Untitled Writers' Group

Off Topic at ConFusion

I went to ConFusion this past weekend, but this post really isn't about the con itself (great con, had a wonderful time, fyi).  Anyway, I was up in the middle of the night due to a small bout of insomnia, and was watching television quietly to pass the time.  I happened upon a program about prisons, and part of the program covered a local jail where the prisoners were confined with an amazing number of people per cell.  Due to the lateness of the hour and the lowness of the volume, I can't give more specifics, but what occurred next caught my attention. 

The voiceover said, "The inmates find creative ways to pass their time."  Following this was a visual of a mural that would have done Picasso proud.  It was drawn/painted on the wall of one of the aforementioned cells.  I dislike murals, they are definitely not my preferred art form, and yet this one contained so much honesty and passion, so much of the experience of the people/person who created it, that it moved me.  Following that, they showed a young man (19, I believe) who had been jailed for robbery, singing.  It was amazing.  He played some unknown object in a rhythmic counterpoint to his song, accompanied by his cellmates utilizing various found objects or vocal expressions to harmonize with him.  His song was to his mother, telling her not to grieve even though he was gone.

This was the blues from its heart, from its guts.  I wanted to cry.  I wondered how we could show the young man with the beautiful voice, the person or people who painted that mural, how to use their talents to save themselves from a lifetime of imprisonment.  I didn't know, but what I did understand, in my heart and in my guts, was the absolute beauty of human nature, and that it will perservere in the most adverse of circumstances.

I know this seems trite.  I know that it's a cliche; however, cliches must contain some grain of truth or they wouldn't be so persistent.  I might not be able to convey my own personal realization, but I do urge whoever reads this to consider the idea of the indomitable human spirit in a fresh light.  I don't think it's a cliche, I think that we all have it.  In the absence of truly adverse circumstances, or even and perhaps especially in their presence, what beauty lies within each of us? 

Closed for Remodeling — by Lisa

Shielding Small Eyes from Violins - Erica Schippers

Or, let the installation of neuroses begin!

I've traumatized my child. Of course, it was unintentional, but isn't it usually? You do something with the best intentions in the world, but then it takes a sudden wrong turn and you're hurtling into trauma-land.

It happened on Tues. Jack was sitting in his excersaucer/walker/whatever-the-heck-they're-called, drooling copiously and trying to eat a set of brightly-colored plastic keys. I was sitting on the floor next to him, simultaneously making faces and a total fool of myself for his amusement. Then I had the Idea.

Hey, I thought, he likes music and I haven't had a chance to practice my violin in a while. I should play the violin for him. He'll be happy, I'll be practicing, it's a win-win, right? Wrong.

I should state that I'm no virtuoso, but I don't sound like a sack of cats on the thing, either. In any case, I got no further than a few quick tuning strokes (A-D, D-G, A-E) before Jack started to scream hysterically. He was afraid of the violin.

I had played it for him before. Granted, it had been a few weeks, but he'd liked it fine then. Now, he was screaming like the violin was worse than vaccinations.

I put the instrument down, snatched my howling child from his seat, and proceeded to comfort, cuddle, and laugh at him (joined almost immediately by Grandma and Dad - his, not mine) until he was calm again. Then I made the mistake of walking back into the living room, where the violin was still sitting out of its case on the floor. Jack saw it. His lower lip stuck out, his face turned red, and he began to wail. We were back at square one.

A day later his reaction had dwindled to a whimpering, suspicious scowl, giving me hope that I can play the violin around him again before he turns sixteen. I can just hear him in therapy years from now. "Doctor, I have this recurring nightmare. There's an enormous violin chasing me. It has fangs. And my mother is there, pointing and laughing. What do you think it means?"

Last night his father was playing 'baby toss' with Jack and tossed him a little too enthusiastically. Jack bonked his head on the ceiling, eliciting horrified gasps in stereo from his grandmother and me, as we had both just finished telling his father "don't do that, you'll bump his head". We descended on them, scolding his father and trying not to let on that we were upset so as not to upset Jack. We needn't have worried. He was laughing.

What If by Lisa

Science fiction and fantasy plays a lot of "what if" games. What if a certain technology was never invented, what if it was invented 500 years earlier? What if someone turned left instead of right, or someone didn't die when they did?

I found a young bird, yesterday, in my driveway. So new to the world it did not know to be scared, it did not flinch at the honk (light honk) of the car horn. I had to chase it off the driveway into the bushes so I could leave.

Today that bird was by my backdoor. It let me walk right up to it. It had its mouth open a bit. Hungry, perhaps? We thought it was ill (maybe it was), but a bird rescue person told us that newly fledged birds did not know how to fly. We left, confident that the parents would return to feed their nearly-adult fledgling, and in a day or two it would be soaring through the sky.

I came home today. An hour later, while doing some yard work, I found the young bird lying dead in the grass. There were no teeth marks. No blood. I can only guess that it died while trying to fly.

Then an awful thought occurs to me. What if it had been learning to fly and made it into a tree? What if my pulling into the driveway scared it, and it leapt, unprepared, from its tree branch, and being too new to flying, fell to its death?

Young birds die all the time — from predators, from illness, from accidents. Odd how one bird, encountered twice, could come to mean so much. I don't know if I scared it. It may have simply been an accident, simply one of many young birds that never quite make it into the air. But I can't get the idea out of my head of "What if I scared it? What if I had returned home at a different time?"

I buried it under the lilac bushes near where I first saw it.

What if I'm crying over a different bird?

Not in Kansas Anymore — Or, Green Skies Over Ann Arbor by Lisa

A photo tour of the storm that blew through Ann Arbor on Friday, May 21, 2004. Click on photos for a larger image.

Storm approaching...

Almost on top of us...

Um, is that green I'm seeing?

Yes, it is green! It is green!

That blurriness isn't my camera moving...

More green sky and wind...

Light at the end of the storm. Or is that the center of the storm?

Louis Wu in a Box by Lisa

I named Lou after Larry Niven's character Louis Wu. Ringworld was one of the first SF novels I read, and it started me on a Niven kick that lasted a long time. You can see more picture of Lou and his brother on my website.

Lisa Leutheuser — Flightless Birds Deserve Their Own Title IX

Lisa Leutheuser — Truth in Advertising

Speaks for itself.

Lisa Leutheuser — Meet Kayavak

Kayavak waves for the camera.

Kayavak is a Beluga Whale. (Belugas are actually members of the porpoise family.) She currently lives at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. She is maturing sexually, and she'll soon be moved to a new home where she will meet new male Beluga Whales and have happy Beluga families.

Lisa's Answers to Catherine's Questions

My answers to Catherine's questions posed in the comments section of her Questions post.

(1) What's the source of your fascination with Chinese culture? Have you been to China?

That's two questions.

My interest in China grew slowly out of a more general interest in Asia. It started in high school when I taught myself how to use chopsticks, which was well before I began to appreciate Chinese cuisine beyond Almond Chicken Ding and fried rice. But it didn't really take off until after I had spent some years studying and reading about all things Japanese. My undergrad degree is Asian Studies. I focused on Japan, but I also had to take classes about other areas of Asia, and most of the classes I took were about China. I had a Chinese Studies TA who once said to me that the more you study Chinese history the more you realize there is to study. At the time I just nodded and thought that I'd stick with Japan, but China has at last sucked me in. China makes me think of fractals, where you can zoom closer and closer in on a detail, and just when you think you've reached the end, you uncover a whole new universe spiraling off into infinity.

But that doesn't really answer the question, does it. What is the source of my fascination with Chinese culture (and the rest of Asia)? I'm not really sure. A big part of it comes from my involvement in martial arts, but it has some roots that date before that. Asian culture is so strange from anything I knew growing up, and I've long been attracted to things different from the mainstream preferences of Midwestern society around me.

No, I have not been to China, but I am *fingers crossed* going there next Fall.

(2) Why do people giggle and say "oil" around you?

Um, it goes back to this party when... Oh, it's not really all that interesting. It's one of those "you had to be there" kind of things.

(3) How many coconuts can an unladen African Grey parrot carry on its migration.

East African Tall coconut or Cameroon Red Dwarf?

Wait... Greys don't migrate, but when they do it's usually in a travel cage, in which case they can carry as many coconuts as will fit in the trunk of the car.

(4) What comes first? Plot or character?

Usually character, which is in part why I find short stories so hard to write. I have this character, but I don't know what happens to that character in under 10,000 words. But if you ask me what happens to that character in 100,000 words, I would probably be able to come up with something. I do, however, have one epic plot sitting on the back burner that is in search of the right characters. (I know who the "bad guy" is, but who are my heros and heroines?)

(5) Who's your favorite classical composer and why?

Wow. That's a tough one. Can I ramble a bit? Is it odd to say that music affects me physically? The right music can make me feel high -- all light-headed with an electrical feeling running through me. Classical music seems to have more of this kind of music than other music genres.

I rather like Mahler, especially Symphone No. 1 in D. The third part — the Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen — is just so incredibly sensual. Very sexy. And then, just when you've been lulled to that quiet soft space, *bam* that fourth movement kicks in and off you go. A very emotional symphony. And I like Liszt too. I studied piano for 10 years or so, and I'm partial to composers who favor that instrument. Liszt's Klavierkonzerte Nos 1 & 2 are two of my favorites. But I think my favorite composer is Bach. There are many individual works that have more emotional impact (and more "high") for me, but I love the math in his music. I adore his concertos for two and three keyboards as well as his toccatas and two- and three-part inventions. When I think of someday having the time to take up piano again, I long to have my fingers dancing their way through the finger-twisting rounds of his inventions. It's a piano thing, what can I say?

I'm supposed to include the rules here, but as I said in the comments section to Catherine's questions, I'm not likely to find the time to come up with questions for others. If I feel differently later, I'll update this post. (Or, if you want a faster response, ask Catherine for questions!)

RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

— Luo Xiao-jie