In his limited English, Shige described as best he could the women he was seeking, but the hotel clerk shook his head, said he’d never heard of them. The clerk then helped him order a rental car and gave him a local map on which he marked the roads to the old hydro-electric plant.

After turning inland just before the bridge, the landscape began to look familiar. Shige stopped along the road where he thought the house used to be, right on the river. But he found nothing except what appeared to be a homemade monument of sorts, a cairn of rocks.

The next day, from the hotel veranda, Shige watched as an old man stooped to insert cuttings in the rain-sodden ground beyond the walkway. The island was rife with hibiscus hedges, an easy plant to propagate. Shige called a greeting and the old man responded in kind – not surprising that the old ones still spoke some Japanese.

What color will they be? Shige asked.

Red, the old man answered, then twisted his eyes up toward the sky. Soon will be rain, he said.

Shige laughed. Yes, always. Soon will be rain, he replied, remembering from his childhood the uncountable gray days and the thundering noise of rain on the metal roof. And more: he remembered the myriad hues of green that make up a jungle landscape, the vast cloud-laden sky on non-rainy days, and that here there were more stars in the night sky than anywhere else in the world.

Shige was born on this island during Japanese colonial times. He left during the war, over 30 years ago, entrusted to the care of other evacuees during their voyage to Japan’s home islands. Shige’s father, who was in charge of the colony’s hydro-electric plant, remained behind – they were reunited at war’s end. But Shige always kept the memories of the day of leaving: the tearful good-byes, everyone weighted with leis and mwaramwars – and how for days the sweet scent of flowers filled the ship’s corridors and rooms.

The visit Shige has now made to the island was prompted by his father’s death and what Shige learned during the gloomy task of sorting through his father’s papers, of finding a ledger detailing money sent to support what appeared to be a child left behind. His father had never told Shige about any such child. There was also a notebook with the name Mieko on the cover and, inside, the journal of a woman who had come to the island as a brothel worker.

In the journal’s pages Shige was surprised to find a description of himself and his father making their farewells at the dock that day, and that his father appeared often in the later pages, not by name, but certainly recognizable as “the engineer.” The journal ended on first day of the bombings and suggested a small group –  the journal keeper, along with another woman who was the manager of the brothel, the governor general of the South Sea Government and his driver, a young corporal – had made plans to go to the house on the river. The house where Shige was born and raised. Again, his father had never spoken of any of these people.

With a nod to the elderly gardener’s wisdom, Shige borrowed one of the hotel umbrellas and started off on foot, headed toward Waterfront Road. On the way he passed the locations of the primary school and of the religious shrine, now only a few worn concrete steps remained. Yesterday, after his drive to the river, Shige had walked as far as the old Nambo Department store which appeared to be one of the few remaining structures from Japanese times. The hulk of the building was now being used as a storeroom and as some kind of mechanical shop. He remembered the Nambo, and also that the roof was mentioned in Mieko’s journal as a popular gathering place in the evenings.

On his walk Shige passed the Protestant Church built during Japanese times. He noted it still hosted services, and the churchyard was filled with fine old jacaranda trees. He studied all the various shops along the road, and could not help comparing them to Japanese times when similar establishments on this same road seemed more prosperous. The road then was called Kaigan-dori.

Taking a different route back to his hotel he discovered a small building on the main street that housed the tourist bureau. There, he was relieved to find the young woman behind the counter spoke Japanese, and he began describing the women he was seeking: Armina, the young woman who had been his nanny and her unknown daughter, who would be a grown woman herself now, and who he believed was his sister.

The young woman started laughing, held up her hands and would not let him continue. Wait, wait, she said, let me get my supervisor. Her supervisor did not speak Japanese but she translated: Shige learned the supervisor was the husband of his long-lost sister. His new-found brother-in-law whisked him into a car and drove the half a dozen blocks to where Maria was working.

Although his father’s bookkeeping did not state explicitly that the child he was sending money for was his own, when they met Shige knew instantly that they shared the same father. The hands, mostly. And the gestures, that certain tilt of the head, and each shared a dimple only on the left side of the face. But the first meeting was awkward; Maria seemed discomforted by being caught dressed as a scrub-woman, with a kerchief tied around her hair. She was busy with the final cleaning of her newly renovated lunchroom. Fortunately, her Japanese was more fluent than Shige’s English, and when she learned he would only be on-island one more day, she graciously invited him to dinner that night at her home. Her husband obliged with marking the directions on Shige’s tourist map.

The evening started well. Maria was an excellent cook and hostess. The house was tastefully furnished, and the two young daughters were well behaved. Helen, the older of the two girls, even spoke a passable Japanese and acted as a translator for her father. Shige suspected, though, from the girl’s fair coloring, that Valerio was not her true father. But all in all, it was a pleasant evening. Except for Armina, the woman who had been his nanny and who was his sister’s mother.

She had worn red. A long red dress with a high, ruffled neckline. Her face was dusted pale with powder, her dark hair piled high in an elaborate knot, held there with ornate hairsticks. She was haughty and dismissive, so different from the lively young woman he remembered. She denied knowing any of the people mentioned in Mieko’s diary, and all but accused him of fabricating the story. When Shige had tried to tell her about the small piece of writing at the end of the notebook in his father’s hand, Armina left the table. The evening ended with embarrassment and apologies.

*  *  *

Ten years since that last visit: Shige takes one of the hotel umbrellas from the rack before setting off in the hired car for his sister’s house. This time Armina has asked to see him and he has flown here for that purpose. Maria has told him her mother is not well.

The maid answers the door and shows him in. He leaves off his zori and enters barefoot. No slippers are provided but the tile floor is clean and delightfully cool underfoot. She shows him into the living room and, through gestures, offers to bring him coffee. As a child, Shige had (only learned to speak a few words of the local language) never learned any but a few words in the local language – the usual hello, goodbye, thank you, etc. He declines, with a small bow.

A large aquarium stands against one wall – small, iridescent blue fish, a miniature school of them flit back and forth, darting into a large clump of white coral. Against another wall is a bookcase with small framed photographs along the top: formal portraits of the two daughters, Shige’s nieces. Helen the older of the two is now a student in Hawaii and from whom Shige has received brief letters and holiday cards. Then a photo of Maria and her husband with what appears to be the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. And then one of a young woman, slightly out of focus. She’s wearing a white dress, such as a maid or a nurse might wear, and the face of a small child peers out from behind her skirts – Armina and Maria.

Ten years ago, on his last visit, Shige learned about their life together after the war, of Armina working as a maid for the Americans, of their living with an old uncle and auntie at the house on the river – most likely Gustof and Santa, the servants Shige remembers so well and fondly.

When Maria came of school age they all moved into town, into what had once been a ryokan, or small inn, just below Waterfront Road. A good part of the buildinghad survived the war bombings but Maria said her mother has somehow managed to make the place habitable. There, with the help of Santa and Gustof, Armina had established a carry-out lunch business for workers who commuted into town.

Maria has told him all this, and about her schooling and the confusion of English in the classroom, the native language on the playground, and Japanese at home. And he, in turn, has told her about how he was evacuated with the women and children colonists, and how the ship did not deliver them to the home islands, as promised. All passengers were off-loaded at Saipan. There, the citizens of Garapan, the island’s main town, were required to accommodate these uninvited visitors. Shige was assigned to a carpenter and his family.

The carpentry shop occupied the main floor, living quarters above, and Shige’s bed was placed in the bottom of a cabinet. The family was not stingy, merely pressed for space as they had three children – all girls. Still, the carpenter was pleased to have a pseudo-son to teach, and for over a year Shige was pleased to play the role of that son.

In the summer of 1944 the bombardment of Saipan began. The screams of terrified neighborhood women were almost louder than the sounds of the bombing.

Quickly, Shige’s host family packed what they could carry, and fled. Shige chose to hide. He crept into his sleeping cabinet, pulled the door shut and in the chaos he was not missed by his fleeing family.

After the bombardment, when the American soldiers drove their jeeps into Garapan and offered sweets to the children, Shige was among them and remembers that the chocolate bars, in such a hot climate, were melted and sticky – they licked the dark sweet off the paper. His host family was never found – like the others who fled they jumped from the Saipan cliffs into the rocks and sea below.

Now Shige hears the maid singing to herself in the kitchen. He goes to the sliding glass door and looks out into the garden, and across the estuary to the town of Kolonia. He slides the door open and steps down onto the matted floor of a covered patio. Not tatami, of course, but a native weaving of palm or pandanus.

Maria has told him that her mother says she now remembers there was a general and his corporal who came to live with them at the house on the river. Maria, of course, was only a tiny child and remembers nothing of that time. She was too young to have any memory of their father, just as Shige has no memory of his real mother.

At the sound of the sliding glass door, Shige turns to see the maid helping Armina down the step. Quickly, he goes to take her other arm and together they lead her to one of the patio chairs. Her hair, no longer black, is twisted into a scanty topknot. She’s wearing a white Chinese-style tunic, gray trousers, and embroidered slippers. Seated she says something to the maid, and then motions for Shige to pull a chair close to hers.

Shige sits, and then half rises from his chair to bow. His greeting sticks in his throat.

Armina waves her hand as if brushing aside a mosquito or an annoying fly. What did you expect, Shige-chan? Old women do nothing but get older. Her voice is harsh, but Shige is relieved to see the hint of a smile.

The maid returns and hands Armina a fan, and the scarf Shige had sent, one of those absurdly expensive, colorless silk scarves scribbled over and over with the designers’s signature. Armina brings it to her nose, sniffs, then drapes it over her shoulders. A very nice present, she says, and opens the fan.

Shige begins a proper protest, an apology for such a humble gift. . .

Armina hushes him with a wave of the fan. I tire quickly, she says.

Shige sits back. Amina fans herself slowly. Again, the glass door slides open and the maid brings a tray with iced drinks. Limeade, Armina says, and motions for the maid to set the tray on the low table nearby.

Now, she says when the maid leaves, I will tell you about the governor general and the boy. You must understand that I did not remember them before because they were with us such a short time. They came after the first bombing. I saw the boy once or twice in the garden.

Yet you never met these people?

Armina fans herself furiously. Is it usual, she says, to present a pregnant wife to guests? Your father was a proper gentleman, and the household was a proper Japanese household.

Shige nods.

Now, she says, listen, and do not interrupt. They came, as I said, after the first bombing. The governor general died during a later bombing. A heart attack, your father said. And the boy, the corporal? He left to rejoin the other soldiers.

Shige interrupts: and there were no women?

Armina snaps the fan shut and shakes it at Shige. I tell you, she says, there was only the governor general and his corporal.

I have been to where the house was, Shige says, I have seen there some stones that perhaps mark a grave.

Yes, Armina says, the governor general’s grave. She reopens the fan. The glasses of limeade sit sweating and untouched.

*  *  *

Shige has taken a window seat. When the plane banks he can see the rooftops of Kolonia, and across the estuary, the area where his sister lives. Then, the wings level out and he sees the dark mountain tops, and then: only ocean and sky. When the stewardess stops her trolley in the aisle, Shige asks for a scotch and water.

Armina had acknowledged two of the people from the diary but not the woman who wrote it. Why had she asked him to come all this way for something that could be written in a letter? Shige and his niece Helen had worked out a system. When he met Maria’s girls ten years ago, Helen spoke a bit of Japanese. She said her grandmother had taught her, that it was the “at home” language when she was small. But she could not write it, so she wrote in English and Shige had a friend translate and take his dictation for the return letters.

On the way to see Armina, and to kill time as he was early, Shige had stopped at a place on Waterfront Road that sold ice cream – he needed something cooling. The lady behind the counter who handed him the cone was Western, and Shige recalled the Belgian girls and their family who had been interned during the war. Perhaps she was one of three Belgian sisters. Had Shige’s English been better, he might have be able to decipher her accent – surely English speakers have as many different dialects and accents as are found in Japan?

Another sip of scotch and Shige nearly chokes when he realizes what was so odd about Armina: she was more fluent than she should have been and she did not have a Tokyo accent, such as he and his father. Why had she asked him to come all this way and then told him nothing?

The fragment of writing he had found at the end of the notebook, in his father’s hand, proved that the keeper of the journal had also been at the house on the river. The fragment was such an odd piece, meandering between past and present – as if someone were writing about a dream:

I made a fire of sticks and some embers from the kitchen. When she came from the house, she knelt near the fire and sat back on her heels.

I asked if she’d changed her mind. She shook her head and handed me two notebooks with papers spilling out.

I took them and sifted out the loose papers. One was a photograph of two boys in school uniforms.

My brothers, she said, and took it and the loose pages from me and tossed them on the fire. Tear the pages out, she said, they will burn better that way.

Instead, I opened one of the notebooks and began to read. She grabbed for it but I held it out of her reach. Burn it, she said.

No, I will keep it as a memento.

Don’t be foolish. It’s nothing.

Still, I would like to keep it.

Will you promise to never read it?

Now, who would make a promise like that?

You won’t find it very interesting, she said. She took the other notebook and began ripping out pages. She leaned forward and placed them on the fire. Now, she said, I’m dead. Good riddance.

We watched the fire consume the paper.

The light was fading. At the river’s edge I undress and place my clothing on a dry stone, the notebook and my glasses on top. I kneel and she soaps me, then pours water from a bucket over my shoulders. I wade into the shallows and find my usual small boulder, a comfortable perch chest-high in the water. After she washes herself, she settles on a nearby boulder.

Under the canopy of trees, the light was going too fast, and I remember the water felt colder than usual.

She said she wanted to wash the smell of smoke from her hair, but complained it was too late, that it would not dry.

I agreed. It was too late, too late for everything, for anything.

Now you are being an odd person, she tells me.

She loosens her hair and lowers herself into the water until completely submerged, then springs up, her body half out of the water and twisting, the spray from her hair flying in an arc. Without my glasses, I see only a pale blur. Already she is a ghost.

I spin, swoop and dip, pirouetting behind the camera and struggling to keep up with the spectacle hulking above me. A piece of a Ferris wheel? A chunk of the space shuttle? Glorious abstractions free for the taking, and it seems as though no one in the world but me has ever examined it. I burst out cackling at my own bent and twisted vision.

Download audio file (01-breathe.mp3)

Female voice sings, “Another day, just believe.”

Water in a swimming pool.

Black and white flowers on designer high heels bloom into ankles and calves.

Bronze glabrous skin.

Same voice sings, “Another day, just breathe.”

Zoom In.

Acadia is the only person lounging in the shade of a parasol and two palms.

Acadia reads a magazine and sips on lemonade.

Acadia wears a baby blue top and no bottom.

Acadia has dark hair and pointy ears and silver polygon earrings.

Acadia draws her eyebrows on her face different each day.

Acadia wears a ring on her left ring finger.

Zoom Out.

Women in high heels and bikinis scattered poolside high up in the hills of Los Angeles.

Dope electronic beat drops out of the sky.

Man loosens his traps and swings his arms.

Sunbursts shadow half his face.

He crouches before the dive.

Couple supine on weaved mats.

Boyfriend rests on a white pillow.

Girlfriend eyes the other man.

Her hipbone cuts into the strap of her beige bikini bottom.

Lemonade brimful in their glasses.

Treed hilltops in the background.

Woman in black bikini on chaise lounge.

She wears a hat and sits still.

Man springs into the water.

His bathing suit skin tight, the color of skin.

His splayed legs make a splash that wets the black and white flowers.

Zoom In.

Jean Paul hears the dive but refuses to sit up and look.

His head rests on a white pillow.

He blinks.

The straps on his wife beater stretched from wear.

His hair cut short, parted on the left.

Zoom Out.

Man surfaces and starts doing laps.

Woman in black sits on her chaise lounge somewhat sinister.

Treed hills fill the backdrop.

Under the shade of her hat she looks up at the sky.

Jean Paul looks at a yellow butterfly.

Couple on mat are both supine now.

Three uneaten apples in a wicker bowl are within arm’s reach.

Woman in black lowers her chin and looks at Jean Paul.

Jean Paul sits up on his elbows and returns her stare.

His upper lip curls at the corner in disgust.

He shakes his head in disapproval and looks at three kid-girls frolicking on the grass wearing one-piece bathing suits.

Man is still doing freestyle laps in swimming pool.

Woman in black looks at shock blonde kid-girl doing hula hoop.

Woman with black and white flowers on designer high heels takes off her sunglasses.

She rubs her neck with the earpiece and blinks up at the sky.

Shock blonde kid-girl keeps the hula hoop going.

Behind her Amélie rolls a blue anti-burst stability ball along the grass.

She falls forward into it.

Her body bounces off the blue ball.

Jean Paul sees this lewd gesture.

He thinks, “She’s too young to be here.”

Her and her friends are four years old.

He furrows his brow and cannot watch this scene anymore.

Jean Paul falls back onto the white pillow and sees the butterfly again.

Bright yellow wings beat against blue sky.

Jean Paul reaches for the butterfly, snatches it from flight.

Concentration makes his face twitch.

From in between hula hoop girl and a toddler planted upright on the grass, Amélie shifts her attention as if possessed.

Amélie turns toward Jean Paul with a serious facial expression.

Amélie has pink thong sandals.

Amélie walks toward Jean Paul.

There is unused croquet equipment on the grass.

The hula hoop revolves around the shock blonde kid-girl’s waist.

Jean Paul drags his buttery captive toward him.

He feels the furry wings flutter-tickle the pillows of his palm.

Hint of a smile on his face.

Amélie stops and stands at attention, her arms hang straight down, her hands crunch into fists.

Amélie looks robotic.

Synthesized music tinkles from the sky.

Jean Paul turns his head on his pillow as he reels the butterfly down.

Zoom In.

Amélie has blush on her cheeks, glossy lipstick on her lips, and eyeshadow.

Amélie lowers her chin and slants her eyes upward.

Amélie has a thin collarbone.

Amélie marches toward Jean Paul.

Zoom Out.

Jean Paul smiles, oblivious of robot girl.

Sunbursts cast a shadow of his face onto the pillow.

He closes his eyes.

Amélie has a panel door between her shoulder blades.

Amélie marches toward the hilltops toward Jean Paul.

Jean Paul’s eyeball fidgets through his eyelid.

REM has carried him inside a subway car with twin-size beds for benches.

Eye twitch.

Outside on a heath, sheep graze under rusty stratus clouds.

Eye twitch.

Urban tram lines.

Eye twitch.

Field of wheat undulates golden.

Subway car screeches to a stop.

Crisscrossing wheat chaff.

Jean Paul smiles.

The mole on his cheek.

The straps on his wife beater are loose from wear.

Amélie stands over him.

Treed hills fill the backdrop.

Amélie gets down on bended knee, something cupped in her hands.

Jean Paul fast asleep, the hand that once held the butterfly captive is palm down by his side.

Glass of lemonade between him and Amélie.

Amélie lowers her other knee.

Woman in black looks out of the corners of her eyes at the proposal.

Rouged Amélie claps eyes with the woman in black determined to complete her mission.

She blinks and nods as if to say, “I got this.”

Woman in black blinks back as if to say, “Do the deed.”

Amélie opens the tiny phial in her palms and smacks green powder down into the lemonade.

Pudgy fingers.

Shock blonde kid-girl licks a red lollipop and plays dumb.

Amélie empties the phial and the lemonade looks just like lemonade.

Three pillows surround sleeping Jean Paul.

Amélie gathers her hair to one shoulder and gets on all four to wake him.

She nudges his chest.

Woman with black and white flowers on designer high heels glances in their direction.

Jean Paul sits up.

Amélie hands him lemonade.

Jean Paul takes it with the same hand he captured the yellow butterfly.

Woman in black watches calmly.

Evil Amélie.

Robotic Amélie.

Tiny phial conspicuous next to her.

Jean Paul slakes his thirst.

Boyfriend sits up next to his girlfriend.

Jean Paul finishes his sip, and Amélie swipes the tiny phial to better hide it.

Girlfriend gathers her hair in her hand and meets her boyfriend’s kiss.

Silver polygon earrings.

Woman in black tilts her head back and breathes.

Sunlight creeps up her chest.

Supine on his mat Jean Paul lets the lemonade spill.

His neck muscles relax and his head goes limp to the side.

Télépopmusik
Breathe
Genetic World
Directed by Jordan Scott

• 2 C. of rice
• 2 C. coconut milk (1st)
• 4 C. coconut milk
• 1 C. raisins
• 4 T. of sugar
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

Put 2 C. of coconut milk to fry, stirring until a crust with oil forms.

Add 4 C. of coconut milk, sugar, salt to taste, and raisins. Boil in medium heat.

Add rice, maintain in medium heat stirring every once in a while until rice is almost cooked.

Place in low temperature and cover. Keep stirring a few times until rice grain is soft.

Note: you can add more sugar or salt to taste.

Buen provecho!

For some reason three is a good number. There’s a balance to three, a symmetry that seems to establish an axis. Three is triptych, three is trinity. With a title like REVELATION I feel like trinity is the more applicable to Colin Winnette’s first novel.

It’s a good book. There’s a weight to it that sits heavy and savory, like the first book you ever read.

Colin Winnette must’ve lived an entire life before deciding to write this book. It comes from the future. It spans across eras in a very direct and new way that uses plain and accessible language that still carries poetic cadence.

“I don’t know. No. Not a lot. I like science,” she said. “I like math and religion and that kind of thing too…”

“Could you say why you like those things?”

“Because they tell us why things happen… and why people do the things they do.”

(People wonder if I serve only the purpose of flattering writers and building up excitement of small press books. The thing is I stay away from ones that don’t hit the notes I need to hear. The ones that hit those notes, even for a little bit, I write about, and I’m thankful to all these books even if, in the end, I only gave them a couple TOEs. But seriously, writing isn’t like painting, writing isn’t about a single stroke, writing is strange hieroglyphs on a shiny blank page, floating, queued, immovable, indistinguishable, and there it is, forever, so explicit yet so hidden. Of course I write highly about the books I read and love, even if only for small stretches, I write highly about these books because I’m thankful for them. Theirs is a difficult task: to say something that spans across eras.)

Mutable Sound out of Chicago made this book. Thank you, Mutable Sound. Having seen both sides of the equation, I feel it’s the right thing to do: give my gratitude to the press that put this book into my hands. Books want to be read, that’s what matters most. Get me read, says the book. The book says, “Get me read!” And this message is embedded within the words inside the book, like a mouth with tape over it. Mutable Sound heard this book’s muted cry.

In their office, Marcus tied a new fly and spoke a length of dialogue quietly to himself as he did so. He’d set out to write a story about that summer. He started with an idea of how it would go, then he let the happenings of each day dictate the movement of the narrative. But now came the question of how to end it. He wanted the ending to be true. Or, he wanted to use an ending that could be true.”

Marcus, the pinnacle of the REVELATION trinities, tries to write a book one summer, and the book he writes is not REVELATION. REVELATION is a saga within a lifetime. It’s not meta fiction. It’s a third-person narrative that has no reflexivity. There’s youth; there’s bachelorhood; there’s the divorced father; there’s fruitless reunion; there’s hospitals; there’s grandfather, father, son; there’s flirting with death; there’s death and the piping horns of the apocalypse. REVELATION is the first book you’ve ever read, it’s a slightly more loquacious Shel Silverstein.

“This place is no place for kids. It’s stuffed to the brim with all kinds of the dead and dying. It gives the wrong idea about life, its different stages. It’s easy to confuse any two. But this,” Grand George pressed the tip of his fork into the table cloth, “and what he’s going through aren’t the same thing. Not really. You could write them on the same piece of paper and draw a line connecting them, sure. But what’s that line represent? Time?” He brought his fork up, held it to his eye a moment then brought it back down to the macaroni scoop. “There’s a lot more than time between us, is all.”

When you grow, the longer you grow, the easier it is to see the course of things. Colin Winnette was born in 1984, but he writes like he’s either lived from birth to death once before, or else is only an unaffected observer, born immutable to time. Maybe to really get to the heart of time you need to first become impervious to time, or at least convince yourself so much. In the Blues I think this is called “Meeting at the crossroads.”

* * *

Not much, but it did happen once, I felt a kind of systematic rendering of language: a sink hole’s cause is “a hollow filling up.”

* * *

The book starts with erratic weather that seems like it couldn’t quite happen in our world. It starts with fires that ravage for long spells, hail that breaks windshields, and then come disappearing oceans. It seems like Winnette’s world becomes increasingly estranged, not only less familiar but less plausible, until it is rational to start thinking this isn’t the same place I live in, this is another planet, and/or another time. I’m not sure how he does it, I think the word I want is defamiliarization, and Winnette manages this feat without ever obfuscating the story or sounding academic/esoteric.

This is a grounded book, earthbound, there’s no pretension, no airs to grandeur, no needless experimentation. Having said that, there’s also no feeling of spontaneity. While REVELATION doesn’t feel like a heavily plotted book, it doesn’t have what Marcus’s summer novel has. It’s precise, polished, a model example of husbandry. It’s a matter of taste, but for me this is the one thing I missed when reading REVELATION. It felt a little too mathematical and too modulated, too compressed.

Then REVELATION takes a turn toward the more prosaic. From fire and falling ice and receding seas, Winnette transitions into a story that tells of three generations.  There’s that number again: three, triptych, trinity. Even though Marcus is at the head of the trinity, he’s private, and not just in relation to the other characters in the book but also to me, the reader. There isn’t much of an inner dialogue in his case, but somehow, even in his aloofness, I could piece it together. The narrator helped me out at times.

His mind was swelling, and strong, and diffuse, and the confusion of his life was dissolving to a kind of crossbred simplicity.

This is a good book, says the echo, this is the first book you’ve ever read, an elemental book that relaxes your neck and relieves the tension in your traps. REVELATION is the quiet person in the crowded room, slowly drinking and drawing stares and increasing his/her importance.

MY RATING =

@herocious

I wish you were a website so I could ‘refresh’ you all day

From a distance your face looks like capital letters
I am randomly clicking you, from a distance
you don’t feel it, but I can feel it.

I want to block you from my web browser.

I am addicted to your web presence

please update your blog

I want to feel closer to you

[2]

There are planets in space that from a distance look more beautiful than your face but I am on earth standing next to you and I can’t look up or down or around because all I want to do is look at you.

I will name my son katy perry and my daughter Haruki Murakami and I will kiss you like I have never kissed you before and I will ignore every text message I receive because I am based in your presence. I will listen to lil b and smoke weed in your kitchen. I will become a doctor for your desire and hire a gardener to clean your room. Will you marry me? We will play waka flocka flame at the wedding reception and adopt five orphans named Bruce Willis.

But she was born in Barranquilla, Colombia on November 25th.

Of herself, she says, “I haven’t met myself yet. En la búsqueda… ”

~2 months ago she was in Barranquilla for the carnaval festivities.

She had her camera handy and she wasn’t lazy with it.

She said TOE could share her pictures with the world.

Thanks, Shadia.

Now enjoy the annual rumba de los Barranquilleros!

I only titled it Mary Jane’s Last Dance because it is a badass song and it’s on the radio right now.

It was actually in Indiana that I first heard this song on MTV.

That electrifying video with Kim, not Kardashian.

At home in Houston we had no cable.

But at Mamma and Grandad’s house in Indiana there was cable.

Heaps of channels, windows into entertainment.

We visited her Christmases.

The tv in the basement was for my sister and me.

MTV was almost always on.

And it was with pajamas and snow outside that I saw Tom Petty and Kim Basinger make music.

Maybe this post is about Mary Jane’s Last Dance.

Back then, as pajama boy, the video had nothing to do with marijuana.

All I saw was an Alice-and-Wonderland rock star dancing with a beautiful corpse.

Back then this video was about romance, cliffs, sadness, loss.

Back then I didn’t really know what it would be like to love a girl.

To think there was ever a time like this, it blows my mind.

Music has followed me almost from the beginning.

I wish I had a running playlist of my life.

Every song I’ve heard, even if I didn’t hear it in its entirety.

Every piece of song that has pressed against my eardrums.

How much of my personality do my eardrums shape?

My history can be written in terms of this playlist.

Of course, it can be written in other ways, like the title of every book I’ve read, starting with Merry Christmas, Dear Dragon.

But I’ll save that for my next post.

Today I woke up and played this.

I played Super Mario Bros. until I could taste what I ate three days ago.

The taste in my mouth I couldn’t brush out with the most concerted effort.

When I wasn’t playing Super Mario Bros. I was staring at a keyboard.

Not a computer keyboard. Not a laptop keyboard.

A piano keyboard.

A thing you plugged in with less than 88 keys.

It was a strange time in my life.

Beavis and Butthead saved me from Super Mario Bros.

If it weren’t for this dynamic duo I never would’ve put down the controller.

But these two children of Mike Judge made me laugh.

And I liked laughing more than I liked playing Nintendo.

There was this one episode when they tried growing beards.

Watching it cracked me up.

I was all ready for bed, all tucked in with my teeth flossed and brushed.

Super Mario Bros. was on pause on the living room tv.

No one else could use that tv while I was playing Super Mario Bros.

It caused some frustration among the household.

My mother had soaps to watch.

My father needed to watch the Spurs.

It was a problem.

But my family understood the importance of defeating Bowser.

And for now, with Super Mario Bros. on pause, disrupting everyone’s tv schedule, Beavis and Butthead made me laugh.

I was bundled inside my comforter.

On my nightstand was a paperback copy of John Grisham’s The Firm.

[1]

One of my friends said he got his haircut from the same barber who shapes Mike Judge’s hair.

In fact, the last haircut he got, his barber told him she just got done shaping Mike Judge’s hair.

The last thing the scissors touched before touching my friend’s hair was Mike Judge’s hair.

Once my friend told me this I acted like my mind was blown.

It was.

I would go on to tell everyone I knew about my friend who got his haircut from the same scissors as Mike Judge.

Celebrity adolation isn’t what I do, but when it came to Mike Judge, to seeing how I was friends with someone who was friends with Mike Judge’s barber.

Basically, I knew Mike Judge.

My grandchildren will watch Beavis and Butthead, and I’ll nod my head and feel a special affinity for their creator.

If only I could write comedy.

It seems to me like comedy is something unnatural.

It’s like, while I want to make people laugh, I’m not at all natural at doing it.

How is it possible to write comedy?

I run the risk of not making people laugh.

I think it’s safer to write what comes naturally and let it be funny when it wants to.

Everything you write will be funny at one point or another.

It’s inevitable.

Trust me.

There are many reasons a person laughs.

To write a narrative of substantial length and not make a person laugh at least once would be more of an achievement than a failure, if you think about the likelihood of laughter.

People laugh when they’re uncomfortable. People laugh to overcome sadness.

People laugh to work out their mouths. Laughter can satisfy restlessness.

People laugh when something terrible happens. Schadenfreude.

People laugh at stupid things and crazy things. People laugh at farts.

Farts.

Picture a student farting one day and not acknowledging his own fart.

Picture the tutor ignoring his student’s fart and continuing to teach quadratic functions.

The next day the same student brings something his tutor has never seen. Flarp.

The student informs his tutor,

“I forgot to take my meds today. I’m going to be hyper. I’m warning you.”

About thirty minutes later the student opens his can of noise putty and pokes his index finger into it.

Nothing happens until he pokes 75% of the way down.

The sound of a wet fart gurgles up from the bottom of the can.

It sounds like his fart from yesterday.

The tutor sort of laughs.

The student glares at his tutor and says,

“I can’t believe you laughed at that.”