Three Minute Fiction for NPR

3 minute fiction contest, round 8, NPR
Wolf Kirchmeir, 11 to 13 March 2012
The contest required starting with the given first sentence, and writing 600 words or less. Unfortunately, only legal residents of the US are eligible to compete. The song was not planned. I’ve been working on it for some time, and was surprised and pleased at how easily it came as part of this story. The story came via the usual process: start the work, let it mull for a couple of days, try again. Repeat as needed. Then it comes easily, the subconscious writer has been at work. It did a lot more than develop the original idea. The 600-word limit forced pruning, hence the occasionally telegraphic syntax. The comma error in the given sentence is not mine. Link to NPR contest page:
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148251671/three-minute-fiction-round-8-she-closed-the-book?ft=1&f=1032
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     She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. He half rose from the chair. Turning, she gazed at him with cool eyes, closed the door gently behind her. He sat down, touched the book, opened it. “To Genevieve, Love, John” in his florid handwriting.
     He watched her walk to her car. The sun lit up the street like a movie set, bright colours glowing. He imagined he heard a song half-remembered: She’s leaving home, bye, bye. The music drifted through his memory of their last conversation. “There’s frozen meals downstairs,” she said. “The package tells you how to cook it in the microwave.” He stood in the door, holding the book, his first gift to her. “Do you want this?” he asked. She glanced at the bag on the chair beside her. “I don’t think I have room for it,” she said. He put the book down in front of her. “Read it,” he said.
     He watched as she opened the book, glanced at the inscription, leafed through it, and stopped to read. “Come live with me and be my love,” she read, her voice clear and neutral, “and we will all the pleasures prove.” Paused. “Not much pleasure lately”, she said.

*****

     She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. I should have a flashback here, she thought. To the days when reading meant something to me. Though it never did, really. Mean something. I read that book because John gave it to me. It mattered to him. Seemed to matter to him.
     She turned and gazed at him. He gave me that book to show he cared, she thought. The book didn’t mean anything to him, the poems meant nothing. It was bait. They were love poems, he was playing a part. The bait worked, his desire for me trapped me. Trapped us both. That’s what he wanted.
     She walked to the car. She knew he watched her. The colours of the gardens were clear and luminous, the houses looked like paper cutouts. She got in the car and drove away. Come live with me and be my love. Words, words, words. Tricks to get you into bed. And we will all the pleasures prove. Not much pleasure lately, she thought.

*****

     She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. The butterfly on the rose bush greeted her ecstatically: “I’ve been waiting for you”. She smiled, held out her finger. “Hello Fred”, she said. Fred settled on her finger and preened in the sun, his wings iridescent blue and purple. “Let’s make a song, alternating lines. When we’re done, we’ll sing it. I’ll start.”

We’ve been together 50 years
Through many a calm and storm.
We’ve shivered in the rain and snow
But true love has kept us warm.

Now sun and wind have brought us here
To gardens of delight and joy,
We’ll kiss and dance till night comes down,
Till we’re again a girl and boy.

Till we’re again the girl and boy
That met so long ago,
Till we’re again the boy and girl
That learned true love is slow.

True love is slow, it outlives time,
It bears all kinds of weather,
Now, after fifty years of love,
We still want to be together.

“That’s good”, said Genevieve. Fred’s wings opened and closed slowly. She leaned down to let them brush against her lips. “Come live with me”, she murmured, “and be my love.”

Our Town (Review)

Our Town (Thornton Wilder, 1938) Presented by Theatre SMC (Sault Ste Marie) D: J Lauzon & L Durat. With Vernon Bailey, Bridget Murphy, Alexandra McCauley, Andrew Lorimer and others.
     We went to see this play at the Quonta competition in Elliot Lake. It was the only one Marie wanted to see. It was well done, as far as I could tell a faithful revival of Wilder’s original vision (I saw the play many years ago in Edmonton.) The story, set in Grover’s Corners,  is well known: Emily, the central character, is shown growing up, falling in love and marrying the boy next door, eventually dying in childbirth. Several other characters recur, and the Stage Manager (who speaks directly to the audience) brings us up to date on the events in Grover’s Corners since the previous act. The set is a nearly bare stage, the story moves forward in set-pieces (many of which were even then already cliches of stage and screen), and the wonder is that this severely schematic script can and does engage us.
     Thornton’s talent was using stereotypes in a way that we forget they are stereotype. There is enough particularisation that we care about the characters, yet Wilder continually reminds us that we are watching what amounts to an almost abstract fable, a parable, about the value of ordinary life and ordinary people. This life is all we can be sure of having, so we should value the people that we love and who love us.
     The production was very good. Murphy as Emily was especially good. Vernon Bailey found just the right note of matter-of-factness as Stage Manager that his direct talk to us seemed natural. The pace was occasionally slower than I thought it needed to be, and over it there hung a whiff of Reverence for a Classic. But overall I enjoyed the play. Well done. ***

The Hugging Trees

The hugging trees on December 26 2012. See March 8 post for an earlier photo.

Two old movies (Review)

The Accidental Tourist (1988) [D: Lawrence Kasdan. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis] Macon writes travel guides for people who have to travel, and don’t really want to leave the comforts of their American home(s). His son was killed during a robbery, and he has been unable to come to terms with his grief. His wife Sarah asks for a divorce and leaves. When Macon takes his badly behaved dog to a kennel for boarding while he’s on his next assignment, he meets Muriel, who offers to train the dog. She has a son. Macon moves in with her. Eventually, Macon has to choose between the two women, and chooses Muriel. Along the way, Macon’s sister Rose meets Julian, Macon’s publisher, who falls for her. That ends with a happy marriage.

    Obviously, this is a romantic comedy, but it’s not the kind that indulges in farcical or physical humour.  The movie is slow, languid, low-key, it has the feel of one damn thing after another. Anne Tyler wrote the book; based on the few of her things I’ve read, the movie seems a faithful reproduction of her tone. Tyler is interested in the ways in which people manage to eke out some sort of happiness in lives beset with bad luck, pain, stifling habits, obligations to exasperating people, the vagaries of emotion, and the desire for connection. It dragged a bit here and there, but despite that seemed shorter than its two hours.
     There’s a lot of incident and incidental social comedy. Although set in Baltimore, it feels like a New England movie: the characters seem afraid of acknowledging their feelings, let alone expressing them. It’s Muriel’s unapologetic need for pleasure and purpose, not to say any scraps of casual income she can gather, that propels the story. Without her, Sarah and Macon would have divorced without coming up from under their stifling grief, or  understanding how and why their marriage is over. The cliche descriptor is “bitter sweet.” It fits, which might make you think the movie is a cliche, too, but it’s not. It’s one of those quiet little stories that sticks in your mind, and you don’t quite know why. ***


Crossing Delancey (1988) [D: Joan Micklin. Amy Irving, Peter Riegert] Another romantic comedy, one of many that show how one of the partners is mistaken about how to live his or her life, and must be rescued from a fate amounting to death by a wooer who appears to be everything but the right one. In this case, it’s Isabelle, a 30-something New Yorker in the book business, who has deluded herself, and Sam Posner, a third generation pickle seller, who must persist until he has won her. Isabelle’s infatuation with Anton Maes, a third-rate poet, distracts her into believing she wants an intellectual life. Then Sam tells that he saw her three years before, and he only agreed to allow a matchmaker to set him up with Isabelle because he’s been thinking about her ever since. This confession sparks an interest that slowly but surely grows into the kind of comforting passion that spells happy ever after.
     Nicely done, this movie was a pleasure to watch. I’m a sucker for romance, especially the kind where a Knight (Sam) rescues a Maiden (Isabelle) from a Dragon (Anton). ***

Politics & money

     No, this won't be a rant about how much influence the moneyed have on politics. The only rant is this sentence:

"Politics is driven by misconceptions about money and wealth."

     Too many people think that money is wealth, and that therefore it should be hoarded. The phrase we use is "saving money", which makes hoarding money sound like a virtue. It's not. Our ancestors knew that: the money hoarder is a miser, a miserable Scrooge.
    Money is not wealth. Wealth is goods and services. Money and wealth flow in opposite directions: When I give you a $10 bill for a dozen used books at your yard sale, I have a dozen used books, and you have a $10 bill. You can now exchange that for something you think is worth $10, say a small roast and some mushrooms, from which you will make yourself a stew. The owner of the grocery store can use the $10 to pay an employee. Eventually, that $10 bill could show up in the hands of a neighbour who wants to buy a dozen used books from me at my yard sale. In the meantime, it has enabled a great deal of trading of wealth.

      If I hang onto the $10 bill because I think it's wealth, then you can't sell me your used books, and you can't buy the stew meat and mushrooms, and the grocery store owner will have to get $10 from someone else, and so on. Money is only good for one thing: spending. As long as people spend money, wealth will be traded. More than that: wealth will be created, because people want to trade it.
     In Cabaret, the MC sings "Money makes the world go around." Yes it does. Of course, we don't really need money, we could barter directly, or use IOUs, but money makes it much easier to trade with each other. Trading distributes wealth, which is a good thing. If we couldn't trade our wealth, if we couldn't make wealth to trade, we would each one of us have to find what we needed to survive. Just like the animals who don't have any notion of creating or trading what they need.
     Money makes it easier to share the wealth. That's all.

More trees

Here are the most recent tree photos, posted later than planned. This is a view from our bedroom balcony.

Russian olive in front yard. Both pictures were taken on March 3, the day we had planned to drive to Toronto, but the heavy snow made the highways too risky.

Trees (Photos of)

Here are a couple of my photos of trees, made back in the days of black and white film. In the darkroom, I fiddled with contrast and range by selecting paper and controlling exposure and development. Now, I just move sliders on a tool pane. The trees hugging each other have survived. I will post the most recent photo tomorrow. If you like these pictures, leave a comment.