White Noise: Always There, Just Like Death and Commercials

In White Noise Don DeLillo notes “All plots tend to move deathward.” I’m not sure if he is surprised by this, but he shouldn’t be. All life moves deathward. So how can plots do otherwise?

Let’s put that question aside and simply agree that DeLillo in White Noise is obsessed with death. But Gladiola, white noise is my favorite noise. How can it be linked to death? Sorry, my friend, white noise is always there in the background. Just like death. And Jack (the narrator) can’t stop thinking about death. Even when he’s thinking with his penis, his penis is thinking about death. He chairs the Hitler Studies Department at a small college on the hill. Why Hitler? “Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.”

Jack is married to Babette, and they have a blended family with a child from their own marriage but also children from several prior marriages. Babette is taking some kind of medication that she refuses to admit she’s taking. Like Jack, she is terrified by death. Even when she’s thinking with her vagina . . . well, you get it. “We (humans) are the highest form of life on earth and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.” When a train accident happens on the edge of town, a deadly toxic cloud gets released. Jack is exposed to the poison, and his fear of death becomes all-consuming. The novel explores the reckless ways Jack and Babette try and fail to manage this intense fear.

Published in 1984, the novel also skewers consumerism and our culture’s reliance on television – a precursor of the internet and social media. “When TV didn’t fill them with rage, it scared them half to death.” And it touches on inequality and inequity. During the toxic event, Jack thinks “These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters.” The novel succeeds best when it is focused on these themes. But back to death.

The lengths Babette and Jack go to calm their fear are hard to relate to. When they wonder why no one else is overwhelmed by the fear as they are, Jack acknowledges that “Some people are better at repressing it than others.” He’s wrong. Everyone is better at repressing it. They become the poster children for repression and denial being the correct strategy. And that’s good news for me because I repress and deny everything. So I must be healthy as hell.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Grab Some Afternoon Delight

There’s a new trend affecting today’s children – especially teens. It’s an anti-social attitude and behavior that’s rather shocking. I am not the first to notice it, but I am probably the wisest to comment on it. This belligerent attitude is reflected in the music young people listen to. Bands like The Rolling Stones (I can’t get no satisfaction”), The Clash (“Let fury have the hour, anger can be power/Do you know that you can use it?”), and The Cure (“Let’s go to bed”). This music is beginning to change how young people interact with their superiors. But the music is a symptom of the real issue. These children and teens have too much free time.

Having elegantly explained the problem, I will now artfully bring you the solution. Repeal child labor laws. Instead of allowing these children to watch MTV all day on their personal handheld devices, let’s put them to work. Then they would be too tired to be anti-social. Who knows? Our youth may start listening to wholesome music again. Musicians like Starland Vocal Band (“Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight/Gonna grab some afternoon delight”), Sheena Easton (“My baby takes the morning train”), and whoever sang “God save the Queen/we mean it, man”).

While we’re at it. We should repeal minimum wage laws as well. We could hire a lot more children without those pesky laws. Plus, the government has no expertise in this arena. No one knows better than me and my business clients what your children are for and how much they’re worth.

Treacherous Gulp, Esquire – Counsel for Pungent Sound Technical College of Technology

The Power of Prayer

Sheer frustration and desperation
drove me to my knees, naked before the Lord -
certain I heard snickering somewhere.

But I persisted and prayed
for you to turn up on time,
not make simple mistakes,
or embarrass me before clients.

And you, who glued bumper stickers 
to your Prius proclaiming 
miracles happen every day -
you have made me an atheist
through the power of prayer.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

The Great White Heron in a Floppy Hat

My father, long retired and recently afraid
of becoming irrelevant, has become a pest.

A master gardener, himself, he has volunteered
to teach the Wampanoag children of Cape Cod
how to grow vegetables the way 80 year old white men do -
by stabbing cold metal hand shovels into the sandy soil
and throwing dry seeds in the gaping wounds.

The Wampanoag women of Cape Cod
prefer their traditional methods.
The warm heels of their feet create the needed homes
for the pregnant seeds.

Dad visits their community garden
unannounced, uninvited, and unaware
he may be perceived as a great white heron in a floppy hat
attempting to poach fish from their pond.

The tortured history here would recommend
a gentler approach, but he is forever
surprised by the frosty welcome.
He suspects they want his money more than his help.

His plans for Thanksgiving, my sister and I think,
are bound to make matters worse.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Absurdistan: Love and Geopolitics

Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan is a geopolitical romp that ends on September 10, 2001. But the book was published in 2006 – so make no mistake – 9/11 hangs over the narrative like an ominous cloud. Don’t make this mistake either – though 9/11 was a tragedy and geopolitical catastrophe, the novel is a raunchy and satirical examination of life when you’re a geopolitical pawn. And we’re all geopolitical pawns.

As the narrator, Misha Borisovich Vainberg, tells us in the prologue, this is a “book about love. But it’s also a book about geography.” The story opens on June 15, 2001. Misha is 30 years old and the son of the 1238th richest man in Russia. That’s because his father is a kleptocrat.

During the 1990s Misha attended Accidental College in the mid-west. As a result he adores America and rap music. His rapper name is Snack Daddy, because he loves all the snacks that have turned him into a self-described “fatso”. Unfortunately, his father called him back to Russia, and he is stuck there because dad killed a politically connected Oklahoman in St. Petersburg. Now the U.S. won’t let Misha back.

Misha hates Russia and its corrupt transition from the Soviet Union – even though he has benefitted tremendously from that corruption. “These miscreants were our country’s rulers. To survive in their world, one has to wear many hats – perpetrator, victim, silent bystander.” He’s desperate to get back to his girlfriend in the Bronx – so desperate he travels to Absurdistan, where he has been promised a Belgian passport that will enable him to finally return to the U.S.

Absurdistan does not exist in the real world. I googled it. However, in the novel it is one of the Stans in the former Soviet Union. It consists of several ethnic groups, and they all hate each other. As soon as Misha shows up, civil war breaks out and the borders are closed. Each ethnic group wants to use Misha for its own political purposes, and Misha wants to use them to escape to the Bronx and his girlfriend. Sex, humor, and violence ensue.

Similar to Candide, Misha is a “holy fool” who is wrong about pretty much everything. Near the novel’s end he confesses, “I thought I was Different and had a Special Story to tell but I guess I’m not and I don’t.” Fortunately, he’s wrong about that as well.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Each Spring Beckons Me Out the Door

A fuzzy pink sweater adorns the cherry tree 
and all the ladies half my age are smiling at me. 

Or so it seems - 
maybe they're just smiling near me. 
It's hard to see with such watery eyes, 
as if I'm looking through melting ice. 

Each spring beckons me out the door, 
but I'm moving slower than the year before 
and can't keep up as the ladies walk past. 
When did these women get so fast?    

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Cerebral Thoughts on Art’s Entirely Benevolent Contribution to Civilization

I have drawn a portrait of God
and He looks like me.

Not you.

                    Me.

Saffron Crow, Art Editor

Victory City – Miracles at Work

Salman Rushdie knows how to tell an engaging story filled with humor and tragedy. He’s done so time and again, and Victory City is the latest addition to his catalogue.

The story opens with the purported recent discovery of an epic poem written by Pampa Kampana in southern India during the 14th century. The narrator is a “spinner of yarns” who retells the story in “plainer language.” The epic begins with an unknown king losing a “no-name” battle. This unlucky king is beheaded by the opposing army. The women in the conquered city are even more unlucky. As tradition demands, these women commit suicide by walking into a bonfire. That’s what Pampa’s mother does – leaving the nine-year old an orphan who must now fend for herself.

After witnessing the mass suicide, Pampa makes a decision. “She would not sacrifice her body merely to follow dead men into the afterworld.” A goddess (also named Pampa) hears this and grants her a blessing that changes young Pampa’s life. She begins to speak with the majestic voice of a goddess and becomes a prophet and miracle worker.

The goddess tells Pampa “you will fight to make sure that no more women are ever burned in this fashion, and that men start considering women in new ways, and you will live just long enough to witness both your success and failure.” That takes 247 years. And sometimes a blessing can be a curse, because 247 years means she will see everyone she loves die.

A few years later Pampa gets hold of magic seeds, and from these seeds Bisnaga (meaning Victory City) grows. In Bisnaga women are free to work at any job they want. The arts are not frivolous. “They are essential to a society’s health and well-being.” But one person’s art is another person’s porn, and every action has a reaction. Each success is countered by religious extremism until the prophecy is finally fulfilled.

No surprises here – Rushdie has personal experience with religious extremism’s brutality, and concerns about religious extremism are as relevant today as ever. So the story is absorbing for that reason alone.

But this is Salman Rushdie, so the story is much more than a battle between feminism and religious patriarchies. It is also about the importance of stories, because even Pampa doesn’t live forever. People die and cities collapse into ruins, but some stories live on. “All that remains is this city of words. Words are the only victors.” But that assumes the stories survive – that books and women aren’t fuel for bonfires.

Remember, Pampa’s poem opens with a forgotten king and a no-name battle. His story did not survive time’s ravages. And it is only through chance that Pampa’s does – after 450 years of silence. According to our “spinner of yarns” the poem was only recently found in a clay pot among ancient ruins.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Cerebral Thoughts on How to Live a Purpose-Driven Life

When I see or hear someone doing or saying something I find offensive or the least bit disruptive to my sense of propriety, I ask myself a question. Does this idiot’s conduct affect me? If I can come up with some possible way it does, I immediately tell the degenerate to stop, or I will post his picture on Grumblr where me and my fellow like-minded Grumblrs will Grumbl at him.

If the answer is no, this malcontent’s conduct doesn’t affect me in the slightest, I ask another question. Is this pervert finding joy in doing whatever it is she’s doing? If so, I immediately tell her to stop. And if she doesn’t, it’s straight to Grumblr with her.

Knowgood Carp, Owner of all the Hotels on Block Island (and Some in Connecticut)

Easter Service on Stone Mountain

When the sun began to rise so, too, did the deacon
scaling that sacred rock to the Nimbus Arena
where the Holy Trinity resides in petrified consternation.

He plopped himself down at the left hand of Lee,
gave a grim nod to Stonewall on his stony steed,
and from the lap of Jefferson Davis
proclaimed the good news:

Heritage is the Way                    of preserving power;
the Truth                                        tamed by tradition;
and the Life                                    lived in the past.

Heritage is the burning cross illuminating
the Master's house in the cotton-filled clouds.

So blessed be heritage’s most zealous defenders
for they shall inherit the blistered remains of the earth.

Blessed, too, be any deed done in the name of heritage,
no matter how heinous, for heritage sanctions everything
except change.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief