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Thank God for Monsters.

June 24, 2013 by Exangel

by Alena Deerwater

 

I am a tense traveller. Especially with that first step that starts every journey. My most resent foray into flying began in a ParkSFO shuttle bus whizzing to the American Airlines terminal. Terminal. Terrible word choice. Bringing to mind a long, slow, incurable death.

Sandwiched on the bus between my partner and my nineteen year-old daughter, I clutch my black bag of essentials that will soon be shoved under the seat in front of me, barring me from stretching my legs for the six hour trip from San Francisco to the Big Apple.

Apples are in the bag. And pretzels, rice chips, sunflower seeds (protein), baby carrots, graham crackers and one tortilla filled with tahini and fruit spread. Who knows when we will see real food again. I limit myself to a journal, pen and one book, Teachings of the Jewish Mystics. Usually I bring three books, unable to decide how my brain will be best entertained while trapped in a winged metal cylinder large enough to hold thirty some-odd rows of people lined up six across with all their carry-ons stored precariously above their heads. My Mary Poppins bag also contains a medicine chest. I am ready for any illness that may strike – terminal or otherwise. I have earplugs and eye mask. A brimming jar of Advil and a tiny dropper-filled bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy. New for this trip are audio books on my iphone (hence the ability to pack only one real book) and a refillable water bottle with a built-in filter.

Whew.

It took me days to pack.

Seats line the inner walls of the small bus so we all face the narrow center aisle. A young father, grandmother, and a child strapped into a stroller sit caddy-corner from us. We jostle together with every bump and turn. I notice I’m clenching my teeth and wonder if I can procure my Bach remedy without spilling the entire contents of my bag. The grandmother coos at her little one.

Our bus driver pulls onto the expressway and speaks into his two-way radio.

“We’ll be arriving at Terminal Two in ten minutes. Ask them to wait.”

“Brwaaa brwa-brwaa brwaa brwaaaaaaaaaa,” a loud gravelly voice suddenly brays from the inner-com, startling us out of our travel-mode stupor.

The passengers all look at each other.

“What?”

There is no way in hell the driver can decipher intelligible words out of the insistent gobbledygook spewing into our ears.

“Brwa! Brwa-brwaa brwaa brwaa, brwaaaaaaaaaa!”

I press my lips together as the corners of my mouth turn upward.

“Brwaaaaa. Brwaa, Brwaa.”

A giggle escapes from my chest out through my nose. A monster has taken over the inner-com and is commanding our bus driver to highjack us to his lair. His monster-speak is a rough dialect whose linguistic roots are derived from the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons.

“BRWAAA, BRWA-BRWA-BRWA-BRWA-BRWA-BRWA.”

The young father and I catch each other’s eye and exchange a sparkle of shared amusement.

“LA! LA! LA!” The monster is singing.

“Cookie Monster!” The child swings her legs excitedly. “Cookie Monster drives the bus!”

“C is for cookie. Is good enough for me,” grandma warbles in an airy old voice.

“C is for cookie. Is good enough for me,” her dad joins in with his bass notes.

“Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.” We conclude en masse and burst out laughing.

My teenage daughter rolls her eyes, but I can hear her singing under her breath.

I cannot stop laughing. Tears gallop down my face. My whole body jiggles up and down as my will to control my laughter and the laughter itself compete within my belly. Waves of jolliness eclipse my fears and I smile.

Now, I am ready for the trip.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Summer 2013: Monsters.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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