30 October 06 - 11:47The Apocryfan (12)
Continued from: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2006/10/apocryfan-11.html
Part II
The Coming of the Augusthog
Denise Dumond – as the seasons slid by into the aging garb of years – could often be found haunting the customer’s catchment area of Robert Smee’s fish stall at the entrance to Bonnyville Pier. She had a crush, one she did not admit to herself nor to her best friend, June Derleth. Perhaps June herself was caught up in the same inadmissible crush, although it is difficult to believe they didn’t privately talk about it, if in code. Summer Visitors of even younger ages and persuasions, could also be found uncharacteristically indulging in healthy fish feasts having persuaded their parents or other older escorts to patronise Robert’s stall. ...
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24 October 06 - 12:21Big Brother
Below are comments (mistakes preserved) written piecemeal by myself about the UK ‘Big Brother’ TV programme as part of the ‘Nemonymous’ forum kindly allowed upon the TTA Discussion Boards. Thanks to any who contributed to that forum, especially Marion.
2004
From my 56 year old perspective, last night's Big Brother was probably a bad influence on those involved and on those watching them - but the argument/fight was so well 'dramatised', 'stage-lit', 'acted', 'scripted', it was probably one of the greatest contemporary 'dramas' (full of accidental imagination, believeable grotesque characterisation, Shakespearean tragedy etc.) that TV has ever allowed to be broadcast.
I agree with a lot that has been said - but my point was that that nugget of television (the argument/fight) with all its raw emotions blatantly seen without acting (the stage-lighting of the bedroom where some house-members cowered, Shakespearean comedy (the clown suit etc), ...
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23 October 06 - 22:19Apocryfan 6
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Continued from: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_apocryfan_3.htm
“Apocryphan, Apocryphan, who art thou, Apocryphan?”
The whole town of Bonnyville sat silent in the uncharacteristically crackling electricity of a Winter storm. Jagged yellow streaks crawled along the sea’s furthest horizon like creatures seeking a nightmare to inhabit.
Reflected in the glow, the Blue Indian managed to pocket the hand of playing-cards before getting wet. The eyes glanced up – from their stone sockets – at the War Memorial while recalling only a few weeks before when many old soldiers (some in wheelchairs or motorised buggies) had grouped around its base on Remembrance Day. Remembrance of Things Past. Each proudly sporting a poppy. So red, only dreams could make them that red.
Tonight represented the tail-end of the ...
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23 October 06 - 13:04A DISORDERLY IMAGINATION
Whether it was with some I-can't-posssibly-continue-living stab of pain or some I-don't-believe-this-can-be-happening-to-me rictus of rage, David listened to the news he was in the silent process of receiving from the telephone. He'd vouch for ghosts having backbones rather than accept this incredulity.
The house was silent, too, knowing, perhaps, that Melanie would never be returning to the protection of its walls. Even the television had switched itself off. The heating-pump was in an unaccustomed mode of thermostatic rest, depite the freezing weather. The children had finished squabbling, in the bedrooms upstairs. The traffic - as if it realised that it were somehow implicated in Melanie's death - was no longer conducting its rush hour trundle past the house, keeping, as it did, a tactful distance from David's consciousness as he replaced the handset in its cradle. ...
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23 October 06 - 13:03AMBULANCE CHASERS
A collaboration with Stuart Hughes
Tom's marble was lodged in his throat ... following Arnold's ricochet of his own marble against Tom's. Each had a heart of fire. Men and marbles.
The choking sensation of neither swallow nor regurgitation made Tom - in a moment of strange reflection - think of the time when his Grandmother died from a snapped fishbone in the throat. The breath drowned. The eyes themselves twirling like marbles. Her squawking pleas for help as she beat her own breast.
Arnold's daughter - Gloria, wasn't it? - rushed in from the kitchen, her skirt billowing, her low-cut blouse shimmering.
"For God's sake, Dad, bash him on the back. Quick!"
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