Monthly Archives: July 2023

A Tribute to Unknown

So many people have created stunning works of art, and we don’t know their names.  So many more people have created crap and because they are impossible to shame, everyone knows their names.  In terms of literature, some of the most interesting and inspiring works were written by history’s most prolific author:  Unknown. 

It’s Unknown who wrote the Old Testament, as it’s called by Christians.  Jews call it the Torah, which means Jesus Christ!  Quit coopting our stuff.  You do this all the time.  It’s also Unknown who wrote Pearl, Sundiata, El Cid, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Fifty Shades of Grey (The Geriatric Years), Beowulf, and many more works that put bone and flesh on the human condition.

We don’t need social media to inform us that Fame is fickle. We don’t need more grieving parents to remind us that Equity and Justice have never lived here. Time strips away everything we treasure, so it’s a blessing these works have survived in any form.  Even if the poets’ names are lost in the dank cellar of Antiquity’s library, their voices have survived . . . thus far.  Remember poor Sappho.  Her name survives but callous Time has denied us so much of her voice. 

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor – July 17, 2017

David Copperfield in Appalachia

What do Victorian London and 21st century Appalachia, during the height of the opioid crisis, have in common? Weird accents, obviously. Questionable fashion choices, no doubt. But according to Barbara Kingsolver, there’s much more, and she makes a convincing case in her 2023 Pulitzer winning novel, Demon Copperhead. There’s the complete disregard for people living in extreme poverty. There’s the refusal to acknowledge an economic system designed to keep them impoverished. And there’s the abandoned children who far outnumber the people capable of helping them. Those children are everywhere, and their circumstances are dire. Yet, somehow, this novel is about strength and resiliency. It has a heart and a funny bone – a rather small funny bone, but given the subject matter that also is an accomplishment.

The novel begins in the 1990s in Lee County, Virginia. If you go any further west, you’re in Kentucky or Tennessee. It’s the heart of Appalachia – remote, mountainous, and poor. Damon Fields was born between a coal camp and a settlement called Right Poor. His father died before he was born. It’s not an auspicious start, and it gets worse. His mother was an 18-years old single mom. She was also an addict, and a “kid born to the junkie is a junkie” as far as society is concerned.

When Damon’s red hair comes in, everyone calls him Demon Copperhead. This is a nod to the snake-handling Baptist preachers on his father’s side and to the copperhead snakes that infest the mountains. But Demon learns quickly the snakes that slither are far less dangerous than the snakes that walk. When his mother dies from an overdose, he is put in the cruel foster system where he is raised to be a “proud mule in a world that has scant use for mules.”

Eventually he is placed with an alcoholic high school football coach and his daughter, Angus, who perhaps is the person who cares most for him. Surprisingly Demon becomes a star high school football player. When he suffers a serious knee injury, the team doctor prescribes these little pain pills to “help” him. Within weeks Demon is addicted to opioids, like nearly every other child in Lee County. Angus wants to help, but “she is not in the business of throwing her life away so other people can stay shitfaced.”

Demon Copperhead is a thorough excoriation of how companies like Perdu Pharma cynically hooked nearly all of Appalachia on opioids – all while society looked the other way. Kingsolver sugarcoats nothing, and her portrayal of addiction’s ravages is searing. She won’t allow you to look the other way.

So the name Demon Copperhead reminds me a little of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Is there any connection? Yes, but you get no points for that. In her acknowledgements, Kingsolver expresses gratitude to Charles Dickens for “writing David Copperfield, his impassioned critique of institutional poverty and its damaging effects on children in his society.” Aw, come on, I never get points for anything! OK. One pity point for you. Sweet.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

The Summer Adam Sandler Filmed “That’s My Boy” on Cape Cod

Jim!  Jiiimmm!  Is that Adam Sandlah?

Yes, yelled the bald Eagle Scout,
who in my youth told me once not to lie.

A pugnacious copper-toned Shar-pei pushing a walker
inchwormed as fast as she could to her dock on the bay.

Is that really Adam Sandlah?

Yes, the bronze-beaked Eagle replied
without ruffling a single feather.
Adam, what's wrong with you?
Wave to Mrs. Boucher.
Make an old woman feel special - 
though I questioned who wanted to feel special.

Preening is not a sin on Cape Cod,
not in the summertime, 
so I waved and wondered.

How could anyone believe Adam Sandler would be
on my dad's treacherous Boston Whaler - 
a boat famous for its mysterious brown stains,
mildewed cushions, and inattentive outboard?

Adam . . . Adam . . . Adam,
come over to my house for dinner.
I'll make a brisket.

Being a New Englander himself,
Adam knew how to crack the lobster-shelled heart
of every crab-faced Masshole in each sandbar town.
He tipped 100% for everything.

And Cape Cod rewarded him the only way it knew -
with tilting towers of maple walnut ice cream teetering on tiny cones
and overflowing cardboard cups of tepid chowder infiltrated by 
chunky potatoes and chewy clams.

Osterville's elders, a large, comfortable and opinionated lot,
adored him more than their own sons because they heard he was polite - 
that he loved and respected his mother.

All the sunburnt seniors had stories of how Adam had sought them out;
how he had gone away enlightened and grateful.

Dropping the name of someone you've never met
is a victimless crime on Cape Cod in the summertime -
similar to prominently placing a movie star's name
in the title of your poem in the orphaned
hope that now someone may read it.

By the way, Adam,
the brisket was delicious.
You would have loved it.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

It Just Got Hotter in Texas

Being a reputable media outlet, this journal frequently focuses on news that’s intended to make readers angry. Hey, whatever it takes to get those precious clicks. Well, not today – because we’re bringing you a feel-good story where common sense prevails.

On June 12, 2023, Texas passed the READER Act, which stands for Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designed Educational Resources. It requires book vendors selling to Texas public schools to rate books based on sexual content. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/business/texas-sexually-explicit-books-law/index. Now it will be much easier to find sexually explicit material in school books. I must confess: This news gave me a joy boner.

Per the law vendors must first determine whether a book has sexual content. Easy peasy. If so, they must then label that content as either “patently offensive” (aka the good stuff) or just “sexually relevant” (aka missionary position). Simple pimple, because everyone knows what “patently offensive” means. Is it offensive? Do you have a patent for it?

But how will I know how hot the “patently offensive” stuff is? I don’t want to waste my money here. Not to worry. Texas thought of that too. A committee will assign anywhere from 1 (that’s different) to 4 (need a new pair of underwear) erect eggplant emojis to books with patently offensive material. It will assign 1 (after school TV special) to 4 (is that your grandfather?) withered eggplant emojis to books with boring sexually relevant material.

All I can say is: Thank you, Texas. Now, if only Goodreads would do the same.

Tengo Leche, Patently Offensive Editor

An Oxymoron Without a Muffler

Driving home from work on Jubal Early Highway, I heard the roars of an outraged rhinoceros stampeding towards me at 75 mph. As the sound got closer, I realized it was a decrepit pick-up truck without a muffler. From its flatbed a proud flag streamed from a pole attached with plastic zip ties. It was half an American flag sewed to half a Confederate flag.

Giving the driver the benefit of the doubt, he probably thought this display would prove that he was only half an asshole. He was half right.

Tengo Lecho, Flag Reporter

Schlitz and a Pack of Luckies

Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies is aptly titled. Mercy in South Boston is as rare as a Yankee fan. Though published in 2023, the story is set in 1974 during school desegregation. “It was very hot in Boston that summer, and it seldom rained.” The white “Southie” community is virulently opposed to school busing, which will send their children to a different high school in September. Gasoline has been poured on the racial tensions. I hope no one strikes a match.

Well, hope moved out of South Boston long ago, so the match gets struck. A high school boy, who is black, turns up dead in a Southie train station. On the same night a white high school girl goes missing. The girl’s name is Jules. Her mother is Mary Pat, a rage-filled Southie woman who is not afraid to break a punk’s nose. The boy’s name is Auggie Williamson. His mother works with Mary Pat. What are the chances these two events are related? Exactly.

In Southie “you’re either a fighter or a runner. And runners always run out of road.” Mary Pat is most certainly a fighter. When Jules doesn’t come home after 24 hours, Mary Pat knows going to the police is pointless. She goes to the Butler crew, a criminal gang that offers “protection” to the Southie neighborhood, instead. The Butler crew, however, isn’t all that interested in figuring out what happened to Jules. That’s when Mary Pat takes matters into her own hands, and absolutely everyone better watch out. There is “something both irretrievably broken and wholly unbreakable [living] at the core” of her. She’s the kind of vigilante who would make Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson say hey, Mary Pat, you’re kinda freaking us out. Have you thought of anger management classes?

Lehane tells an engrossing, fast-paced story using a thesaurus devoid of pretty words. Vile racial epithets abound, but the brutal language is appropriate given the subject matter, time, and place. We aren’t reading about Disneyland. Southie is a small world, but it’s not a kids’ ride. “In Southie, most kids came out of the womb clutching a Schlitz and a pack of Luckies.”

While racial divisions are the paramount problem here, Lehane doesn’t ignore the economic divide. “We all know that the only law and the only god is money. If you have enough of it, you don’t have to suffer consequences and you don’t have to suffer for your ideals, you just foist them on someone else and feel good about the nobility of your intentions.” The private schools will remain segregated, as will the schools in the wealthy suburbs.

Hypocrisy and corruption are everywhere in Boston. Yet, somehow, Mary Pat believed Southie was exempt. “You know, we always say we stand for things here. We might not have much, but we have the neighborhood. We got a code. We watch out for one another . . . What a crock of shit.” When the truth finally smacks her in the face, Mary Pat hits back. Hard.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

The Campaign

A straw man riding a sacred cow
pulling a tethered scapegoat 
arrived in a town named Trope
just when they were needed most.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

The Silent Majority

Over Mother’s Day weekend I attended the 2023 Fiesta Asia Street Fair in Washington, DC. It was a mosaic of wonderful music, dancing, art, and food. Afterwards, I was walking along Constitution Avenue close to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. That’s when I heard drums.

Looking around, I noticed a parade of approximately 80 white men dressed in little boy sailor suits. They were banging on drums and waving banners that read RECLAIM AMERICA. When they got close, I could read the blue lettering on their white caps: NAMBI, which stands for National Association of Man-Boys & Incels – a neo-Nazi, white supremacist group. They were surrounded by police officers balancing on road bikes.

Curious, I started walking next to one of the marchers and introduced myself. “Are you related to Jim Crow?” he asked.

“No.”

“That’s a shame. He’s our favorite founding father.”

“Who are you trying to reclaim America from?”

“Anyone who isn’t 100% white, 100% Christian, and 100% performatively-Alpha male.”

“Is anyone in America 100% anything?”

“That’s why we need to act now. Before it’s too late.”

“Are you disappointed no one has come out to support you?”

“Not at all. We know the majority of people support us. They’re just silent.”

“Have you thought they might be silent because they disagree with you?”

“I didn’t get here by having thoughts.””

“Do you find it funny that every police officer here protecting you is black?”

“As far as I know, NAMBIs don’t have a sense of humor. So, no, I don’t find that funny.”

“When you say reclaim America, what do you mean?”

“Go back to the way things used to be.”

“How far back is that? Like, does that mean going back to the days of slavery?”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just trying to stop the erosion of de facto segregation. Once we do that, we can work on bringing back de jure segregation. But let me be clear – no one, and I mean no one, is trying to bring back slavery. Yet.”

Saffron Crow, Parade Reporter