Tributaries Spring 2009 — Cover
So I already posted my accepted submissions for the Spring ’09 edition of Illinois Wesleyan University’s lit mag called Tributaries. I did the cover for this issue too; although admittedly it is a bit stranger than the last one. Strange as in random, not strange as in I came up with something weirder than a peacock whose feathers are interlaced with eyes. This cover, same as the last, is a huge file, so I’m uploading it to Deviant Art, and you can see it here.
Gravity’s Rainbow — Gory Gnahb
I wanted to take a look at a scene in particular that amused me, involving Frau Gnahb and her sea chanty on page 506. First of all, the song is awesome—flat out fantastic (“fuck ye not”; need I say more?). What drew me to this particular passage, or what I perceived as something hiding within the song, was the allusion to the Flying Dutchman. My pirate lore might be a little rusty, but I think I have enough to run with (just like scissors). Clearly the purpose of the Flying Dutchman in the song is to show how terrifying Gory Gnahb is because even the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ghost ship, is no match for her. What gives the image its strength as an element of the text is the relation of Slothrop to Gory Gnahb and what that could mean. She is taking Slothrop to the Peenemunde at the moment, and her voyages in general have been described in song as a “desperate enterprise.” The “bones and skulls” tied in with the Flying Dutchman, along with Gory Gnahb’s proclamation of herself as the “Pirate Queen of the Baltic Run,” all seem to point to a rather ominous position for Slothrop. Or perhaps it’s more a setting of adventure. And while the Flying Dutchman may want very little to do with Gory Gnahb, seeing it, as Gnahb has claimed to, is still to be considered a bad omen. The tie-in to the immediately following conversation seems worth investigating.
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Gravity’s Rainbow Thoughts — Der Kinderofen
I want to look at the Hansel and Gretel game with Blicero that starts around 96 and lingers well beyond that, as well as a few choice lines that caught my eye, near and within that section. I have selected three in particular:
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Wake Me @ Half-Past the Next Decade
“Under Similar Circumstances”
Sitting idle,
feeling for the profundity of a good aphorism,
my dreams are those of old men.
These are the dreams that old men dream.
I take a vacation from work to work on a garden,
setup fruit in the backyard,
two weeks,
the lifespan of the common fly.
Think back on summer vacation
during high school
and wake up six generations later.
Wondering if I dream the dreams of old men because I am an old man.
Remember college
waking up the roommate at half-past five
because he asked me to.
I feel as if I am waking up
half-past the next decade;
forgot to set an alarm.
What have I done since then?
What am I doing now?
The irony of an old man tending his garden,
hands in the soil, grasping at the fresh–
growing old with the young onions.
In my dreams that are the dreams old men dream,
I feel like I’ve been waiting
only it happened so quickly.
Tuatara lizards can die of old age between
a hundred and fifty
and
two hundred and fifty,
and I believe I can too.
Here She Be -- The Battlements 