Jody knew a lot of interesting characters in her life, one of them was Noel Wickman, sculptor, trailblazer, raconteur at-large, whose fascinating story, as much as I know it, I will share with you. Canadian by birth, Wicky was one of three siblings who early in life watched their mother commit suicide by drinking drain cleaner. Parked by their father in an assortment of brothels until they were adopted (to serve as free farm labor), Wicky had a large repertoire of dirty limericks she learned from the prostitutes who took care of her. Wicky was a sculptor, she made paper mache figures at half or 2/3 scale. When she died, her partner Susan asked Jody if we wanted Wicky's sculptures. We called her back two days later to arrange to get them, and after a lengthy and very pregnant pause, she informed us she'd thrown them in the garbage. So we never even got to take photos of them. They were quite good. Susan was quite bad. Wicky was the owner of a music box shop in Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, and was the source for much of the Market material in Death in Seattle. ("The bewildering morass put him in mind of a cannibal-pot, it was so carnal and so mundane; all clamor and tumult with its oyster bars, barbecue, incense and spice, the spiny lobster, the whelk and the prawn side by side with smutty magazines and blatant perishables, the vulgar trinkets of the multitude hawked along sidewalks crammed with bric-a-brac and crawling with loafers, street walkers and dope addicts whose antics Rawlence eyed with scorn; all of this intermixed with steaming cauldrons and smoking grills and always the new faces backdropped by the same old many-colored kites, windsocks, marijuana pipes, tourists in perpetual rejoicing, the strife and babel of polyglot tongues of savage nations (including his own) not to mention drugged teenagers smacking their lips over chili dogs that dripped hotsauce amid the glitter of inconsequential baubles and posters and T-shirts and rings and necklaces and knives of every make, set out on wooden tables open to the wind and the rain, everything permeated by a democratic reek of bakery goods or stir-frying that drifted on the Puget Sound breeze.") Noel worked in the 60's at The Blind Lemon in Berkeley and once saw Bob Dylan (before he was "Bob Dylan") playing there. Wicky mistook him for a woman and liked the song, commenting, "Not bad, but she can't sing." They met when Wicky answered Jody's ad for Irondale lots. At the time she was with a woman named Amy. Later when she was no longer with Amy but with Jody, Amy reported them to immigration for being gay. Agents came to the house to investigate, Jody also became freaked out lest that somehow spread to an investigation of her fitness as a parent. You know, because she was a lesbian. I don't know the details, but Wicky was never deported, and Jody was never investigated. (She was later investigated by the FBI for her involvement in the distribution of an interracial porn film in the south, but that is an unrelated story.) Wicky was the first female draftsman at Boeing Aerospace Company. Some of the material in I, Vampire about the character Blake Reardon came from Wicky. ("In any big company, a drafting room is a sham. It’s a complete lie! Hypocrisy in motion! You sit and draw pla-pla. Pretend to draw something that might work. Act busy. Then along comes the engineer supervisor. He takes ten minutes and redesigns the whole thing you’ve been working on for six months. Correction: he doesn’t redesign it; he copies it out of the book. Didn’t the old Romans design a thumbscrew pretty much like this one? But the point is, Boeing has got to hire ten thousand bodies, because the government says ten thousand people must work on the project, or else money won’t be funneled into the Seattle plant. It’s a nuthouse!") Wick was also diabetic. Once when she hospitalized, Jody and I were waiting on bench in Denny's for a land appointment, who was late. We went into a roll of silliness and hilarity while we waited, riffing on anything and everything, cracking ourselves up. After the appointment Jody called the hospital and asked for Noel Wickman's room. "We don't have any patient by that name," she was told.
Turns out Wicky died in the hospital while Jody and I were laughing in Denny's. We liked to think that Wicky was with us, part of that hilarity, a sort of bon voyage party. -Mary Whealen
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THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick To the list of dystopian cautionary tales suddenly relevant again (as if they ever weren't!) in the trumpian, post-truth, authoritarian-leaning era I recommend adding Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which answers the question, What if Germany and Japan had won WWII? If you've seen the Amazon adaptation, there is little resemblance. Character names are the same but the plot is very different; the subversive video of the series is, in the novel, a novel. Germany controls Europe, the eastern U.S., is expanding into the solar system and has attempted a"final solution" on the entire continent of Africa. From The Home Islands Japan controls South America, Asia and the west coast. A nominal U.S. neutral zone separates Nazi and Nippon territories. The setting is San Francisco and the neutral zone, the reader learns of life in Nazi territory only from secondhand reporting. The IChing or "oracle", the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, features importantly for all the main characters, and is in a way, another character through which Dick explores the themes of fatalism and enduring in a world in which there is no shining light on the hill, no safe refuges left to flee to- or take hope from. All is authoritarianism- of the brutish Nazi stripe or the more civilized Japanese variety. Into this reality of despair is dropped the surprisingly bestselling novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an alternate fiction in which the allies won the war, defeating Germany and Japan. A fiction unimaginable for some, a revelation of Truth for others. As one would expect, the novel is contemplative, internal, philosophical, and the ending ambiguous (perhaps a disappointment to readers weaned on flattering sales pitches and attention-eroding tech gadgetry who find their way to the novel from the Amazon series), but Dick's The Man in the High Castle sheds insightful, unsettling light onto life under totalitarianism. A light very much needed these days. Highly recommended! Mary Whealen read more reviews SOUTHBOUND by Joseph Ferguson "Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members" wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance. The protagonist of Southbound has assuredly never read Emerson but he knows whereof Emerson speaks. Cruising the literary highway of counterculture anti-heroes, Basement Man, transplant from Alabama, pulls up to a bar in New Jersey and we hitch a ride for this episodic portrait of his lifelong, booze-fueled rebellion. From the tragicomic death of his friend on the docks of Hoboken to beaches a little less respectable for his presence ("Avast ye scurvy lubbers!") to a retirement home, Basement Man is aware but not resigned (to paraphrase Edna Millay). I've heard it said that 'your integrity to yourself is more important than your immediate life,' and that's a sentiment Basement Man would drink to: "Better a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy, spider!" Southbound by Joseph Ferguson makes us look around and perceive the poetry in life. And that is a very good thing. Mary Whealen read more reviews In 1978 Passing for Human was published. Also published that year was Natural Shocks by Richard Stern. Jody died at the age of 84. Richard Stern died at the age of 84 a few years later. Stern was called by the New Republic, "the best American author of whom you have never heard." Jody was called by the magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction "The best unknown science fiction writer." Random, insignificant coincidences to be sure, and interesting only because in 1978 Jody was also writing reviews of books and one of the books she reviewed was Natural Shocks. Her career as a book reviewer was short-lived. She kept telling the truth about what she perceived as slice-em-off schlock being foisted upon the reading public by publishers and the toadying literary press. But as various book review editors kept trying to explain to Jody before firing her, 'our function is to sell books.' Here is Jody's review of Natural Shocks by Richard Stern: "Celebrity," writes Richard Stern, "is the vengeance of the unfamous. They turn the famous into stage settings. It's a way of paralyzing them." Maybe this is what happened to Stern himself. He has been supported by Guggenheims and Rockefellers, has been gorged with plums and approval. His dustjacket fluoresces with praise from Bellow, Burgess, Richler, Roth, the roster of men who, because there are no Fitzgeralds or Steinbecks around today, are at the top of the American heap. Did any of them really read this book? Roth tells us that Stern exhibits "a sweet purity of felling." I'd say he has about as much feeling as a piece of Portnoy liver. the only time the hero Wursup feels anything much, is when he discovers that his dying girlfriend's hair has all fallen out after her hospital treatment. What he "feels" then is a semi-prurient survivory thrill. And Stern is no Camus delineating "lack of feeling" with a powerful grace; he's just another drudge mastering a few dull routines and repeating them for audiences who don't demand any better. His skill in developing a character runs to, "Dolly was a woman of rough intelligence, but the intelligence produced nothing but malice, like a machine which undoes at one end what it assembled at another." Here is Stern describing a character he really loves, a rancidly "brainy" lecturer at Columbia: "There was Benny, in his party outfit, his great persimmon head coming from a steak-colored turtleneck... Benny had been chewing a salami; there were meat flecks on his large lips, and he exhaled spicy aromas." Stern's male characters are blubbery fatcats, his women are wind-up dolls. ("Perfect little teeth spread in her wonderful cheeks, gleaming amidst the small lights hopping off her desk.") A good novel should enhance life (even if by satirizing it mercilessly as a Burroughs does) but for me, Stern and his admirers have the whole thing reversed: they strip the life from life and leave a slimy coldness that reeks of emptiness. I contend that this honors-encrusted tribe of mendicants has been over-pampered for years. They are accepting the gravy without doing the honest work. Natural Shocks is a thoroughly rotten novel. It is a Book of the Month Club Alternate selection. This may say something about the state of "letters" in our country today. Jody Scott Just when you think every stinkin' person in the WHOLE WORLD has turned (in the zombie sense) into a conformist, bourgeois SQUARE, and literature is about as well-coiffed and dead as Ivanka Trump, or one of those old-timely photos where folks propped up dead Uncle Horace and taped his eyelids open to be included in a formal family portrait, you stumble upon works such as Baby Jesus Butt Plug and Trump Chicken. If you order and enjoy these books, please leave a reader review. That's the best way to thank an author whose work has brought you pleasure. -Mary Whealen TRUMP CHICKEN: A Tale of the Grotesque by bobbygw @bobbygw, bobbygw.com A gourmet satire for sophisticated palates, Trump Chicken reminds me of Jody Scott's short satirical skewerings. And skewer Chicken does- gleefully! In a folksy, shambling parlance worthy of the orange man himself author bobbygw's protagonist explains in a monologue just exactly how unpalatable Trump really is. A sort of Hannibal Lector meets Julia Child! Hilarious and highly recommended! By the way, there is this on the copyright page: "This fiction contains elements of visceral horror, black humor, the grotesque, and the monstrous. Due to its appalling content, it should not be read by anyone." You've been warned. read more reviews THE BABY JESUS BUTT PLUG, a Fairy Tale by Carlton Mellick III @CarltonMellick3, carltonmellick.com Unnamed narrator and wife Mary answer an ad for a free baby jesus- but no using baby jesus as a sex toy! "If you stick this child in your butt, you'll damn yourself to hell" warns the old woman they get him from. An acid-trip-gone-bad, comedic nightmare of emasculatory disquiet at the superfluousness of husband once baby comes into the picture; at the trivializing absurdity of corporatism; at the impotence of self in the form of clones who not only do not save the day, but can't stop themselves from fucking like bunnies and turning into zombies and eating each other in a house transformed into living internal organs. Is Baby a surreal and macabre satire from the fevered imagination of one very sicko individual, or a true and factual tale of an old-lady curse come deservedly true on two perverts who do in fact use baby jesus as a butt plug? You decide. read more reviews SPINWARD FRINGE, ORIGINS A trilogy of novellas by Randolph Lalonde https://twitter.com/randolphlalonde In an era when most of the Galaxy is under the control of militarized, ruthless mega-corporations, one of the few remaining free societies is the remote Freeground Space Station. But events are threatening that independence. When a group hacks into top-secret battle simulations and cleans the clock of the military's top trainees, Freeground brass recruit them for a secret "shadow ship" assignment to gather intel, new technologies and potential allies for the battles to come. Author Lalonde describes Origins as "backstory, scene setters, the prequel I'll never have to write" for the Spinward Fringe Series (12 books so far). I haven't read the rest of the series, so i can't speak as to how it serves that function, but on its own Origins stands as an enjoyable, well written space opera. The characters are likable enough and their interrelationships engaging enough that one is happy to cruise into battle with them. Lalonde wrote he wanted to create an experience that would "resemble that of watching a television show or movie." In that he succeeds. There is a dark twist at the end (semi spoiler alert!) that leaves the fate of the main character unresolved, and this may disappoint some readers (maybe subsequent books in the series provide that resolution, maybe they don't), but I applaud Lalonde's willingness to take that bit of commercial risk. Recommended. -Mary Whealen read more reviews UNIVERSE IN FLAMES First Trilogy & Second trilogy by Christian Kallias https://twitter.com/KalliasX After generations of stalemate in the war between the Star Alliance and the Obsidian Empire, the Empire springs a surprise attack with powerful new allies and all but wipes out the Alliance. The survivors flee blindly through hyperspace and end up near an unknown planet at the edge of the Galaxy. Soon a new Earth Alliance is formed with judicious lobbying by Olympian Goddess Aphroditis, who appears in a vision to Chase that sets him on a journey to discover his own destiny and previously-unsuspected fury powers. His success will be crucial to the survival of the new Alliance. Enter Olympians, Furies (released from long imprisonment by Chase's twin brother and nemesis Argos), Asgardians and a dark unknown foe as Chase and the Alliance face one seemingly insurmountable challenge after another, losing ground while searching frantically for allies and answers. I enjoyed the first trilogy, but on starting the second the formulaic construct of the novels became more obvious: Chase gets into impossible battles that he should lose but manages to find a brilliant way to win- usually via some previously unknown aspect of his Fury powers; the enemy inflicts devastating losses on the Earth Alliance, but it manages to survive and regroup and adapt. There are lots and lots of space battles. Author Kallias does the formula very well and when I finished the second trilogy I wanted to continue journeying with these characters and find out what happens with the new enemy (not part of either side of the war) introduced toward the end of the second trilogy. The blending of space opera and mythology is a nice touch; if the third trilogy ever goes on sale I will buy it. Recommended for space opera lovers. -Mary Whealen read more reviews Kicking and Screaming Naked we come into this world and handsomely outfitted in a new pinstripe from Big & Tall, complete with a foulard tie, we go out of it. At any rate that’s what happened to Nettie Polotnik’s husband Phil who had been dead nine years to the very day when our story begins. Philip Hart Polotnik had never been neat while he was alive (Phil died at age fifty-six, his skull broken in a car crash); he drank like a fish, played poker all night long and smelled like the nasty brown cigars he smoked (and those cigars were what killed him, according to Nettie! If it hadn’t been that accident it would have been emphysema like the late Johnny Carson)...... read the rest Goddess Pissed There is no earthly explanation for what happened to me one terrible night last spring except that I was deeply depressed, seriously thinking of killing myself because I wasn't a celebrity (or at least rich, successful and sought-after) and had started having a real problem with alcohol. I was in the newsroom (I'm a reporter in her mid-to-late forties; the exact date won't pass my lips in this cruelly ageist society. Also, my name happens to be Dorsey Corn and I don't like hearing jokes about it) doing my routine daily work when the invitation was tossed on my desk along with the rest of the morning mail, which I customarily read with a latte and a sticky bun or two. Little did I know this would be my last morning of relative peace and sanity!.... read the rest The Silence of the Hacks , or What Really Happened to Hannibal Lector I don't want to rain on little ole Thomas Harris' parade or put a spoke in his wheel--it's just that I'm sick and dog-tired of all these tenth rate so-called "writers" harvesting kudos and million-dollar advances for writing pure trash all the time. I mean what's the point? Hannibal Lecter can go take a long jump off a short pier--so what if the Queen Herself knighted the slimy little jerk? It just proves what a tribe of perverted bums our Leaders are, don't it? Because you are never told the truth, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury. You are once again being fed a LIE and right now I'm going to tell you the way it really happened (which is nothing like it's reported in the so-called News of the Day, Hannibal the Cannibal being the hot story of the moment). Anyway, a bunch of us got together and said we wuz sick and dog-tired of the reading public being such a ninny, needing something as DUMB as mere cannibalism to get them to go to their bookstore and buy a book. At that time Hannibal Lecter was right here in Shoreline, Washington, which is the suburb of Seattle where me and my buddies live. He was hiding out here; it's the one place the cops would never think to look for him.... read the rest Incident At The Dog Park Steve began to remonstrate (that means like, protest a bit when you know you are in the right) and at the same time Reba, who always carries a baseball bat on her walks to send the tennis ball spinning a little farther and faster and also to protect against stalkers and suchlike-- Reba snuck up behind the cop. Just as the cop was saying, "The law states that each of you are subject to a $120 fine or you can appear in court with or without a lawyer to present argument--"
That was the exact moment when Reba hauled off and whacked the officer in the head with her Louisville slugger. When the bat connected with the cop's skull, the sound was like a watermelon being dropped ten stories down to a cement alley. SMOOSHHH! Reba wiped her bat with handfuls of grass. "That's one dead-looking cop," she observed.... read the rest |
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