Where Pets Came From

A newly discovered chapter in the Book of Genesis has provided the answer to that age-old question: "Where did pets come from?"

One day, Adam and Eve said, "Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you anymore. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to be happy all by ourselves."

And God said, "No problem. I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and will be loyal to you no matter how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be. This new companion will accept you as you are and will love you, in spite of yourselves."

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve.

And it was a good animal.

And God was pleased.

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve, and he wagged his tail.

And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."

And God said, "No problem. Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him Dog."

And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.

And they were comforted.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that an angel approached the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well."

And God said, "No problem. I will create for them a companion who will be with them forever and who will see them as they are. This companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration."

And God created Cat to be a companion to Adam and Eve.

And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.

And Adam and Eve learned humility.

And they were greatly improved.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was happy.

And Cat didn't give a shit one way or the other.

On Writing - Analogies

Analogy \A*nal"o*gy\, n.: a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Analogies are important tools in the writer's toolbox. They do a lot of work in a few words, provide simple descriptions people can relate to, and help hold a reader's attention when it might be lagging. But some writers go way too far when developing analogies. Here are a few examples:

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie he would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

Opabin Plateau - Chip Phillips

Professor Carbuncle - meaningless words

Being a certified curmudgeon and a professor of pontifical vituperation, I tend to notice things like unnecessary word repetition, and lately I’ve become extraordinarily irritated at the overuse, misuse, and often downright stupid inclusion of unnecessary words and silly phrases on radio, TV and in videos.

For example, when did it become a rule that every answer and question during an interview had to begin with or include the totally useless word “So?”

“So, when did you become aware of the odd sex life of the male, Ethiopian cockroach?”

“So, I was sitting on a bench in the park one day, when a male, Ethiopian cockroach approached me and demanded sex.” 

“Really? That’s, odd. So tell me more.”

“So, I was minding my own business, when this ugly little bug scurried up my leg, climbed on my shoulder and started whispering sweet nothings in my ear.”

Seriously, folks, listen to any interview nowadays, and you’re liable to hear the unnecessary word “so” dozens of times. And if they removed it, not only would that irritating earworm go away, but nothing whatsoever would be lost. Read the above exchange without it and you'll see what I mean.

And whatever happened to “You’re welcome.”? My mother always told me that when somebody thanks you, the polite response was “You’re welcome.” But today, no one being interviewed acknowledges the host’s thanks with this simple, courteous response. Instead, they all say “Thanks for having me,” as if they’d just been had. And in the case of a female, that sounds, you know, a little bit lewd. These guests are supposedly intelligent folks: experts, professors, researchers, politicians, famous authors, and so on. If they decide not to say “You’re welcome,” you’d think at least one of them could come up with something that doesn’t parrot every other interviewee on the planet.  

Finally, there’s the oft-repeated and incredibly dumb sounding term “moderate-to-severe.” We constantly hear this silly word grouping in the commercials Big Pharma airs for their latest miracle drugs. Apparently the executives who approve these ads (the guys who are so smart they make a gazillion dollars a week) are unaware that only an illiterate nincompoop would speak that way in real life.

“My moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis—irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, depression, overactive bladder—” are words that would never cross the lips of any person with half a brain. Think about it, have you ever said or heard anyone say “moderate-to-severe” when describing a medical condition? For that matter, have you ever heard any sane person speak out loud about these embarrassing maladies?

And if that isn’t bad enough to make you cringe, after they show you scenes of tranquil nature hikes or sea-and-surf intimacies, while a sincere-sounding voiceover tells you how wonderful and effective their drug is, they point out that it can cause everything from brain hemorrhages to massive heart attacks, limb detachment, and terminal cancer.

Luthier's Corner - Rosette

For those not familiar with the term, a rosette (as it applies to an acoustic guitar) is the decorative ring that encircles the sound hole. Depending on the type of guitar, the rosette can be anything from a single band, to the beautiful mosaic designs you see on the finest classical and Flamenco instruments.

Many people mistakenly assume that these rosettes are painted; however, except in the case of some cheap imports, they are actually intricate wood inlays, sometimes consisting of pieces as small as 1/124 of an inch square (a little over twice the width of a human hair). If you find it difficult to believe that a luthier could position and glue together such tiny pieces of wood, you’re not alone—to do so one piece at a time would be extraordinarily difficult. Fortunately, there’s a technique that makes it a little easier, though it remains a very delicate process.

The technique predates the modern classical guitar (first devised by Antonio Torres around 1850) and is reported to have been originally developed on the Iberian Peninsula during the Nasrid dynasty of the 13th and 14th centuries. It involves the creation of mosaic tiles through a unique procedure not unlike making and slicing a log of hard salami.

Instead of using single pieces, the luthier cuts and dyes strips of wood, which are then assembled in a specific order, and glued into a log. The gluing operation is done using a press that forms the correct curves and side angles, so that when the log is sliced into tiles, each tile will fit perfectly with the one beside it to form the circular design. This circle is assembled between rings of wooden herringbone, created ahead of time in a similar way. Finally, the completed rosette is inlayed into the top of the guitar and sanded level with the surface.

In high-production shops, the entire design is assembled as a log, which can then be sliced into individual rosettes. But many traditional luthiers remain faithful to the old-school methodology of assembling each rosette by hand, which allows them to change the design with each guitar they build.

Beaver Falls - Jerry Cagle

Then Again Characters

For readers of my novel Then Again who may have wondered how the five main characters would appear in real life, I created these photorealistic images. Though based on descriptions in the novel, they were leavened with a healthy dose of imagination. Below each image are slightly edited excerpts from various descriptive passages in the book.

Aurélie told me her early childhood had been confusing. A precocious child with savant-like intelligence, she was speaking in complete sentences before she was one year old, and had mastered simple mathematics by age two. I asked about her adolescence, but she refused to go into detail, saying only that after a few years of teenage sexual rebellion and a couple of failed love affairs in her early twenties, she’d given up on finding a mate and become absorbed in her work with Heyoka. It was sad to think that such an intelligent and attractive woman was an old maid in the making, trapped in a loveless world of intellectual isolation. I remembered when I first saw her, being struck by her simple, almost peasant-like beauty. She was petite and slender, with auburn hair cropped in a short afro that framed a heart-shaped face. Her azure eyes, shadowed by long lashes, looked down on a delicate nose and a wide, generous mouth. Gone was the velvet beret that had held her hair in check, and the black-and-white waitress uniform she’d worn at the club had been replaced by stone-washed jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt featuring a photograph of Jeff Bridges as ‘The Dude’ Lebowski. 

My first clear view of Heyoka Husereau D'Ailleboust nearly knocked me sober. For one thing, he was huge, and—probably due to an autonomic fright response—my senses sharpened and my bleary vision cleared. The smile was still there, but it now protruded from the lower half of a deeply weathered face the color and texture of ruddy sandstone carved by centuries of water erosion. His mountainous nose swept out and down like an undulating inverted ski slope and, in contrast to the smile, there was a notable downcast to his triangular eyes, the pupils of which resembled pools of liquid onyx. Taken as a whole, his countenance projected a combination of intelligence and humor, infused with a touch of melancholy.

I stood in front of the full-length door mirror and examined the updated version of my body. The growth spurt I remembered from my first life was nearly complete, and the results of my daily weight-lifting sessions were evident in the hardened muscles of my arms and chest. I hadn’t been paying much attention to these changes, and when I took a good look at my face, I was surprised to see a pretty handsome fellow looking back. That Paul-Newman look was beginning to appear in my slightly dimpled chin and downturned eyes. Though there was still a whisper of adolescence in my youthful posture and smile, all-in-all it wasn’t a bad look.

The screen began to show a montage of my solo career, starting in the early days after a couple of my songs had charted, and running through the decades that followed. Seeing the venues change from concert halls to small auditoriums to “intimate” nightclub settings was depressing, but even worse was watching my hair lose its color while my smooth, tanned skin faded to chalky parchment like a decomposing corpse.

Doris:
I’d always thought of Doris as a sort of female version of my dad; an efficient, yet friendly RN whose humorous manner and quick wit kept my fear of needles and other medical procedures at bay until the last possible moment. Now, however, I saw a different version, one that was not only sexually attractive, but whose smile and quirky attitude lent a certain element of intrigue to my childhood image of her as an untouchable adult. When she walked out of the cabana in a tight-fitting bathing suit, the dozen or so young interns tracked her with their eyes until she dived in and disappeared under the water. It was my first detailed look at her unadorned by her nurse’s uniform, and it revealed a body unlike those from my era, where six-pack-abs and lean, athletic figures were considered sexy. No, this was a body from the ‘50s, hourglass shaped, with a narrow waist and beautifully proportioned hips and breasts. When she emerged from the water and shook out her short, blond hair, the boys gathered around her in an embarrassing attempt to outdo one another with their antics.

Ellie:
Ellie, whose intelligence and beauty would one day outshine even her mother’s, was referred to by the gang as “Super Baby,” and no one ever complained about the fact that she spent almost all her waking hours—first crawling, then toddling—around the studio. When she wasn’t on the move, she would sit quietly, watching Jimmy and Sam operate the huge mixdown console, or looking out through the glass partition at the musicians as they played.

“You need to keep a closer eye on Ellie,” Aurélie said. “She’s a beautiful girl, Rix, and I don’t think you’ve noticed how fast she’s growing up. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem were it not for the fact that her intelligence makes her curious about everything, and it won’t be long before her curiosity turns to sex. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that an emotionally immature, sexually ripe virgin rubbing elbows with musicians and famous rock stars will be particularly vulnerable.”

She was right, I hadn’t even begun to think about such things, nor had I paid much attention to Ellie’s physical maturation. But now that I thought about it, there was the growth spurt and the recently appearing breasts. I hadn’t worried about her safety or wellbeing because of her intelligence and logical way of thinking. Plus, she had several dedicated protectors in the studio who’d been looking out for her almost since the day she was born. However, if she decided on her own to do something clandestine, she was so clever that no one would even suspect anything was going on.