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But Is It Art?
Here’s the latest news about the Yale art student who claims that she artificially inseminated herself nine times over nine months, then induced an abortion each time and used the blood in an art project.
True or not, this is one of the problems I have with today’s art. Throughout history, many, many works of art have provoked reactions, sometimes passionate ones. It’s a more recent innovation to skip the art and go right to the reaction.
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The Last Time
02.14.08 | Permalink | 3 CommentsNote: The three-headed monster that is Patricia Abbott, Gerald So, and Aldo Calcagno had the idea for a mass flash fiction posting on Valentine’s day. Here’s mine.
The Last Time
by Graham Powell
I walked off the construction site when I got the call. I couldn’t go back there now, but that’s okay. I’ve been fired before.
Four years without a word, then this. It was nice to know that she still thought of me when she had a mess that needed cleaning.
As I climbed the four flights of stairs I promised myself this was the last time I would help her. Then I told myself it was the last time I’d make that promise.
I didn’t knock, just opened the door. She sat on the couch opposite, staring at nothing. As I stepped into the room I noticed the smell, the scent of fire and smoke hanging in the air, like the Fourth of July when I was a kid. But this wasn’t firecrackers.
Then I saw the man’s body to the left, by the TV.
I hadn’t been a cop in years but I knew what happened inside of ten seconds. Three shell casings just inside a doorway on the right. Three red holes in the man’s chest. One casing next to the body. One bullet wound in the head.
The gun, an automatic, probably a .32 or .380, lay on the coffee table. Alice didn’t look at it. There were no tears. She was beyond that now.
It was easy to see the girl I’d loved, but she wasn’t that girl any longer. The makeup was thick upon her face but couldn’t hide the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Her hair was no longer blonde, but yellow, a color Mother Nature had never intended. The roses on her cheap print dress had faded.
She stood up slowly and walked past me without a word, close enough to smell her perfume. I saw the plan. She goes, I stay.
No. She’d always asked a lot, more than she’d earned, but not this. She wasn’t worth my life. Maybe she never had been.
I picked up the gun from the table and took careful aim. “Alice,” I said.
She didn’t turn around, just stopped in the doorway. I took a breath, held it, the sight picture steady on the back of her head. A moment passed and I exhaled.
Alice turned and started down the stairs. I listened to her footsteps as they grew fainter, finally punctuated by the slam of the front door.
I laid the gun on the table and sat down to wait for the police.
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Born In Bournemouth
12.23.05 | Permalink | 8 CommentsI know somebody on the ol’ blogroll is from/lives in Bournemouth, though offhand I can’t remember which one it is.
In any case, I keep tripping over Bournemouth references lately. First I read “The Greyling Crescent Tragedy” in Ellery Queen’s year-end anthology for 1967, in which a key scene takes place in Bournemouth. But it’s by John Creasey, who was so prolific he most likely used every municipality in Great Britain, and probably more than once.
Then I was reading about the first woman to head a major symphony orchestra, in Baltimore. She previously wielded the baton in Bournemouth. I’m guessing Baltimore was a step up.
And You Only Live Twice is on TV right now, with character actor Charles Gray in a small role (NOT “A Criminologist”). So I looked him up at IMDB; he was born in Bournemouth in 1928, and died of cancer in 2000.
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Farewell To The King
Brett Favre may have played his way into the old-folks’ home last night in Green Bay’s 48-3 (!) loss to Kyle Boller (!!) and the Baltimore Raves (!!!). The AP story running at SI.com says, “Favre, meanwhile, struggled from the outset in his final appearance on ABC’s Monday Night Football.” (emphasis added). I guess they know something we don’t know.
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