MEET CUTE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled 

It was with a happy shock of surprise that the new head of corporate communications, Marnie Smart, realized the existence of an acronym which was shared between the realms of aviation and linguistics. The acronym was ELT, which appeared in Smart’s draft press release of May 1 in the technical sense of Emergency Locator Transmitter, a device carried aboard commercial aircraft required by law to transmit its location via an AM signal containing a swept tone ranging from 1600 Hz to 300 Hz with between two and four sweeps per second. The press release reviewed the history of the device, beginning with the development of automatic distress beacons before the war, continuing through some of the more dramatic rescue efforts of the midcentury (teen pilot Janice Mainwaring, wrecked on a remote atoll; Congressman Carton, crashed in a dense forest) that hastened refinement of the device, and finally outlining a new model that the company hoped would become the industry standard. Smart’s counterpart in the overseas office, Carl Simonson, received the draft release and called her immediately. “He remarked that it was the finest piece of English-language prose he had ever read,” said Simonson’s assistant, Barbara Morton, “and that he almost regretted that it would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into other languages.” This trigged in Smart’s mind the second meaning of the acronym: the journal English Literature in Translation. She related this coincidence to Barbara Morton six years later, when they were married. 

VERY OLD AND VERY TALL

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“I have been instructed by the radio to stop all pedestrians walking either too fast or too slow,” said a man who came before the court yesterday. He has, for some time now, been a fixture on Asper Boulevard, wearing on his head a cap of many colors and around his waist a silver-foil blanket cinched in by a cloth belt emblazoned with the words “King Me.” It has his custom to step in front of those walking up or down Asper and ask them for the time, after which he notifies them that they are in violation of the foot-speed ordinance that was passed unanimously last year by the legislature. No such law has been passed. “The radio,” he said, “made me a one-man wrecking crew when it comes to those who dash or dally. I speak into it each night and describe the daily perpetrators.” He was very indignant on hearing the decision of the court to recommend him for involuntary commitment. “I am a college graduate,” he said. “I obtained honors. I am three hundred years old and eight feet tall.”

TO THE HAPPY COUPLE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Mayor Norris’s story of how, during his visit to the airport to travel to his grandson’s wedding, the disconcerting discovery was made that the passengers on his plane “numbered thirteen at the gate,” and that “an additional passenger was located on a flight traveling to the same destination, persuaded to switch planes, and the difference in his fare paid for by the balance of the group,” is sufficiently strange given that during Norris’s term as mayor, the city frequently held Black Cat Days and Broken Mirror Days. But a question around superstition remains: Is the possibility of poor luck entirely averted by the addition of a fourteenth passenger after the thirteen were counted, or would misfortune already have settled in around the flight? At any rate, Norris made it to the wedding without incident, and it is now left to see if the marriage will last. 

THE CAKE WAS DELICIOUS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Among the futilities of our time is the case of the renowned strongman, O. O. Samuels. He was declared “savage” because he gifted a cake by a “savage” baker to a nurses’ dance at the “savage” hospital on the “savage” side of that “savage” town. “I cannot say for certain what is at play here, but I can look in the mirror, and when I do—when I see the color of my skin, and I think about my love for it, and the historical tradition of denying that love—I feel a growing confidence that there is a web of ill intent in which I am merely a fly trapped by the spider of bigotry,” said Samuels, who holds advanced degrees in anthropology and sociology, as well as a Juris Doctorate, though he has only ever been employed by the circus.

DR. INTEREST AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Dr. Henrietta Interest, accompanied by her son, Ronald Interest, and his daughter, Dr. Jennifer Interest, arrived in town yesterday from abroad. The three were met at the airport by the university president, Benito Corsetti, and his staff, and Maisie Proops, at whose guest house they will be staying during their visit. The elder Dr. Interest showed no signs of her recent illness. She spoke for a short while with Dr. Corsetti and then appeared to trade a series of ribald jokes with Ms. Proops before the group entered a waiting car, which conveyed them to the assembly hall. “We have nothing at all to say,” was the remark with which the younger Dr. Interest met the clutch of reporters who wished to interview her and her grandmother. After nine hours in a plane, she said, they felt “full of sawdust.” Despite her protestations, there were many questions asked, most revolving around the elder Dr. Interest’s recent journey to the center of the earth, but she declined to be drawn out, and counseled all present to wait for her weekend keynote address. She did concede that she had been quoted correctly in affirming that previous conceptions of the interior of the globe were wholly erroneous. “Wrong beyond wrong, and my opinions have not been represented emphatically enough,” she said. Her son and granddaughter smiled. Dr. Corsetti frowned. Ms. Proops laughed loudly.

©2020 Ben Greenman / Stupid Ideas

GINDELE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It is unusual these days to see inhabitants of the city walking anything other than a dog at the end of a leash, though there are a handful of residents who have attached to leads such creatures as cats, ferrets, pigs, parrots, goats and (in one case that would be difficult to believe were there not photographic evidence that appeared the front page of the Option last year) a baby bear. Charlotte Hachting, a sociologist who studies animal ownership patterns in the West, was not responsible for snapping the picture of the leashed bear, but she has included it in her new book, Man’s Blessed Friends: Pets, People, and What They Can Tell Us About Each Other. Hachting will appear at the Page And Stage bookstore Friday to discuss Man’s Blessed Friends, and in particular the controversial last chapter, which uses historical data to extrapolate trends in future pet ownership. “I won’t give too much of it away,” Hachting said. “I want people to come to the the talk and I want them to buy the book. But habits change just as everything changes. People grow bored. Let’s just say that in fifty years, people may be walking the same pets on leashes, or different pets, or that the people themselves may be the pets who are walked on leashes.” The author is better known to locals as as Charlotte Lacaillade, a star athlete at the Pomerantz school who set state records in various sprint-distance events and went on to a decorated college career. She has not owned a pet since her beloved German Shorthaired Pointer, Gindele—named for the great 1930s women’s javelin-thrower Nan Gindele—passed away five years ago, and says she will never own one again.

THOUGHT DAY COMING

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

One of the principal attractions of the inaugural “Thought Day” coming up Saturday is the presentation of the results of a new study that has investigated changing habits and beliefs of today’s younger people, as compared with people of the same age a generation ago. Conducted over the course of the last year through a combination of methods including in-person interviews, phone interviews, paper surveys distributed around town, and inspired guesswork, the study reveals that society has been remade substantially by a number of factors technological and otherwise. While a full report will not be published until Saturday, Professor Robert Canada of the Public Information Institute has released a brief summary of highlights, including the following: less drunkenness, more money spent on furniture, a greater interest in peace, a more limited awareness of the passage of time, a higher incidence of falls among those who have suffered from emotional trauma, and an inexhaustible demand for brightly-colored images of both victory and tragedy.

“THE LOOM OF TIME”

Forty-eight people have been reported ill, sixteen dangerously so, as the result of inhaling “fumes of fame,” a phenomenon that physicians readily admit sounds metaphorical but in fact refers to the actual pollution of the air by immoderate thoughts of wealth and privilege. “We should probably have gone with something more technical,” said Dr. Lincoln Allman-Renovo, the lead researcher on the team that discovered FOF, as it is commonly known. “The news was talking about ‘affluenza,’ which is clever but isn’t really medical. Maybe we were in that frame of mind. We assigned it to Patrick, the youngest member of our team, who is also a published poet. He went away for the weekend on a kind of late honeymoon—he had been married a few months earlier but never had time to himself as a result  of our work—and he and his husband were up late one night and Edward, his husband, was making light fun of a line in a poem that Patrick had written when he was a college student, something about ‘the loom of time,’ and I’m sure they were drinking—honeymoon, remember?—and the name just floated into Patrick’s head.” Another proposal, submitted by Dr. Karen Youklis, was “renownitis.” 

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

STATE OF SCALP

Rita Gachassin, 28, took the oath and then the stand, after which she stated clearly that she did not go into the building with the full intention of harming the bald man. She elaborated: her legs took her there; she went with whistle-clean motives with regard to the bald man despite all outward appearance; her inward imagination of what might transpire stood in stark contrast to how events unfolded; she had a friend at the building and was on her way to see if she could share his bed; she had woken up early with an itch to see him; she had been for coffee; she had been for pastries; she had gone to two separate establishments to spend more time and thus delay her arrival to the building; she was not stalling Gregory so much as she was setting the terms for when she saw him; she had attended a series of parties at his house; she was not a married woman and so whose business was it if she became involved with him; Gregory was not the bald man although Gregory was bald; the amount of hair he possessed atop his head was not the issue; when she thought of the bald man she thought of a state of mind rather than a state of scalp; she was never the president of a society devoted to the collection of merchandise associated with spy movies; who had even introduced that idea in the first place?; she demanded to know; she had met the bald man at one of Gregory’s parties, at which time he was identified as a business associate; she could not fairly be expected to control everything that transpired that morning and in the days to come; the cannon was to be loaded with powder, in a manner of speaking, and the tops of the iron railings sharpened until they cut across any palm that came in contact with them; the second of these instructions was not a metaphor at all; she was not sure she loved Gregory but he allowed her to feel pleasure and sometimes that was enough; when a head contacted pavement after a distance in the air, even hair could not protect it from cracking like an egg; the bald man fell as fast as anything, as Galileo proved. She concluded with a statement that left the gallery gasping: “My own arm was not sufficiently long to push anyone over anything.”

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

UPON ENTERING THE FOYER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

In a place of honor in the house hangs “Portrait of the Owners,” a large gelatin silver print of a dog, a cat, and a mouse. It is remarkable for its composition, in particular an asymmetry that pushes the three subjects to the left-hand edge of the photograph and leaves the rest of the picture plane a vast, textured, expanse. The last man to see the portrait in its current location was also its first, and he ascertained immediately that it concealed behind it a wall safe. His dead body is in the basement. The artist is not known. 

BOBSY-DIE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The Ipsum Gallery, the middle of the three along Farkas Street, has recently opened an engaging new exhibit by the artist and author Harriet Collins. “Words From Other People’s Books” consists of thirty words, enlarged to a foot in height and framed, along with title cards that indicate their source: “zephyr” from Melville’s Moby-Dick, “betide” from Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, “bobsy-die” from Scott’s Packed Tighter Together, “yeetscape” from Zhang’s Remote Possibilities.  The art critic Honus Hearn, who helped organize the exhibit in a joint effort with the Forge Gallery, spoke at a brief presentation on the night of the show's opening. “The wonderful joke, of course,” said Hearn, “is that these words do not only exist in these books — if they exist in these books at all. But the artist recognizes that we are all borrowing from one another all the time and yet monumentalizing our own use of what we have borrowed, and her presentation of language in this way, single words extracted and placed within thick black frames on white gallery walls — is a perfect articulation of this idea.” Collins is the daughter of the infamous murderer Robert Bailey Collins.

WHATEVER THEY WILL CHOOSE TO BE CALLED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The future exhibition at Blurred Marble Gallery, which will cause the great majority of art-lovers to convulse with laughter, while also identifying a small knot of enthusiastic defenders, will offer the most complete account of the next hundred years of non-representational art. It will illustrate not only the achievement, such as it is, of the Post-Dogmatists, the Quasi-Conclusivists, and the Proto-Oblivionists, or whatever they will choose to be called, but the earlier surges in the art of the coming century which will lead to those appalling (or amazing, depending on your perspective) developments. A few artists must be noted by name, for without them the near future will not turn into the distant future quite so economically. There is William “Bull” Signac, of course, who will paint tiny portraits and then turn them to the wall. There is Elsa Surety, who will create sculptures from self-healing concrete and also create machines that attack those sculptures. There is H. L. Crest, who will exhibit empty boxes of electrical glass and call them Imprisoned Thoughts. Each of these artists will inspire both devotion and derision. None has yet been born. 

ALL DIN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Perhaps no bellower of his time and powers is so neglected as Alden Long, the subject of a new biographical film directed and narrated by his grandson, the actor Alan Bricker, and due to be released early next year, on the centenary of Long’s birth. Born to a Brahmin family stocked with politicians and lawyers, Long grew up among the well-heeled, and did not discover how loud he could yell until he was nearly fourteen, vacationing in Scotland. “It was there that he was born, in a sense,” Bricker says in the film, titled All Din after his grandfather’s most common nickname. “Away from the wood-paneled boardrooms of Boston and their stifling decorum, he first tasted freedom, calling to his sister Gillian with a volume that vaulted over Black Cuillin.” Long returned home and notified his family that he would not be practicing law, and proceeded to search for careers that suited him. He was briefly a hog caller, and then even more briefly an “echo artist,” a job invented for him which consisted of standing on one side of Buckskin Gulch in Utah and speaking so loudly that the echo would collide powerfully with his original call, forcing dust and other particles into shapes suddenly visible in the air. One of the most moving parts of the new film is a silent montage of these shapes, which range from deep vortices to flat floating planes. “He was never hoarse, not for one day,” Bricker says in his narration. Much more sparkling detail is contained in this portrait, which is recommended to anyone interested in volume, nature, filial pride, canyons, hogs, independent thinking, Scotland, law, sisters, wood-paneling, or the human voice.

EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

More than a million men and women in this country, some studies have estimated, have have been separated from their shadows and are unable any longer to consider themselves as true corporeal beings. If the law would permit optical technology to construct new artificial shadows and attach them to the afflicted, it is believed that at least half could learn once again to see themselves as part of reality. The reform, therefore, that is being advocated by the artificial shadow industry, though with strong support from mental health professionals as well as other, less predictable corners—children’s safety advocates, for example, who warn that the absence of shadows can substantially disrupt the system by which children sense the approach of others—is a national as well as a personal question. Rattall, which often gives a lead to the state, which in turn gives a lead to the country, has just passed a resolution in favor of it. Dr. Steven Patrick, best known for his pioneering work with hearing implants, in an interview yesterday on the need for the the reform, emphasized the public-safety aspect of the action: “Most people don’t even know how much they use their own shadow during everyday activities. When you’re walking, your eye flicks over there and subconsciously checks its shape and contours. That’s your early warning system for rough terrain, or a slight slope of the sidewalk. We have seen an alarming increase in twisted ankles and injured toes. This has all the earmarks of the beginning of an epidemic. And that’s on top of the depression, the nightmares, the thoughts of self-harm that accompany shadowlessness. To not address it with all the technology at our disposal is simply irresponsible.”

NORTH OF HERE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A man intending to improve his economic and social standing made his first appearance last week at a neighborhood cocktail party under the name of Darrell Graham. Besides offering the expected pleasantries and compliments, Graham discussed a number of topics, including the discovery of the lost continent of Atlantis, classroom reform, and the airline industry. When pressed to provide more personal information, he evaded his questioners. One example will suffice to illustrate the many examples of this behavior. “Where did you live before this?” asked Janice Everton, and Graham, after staring at her for a moment with what she later described as “icy rage” that was directed so precisely that it could not be sensed by anyone else in attendance, said only this: “North of here.” Graham was accompanied by his new wife, Lara, the daughter of the founder of Raider Foods, the county’s largest employer.

EXTRAORDINARY POSSIBILITIES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The extraordinary possibilities present in the attic carry with them the prospect of wonderful things for many of the parties concerned, especially visitors, and if some surge of hope is avoided it will be miraculous. But there is at least one major difficulty in realizing its promise. The stairway that leads to the attic from the second floor pulls down, and anyone wishing to ascend up there is dependent upon it. Weeks ago, the cord granting access to the stairwell was described as “frayed to the point of breaking,” and “in a desperate state not seen for months.” Since then, it has broken. There is no way to pull down the stairs and thus no way to get to the attic. The Hays, when they visited yesterday, were greatly interested in climbing up there. Instead, they stood on the second floor and thought about the first floor. The company responsible for repairing stairwells of this type has published a recall, but phones go unanswered. It is sheer bad luck that has fallen upon the house and the people concerned.

THE VIEW FROM PORTER PARK

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

An al fresco morning of dressing was a novelty introduced at Bremerton yesterday morning. Sheryl and Oscar Landon, having to change out of their nightwear into their business clothes during a time when their home was under construction and indoor accommodation was exceedingly limited, instead walked out onto the front lawn where, under the cool shade of overhanging trees, they were able to carry out the process of getting dressed. The disrobing and robing took place in full view of the passing traffic on Graham Avenue, which runs from east to west across the north side of town and separates the Landon home from Porter Park. Other observers lined up on the edge of the park and peered across the street. Sheryl Landon enjoyed the process more than her husband, and came over the course of the morning to feel that she is a “slight exhibitionist,” adding that she is “not sure if exhibitionism is the kind of feeling that proceeds by degrees, or if a person just is or is not one.” She has already determined that she will do the same thing again tomorrow, and may even wash herself out on the lawn, directing water from a garden hose through a shower made of galvanized and powder-coated iron pipes and operated by foot pedal.

TRAVELING MAN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Notwithstanding the general success of the marriage between Jason and Marjorie, that pairing will soon be fractured by the appearance of Burton, who will arrive in Trefoil late Thursday and quickly move into place the same strategies that have earned him notice in other suburbs along the Northern Belt, including Ralston, Westfield, and Bloomis. After focusing on Marjorie with an unhealthily intense attention and polluting her overall sense of things, he will then spend a weekend with her in the Trefoil Arms, listening to her monologue of emotional and sexual reawakening with an expression that passes subtly from initial lust and enchantment to tolerance, boredom, and finally a barely concealed contempt. Burton will then continue to Elk Grove and Rolling Hollow, reprising his role in each new town.

BRING BACK TO BRIGHT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Lacey Manchek, a publicity executive in the city who was, in her youth, a poet of some reputation, was taken from her apartment yesterday and delivered to an identical apartment in a faraway town, where she was held for the purposes of once again producing verse. The new apartment, stocked with groceries and toiletries that corresponded exactly to those she had left behind, permitted the continuation of her life without interruption. A close examination has been made of the luggage and clothing she brought with her. Out of the latter a baseball cap, to which a black-and-white patch reading “Brain-Body Barrier” had been attached, has been taken, along with a second reading “My Eyes Are Down There” and similarly designed t-shirts reading “I Resent The Implication,” “La Dialectique Ne Peut Pas Casser Les Briques” and “Take It Off And Find Out.” The four shirts have been sent to the local laundromat for cleaning, as they are well-worn and gray; if they are judged to be difficult to bring back to bright whiteness, they will be replaced with identical garments.

NOW APPEARING

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Karolina Mihalic, a young novelist, of whom Charlie Bath appears to have spoken of very highly, not only for the quality of her prose but for her conversational skill, her stylish shoes and undergarments, and her willingness to overlook his faults (penury, primarily, along with a problematic fondness for single-malt whiskeys), makes her first appearance in Green Mountain City at his parents’ house this afternoon, and will be seen later on at dinner, and at breakfast tomorrow, after which the young couple will drive away in Bath’s father’s car for three days in a secluded cabin. “They are staying in separate rooms while they are here,” said Bath’s mother. “I know that may seem silly, and I’m not naive about what’s going on upstate, or for that matter anywhere else, but my house, my rules.” Mihalic’s latest book, The Sorrows of Bartosova, relates the story of a young nurse in a facility for patients suffering from memory loss who begins to fear that her own mind is deteriorating. “In the end,” Bath’s mother added, “it devolves into a phantasmagoria as Ivana struggles to articulate her condition even as she loses her grip on memory and language.” 

NOT DAMAGED, SIMPLY ERASED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Yesterday, about six o’clock, word was received in town of a building disappearing on the night of the 7th about fifteen miles to the west of Canary Industry Falls. The particulars are not known. The building, a large house, was not damaged, simply erased. The following is a list of those who were inside, in order of increasing age, and then an alphabetical list of their professions: Jason Lee, Jennie Lee, Ron Holly, Eileen Jennifer Warren, Louise Escape, Alice Bertram, Emma Bucknell, Henry Blank, Steve Weart, Pedro Carrau, Lucille Carter, Sara Compton Clark, Gladys Chernow, and Esteban Uruchurtu; acupuncturist, cage cashier, cook, designer, electrician, flight instructor, genealogist, green builder, naturalist, naturopath, student, student, surgeon, wind energy engineer. 

VISION SQUAD!

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“The man’s voice, deep and flat, seemed to come from somewhere to the side of his mouth,” said the police commissioner. “That was the first thing that we noticed. The second was that he was wearing a watch that did not belong to him. The third was that his mouth was filled with springs and screws.” The “man,” a robot built decades ago by Dr. Frederick Rodano, a former top scientist for the Kology regime, had been largely junked before being purchased by a traveling businessman who originally intended to gift it to a traveling circus owned by his ne’er-do-well brother-in-law Tommy. Tommy was inspired by the automaton, which reminded him of his own youth, when he had been a promising engineering student and, briefly, a Vision Squad team leader at the Hop Toad Theme Park, itself a Defense Department front, although it also reminded him of the years in which he had squandered the promise of that early start and become a petty criminal, mostly to make enough money to satisfy his gambling habit and the equally corrosive habit of his wife, the sister of the traveling businessman. She had been a legendary beauty in the small town where she grew up. The police commissioner concluded: “The man had been programmed—taught, you might say—to transfix people with his singing, after which he knocked them down and took their watches, which he wore, and their wallets, which he hid inside a chamber in his chest.”

SOMETIMES FOR HANDBALL

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Leo Perry came yesterday to Cants Hill to charm John Reeves, the owner and proprietor of the local garage, into fixing his car for free. Perry stated that he was driving yesterday through the winding roads of the Playborne Heights area when a child whose age he estimated at eight darted out from a copse of trees directly into the path of his automobile. He swerved up onto a curb and damaged one of his axles. Perry, who allowed his insurance to lapse two months ago and consequently is fully liable for all damages to his vehicle, carried a letter that contained an emotional appeal. “Mr. Reeves,” it read, “what if the child in the street had been your child? What if the man in the car had not been me? I can imagine a situation when you would not be here today to read this, because your world would have been shattered to such a degree that you would not have been able to rouse yourself from your bed and make your way into work. And as that would have been a far poorer world for you, I implore you not to make this a poorer world for me. Wretched as each individual life may be, it can be elevated by a moment, and a humanity that doubts that abdicates the possibility of redemption from despair. Modern man suffers from the absurdity of the world. Moments that turn away from that absurdity by wrenching the wheel suddenly should be preserved and protected.” The letter had been written not by Perry, but by Henry Arrup, the Nobel laureate, whose daughter had once dated Perry and who remained a close friend, sometimes for handball. Reeves, who had already decided to repair the car for free, took the letter and threw it out without reading it.  

FOREVER CHANGED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

In previous years, Dave was prevented by self-consciousness regarding his height and anxiety surrounding his academic performance from undertaking the arduous task of experiencing deep emotions centered around others, but he found in Maura Simons the idea collaborator—a fellow student who, glimpsed from across the courtyard, caused him to take in his breath sharply, so surprising was her beauty. He met again her later that week, coming out of a class he was going into, and made a remark that elicited a brief laugh. Successive remarks on successive weeks established a familiarity that slowly rose to the level of friendship. Simons left campus in June for a job in the city. She works for an agency that manages water through allocation and distribution processes. She is currently dating a man ten years her senior who promises that his separation from his wife is tending irrevocably toward divorce. To her is due Dave’s ability to return to that first courtyard sighting, freeze the scene, name all the things suddenly flooding him, and realize in that moment that not only would he never stop feeling them but that in some sense he had always been feeling them. Those close to Dave call him “forever changed.”

TREES CANNOT BE MEN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The millennial anniversary of Big Timothy, the yew tree in the churchyard off of Asper Boulevard, is to be celebrated next Wednesday by a reception by the mayor and an exhibition of relics that have been in its shade over the centuries, including a flat gray stone, a child’s wagon wheel, arrowheads, a rusty license plate, a piece of paper containing the original lyrics to the popular ballad “Hearsay Witness To Your Love,” a moose skull, coins totaling $4.35 in face value but worth well over a hundred dollars, prophylactics both used and unused, a broken-off arm from a theater seat, jewelry of various types, and pieces of at least four Bibles. Wide, calm, and green, Big Timothy is estimated to be the eldest surviving tree in the region, though there are those who dispute the title and award it instead to Charter Mel, the pine by the supermarket. The mayor will read a proclamation in Big Timothy’s honor and will then renew his vows to his third wife, Susan, who will then tell a joke about how she is exactly 975 years younger than the tree, but feels a great connection to it as she is attracted to older men. The deputy mayor, who is currently dating the mayor’s second wife, will then remark that trees, while they can be older, cannot be men, at which time the assembled crowd, estimated to be roughly fifty in attendance, will groan at his fastidiousness and evident discomfort. 

HER SUITORS ARE BACK AT IT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The Whiskey King, who was disqualified a year ago after missing her birthday party, was recently spotted in the same bar as Big Dan, the two of them chatting on friendly terms, and very probably both men will be in the pen again before the year is out. Unfortunately, however, Big Dan is likely to be felled once more by his earnestness, a benefit in bed that does not serve him well when helping her to put both victories and disappointments in context. It is difficult to recommend that anyone support him until it is clear how he will prepare for this new round of dating, and precisely the same is true of The Accordion. Grass-Fed Eric, resurfacing after a half-decade, is hardly sharp enough for her company, and as much as The Big Show and Señor Shadowbox impress upon first meeting, the distance required to reach an actual relationship may prove too far for both of them, Señor Shadowbox especially, who often grows tired before the end of a meal. Beppo and G-Dot are unreliable, and while many are not quite convinced that the same charge should not be lodged against Stretch, who has misplaced his car keys nine times this week alone, the majority favor his friend Tux—of average height and reliability, but with deep reserves of moral curiosity that offset and even obscure many of his insufficiencies—as the eventual victor.

THE NEW BREAKBACK LINE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The Sensitone and Breakback Companies are jointly arranging for the installation of automatic experience machines at Capstone Street, Grout Street, and Marley Station. The machines will, in exchange for a coin deposit, produce experiences—there are three pricing tiers (one coin, three coins, and five coins), with higher prices corresponding to longer experiential duration. Customers can choose from six categories of experience: happy, sad, frightening, ecstatic, confusing, and boring. A similar machine was installed last week on Committee Street. The first three people to use it selected Boring. 

SET TRIP

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It would be rash to say that Ninth Street between Allen and Berkman Avenues is the most unstable of the blocks, but it has brawls more frequently than the corresponding block on Eighth or Seventh Streets have brunch; this most recent is the fifth since the first of the month. One man wielded a lacrosse stick belonging to his son. Another swung wildly with a plastic shopping bag filled with tealight candles. Midway through the fracas, an old woman appeared at her window to bellow encouragement not to either combatant, but to the concept of combat itself. “Kill him!” she said, not caring who. The Ninth Street toughs frequently visit the only other equally splenetic stretch in the neighborhood, Fifth Street between Carr and Davis, where they attempt to cause trouble by spreading rumors: they might tell a Fifth Street grinder that his wife is stepping out on him, or that his son has been spotted under the bridge, or they might just walk up to the man and swing a bag filled with tealights at his head. On the other hand, it should be remembered to the credit of the street that it alone, of all the streets in the neighborhood, has protected row house gardens, nearly every address having a small rectangular patch vibrantly growing vegetables. 

MORE THAN A LITTLE TAKEN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A journal which is not kept with a desire, even a secret one, toward publication is the surest revelation of the inner mind. That of Vivian Ahern, from which excerpts are now available dealing with a visit to her first serious boyfriend’s parents’ home in Minneapolis almost a half-century ago, seems to fulfill the necessary conditions. It was written hastily, in a blank book sheathed in a handmade cover of plain brown paper, and then forgotten in a desk drawer, until it was discovered after her death by her daughter and brought out into the light. In it, we can fairly expect to find the honest reflections of an educated, opinionated, and (if we are to be honest) at times difficult mind upon the manners and customs of an average Minneapolis family. Readers will enjoy the sharp observations in this first set, as when Ahern retails the first moment of stepping inside her boyfriend’s parents’ house (where she did not find “a table set with a giant pig, apple still in mouth,” as she had feared) and the first, somewhat glacial dinner conversation, filled with “Midwestern lacunae broken only by Midwestern stammers.” That her judgment is always sound is by no means the case. History belied her assurance that “this boy, Arthur, will be my one and only; for all my outward cynicism and occasionally harsh tone, I love him and him alone, and cannot imagine another man ever unbuttoning a garment and putting me flat as a horizon, sunlight rising up.” In fact, history belied it several times through the decade following the Minneapolis visit; Ahern famously conducted affairs with such neighbors and co-workers as Neil Kapper, Howard L’Agostino, and even Catherine Garrick before returning to Arthur, marrying him, and starting a family. And a better acquaintance with the realities of emotional demographics would have kept her from reflecting that “for all my making sport of this place, I am more than a little taken with it, and would not mind setting down here and living within walking distance of Arthur’s parents.”  Indeed, there is reason to believe that she changed her mind on this point even before the end of her visit. The final extract from this initial batch ends with a touching rumination on age: “I see Arthur young and imagine him old, imagining me old, and everything will have changed but the look in our eyes.”

HOW JOHN IS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“You know how John is,” he said, chuckling. But he had never met John, never heard John speak or looked in John’s eyes. Every thought he had about John was a product of his imagination, and most of what he imagined was based on his memories of another man from years before, Paul. Paul had been tall and broad, with a deep voice and a way of looking around slowly as he spoke as if he was securing control. Paul had a steely handshake that communicated reserves of power barely submerged. Paul had subscribed to anarchic notions as a young man but come to lean into free-market capitalism as he grew wealthier. Paul had a singular sense of humor, mixing scatological remarks with spiritual bromides. Paul liked conventional spectacles like the circus. He had met Paul once.

WHAT ARE WE IF NOT OUR PAST?

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A prominent and even predominant topic of conversation in the state assembly this week has been the urgent necessity of renaming the small towns to the north and the east of the capital. Some members have been insistent that changing the names will disrupt the region’s sense of history and identity. “What are we if not our past?” asked Jennifer Gerhardt, an assemblywoman representing District 11. Others, however, point to the fact that nearly all of the towns have names that are immensely confusing to anyone seeking or giving directions: the towns of There, Yonder, Turnaround, Left, Right, Exit, and Stop were singled out as particularly egregious offenders. David Barber, the great-grandson of Horatio Barber, the man who named most of the towns in the area, addressed the state assembly in favor of change, buttressing his argument with what he said were actual directions he had received from a man at a gas station: “Turn left at Right, then head toward There, past Turnaround until you get to Yonder.” Barber added that his great-grandfather was a sadist, and insane.

A TALENTED MUSIC TEACHER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Among the 250 people who left last week to travel by bus to Ruby Springs, Hannah Filson, of Labrador Estates, a talented music teacher, has been cured. She has returned home, where she has told anyone who will listen that her ailment vanished instantaneously upon contact with the rock face of Red Cliff, and that she has had no relapse. She describes her symptoms as having been “coughing and sniffling and wiping watery eyes, sometimes excusing myself to dart into the bathroom, all the while feeling a pressure in my stomach and head at the same time.” Two visits to the doctor did her no good. She has already composed an art song and plans to play it for her students Monday. Half are thrilled.

PROJECT: IF OLD VIDEOS WERE FOREIGN FILMS

1. “‘Centerfold,’ by the J. Geils Band (1981),” by Armand Charpentier (1962) 

2. “‘White Wedding Pt. 1,’ by Billy Idol (1982),” by Luca Brunetti (1964)

3. “‘She Blinded Me With Science,’ by Thomas Dolby (1982),” by Rosa Aparicio (1965)

THIS IS A HOLDUP

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Five young women, all of them carrying paintings that they themselves had painted, entered the Mariscal Museum today, herded the employees into a back room, and escaped with an unknown amount of admiration and approval. Police said that while they could not pinpoint exactly how much praise the women received, they believe that it was “very large.” In one case, the head curator—an older woman who had painted in her youth and then given it up to raise a family that consisted of three sons, each more disappointing than the last, and a husband whose greatest wish seemed to be to tell everyone he met that he worked for a company that bore his name, after which he would pause, then say “…but my name’s McDonald,” then laugh without waiting for anyone else to laugh—pointed at one of the women holding up her painting and sighed audibly. “You already have such an advanced color sense,” she said. “The reds work like blood vessels. They remind me of Kitaj. I see great things ahead for you.” The women were described as short, on average, and talented. 

THREE SUCCESSES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Georgina Lucas’s new song, which will be released next week, is “Splintered Wood,” which is already being talked about as the song of the year. Next month, Kellen Wood, her former boyfriend, will release an album titled Cold As Ice, on which there are songs titled “She Turned Away,” “Never Knew,” and “The Darkest Sorcery.” Alvin Hawkins, who manages both Lucas and Wood, has recently purchased a seaside estate that once belonged to the silent film actress Bernice Fisk, the star of such films as Train-Track Treason and Rooftop Ransom. He has also acquired two sports cars and a horse.

ANOTHER GUNPOWDER BARREL

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

According to a notice taped to the front door of the Scrape Street home, the Lansings have cancelled their renovation as a result of their impending divorce, a circumstance which may permit Mrs. Lansing—a sitcom actress turned novelist who is perhaps best known for her collaboration with the dance musician Blockade on his bestselling memoir Blockade’d—to complete one of her pet projects, the refurbishment of the community garden and especially the white wooden gazebo that sits dead center inside it. Mr. Lansing, a lawyer, has never stepped foot in the garden and does not intend to do so, nor has he read either Blockade’d or his wife’s two novels, Down the Stairs Too Slowly and What Is Heard But Not Understood. He is, however, a fan of the show in which she starred as a child, Factory Reset, in which she played a young girl who, as a result of winning a national contest, became the CEO of a floundering office-supply company. “You might even call me a fanboy,” he was fond of saying at neighborhood parties. The show was popular for six years, during which time her character evolved from a precocious twelve-year-old to a teenage pinup, a process she said in interviews “would have been painful and confusing even if it hadn’t been played out in public. My character had a catch phrase on the show: ‘Another gunpowder barrel,’ which she said any time she sensed trouble. It’s a contraction of an old saying: ‘He who sits on a gunpowder barrel with a lighted cigar in his mouth must not complain when the bad thing happens.’ I must have said that a hundred times, turned toward the camera and shrugging. But the show was the bad thing happening. Can you imagine what it’s like to be fifteen, sixteen, and be perceived as a sex symbol by men twice your age, who are watching the show with their small children?” Her husband did not see that interview, as it was in support of her first novel. 

THE FLOATING OPERA

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A veteran sailor, Frank Shelley, who was struck on the head and arm by the beak of a seagull while standing on Deptford’s Dock, went directly to the hospital Friday night, and was dead by Saturday morning. By Saturday night, he was alive again, and went for a walk down the hall, at which point he somehow tangled his feet in his IV tube, pitched face-first onto the floor, and was dead again. He was delivered to the morgue in the hospital basement, came alive again by dawn Sunday, and bounded back up to the nurse’s station on the floor where he had been admitted on Friday night. He asked after his things, was given them back, and left the hospital under his own power. Returning to his boat, The Floating Opera, he stood on the deck, shook his fists at the sky, and dared the seagulls to come for him. Shelley’s movements after leaving the hospital are known because he was accompanied by a nurse who had left her job to follow him back to Deptford’s Dock. “He was charismatic,” she said. “But it was more than that. He had twice gone out of life, twice gone back into it. How can you prevent yourself from following a man like that?” The nurse, Nelly Nash, said that she hopes to marry Shelley by May, but that she will most likely not take his name, as the combination between her first and his last is infelicitous. 

FALCONS, MOSTLY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A disquieting event took place at the Merritt Pavilion in Alarm Park yesterday afternoon, shortly after the bird races began. A number of spectators gathered upon a temporary structure made of salt, glass, and straw and erected over the permanent viewing platform in order to watch. Those who ascended to the upper level included both living beings and ghosts left behind by beings who have passed out of existence but who, while alive, enjoyed the thrill of winged competition. They mingled among one another and interacted cheerily despite their membership in different dimensions. Old friendships were renewed and new friendships forged. Suddenly it began to rain and sections of the roof deliquesced. Fortunately only the ghosts were flung fully onto the lower level below, and as a result of their essential insubstantiality, did not hurt those they landed upon. One woman slipped and chipped a tooth, but this was the most serious injury, though several persons fainted from fright. After the shock of the moment passed, the ghosts floated back up to rejoin their corporeal companions. Falcons, mostly, came in first. 

DAD GABBINABBLE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“Dad Gabbinabble — The Baby Babble — Put a Bowl in the Hole — And Rouse the Rabble” read a banner affixed to the exterior of the new Harris-Geerson Supermarket on Pilaster Avenue. The sign appeared overnight without warning. No one has claimed responsibility for it. Various attempts have been made to decode or interpret it, with little success. “For now, we are leaving it up,” said Peter Hitcham, the deputy mayor. “Why? Well, because it’s brightly colored, for one, and because it’s not hurting anyone, for another. Plus, I like the rhythm.” 

WAVING BOTH ARMS WILDLY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

After having been a patient at the Haliburton Memorial Hospital for a week as a result of his injuries, Office Gregory Jacobs, of the Reese Police Department, was able to attend the Murs County Court yesterday and give evidence against Christopher Parker-Howard, a popular singer, who was charged with causing grievous bodily harm to the officer by braining him on the night of April 9. Jacobs stated that just after 10 o’clock on the night in question he was on duty on Kent Street when he saw Parker-Howard standing in the alley adjoining of the Follow Club holding what looked like a cudgel in one hand and a pistol in the other. On spotting the officer, the singer turned and ducked back into the alley, where he stood waving both arms wildly. That, coupled with the fact that the singer was wearing silent shoes, aroused the officer’s suspicions, and he followed. When he tried to question Parker-Howard, the singer struck him repeatedly with the cudgel-like object, which turned out to be a microphone. During the assault, Parker-Howard persisted in singing the chorus of his best-known song, “Whistle Risk,” which peaked at number two on the pop charts, failing to reach the top spot only because it was stuck behind the best-selling song of the decade, Ogilvie’s “Your Star Shines So Brightly (See You Anytime).” In his testimony, Jacobs expressed a preference for “Whistle Risk,” which he described as “not the ordinary kind of thing we heard on the radio back then but a real improvement, a kind of manifesto about the human experience and the way that people’s dreams can drain away if they do not take the time to set their minds toward bravery. I mean, Ogilvie is fine. That song has a nice beat. But CPH was the man.” He blushed and shook his head.  “He hit me, though,” he said. “No doubt about that.”

DESCRIBED AS “POSSESSED”

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Monica Viertel, the state’s first female poet laureate in more than a decade—the last, of course, was K. Palaini—was sitting at her usual table at Parisian Giant this afternoon when, owing to circumstances not yet understood, her coffee cup leapt from the table and scalded her hand and thigh. Viertel was seriously burned but is expected to recover. She is a widow with two children. Her husband Per was killed two years ago when he was stuck by a 1914 Sizaire-Berwick driven by the director of the local automotive museum. The operator, Walter Wyler, was not arrested, as Viertel was walking late at night on a road specifically designated for the museum’s rarest vehicles, many of which do not possess even basic safety features. Wyler fell into a deep depression following the accident, and began to improve only after Monica Viertel agreed to meet with him. After six months of visits, the two began to date. Viertel’s latest book, Tears Will Be The Chaser For Your Wine, is dedicated jointly to Per and Wyler. The Beacon has called it a “striking account of both suffering and salvation, with an almost Yeatsian vitality that surfaces just when all seems most lost.” Viertel will be unable to perform her duties as laureate, which include dedicating the new library, until her burns heal. The coffee cup, which eyewitnesses described as “possessed” and “jumping right into her like it had a vendetta or something,” was taken into evidence by police.

CAVEAT LECTURER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“In ancient cities, towers were a result of the difficulty of expanding within a walled city, where lateral space was at a premium,” said Professor David Robb in his address before the North American Architectural History Symposium. A woman in the crowd stood and left. Robb continued: “It was also a chance to monitor neighboring cities, which were ideally allies but could turn to adversaries over trade, political differences, or even blood feuds.” A second woman stood and left. “Oh!” Robb shouted. “I have made a terrible error. I am reading not from my own paper but from passages I jotted down while reading the papers of others.” A third woman now stood and left. “Have I offended more by my inadvertent plagiarism or by my admission of it?” Robb said, his tone now plaintive. A fourth woman stood. “Please,” he said. “Tell me.” The fourth woman turned toward the stage. “It’s nothing to do with you,” she sad. “There’s a talk next door on Kandinsky’s influence on the color palette in urban architecture.” Robb reddened. “It was the self-absorption,” he said. “I knew it. It was the self-absorption all along.” A banner unscrolled behind him, revealing that the symposium was not devoted to architectural history at all, but to narcissistic personality disorder. The four women, all actresses, returned to the room, walked onstage, and shook Robb’s hand.

A TEN DAYS’ SALE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

By direction of Arthur Hawes, the whole of the contents of 1100 Fanshawe Street, also known as the McAllanan Mansion, are to be sold at auction by the law firm of Doolittle, Pinback, Boiler and Talby on February 4 to 7, inclusive, February 11 to 15 inclusive, and February 18 and 19, the sale thus extending over ten days. The contents include many fine pieces of tableware of the 18th and 19th centuries; bronze statuary; about 1,000 ounces of antique silver plate; finger paintings including examples by Chris and Perry; the important and well-known library of about four hundred volumes that includes historical manuscripts, anthologies of comics, a history of the American theater, letters from prominent foreign politicians such as Aki; a jar of eels, black; a blue jay, out of focus; a profile of a man drawn with a metallic magic marker on a piece of brown leather; a field of mallows; a blank piece of square paper, a second blank piece of square paper, a third and fourth blank pieces of square paper, and a fifth and sixth of same, the full set of which can be arranged into a perfect cube that can be placed in the front lawn of the mansion with nothing in it.  

A GOOD DAY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Yesterday, the first of the month, will go down to posterity in the annals of her history as the greatest day since that Saturday late in the summer of her fifteenth year when she first experienced carnal ecstasy and learned to truly read philosophy, both milestones achieved within hours of one another. Fifteen years again had passed between then and yesterday, when she woke with a sight headache and sprung out of bed for a walk, stopping for coffee and a hardboiled egg and then leaning on a tree along the cold river’s edge, among other remedies. She had plans to see her boyfriend but instead called him and begged off. The late morning and entire afternoon was spent in the movies, alternating between a louche comedy and a lugubrious historical epic, one and then the other and then back to the first and then back to the second, all on the same ticket, a circumstance enabled by a flirtation with the usher. He appeared to be no more than eighteen. He was taller even than her brother, who was six-and-a-half feet. Toward the end of her second viewing of the drama, he came and sat with her for a moment, and, noticing that his leg was juddering, she placed a hand on it to steady it, and he placed his hand on top of hers, and a current went through her. The two of them repaired to the projection room where they breathed heavily and groped one another, clothes not coming off at all but various fasteners unfastened in the hopes that they might. She called her boyfriend on the way back from the theater, more certain than ever that she loved him and would, one day soon, become his wife. He did not answer. She left a message. Dinner was a pear and a ham sandwich consumed against the salmon-pink magnificence of dusk. When her boyfriend called back, she did not answer. The light changed. She accepted the coming darkness with relief, and the cheer she forced upon her own heart forestalled any thought of gloom. More time than usual was spent in front of the mirror, watching herself caress her own cheek. She ended the day as she began it: clever, doomed, back in bed.

INTRODUCING LUCY WATSON

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A pack of children hauled away and peppered with dodge balls the television reporter Derrick O’Halloran during a school play in which O’Halloran, sent to cover the event, was overheard loudly mocking the performance of the lead, Lucy Watson. “Derrick has a slight bruise on his right forearm from falling,” said Hannah Raposo, an associate producer, as she described how more than a dozen fourth graders approached O’Halloran toward the end of the first act. “The Watson girl was playing a detective, and for some reason he took an instant dislike to her. He started mimicking her lisp and the way she walked when she was holding a magnifying glass. He was even calling her ‘Sherlock Dope.’” Parents in the area attempted to quiet O’Halloran, explaining that Lucy was very shy and had made her debut only after extensive encouragement from her classmates, but he persisted, and that’s when the children took action. “They made a ring around him and then closed in. They shoved him around a little bit and ripped off his credential. He was saying ‘Press, press.’ Then they forced him into the gym, and that’s when they all went for dodge balls. Derrick mostly tried to protect his face.” The children, including Lucy’s twin Annie Watson, her best friend Georgia Rigoberto, and Elaine Weinstock, were taken to the main office for questioning. They were released a half hour later, after the principal interviewed Raposo and determined that O’Halloran had it coming. 

SHE WOULD NOT GIVE HER NAME

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A film showing Ian French, a fourteen-month-old infant, engaged in such intellectually advanced tasks as correctly identifying alphabet blocks whose letters were called out by his offscreen father, selecting cards with pictures of animals on them in response to similar verbal prompts, and even pointing to numerals on a board that designated the solutions to simple mathematics problems, was screened here in the city to the delight and amazement of those in attendance. Afterwards, the child’s father, George French, sat onstage with Dr. Margaret Roth, an eminent child psychiatrist, who expressed guarded enthusiasm regarding Ian’s achievements, but remained skeptical as to what exactly they will predict. “There have been prodigies throughout history,” she said, “and while they are fascinating in teaching us about the variation in the rate of development, they rarely change our fundamental observations about the limits of human abilities.” George French explained that his family intended to fully study Ian’s aptitude and to explore his potential, though he noted that family funds were in short supply as a result of his decision to leave his job as a cameraman for a local news station and devote himself full-time to the boy. “I’m a single parent,” he explained, citing his recent divorce. “My partner in this endeavor, Jane Merton, has been a great help, but it’s hard to do this on our own. Jane?” Merton, a young woman of twenty-five or so, approached the microphone to reiterate French’s appeal. “Ian is not my child, but I think of him that way,” she said. “And as George says, any help would be much appreciated. You’d be giving not just to Ian, but to any extraordinary child who will benefit from a better understanding of genius.” As her remarks concluded, a disturbance broke out in the rear of the hall. “They’re lying,” a woman called out. “They should be ashamed. All they do is take footage of Ian pointing to or touching random blocks and cards, and then George goes back and dubs in his offscreen voice asking for them a few seconds earlier. It’s the same thing with the math. Ian points at four and George goes back in and adds his own voice saying ‘What’s eight divided by two?’ It’s all a trick! Liars! Shame!” The woman would not give her name, but several present identified her as Kate Asper, George French’s ex-wife and Ian’s mother. George French did not respond to the accusations, and left with Merton  shortly after the event.