Wrath Never looked So Cool: A Review of John Walker's 'Wrath and Remembrance'

How can a character so forgetful be so memorable?
I can't give every character I read a two-page layout in the Review, but I could for John Walker's man of many thoughts, Jack Parrish. If you want that gentle punch in the gut from the get-go, only to still feel it (like the great burn you get from a strong and furious work-out) at the end, I highly recommend this story. Despite the presence and talk of amnesia, Jack is a very controlled character in a very smooth setting in a very stylish story. The amphitheater of Jack's brain is full of memories that give us all great recall. And length here is no matter. I started and was a third into it before I realized I still had my own life to live. This story escalates perfectly and rings a bell with anyone who can't remember shit! And if Jack knocks on your door and asks for your help, just say yes.


Look for John Walker on Amazon or on his website:
http://www.sanctuaryinthedarkness.com
This review is of 'Wrath and Remembrance,' but this fine
author has many a great book to be held by your hands.

The Boxer Rebellion-Unconventional And Haunting

I always enjoy a sound that reminds me of a place I’d like to be. You know those great Ketel One Vodka commercials, in black and white, with square-chinned men having debonair evenings in highly fashionable suits and being kind to exotic women while they have their fun? I love those commercials and the idea they represent. The music on their new album (The Cold Still)… it’s what those men would listen to after they got home, loosened their neckties, watched it rain, and either kissed the lady or shot the spy. But I say that as a man, so if you’re a woman, hit the reversal button.

No Harm can come to a person who lives like that or listens to this kind of music. Were you to Step Out Of The Car and be Caught By The Light, your silhouettes would palpitate with the shadows.

If you like being Locked In The Basement and listening to high, haunting echoes, you’re in for a treat. They don’t exist on every song, but there is little Doubt they provide a certain mood and context that can’t escape you. They pull you in.

Based out of London, The Boxer Rebellion do a wonderful job of changing up the rhythm of the album. Some pieces drive you, but with a feel you don’t know where you’re about to go. No Cause For Alarm though, the other pieces bring you back. And if you’re wondering about either, Both Sides Are Even. You want to go, and you want to come back.

Their previous album, ‘Union,’ was a solid piece of work, but I have to say ‘The Cold Still’ is a little more mesmerizing. And aching. And monumental. And tantalizing. You want Organ Song from inside your spirit to cool the rest of the world around you. You want the energy of the world consolidated in your hands as you take it over.

The driver should drive to this, The Runner should run to this. The course of the album provides all the characters you’ll want to feel like while you listen to the words. You’ll understand the emotions the album portrays, the time it represents, and the soothing bookend you’ll rest against afterward.

Memo to all, to many, to you… for the great taste in all of us, pick up this album, pick your favorite spot, and pour your attention to it. Let it ride on you. Let it start something for you.

You can see their look, style, tour schedule, and other goodness at www.theboxerrebellion.com.

(as seen in Hoot & Hare 1)

Sister2Sister Cookies: Come Taste

In Tyler, Texas, there is a kiosk where the smells of dough and heaven are made, combined, and then eaten. It’s Sister2Sister Cookies, where all drivers are getting intoxicated on milk and cookies.

Every morning of operation, when the sun is just out and eyes are first opening, they put small batches together of chocolate chip, pecan chocolate chip, and snickerdoodle. I’ve worked in bakeries and the smell they possess can be exotic and overwhelming, but can you begin to imagine what a tiny kiosk must smell like in the early morning with those three cookies rising?

Close your eyes and let your taste buds have a hint of warm chocolate. Let your nose pant a little. Then, just as your jaw is ready to explode, place the smell of white chocolate macadamia nut in your imagination as well, because that’s coming right soon.

Sister2Sister Cookies is the tasty creation of Ashley Randall and Melissa Bennett, who have actually been making their cookies fresh baked to order for six years. They started in a commercial kitchen with too many orders to handle. They took samples to local events and businesses. Enough people spreading the word to others when they themselves didn’t have a mouthful of cookie garnered the need to expand, and from there everything fell into place.

If you want less of a wait, drive thru in the late morning and mid afternoon. Lunch can get crazy for those wanting dessert, and in the afternoon from 3-5 they offer the After School Special, milk and a cookie for $2.50, even in summer.

  

‘Our love of baking goes back many generations! Our personal recipe collections are filled with favorite family recipes from our mom, dad, grandmothers, great grandmothers, aunts and cousins. Growing up with roots in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, we were never short on goodies and treats at family gatherings. So it wasn’t a surprise when we stumbled upon a chocolate chip cookie recipe that we loved. We modified it a bit, made some changes here and there and made it our own. It’s been our “go to” recipe for everything from baby showers, teacher gifts, and work functions to birthday parties, Christmas gifts, and meetings. It’s been requested time and time again so we thought it must be pretty special.’ –Sister2Sister

Sister2Sister is located at 322 ESE Loop 323, across from Robert E. Lee High School, and open Tue-Fri 10am-5:30pm, and Sat 10am-2pm. You can find information about orders on their website at www.sister2sistercookies.com.

Interview With Bookseller Larry Bowen of Reader's Corner in Rolla, Missouri: If You Haven't Been There, Get There

Larry, you keep winning awards with Reader’s Corner. What are you offering that keep everyone so amped up?

I know it sounds like a cliché but we offer a truly unique shopping experience. I designed my store to be a comfortable, relaxing place to shop, where the books are extremely well-organized and presented in a slightly quirky setting. You can come in and spend an hour listening to the west coast cool jazz from my personal collection, check out all the funky décor, and look through over 75,000 books. You won’t find what the Reader’s Corner offers anywhere else around here from Kansas City to Little Rock, St. Louis to Springfield.

Your book exchange program seems to be favorable to all. Could you discuss how it works?

We buy, sell, and trade for used books as long as they are in like-new condition. Our books are in such good condition that a lot of people don’t even realize that they’re used, and that, again, makes us unique in the used book business.

We give customers half of what we sell a book for in store trade credit, so an $8 paperback we sell for $4 and will give $2 for in trade credit. An $80 cookbook won’t sell for half price, so if we determine it should sell for $20 we will give $10 in trade credit. We also buy new books but we’re really picky about the books we pay cash for.

From everything to your position in downtown Rolla to the bookshelves that line your corridors, Reader’s Corner has a very unique and original style. How did the store become what it is today?

I spent three years visiting new and used bookstores around the country and took the things I personally liked as well as the things I didn’t and combined them with my vision for what a reader’s bookstore would look, feel, smell, and sound like. With the generous support of the community and a lot of hard work, we’ve grown each of the six years we’ve been in business. That’s a really amazing thing for a business in the current economy.

Regarding the future of Reader’s Corner, how is it going to keep blowing minds and returning customers in the next few years?

I’m currently expanding the business into the building next to the existing bookstore. We will have great space for seating areas, music groups on the weekends, and the most important thing, the space to have about 200,000 books. Explore more at www.readerscorneronline.com.

Discussion with Dr. David Crawford About the Texas Dramatists Playwriting Series

Tell us how this series was started. What is the specific intention of this series?

The idea came with a discussion between Dr. Marion Castleberry, Clarence Strickland, Jonathan Perry and myself. Castleberry and I had attended a playwriting workshop in Lexington, NY sponsored by The Ensemble Studio Theatre. While there, I was able to establish a relationship with Arthur Giron (Flight, Edith Stein, Becoming Memories) who recommended that we can offer the same experience to the southwest writers that we received at the NY workshop. What the workshop did is put me, for example, into contact with a professional NY play producing organization. That is what we wanted to do down here. Help the Texas playwright have an opportunity to have their work seen by people who can make a difference in their careers. For example, my play was seen by the directors at EST who produced the play at their Octoberfest. From there it ended up Off-Broadway. So we met together to begin an organization that will help educate and produce the Texas playwright.

Texas Dramatists recently had their first seminar this summer at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, TX. What were some of the highlights?

What we always want to offer is the opportunity for the playwright to see their work performed. Five plays were read and the playwrights received critiques from TD board members. That's always a highlight. We were also able to offer two classes, one taught by Castleberry on the 6 Elements of Drama, and I taught Playwriting Method.

Discuss upcoming events this summer. What would you like to see this conference grow into?

We'll be sponsoring our second reading on Saturday, August 13, at Navarro College in Corsicana. Playwrights from across the state have the opportunity of having their works read and discussed. In the future we would like to gain funding and contact with other theatre organizations that will allow us to offer productions. We'd love to foster relationships with the Texas playwrights where we nuture their work from the initial stages through performance.

What does it take to get a play read?

Authors need to send their scripts to Jon Perry. All established and aspiring playwrights are invited to submit new works and join in our second Summer Play Reading! We'll meet in the Albritton Administration Building in the Black Box Theatre, which is on the second floor of the Admin Bldg in Room 277, right above the college bookstore. The Admin Bldg faces 7th Ave (Texas Hwy 31) and is the central building on campus. Watch for signs to direct you to the theater. Playwrights wishing to have works considered for the reading must mail a copy of their scripts by July 27 to: Texas Dramatists c/o Jonathan Perry, 15151 Northwood Dr., Tyler, TX 75703. Please include contact information (phone, e-mail, etc.) in all correspondence, and playwrights selected will be contacted by Aug. 1. Playwrights must provide their own readers for the event. In addition to our Facebook page, we reside at:

The address and contact are the same for future readings in 2012 and beyond.

http://www3.tjc.edu/theatre/td/index.htm

Among the Soils

In the evening, when the sun is bowing and the leaves are
beginning their evening rest, gentle lightning bugs swarm the 
fevered fields behind us and allow the long shades of grass to
sparkle. You can almost hear a gentle Yared or Korzeniowski
score coming from a window on the hill, one that calls for bare
feet touching the landscape.


My wife stands in the garden, contemplating the joy of
overgrown success. She is in her tank top and linen bottoms,
her bare legs caressed by the giant leaves of the zucchini plants,
as high as her hips and navel. The artichoke and basil and mint
she studies, their grasp low. She squeezes the tomatoes with
such a tender embrace as she squats for a moment between them.
She rises at a fond thought, her hands swaying across the tops of the
cucumber vines. She walks among the garden as if it is her home,
one that can not be disassembled or matted down. Her sensual
motions drive them up into the night like fog rising above the
ancient sea. The sun fades on her back, trickles of rays still left
haunting her cheeks and calves. She sees me watching from the
door and pauses. Her smile in the twilight is an act of brilliance
played out in slow motion.

Would You Like It If I Killed You?

Of all the things to feel a favorite over, to love the best, it was the
smelling of the dog for her. The slow motion jumping and shooting,
the naked swimming, the dance and wig, the style of clothes and
beer emblems, the sunset against the blue wall, the aesthetic
foreign accent, the lips blowing, the couch eloquence, the opera,

Serge, the attempts at life, the lecture in class, the waving people,
the lightened red faces, the human connectors, the suggestions,
the wet skin, the title quote, the way some walked, the clean

and reflective floors, the juicy introductions, the pillows, the fireplaces,
the fenders, the non-wigs, the silliness, the vivid aura, the less touching...
her favorite loving part was the handling and smelling of the dog
through the window. So many things make her so lovely.


In other frail and creative new, does anyone know for certain if
Fenton killed six people and Adam killed six demons, or did Adam
kill his six demons along with Fenton's six people? A blame game?

(as seen in Hoot & Hare 1)

Invasion-Safe and Lovely

Last year I wrote a few short pieces about her.
  One said:
I think she is starting to invade me, and I think I do not mind.
  Another said:
She is a castle I am walking into. Nakedly.
  Yet another:
It's just weird, having a beard.


I love being invaded successfully, and mostly by her! And now
I'm married to her. How lucky am I? And how lucky is my beard?

Steermanship

There is a building across the gazebo park from my window that does not fit 
our street, but I am not concerned with that. The reason it doesn't fit is that every 
other building around the square is either of Georgian or Victorian design, not 
counting the church. This building is of the seventies and is faded tan with odd 
windows. Below each window is a sunken ledge made of concrete that sticks 
out like a seat for anyone who might fall from a balloon basket.


Up on the tenth floor yesterday someone must have dumped a cake or some 
type of dish that was yellow. Early on in the morning as I wrote I saw a single 
blackbird or crow or whatever circle around for some time and then steer into 
the ledge, but not land. It just hovered and steered off and then back. It finally 
landed, looked at whatever it was I couldn't see, looked around to see if anyone 
was watching, bent its head, and snuck a piece. It flew away with a very yellow 
ball of something in its beak. From ten stories up I could still see the color of the
food. Perhaps that was why someone threw it out the window.


About an hour later, word must have spread. I heard them coming first, and then 
I saw them. At least fifty to sixty of the blackbirds ascended over the street, all 
circling around each other to see what the special treat was. To me this is 
evidence that birds and animals can speak well to each other, just not to us 
(parrots aside), and also that they have the best hovering and steermanship
capabilities. That was a lot of damn birds.


Four at a time they emerged from the circling pack and landed on the ledge to 
take bites out of the yellow surprise. As they left, four more would land, their 
wings flapping nearly incessantly, and only sometimes did that caw or jab at 
each other. They would go to a tree limb or rooftop or another ledge on 
another floor to gobble their bite and then they would fly back up to the ledge 
with the yellow surprise, and that person must have thrown out an entire meal 
or dessert because the birds all got fat as I watched.


As I just wrote that last sentence I heard a triple caw out my window, as if one 
of those birds was agreeing with me and shouting out a 'hell yeah.'


Birds apparently will eat anything.


Another bird just cawed another 'hell yeah.' Seriously. Can birds read our 
minds? ........... no caw on that one. That was spooky.

Beests

There has been a name stuck in my head for some time now. I figured 
I should write it out. 'Melittsophex Berensis'-a bee found in amber in a 
mine in northern Myanmar. In fact, the oldest bee ever found, over
100 million years old. Sounds exotic, doesn't it? Just imagine the queen 
bee yelling, 'Melittsophex, get your ass over here, I've got work for you, 
beetch!!'

Did you know that 3300 bees were sent to outer space on one of the 
space shuttle missions to see how they reacted to zero gravity? They 
adjusted immediately and built a pure and clean honeycomb hive, and 
I do say pure and clean because there is one thing in space the bees 
apparently would not do. Poop. Bees don't poop in their hives because
bees haven't come up with technology yet like indoor plumbing, so they 
keep their hives clean of poop. They poop outside. And since they
were encased in space, they were observed to have held it in for seven 
to nine days before being released into the wild to have, literally,
a poopy party.

Bees are also able to recognize patterns. Tests of human facial pictures 
were shown to bees and the one picture dabbed with sugar and honey
is the one picture they always came back to. Granted, that is just 
memory recall, but the pictures were even disheveled and still produced 
the same results, however, when the pictures were placed upside down, 
the bees became flustered, just like most humans do. The truth is that 
they do not recognize Johnny Rimbauld's face, just the pattern. Bees also 
see ultraviolet light, which humans unfortunately do not, so imagine the 
ultraviolet patterns these bees must see everyday as they flit around.

Rumors have been swirling that when the honeybee goes, so shortly 
thereafter does the human race. There are scientists who believe this 
true and some think it just a beestly hoax. Honeybees actually do
a lot more for the environment than most people in the world are 
aware, but no one knows for sure if it is their actions that have kept 
us going through this hard economic phase of life.

Did you also know that most queen bees lay roughly between 600 
and 1400 eggs... a day!!??!!??!!?? A day??  That means she is also 
laying around, if you know what I mean, wink wink. Come here little 
Melittsophex and show me what you got in your hummer!!!! Can you
dream the human female birthing 1000 times a day. A nightmare 
actually. Talk about overpopulation, and talk about pain!

Bees are a helluva commodity in our world.

Droopy Dog Says...

That Savannah is droopy and delirious and wet and marshy and constant. 

Also southern, cool, rough, gentle.

Elegant, dabble-some, made from an unknown concoction.

Playful, low-hanging, adventurous, deciduous.

Hopeful, unmarred, thirst-quenching, momentous.

Spirited, essential, delicious, lethargic in demeanor.

Echo-ish, square-ful, and non-stinky.

The Sky Has A View Of Us All

The sky in truth does, and sometimes I wish I could

see what it sees of me. It might show me an expression

of myself I only wish I knew about, one I could have

learned about when I was ten or twenty.

-A Sky Remembers How-

     (as seen in Cacoethes)

Fly high, up further,
Amid a milky sky, a dream of
Blue wings invisible.

Sky carry me on,
Wings bring near silky sly sweet
Space so divisible.

Clouds appear upon me,
Weight on my chest, I could use some rest,
Let me swirl on you cloud.

Skin cools so high,
Rain streams wash, a wind, my name,
A microburst is criminal.

Oh heavenly moments,
Did you come and go, we may never know,
It's the sky that knows how.

Nights In Savannah Are Glowing And Mysterious

Nights in Savannah are glowing and mysterious.

Ship horns call out in the dark hours as they float

the Savannah River in eerie whistling silence.

The facades of ivy-covered homes seem to

bend outward against the head-high streetlamps

cornering the squares. Federalist and Georgian

homes show great contrast next to their

Victorian and French chateau-like neighbors.

The streets are always active, with squares being

tended to by stragglers and picture-takers, and

bikers always swerving through the re-directioned

streets and around the dog-walkers. The moss

hanging from all types of trees makes the cobbled

and bricked roads seem even more desirable to walk

down and perhaps even lay upon with a blanket. Spiral

staircases abound up front porches. Chandeliers

speak out into the night through frosted windows

on every second floor. The dark walking paths of

Forsythe Park leading to the fountain seem like a

Hungarian wood journey. The cemetery around

Oglethorpe is full of old visionaries entombed

in massive above-ground brick monuments. The

mossy trees blow in the wind around them as if the

moss is the hair of their guardians. When rain comes

in, when the clouds are low and leaving their fog

behind, the districts look like separate worlds.

It is a very shaded and effective world, one so

beautiful to walk through.