Short Takes #2

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (read this!)
David Huddle, Men at Night

This is a take on order and disorder in the military. An aborted training mission leads to discontent in the ranks, until it's corrected through discipline and cadence. It's hyper-real and reads like an understated action movie, eschewing sensory description and challenging prose for stunted clarity, in much the same way that military life is stripped down compared to civilian life. There's some ambiguity; the reader doesn't learn why the mission was canceled. It's a bit like those paintings that are nothing but curves, but your mind fills in space based on experience, and you see a flushed-out, complete work of art.

Ackerman on tanning

Ackerman, in case you haven't caught on, fancies herself a bit of an adventurer. On page 92, she separates herself from the masses by saying that commoners enjoy relaxing, idle vacations in the sun. I find her writing is often indulgent, but she had a beautiful sentence, the rare line that makes me stop and ruminate on my own inadequacies in comparison.

And, though some of us like adventure travel, most prefer to sit in the sun like a rack of spareribs, basting ourselves regularly with sauce, and quietly frying, taking care to turn over so we'll be cooked on both sides.

In a way, we really are preparing ourselves for consumption by others, visually.

A Person's Smell

My roommate is is not from the school of thought that "less is more" when it comes to perfuming. Every time he's about to leave to see his girlfriend, he bathes himself (and the room) in body spray. When I remind him that it's meant to complement, not overwhelm, he insists that his saturation of scent is fine because of the cold weather. (?)

He left for the weekend, so I checked the can for details. "Power Stick: Intensity" hits you as delicately as a linebacker, a pungent and unabashed conqueror of any room.

As a fragrance miniminalist without a girlfriend to go visit, I have to wonder what I've missed out on.

Second-hand Smell

When you walk into a thrift store, the scent is usually the first thing you note. It's the musk of thousands of people, combining in a sort of collective aroma. Discarded memories, traces of hikes and job interviews and cigarettes and movie marathons and running marathons. It's the smell of human experience. Each article of clothing in a thrift store has a unique story; that heavily-padded blazer was donated because it adorned a man who lost his truelove, the XXL t-shirt a past skin shed by the man who finally took control of his life.

Sure, some articles might smell like musty storage, but anything with a torrid scent is either discarded or cleaned. The abhorrent stench is neutralized, sanitized, and it becomes but a faded memory woven into fabric.

Short Takes #1

Joanna McNaney's Clean Slate
Katarina Roberts' Undercurrent

Clean Slate:

McNaney's composition is a reflection on a high school photo of her parents. She analyzes their appearance and characterizes each of them, portraying her dad as a smart nerd who managed to attract a beautiful woman with a deep sadness. Beyond the surface of the photo lies a rocky relationship. McNaney can see her mother's broken smile masking an inner sadness, and she recognizes the look as one her mother adopts to camouflage a perpetual sadness brought on by angry and abusive spouse.

Of Deception in the Golden Dome

Features of Montaigne's writing: quotes strewn throughout, many clauses merged in heavily punctuated sentences,

Knute Rockne invoked the health issues of his puerile son, a 6 year old supposedly expiring worlds away from the locker room where, as an overmatched football coach, Rockne desired to incite his squadron, a unit doubted by most against the pigskin army of Army, undoubtedly better, as signified by an untainted record. Rockne parlayed his son's health into motivation, that intangible of which the grandest men embrace, into a shocking victory, carved out for a child far from infirm. Betwixt this victory and the precedent set by winning for the ill George Gipp, less of an embellishment than the certified falsitude of the prior, Notre Dame employs a proud tradition in football and in mendacity.

Manti Te'o, gridiron warrior buoyed by public vibe and sentiment, has witnessed his white lie morph into an ivory palace of deception. But, as athletic director Jack Swarbrick affirmed in conference with the gullible press, a press that not only nibbled the bait, but swallowed the hook, the palace of deception has been erected for nearly a century, enclosed under a golden dome of mistruth.

Two incidents of suspected rape have been, effectively, downplayed through sleight of hand; The Fightin' Irish summon the press for a fictional woman, a teary and heartfelt affair, while Swarbrick neglects to summon tears nor words for violation of tangible flesh. The university habitually fails to understand:

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.” -Cicero