tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48215638414355779412024-02-08T07:23:48.333-08:00MATT POTTERMatt Potter ... writing ... and various other thingsMatt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-35425959963680185842014-06-24T03:25:00.000-07:002014-06-24T03:32:37.183-07:00<h2>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Three Things I Don’t Write </span></span></b><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">(and Three Things I Do)</span></span></b></h2>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-field-code: " HYPERLINK \0022http\:\/\/jasonrolfe\.wordpress\.com\/\0022 \\t \0022_blank\0022 ";"><a href="http://jasonrolfe.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/three-things-i-dont-write-three-things-i-do/">Jason E. Rolfe</a></span> tagged me to participate in this exercise. (Well, I asked him, and he said yes.) Here are my answers
to the prompt <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three things I don’t write
(& three things I do)</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Three things I don’t write<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;">1. I don’t write crime. It’s been years
and years since I read any crime – some Carl Hiaasen, I think, 4 books quite
close together, 20 years ago – and while I enjoyed them (more for the humour)
the idea of plotting a heist or a murder or some sort of smackdown (see, I
can’t even get the terminology right!) leaves me ... well, bored is too weak a
word! Completely disinterested. I mean, the doing of it, yes, that would be OK,
writing about the doing ... but the detective work and the piecing together.
Yeah, spare me. Life is too short.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;">2. I don’t write non-fiction I have to
research. I don’t even like doing much research for the fiction I write! I do,
however, much prefer reading non-fiction, so it’s a bind. I love reading about
things but to do so as “research” takes out all the pleasure for me. I do write
non-fiction, but it’s really more memoir than straight non-fiction. There are
many many many subjects I love to read about but I can’t think of one of them I
want to write about. I have to write a 400 word op-ed column / article for my
day job for a local LGBT newspaper, once a month, and it’s a struggle to write, which I put off and off and off ... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;">3. I don’t really write about money
struggles. When I was a student and had no money, I’m sure I wrote about money
issues a lot more. (Well, I might have ... I think. Although maybe in my head
I’ve always had enough money, even if reality proved different!) A
character of mine (Morgana Malone) had no job until recently. I wrote about her
having no income but I didn’t write about how it affected her life. I just
wrote that she had no money so she stayed home in the dark a lot, to save on
power bills, but that was more about the laugh than the reality of not having enough money. Maybe my
characters are very much First World people. Well, there’s no <i>maybe</i> about it
really ...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Three things I do write<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;">1. I write funny. I write fun and humour
and about ridiculous things. Stephen V. Ramey recently wrote of a story of
mine, it’s “a well researched hoot, with just enough veracity to make one
wonder if maybe this isn’t all that far fetched.” I write about absurd things,
to make the reader laugh, but there is a huge truth to what I write. Truth
really is stranger than fiction, and the world is a far more absurd place than
we like to think when we are trying to be serious and problem solve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Georgia;">2. I write about sex because sex is
absurd. Sex is messy and silly and stupid and often not worth wasting too much
time thinking about but still, we do. We do that a lot. And I don’t get this
man / woman thing about sex and thinking about sex and love versus sex. I think
it’s a lot of shit. Sometimes I want to say, stop thinking about it, and just
do it. Stop doing this male versus female thing and just accept we are all
different and all the same. I loathe the inherent sexism in a lot of gender
bullshit, so I like to write about sex in a way that’s real and fun and silly
and enjoyable but not voyeuristic. Tell it like it is. I can’t think of a character I have ever
created who would be afraid of sex. Although I could be kidding myself there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 150%;">3. I write a good list. A good list has
a good rhythm and they can usually wring humour out of a situation so that
works for me. One of my favourite authors is Ellen Gilchrist, and she turned me
on to the power of the list. Most lists are funny. Even if they start out as
serious, they become funny because their length is absurd. Plus, I live by
lists anyway, in my real everyday living life. So maybe my love of a good list is just an extension of that habit.</span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-81440291831457013292014-03-16T19:31:00.003-07:002014-03-24T15:52:05.421-07:00Writing tag - My Writing Process Q & A<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My Writing Process</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is a series of blog posts in which authors
‘tag’ each other to answer some questions about their work. Gill Hoffs asked me
to take part, along with <a href="http://scribblingsimmons.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/typing-tag-my-writing-process-qa/"><b>Shane Simmons</b></a>.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">About Gill Hoffs<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b><a href="http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/typing-tag-my-writing-process-qa/">Gill Hoffs</a></b> grew
up on the Scottish coast, studied Psychology, Biology and English Literature at
the University of Glasgow, then worked with children with a variety of needs (ASD
and/or EBD, mainly) throughout the UK. She married her best friend and they now
live in Warrington in the north of England with their son Angus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What am I working on?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am working on
the last 4 stories for my own part in Pure Slush’s '2014 A Year in Stories' which
I am also editing. ‘2014 A Year in Stories’ is a multi-volume anthology and includes
12 volumes, each volume devoted to a month of the year, and therefore named January
Vol. 1, February Vol. 2, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Each writer involved
is contributing one story per month ... so 12 stories in all, from 28 of the 31
writers involved. (11 from two of them, and 7 from the last.)</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
And each of these writers is taking one day of each month – the 5th, the 13th, the
21st, for example - and setting his / her stories on that same day of every month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, for example,
a writer takes the 10th – Friday 10th January, Monday 10th February, Monday 10th
March, Thursday 10th April, etc – throughout the year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What we’re publishing
is a series of stories from each writer that arcs across the whole year, involving
the same character or set of characters. Twelve days in the life of that person
or people. So every month, as the books are released, readers can dip into these
characters’ lives. Like a serial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You can find more
about it here: <a href="http://pureslush.webs.com/2014.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://pureslush.webs.com/2014.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">How does my work differ from others of
its genre?</span></i><i> </i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What’s <i>genre</i>? God, what an awful question! What
genre do I write? I usually write humorous stories ... so is humour a genre? Someone
recently said my stories are ‘zany’, though I think ‘absurd’ is a better adjective.
They are different from the humorous stories others write because they’re my sense
of humour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Why do I write what I do?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I write because
life is better for me when I do so. I write what I do because I like to reframe
life’s tragedies and absurdities in a funny way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">How does my writing process work?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I write to deadlines
... though I often miss them and then, don’t write. I often write because if I don’t,
the ideas will disappear and the notes will just be disconnected scraps of paper.
But still, I often don’t write even then. I usually write at night and sometimes
into the early morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I have tagged
Paul Combs and Stephen V. Ramey in this ...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b><a href="http://sonicfountainpen.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/writing-tag-my-writing-process-qa/">Paul Combs</a></b> lives
in the not always literary state of Texas, and his ultimate goal (besides being
a roadie for the E Street Band) is to make reading, writing, and books in general
as popular in Texas as high school football. It may take a while. His fiction has
previously appeared in <i>Pure Slush</i>, <i>The Faircloth Review</i>, and <i>Postcard Poems and Prose</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://stephenvramey.com/2014/03/24/writing-tag-my-writing-process/">Stephen V. Ramey</a></b>
is an</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> American author of contemporary and speculative fiction.His short stories
and flash fictions have appeared in dozens of places, from Microliterature to Daily
Science Fiction. His first collection, <i><a href="http://pureslush.webs.com/store.htm#899065535" target="_blank" title="Pure Slush"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Glass Animals</span></a></i>, is
available from <i><a href="http://pureslush.webs.com/store.htm#899065535"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Pure Slush Books</span></a></i>.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-747906806883554362012-10-08T17:48:00.000-07:002012-10-15T19:12:00.890-07:00The Next Big Thing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>What is the working title of your book?</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">'On the Bitch'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>Where did the idea come from for the book?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">I needed to get back into writing, so I sent out email requests for prompts ... and very soon it became obvious the stories written from the prompts were working toward one overall story.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br style="line-height: 20px;" /><i>What genre does your book fall under?</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">I have no idea - it is just very me. I do funny / sad mostly. Humour? Well, probably but maybe not. Actually, it's a novella. What it isn't is horror, fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, chick lit, creative non-fiction, biography, memoir or tell-all muckraker. It's closest to literary fiction BUT my writing style is not that literary. It's more direct. And funnier.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">Mostly Australian actors, of course, and one German actress. Richard Roxburgh would play the narrator <u>Harvey</u>. Who would play <u>Magda</u>? Dunno, but she would need to be German. <u>Otto</u>? William Zappa or Colin Friels. <u>Valerie</u>? Probably someone from New Zealand but with vocal coaching to get rid of those really really flat vowels. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><u>Kendalynn</u>? Ah, she stumps me. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">Give me a casting book! Actually, speaking of New Zealanders, maybe Kerrie Fox with some ageing could play Kendalynn. I actually think it would make a great film and would be easily adaptable. I write in a very cinematic way.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">While spending the weekend at the beach with friends, a couple must decide if they have a future together.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br style="line-height: 20px;" /><i>Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?</i><br style="line-height: 20px;" />OK, these are two completely different questions here. I will be sending it to a publisher, who knows I will be sending it, once it's finished.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">It's not finished yet, but it's not far off. Which then begs a question, what's a draft? And when is a draft just pissing around?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br style="line-height: 20px;" /><i>What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">I don't read books like this. But favourite writers include Ellen Gilchrist and Augusten Burroughs, and you would note similarities. And a friend (who also writes), years ago, gave me a library copy of 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' by David Sedaris, saying, "He writes like you."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><br style="line-height: 20px;" /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>Who or What inspired you to write this book?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">Growing bored and frustrated editing others' stories and a need to get back to writing and claim some of the glory myself!</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?</i></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: normal;">It's funny and real and eye-opening and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: normal;">intelligent</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: normal;"> and immediate. You are there! And you'll probably want to be there and maybe even visit the beach and the town but perhaps not stay in the over-large house.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
This was sent to me by Gill Hoffs. View her answers here: <a href="http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/the-next-big-thing-and-no-i-dont-mean-my-belly/">http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/the-next-big-thing-and-no-i-dont-mean-my-belly/</a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;">I sent it to Michael Webb, Nicola Belte, Joyce Juzwik, Richard Bon and Shane Simmons.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"> And their answers can be found here:</span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;">Michael Webb: <a href="http://innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/10-questions-from-gill-hoffs.html?m=1">http://innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/10-questions-from-gill-hoffs.html?m=1</a></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">Joyce Juzwik: <a href="http://jfjuzwik.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-next-big-thing.html">http://jfjuzwik.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-next-big-thing.html</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Richard Bon: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 13px;">http://richardbon.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-next-big-thing.html</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Shane Simmons: <a href="http://scribblingsimmons.wordpress.com/">http://scribblingsimmons.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
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Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-47010130228009758822011-01-11T04:40:00.000-08:002011-01-26T03:04:09.160-08:00> Language > Place - for Thursday 20th January 2011<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; line-height: 54px;"><b> </b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">I Swear<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I heard people, when I was living in Germany, swearing in English, when they would never swear </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">auf Deutsch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I once heard a woman when I was living in Hamburg in 2008, in her 50’s or perhaps early 60’s, say “Shit!” as she jumped on a train. Then listening to her conversation soon after, it became quite clear the few words in English she knew and used were all swear words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Often the first words we learn in new languages are swear words. Sometimes this is amusing. Sometimes it’s not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Swearing and cursing (are they the same?) hold different places in different languages. It is definitely worse to swear in German, or rather, in German culture, than it is in English-language cultures, in general.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Certainly it’s worse to swear in Germany than it is in Australia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I swear quite a lot, at times, and often don’t even know I’m doing it. I would talk with Australian friends in Germany and we would be having a normal conversation, and German friends would look at us askance. The swearing peppering our conversation was just normal for us. Others thought we were angry. Or uncouth. Or maybe both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In some languages swearing is always used when angry. In Australia, and perhaps in other English language cultures, this is not always the case. It would not be that unusual for me to say to an Australian friend – in Australia or in Germany – </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Can you pass me that shit, please?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> Which actually means, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Can you pass me that thing?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Hence the askance looks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I actually love using swear words in their proper context. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Shit</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> when you are talking about defecating; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">cock</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> when you talk about penises; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fuck</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> when you talk about sex. (Half the Americans have stopped reading by now.) In these examples, you are actually using these words correctly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">(I once went on radio – admittedly community radio, a gay and lesbian cultural show – when I worked in the HIV / AIDS sector in Australia, and without even realising it, talked about </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fucking</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> while on air. I used it to mean penetrative anal sex, which is the term used in the sector, in brochures, in leaflets, in campaign materials, in advertising, in fact, whenever HIV / AIDS prevention is mentioned. The presenter went white and off-air seconds later, told me I had said </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fucking</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> on-air. My first thought was “And? …” … and then I realised. And then I thought, well, too fucking bad, if you want to get all prissy about it, good luck to you! No one complained about it later. And the world kept turning.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And bilingual Germans will quickly tell you that yes, it </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">is</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> worse to swear in German than in English. Saying </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Scheißekopf</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">is</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> worse than saying </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Shithead</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. Formal politeness is revered in Germany. This stiffness often gets me down. It means nothing – or little – and seems to be just another shield for Germans to hide behind. It’s not really about how others regard you, but instead about not allowing them to get to know you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">What I would really love to do is to take a poll in Germany. Which is worse: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Du bist eine alte Fotze?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> Or, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Sie sind eine alte Fotze?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Du bist</span></span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is the familiar form of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">you are</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Sie sind</span></span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is the polite form of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">you are</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">So, if you were talking to an old woman on the street you did not know, you would normally say, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Sie sind</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And just so you know, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">eine alte Fotze</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> means </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">an old cunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">So which is worse, saying </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">You are an old cunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> using the familiar ‘you’ (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">du</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">) or saying </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">You are an old cunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> using the polite ‘you’ (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Sie</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">)? Discuss.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">(I think you can argue either way.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Calling someone an old cunt in Australia is offensive too – actually, you can’t say much worse – BUT the word </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">cunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">can</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> be used in an affectionate way. “Ah, she can be a bit of a cunt, but she’s okay.” It’s like saying, “He’s an old bastard, but I love him anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Of course, the circles in which you can say this – and in which it’s taken the right way – are limited. But it is possible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I once spent thirty minutes of an English lesson teaching the various meanings of the word ‘fuck’. I was teaching Business English to a small work group in Berlin in 2009 – actually, I loathe teaching Business English, as usually it’s just made up on the spot, and so often taught by others who have absolutely no experience in the world beyond studying and teaching – and the youngest and hippest of the group of six men said, when talking about playing hockey, “That was before I fucked up my knee.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I said, “You used the word </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fucked</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The room went silent as the six men looked at me, wondering where I was going with this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Fuck</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is a very versatile word, and we use it all the time in English, so let’s talk about how it’s used,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There may have been some blanched looks, there may have been some glottal gulps, but we talked about it anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And its uses are varied and deep:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">* as a verb, and especially as a phrasal verb – I am fucking, I am being fucked, Fuck me!, I’ve just been fucked, we fucked on the bed, I fucked it up, you fucked it up, I’m being fucked over, he’s fucking me over, I’m fucked off, I am so fucked up, Fuck off!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">* as a noun – I need a fuck, that fuck was great, he’s a great fuck, he’s a real fucker!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">* as an adjective – I’m a fucking arsehole, you’re a fucking arsehole, hand me that fucking thing, it’s a fucking nightmare, you’re a fucking mess, I don’t need that fucking shit, I’m fucked, that’s fucked, we’re all fucked, it’s just fucked, we’re all going to hell in a fucking handbasket!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">‘To fuck’ </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">auf Deutsch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">ficken</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. And German-language online profiles will sometimes have the words </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Fick mich!</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Fuck me!)</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> on them, but interestingly, if the person with the profile speaks and writes English – which many, many do – they will usually use </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fuck</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> and not </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">ficken</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. There’s something open and gaping and sexy about the ‘u’ sound in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">fuck</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> that is absent in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">ficken</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. ‘U’ sounds more like an orifice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">So, when I am swearing my head off and not even knowing I am doing so, I feel most at home in Australia. And while it is fun to shock Germans with my swearing proficiency, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">auf Deutsch und auf Englisch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> – okay, I rarely say </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">cunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, because (1) it really is offensive and (2) I’ve never actually been there – it is nice to be not so soundly, roundly judged for the disgusting words coming out of your mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div></span></div></b></span>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-28018578041566808302011-01-04T05:14:00.000-08:002011-01-11T04:45:39.774-08:00> Language > Place - for Saturday 15th January 2011after this post was created for > Language > Place, I emailed the link ... and was advised that it didn't really fit the criteria, and would I like to write a new post. So I did - it's the post above - which is good because I also got the date of the blog release wrong!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">Spin<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I have just started a website. Actually it’s my second. I have three blogs too, though one is not used (I don’t know how to delete it), one i<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s</i> used (though not as a blog blog, but just for story challenges … like this), and the third is lost somewhere, having never really been born. (I abandoned it – not knowing how to delete it – and then set up my first website instead.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So my past and present are littered with e-detritus. There is a purpose to all those I use, and that is, basically, promoting my own stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Although the most recent website, set up in early December 2010, was established to promote the works of other writers. I started it because (1) I was bored and thought it might be fun, (2) I have confidence in my own taste, and (3) I was pissed off with other fiction site editors who give no or almost no feedback when emailing you with the bad news: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We can’t use your story</i>. Or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We don’t like your story</i>. Or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Your story is not for us</i>. Or … well, you know the drill.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So I always give feedback, even about the stories I don’t like or feel are ‘not for us’. Always.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Anyway, it is much more work than I expected but the site has expanded exponentially which, if you knew me in person, you would have expected.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">You can find the website by googling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush fiction</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> tagline is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flash … without the wank</i>. If you don’t know what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wank</i> is, in this context, it means <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crap</i>, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shit</i>, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spin</i>. I get tired of artistic, creative spin, and there does seem to be a lot of it in the flash fiction e-world. (To find out more about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wank</i>, once you have googled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush fiction</i>, scroll down from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">About</i> along the top, ’til you get to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slush / Wank</i> and click.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">There seemed to be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frisson</i> of excitement amongst a small, small, small part of the flash fiction e-world which yes, actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> exciting, when the site went up on 6 December 2010, some of it because by stating it was anti-wank, therefore I was also declaring that some of the stuff out there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> wank.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Funnily enough, saying that, in fact, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> wanky (or full-of-spin) in itself. Saying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> is anti-spin, is actually a marketing (spin) tool. Which is amusing and in fact, I love multiple layers of meaning, wheels within wheels, spin on spin on spin sort of thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So cut to three weeks later and I decide it’s time to expand my e-empire and for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> to publish e-non-fiction too. So enter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Real Time</i>, the non-fiction offshoot. (Go to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i> then click on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Real Time</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I know a lot of people all over the world now, having lived an expat life for the last three northern summers in Berlin, a city full of expats. And it’s so easy keeping in touch with them now via Facebook and emails, and given time zones, Australia is about a third of the world away from the west coast of the U.S., and a third of the world away from Europe. It works well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So I have asked a slew of people to write non-fiction pieces for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pure Slush</i>, and everyone has said yes so far. Who would say no, it’s so intensely flattering?! I know this when I ask people, and they probably know this too but it’s fun and it’s win – win and we all walk away (or turn our computers off) happy, egos stroked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I have a tendency to remember people’s own stories – the quirky, the intimate, the sexy, the sad (which is flattering in itself) – so e-approaching people to write their own stories is a cert.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Here are some of the ideas I have proposed. I asked:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> a friend of Austrian-German parentage who was born in British Columbia to write about being educated in a French-language school as a child.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> a friend to write about the differing cultural experiences of having been married to an Italian woman (his ex-wife) and an American (his wife).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> another friend to write about the English books she was given as a child, while growing up in East Germany, by the American husband of a West German relative.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> and then to write about moving to Sheffield, England … and then again about observing the differing experiences of her new step-children, growing up in northern England compared to East Germany … and yet again about showing them Berlin. (Phew! She is busy!)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> an acquaintance to write about being a bilingual comic – can you tell the same joke the same way in different languages, and expect or get the same reaction?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> a writer already on the site, to write about why he left the States to live in Mexico … and what keeps him there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> and another writer already on the site re the same, except she lives in Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> an opera singer friend to write about performing in small German opera companies, and how does that compare to … well, anything.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> a translator / interpreter / sub-titler friend to write about her job, particularly when dealing with legal bureaucracies: she has a great story about Swedish campers and an African who was knifed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> an Italian friend to write about being a renegade woman of a certain social standing living in Italy … or about the relationship she has to the US mid-West, years ago when she first went there as an exchange student, and recently, when she returned again, this time for a funeral.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I am still thinking of new non-fiction ideas, and digging friends up … so, if you are a friend of mine (or can pass for one) and have a multilingual / multicultural story to tell that is quite possibly amusing, revealing or both, email me at <span style="color: black;">edpureslush@live.com.au</span> … and let me know.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-46007666266971078742010-12-03T19:04:00.000-08:002010-12-04T05:00:52.900-08:00F3 - from Friday 3rd December 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">Highway Robbery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“NO!” LOCAL GAL TELLS STATE PLANNERS</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">by Sally Royalton Manning,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Swampville Sentinel</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> Social Affairs Reporter<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“We’re really against big government,” says Francine Bellweather McGrew–McGraw, sitting in her home office on leafy Elm Street, in one of Swampville’s quieter northern neighbourhoods. “So we felt kind of vindicated when we got their letter.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Mrs McGrew–McGraw, a pretty forty-nine year old blonde who realized only last week she forgot to have children – “I looked out into the back yard and saw my biological clock rusting under the sycamore tree,” she explains – is facing a tough decision: leave the neighbourhood she and husband Bud (51) have called home for the past twenty years, or move to a strange district where the neighbours won’t share their history, may call them names, and will probably eat them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“The government is building an east-west interstate highway right through my office here at home,” she says, sitting before a wall decorated with dozens of home creative writing certificates, and choking as she speaks. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But no amount of certificates for good grammar and grate speling can stop the wheels of progress now. A black line painted through the middle of the room marks where a gaping hole will soon appear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“The interstate’s going to split this room in half, and they’ve given us a month to decide what we’ll do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Mrs McGrew–McGraw, who models airplanes in her spare time and is one of Swampville’s busiest amateur homemakers, is keen on keeping the southern half of their ranch home and selling the northern half after the enforced split.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“We were thinking of maybe selling it to a time-share resort concern, now that commuting from downtown will be cut down to thirty minutes once the interstate is built.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But Mrs McGrew–McGraw says she and husband Bud are not certain about staying in the neighbourhood now, despite the worrying news of rising cannibal attacks against newcomers in nearby areas.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“We’d move out of Swampville, but all our friends and family are here,” she says. (Mrs McGrew–McGraw is the middle daughter of Lloyd C. Bellweather Jr., two-time Mayor of Swampville, and the late Belle “Ringading” Rambeau Bellweather, five-time homecoming queen.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“But we also don’t like the idea of living across the highway from a string of sushi bars either,” Mrs McGrew–McGraw says, popping more popcorn into the microwave for local chipmunks. “We’re a little worried what the smell of chicken grease will do to property prices.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But to raise awareness of their plight in the hope that others may see the warning signs earlier than she and her husband did, Mrs McGrew–McGraw, who has proudly never paid taxes except once when under the influence of an evil accountant, has announced that she and her Marketing Manager husband will hold a garage sale.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“Well, I say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">garage sale</i>,” she says, <span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt;">sorting through boxes in readiness for the big day this Saturday, husband Bud too sick in the hospital with bronchitis, galloping pneumonia and a phlegmy tongue to help. “But Bud, poor guy, stuck on Ward C and feeling miserable with three tubes coming out of his ass, says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yard sale</i>. Though I’m organising it so it’s a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">garage sale</i>,</span> even though most of it will be in the yard.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Mrs McGrew–McGraw promises earlybirds can pick up many bargains.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“I’m selling some great openings to stories,” says the shy activist and part-time author, who also plans to sell cookies, cupcakes and political placards to help fund their move into state politics and turn the tide on big government.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“I’ve never been that great with middles and endings, but I’m a real wiz with story openings.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">As a measure of the quality of Mrs McGrew–McGraw’s story writing talents, ten story openings are listed below. These along with other story openings, home-baked cookies, cupcakes, placards, buttons and other delights, will be available at the garage sale, which starts at 7.30am this Saturday, at 2800 Elm Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Francine McGrew–McGraw’s story openings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">All offers over $10.00 will be considered.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">• By the time I’ve made myself an eight course Chinese banquet, I really can’t be bothered making someone else the same …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">• Polyester is a great leveller …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> He was a pie-eyed albino horse with a stutter and he answered to the name ‘Future Glue’ …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">She was on the fast track to celibacy …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I knew her face but not her hair, at least not the right way up …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">She wanted another liver reading …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">My nose was a mess of pimples and that’s not a good way to enter any country, including Liechtenstein …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">•</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“It’s not often I’m nice,” I said. “So just accept it, you cunt.” …<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swampville Sentinel</i> believes this last story opening may offend some readers, so Mrs McGrew–McGraw is happy to offer it at a twenty percent discount, if you or your publisher, agent or editor don’t care for four letter words.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-21998880973481778122010-11-23T04:01:00.000-08:002010-11-23T04:01:37.620-08:00> Language > Place - for Wednesday 15th December 2010<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dyeing for it<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I do not know how many t-shirts I own, because I own so many. Some are in boxes in my mother’s garage in Adelaide, some are in boxes in a storage facility (also in Adelaide), and still others – some on high and some on low rotation – hang in a wardrobe in what is referred to as the spare room, the back room, Matt’s room and Map’s room, again in Adelaide. (My partner’s grandchildren – my step-grandchildren, two and three years old – call me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Map</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This room is in my partner’s home.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One reason I have so many t-shirts is that, having lived through seven summers in a row – southern summer, northern summer, southern, northern, southern, northern, and now southern again – I’ve had constant need of a few t-shirts.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of them are Bonds t-shirts, 100% cotton – Bonds is a household name in Australia – and actually made to wear as underclothes but bought by me, and some others, to be worn out, and were originally white. And all of them, the white ones, have been dyed other colours – orange, red, yellow, blue, purple, pink, green, even brown – in different shades and designs, most plain but some quite intricate.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">They take the dye perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve been dyeing for years. It’s a shortcut to creativity and it’s almost instant – truly, you just add water! – and on a day that’s dry and windy enough, the t-shirt is dyed, washed, and on the street in just a few hours. (Once, years ago, I almost blew up my parents’ new verandah following my dyeing muse, but that,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> leider</i>, is another story.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In Australia I favour Dylon dyes – an hour in hot, hot tap water, stirred a lot with added salt – and in Germany I favour Simplicol dyes, some of which I even ordered over the internet, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">auf Deutsch</i>, which was risky. (What happens if I misunderstood the German and ordered a truckload of dye? I also first did this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutsch</i> internet-ordering while in Australia, so that they would arrive soon after I re-arrived in Berlin … again.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These Simplicol dyes I’ve used in the frontloading washing machine, water as hot as possible, with lots of salt, and a bleach chaser. (The chaser is for the washing machine, not for the t-shirt or even for me.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What I love most about these German dye-jobs is (1) there is a large range of colours to choose from, especially on the internet, and (2) I never look like anyone else in Germany when I wear them because they’re Bonds t-shirts, posted or shipped from Australia. So I can swan about Berlin feeling unique and gorgeous – few, few people in Germany wear anything more than dull, dull colours – and when back in Australia, I can swan around telling people I’m wearing t-shirts dyed using German dyes – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deutsche Farben</i> – on an Australian canvas (which is not just the t-shirt, but also me).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of these t-shirts are true trans-global warriors, having crossed between Australia and Germany and Australia and Germany a few times now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I love them all, international trendsetters, beacons of colour – and I hope some style – especially on days when I, and perhaps others, need a colour boost.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I am often complimented on these t-shirts, in both countries, because some of them really are show-stoppers, blocks of rioting colour, tight and slutty.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And whichever country I’m in – Germany or Australia – they connect me to the one where I’m not.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And I love the idea that multiculturalism – or is it duoculturalism? – is alive and well and on my back.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-6274472683930984872010-11-10T05:56:00.000-08:002010-11-28T17:58:58.363-08:00F3 - for Friday 12th November 2010<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; line-height: 54px;"><b> </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b></b></span></div><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">Better<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 54px;"><b><b></b></b></span></div><b><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 54px;"><b><b></b></b></span></div><b><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">My eyes popped, I was so surprised at seeing him there.</span></span></div></b></b><b><b></b></b><b></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“You’re in the same year at school with Jeremy, aren’t you, Braydon?” Mrs Brown said, crouched on the floor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Yeah,” said Braydon, broad shoulders hunched, wanting to be anywhere but inside the spare room his mother used as her </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Designs by Janelle</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> workroom. He put the scissors back against their painted outline on the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Kneeling while my grandmother stood on a stool, Mrs Brown continued pinning the hem, talking through a mouth full of pins. “Would you turn a little to the right please, Vi?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Gran shuffled to the right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Why don’t you tag along with Braydon, Jeremy?” Mrs Brown said. “You don’t want to hang around us with our women’s talk.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Okay, I’m not the coolest at school. I’m kind of the class queer: all my friends are girls; I like opera; I can answer all the questions about male </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">and</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> female ejaculation – without stammering – in sex ed. classes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And Braydon? In boardshorts, tall and tanned and naked from the waist up, not only weren’t we in the same league, we weren’t even in the same century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Shame you didn’t bring your bathers, Jeremy,” Mrs Brown said. “It’s the perfect day for a swim.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Braydon looked out the window at the back yard, like his mother had asked him to eat shit or give birth to a watermelon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“That’s okay, Mrs Brown,” I said. “I’m alright here.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Bray was just about to go for a swim. You can swim in your jocks.” She smiled through the pins. “It’ll be the most Braydon will be doing all day, seeing he’s grounded and desperate to go to Nathan’s party on the weekend.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She grinned, piercing the hem with a final pin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Braydon said nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I looked at Braydon, wondering which – and whose – cue to follow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He indicated the door – </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">you coming or what?</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Go on,” Gran nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">So I followed him out of the room. The door clicked behind me. We walked down the cool, darkened hallway. I watched his swagger, and his triangular shape – broad shoulders, tapered waist – and how he scuffed his bare feet, summered and tough, on the wooden floor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He opened the back door. My eyes squinted with the light. He held the door open, but not enough, so just in time it banged in my face as I stepped outside.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Thanks,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“You’re welcome.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I followed him to the pool gate and he reached over the rail to unlock it. Then he turned. His eyes were bright blue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“You wanna beer?” he said<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Sure,” I said. I hate beer. “What kind do you have?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Beer.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He opened the gate and this time I caught it in time. He walked over to an old fridge near a shed and pulling two cans out, handed me one as I sat down on the swinging settee.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">His was beer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And mine – so icy in my hand I dropped it – was cola. Holding it between my legs, my shorts insulation, I pulled the ring pull. The can sighed, and cola slurped out as Braydon sat on the other end of the settee and the settee bounced.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I sipped the cola. And he guzzled the beer, half the can, throwing his head back, Adam’s apple ricocheting up and down with each long gulp.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He burped – for both our benefits – and said, “Are you really gay?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I looked at my cola can. “Why do you want to know?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Braydon stood up and burped again. Then stretching his arms and yawning, his boardshorts worked loose over his hips and the white nylon drawstring of his speedos underneath poked out, gracing the hair stretching towards his navel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Then he sucked his stomach in. The boardshorts slipped to the ground and he stepped out of them. His speedos – pale orange and perfect against his tanned skin – were curvy and tight at the back, looser and pouchy at the front.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I grew hard against the cola can.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He walked over to the shed. “Come on.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I followed his speedos.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Close the door.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I did. And tried not to look at his face or his speedos. But the speedos glowed in the dark.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He loosened the drawstring and his penis sprang out. It had a hot funky, rubbing-inside-his-speedos smell – sweaty and close. I couldn’t take my eyes off the slug growing before me. He smiled, stroking it like it was a family pet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I stood, watching, barely breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He grabbed the back of my head and forced me to my knees. Leaning forward, mouth open, I rolled my tongue around the knob, like I’d seen on internet porn. He pushed deep into my mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I pulled away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Quick, suck it,” he said, parting my lips again, forcing my mouth open. Three long thrusts and he groaned, legs shuddering, the sparse hair on his balls tickling my chin. And my mouth filled with a taste bitter and phlegmy and warm.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I gagged, but he gripped my head until the flow stopped. I had to swallow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Pulling out, he wiped the leftovers on my cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Nice,” he said. Or maybe he said, “Nice?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I didn’t know what to say. It was fun – but compared to what?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Thanks,” he said. “Almost as good as a girl.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And you’ve had how many?</span></span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> I wanted to ask.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“They taught me that at church,” I said instead, wiping my mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“That’s fuckin’ sick,” he said, like I thought he would.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">He pushed his penis back inside his speedos. And grabbing my hair, he added, “Tell anyone about this and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I looked up at him, still on my knees.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“We can do it again. Mum never comes out here.” He let out a smile. “Want another drink?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Okay,” I said, standing up, remembering how things always go so much better with cola.</span></span></div> </b><br />
</b></span>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-83824030553111774182010-10-25T07:03:00.000-07:002010-10-25T07:09:09.579-07:00Flash Friday Fiction - for Friday 29th October 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">The colour! The power! The vision!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Every Halloween they drag it out: my humble Carpathian mountain beginnings, my early years sweating on the laboratory floor in Transylvania, my emergence as a Hollywood icon in the 1930’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">If you meet me at a party, in the fruit and vegetable section at the supermarket or on a blind date, don’t bring it up. All those horror clichés are just that: my life is a different story now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">What’s far more interesting is my fourth career in fashion. (My third was as a fixture on the washed-up memory lane dinner lecture circuit – also another story.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Moving to Brisbane, Australia was a terrifying, risky move. But after visiting in the mid 1980’s and experiencing Brisbane’s warm, sunny climate and easy manner – a heady mix of southern California glamour and Transylvanian joie de vivre – I knew it was the place to put down permanent roots and pursue one of my two cherished dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I moved into a backyard shed behind a clapboard house on Brunswick Street in inner-city New Farm, and waited for it to become fashionable around me. The shed was steel-framed, with sheet metal walls I carefully lined with a soft calico terracotta and burnt umber floral print, bought for a song at a fire sale.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Lining the shed was a bitch, fastening strips of wood to the steel frame, tacking the fabric to the wood, coating the head of each tack with coral nail varnish.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I filled the shed with secondhand office furniture, a cutting table and designing easel – all painted undercoat pink (I was an early exponent of that look) – and photos of friends from former lives: the Wolfman; Drac; the Mummy; my ungrateful Son; even my gold-digging, coat-tailer ex-wife.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And then it was finished. No air conditioning and unheated, not much bigger than a kennel and a shadow of my true dream, but it was real and it was mine and it had my undeniable stamp on it – my very first atelier.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Hanging my shingle on Brunswick Street – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frank Einsteinz von Monster, Designer a la Mode, down the driveway and turn left</i> – was one of the proudest moments of my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Twenty years on and my name and image are fixtures on the Australian fashion scene. But it hasn’t always been easy. My naturally shrinking violet personality took a beating on the runways, in the boutiques, and especially in the Brisbane fashion press. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who is this man with the strange Carpathian mountain accent?</i> journalists asked. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What sort of fashion statement is khaki-coloured skin and bolts through the neck? Why does he hold all his shows in electric power stations?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Through it all I kept my head above water – easier when you are eight foot tall – quietly plugging away with two collections a year: the summer collection, shown in August, which is winter in Brisbane, and the not-so-summer collection in February, when ironically it’s hottest in Australia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So what are my fashion influences? This amuses me as I sit at my larger-than-ever designing easel in my newest atelier on Merthyr Road, my original premises a distant charred memory (after a mysterious candlefire) just around the corner on Brunswick Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I have so many influences – I am constantly shocked by how many – from animals seen through the window of a local pet shop (the source of my 2005 summer collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Living in the Lappin of Luxury),</i> to the stock market crash of October 1997 (the source of my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naked and Homeless</i> collection for not-so-summer 1998).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But individual designers? There is really only one.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Valentino Garavani.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Ah, Valentino! The colour! The power! The vision! His simple but dramatic designs outclass all rivals. His fashion empire spans continents and generations. His way with red is legendary.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So imagine my excitement when I heard a Valentino Retrospective was coming to the Queensland Art Gallery’s Gallery of Modern Art! Right here in Brisbane. And now I would be seeing his work extremely up close and exquisitely personal!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Fashion friends begged me to see the exhibition with them. “Frank, you know more about Valentino than any highly-trained gallery guide would know,” they said. “You must go with me / us / the group / the college / our entire town.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But worshipping at the altar of Valentino was something I had to do alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But what to wear? Basic black has always worked well for me. I know my figure flaws – boxy shoulders, loping arms, thick neck, knock knees (which no one ever sees, but still, they haunt me) – so a simple single-breasted jacket, tailored trousers, crew neck tee and uncomplicated boots are slimmingly best.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And isn’t it better to present yourself simply, as the person you really are?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The air was moist as I drove into the city and parked beneath the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Walking to the Art Gallery, my boots echoing amongst the endless concrete of the car park with each step, there were the usual stares and parents hurriedly telling their children not to point – the perils of celebrity – and soon I was inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The new Gallery of Modern Art is an impressive building, glass and gleaming metal, large exhibition spaces with movable walls and a breathtaking sense of the possible. Hallowed ground, I paid the admission fee – I would have paid triple, quadruple, quintuple! – and gave my ticket to the attendant outside the exhibition entrance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The Valentino Retrospective? How shall I describe it? It was butter and cream and caviar and designer stubble, red and pink and black and white, taffeta and chiffon and silk voile and ruffles and layering and beading. It was a vision from the visionary of visionaries, a dream to last a lifetime and a nightmare to last forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Oooing and ahhing, I breathed in the scent of workmanship and detail and yes, oh yes, the mighty green-eyed goddess of envy rose in my throat like bile, for how could I – or anyone – possibly compete?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I wanted to sink against a gallery wall and just gaze, for most of all, more than anything, my brain and my body and all my senses were limp, with exhaustion.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So what were the dresses like individually? Don’t ask me, see it for yourself! Or go online and buy the catalogue.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But for me, buying the catalogue could never be enough. I don’t know what possessed me – a force of nature coursing through me like lightning, a current so strong all thoughts of propriety were mercilessly quashed – but I had to have a piece of Valentino. Not had to. MUST.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I looked around the exhibition hall. I was alone amongst the mannequins. But then I saw movement against the doorway: a large, shiny black-booted bruiser security guard, crew-cutted and beamy and ruthlessly moustached, the kind of lesbian who gives both hope and despair to the perpetrators of women’s haute couture.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Was she looking my way?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I sauntered around the floor. Gusts of cool air blew through the gallery, ruffling the fabric, but the security guard – her name badge said ‘Barb’ – stood stock still, her crewcut ramrod straight. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as I passed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“Lovely day,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">She grunted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">People say there’s a lot of pressure on women to look good all the time, but clearly some are resisting.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I smiled, and executing a perfect 180 degree catwalk turn, disappeared amongst the mannequins again.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Crouching behind a 1960’s mid-orange evening gown with bell sleeves and African-style detailing at the neck, I snuck a look to make sure Barb couldn’t see, then surveyed the choice before me. Which would work best with my basic black ensemble? And which would work best with the décor in my atelier? My plan was to dip the garment in wax, firstly to preserve it so it could be framed and mounted on the wall, and secondly to make it impossible for my emasculating also-ran shrewish ex-wife to steal it and wear it herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I saw what would work. I tiptoed – not so easy in boots – to a late 1960’s, floor-length white chiffon evening gown with huge, huge, huge black dots. Sure it was probably size 10, or 8, or something, but of all the dresses, it looked big enough. With lightning speed, I slipped it over the head of the mannequin. It ruffled so softly in my hands I had to catch it before it fell to the floor. Thank goodness it wasn’t crackly taffeta or lead-lined linen – in the chapel-like interior, any noise would have resonated against all four walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">The chiffon fell over my flattened crown without a murmur, the folds of the bodice and skirt cascading across my shoulders and over my arms. And then panic! The cowl neckline caught on my neck bolts! My instinct was to wrench it down, but the prospect of ripping that divine fabric? Popping my head above the now-naked mannequin, I saw Barb’s broad back turned my way, and breathed out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I struggled out of the dress. Unbuttoning my jacket as I hunkered down, I turned the chiffon arms inside the dress and then folded it in three. Placing the dress across my chest so it looked like a shirt, I smoothed it out and then buttoned my jacket over it, tucking the edges under my lapels. There was no mirror but I did my best to make it appear perfectly normal for a tall man to be wearing a bulky shirt of white chiffon with a large black spot lurching up from the crotch, under his simple black jacket.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And I walked past Barb and out through the entrance to the exhibition.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">It was that easy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Around the corner but still in the building, I gathered my thoughts, felt beads of sweat break out on my forehead, and breathed out again. And was suddenly gripped by a desperate need to urinate.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I found the toilet, rushed inside, closed the door behind me and sat down. One of my quirks is that I always sit down, no matter what I’m doing. Being so tall, my knees touched my chin.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I was reaching around for the toilet paper, white chiffon still inside my jacket pressed between my legs and chest, when a ham-fisted knock thundered on the door.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“Open up! I know you’ve got a frock in there!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Two shiny black boots appeared under the door.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I had to think quickly. It was either her, or me and the dress.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And while some people might think it was conforming or reverting to type, please consider the circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I stood up, pulled my trousers up, tucked the dress inside my jacket, turned around, gripped the toilet bowl with my arms, and like I’d seen in the climax of my favourite Ginger Rogers’ movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forever Female</i>, ripped the toilet from the floor, charged out of the cubicle and with a massive groan hurled it through a window. It smashed on the ground two storeys below, a ceramic splintering heard as far as Bees Knees City Realty three blocks away on Cordelia Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Barb screamed and ran out of the room. She might have been a scary diesel dyke, but I had an entire history of horror at my disposal and in a pickle, I wasn’t afraid to use it. And it was amazing how freeing it felt – almost a weight off my shoulders – getting back to my roots after more than seventy years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Miraculously I made it back to my atelier with the dress, but it’s hot, wanted in all six states, two territories and overseas as well. So I’m laying low until the Valentino Retrospective leaves town. My designing career is probably over.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But with every slammed door a new one opens. For my fifth career I’m going to become a porn star. Because inside every eight-foot man with khaki-coloured skin, a flat head and bolts through his neck, is an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inches</i> coverboy screaming to get out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-57562839677047148182010-10-21T06:11:00.000-07:002010-10-21T13:50:31.677-07:00> Language > Place - for Monday 15th November 2010<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">Jacqueline Bisset and Me</span></b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Years ago I read an article on the English actress Jacqueline Bisset – you know, English-born, speaks fluent French, works in America and France and oh, lots of places, was once voted the most beautiful woman working in cinema – and I have never forgotten how in the article she spoke about being a different person when she speaks French.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">You can see it on the screen.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Acting in English, she is often formal and stiff and even remote. No one could ever accuse her of being an old ham. And to be honest, I have never found her that appealing when she acts in English: she can act, she’s just not very warm.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But watch her acting in French – in Francois Truffaut’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Day for Night</i> (1973), or more correctly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La nuit américaine</i>, even when it’s dubbed into English, or more amazingly Claude Chabrol’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Cérémonie</i> (1995) – and she’s a completely different person, warm and fluid and open and even, given that she is supposed to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acting</i>, happy. I was blown away watching Bisset in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Cérémonie</i>. This is the woman she should always have been! Where had she been hiding? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Perhaps Bisset was helped by having Isabelle Huppert, surely one of the world’s most-celebrated non-emoters, playing one of the leads in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Cérémonie</i>. But that’s another story.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">(I once asked a Polish friend, whom I thought was actually American when we first met in Berlin, if she was a different person in English. And she said simply, “Yes.”)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">When I am back living / staying / killing time / enjoying southern summer in Australia, and not living in Berlin, I miss speaking German (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oder Deutsch</i>). I compensate for this by talking about speaking German and German words and living in Germany (particularly Berlin) and the German influence on English, through the Angles and the Saxons, and perhaps the Jutes too, though the Jutes always seem to be forgotten. I do this endlessly, and I do this mostly when I am teaching English. So many English words derive from Old German, so the practice is endless. And connecting for me. And perhaps a shade dull for my students … though still I persist.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Actually speaking German in Germany – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schuldigung, aber mein Deutsch ist bisschen</i> – can be a trial. It makes me nervous and sometimes irritable, but boy it’s wonderful – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fast unglaublich</i> – when Germans respond in German and we converse – actually have a conversation – without any English. It makes me feel almost international.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Speak quickly, using words or phrases you know are correct and have practiced often, and with a good accent, and native-speakers may even think you are a native speaker too. Well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vielleicht</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I know when speaking, I am generally quieter, meeker, softer, more careful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">auf Deutsch</i>. Though I think my fluency accounts for this. If I had better German, then I would be more myself when speaking it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Mostly though, when speaking German, I love getting my tongue around the words, attempting to sound as authentic as possible. It’s a performance, I know this, and I must confess that I find embarrassing those non-native German speakers (usually native English speakers) who seem to make no attempt at speaking Deutsch with an even faintly convincing accent. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Listen to how you sound!</i> I want to say. I don’t, of course, for fear that I, in fact, sound just as bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But it’s wonderfully affirming to be told you have a good accent in another language, and I have been lucky to have been praised, on a few occasions, for my good German accent, and this by native German speakers. I have taken these as rare compliments!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">One friend, an English-into-German translator and subtitler, once said I did not have an accent at all when I spoke German. This seemed incredible to me. I even said to her, “But I must have an accent – surely an Australian accent – when I speak Deutsch.” She said again I didn’t. Where lies the truth?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">German <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> a great language for sounding angry, though. The guttural mouth-twisting it often requires can be empowering and can make anyone easily sound <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> to be trifled with. I admit to using this well, even with my bad German.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ich habe DAS!</i>” I said to a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rewe</i> supermarket check-out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frau</i>, thrusting in front of her a fistful of coins when, following six attempts to pay for my shopping with change, she was still unhappy with the combination I was giving her. Challenge many Germans (particularly Berliners) with even greater rudeness, in their own language, and they go to water … <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oder Wasser</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">So perhaps speaking German and expressing anger in it, connects with the inner grump – or outer grump – in me. Annoy me long enough and I snarl equally well in either language.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">But this doesn’t work for everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">While recently back living / staying / killing time / enjoying northern summer in Berlin, a friend – Michael, also an English language teacher – complained about the unwillingness of his students to pay him any attention when he was teaching them. He said he had even become very annoyed and admonished the class in German.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Michael talked about this during a private German language class we had every Saturday with Torsten, a German language tutor. Torsten asked Michael what he had said in admonishment. I cannot recall exactly what Michael’s words were, but despite their correctness, they sounded quite unconvincing. And Torsten – so German! – told Michael this.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">To me, while Michael showed clear annoyance when he spoke, he did lack moral authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Torsten then asked him to say the same thing again, but in English. Michael obliged, and again he was unconvincing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">Laughing, Torsten said he would have laughed along with the other students, whatever language.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">I then said the same admonishment Michael had made, only in English, but deep and purposeful and resonating. And then in German too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And Torsten said, “Ah, you I would take notice of.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“Oh, that’s just acting,” I assured Michael. And to them both I said, “I’m just an old ham.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">“You’re a what?” Torsten asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;">And thus began my explanation of the meaning of ‘old ham’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-20158919040761945612010-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:002010-10-22T15:45:21.648-07:00Flash Friday Fiction - for Friday 22nd October 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; line-height: 54px;"><b> </b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">Meeting Adjourned<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Once a month I fuck the boss. It’s not part of my job description. We have a meeting in her office, after thirty minutes she opens the door to what appears to be a storeroom but is actually a well-appointed fuck chamber, and we adjourn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She likes being fucked on her back mostly: she enjoys watching me do all the grunt work. I grind and groan, looking into her chemically-peeled face as she grips my arse, the fingers of her wrinkling hands edging towards my tightened hole – the storeroom is soundproofed, the door to her office triple-locked, though no one would dare enter without her permission anyway – and not much is said beyond “Deeper” and “Harder” and “Faster”, all by her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I don’t believe she has a similar relationship with any of my work colleagues. And if she does, I don’t care much either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And if work colleagues heard of my ‘relationship’ with her, no one would believe it. I think she sees her conquest of me as a triumph of her supreme sexuality, her female carnality, or if nothing else, her economic power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Thirty minutes before we meet, I take half a Viagra. I also jerk off three times earlier in the day, so by the time of our meeting, I’m trigger-hard and my balls are empty but ready to churn. I don’t come inside her. She can’t check: she’s too old to get pregnant and we don’t use condoms, so there’s no inspection of the reservoir afterwards. But I give a good show. My legs and arse tense, I stop mid-thrust – like cresting a hill – then I push deep down inside her and moan. Maybe my face turns slightly red.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I make sure I fake my orgasm after I’ve made her come twice. She then wraps herself in a thick Egyptian cotton robe, opens a bread hamper, plugs in a Tefal toaster and makes two slices of toast with margarine and Vegemite. She never offers me any. I watch her eat off a white-grey Royal Copenhagen plate, bitch-red fingernails stabbing the wholemeal crumbs as she licks them clean. Enthusiasm almost lights her face.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She puts her plate on the low table beside the bed, sips her Powerjuice from a crystal tumbler – she only offers me iced tea: I always refuse as I loathe the taste, which I am sure she knows – and resumes talking.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“We’re marketing ourselves into non-existence,” Callie said one day, running her fingers through her messy, re-blonded crewcut. She spoke exactly as she would at our weekly Marketing Team meetings, to all the overpaid, over-airbrushed, hyper-hyped-up hipsters she’d assembled to make her and the products we sell look good.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Callie Crawford Cosmetics is such an exclusive brand now, no one thinks they can afford to buy my products.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I think you’re right, Callie,” I said, my tongue metaphorically twisting inside her arse. “We’ve marketed ourselves into a corner.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I know other staff call me Tom the tongue-twister. They know – or think they know – how far my tongue is up her arse. (This is one thing I have never done. Callie, despite our sessions in the over-sized cupboard, is a conventional lay.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I’ve let you all convince me your over-exclusive branding would give us an even bigger market share and now you’ve left us no room to move.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I sank against the plush pillow and looked at her profile: a largish nose, heavily mascara-ed lashes, lipstick that even in the storeroom light I could see was only half-chewed off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Reposition the brand,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Her head turned on the pillow. Her lips curled: smile or sneer, I couldn’t tell. “You must be fucking joking.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I looked at the ceiling.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I’ve spent thirty years building this brand to where it is now.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“So, it’ll be a challenge,” I said, turning on my side away from her. I patted the pillow beside my head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She punched my bare shoulder with the side of her fist. “Don’t fucking turn away from me! Tell me what you mean.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I told you,” I said, sleep in my voice. “Reposition the brand.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“There’s nowhere to go but down.” I imagined her looking at my shoulder, eyes working overtime trying to fathom what I meant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Yeah,” I said. “Reposition the brand at the bottom of the market and work your way up again.” I looked at her over my shoulder. “If anyone can do it, you can.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Her hand rested on the spot where moments earlier she’d thumped me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“It’d be dumbing the brand down.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“You’d make industry history and get more than your Albert Einstein fifteen minutes of fame,” I said, hitting her at her greatest chink, her need to leave a legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She sank back on her pillow and with her hand still on my shoulder, drummed her fingers like a metronome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I pressed my head further into the pillow. I made my breathing deeper, each breath longer, eyes half-closed, but ears alert.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“It’s a bullshit idea,” Callie said, taking her hand away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Through my eyelashes, I focussed on the weave of the cotton pillowslip, and paused before responding. “Start with the perfumes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“And what would we call them? The names we have now are so high-end.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I thought of Callie’s emotional depth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Shallow</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I thought of the folds of her vagina.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Umbrella</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">,” I added.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And I thought of the way I too often feel about her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Omen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Death</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">,” I finished. “What slapper wouldn’t want to wear a perfume called </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Death</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">? Packaging would be cheaper and you’d sell it by the truckload. In fact, you could probably sell it off the back of a truck.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I stopped and listened to her breathing, shallow gasps every few seconds, as if denying herself air made her stronger. If I was a bastard, I’d say breathing and thinking at the same time were too taxing for her. But I’m not that much of a bastard.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“No one but you would have the balls to do it,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Callie laughed. “It’s a fucking amazing idea.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Yeah, it is.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">She whistled through her teeth. “Same scent, make a lot more of it, save on cost, just shift it differently.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Yes, it’s a brilliant idea.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Callie laughed again, and suddenly threw back the sheet. “Just remember who’s paying you,” she said. “And just so you realise, I know you never come inside me. It might be an old twat but it still has some feeling.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I reached down to the foot of the bed and slowly pulled the sheet back over me. Callie picked up her plate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“You want some toast and Vegemite?” she said. “I think you need to tell me some more about this </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">incredible</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> idea.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">That night, Callie went home to husband number four and I went home to my partner. The effect of the half a Viagra had not worn off, and I was soon lost in fucking Mario as, gripping my arse, fingers edging towards my receptive hole, he yelled out </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Deeper!</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Harder!</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Faster!</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> in a more genuine way, despite the lack of sound-proofing.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: large;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 30px; margin-top: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"></div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-68467480557200458402010-10-05T05:15:00.000-07:002010-10-21T23:21:38.920-07:00Flash Fiction Friday ... for Friday 8th October 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 42px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; line-height: 54px;"><b> </b></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px; line-height: 54px;"> <!--StartFragment--> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the hot seat<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">by Matt Potter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Mom said I was going to be something one day,” Stanley said.</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I looked up from my notepad. “When did she say that?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Wednesday.” He paused. If we still allowed smoking inside – and he had not already given up – he would have taken a puff. And perhaps I might have smoked a pipe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“My birthday,” he continued.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I sat in my high-backed armchair and felt my grey business shirt sink against the sedate plaid upholstery. “Did your mother ring you for your birthday?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Yeah, she called from the States. She’s staying with my sister in Sausalito now ’til the fall.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I took in his sandy features, the individual brows lengthening and thicketing, the green eyes sinking deeper into his skull, the pale lips pink and dissipating. His Viking ancestry – by way of Minnesota – was becoming more evident as he aged. Only his short beard seemed new, a winter statement flecked with grey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“She said she sent a gift but … I’m not gonna hold my breath waiting.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I smiled and nodded. I had come to know Stanley’s mother well the last five years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley relaxed his big body into the black leather chair. Padded but austere, square seat and backrest, with chrome legs and elegant stitching, the armless chair – in fact, my entire office: sleek no-nonsense windows; spare masculine furnishings; metal and black leather and dark wood – rendered him out of place and hulkingly redundant. Stanley was, however – perhaps because he had spent so many hours in the chair – unaware of this awkward balance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I smoothed my charcoal twill trousers over my knee ‘til the cuff touched my polished black brogue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Why do you think she said that to you on your birthday?” I added. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley sighed and like a cliché, looked out of the window. Through the trees, mid-afternoon cars sloshed through the rain on Hutt Street. “It was my birthday … she said she’d sent me a gift but I don’t think she has and she probably knows I know that … and so she had to say something good to make up for it.” He looked at his hands. “Hey, I’m not gonna get angry about it.” He smiled crookedly, eyes grinning. He seemed so okay and so remarkably healthy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I wrote on my pad, nothing legible, just furious scribble. It was all I could manage. My thoughts fell about in chaos as I wondered, was Stanley finally healing?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“And what do you think she meant by you being </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">something one day</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley shifted his weight on the chair. “A writer. A successful writer … a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">published</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> writer.” He drummed his fingertips on the soft leather beside his thigh. “You know … the usual.” He snorted, his hands placed back in his lap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I wrote more on my pad, fevered scrawl now, hand screaming across the paper. My shirt felt sticky against my spine, and I was conscious that if anyone noticed, they would see a wet streak down my back. I looked up suddenly, tilting my head just slightly, a picture of nonchalant concern. “So how </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">is</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> your writing going?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley looked across at the shelf of books I kept behind my desk. “Good, I finished a story yesterday and I brought it in with me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“That’s wonderful, I’d be really interested in reading this new story,” I said, uncrossing then crossing my legs again. “Because you seem really miserable now.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley’s sandy brows quirked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Almost,” I jumped in again. “Emotionally dishevelled.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“But my writing’s been going … well.” Stanley stroked his chin. “I’ve been feeling really good.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I turned to my pad and hunkered over it. My back felt relief from the sticky shirt now. Still talking to him, all Stanley could see as I hunched was the top of my balding head surrounded by a ring of stubble.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Really?” I said. “You’ve spoken before about your writing going well </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">only</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> when you are emotionally well. In fact” – and here I looked up again and smiled – “you said that even being </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">middlingly troubled</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> prevents you from writing well.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley cocked his head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I’ve read your work when you are middlingly troubled, and it’s far inferior to anything you produce when you’re emotionally well.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley’s eyes lowered to his lap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“And when you’re </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">miserably fixated</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, there’s really no point you putting pen to paper at all. Or finger to keyboard, as it may be.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley bowed his head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I say this not only as your psychiatrist but also as a fellow writer who appreciates your talent and wants you to make the best of your unique ability.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I turned my pad over and lowered it, craning to look under his face, to catch any tears that might be falling.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley sniffed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">My voice sank almost to a whisper, calm and soothing and incorruptible. “Your face is blotchy, Stanley, and your hair looks scraggly and unkempt. You’re in such a deep depression over your mother lying to you about your birthday gift, you haven’t noticed your deteriorating personal appearance.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley’s head snapped up. “But I don’t </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">feel</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> that depressed.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I sighed and looked deep into his eyes. “There is nothing more powerful than denial.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Leaning forward, I picked up a jug of water from the table beside Stanley’s chair and poured him a glass. And wiping the ring the jug left behind with my red silk handkerchief, I handed the glass to him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I understand why you wouldn’t want to remember all the hurt and distress your mother has caused you and ruin yet another birthday,” I ran on, lightly patting Stanley’s arm. “I know your terrible relationship with your mother was the main reason you moved to Australia.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he drank the glass in one, then placed it quietly on the table. He looked at me again, then out the window at the traffic on Hutt Street, and then back at me. “What do you do with all my stories I show you?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">His gaze was so strong, I looked down at my brogues.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I keep them in the file I have, from all your sessions with me.” I glanced across at the solid metal filing cabinet I always keep locked, beside the bookshelf. “Like I do with all my patients.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I thought you might rewrite them,” Stanley said. “And publish them on-line … with your name on them.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I turned to my pad, my pen tearing across the page.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“What are you writing?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Anything written about our sessions is strictly non-identifying and would only ever be published in psychiatric journals,” I said, with I hoped enough pat force and frost to still further questions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley watched me stand up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“If you can’t trust me, then your entire rehabilitation is in jeopardy.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I watched Stanley stand up. We were almost the same height. We stood eye to eye and it was then I realised his eyes weren’t green at all. They were blue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We stood, waiting. I thought he might kiss me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Stanley reached into his jacket, unfolded three printed pages, and handed them to me. “My story,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I breathed out as I took them. “Thank you, Stanley.” I scanned the first page. “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In the Hot Seat</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: an interesting title.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I smiled into his face again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“I will read it after our session today.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The black leather sighed as Stanley sat down in the seat again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">“Now, where were we?” I said. And grinning with all my teeth, I sat down too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">But all I could think about as we resumed talking were the pages on the table between us, yet another brilliant story Stanley had wrested. I champed to read it. And with just a few changes and a new title, it would soon join all his other stories on-line, under my other name.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment--> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 200%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-top: 10pt;"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-top: 10pt;"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 32px; margin-top: 10pt;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 38.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></div></span></div></div></b></div></b></div></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"></div></span></span></div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-5329714851973493062010-10-03T05:22:00.000-07:002010-10-03T05:22:57.276-07:00Flash Fiction Friday continues ...Just a note to say that I will be taking part in the renewed or rejuvenated or renovated Friday Flash Fiction.<br />
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Find out more by going here: http://www.flashfictionfriday.com/<br />
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You can also go to my website for more of my stories: http://mattcpotter.webs.com/<br />
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Thanks,<br />
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MattMatt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-54863503810157036962010-09-05T22:12:00.000-07:002010-09-06T10:25:37.928-07:00Friday Flash Fiction #41 - for Friday 3rd September 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Rainbow</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">by Matt Potter</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #393633; font-family: 'Book Antiqua'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook';"><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“He walked in and slid the photograph across my desk,” I said, putting the photo back into my handbag. “Which was really nice of Caspar, I thought.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Shona looked off to the left as we got off the bus, when she knew we had to walk right. A bitter wind blew up Turmstraße, and I was glad of our hats and scarves.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Are you bored already, Shona?”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“No,” she said. “Just a little incredulous that you let this Caspar guy – who you’ve never met before – into your apartment. Even if he does live in Moabit, too.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We waited until the pedestrian light turned green and crossed Turmstraße with everyone else.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Shona snorted. “Though knowing you, I guess it’s not that strange.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We walked through the front door of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">DM</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and immediately slipped off our coats, scarves and hats. We both knew we would be there in the Drogeriemarkt – or health, home and beauty store – a while.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I just thought it was really nice that he dropped it off,” I said, bunching my coat over my arm. “He must really want me to work there.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Or knows how desperate you are for money,” Shona said, winding her scarf around her handbag.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Every foreigner’s desperate for money in Berlin.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“True,” Shona said.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Like a heat-seeking missile, I turned into the aisle I wanted: so many brands, so many colours, so many prices and opportunities and instructions to follow. A smile spread across my face.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“But you’re not even a lesbian, Katie,” said Shona, eyebrows raised. “You don’t even like men that much either.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I know,” I said, running my hand along the boxes of hair dyes. “He said he liked my aura.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“What he liked was your tits,” Shona snorted. “You know, most women here wear a bra for warmth.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The hair dye packets were so bright and enticing, I wanted to take them all home, each offering a life-transforming dream, a beauty to chase after, a yearning for betterment at a price anyone could afford. I picked a copper highlights packet off the shelf and began reading the blurb.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Well, I haven’t got forever,” Shona said, combing out her honeyed bob with her fingers. “I have to eat eventually, some century.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then I picked an auburn gloss and a deep chestnut off the shelf too. “It’s so hard deciding how I can personally interpret the photo he gave me.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Copper highlights? Auburn gloss? Deep chestnut? Copper highlights? Auburn gloss? Deep chestnut? I’d had every colour you could imagine at different stages in my life, but none had ever really suited me like the ash blonde I’d been now for eighteen months.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I can’t believe there’s an official look you have to present when you’re the Friday night door bitch at </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Bearded Clam</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, for God’s sake,” Shona snapped. “Just choose something butch!”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I wedged the dyes under my arm and pulled the photo out of my handbag again. It was a black and white grainy bubblejet print.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Where is this club, anyway?”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“In Schöneberg, Eisenacher Straße,” I said. “Maybe he wants me to have the same </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">cut</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.” Not only am I blonde with shoulder-length hair but I’m also petite, and the woman in the photo had a dark crew cut with spikes at the crown and a hefty frame. “Maybe he gave me the wrong photo.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Just dyke it up a bit,” Shona said, looking through me. “Make a decision, buy the dye and let’s get out of here.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But it would never be that simple. Shona sees things in black and white and I like to look for the rainbow in everything. Which is interesting, because our takes as English-language foreigners living in Berlin – and Germany – are very different: she likes its structure and innate orderliness, and I love the rent-a-hippies.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I want to look sexy but not like I’m too available,” I said. “Is that possible with a style like this?”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“What I really want to know is, why is a straight guy called Caspar opening a lesbian leather bar in Berlin anyway?” Shona asked. “Schöneberg must really be going to the dogs.” She laughed – perhaps at her own joke? – then raised her eyes to the ceiling. She stomped off down the aisle and turned left.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“He said he’s diversifying his assets,” I said, louder, so she could hear me. “I think the lesbian leather market’s the next big thing.” I had no idea where she was going. Or really, what I was even saying.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I searched the photo for inspiration. I could go dark if I had to – I’d done it before – but really, that short short cut? My longish face and thin jaw – my brothers called me </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nosebag</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> – made finding a flattering hair-do a challenge.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Shona walked down the aisle towards me again, twirling something black. She stretched its rubbery form between her hands and let it twang back into shape.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hold still,” she ordered, and stretching it wide, wide enough for me to think it might burst, she placed it over and around my head, snapping it snugly round my crown and ears. “It’s not leather, but rubber has a whole scene attached to it too … so I hear.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“What is it?” I said.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“A bathing cap. You wear it when you go swimming. My grandmother used to wear one. Though hers always had flowers and other crap on it.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We scuttled around to the sunglasses so I could see what I looked like in a mirror. Predictably, a shop assistant – blue tunic and hair pulled back – scowled at us, so I took the cap off.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“He must be pretty definite about the hairstyle,” I said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have delivered the picture to me.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Shona let out an exhausted sigh. “What are you going to do if he doesn’t like you? You’ll have ruined your hair for a job that went nowhere. I mean, you look less like a lesbian than I do.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“What does a lesbian look like?” I asked.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I glanced over at the shop assistant but she was not moving away. I wanted to see what the cap looked like on my head again, but didn’t dare earn her Berlinerin glare.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Oh for God’s sake, I’ll buy it,” Shona said, ripping it from my grasp.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was the one time there was no one queuing at the Kasse – unheard of in Berlin – and within seconds Shona had paid for the black rubber bathing cap and stuffed it in my handbag, rustling against the bubblejet print of the sample hair-do.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So, I had a rubber bathing cap I knew I could not wear, not even as trainee Friday night door bitch at a lesbian leather bar, and I still had no idea about what to do for the hair style.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I really need to eat something,” Shona said, as we stood a minute later on blustery Turmstraße, rugged up again in our winter woollens. “So I’ll see you later.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She Euro-kissed me on each cheek and I dipped into my handbag.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Then you should take this,” I said, handing her the black bathing cap. “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> should go for the job.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Shona stepped back, half-surprise on her face. But only half.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“And you should have this too,” I said, giving her the photo. “You’d make a much better door bitch than me.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Oh,” Shona said. “Thanks.” She stuffed the bathing cap and the photo in her handbag, convincingly, perhaps afraid I might change my mind. “I wasn’t really …” she trailed off, for once unsure what to say.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“You’d look good in that haircut too.”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Talk soon?” she said, half question, half statement, backing away.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Sure,” I replied.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She waved goodbye and hurried down Turmstraße.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I turned in the other direction and crossed Beusselstraße for the quick walk home. I knew Shona was planning to usurp me for the job anyway, I just wanted to avoid any unpleasantness. I don’t have many friends in Berlin, and while Shona would probably call me a mad, hippy-dippy non-bra-wearing rainbow freak, her friendship was more important to me than a once-a-week job.</span></div></span><br />
</div>Matt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821563841435577941.post-22719205075518819212010-09-04T01:24:00.001-07:002010-09-04T01:24:14.390-07:00Flash Friday FictionOK, I plan to use this blog for Flash Friday FictionMatt Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407600665539926917noreply@blogger.com0