scetches

scetches- nasrin khosrowshahi- fall 2011

contents:

letter to an art school #77 page 3

writers about art or #79 page 4

new york on a saturday (poem) page 5

sunday in new york (poem) page 6

a story page 7

very fast writing page 9

class is cancelled, the writing center will open @ eleven thirty page 10

the hatwoman (play) page 11

woman in grey hat page 19

the slight green-hatted woman page 21

and dostojevsky page 23

maybe animation page 27

the cooking school page 28

outside of suzy sheer page 29

quinze jelly page 30

a very lukewarm career page 31

3 times flash fiction page 32

outta art school page 35

the playwright and the diva page 37

the short story writer page 43

a life of missed hiccups page 45

apparently page 48

reluctant page page 50

after art school personality page 51

on writing on painting page 52

day slowly page 53

worldcup # 77 page 54

the painter who couldn’t page 55

granville island, or something, or something page 56

in between page 57

1


some more words page 58

@ the end of art school page 59

when poems collide page 60

the view from here page 61

staccatoing the heat page 62

a very hot day page 64

it is 11 page 65

staring vacuously into space- take 7 page 67

saturday bla page 69

the woman in black page 70

2


LETTER TO AN ART SCHOOL # 77

She sits in the maclab on the second floor of the north building, her bones too cold, this late

march freezes as harsh as early February. She is wearing her grey turtle-neck, it has a whiff of

intellectualism, that used to be achieved by wearing blue stockings and dark-brimmed glasses, it

shows that the wearer tries to be asexual while still adhering to an air of girlie-ness, of wide-

eyedness. Everything is calculated, everything and anything. People laugh in the back, the author

does not speak their language, the author is surrounded by grey and silver, the author is non-

published, utterly rejected, the author, the author. Like a piano player in a seedy bar, a singer in

an airport lounge, a writer that did not cut it, a painter who never had a chance in hell. Celebrity

in art circles, what is that, what is that? Her writing sucks, her filmmaking sucks, her

intellectualism, non-existent, non-existent.

She stretches, looks up at the ceiling, she could go on deciphering her spits of negativity,

wallowing, that will make up the monumental part of her literary oeuvre, hers is the world of

whining, the shivering tears that are not cried, her words are too silent, her paint is too neony, her

art sucks, and sucks and sucks. Mainly because she is a non-artist, one that was not blessed by

the gods, a woman in art school, by accident, so by accident. She could be in math school.,

science school, plumber school. She adores this typing machine, pours her dreams out to it. She

should type up a great essay, one that is logical, one that is persuasive, one that states the, well,

stateable. One that will be respected by her pears. Instead of playing with the keys, instead of

rambling, she should sound intelligent, the like, the like. A poseur, who stumbles along

cognitively sound, that is what she should do, she should, should should. Ah, writing in an art

school, writing in an art school. Songs to an art school, songs to an art school.

3


WRITERS ABOUT ART or # 79

She places herself in front of the computer, the computer second to the end, in the library, facing

the wall. A woman sits next to her, another one next to the last. One has glasses, one does not.

One has long hair, one has short hair. The author thinks about how to incorporate that into her

writing, but, if push comes to shove, this is not about her. It is about the theme of the essay,

which is WRITERS ABOUT ART. A very open, very non-descript theme, and an essay has a

title, not a theme. Themes are for musicians, leitmotifs are for musicians. The writer is confused

and she wonders if the reader is equally confused. The writer has to kill time, until 11:30, or

maybe, eleven twenty, she will listen in to a talk by some guy from Carnegie Mellon, until then

she might as well type, type, type. This is not writing, it is typing, her words are meaningless,

who cares, who cares, who cares. She paints with words here, or not, or not. Figures on the

monitor, some letters, some commas, the woman next to her paints on the monitor, the day

marches forward, life is haulting, haulting. Nausea sets in, she feels like crying, crying. Not

discharge in her eyes, more some density in her neck, maybe a cold, some slight flu symptoms,

the peach-rosemary tart from terra breads, which is acting up, her words her words her words.

She should do some readings, read to the ppl next to her, the woman, the other woman, the boy

in red t-shirt and brown overall which is actually a suspendery thing, black suspenders, the apple

is still on the monitor, the mouse is white, insanity sets in, sets in. Outside dreariness, the chill of

march, this day moves slowly, someone sighs, the keys are slightly filthy, all her novels are

rejected, rejected. She should write upbeat stuff, not negative stuff, should do this, that, and the

other. And the day sings forward, stop, spellcheck, the like the like the like. One page, one page

one page. 354 words, 354, 354. the end the end the end. AND - END.

4


new york on a Saturday

air conditioner blasting, trying to keep it down while typing words fast looking out @ two water

towers- this is august in new york.

the poet tries

but to no avail

words run her by

reluctantly

helplessly she watches her prose crumble to pieces

nyc in july

nyc in july

5


sunday in new york

still quiet, the city still sleepily awake

the rooftops from this dusty window

the day

waiting to pulsate-

some coffee

pike place brewing

in the silent coffeeshop

down on

23rd.

6


A story

Still daytime, still the stuffy computer lab, still September. The woman with the grey hair types

away, it is still the beginning of the semester. The greyness of her life crushes down on her, the

books on the bookshelves are no aversion. Everything, everything is utterly bleak. She types

types types. Maybe this time she will hit it big, maybe this time her prose will be erudite,

something like that, something of that kind.

Typing, ah, typing, ah, typing. The young curly-haired kid with the orange shirt yawns, the

woman with the grey hair feels dislocated. Who goes to school at the tender age of sixty- six?

Grannies should sit on a porch and knit. There are other grannies, better ones, wiser ones. They

run foreign policies, they give lectures, they do some other greatish stuffi-muffi. They are thin,

they look well-preserved, they say intelligent things.

They write screen-plays, music, seminal texts.

The woman with the grey hair scratches her bun and tries to think of a plot for a nice play. She

tries to grasp words and smush them down into the keyboard, she tries to write poetry. A short

story, a poem, it is all the same. A painting, a song, an uttering that stomps down the I WAS

HERE into the world, a quivering inscript on a tree, graffiti against a bench, some letters on a

wall.

The woman with the grey hair had enough, she is hungry and waiting to make her way home.

The poet will catch the F-train, she will sing her songs to the birds and the yellow-red leaves of

late September, but then she remembers that the leaves are still green, and then she knows that

she is no poet and then she is outta words.

7


The woman in the grey hair prints out her text, one day she will win the Nobel prize for

literature, but until then, her life quivers away, quivers away.

Still daytime, still the stuffy computer lab, still September. She scratches her head, yuh, this as

good an ending as any.

8


Very fast writing

A pretty chilly day, a pretty greyish day, people and people and people. Library filled- to its

brim, author ponders whether this is a poem or prose. Author does not feel like adhering to

grammatical rules- why should she, ah, why and why and why. Her punctuation is off, it could

be called charming- it could be detested- who cares-cares cares. So many ppl- in this so very

very full library- this is where you feel like a number, yuh- one of 8 billion- or seven or nine-

who counts, counts, counts. Words are blasted onto the page- fast and fast and fast. She listens in

to the rhythm of her typing, fast and fast and fast. This better be good, better be good- and off we

go- outta here, outta here. This could be called SOME KINDA POEM, these are her fast fast

words- very very fast writing. Writing. A poem, some letters, lines, something, something,

something. And once more: a pretty chilly day, a pretty greyish day, people and people and

people. And very very fast writing, yep, writing.

9


Class is cancelled, the writing center will open @ eleven thirty

So, class is cancelled, it was online, everybody moaned, ah, we had to come here, all the way,

next class is in the afternoon. Author had to rush here, take the car instead of the bus, use up gas,

pay for parking, be bad to the environment, she rushes to the stuffed computer lab, maybe she

could pen a masterpiece, in a short time short time. Maybe and maybe and maybe. She could

write it, format it, wordcount it, properly, properly, she could give it to be edited in the writing

center, then submit it to an agent in new york city, come December she will ready herself for a

book tour, how long does it really take to be a lit star, maybe she’ll lose weight by then, dye her

hair, coif it, get a nose job. Then again, maybe sporting a mousy look is all that it takes, we can

do that do that do that. Buy some dark-brimmed glasses in the drugstore, that is what it takes

what it takes what it takes.

Then there are other considerations, e-book or paper, something to be kindled or i-padded, who

knows who knows who knows. Omitting commas, that is always good, walk the exact line

‘tween slang and scholarly, mirror the times, our times, tweets, facebook, textmessaging, if she

could only tilt her head the right way, to avoid the glaring reflections on the keyboard, this

keyboard is so weird and strange, it is bathed in reflective light, not like the keyboard in the art

school, which reflects the lights in little dots sprinkled over the keys like sprinkles on a donut.

Ah, the author, author. Class is cancelled, but we said that already said that already said that

already

10


THE HATWOMAN

(One- act- play)

CAST:

JENNA- 35 year old female

LEYLA- 40 year old female

JENNA enters from the right onto the stage, hands into air, exhausted:

JENNA: So, I haven’t really learned my lines. Hmmm, the audition is tomorrow, @ 2:40 in the afternoon, I have my two monologues ready- but they both sound alike. They should contrast, be the opposite of each other- I know, I will wear a different hat for each monologue, there is a contrast, a good one, well, maybe not that good, anyhoo, let’s go shopping.

LEYLA enters: Have you learned your lines, Jenna?

JENNA: No, not yet. I am so bad with memorizing. I have a brain like a sieve.

LEYLA: I see.

JENNA: I will buy a hat, to show my character, a red one, maybe, and a black one for the other character.

Both leave the stage.

They come back with shopping bags

LEYLA: What did you buy?

JENNA: This hat- and this one.

LEYLA: What are your characters?

JENNA: One is a woman in her forties and one is a woman in her twenties. The older one is an actress who meets another actress in a coffeeshop, on x-mas eve.

LEYLA: Oh, I know, it is STRINDBERG’S “The Stronger”.

JENNA : Yeah, some kind of adaptation, though. I am Mme X, so I bought this little black number, I think it is the right kind of mix between madamness and – well, actually, it is just madamy, what do you think?

LEYLA: It is o.k., but maybe it should be bigger , flashier, so that it can be seen from all over the audience, from the backseats, you know. It should be more theatrical.

JENNA: Maybe I could flap my arms, or fall to the ground, you know, have a very strong physical presence.

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LEYLA: Hmm.

JENNA: Look, this is my other hat, a blue number.

LEYLA: That sounds so cheesy, you call the hats numbers.

JENNA: Anyhoo, this is what I will be wearing.

LEYLA: Well, break a leg.

JENNA: OK, see you tomorrow. Let’s meet in the coffeeshop around the corner, at six.

LEYLA: Okeedok.

Both leave the stage.

The coffeeshop, both enter

LEYLA: So, how did it go?

JENNA: You mean, the audition?

LEYLA: Of course the audition.

JENNA: It went pretty good, but I did not use the hats.

LEYLA: Wow, so did you give the hats back?

JENNA: Actually, one of them was a final sale, but, the other one, I got my nine bucks back.

LEYLA: Nine bucks, quite a deal.

JENNA: You know, this is so weird, who buys hats for auditions?

Leyla: Apparently you do.

JENNA: I hope I get a callback.

BOTH LEAVE THE STAGE

A PERSON GOES OVER THE STAGE WITH A SIGN SAYING : ONE YEAR LATER.

Both Jenna and Leyla come to the stage.

JENNA : I have an audition in two weeks, once more I need to memorize two monologues, each

two minutes long, they should be contrasting, they should be contemporary, they…

LEYLA: need hats.

JENNA: Yep, hats it is. Off to the store to buy hats.

LEYLA: What about your blue hat, the one from last year?

12


JENNA: You’re right, I still have that one.

LEYLA: What kind of hat is it?

JENNA: I don’t know, it is a funny hat, it is blue, it…

LEYLA: All hats are funny.

JENNA: I think it is kind of an artistic hat, I mean, a hat that a creative person would wear, it has

that kind of look, that kind of connotation.

LEYLA: You never know, what the audience associates with the look of a hat.

JENNA: Well, I think the words are what counts in a play.

LEYLA: You know, after a while, nobody listens to the words anymore, if they watch 50 actors

over two days, 5 per hour, then…

JENNA: All they remember, are, who wore a hat and who did not.

LEYLA: Yep, you will make an impact.

JENNA: What, if everybody wears a hat?

LEYLA: Then, take off your hat, you want to stand out, make an impact, be remembered.

JENNA: Ah, theater, if it at least paid the rent.

LEYLA: One day it will.

JENNA: Oh.

They both leave the stage.

A person walks over the stage, holding a sign saying AND STILL ANOTHER YEAR WENT

BY

13


Leyla and Jenna enter.

JENNA: I hate that all I am doing is playing in community theatres all over the lower mainland. I

wish, I could make some money with this. How much longer do I have to work in starbucks. and

to think I graduated at the top of my class.

Leyla: You should have studied something with numbers, you know, there is no money in the

arts. How are the hats.

JENNA: Ah, the hats, the auditions. They all know me now at the Dorothy Somerset Studios

at UBC. But I am still a barista, employee of the year. Ah, the arts, the arts.

LEYLA: Let’s invite some more people into our play. You –she points into the audience- and-

you. (Two women come onto the stage from the audience.)

JENNA: What is your name?

ISOLDE: Isolde.

MAIKIKU: And I am Maikiku.

LEYLA: So now we have our own four person cast here.

JENNA: All female, we need four hats.

LEYLA: We should write down a narrative, you know, the usual, protagonist against antagonist,

climax, resolve, perfect story arc, the like, the like.

MAIKIKU: That sounds so yesterday.

ISOLDE: Maybe we should just concentrate on the hats. Which colours, what shapes.

JENNA: What about costumes?

14


LEYLA: Ah, black bodysuits will do. It’s more artsy.

ISOLDE: What if you’re overweight?

LEYLA: Ah, black suits everyone. And it accentuates the colourful hats.

MAIKIKU: Shouldn’t we concentrate on the script, the words, the text.

LEYLA: Nah, let’s concentrate on the hats. The rest will come, automatically, like magic. The

words will follow the hats.

JENNA: Let’s call this THE HATWOMAN.

LEYLA: Or maybe, just HATWOMAN. CATS would not have made it, if it was called THE

CATS.

JENNA: I don’t know about that, but we don’t want music, no singing.

ISOLDE: Why?

JENNA: ‘Cause I can’t sing.

MAIKIKU: I can.

ISOLDE: Somehow I don’t know about a play having four creators. That will not work out.

LEYLA: You’re right. How about you two go back to your seats, you can write your own play.

(The two women do so, but grumblingly).

JENNA: So, it’s just us two again, back to the drawing board, eh.

LEYLA: But I like the name, HATWOMAN it is.

JENNA: Yep, HATWOMAN is as good a name as any.

( Both exit the stage.)

15


Jenna enters.

JENNA: So, my acting career is pretty pathetic. It is just stalling, one role per year, usually in a

community theater on the other side of town. Sometimes in a senior center, sometimes in a play

written by aspiring playwrights in the continuing ed section of the writing program at Diablo

Valley. No broadway, no burg theater, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I still waitress, moonlighting at

Starbucks, yep, either coffeeshop or denny’s, that is what I do, what I do. Huh, pretty pathetic,

pretty pathetic.

(Jenna leaves the stage.)

(Leyla enters.)

LEYLA: Jenna, she really wanted to make a name for herself in the art world. She tried painting,

tried her hand at acting, she buys all these different hats for all these different roles, but, hey, she

has no talent whatsoever. How hard can it be to memorize and recite some words in front of an

audience, hey, a monkey can do that. you take a sentence, stress one word, speak loudly, move

your hands up and down, face the audience or turn your back to them, as I said, a monkey could

do that. But, don’t quote me on this.

(Jenna enters, distraught)

JENNA: I was rejected, they did not like my audition. I hate it, hate it.

LEYLA: Maybe next year…

JENNA: I guess.

16


LEYLA: Look on the bright side, you did not break a leg.

JENNA: Ha, ha, very funny.

Leyla exits.

JENNA: So this is how it is, how it will be. At least when I was younger I could land a role a

year, even if there was no pay in it. But now, I am in some actor’s no man’s land, no woman’s

land. Too young to get the old women’s roles, too old to get the young women’s roles. Maybe I

should direct, maybe I should become a playwright. Ah, his is so annoying.

(Jenna exits).

Maikiku and Isolde stand up in the audience and start reciting this refrain:

MAIKIKU, ISOLDE: There she goes, the hapless actress, the one that does not get callbacks, the

one that gets used to rejections, the artist that doesn’t make it. For every shining star, so many,

many failures. That is how it is how it is how it is.

JENNA and LEYLA enter.

JENNA: Let’s form a production group, how tough can it be.

LEYLA: You know, I am a geologist, I have no idea how theater works.

JENNA: Ah, neither do I, you know my record. Seems, I am just good at asking people if they

prefer decaf, mild or dark. Soy, skim or full fat. Demi foam, anyhoo, that seems to be my

destiny. Yelling loudly, that espresso is ready. That is how I practice my voice. My performing

skills. So there is no curtain that rises, but, hey, all the world is a stage, when the coffeeshop

17


door opens, it is CURTAIN RISES, when I lock the coffeeshopdoor at seven it is CURTAIN

FALLS. Ha, just as good as any broadway show.

LEYLA: So, no production group?

JENNA; Guess not. We will just lose money. Let’s just tinker on in our jobs.

(Both exit.)

- - -

18


WOMAN IN GREY HAT

In the library, in front of the computer on the third floor, the one that is too crooked, not well-

alined, the monitor faces the woman with the grey hat, but it is kind of off, not well-alined, not

well-alined. It stands diagonal, whereas all the other monitors on this station are in perfect

parallel with the computer station, with the brown-beige table. The woman in the grey hat is but

one of four people, that use this station, two males, two females. The woman in the grey hat is

slightly annoyed by the constant typing of the person behind her monitor, the one she cannot see,

the one who seems to be female, one of those annoying overachievers, who know everything. A

keener, yep, must be a keener, one of those, one of those. The woman in her grey hat, she

ponders, is that what her prose, her writing, her creative outlet has stooped to, a cat fight on the

monitor, is that her subject matter, while cars are driving by on the street in front of the ford

center. Turns out the typer is male,. Still a keener, a 101 words per minute person, not a pecker,

the woman in the grey hat ponders what else to write about. There is a woman in red, a man in

black and yellow, there are cars down on the street in front of the ford centre for the performing

arts, now renamed in to THE CENTRE, all these venues have one thing in common, constant

name-change, whoever opens their pockets to sponsor, calls the shots, calls the shots. Woman in

grey hat, still typing, typing. Her inerts are acting up, what with the too rich cake, with the too

old whipped cream, her arteries are clogging, while we speak, while we speak, she has

overarched her deadline, the illustration was due the day before yesterday, she will be fired from

her job, you will not illustrate in this town again, will not illustrate, will not illustrate. Big

whoopy ding dong, who wants to be an illustrator anyways, it hardly pays the bills, nothing but

pizza and coffee, this is no life, no life. Art school was such a bad choice, so is writing, so is

19


acting. Ah, the arts, the arts. Only good for little old ladies in grey hats, the ones that make

money otherwise, the ones that have other resources, the like, the like. Everything sucks,

everything, everything. The woman in the little grey hat feels like barfing, nauseating all over

this black keyboard with the white letters on the upper right of each square, those ones, those

ones, those ones. Her page marches forward, she should wrap this up, should take the canada

line, up to oakridge, up to yvr, she should search for subject matter, the one that never is, and

never will be. There are more important issues than creative blocks, writerly and otherwise, there

are wars to be fought, ideas to be deciphered, there are breasts to be bared, there are lines to be

yelled, fire, fire, fire. There are issues to be died for, the woman in the grey hat pulls down the

rim of her hat, the fake fur one, she will go home, go home, go home. Her story is a non-story,

like always, like always, words reluctant, reluctant, so very silent, so very quiet. Whimpers

before death sets in, something like that, something of that kind. VCC should still have creme

brulee, enough of writing, enough, enough, enough, a storyline that doesn't march forward, why

not, why not, go out with a whimper, go out with a bang. And 633 words we have here, why not,

why not, why not.

- - -

20


THE SLIGHT GREEN-HATTED WOMAN

The slight green-hatted woman sits, sits, sits. At her favourite seat, at her most favourite slot

machine. Her most most favouritest. Sitting here is where it’s at. Yep, she might as well go for a

career as a casino-junkie. She never really loses, she tends to win some, lose some. No big

losses, no big wins. Always breaking even, always breaking even.

It is fun here, all these people, the lights, the music, this place never sleeps, never, never, ever.

You can live here, rush home for a change of clothes, a quick shower, rush back, the croupiers

are still here, waiting, awaiting. The green-hatted woman tries to keep a low profile, she puts her

green hat as low as she can, just looks out from under the strange and weird green brim of her

hat, the one that is kind of furry, too old-fashioned, it is the hat of an old woman. It is warm,

though, but it inevitably makes people call her “ma’am”, it is definitely not a “ms” hat.

The woman ponders, her life has passed her by, she did not become an architect, nor an animator,

nor a poet-laureate. She looks under the mattress, her money will still take her, her modest life is,

well, modest, she did not become a career woman, but she hovers around in malls and casinos,

this is her life, this is her life. She is taking a writing course at the university of british columbia,

she writes short stories and poems, tries to construct nice and eloquent stuffi-muffi, it doesn’t

really work, maybe she should enrol in an oil-painting class.

Ah, the casino, the casino. The sounds, the music, the slight stench of lives wasted, wasted. The

career gamblers, sitting here day after day, listening in to the siren song of the slots, in sweats,

this is not monte carlo, the glitter is non-existing, housewives hover around, somewhere between

regis and oprah, ah, the stench of lives wasted, wasted.

21


The green-hatted woman, she used to have ambitions, aspirations. Madame Curie she wanted to

be, now she sits here on the shabby green chair, pulling her green hat down over her face,

pushing the REPEAT THE BET button, this is her life her life her life. Depressed she is not,

elated she is not. Outside, the sound of an ambulance, so she thinks, so she thinks. Time to have

some onion rings, some more fat rolling thru the arteries, she has some good years left, she

remembers the laundry piling up in her bathtub, she pushes the button, REPEAT THE BET,

REPEAT THE BET. There are women and men sitting next to her, consumed by the pushing of

the REPEAT THE BET button, staring at the spinning of the machine slots, with eyes, glassy,

glassy. Ah, the casino, the casino. A slight stench of derelict lives, ah, the casino, casino.

- - -

22


and dostojevsky

YALETOWN

Blue hat, blue stockings, the woman ducks behind the silent-white wedding cake, in the little

cake shop, it is a yaletown Saturday, Vancouver, so very post-olympic. The February is not yet

full-blown, just slight hints of a year to come.

She ponders, is pissed-off, her years have passed her by. Middle age, empty nest, the like, the

like. Hints of dislocation, it is time to reinvent yourself. Her films are rejected, her queries

ignored. Her paintings rot in the basement.

The woman looks at her foret noir cake, lots of whipped cream, the slight, so very petite, so very

thin woman behind the counter suggested a cup of water, the cake is too rich, too rich.

Lunchtime in Vancouver, grease, sugar, the day marches forward. Time to leave this place, to

pay, to catch the bus on seymour, to make one’s way to the other side of the bridge.

GRANVILLE ISLAND

A lowly raven on top of the ocean factory, the painter looks up at the bus on the bridge, he takes

off his grey and pink checkered jacket, he has to go up to the studio on the fourth floor, put some

brush strokes on the small canvas, that hovers in his locker, he ponders if he should change his

major. Painting seems too slow, too slow.

RICHMOND

The woman in the white shirt types away, types away. Her words are pretty bad, she will never

make it in literature land. Dostojevsky she ain’t, that’s for sure. She looks at her chamomile tea,

near the black laptop, in the back corner of the starbucks on minoru road, the one where suburbia

23


is happening, heavily. She should drive down to tsawwassen, visit a friend, but typing seems to

be more fun, the possibility to be the next tai yin, the possibility of reading in front of a crowd,

appreciative or otherwise, a hiccup in a white pickety existence, for moments, for moments.

YVR

The girl with the green and red leggings, in pink rain boots, the black touque, fashionably on the

back of the hair, falling down, but still holding onto the scalp, she whushels thru the volumes, a

red book, catches her eye, the writer is her age, but he has published seven books already. Talk

about prolific, the tale seems to be so very predictable though, regurgitation of blue velvet, of

mary chapin carpenter’s house of cards, the eternal story of the chaos, disaster, catastrophe

beneath the surface, it is the story of our existence, death lingering under life, dark under light,

sorrow after happiness. Or something like that, the girl in the green and red leggings does not

know that much about literary forms and if push comes to shove, she doesn’t really give a shit.

NYC

He likes this room, very fashionable address, midtown manhattan not quite, more leaning down

to the east village, the right kind of address for a literary agency startup. He used to be the

darling of the bookworld, he had his own imprint, he was on Charlie Rose. Now, well, e-books

did him in. or maybe he did not run fast enough, who knows; he still has what it takes, at forty-

four he will find the next talent, how tough can it be, he knows the right people, the right

restaurants, the right addresses. He knows, who’s who, the only caveat being, that he used to be

part of the who’s who. He used to be king, not kingmaker.

24


YALETOWN

The woman in the blue hat is still struggling with the black forest cake, she likes it here, she can

look out the window, play around with the crumbs, this seems to be a nice shelter from the rain,

which started to drizzle down on the city, the city that is always awash in rain, the blue hat-ed

woman likes it here, the smallish coffeeshop, the slight and reluctant day, the sleepiness that is

not yet there. She might write a poem, why not, why not, why not?

OAKRIDGE

Too much noise, the dragon dancers are a tad too loud, too many people, too many people.

Escape down onto the Canada Line, just drive around, just drive. Let the train take you, go,

wherever it takes you, you have a baby blue bus pass, a day on the city train, why not, why not,

why not?

THE TYPEWRITER

The author bangs the keys, she had enough of describing all these different scenes, all these

different persons, she knows, there is no narrative, no protagonist, no antagonist, no forceful

motioning forward, no gripping story, no cliffhanger, none, zip, zilch. Her words are blah at best,

they refuse to make it, refuse, refuse. Her story is a non-story, the drizzles of paint on a canvas

on the ground, in a garage somewhere in the Midwest, she will be suffocated by her inability to

choose the right words, the ones that will resonate with a publishing culture that does not want

her, she feels like barfing all over the white keybard in the art school, she feels the force of the

tears that wanna spurt out, she looks up at the thick steam outta the ocean factory. And she types

and types and types some more. Slight incoherent words. Whimpering along, whimpering along.

25


@ THE LETTERBOX, ON LARCH

The woman in the blue hat is wearing a red hat today, her blue hat is tossed into a corner, she

slides the envelope thru the slit, maybe THEY will publish her poem. She stomps back home,

thru the pouring rain, dreams of fame, of fortune, she weeps slightly, her days pass her by, time

to go down to the coffee shop in yaletown, time to dig into the whipped cream of the foret noir

cake, somewhere in the back, ducking behind the wedding cakes, while rain pours down, while

rain pours down.

26


Maybe AnimationOctober first, in the vcc learning, fast sketches of thought, a weird bread pudding in stomach, rumoring against the banana bread of oakridge, glances at animation sites, at new york times pensives on first novels, that are supposed to be agonizing and autobiographical, the writer does just that; agonizes autobiographically. As if that is a caveat, nope, it is a liability, and it would be good if we could deduce what “caveat” means or/ and “liability”. Lost in word land, lost in motion land, a former animator notices that she is not a good enuf animator, not a good enuf painter, not a good enuf writer. Starbucks calling, maybe waitressing at whitespot, maybe, retailing along in chapters or the bay. That’s nice, an overly old middle-aged person with her rollator trying 2 outdo the youngens. Something is wrong with this pic, what, what?Her texts suck, ah well, ah, well.I guess, we literary types call this FLASH FICTION, what is the word count, by the way?(170 words)

27


THE COOKING SCHOOL

She has a pistachio financier in the cooking school, makes her way to the art school and plumps

down in front of the computer that has this filthy, nasty keyboard that gives way too much

resistance to the virtuoso/writer, that seems to abyss down her penwomanship. Outside the ocean

factory, as always, as always. Woman next to the author, red socks, red sweater on her black

chair. The author is not quite sure how she can tie this in with the title, she is too removed from

the cooking school to be able to pen something worth reading about the cooking school. But,

hey, the title stays, she does not feel like changing it. Does not feel like writing either. A bird

sailing thru the crisp blue sky, the DASANI bottle next to the monitor. The author ponders, what

does she really want 2 say? No, really. Really. Her words are so very bad today, on the 29 th of

September, in 2010, on granville island. She scratches her head, well, at least she got the location

and the time right, that is as much narrative that we need here. She should go back to the cooking

school, have another pistachio financier, the women will just remember her as the madwoman of

granville island. She ponders if that is the price she wants to pay for ART, nah, she’d rather stay

here, jot some more words down, call it flash fiction, wrap it up, dollop it with the wordcount,

she ponders if this text is about THE cooking SCHOOL, did she mix enough cooking school

references into the text, will she ever be a great writer, a poet, she has no clue how to end this

text, she might just as well stop in midsentence, and sail down to earth, and she types nothing but

nonsense, ah well, ah well, ah well. It is art, experimental and otherwise. Incoherence rules, it

always does. Nonsensical is good, or not, and yes. Ah, insanity, insanity. And spellcheck. And

save. (342 words)

28


outside of suzy sheer

outside of suzy sheer, she stands, reluctantly, shuffling in her flip-flops, while the rain is pouring

down, while people pass her by, looking down onto her toesies, she is hunched over, trying to

take shelter from the rain, somehow, her hood makes her look slightly desperate, she plays with

the crumpled-up resume that is actually more like a non-resume, it is smushed in the pocket of

her too big parka, everything is grey, grey. She ponders if she can muster up the guts to walk in

there and beg 4 a job, some stupid job, she’d rather write poetry, she’d rather artistize away,

she’d rather paint and sell her own paintings on the side-walk, she does not feel like peddling

other ppl’s designs. Suzy Sheer, in the mall, maybe that is a better store. Inside of the mall,

where consumerism is rampant, more so than here, in the rain. So this is why she went to art

school, not to become an architect, not to become a scholar that invents a new field, she will just

work in retail, retail. Retail, not even that, she will be an over-aged grumpy housewife on some

kind of emancipatory trip, she hates it, hates it. She tears up, this is not what we vied 4, not, not.

She types, but her writing sucks.

So suzy sheer it is. No peter handkedom for you.

She looks @ her essay, it screeches along, outta kilter, the non-essay, the non-essay. Incoherence

rules, always, always.

29


QUINZE JELLY

she writes fast, trying to pen her idea, illustrate it coherently, beautifully, the like, the like.

subject matter: quinze jelly, ah, this better be good better be good better be good. who would

write ‘bout quinze jelly, except for Martha Stewart? shouldn’t she work on stuff that has to do

with reason, logic, the like. shouldn’t she vie for the masculine market? does GQ print

unsolicited submissions about quinze jelly, and, furthermore how much do they pay per page? do

they print words penned by writers who do not hold American citizenship? how does this really

work? she ponders, a tad. she should start writing on architecture, and definitely ON architecture,

not ABOUT architecture. ON stuff that has to do with numbers, she should write ON science.

these are post feminist times, girls are interested in science. the boys read chicklit, they are so

relationship hungry anyways. she ponders, what could, should her subject matter be? should she

even use words like subject matter, should she use words like convey, which label her as the

reluctant quasi-artist that she is, the one that peeks longingly over to the sceince girls, and guys,

the ones that are frolicking on greener meadows. she writes fast, her quinze jelly-piece is finshed.

finito.

(211 words).

30


A VERY LUKEWARM CAREER

The writer sits in the Vancouver Community College library, the learning center is not yet open,

she ponders if that has any bearing on her writing, she ponders why her writing career did not go

anywhere, if it ever will, she is not happy, not that much, not that much. She searched her email-

history/herstory, seems she used to write much more powerful queries about a year and a half

ago, seems the process itself grinded her up, she is not sure if “grinded” is a word, and nothing

makes sense, nothing, nada, zip.

And now let’s go and have a donut, a honey cruller in tim hortons, to numb the senses, that is

what artists do when they don’t fell like jumping off a bridge, you know, wet and cold, not that

much fun on a day in late September, what with hurting bones et. al.

The librarians talk, as if nothing happens, nothing happened.

The author ponders if the crème brulee is ready, she types, types, how many words, how many?

Ah, the good ol’ times, when her texts were not this fragmented, when writing was new,

somehow there is no good ending for this text, there never is, never, nihilism 4ever. Forever.

(208 words)

31


3 times flash fiction

THAT IS HOW IT IS

She walks by the ducks, makes her way to the art school, the old art school. Old for her, she

finished their program, has the stupid piece of paper to prove it. A certified artist, hmm, good

luck with that. Forty thousand bucks per year, with an art degree. In today’s economy. She might

as well strangle herself, but, hey, typing seems to be more fun. Maybe, if she is more organized,

if she is able to make herself send out rightly-word-counted- stories to academic literary mags

that are heavily subsidized and have a print run of 1000. Something, something, something like

that. She looks at her too weathered hands, where blue veins show, pronouncedly, belying her

fifty-five years of age, hey, my hands are much older, so much older. She ponders about age,

usually people talk about looking young for their age not old for their age, something, something,

something, something like that. Dementia, senility, she is not able to hold a thought, any thought,

fragmented sentences, that is not literature, the attention span of a moth will not send you to the

pantheon of literary giants. Her Walter-Mitty- dreams bemuse her, she lives in this so very

foreign country, diasporic texts she pens, or something, and something.

The art mags on the shelves, she is out of words, rain outside, on Granville Island, that is how it

is how it is.

(238 words)

THE READING

32


Sweat does not really look that appetizing, especially when it pearls down your forehead

while you are entertaining the dinnercrowd at the local literary cafe. She sits up straight,

pangs of reluctant stage fright in her tummy, the same that underwhelms/overwhelms her

two minutes before take-off. You are no artist, and all your words suck. That is how it is,

that is how it is. She hates readings, is not quite sure if she should ham it up or burst into

tears in front of the microphone. She ponders, either one would be good, as long as her

performance is memorable. Her dress is definitely non-memorable, so is her make-up, her

hairdo. Plane Jane meets mousy, she wanted her writing to do the talking. Her reading, she

knows that she is way to mumbly to read. That is why she writes, whoever invented the

notion of doing readings? Writers can’t read, they have horrible, creaky voices, that break

and do all kinds of weird stuff. That is why they write, godammit.

She waits, pauses, maybe she should just leave this joint, run for the door, while there is

still time. Why should she make a fool of herself, just to sell some books. Next time she will

find a better marketer, next time, next. She is a writer, not a reader. She does not want to

entertain the troops. She wants to sit in a room under the attic, stare into thin air, take

words out of thin air, listen to the scratching of her pen over the paper, that is what writers

do, do. Reading, for the birds, for the birds. Her voice sucks, will only take her writing down

with her. Abyss, the like, sweat, yuck, her name is called , she straightens her shoulders,

marches forward, takes the microphone, in one sweeping woosh, starts reading, starts

reading. Her voice, crackingly, ah, who cares, cares, cares. She reads and she writes. Her

days away, on this planet, on this planet.

(336 words)

33


A GOOD WAY TO GO

she is once more in the patisserie, has her second load of lard and sugar, makes jokes like; “this

is a good way to go”, but, hey, is it? slow suicide, fat killing her, sugar killing her. she walks

back to the art school by Granville Island Brewing, maybe she should kill herself with beer, like

the two animators did. they ran away from drawing the same figure over and over again, their

days in art school were wasted away, well, wasted.

the writer pens this, fast, her stabs at writing, creatively, that is, she hates art, hates art, any kind,

any kind. visual, musical, the idea of fabricating something new daunts her, daunts her. she’d

rather follow orders, blueprints, outlines, the like, the like. art just sucks, especially hers.

She is pissed off, for some reason this software is off, nothing is capitalized, sentences have to

start with a capitalized word, in English that is. Orthography rules, or not/and not. The afternoon

in this crowded library, outside rain, outside late September. A good way to go, a good way to

go.

(187 words)

34


outta art school

she sits here, she types- this is how she usually starts her texts. these days, that is. then she goes

back and manually changes the beginnings of sentences, changes the capitalization of the first

word of a sentence, the software automatically capitalizes each and every word after a dot, after a

full stop. She does not like that, stylistically it is way too conventional, literature is art, art.

Visual art. She resigns to the software, let it capitalize whatever it feels like, no sense in fighting

Word, she types, she types. These are her days, she types some, she sends out queries, mostly to

some desk in nyc, she gets rejected. This is how it is how it is how it is.

She ponders, is there anything to say. Something insightful maybe. Is it her writing, should she

change her style? Does she even have a style? Who knows, who knows. She makes little films,

writes stuff, uses all these machines the city over. The mac-store in oakridge, perfect for making

short films, each ten seconds long, put them on vimeo before the storeclerk complains. They

usually could care less, as long as the customer doesn’t bother them, they are fine. Ah, she types,

she types. Wonders if she should keep a low-profile here in vcc. Guess, this is not just a typing

place. She ponders, she should explain, but why, why? Nobody ever publishes her dribble,

nobody ever reads her dribble. This is so useless, so useless. Everything is, everything is. She

ponders, isn’t nihilism so yesterday? So 2006? Nobody gets her connotations, nobody, nobody.

Everything is open to interpretation. No, it isn’t. the us should go out of Afghanistan and iraq.

Damnit. Everything sucks, everything sucks. There are no barricades to storm, not if you live in a

nice house. Not, not. This is not your fight not your fight. Well, think again, it is now it is now. It

is everybody’s fight. Down with- ah, your message here. Down with this, that and the other. As

long as DOWN prevails. Let’s change the world order, let’s revolt. That is what pens are for, that

35


is what keyboards are for. Let’s pick a fight and any fight will do. Should do. Let‘s change the

status quo, let’s rock the boat.

She hammers away @ the keyboard, in oblivion, in oblivion. In obscurity. Something like that

something like that something like that. This essay lacks a clear and concise message and that is

how it should be should be should be. Ah, spell check, spellcheck, and we’re outta here outta

here.

She sits straight, it is time to leave this place, time to get a crème brulee in the pastry place, time

to take the Canada line, back to oakridge, time to rearrange the furniture, the dust, time, time,

time. And she types, and she types. Slightly leaning to the side of incoherence, but still footed in

reason. Somehow, somewhere.

outta art school, outta art school

36


THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE DIVA

She paints her lips, using the too pink gloss that has something shiny, something glittery in it, she

looks in the mirror, ponders if it is too much, too little, she puts on her black hat and storms out

the door. Playwriting it is, for her, for her. Her painting career stalled too much, she might as

well go on waitressing and working on her play, in the evening, the evening. Bohemia weighs

thin these days, but she goes on living this her lifestyle, because, hey, this is all she knows. She

will die in the gutter, penniless, how romantic. And waitressing is not really what she does, she

works in the Tim Hortons on Bathurst, each and every day taking the streetcar from her little

studio apartment in North York.

And now, switch the camera to a new scene, the diva of Eppendorf. Given that Eppendorf is not

really the place where divas live, they should roam Blankenese and/or Schoene Aussicht,

nonetheless, she feels very diva-like. The world is her oyster, so to speak, she smiles, platitudes

are always welcome, clichés, ah, the stuff of life. She fastens her very proper skirt, she is dressed

very conservatively, very hanseatic, a proper hanseatic diva. Kind of an oxymoron, but who

cares, who cares.

The writer sits in the library of the art school, she types away, trying to pen her second short

story, trying to construct a plot that is geared towards the North American market. Her characters

are slightly off, the story is a non-story, as of yet, as of yet. The word count, who knows, who

knows? Somehow the word document on the monitor is way too small, she cannot read it, she

has her glasses somewhere, @ the bottom of her purse. She painted the characters, the hapless

playwright, the equally hapless diva, she has to make them interact, maybe a spy story would be

good, Toronto and Hamburg being the starting locales, maybe those two should skedaddle over

the pond and meet up in Sydney, Australia, how exotic, the narrative has to make sense, or it

37


could be over the top, choices, ah, choices. The short story writer, scratches her head, her graying

hair, being what it is, graying, she ponders, if her story is good, bad, ah, the other. So many

words to chose from, this cannot be good, not that much, not that much. The short story writer,

the diva, the playwright. They should all meet up in Bali, the writer does not really know why.

Somehow, the storyline is marching forcefully towards incoherence, she ponders if this yarn is

the stuff that makes the material of equally convoluted Hollywood movies, the ones that make

you constantly whisper to your neighbor: ”Who is that? And that?”

The art school does not make much sense today, it never does, it is full of people who run after

creativity, and they never can catch it.

The writer ponders, her short story should be about ten pages long, in Times New Roman,

double spaced, it should have a word count of, maybe, 2700, she will send it out to nice pretty

magazines that publish nice little short stories that are read in nice little apartments. The writer

will forge her “publishing history”. The one that every New York City agent enquires about. Her

seven unpublished novels rot in her basement, in the green duffle bag, she has a USB-stick

somewhere with all of them on it, that is her career, the one that did not start as of yet. One day

she will make money with writing, one day she will clutch her trophy in Stockholm, thanx,

monsieur Nobel, Frau Schramm did tell me in first grade that I have a way with words. And

could Frau Schramm be wrong? Nah.

The writer writes and types, more typing than writing, hunched over, in the desolate art school

library, she feels reluctant pangs of an over arching headache, she is not quite sure what “over

arching” means, it sounds good, though, sounds good. She ponders about the diva and the

playwright, she wonders how she can make those two interact, how she can construct the perfect

plot, that one, yep, that one. And she is still on page three, the day marches forward, it is

38


September, noonish, she should go to the cooking school and have one of their overpriced tarts

with chantilly cream, somehow everything has to be frenchened in that place, whipped cream is

not enough, it has to be called crème chantilly, crème fraiche would be even better, more leaning

towards the exotic. The writer pauses, wordcounts, spellchecks, saves this stuff, emails it to

herself, this is how she lives her life on this planet, writing, ah, typing, painting with words,

painting with words. Her voice becomes more forceful, more brimming with self-esteem, she

sails into the pantheon of literary greats, @ least in her own mind, she sails so very above your

middle-of-the-road text messager and/or grocery list author, yep, she must be Literary Nobel

Prize Winner material, yep, why not, why not, who better than her?

For some reason she has not heard back from the agency in New York City, the one that seemed

to be most up her alley, the one that hopefully did not mind her literary glitches, her rookieness

in the world of women of letters. Painting would be more fun, after all that is what she trained

for, for the last ten years, to drip watered down pigments onto too loose fabrics, to smell toxic

fumes, to paint herself into oblivion. How did she ever end up in front of a type writer, penning

short and shorter stories about divas and playwrights, stories that do not really make sense, that

are nonsensical, nonsensical, a run-of-the-mill limerick makes more sense than her weird and so

utterly strange concoctions of words, her contorted, forced language, but she writes, writes,

writes on, soldiering on into word land, word lands. And stop, and save, and spellcheck

wordcount, ah, why not, why not?

The writer envisions herself at a Barnes and Nobles on the Upper East Side, autographing her

latest, chatting politely, with stifled sarcasm, she looks up at the two women to her right, ah, the

diva, the playwright. She can spot them anywhere. Her two characters move towards her, tsk-tsk-

39


ing all the time. Only they know how weird her writing really is, how inconsistent, too

convoluted. Not convoluted enough.

The writer in the art school pauses, she had enough of writing, she will move over to the Agro

Café, their pumpkin donuts are divine, or something or something. She feels for her short story,

the one that doesn’t make sense, but, hey, that is how it is, how it is. Her philosophical remarks

are off, so off, but her story has 1500 words, more than 1000, less than the projected 10 000. One

short story of many, it will survive, survive. One day she will edit this, but not now, not now.

Her face is reddening, too much typing, too much, too much. One day she will put the story

together, the way it should be, but hey, that day is not now, not yet, not yet, not yet.

The writer in the art school library stops, grimaces to herself, could it be that she is too self-

involved, too ego-whatever, ego maniacish, ego-centric, to pen a story about others, each and

every narrative has to be a glorified self-portrait, the writer documenting herself, hunched over at

the type-writer, is this a fault, or just her M.O.? Anyways, she heaps the words into the

typewriter, the day is still young, her short story will meet the projected word count, she will not

forget about the playwright and the diva. She slightly forgot about those two, she only

remembers that one had pink lip gloss and the other a skirt, the writer smirks, she has to paint

them with better, more forceful brush strokes, drip paint on them, make them move, run after the

bus or streetcar or U-bahn, whatever, they have to have a certain age, smell like Givenchy-play,

or something/and something. They should have ambitions, love-interests, the like, the like. They

should meet up, in Sydney, or Christchurch. The writer fills her text with random locales, but

somehow feels that the story is only lukewarm, there is no action, no controversy, only blah, the

short story is, first and foremost, short. Sleep-inducing, a story that hiccups along, happily.

40


At the top of page 5, short story is happy, it is 2:27, a gloomy Wednesday in Vancouver, the

writer had toasted Sangak for breakfast, with walnuts and feta cheese, lukewarm tea in the glass

with the golden swirls on it, not exactly the breakfast of champions, or of writers for that matter.

Her words are so nondescript, she has not even painted the two characters accurately, let alone

constructed a sub-text that can hold its own, the pantheon of literary giants has to do without her,

her short story just sucks and sucks and sucks. The playwright should have red hair, in curls, the

diva black hair, divas all tend to have black hair. The writer ponders about the locales, Toronto

and Hamburg, maybe it would be better to have both of the ladies in the same city, seems more

feasible, more doable. They have to somehow interact, it would not really be a story, if they both

went about their respective lives without ever meeting. There should be a love interest, too, to

make the story more lively. The writer pouts, the story sucks, she has to make up a new story,

new characters, just change the ingredients of this weird story-concoction, make the words fall

into place, instead of stalling and halting. The writer notices that it is too late to rewrite the story,

she might as well go on and make the story all about her inability to pen the perfect text, after all

that seems to be her favorite subject matter, why change something that comes so easy, whining,

ah, whining. The diva and the playwright might meet up in another life, they can do whatever

they feel like, the short story writer has enough of this bull shit, she’d rater go down to the

market and have a donut, so she sucks at writing, who cares, who cares, the playwright and the

diva can do whatever they feel like, the writer will walk by False Creek, look at Vancouver,

enjoy the sea breeze, the freshness of the air, something like that, something of that kind. This

story does not have a happy ending, it teeters towards a non-ending, but the word count is @

1799, and that’s all that counts. For now, for now. For now. Meaning is for the birds, so is

coherence, the writer is happy that she penned her second short story, in her whole life, and she

41


is not quite sure why she refers to herself as “the writer”. She usually calls herself “the author”,

she is pretty sure that this story is slightly on the idiotic side, but, hey, at least it is a story with a

certain word count, passing spelling, a weird and strange short story, just like all the other short

stories of this planet, the writer wishes for a “go-out-with-a-bang” kind of ending, there is none,

none. She might as well stop this, cold, end it right here, ah, why not, why not? She feels empty,

headached, outshortstoried. The struggle of the artist, ah well, ah, well

(1943 words- not 2000 yet).

42


THE SHORT STORY WRITER

The woman sits in her grubby lavender-coloured sweat shirt in front of the desolate computer in

the library on 24th; she scratches her filthy hair and starts typing. Somehow she is under the

impression that she has what it takes to pen “war and peace 2.” She does not have talent, but she

has enthusiasm.

The man sits in his grey-white hooded jacket with the graphic design slouched over his laptop in

the dingy one-bedroom apartment somewhere in the Niederdorf in Zurich.

The old author sits in the cabin by the sea, takes out his typewriter and starts banging the keys.

He has written so many stories; he still keeps on doing this. He knows how to construct plots that

stand the test of time, all his pieces are master pieces, he is good at what he does.

The young woman comes home from dropping off her second-born at the creative learning

center two cities away from her suburban home; she takes out her laptop and starts up her brand

new literary career, somewhere on the outskirts of San Francisco, somewhere in the east bay.

The author, the author. A woman in front of a computer, trying to emulate all the characters

mentioned above, she tries desperately to write a short story. She does not really know how a

short story is constructed, how protagonist A interacts with protagonist B; the author is not even

sure if there can be multiple protagonists in one story, she does not know much about genres, she

just knows how to push down the keys on the typing machine. She knows how to retrieve the

word count, but, hey, that does not seem to cut it.

The author lets go of the four strange and weird characters she constructed, she’d rather describe

the very place she is sitting in: a computer station in Langara College, in Vancouver, British

Columbia, on 41st Avenue. It is some time in the afternoon, on a slightly sunny September day,

the young man to her left struggles with writing an essay about existentialism, the woman in

43


purple to her right seems to be very clear in what she is doing, she types away without blinking,

her Louis Vuitton bag standing straight and upright, as upright as she is. The existentialism essay

writer, smirks around in his chair, holding his head, somehow he is not very comfortable with the

issue of existentialism, a philosophy so far away from the today of facebook and twitter, an

obsolete philosophy that does not make sense today. He prefers messaging on his baby-blue

phone, smiling, being happy, swivelling around in his chair.

The short story writer swivels around herself; she is not quite sure why she should try her hand

@ short story writing. How many people read short stories? Voluntarily, that is. The author

scratches her head, which she does a lot these days, because of her new pixie hair style. Not that

she is really pixie-hair material, but, anyways, it is comfortable. The author ponders if she should

write in her PJs, roam around the house in old fluffy slippers, if she should acquire a cat, join the

army of eccentric cat women, those who write short stories and long treatises that no one ever

reads. The short story writer is confused, she is not good at her writing, she pens a lot of fluff,

stuff that will not cut it, will not cut it. Desperation sets in, paired with nausea, the author

ponders if she has what it takes to write, if she is eloquent enough, if this is what she should do,

should do, should do.

Outside the day moves forward, the short story stalls and does not really make any sense, the

author does not really care, yep, this is not much of a story, but it sure is short. Short, short, short

enough.

( 649 words)

44


a life of missed hiccups

so she sits here, stalling in her old alma mater, not knowing what to do. Thus, she finds herself in

front of the computer in the art school library, might as well pen another master piece. 300 pages

of fall, double-spaced, times new romanish, an account, a journal, something, something. Outta

art school, spring, summer, fall and winter. She is getting very fluent @ querying nyc agents,

when her epic is penned she could easily query 50 agents simultaneously. Someone will take her

up, someone will, someone should. After all, she manages to start most sentences with a

capitalized word, put a small dot @ the end of a sentence, what more do you need, what, what?

She usually writes everything in English, which is good, you know, sticking to the same

language throughout a text, that might help, infusing the text with an illusion of coherence. She

ponders, is it more lucrative to write in English or in Icelandic, what with foreign rights and

stuff? Well, at least she has a quasi-exotic name, you know, the other, the other. Then again, you

might not have sat thru endless reiterations of what passes as cultural theory these days, a

biologist does not really know what the term “the other” means. Well, neither does the author,

but she has a BFA, a freshly minted one, the problem is, of course, that most ppl don’t know

what a BFA is. The author scratches her head, she stares down at her ruby red fingertips, the

ones with MAC nailpolish. The author ponders, does everyone know what MAC is? Make-up

artistry corporation maybe, the author ponders, if she is writing 4 posterity. Will her writing be in

the pantheon of writing, does she have the “je ne sais quoi” of an Oscar Wilde, a Tolstoy. She

ponders, the only difference between her and Homer is gender and breathing. Yep, that must be

it must be it must be it. So, writing, huh. No more drawing 4 her, the world has lost an illustrious

illustrator. Has gained an illustrious writer. The world the world the world. Her writing is pure

45


genius, no more self deprecation, only boosting and bragging. The writer in fall. Typing and

typing and typing. Someone might shoo her away from this computer, she is not a student here,

not anymore, not and not. An alma matrix, alma materian, who makes up these quasi-latin

phrases? Who and who and who.

The author ponders, she will send this off to the agent in brooklyn, who practices the mandolin

or to the one who changed companies in September. To the one with the authoritarian voice, to

the one who used 2 be an editor and on Charlie Rose. To the ones who started their own

publishing company, full of social justice books 4 the white guilt crowd. She ponders, yep, that

should do it, throw around terms like white guilt, left and right and center, make sure that you

manage to insult everyone, ah, everyone. You are no Seinfeld, lady, not yet, not yet. Ah. She

types, types, slithered off-course, maybe sticking to one theme would be better, betta. Women

peruse the art mags, ah, ladies, don’t waste your time in art skool, artists, they don’t make

money, don’t, don’t. they have rewarding careers, but no money, none, zilch. The author

ponders, how much of an advance do expiring authors get? Ok, it is aspiring, but expiring seems

to be anything but a Freudian slip. She types, types, types, one twenty in the art skool, her back

to the ocean factory, September the thirteenth, ah, 13, the big 13. Author ponders, is this too

much for stream of consciousness-writing, to the edge of unconsciousness? Her typing sucks, so

does her writing, whiffs of Kerouac and Capote, she should stop to read up on the gossip-

columns of dead writers. She should pen monstrous epics in Azeri, why English, ah, why, why?.

She feels dislocated, diasporic, ah, a happy fish outta water, gasping 4 air, gasping 4 air. She

ponders, she should play up the “fish-outta-water” aspect, it would have a big market share.

Everyone can relate, everyone, everyone. We have to target everyone. Everyone is a potential

customer. She types, types.

46


Put this on scribd, it is not just a vanity press, she types and types and types. A day in her old

alma mater, words that splash onto the monitor, coherence, a tad, a tad. She longs for paint

brushes and black stick figures that march over white monitors, feels like crying, ten years down

the drain, ah, art school, art school. Confusion is so very palpable, she is outta words, outta

words.

- - -

47


APPARENTLY

Well, apparently, the plot thickens, it is ten and forty-eight, somehow, somewhere in the morning

still, in front of a computer, in VCC, she types, types, this is a practice run for the three day

extravaganza over the labour day weekend, when a 100 page novella shall be penned, should be

penned, will be penned, when words will collide. Fingers will stiffen up, her back will give out.

When nothing will work or everything, when she will take a stab at penning her masterpiece.

One of many, one of many. When she will compete in some writing-out, something like a cook-

out, when she will vie for the blue ribbon, when she will hope, glance at posterity, when she will

shatter her dreams, when she will heap on words, that will not make sense, when she will type

and type, without going somewhere, a plot non-existent, her teeth grinding, she will be shattered,

shattered, someone will negate her wishes, will hate her story, stomp her plot into oblivion,

someone, someone. She sounds needy, begging the jury to “pick me, pick me”. A perfect ten,

that never is, she pleads, give me one moment in time, ah, pretty please, if you beg, you will not

get the prize, winning is for confident writers, not non-strong ones, not a writer like her, not a

writer like her. Her shoulder hurts already, it is ten and fifty-five, one page is coming to an end,

slowly, hectic, steadily, she has to pause, marathon bikers, they pace themselves, they do, they

do. Stop, pause, spellcheck, only to march forward, forcefully, forcefully. And she types, ah,

types. Sprinkles ahs and ohs into the text, the plot that is non-thickening, the plot that is too

runny, seeping into the groves of the reader’s consciousness, whatever that means, and it means

nothing nothing. The reluctant poet, forced to pen a novella in 3 days, well, good luck good luck

good luck. The writer chained to the monitor, what a pitiful life, typing, ah, typing, ah typing.

No thickening plot here, but she said that already. Repetitions might do her in, might march her

prose forward, she types away, types away. How about spell check, how about spellcheck. So

48


this will be her plot, the writer, the computer, the task of typing 37 0000 words, is that a novella,

a novella, no sex, no violence, just a description of typing, that is a plot, yep, there is a plot. Why

should we talk about issues, why not describe the typing, the pushing down of square keys, that

is what counts, that is what counts, the trickeling insanity that is writing, the happiness that never

comes, the task that is unfulfilable, but that will have a winner, one who will make it to the

endline, one that will pass, the ten outta ten person, that should be her, should be, must be. Her

words lack correct syntax, correct spellings, that is the beauty of it, eloquence outta kilter, a

writing that tries and wants and whimpers, sometimes strong, sometimes huffing and puffing, she

types, ah, types, ah, types. Two pages it will be, she will stop abruptly, pace herself, she will

calculate if she’ll make it, if she should be part of the contest, she will lose 50 dollars, she will

lose her labour day weekend, she will type, type, the middle finger of her right hand will

tendinite along, she will fashion neologisms that don’t stick, she will, she should. Subjectmatter:

a typist, a laptop, writing, ah, writing, ah, writing. Some food in between typing spurts, some,

some, nourishments, water, she has to learn how to navigate this her keyboard, ah, she types,

types, and run-on sentences rules, forever, forever. When did novellas start, what kind of world

needed novellas, is it just a way to make loudmouths shut up, so that they are happy talking to

their laptops instead of changing the world, instead of throwing cocktail molotovs, or is it a way

to shut up washed-up housewives, she ponders does this even make sense, sense, and is sensical

what we shoot for here. A novella, a non-novella. End of page two, end of page two.

A word count, some word count. Two pages, half an hour, ah, well, oh well. Apparently, plot

thickens, let’s contend, let’s enter the contest, might as well, might as well. 3 day novel contest,

words smashed into the monitor, might as well, might as well. Thickening plot, so very very

apparently. And incoherence rules, it always, always does.

49


RELUCTANT PAGE

Facing the ocean factory, once more at the overfilthed keyboard, words splash into the machine,

summer is too sugary, she feels like strangling herself, with her bare hands, that should do her in,

do her in. dramatic openings for lukewarm texts, that should do the trick, should, ah, should. She

watches her fingers tap away at the keyboard, she listens in tho the raushing of something,

something, these are her days, reluctantly, staccatoing her utter boredom, feeding it to the

machine, machine. These are her days, on this planet, somewhere in the here and now. August it

is, still, summer it is, still, 2010 it is, still. Words shoot onto the monitor, not too expressive,

way, way too expressive. Not enough commas, too many, too many, ah, and she types, writes,

that kind of, ah, so miserable life. Writing, longing for the sound of hands not clapping, non-

clapping, non-clapping. The pathos wears thin, dries up in the hot sun, but we can type here,

anyways, type, type, until some creature with more authority shoos us away, out into the sun, out

into the malls, where life reluctantly happens, reluctant pages, reluctant lives, manifesting

themselves into tactile, well, stuff.

She ponders, today seems to be bullshitting day, but hey, everyday is bullshitting day, profanity

will stall her prose, no nobelprize for literature for us here, not yet, not yet, not yet, just typing,

just typing. Who cares 4 Capote or Kerouac, let us just write and type, watch the fingers on the

keyboard, typing away, writing away. Reluctant page it is.

She ponders, she strangled the text prematurely, some more words should teeter this out, slowly,

slightly, non-reluctantly, so very very reluctantly. This page is at its very very end. Words, not

forceful enough, definitely not reluctant enough, wimpers in the sun. in August, in two thousand

and ten, somewhere, somewhere in Vancouver.

50


AFTER ART SCHOOL PERSONALITY

She takes her after-art-school-personality to the bus station, where a guy sits in his business suit

and awaits his ride downtown. She knows him from somewhere, some social event 7 years ago,

he is still a big shot, she is still a non-big shot. This murks her, reluctantly. She takes her after-

art-school-personality to the art school library, she might as well write, she might as well start

selling her words, she might as well, might as well. Art school, who the f. goes 2 art skool? How

can you insert your art degree somewhere in between all the other degrees, how can you possibly

make 20 dollars per hour with a BFA. She ponders, ponders, not so much about bouts of

existential angst, more about this stupid keyboard, that is so off, it is filthy, it is resistant to the

push, each letter takes double the effort than the keyboard that faces the wall. The library is not

exactly desolate, outside it is not exactly raining, Granville Island is not exactly happening. But

her art career, it is so exactly non-happening. These are her days, her days, crying sobbingly into

the keyboard and any keyboard will do. End of week oregontrip, facing people congratulating

her, laughing behind her back, she is no MOMA material, look at her. Momaists look different,

prettier, less pretty, anyhoo, they don’t look like that. She is the antithesis of hip and she is not

happening, artists, they are hip and happening. Young, starving, ah, look at her, she is old and

fat. Her art should suck.

Negativity on paper, ah, low self esteem, that is how after art school personalities evolve.

Making whining and cringing an art form, that is how nihilism is starting to incubate. She stops

her text, it is more artistic to leave it hanging in mid-air. She, she. A self portrait in words. So

very, very after art school.

51


ON WRITING, ON PAINTING

Categorization, compartmentalization, make sure the borders of disciplines are well-defined,

rigorous.Parsons is starting up a newly-minted program (commencing September 2010) called

the MFA in transdisciplinarity, loosely based on the Stanford design curriculum. What does this

mean for a painter cum animator cum writer, in other words Yours Truly?

Reluctant or forceful scrbbles on paper, a line in an ashen stick on a cave-wall in southern france,

all the same, all the same. A translation of what we perceive as reality, an idea that happened to

take form, shape. Even math, purest of abstraction, nothing more than a stab of thought, a

glimmer in the dark.

The writer amasses words, the painter amasses pigments, makes it stick on some kind of surface,

flat or sculptural, the filmmaker deals in time moreso than space. There are always s some slight

differences in fields, but the similarities are so very substantial. It is all one big mish-mash. The

author of this, sits here in the library of her alma mater, tries to analyze what happened to her in

the last years, the ones that were crowned with some piece of paper which is dozing off on her

dining table, on the right side, near the dark-brown armoire.

On painting, on drawing, that is the name of this mini-treatise, as if one can really talk about,

really describe writing or painting. Both are processes with very well-defined end-products. An

essay or a painting to hang over the couch. Both need readers or/and viewers with time and

money to spare, people with nicely well-coordinated attention-spans, so it seems, so it seems.

We leave it at that, good luck to all the future trans disciplinarians, may your job-future look as

bright or as meak as the author’s, we leave it at that, leave it at that.

52


day slowlysun still there, somehow, somewhere, too chilly here, green outside the window, she ponders, is this poetry, prose. The spacing should be “double-spaced”, the words stall, meaningless, intendedly meaningless. So very very intentionedly. Somehow she stalls, cannot even wring the right word demarking intention into the laptop. Evening sets in, slowly, silently, the typing is deafening, typing, typing, typing. some words, some words

53


worldcup #77

the day moves slightly slowly. The day near to evening, shadows, the before-night of a

languishing vancouverday. worldcup, worldcup. The author supports the Netherlands, no real

reason, there never is, never is. Telly talking away, hurling its images @ her, everchanging,

everchangingly.

BBC-land, footballland, so very far removed from soccerland. Slight memories from far away,

coming out of the u-bahn hallerstrasse, walking by the blue and white of the HSV, rain drizzling

down, ah, so many years ago so many so many.

The author feels slightly nauseated, does not go with the freshness, the rigorous agility of runners

after a ball, goal, goal, ah, worldcup, worldcup.

A day somewhere between day and night, somewhere in Vancouver, she types, types.

Tomorrow, a sportsbar somewhere, we are all soccerhooligans @ heart, she pauses, her text is so

dreary and dull, she will run out near to the field at the local school, worldcup, ah, worldcup.

54


THE PAINTER WHO COULDN’T

so, what kind of writing will this be, the blank page as an ersatz-canvas, the woman in braids

who walks by her and makes a face, the dreary day in the art school. This is not a studio, this is a

library, words are not colours. What possesses her to write write write. The muse made a

mistake, the art form is off, the words creep onto the page, haltingly, stalling, nothing works

nothing nothing. No eloquence, ah, no eloquence. Total and utter failure, this is no art no art. Did

Duchamp fail as a painter when he put urinals in a show, was he even a painter, and what is the

difference between a painter and a house painter. What and what and what.

The old woman in the art school, typing away, typing away. Typing away.

and 142 words we have, have.

55


granville island, or something, or something

it is 25 to 6, she loiters this place, hangs out here @ HER OLD ALMA MATER, she types away,

like a stray dog. Somehow, she feels that that is a tad 2 strong- and why is she using all these

weird signs, 2 instead of two. She refuses to put question marks where they belong, foregoes

commas, after all she is a trained visual artist . They can do whatever they feel like, once the

paint is dry, you can’t change it. No editor on the planet can make the blue on the painting morph

into pink, so why should editors force their artistic visions on the artist, in this case the writer.

And besides, her stuff resides in cyberspace, thus it can have all the misspellings it feels like.

And what are misspellings anyways?

She read thru her text, notices that logical fallacies abound, in her text, in her text. Ah, who cares

who cares. She looks at the art magazines on the black shelves, she types, types, a short ditty that

klimpers thru the landscape of scholarly articles and rests near to graffiti, she types, types,

wanders thru the market, looks up at the bridge. Life on the island, somewhere in vancouver,

somewhere in 2010. Typing, typing, the day ends in a song. For now, for now.

56


In between

She sits here, in between classes, writing away. The document is not formatted the way it should, no double-spacing, no doublespacing. This will not be that good, not that good. And the stress is on that good, basically saying that everything she pens is good, so, for some weird, strange reason, this writing is not t h a t good. But it is good, nonetheless. Just not t h a t good. She ponders if she has 2 repeat this once more, that is how one fills the page, fills the page. By being as verbose as possible. Who knows how many words it takes 2 describe something? Seems as if it’s always a shoot in the dark. Outside vancouver octobers around, cold and wet. Inside here it is fresh and slightly warm, the typer is not working very well.

The printer to her right, to her left noises away, page after page is spat out. She writes, writes. There is nothing more 2 say, nothing, N O T H I N G. the day goes on, her moments here on this planet peddle away, like raindrops on a glasswindshield of an old car. As if there are windshields that are not made out of glass. Ah, the language, not that easy to form, not that accurate. Never that accurate. Hiccupping away, that is what it does. It is three after three, @ 4 there is another class, the inbetween writing keeps her occupied, she beads all these words together. On a rainy octoberday in 2009, here on granville island. vancouver, here in british Columbia.

57


some more words

she is sitting here

accumulating some more words

trying

2 be a poet

not that that

will pay the bills.

art

sucks

next time

go

2

med school.

58


@ the end of art school

she sits in the library pondering what can be done with a fine art degree.

outside, granville island octobers away, inside it is slightly toasty.

her work is stalling, non-fluidity, incoherence marks her oeuvre.

this cannot be that good.

she ponders.

a tad.

moments melt in2

years,

but the day soldiers on

somehow

something

will happen

@ the end of the art school.

59


When poems collide

When poems collide,

Poets don’t know what 2 do

When poems collide

Puh, that was quite a poem

A non-poem

Not stacking up

That good

Against the poems of this world

Poems like dust,

Poems that are not diamonds in the rough

But the rough itself

How do I change the font of this thing?

60


the view from here

under the blinds

windows

on the other side of the street

people walking on the floor

silhouettes, shadows

motioning by

61


staccatoing the heat

type, type, type, today it is slightly cooler, tv is on, she sits on the couch, the simpsons is

on, this is not really the environment that makes for literature, literature. Springfield talk, homer,

marge, bart and mr, mr, homer’s boss, whatever his name is. This is not really good fodder 4

observations, outside it is 12:01ish, noonish, a very slight breeze is blowing thru the treetops,

maybe, not that she is quite sure, how it looks, but she knows there is greenery behind her,

flowers, summer, a boring long hotish summerday. The heatwave is kind of starting to behave,

she writes, writes. Tomorrow the woodpanel people will descend on her house, on this room.

she ponders whether describing domesticity will ever fuel this her writing, she should

start to construct a narrative. Antagonist versus protagonist, protagonist A, protagonist B,

protagonist C, some perfect storyarc, climax, anticlimatic something something, or is it called

anticlimactic? She does not number her pages any more, will mush them together @ random.

These are dispatches from this so very stifled, boring summer, only slightly disturbed by a breeze

that blows in intervals of half an hour. The tv is full of the usual bullshit, contentless, aggravating

ridiculousness. Fun. Dovecommercials, whitespotcommercials. Image after image. In a small

square. Oh, friends. And once more, the simpsons. A remotecontrol lies next to her, on the green

couch. A black rectangle on green upholstery. From far away one can hear the sounds of the

street. bart and lisa are talking. Homer postulates.

the page is not finished yet, she wonders if she should put this on scribd. Near to phd-

dissertations, 40 page architectural portfolios from an architecturalstudent in Barcelona,

chemistrynotes from Stanford. Her so very suburban mumbo-jumbo will hardly cut it, only

demark the insignificance of her observations.

62


she feels shitty, goes with the weather, the boredom, the tedium of heaping word upon

word on a page, smush text into a monitor. Maybe spellcheck will help, stop the insanity. Hiccup

her thoughts, staccato her musings. Something like that. Another lowest common denominator

commercial. Fun. And so very blah. So very, very blah.

63


a very hot day

it is in the afternoon in a hot city, the tv is on, she is sitting here in the room in front of the

treelined street, she watches larry king life, today barrack obama, professor gates, sergeant

crowley are having their beer, had their beer. That is what is discussed, racial profiling this,

racial profiling that. ann coulter, very blond, very slightly shrill, well, maybe not that shrill, we

are republicanly profiling here. al sharpton talking, very weightlossedly.

she feels it is kind of tough to type and listen, she has to pause in order to listen.

she is eating a too cold cantaloupe piece that make her teeth sizzle with disgust and shiver. She

types. She has nothing really to say. But she types anyways. It is like a celloplayer playing the

cello, like a harpist fiddling around with the strings, the wires of the harp. Writing, writing. like

playing an instrument. Like shooting hoops. You have to do it each and every day.

it is a so very hot day. A so very very hot day.

she ponders.

she has nothing more to say.

out of words.

no poetry. no narrative. No more stories.

silence. quietness, which is so very irritating. So very on the other side of peaceful restedness.

The artist is struggling with the lingo, marching slightly towards insanity. Inarticulateness is

grappling her by the throat, forces her into discussing banal, blahness.

on this so very hot, hot day.

64


It is 11

It is 11:45- went 2 the fitness centre, had a sth.sth. galette, feel annoyed at everything. It is still july, don’t feel like writing, but do it anyways. It is pretty sticky today, it is a boring Sunday, time stands still. Am thinking about stuff, that I should formulate, everything mushes together, my to do lists are sitting somewhere, are never done.She is not quite sure how to change the font for this document, she does not know how to make the text doublespaced, it is overcasty weather, the tv is shouting @ her, deafeningly, life is sooooo very boring, she knows that she should either use the first person singular or the third person singular for writing this, she is not quite sure if jumping from she to I and back is a stylistic effect or just plain stupid. Anyhoo, as long as she keeps on writing, she’ll be fine. She uses scribd, extensively, but she is sending her stuff to publishers too. She should find a literary agent. At this time, her first manuscript is on its way to Boston, somewhere midway in the mail. She will have to wait some time for the answer, positive or negative, she is not quite sure how this will work out. Someone put the tv to the discovery channel, thus she is sitting here, watching the discovery channel, while the world passes her by. typing her life away. typing her life away. the show is about logging, trees, nature, while she is cooped here inside these four walls. Outside she can see all the trees, she lives in a house on a tree-lined street, green, green, beautiful british Columbia. She feels like barfing. She’d rather live in a house on a cliff, where she can see the elements, water, storm, a Scottish coastline. This place here is much too blah. Then again, it is safe. It is 12:24. She has a lot of housework to do. She never does it anyways. Somehow she will find the time, once she gets older and wiser. Once she grows up. The film is pretty loud and obnoxious, pretty dramatic. It is all about guys. No female loggers. The person talking is a guy, the treecutting downers are all guys, very masculine film. Oh, no, there is a woman, there is another one. She ponders what to name this document. She ponders, she ponders. Life is just plain boring. She looks at her sunglasses. She should go swimming. She should do this or that. why not? The page stumbles slowly to its end, it takes so much more words to finish this, when there is no double-spacing going on. The remote control is lying on the sofa, oh no, the life of a couch potato is pretty tough. Couch potato interrupted. The perils of a couch potato. She should find a better subject matter. Domesticity is not really her forte, she could care less. The only reason she is hanging out @ home this much these days is because she does not know if this laptop will work in Starbucks. She has been typing 60 or 70 pages in the last two weeks, she was forced to stay here at home. It is pretty tough to try to write when you are inside a house, there is nothing going on to make the narrative flow automatically. There is no motioning around her. Only inanimate objects. There is some noise, the dryer upstairs, the tv in the other room. There is the sound of her typing, the claps of the keys. The click –clack of the buttons. The loud screams of the dryer demarking the finish of the cycle. Actually the dryer will yelp three times. In ten minute increments. Ah, life is boring, boring, boring, boring. She should spell check, put this on scribd . Call it scribd 1. Or some other name. she should charge for downloading. If she could only figure out how to do that. life is utterly boring. But she stated that already. Maybe it will get more interesting once the day smushes itself lingeringly into the afternoon. She does not really know what that means, but it sounds

65


good. And that is all we’re shooting for. Today, on july 26, here in Vancouver, here in 2009. Tomorrow we might all be dead. There is a happy thought. the tv is yelling, the dryer is yelping. Boredom is palpable, snd slightly fun. The sun is shining outside, she will take the bus downtown. Walk in the sun, down arbutus. Soak in the warm day. Life is good. She is not quite sure if it is good to smush totally opposite observations into the same text. Ah, why not. Words are words are words. Profound ones are just as good as dumb ones. insights are highly overrated, intelligence is 4 the birds. Coherence does not live here anymore.

66


Staring Vacuously into Space- Take 7

It is slightly too hot. She jumps off the bus and makes her way to the art school. It is pretty

dusty under the bridge, construction workers talking, sideways barraged. She can see

downtown from here, beautiful day, lots of tourists. Very june leaning into julyish. Her red

nail polish is coming off, looks too grungy. She likes it though, her nails are still ruby red,

maybe this is even nicer than meticulously manicured nails. It is sticky here, early

afternoon. She ponders what the real time of the day is what with daylight saving time. She

slowly slumps towards the library of the art school. She might take up painting, there is a

market for that. So she heard. Worked for Picasso, for Leonardo, Michelangelo. All guys. Of

course, all guys. What with the breadwinner advantage. She is slightly pissed off, always

pissed off. The perpetual state of being pissed-off. She can feel all of her fifty-four years, in

her bones, in her aching joints. She exercises too hard these days, trying to revive her lost

youth. Not that she is alone, seems to be what is en vogue these days. No one ages

gracefully anymore, the boomers are dead bent on going as teenagers into the sunset,

demising with purple hair.

She finally sits in front of one of these computers and starts typing. She should paint, swirl

a paintbrush around. Writing is not what she started out to do, she wanted to be a painter.

Then an animator, then a sound artist, then a moma artist. Your middle-of-the-road moma

artist. Now she wants to be a scholar, checking out harvard press, yale press sites. They all

have extremely concise submission guides, it is totally paint-by-number. Some research,

some footnotes, how hard can it be? She ponders how much they pay. Should depend on

the endowment. Oxford, Cambridge, the ivies. She thinks she should stick to English for

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writing, she thinks, she thinks. Too much these days. She is slightly bored. There is a

woman sitting next to her, typing. She ponders if she should describe her.

She should make up some story, a narrative, something with sex and violence. Maybe more

sex than violence. Maybe romance.

Someone asked her how to spell the word “inukshuk”. She guesses, spells it somehow, tells

him to look it up. Google it, google it.

Her story is nonexistent, no protagonist here, no antagonist. Nothing that happens. Only

time that stands still. Only one generic day after the next. She can describe it, observe it, pin

the moments down on paper. Try to sell that. Who needs words, who needs literature? Her

kind of literature. Home-spun literature. Literature on the side of bigger issues. Writings

about lesser issues. If it is spelled right, it should still suffice. Make the grade somehow.

She stares up into the sky, blackbirds flying up, flying down. Black against the pale blue sky.

A red car passes by. There are all these stacks of books to her right, there is the sunny day

outside, there is Granville Island slowly happening. The librarian sorts DVDs, clicks them

into place. She types, spell checks, yawns, is ever so slightly bored. Nothing happens and

nothing ever will. Ah, fun. Fun and fun and fun. And then there is the wordcount to

consider. At this point she has 540 words. She ponders if that makes for a shortshort story,

or a regular short story. An dis it a story or a nonstory? Is it just an amalgamation of words,

a verbal sketch? A long poem in prose form. A film?

She should go to the market. She should have a strawberry yoghurt ice cream under the

bridge. Cherry yoghurt delight. She has a coupon somewhere in her purse. She should end

this story. She should stop staring vacuously into space. She should. She should.

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saturday bla

I just paint yellow triangles, so to avoid making any political statement, one way or the other,

one way or the other. I reaffirm here, as I have done on numerous occasions before, that my art is

utterly apolitical and decidedly so, decidedly so.

We have words to make political statements, putting yellow flecks to paper, that is not political,

not political.

This place here is annoying, the tuna sandwich insde of me is revolting, the air conditioner is too

loud, I should be somewhere else, the keyboard is bathed in this weird light. Two persons talk

too loud in hindi, my day is bla, typing is so mechanical, I overuse the word I, I hate my life, my

writing, my feet are in too tight shoes, whining, ah, whining.

this is my piece de resistance 4 2day, it is it is it is. Yep, and once more, I just paint yellow

triangles, triangles.

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The woman in black -1

The woman in black doesn’t have much time, she types fast, hopes that her writing will be

phenomenal, amazing, awesome, whatever. Her typing goes fast, fingers pushing down @ the

keyboard, while the keyboard is so very weirdly bathed in the reflection of the neon lights above,

she puts her weathered pink-grey- black wallet under the key-board, ah, now we’re cooking, now

we are cooking, the squares of the keyboard are well-defined, no more blinding lights, no more

reflections, white capital letters in the black squares, the langara keyboards are so nice, so nice,

so nice. Best keyboards in town, so it seems so it seems. This is where poets should live, day-in,

day-out, this is where great stuff should be penned, this is where tomorrow’s nobel laureates

should pen their stuff, stuff, stuff.

The woman in black ponders, she could submit this to the kgb lit mag, why not why not why not

why not. She needs some more words, 1500 is the minimum, her wordcount is 2 low, 2 low. She

should hint @ eros or romance, something like that, she should smear this with the perfect story

arc, but, hey, hey, non-narrative rules rules.

The woman in black ponders, she could, should describe this bleak computer lab, desolate, the

muffled air conditioner, somewhere between muffled and forceful, she should write about

humans and longings, not about the sound of the printer, her own fierce typing, or the woman in

green on the phone, who prints her text and talks into her cell , at the same time, @ the same

time. The word count is still too low, 2 low. 267, that is not enough, never enough, never

enough. She has to write 4 more pages, ah, there is nothing to say, nothing to say. The car is

parked in the Y, and it is time to move it, there is a 3-hour maximum limit, literature has to wait,

should wait. Besides, author here has nothing to say, nothing, nada, zip. Zilch. Some more

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whining about the toughness of writing, that should do it should do it. Some more handwringing

about the impossibility of poeting around, that should do it do it.

The woman in black is pissed off. Her word count is still too low, very very very low. A man in

white comes in, the woman in green looks at her cell, pushes some buttons, leaves. The sound of

Velcro, the sound of the air conditioner, the sound of typing. A Saturday motioning away, words

hurled into cyberspace, this better be good, better be good. We’re nearing the 500-words-mark

here, will shoot it thru cyberspace to nyc, to be published, or not or not or not. Or not. Author

ponders, she will put this on scribd, she will cyberpublish this, so maybe, she cannot throw it into

the cyber submission bin of the kgb, maybe not maybe not maybe not. 490 words, ah, not bad

bad bad bad.

Author ponders, is this fiction or non-fiction, let us label it fiction, sounds better better. Man in

yellow and orange, comes in, in. fast words, fast fast fast words. Wordcount: 527, somehow, the

sentences are not moving in the same line, there is no story arc, there never is, never is. There is

nothing to describe here, just a generic computer lab, just, just, just.

Author ponders, if it is clear to the reader that author and woman in black are the same person,

hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. And 584 we have, not bad not bad not bad. Let us stop this, the

car has to be moved, 600 words is more than enough, more than enough, more than enough.

Writers should not run after minimum word counts, they have to stop, once everything is said,

and, hey, here is nothing to say, nothing, nada zilch.

The woman in black wrote enough, her poeting suffocates her, outside the young fresh

Vancouver rain will soothe her anger at all the lost words that she could not and never will pen,

will pen. She has 2 pages, that is enuf, 4 now and now and now. 690 words, ah, that is fine fine,

fine. Fine.

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The woman in black - 2

She is back in the desolate computer lab, which is now a tad more crowded, it suddenly morphed

from desolate to crowded, but still has a tad to go until overcrowdedness, more women in here

by now, in the morning it was basically all-male, the author ponders if these are the observations

that will make for nobel-laureate-dom, are these highly consequential observations, the kind that

will define humanity’s path, someone sneezes, sneezes, author types, types, her word count is

780, she needs 700 more words, give or take, then this is submittable, ready to be sent into the

cloud, only to sail down into a computer somewhere in nyc, the woman next to the author starts

rummaging in her notebook, loudly, loudly. She tears out a piece of paper, author still types,

types, ponders, if she should liven this up with some kind of love story, one could do that, cram

romance into 500 words, boy meets girl, happily ever after, the end, then again, could be boy

meets boy , girl meets girl, who cares, who cares, there are more pressing issues here, there are

words that are incoherent, there is the struggle of the artist, this lousy, crappy computer lab, the

word count that is still too low, 2 low, too low. Author ponders, her writing is way too negative,

too whiny, this cannot be good, cannot be that good, not that good, good. And 941 it is , not bad,

bad, bad, bad. Bad.

The woman in black – 3

A third chapter, still nothing happening, still the so black computer lab, still words that refuse to

fall into place, the word count is marching forward, we are near to 1000 now, yay, let’s celebrate,

champagne, corks flying, we are there, there, who will read 1500 words of crap, of utter utter

shit, the woman in black is not pleased with her writing, but, hey, that is how all writers are,

aren’t they aren’t they? Well, maybe some more than others, Tolstoy might be more happy than

the author of a grocerylist, the woman in black types and types and types. If you just keep on

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typing, you will reach that moment when all the words fall into place, like magic magic. And if

nothing works, you can always go back to paint little yellow triangles, why not why not why not.

Time to wrap this up, there is not much to describe here, a man in blue standing near the printer,

the librarian stomping in, did it work, did it work, a woman in red at the computer, the sound of

the printer, printer. The sound of the air conditioner, last words last words last words. Words.

1156 words, words.


Some more words, fast, fast, fast. To describe a non-story, one that is too low on substance, one

that sings too silent, one that stutters over the page, over the page. The woman in black stretches,

she somehow typed in enough words, she looks out at the main room of the library, she can see

the fire alarm and the exit sign from here, she peruses the tiny little icons on the monitor, her

word count is getting better, fuller, she needs 200 more, 200 more.


This is the last chapter, some more words typed in, some more sentences, sentences. The slow

rhythms of a computerlab in some community college, on a dreary Saturday somewhere in 2011,

short inklings, short utterings, mutterings. Words that march towards a certain word count, while

the day seeps forward, while evening is near, some more words, ah, some more words, words.

Slight tinges of incoherence, poetic waxing that cannot hold its own, the feverish checking of the

word count, the deafening noise of the air conditioner, the words the words the words.


Somehow there is still some more space for another chapter, it seems as if the image on the

monitor somehow dictates the subject matter of the text. The computer lab is still eerily sleepy,

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eerily desolate, even though it is full of apathetic serious students, who are baffled by what they

see on their monitors.


This is her last chapter, no conclusion has been reached, the only thing achieved here is a

certain word count, the story is still a non-story, teetering away between fiction and non-fiction,

between prose and poetry, between coherence and incoherence, between bad writing and good

writing. The woman in black is happy, she is fascinated by the mechanical exercise of typing in

all these letters, somehow she feels that a story has been told, the words fell into place,

somehow, somewhere, a certain wordcount is achieved, send-buttons have been pushed, typing

has been done, literature has been penned, and 1507 words have been written, the woman in

black is happy, happy.

She scratches her head, there is no good way to end this, she might as well halt in mid-air, mid-

sentence, she has 1500 words and that should do, will do. She could title this THE STRUGGLES

OF A WRITER, but somehow it won’t fit right, won’t fit tight. Writing is tough, but, hey, that is

just another platitude, she has 1500 words, and that is all that counts, counts. Counts and counts

and counts. Counts. Counts, counts.

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