Well, everyone else has, so I might as well too...Xstreet

~~~

My good buddy Headburro has added his concise two cents worth regarding LL's fumbled handling of the Xstreet changes. He concludes that he doesn't like greed, and I responded, at some length (as I am wont to do). I've been think some more, and I decided that I wanted to expand on what I wrote, in part to try prune out some of the profanity (I'm trying, Rhia, I'm really trying). But I also want to be as fair as I could to the Lab, because after all, they are a necessary partner with us in making the platform what it is. The staff at LL obviously includes individuals of good intent, who work very hard trying to keep something running that is by now probably the coders' equivalent of Rube Goldberg's steampowered back-scratcher and catbox-cleaning device, Mk II. The bottom line is they need to make this turkey as profitable as it possibly can be.

So as far as greed, well....you know, in a lot of ways, I’m ok with greed. It’s a wonderful basic human motivator. To a great extent I am much more conformable with LL displaying signs of good old fashioned, cold, hard avarice than I ever was with their whole laissez-faire, hippy-dippy love machine philosophy where they seemed to ignore or even buddy up with griefers, and evidently let key staff focus on their own priorities rather than focusing on what the customer base wanted or needed. Improvements, as often as not, were not something the general population really wanted or needed. Sometimes, yes they were great...but just as frequently, they broke something else when they were put into play.

This Xstreet thing is a bit different from those artistic and structural improvments that may or may not have enhanced the product itself. These changes may in fact actually serve to reduce clutter on the Xstreet catalog of content, and make looking for something more efficient. But is it really something the population was asking for? Or was it simply a move calculated to increase the profitability of the operation? Clearly the Lab folks did not handle this well from a customer relations point of view.

Look, I really have no big issue with them trying to maximize profits--HOWEVER, if they are going to embrace the Dark Side and try to squeeze the population for all the turnip blood they can drink, they really need to make sure that platform also runs reliably and smoothly, and issues with inventory etc. are resolved as well as possible. Otherwise all the turnips will eventually give up and go do something else in some other turnip patch.

Quite simply, an increase in the cost of utilizing the platform must be accompanied by at least some incremental improvement in how it functions, or eventually even the most hardy, dedicated customers will get frustrated and discouraged, and they shall migrate to bright, shiny new lands.

Go ahead and embrace your greed, but by golly, give me something in return.

Mind you, I say that with the qualification that this Xstreet fiasco is something that affects me in a largely symbolic way, rather than the very real way that it affects my friends and acquaintances who are content creators and who actually try to sell their products there. In fact, I personally always found Xstreet of little use as anything other than a convenient product catalog to search for objects that I couldn’t locate using SL’s wretched search function.

My usual pattern was this: I’d think something like, "Hmm I sure could use an anvil and forge," (just because a girl needs to treat herself to something pretty now and then). So I'd go to the in-world SL "search" function, looking for something like “Blacksmith” or "forge" in the classified and places sections. After I would end up sufficiently irritated and annoyed, I would then proceed to Xstreet, put "blacksmith forge" into the search box, get a long list of stuff, and sort through it. Once I had found some actual blacksmith equipment, I'd get the info about who made the examples worth considering, and then go look at them in-world. Finally, I would buy one directly from the maker’s store or vending gizmo.

But, If something I wanted was only sold on Xstreet, then I’d say the heck with it, I don’t need it badly enough to fiddle around with actually using the meshugga thing to buy something.

Well, with one recent exception.

The only thing I ever bought off Xstreet was, ironically enough, a freebie: Gigs Taggert's target overlay, a handy gizmo which allows you to make anything into an handy adjunct to shooting practice. I understood from various people you could possibly locate these in-world somewhere, but by golly, I never could find them. It was the only case where I actually really needed something that I could only find on Xstreet–and it just happened to be a freebie. If it had cost something, you know, I probably would have still gone ahead and coughed up the lindens for it. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with giving folks who spend their time building and scripting something in return for efforts. But I really don't like buying things on Xstreet. I prefer seeing what I am purchasing in-world and thinking it over. This target gizmo really was an exception.

And as for the Lindens--just like I want to see success and profits for all the content creators, even people who make stuff I don't particularly like or care about--I want to see LL succeed. I want to see them attract and retain oodles of happy, shiny recreational users, like me and all my literary and rp buds. I hope LL finds huge stinking piles of lovely corporate clients who will buy their "corporate silo in a box" packages, so they can hold lots and lots of lovely meetings where the participants are able to go take a dump and get coffee in rl, while their avatars sit there and help create the illusion that someone actually gives a rat's tookus about what Lois from marketing is droning on about.

But if the Lindens are going to succeed, they need to be more thoughtful and less arrogant about how they deal with us, and how they look at their product and their customers. I have said it before and I will say it again up until my avatar's de-rezzing day: they need to genuinely and sincerely try to get in touch with who their customers are, and seek to understand what we want and need, and to grasp how we are seeking to make the most of their product.

~~~

"Call me a virtual Ishmael" -- the power of stories, part two

~~~
"Call me Ishmael"-- storytelling around the fire.

Let’s continue talking about this idea that the internet is “killing storytelling.”

As I mentioned in my last post, reflection upon this topic has been inspired by a TimesOnline (UK) opinion piece by columnist Ben McIntyre. This gentleman, is “Writer at Large” for The Times, contributing a weekly column, and has been editor of the Times’ Weekend Review, parliamentary sketchwriter and bureau chief in Washington and Paris. He also has authored what his bio blurb refers to as “some historical non-fiction books” that seem to be some sort of novelized adaptions of actual biographies or historical events. One review of his book “If I should Die: A Foreign Field” (a story about British soldiers in WWI) commented that his work is “made the comment that it is “more narrative non-fiction than history per se.“

Anyhow, Mr. McIntyre did this piece about the death of storytelling at the hands of the dreaded interwebs. He argues that:

"The narrative, whether oral or written, is a staple of every culture the world over. But stories demand time and concentration; the narrative does not simply transmit information, but invites the reader or listener to witness the unfolding of events.

Stories introduce us to situations, people and dilemmas beyond our experience, in a way that is contemplative and gradual: it is the oldest and best form of virtual reality.

The internet, while it communicates so much information so very effectively, does not really “do” narrative. The blog is a soap box, not a story. Facebook is a place for tell-tales perhaps, but not for telling tales....Very few stories of more than 1,000 words achieve viral status on the internet."

I’m not sure exactly what Mr. McIntrye means by “viral status,” but he may have a point that the online stories people like us generate do not acquire the following and have as many views as , oh, say, an image of an overweight kitty cat asking “Can I plz haz cheezburger?” But then hell, I am told there are actually more cat pictures on the internet than porn images.

At any rate, other than a few weak points like that, in general, his entire argument is of course, complete and utter idiocy: nothing more than pretentious, elitist, old-media lark’s vomit.
Many people commented on the piece, mostly agreeing that Mr. McIntryie obviously is only marginally aware of what is happening online.

And of course, I had to add my own two cents worth, offering the comment:

“I would respectfully disagree--if anything the internet has provided some astonishing new opportunities for storytellers to work with each other and share their tales with broader audiences than they ever could reach before. For example, within the Second Life platform, there are a growing number of venues (generally associated with virtual libraries or museums) that host events featuring both traditional and original storytelling. The storytellers themselves--which include many individuals who perform as storytellers in meatspace venues as well--use either typed chat or voice to present their tales to audiences that are generally very engaged and appreciative.

And as Jermey D. (another person who commented on the piece) points out there is this intriguing development in virtual worlds, where role-playing has fostered new shared narratives that have in turn generated an expanding body of stories in written form on related blogs and forums. Yes, in many ways this work is a second cousin to fanfic, and much of it is of wildly-varying quality, but the important thing is that people are in fact taking the time to do creative writing and are telling stories that are important to them. And in sharing them on the net, they are having a splendid time entertaining themselves and others.

I know that for me as a writer and storyteller, thanks to the outlets available to us on the internet, I have been motivated to do a lot more work in recent years, and have been able to reach a larger audience than I had in the past.”

I would also like to direct you all to the blog of Edward Champion, an extremely bright and funny literary blogger/journalist/playwright, who has thoughtfully and thoroughly demolished McIntryre’s entire article in much more complete and articulate way than I ever possibly could. His response to McIntryre can be found here at his blog -- I enjoyed reading it even with my shriveled attention span.

While I cannot do as well as Mr. Champion in this regard, I would like to add some more thoughts from my admittedly narrow perspective. Did you know that the first international conference of Virtual Storytelling was held in 2001? You can find a book that records the proceedings here.

And If you google “virtual storytellers” you get about three-and-a-half million results.

The evidence lies even closer to home as well. If you look at groups in Second Life, you will find about forty-four separate groups associated with “storytellers” or “storytelling.” You also find that the Second Life Storytellers Guild has over four hundred members. There are eight venues in “search” that host storytelling, as do almost all of the community libraries in SL. Storytelling is clearly a going concern in SL. And it is storytelling in the very literal and traditional sense: intimate groups of people, usually seated in a circle, often around a fire, listening to a narrative unfold.

Sometimes these are traditional stories, handed down within a particular culture or people. Just as often they are completely original, sometimes even delightfully experimental.

But either way, storytelling is very very much alive in the regions of the internet that I tread. Perhaps partly, the issue for Mr. McIntrye is that his article was actually mixing up terminology. He claimed to be talking about “storytelling” but he on closer examination he actually seemed to be whining about a growing lack of patience for traditional means of delivering longer narrative stories. As he is a traditional journalist and the creator of pseudo-history novels in dead-tree form, this concern on his part is understandable. The fact that so many people can now actively create and share their own narratives, rather than simply being malleable, passive consumers of mass-produced narrative crap (whether in the form of printed works or the oozing mass of glop on both big and small screens)...well, that has got to be scaring the holy living shit out of puffed-up professional purveyors of story stuff like McIntyre. Who’s going to buy their crap out of the remainder bins if committed readers are making their own stuff?

And yes, I will be first to admit that a great deal of what we are creating for ourselves to share online is crap as well. Some of it certainly qualifies as completely hideous, unreadable crap. But then when was the last time you saw really good writing on TV or in the movies? Yeah, you probably saw something that was good at some point recently, but I’ll wager you had to wade through--or ignore--a whole shitload of foul, odoriferous dreck, the kind of stuff that makes say:

“Jeezusfuckingchristonafuckingpogostuck, they actually PAID someone to write this shit?”

But the internet has given us all chance to put something into written form and to show it to others. I was really struck by Headburro’s recent comment in talking about the Steelhead story session we just did, that he had not written or told stories until now. Or in my case, a decade a go I spent a lot of time working on two different novels of my own, doing some extensive writing over the course of a couple years. Only one or two people ever saw it. And now after many moves, divorces, and other various adventures, the discs are gone, the hard copies, recycled....but now, I am writing again, and people actually get to see my shit and comment on it.

And furthermore, without even leaving the house I am currently sharing with family, I’m periodically sitting around the fire in the Steelhead library garden, or under the arbor outside the Falling Anvil pub in Tam, telling stories like I used to talking to my pards around the campfire at a reenactment, or in the neighborhood library with a bunch of eager, squirming little kids--except now I’m telling stories and sharing narrative and traditions with people from all over the fucking world.

The Falling Anvil in Tam, still a popular venue for storytelling, though not as often as it used to be as there are so many other venues now. It is not uncommon to have story sessions at different locations overlapping and competing.

And those other people from all over the world also get to be a part of the story-creating process. JJ Drinkwater and I have been talking a good deal lately about how roleplaying in SL and other virtual worlds gives us an opportunity to generate shared narratives and to create characters and develop them, interacting with other real people in delightful and unexpected and natural ways. And that out of that is coming the inspiration--and the necessary building blocks of narrative and characters and plots and rich detail--that makes for some pretty darn good stories. In playing out these stories with each other, we foster situations, ideas, people dialogue and plots that are more complex and engaging than what we might weave ourselves.

This is why I included the story about Addison being sick into part one of this discussion. It was based on a transcript of rp that just happened--no script of course. And in the course of sitting there with this woman--who I believe was roleplaying that she had scarlet fever, if I recall correctly--I was reacting as Dio. Yeah, it was one of those "what would Dio do" moments, although I really wasn't thinking about it. I was enough into the character and who she is in order to just realize that, hell, she'd try to tell Addi a story that might distract her some from her discomfort, and might get her to laugh--and laughin' is always good fer sick folks, right?

So I pulled out what is actually an old Flip Wilson story--the tale of Roman Herman and his magnificent berry--and presented it as a story from Dio's Papaw Marcus. I figured what the hell, like many 19th century country folk he was sort of a renaissance man, who in addition to having been a trapper and fur trader, he also did things like read Shakespeare, play the fiddle, and tell stories.

And I have always loved that story of Roman Herman and the berry, and maybe now some more people will have seen it...and it will live on, even if they never heard Flip Wilson tell it. And isn't that what storytelling is about? Passing things on, maybe improving them a bit or giving them your own twist, but more than anything, keeping the tale from dying?

Well, bugger me senseless. Maybe the internet is giving life to storytelling, not killing it.

~~~

Storytelling in Steelhead -- was it good for you too?

~~~

The charmin' Riven Howemewood invited me to take part in a Halloween spooky storytelling marathon in the garden at the Steelhead public library. What a grand time, Thank you Riven!

I only got to stay for part of the event, but there was a real nice turnout and great readings. Some of the presentations were readings of works by authors such as Ambrose Bierce (always popular at this time of the year) or things like this piece, which was found and read by Hawc DaCosta. There were also original stories read by some of our in-world authors--for example, my friend Headburro Antfarm offered up what I understand was an enhanced version of his sewer zombie epic (sadly he took his turn at storytelling before I was able to get there), and I presented two pieces that I wrote this morning, basing them on a couple of traditional tales that I expanded and stuffed some dialogue into.

On the whole, other than a couple of stupid typos, I thought what I did turned out pretty well. So I decided to share them with you folks here (also I'm too damn tired to write anything else today, but hell, I want to give ye somethin').

The first story is based on what may be at least in part, an old plains Indian story. I tried to write in the voice of Pawnee grand mother telling the tale. The second is a fanciful expansion on common story that sort of falls into the realm of western urban legends. It is told in Dio's usual voice, so you cussin' fans won't be totally disappointed.


The Salt Witch

Long ago, in the days before the white men came to the plains to hunt and trade and draw their maps, even before the bearded men in iron clothing brought the Horse, which ran away or were stolen by the People, who would use them to make a new way of life upon the grasslands...

There was a story told among the Pawnee people, living in what the white men now call Kansas and Nebraska, the story of the Salt Witch, and the Pawnee chief who destroyed her.

The Pawnee are a brave and war-like people, taking great joy in their fights with their old enemies the Sioux, and others who would do them harm. In those days before the coming of the Horse, they moved on foot, following the game they hunted, including the sacred Buffalo. Ayah! you gotta be brave to do that! ....hunting buffalo on foot! Maybe some time I will tell you how they did it. But not now.

Now I will tell you about a journey that lies at the heart of this story of the Salt Witch. For the Pawnee also made great journeys for many purposes on foot, pulling their things behind them on the framework of sticks the Metis and voyaguers call travois.

There was one band of Pawnee down in what is now Kansas, who were led by one of the most brave and fearsome war chiefs the people had ever known. It was so long ago, that no one recalls his name, but, oh, they remember how fierce he was!

This man knew no fear, in sight of an enemy he was possessed of such rage that no one could stop him in his killing, it seemed like nothing created by the Spirits or man could turn him aside from his prey!

Only his gentle and beautiful wife could calm him...only she had the power over his heart to turn him from the path of his rage. He loved her with a force as powerful as his anger, but with her he was as kind as a grandmother, and filled with joy like a young man who has just come to know his first affection for a woman...

One day, the elders of his band came to him and said, “The people need salt, there is little left in our camp...will you lead our people north, above the wide river to the salty lakes? There they may gather the salt that is left on the banks as the sun dries out the waters.”

The war chief agreed, and he told his people to bundle their things and load the travois, and they set off across the grasslands, across the wide river, into the sand hills of what the white men now call Nebraska, where they could find the dried salt on the banks of the saline lakes and ponds.

Along the way, they met another band of Pawnee, coming south from those lands. “Greetings brothers!” they said. “Where do you journey to?”

“We go to the sand hills, to gather salt from the banks of the lakes.” said the chief.
“Ayah!” the others cried. “Beware when you get there, for there is a witch woman who dwells there now! You will see a pillar of the salt, in one place, and then when you turn, it will be in another! It is the Salt Witch, hunting you! She is evil, and feeds upon the fear that dwells deep in a man’s heart, and she will try to steal or kill the spirits of your people!”

Many of the chief’s band felt dismay and their hearts turned to ice at this news. The elders came to him, and asked, “Should we turn back?” But the chief, he talked to his warriors, and gave them new heart. They agreed with him that they all should go on, having come this far.

They went on and found a place where a great salty lake had been burned almost dry by the sun, and there was much salt...so much salt that some of it formed pillars that stood tall above the ground...

and the people...

as they worked...

felt sure some of the pillars seemed to move.

Or perhaps it was just one. It would be far behind you..and then you turned to scrape at the salt with an antelope’s shoulder bone, and when you stood up again...the pillar seemed closer....

The chief shouted to his people to work hard and fast, to be brave as the Pawnee are, and to not fear things that cannot be seen and may be only in the mind. But many of them still felt fear, especially the chief’s wife...and she could feel something gripping at her heart.

They finished, taking much salt that would last them a very long time and could also be used to trade with other bands. Oh! but they were glad to leave that place....and as they traveled back, their hearts grew lighter...except for that of the chief’s wife.

Her thoughts grew dark, her chest was pained, her breathing shallow, and her dreams at night made her cry out and wake, sitting up, washed in sweat, her eyes wide....The chief was greatly troubled, and worried for his wife...

He asked the band to stop when they got to the wide river and to camp for awhile, so she could rest, and the medicine man could try to help his wife....

They of course agreed, for the whole band was fond of the chief’s wife...but they could do nothing for her, and during the night of their second day in camp by the wide river, she died.

The people of the band were greatly saddened by this...the women cried out and the men spoke in low voices, their eyes downcast...but not the chief.

He stood looking towards the north...to the sand hills and the salty lakes...to the one lake, where the pillars of salt stood. An elder asked him, “My brother, what passes through your mind? I know you are troubled and grieving...but there is nothing else we can do...”

The chief turned his head slowly towards the elder, and the old one could see the fire beginning to burn in his eyes, the darkness in his face, how his chest heaved as his heart beat faster and faster like a war drum...

The chief stripped off his clothing and painted himself black...he took up his great war club which had a stone head made of pure white stone from the sacred Black Hills...the stone the white men call quartz, which dwells in the earth with the shining yellow rocks the People know as the blood of the Sun.

The stone head of his war club was hard and sharp, a pure glowing white, which is why the People call such rocks “stone ice”...it was fixed with stout rawhide laces to a sturdy ash haft, and this club had been washed in the blood of many enemies...

The chief stood for a moment on the edge of the camp, gripping his war club..and then he let out a cry that was as if a bear and a panther had joined voices, and his people knew he had been taken by his rage. They watched as he ran on powerful legs towards the north.

The chief ran until he came to the very lake bed where they had gathered salt, and there, he saw an apparition: an old woman standing over the figure of a young woman...her face was twisted in horrid glee, as she held the young woman by the hair, a stone knife lifted in her hand!

The chief let out another roar, twice as dreadful as before, and he charged forward, his war club raised...

The Salt Witch--for it was indeed her--laughed and let go of the young woman, turning towards the onrushing man. She reached out with her magic to feel for his fear...

and she found none.

All she could find was rage. A terrible, immense, towering rage...

Rage so pure...it was not like the anger that grows from fear or hate...it was an elemental power, like the great fires that sweep over the grasslands in dry season, or the storms that blacken with sky with clouds that crash and throw their burning lances at the earth....

And the Salt Witch herself now knew fear...for the Salt Witch was not some evil sprit that could not be killed. She was a living thing...fully evil, yes...but a being who could die.
And knowing this, she tried to turn herself into a salt pillar to hide, but the fear had caught her so completely, she forgot how...

She could only whimper “Mercy” as the war chief closed with her...

But the rage does not know mercy...he brought the club of pure white stone down on her head and split her skull from crown to chin. He wrenched his weapon from the mass of blood and brains and teeth, and then swung at the hand that still clutched the wicked stone knife, smashing bones and flesh and shattering the knife into a hundred pieces.

He swung again and sank the club into her chest, laying open what was inside...and as she fell, he thrust his hand into the gaping wound and tore her heart from its very roots. Dropping his club and the bloody organ, he took her arms and wrenched them from the sockets, pulling the wretched creature to pieces with his bare hands.

And then he heard a voice.

“Husband...she is dead. You may cease your rage...”

It was the young woman...

...it was his wife...

She was shimmering, and he could see through her, for it was just her spirit, which had been taken captive by the Salt Witch, and was now free...

...but she still had to power to calm his rage one last time...

She smiled at him...and he sank to his knees before her smiling spirit, and he wept...for the first and last time in his life, he wept...

She bent forward to kiss him, and he was calmed...the rage was gone...

...and the spirits of the winds came and took her to the Other Side Camps, where she would wait for her husband.

The chief wiped the tears from his face and stood...he piled the remains of the Salt Witch and called out to the Great Spirit to hold the evil thing in this place until the end of time...and the shattered body parts of the vile creature became, for one final time, a pillar of salt.

And he returned to his people and journeyed with them for many years, until he too passed and rejoined his beloved in the Other Side Camps.

Now when the People go to that place to gather salt, they have no fear. They beat the ground with clubs around that salt pillar to remind the Witch of how she was destroyed, and to chastise her with the knowledge that one who feeds on fear can have that fear turned upon them.


Devil Dogs of the Comstock

Chinese folk are a lot like injuns an irishmen: they got a certain understandin’ that most other folks don’t, ‘specially in matters of a spiritual nature.


An’ they kin be downright philosophical regadin’ about jus’ about nearly ever’thin’...

Like here’s a story ‘bout some fellers what went to the Comstock hopin’ to make their fortune..but they sorta tended to run about a day late an’ a dollar short, so when they got to that part o’ Nevada, the big rush was over, and the smaller sliver claims was already played out.

Well, they figgered it wouldn’t hurt to look at some of the abandoned claims to see if anyone has mebbe missed somethin, and they was in this one lil’ minin’ town when they heard tell of a nearby canyon that was jus full o’ old claims, where the work had seemed so promisin’ and tussle fer diggin’ rights had been so enthusiastic, that the miners who had been digging up there had all got guard dogs to keep off claim jumpers.

So these two fellers...brothers most likely, bein’ as when yer both as dim-witted as these boys were, ye ain’t gonna be willin’ to put up with each other less’n ye got blood ties forcin’ the issue....

...anyhow, they was fixin’ to go up to this canyon, and they gets to talking with an ol’ Celestial gent who tells ‘em, “You be wary, for that canyon has spirit dogs--you hear how miners up there have guard dogs?”

“Yep” says the two brothers, noddin’ their mostly empty heads.

“Well,” says the ol’ Chinese man, “when silver all gone up there, miners go..but most leave dogs behind...don’t need them no more...they starve and die, still guarding masters’ claims.”

The two fellers of course, don’t put much stock in this, cuz like I said, they warn’t possesed o’ much in the way o’ fetchums. The head on up the canyon and find a likely lookin’ ol’ hole cut into the hillside, an’ set up a little camp.

The old claim, was purty much just a little square hole framed up with some crude hewn timbers...an they was a chain pegged outside. Our heroes follow the chain inside the hole an’ see the bones of a very, very big dog at the other end, just within the entrance of the diggin’s, where the por critter musta crawled to an’ expired.

Beyond that, they discover purty much the usual o’ what ye’d expect in a hole dug into a hillside, which ain’t a whole lot. They keep pokin’ around, not findin’ much, but they do manage to piss away the better part o’ the day, so that they elect to settle in fer the night at their lil’ camp instead o’ headin back to town.

After dark fell an they’s a-layin under their blankets by the far, when the one says, “You hear that?”

“What?” says the other.

“Like a snufflin’ an’ growlin?” says the first.

“NO. Tis jus’ coyotes mos’ likely. The far will keep ‘em at a distance. Now shut the hell up an’ go to sleep ye feckless turd-brained puke.”

“I ain’t feckless,” the first one mutters all petulant-like, as he rolls over.

They try to go to sleep, but after a while they kin both hear the snufflin’ an growlin’...the older one takes out his six shooter, an’ fires a round into the brush to scare off whatever it was...and it got quiet again fer a while...

but then the noise starts up again, louder than before..and just as the one feller is gonna let off another shot, they hear this barkin’ an snarlin’...not like ye get with a coyote, but with a big dog.

..a big mean dog.

...a big mean dog who is utterly an unforgivably pissed off...

The hair is a-standin’ up on the back o’ their scruffy red necks, an’ they both start turnin’ toward the sound o’ the barking...

...which happens to be a-comin’ from in the minin’ hole dug in side o’ the hill not more’n a few yards away...

an’ they kin see see two red, glowin’ eyes, starin’ at em from in the darkness o’ the hole...

an’ then...the chain starts to move.

The older one who’s got a bit more of a calculatin’ side to his nature, he says...”um...Billy Jon, how long do ye recollect that chain was?

An’ Billy Jon, bein’ the more emotional o’ the two, just sorta goes,

“Arhghalagalaga!!!

They both leaps up an takes to runnin’ fer the hosses fast as they kin, no boots, no britches (no brains) an’ Billy Jim--the older and slower o’ the two--swears he felt somethin’ nippin’ at his calves.

They get to the hosses, yank the picket pins outta the ground, leap on and take off with no saddles, a-hangin’ on fer dear life, not stoppin’ til they got back to town. Whole town hears about this, an’ o’ course, some laugh about it, an’ others..well, they don’t.

Next mornin’ our two intrepid prospectors is debatin’ about goin back up for their gear, when along comes the ol’ chinese fella with his mule, carryin’ their saddles, camp gear an’ clothes an’ all...

“Here.” he says with a lil’smile. “I get your stuff for you.”

“Well, that’s right neighborly of ye, ol’ man, “ says Billy Jim. “But how in tarnation kin ye jus’ so calmly go to that place when there is somethin’ so downright goddam evil up there?”

“Oh, it not evil.” the gent replies.

“What do you mean, it ain’t evil?” says Billy Jon with a good deal o’ incredulity.

“Ah,” says the ol’ chinese man. “Dog’s master tell him, you be good dog, guard claim--never let nobody but master dig here. But master never tell dog is ok to stop guarding claim. So he keep doing it. He just being good dog. Good dog...

...forever.

~~~

Headburro's reading list challenge

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My friend Headburro Antfarm has tagged me in a challenge involving a list of books that are considered great, or maybe pretty darn good, or at least classic (which means some tinplated poofed-up goober in a baggy sweater with a doctorate in English lit thinks you should read it).

Headburro was challenged to go through the below list and and see which ones he had read, and which of those he loved. Then he picked five friends and called them out to do the same. I was tickled to see he picked me, though it seems one of the big criteria is having a blog, which I believe I have successfully proven is something any knuckle-dragger can do.

Anyhow, then I am supposed to hit up five people to do the same, and it becomes like one of those letters where if you break the chain, Something Awful will happen to your grandmother. Even though both my grannies have long since departed this vale of tears, I'm not one to risk pissing off the chain-letter gods. So here goes--keep in mind that if I read the book I will put it in bold print. If I read it and it made my nipples hard and changed my life, it will be in bold print and italics (and if they are RED then they are extra special to me: I just now decided to make the ones I am really super-duper fond of RED!):

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (New Testament, anyway)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (almost complete anyway -- I can't remember if read Coriolanus or not)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I did read The Brothers Karamozov)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce (I read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man then tried this one. Failed after the first few pages.)
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (isn’t this redundant with the Complete Works?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (abriged)

In reflection, many of these were things that I read, because I had to, or because you are supposed to have read them in order to be considered generally non-moronic. Some of the things I HAD to read for freshman english were, in fact, pretty damn spectacular. Others--meh, not so much, but at least I can say I read them. In general, I think I realzied that I hadn't read a lot of books that many people think are hot stuff. Sorry about that. I did mention something about actually being something of a knuckle-dragger didn't I?

Now here's the thing that really got me-- the books that were not on this list that I think should be:

The Decameron -- Giovanni Boccaccio
All Quiet on the Western Front -- Erich Maria Remarque
The Horatiao Hornblower series -- C.S. Forester
The Martian Chronicles -- Ray Bradbury
The Illiad and the Odyssey -- Homer
The Once and Future King -- T.H. White
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- Mark Twain
The Egyptian -- Mika Waltari
I, Claudius -- Robert Graves
The Foundation Trilogy -- Isaac Asimov
Dead Souls -- Nikolai Gogol
Spring Snow -- Yukio Mishima
The Trial -- Franz Kafka
The Last of the Mohicans -- James Fenimore Cooper
For Whom the Bell Tolls -- Ernest Hemingway
The Epic of Gilgamesh -- some ancient dude

And yes, I really really wanted to include "Bored of the Rings" as one of my books that should have been on the list, but then you would know what an absolute knuckle-dragger I actually, truthfully am.

Now then, for the five smart people I am going saddle with this task -- I call on O'Toole, Lason Hassanov, Klaus Von Wulfenbach, Zoe Connely, and Viv Trafalger to give it a shot.

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