details of their escape, although one tantalizing rumor did surface -- that these were four unusually attractive man-apes, and that they'd used their good looks to somehow distract their captors. Predictably, the British tabloids leapt on this choice tidbit, dubbing them "Stalin's Sexy Man Apes." And the label stuck.

Until today, that was all we knew. "Stalin's Sexy and Enigmatic Man-Apes," you might say. But that changes this week, as cecilvortex.com proudly unveils an exclusive intimate peek inside the hearts and minds of Sergei, Ivan, Dmitri, and "little Ivan."

You can call them man-apes. You can call them sexy. We call them fascinating.

Tomorrow: Sergei!

Bean song

Counting beans, one for every
word you said today.

A waterfall of frozen
lima bean conversation.

Bright bean rage.
Soft, velvety heirloom beans.

Bean opera. Beans buzzing
in a thick glass jar.

Where do all these beans come from? --
these beans, with no apologies.

And why is it that you find yourself
at this late stage

so full of frigging
beans?

The Greatest Almost Entirely True Work Story Ever Told

It was another busy day at Amalgamated Skills -- "Where we bring you the skills that you use to do things better than you would do otherwise, if you didn't have the skills that we bring you." Rhett Kronkhead, the ever-flustered Production Manager, was in a blood purple rage.

"Confound it!" he hollered, shaking a phone bill in one purple fist and storming out of his office. "Would you look at these confounded phone calls? It's ridiculous!"

"Simmer down Rhett," said Vilma, A.S.’s ever-wry Art Director. "And pull up your pants." Rhett had a lot of enthusiasm, some great acid-tinged stories from the sixties, and a good heart. But he had no ass.

"How can I simmer down?!" said Rhett. "Would you look at this bill?! Who is this clown?! He's making 30 calls a day!!"

By this point, a small crowd had gathered around, murmuring like nervous spoonbills. "I'm going to make an example of this clown!!" Rhett stormed back into his office, flopped himself down behind the desk, and reached for the phone. "I'm gonna call him right now!!" he shouted.

"I'm calling!!"

There was a moment of silence and then -- a ferocious slam, as the phone came crashing back down. "Busy!! Typicall!!" Rhett sputtered. "Who is this clown?!�

"Let me see that," said Vilma, reaching over for the bill. She gave it a quick scan. "Rhett," she said. "Rhett, this is your phone number."

"My wha --?" said Rhett, his waking mind drifting off into a babbling dream space as he slipped down off the chair like a spilled Slurpie. "I don't ... I mean ... my wha --?" he said again, his whole body now somehow sliding through a thin crack in the baseboard, deep down into the darkness below.

And only his pants remained.

Looking back

He described his life as a series of tasks
filled with the description of those tasks

how he’d cut the boards
what he did in the cotton gin
how he'd made the metal bracings for the chair in the front of his house
that you saw him in most days.

It was like asking a chef for her life story
and she says
well,

I made my first cake when I was 12.
We started with 2 cups of flour, a cup of milk, and a pinch of salt.

Are You Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Over the last year or two, a loose cabal of aliased co-conspirators has been using this site to tackle challenging books en masse -- everything from the dread pirate Gravity's Rainbow to the surprisingly Spanish Don Quixote. We call these experiences "Deathmarches," despite the increasingly rabid protestation of my erstwhile nemesis, Itto Ottagami.

The fifth in this series -- "The To the Lighthouse Deathmarch" -- is comin' 'round the bend, and I thought I'd take this moment to extend an open invitation.

How It Works

As you may have guessed, this time out we're reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. (More specifically, I'll be reading the HBJ hardcover edition, available on Amazon.)

We do this in small bites -- 40-60 pages a week. Every Wednesday starting 10/18, I'll post an entry up here on ye olde cecilvortex.com letting folks know how far we're aiming to read that week. In the days that follow, folks comment on the thread. These comments range from "I like donuts" to "[insert sophisticated literary analysis here]." And are all comments are viewed as equal in the eyes of el cabal.

Up to 30 Deathmarchers who make it to the end of the book and post a comment every week get prizes -- in this case, prizes that tap the awesome power of magnetic energy. I can't tell you more than that because it's a really big surprise. OK. I give. They're magnets.

So, all that said, if reading a book by Virginia Woolf and quite possibly gaining partial control over one of the most powerful forces in nature has any appeal to you, you've almost certainly come to the right place. Any questions, just drop me a line at deathmarch@cecilvortex.com.

Hope to see you out on the trail,
-Cecil

A whole new TV genre (don't you dare close your eyes)

As some of you already know, I'm taking a hiatus from the 9-5 life so I can spend more time walking my kids to school and working on my writing. Whenever this has come up in conversation, the question back has been: "Hunh. OK. So what are you going to write?" And it's been a real point of shame for me that I haven't had much of an answer. Until now. Now, I have very much of an answer. And the answer is that I intend to use this time to create an entirely new TV genre, one I've dubbed: the "situation tragedy" or "trag-e-sit." I'm still working out the details, but here's a rough sketch....

Trag-e-sits offer a half hour of episodic entertainment starring 4-6 whacky neighbors and/or family members and/or co-workers who move the plot forward through a series of short, tragic, situational interactions. The whole thing is punctuated by a "cry track" -- the sound of a studio audience weeping, designed to induce a similar reaction in the home viewer. Some of the literally several trag-e-sit treatments I'm currently developing include:

• A family-oriented trag-e-sit in which two single parents, with six kids between them, move in together. They know that they must somehow form a family. But instead, bit by bit they break each others' hearts.
• A workplace trag-e-sit where a new TV program director joins a second-tier station and proceeds to turn everyone on the staff against their feeble-minded but well-meaning anchorman.
• A Boulder-based trag-e-sit, in which an alien (I call him "Gork") comes down from the planet "Bork" and ruins the life a young woman named "Cindy." He completely misunderstands the way humans are supposed to behave and the consequences are, well, awful.

update: so-called "t. philter" writes: "I wish you'd been more specific about the awful consequences of Gork's confusion." Well, I don't want to give away the store, but I will tell you that he puts his fingers in other people's sodas. Also, he keeps trying to hump grandma.

Crow Daddy

It's long past time
we end this charade.

This intricate dance
designed to mask

your competence
at faxing.

As if it's something to be
ashamed of

when we both know it's a
source of strength.

We should celebrate it.
Our dance should celebrate it.

Instead we dance this
shabby lie.