Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 08:32:31 EDT From: "t(wink)ies!" Subject: FILLER: Stuffed with Nonsense (revision 2) (:Some Words, in search of a list...:) [take one posting from Mon, 8 Dec 1997 23:44:46 EST, add Lipton's Instant Rubber Chicken Soup from Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:56:08 EDT, shake, do not stir, and you might get something like the following...toujours, c'est la meme chose!] (:or at least a sandbox?:) sigh. (:a meander in the waves...a moonlight swim where sharks fear to go...:) Ah, me...the list has been at it, the grist mill grinding hard, and so much has been ground out...gods and goddesses, dust and mud, even a deoxyribonucleic acid chain or two, rubbed into fineness between the stone faces of the mill of the writers, then all but blown to the four corners of the virtual globe by a dust explosion? Okay, let's take a deep breath (not too deep, there seems to be quite a cloud of ashes and smoke hanging around, and we don't want to risk upper respiratory irritation from the second-hand fumes). Glance around at the frizzled fronds of the local greenery, scuff a toe in the slag on the road, maybe scratch our heads for a moment and stare up into the clouds lowering overhead, and... Lights! Cameras! Action! WRITERS virtual gathering, take 3.14159, mark! CRACK! (:First, there is the lighthouse...:) The host calls out, "Alphonse! A Table for 1,000 or so?" [the air tingles, a soft mist envelops us, and there are small soft pings and rings...something pinches your calf and giggles, a high-pitched giggle like a lightbulb breaking...] the mist fades and we see an expanse of white tablecloth, set with crystal, fine silver, and plates so fine that they shine. Seated around the edges, which are as near as your heart and as far as forever, are writers. Yes, writer after writer, some in suits and ties, some in fine evening dress, some in scruffy flannel bathrobes that comfort the skin with the knubby softness, others in the finest hairshirts envy can buy, and of course those who insist on the emperor's own tailoring as the best clothes that the eye can't see...there are even corps after corpse of unseen, unknown, or temporarily absent writers...even the odd unwriter or two, all sitting at the table. (okay, a few may be under the table. a few flying somewhere over the table. maybe even a few who don't want to sit at the table, they'd rather stand. but, on the average, they are all there, in spirit if not in seat.) In front of each one, Alphonse has deposited a tall flute filled with ambrosia. Genuine ambrosia, imported from the hills of Olympus at great personal effort by your host. "Lift your glasses, then, one and all, in salute to what might be," he says. (:On the crags overlooking the beach, under storm and moonshine, wreathed in fog and ice-cold clarity reaching out to forever, it sits. The light flashes, flashes, flashes...calling out to those who are awash in darkness, those who are adrift, those who are drowning, and to those who are stroking firmly. Sometimes it may seem as if the light flickers, blown aside by some gargantuan icon frowning at the persistent feeble candle, and other times the glare of that bright light may seem too harsh and penetrating to bear, but it waits...above the crashing surf, the ripples, the tides and undertows, the drying salt on cracking lips...:) He lifts his thin bubble of sheerest glass, the sun striking strange rainbows of color from the heavenly beverage swirling inside. The light shifts through red, orange, yellow into butterscotch, dances a moment, then swerves off through green lilacs, into blue birds, indigo girls, and violents most fearful, soaring rapidly into the tartans, pagan patterns, milky ways, and other incredible transitions of light and color playing over the white tablecloth. "What? Drink to what?" a sad voice asks. "To writers. Oh, maybe not the writers that you see, who are just you and me, but to WRITERS, to that list that could be, to that shining beyond us, to that sandbox untouched by the nuclear blasts..." And a few lift their glasses, slowly. The colors glisten in the eldritch sunshine and moonshine of pixels aglow with the wild flow of the internet. They sip, just a taste, of that strange nectar of the gods. "It tastes like sloe gin, but faster!" one says. "No, what are you talking about, it's the finest mocha latte!" another murmurs. Around the edges of the scene, the grass begins to grow again. A brook puddles and muddles its way alongside the crowd. A plain, heavy with grain, unrolls into the rain. (:in the fog, that lighthouse may appear to be a guiding lantern; or in the depth of night, a constellation; or in a heartbeat, it might even be a widow walking quietly on that lonely balcony, peering out to sea with eyes that have seen too far, that have cried too long, that have held hope beyond the bounds of human waiting...:) "To stories untold, and poems unfelled. To songs unsung, and hearts unwrung. To all the expressions, of your art, of your craft, of you..." the host continues. The Rabelaisian contingent, supplied with bottles after spurning those silly little glasses, roars and chugs a huge shot each. A strange forest, replete with dark crannies, waving branches, and shadows that move even in the stillness of the night, lurches up from the ground on another side. The odor of mildew and rot rolls out from its unhallowed depths, shrouded in the moan of the dying wind. "To author, journalist, reporter, magazine writer, contributor, poet, novelist, essayist, biographer, dramatist, playwright, literary critic, foreign correspondent, short story writer, novelist, feature writer, sports writer, fashion writer, anecdotist, amanuensis, ghostwriter, sonwriter, copyist, scribe, editor, war correspondent, special writer, freelance writer, scribbler, pen pusher, hack, newshound or whatever kind of writer you discover when you let yourself be the best writer you can be...and what a wonderful surprise that may be!" the host drones on... More writers glare, then tilt their head, then grab a glass and toast. (:As for me, that lighthouse, that flickering flame that holds this list together--that's writing.:) A mountainside lifts its bulk, towering in the background. On one shoulder, it wears a glacier, sparkling and crackling in the sunshine. The other shoulder lifts an alpine meadow into the air, wildflowers blooming, and a rustic wooden cabin waiting for a writer to open the door and tell the tale of she who lives there... (:Somewhere between the sucking whirlpools and the harsh reefs where many a hull lies crushed, the flotilla steers its course. Over the ebb and flow of the tide and the gentle rocking of the waves, steersmen and captains peer into the dark, watching for that glimmer that marks the lighthouse on the headland of writing. And when they see it, they breath deep and trim the steering, gliding into that sheltered bay...:) The toasts continue, as scenes and characters, plots, metaphors and similes, themes and dreams and reams take form, recede, reform even clearer than before. The taste of ambrosia... The sweat of the muse. Here's to us. Still writing. (:So...write:) tink