“Bullshit. I don’t want drugs.”

I looked back into the bar from the outside street corner on which I stood. “Don’t got none anyway.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

Time. I felt awkward, and I shouldn’t. “You tell me, Mr. MIT. What are we doing here?”

Mr. MIT took something out of his pocket and held it up to the street lamp lights. “Flash memory. Weather changer. It changes the weather.”

“You want a helicopter? Three separate bank accounts? Escorts on Saturday night?”

He was insulted, and put the memory back in his pocket. “You don’t understand. You slot it on a computer, one use only, and it acts as an invisible filter, changes what the user of that computer sees. It’s subtle, and will take something as simple as a weather forecast, and change it by one degree. News of floods, tornados, anything, it manipulates just a little bit. No one ever knows, no one checks, and it doesn’t show up on disk scans. Then it gives variance with time, makes the media reports off in a strange way.”

I understood. “It messes with things. Tell you what, Mr. MIT, you want what’s in my pocket for it?”

“I’m being serious.”

“I’ve got a phone number in my pocket. Don’t know who’s phone number it is.”

Mr. MIT starts to walk away.

“Look, are you really from MIT?”

“You bet your ass.”

“I was a drama major. Sucked at math. But I know something about how things work in movies, and that got me through school. Want to hear it? It goes like this. Everything is comedy, a heroic, or tragedy. But few people know what is at the center of those three things.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Then why are you standing here? Sure, plots are different, but what makes them work is exactly the same. Write this down, MIT man, if you’ve got a pen. The promise of power. That’s the trip.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The promise of power. You take a what if, and let people make a choice, be it action adventure, comedy, whatever. Sometimes that promise is kept. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you think they will. That’s the story. That’s why people watch tv. Jesus in the desert, Zarathustra on film.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Think about it, and get back to me. There’s a band playing I want to hear inside.”

With Fat Frank squeezed into the passenger seat, Dante slowly angled his red 2002 Ferrari 360 convertible to the curb directly in front of the crowded entrance to Jupiter nightclub. Typical to most swanky clubs and high end restau-bars in Philly, this curb-side real estate was technically a no-parking zone, that is, until an impressively flashy automobile and/or a celebrity pulled up, in which case, the prohibition was waved, for obvious reasons, and Dante clearly demonstrated the upper hand in this instance. The irresistible glamor of the Ferrari, Fat Frank being so physically large yet well-dressed, and the legendary visage of Dante, having just been famously released from prison, all combined to predestine a welcome fit for a mafia prince. The bouncers and doormen at Jupiter nearly slobbered as they waved the parking spot free, opened the Ferrari’s doors, and waved Dante and Frank passed the velvet-roped crowd of overly-made up girls and spiky-haired, fake-tanned guys who were lined up a block long, waiting to get into Jupiter.

“This place is fucking crowded,” Dante murmured to Frank as they descended a wide marble staircase into the club. “And the women are insane.”

Frank nodded, glancing around, his eyes sparkling with childlike wonder. “They sunk a lot of fucking money into this place.” The two arrived at a brass-trimmed oak podium at the bottom of the staircase, where a stunning blond woman announced in a Russian accent, “Good evening, Mister Dante. We have a table for you in our VIP lounge, if you would like to follow me.”

A tall African-American man in a dark suit and tie led the woman into the club. Dante and Frank followed her, trailed by a beefy tanned Italian, also in a dark suit. The five of them strutted in procession along a white runway that ran the length of the sprawling subterranean club, white spotlights imbedded in its floor, creating the effect of an airport landing pad. “When I Grow Up” by The Pussycat Dolls blared from the house sound system at an ear-bleed inducing volume. The black security guard stopped, and the Russian woman turned left behind him and smartly ascended a small staircase into a raised, fenced-off section of the club. She sat Dante and Frank at a black lacquered table against a gigantic video wall that pulsated psychedelicly shifting forms of color to the rhythms of the music. The Italian security guy stopped at the entrance of the VIP area, and he and the black man both lingered there at the steps, the two looking precisely like a pair of Secret Service agents guarding a head of state. As Dante and Frank settled into their seats, the Russian woman bent over at the waist, practically spilling her generous cleavage onto the table, and shouted over the music, “What would you like from the bar?”

Dante looked up at her and shouted, “Bring us two Courvoisiers, and Tino Minelli.”

The Russian woman tilted her head sideways, “Pardon?”

“Tino Minelli. Is he here?”

She straightened up and looked around, “Yes, Tino is around here somewhere.”

Dante beckoned to her, she bent back down, and he called out, “Find Tino and tell him I would like to have a word with him.” The woman nodded and strutted off.

“I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry was now thundering over the sound system. Fat Frank nodded his large head to the plodding electronic beat, gazing around at the swarming eye-candy of skin-baring women and trendy men, all glowing and glistening under unimaginably high-tech lighting that seemed to emit from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. A lithe, tanned Asian woman wearing skin-tight black bell-bottomed pants and a tiny black tank top sashayed between the two Secret Service agents and up into the VIP area, deftly balancing a serving tray adorned with a pair of brandy snifters the size of grapefruit melons, each half-filled with glowing amber liquid. As she set them on the table in front of Dante and Frank, a short, wiry man, head shaved, dressed in black, walked up into the VIP area and held out his arms, yelling, “There he is!” with a toothy smile spread wide across his angular face.

Dante nonchalantly waved him over, and Tino Minelli sat with them at the table. Dante waved a hand toward the gyrating masses on the crowded dance floor and called out, “You got a nice thing going here, Tino.”

“Forget about that, Ricky. You’re out! And you look great! It’s great to have you back, pisan!”

Dante affectionately grabbed Tino’s arm and squeezed it down against the table. “Thanks, Tino. Really, coming from you, that really warms my heart.”

“I trust we’re treating you okay here, Ricky?”

“Oh, yeah, Tino. I’m having a great time already.”

Tino looked down at his arm. Dante was not letting go of it. Tino tried pulling it away, but Dante gripped it like a vise. Tino patted at Dante’s hand, the one gripping his arm, and shouted over the music, “I want you to feel comfortable here. Seriously, Ricky.”

Dante glared back at him, “Seriously, Tino.” With his free hand, Dante pulled a slim metallic silver ink pen from his black suit jacket’s inside pocket, and gripped it in his fist.

Fat Frank looked down at the table, glanced over at the pair of security guys, who were, so far, oblivious to what was happening, and called out, “Not here, Ricky.”

“Shut up, Frank.”

Tino was fixated on the pen in Dante’s hand, which was now, obvious to him, being brandished as a weapon. Beads of sweat sprouted all over the shaved dome of Tino’s head, and he worriedly called out, “Why are you doing this, Ricky?”

A diabolical grin spread across Dante’s face and eyes, “Why am I doing this, Tino? Good fucking question. You know the answer to that.” Dante manipulated the pen so the point was protruding about two inches from inside his clenched fist, and he positioned it low on the table, so it was obscured by Tino’s body from view of the security guys, and aimed toward Tino’s left temple. “Tino, you know me, so if there’s one thing you know you should never do...”

“Ricky, I’m just a peon here. There’s a large group of investors who own this place. They hired that guy. I was out of the loop. Please, Ricky, believe me. We go way back. I would never...”

Dante nodded his head up a notch and Tino went silent. He was sweating more profusely now, looking down at his arm locked to the table by Dante’s left hand, the shimmering point of the silver pen protruding from his right fist. “Got Money” by Lil Wayne was now pumping loudly in the club. Dante called out, “Don’t ever insult my intelligence, Tino.”

Tino shook his head, “I’ll do whatever you want, Ricky, I swear.”

Dante glared at Tino for a moment, then let go of his arm. He slipped the pen back inside his jacket, and patted the side of Tino’s head affectionately. “Okay, Tino, I believe you.” Dante took a sip from the snifter and placed it back on the table. Frank picked his snifter up and took a long sip from it, looking relieved. Dante called out to Tino, “So, where do I find this guy?”

“I’ve got his email address on my computer.”

“His email address? Tino, I can’t find a guy with his email address. Where the fuck does he live?”

“I can try to find out, Ricky.”

Dante slammed his hand on the table, “You don’t try, Tino. You find this motherfucker. I’ll come back here tomorrow night, and you’ll tell me where I can find him. Understand?”

“Yeah, Ricky, I’ll get right on it.”

“What’s his name?”

“Julian. Julian Breton.”

“Brey-tahn,” Dante sarcastically repeated. “Sounds like a faggy French name. Is the guy a foreigner?”

Tino shook his head, “Julian? No, he’s from around here. Southwest Philly, I’m pretty sure.”

Dante blinked a few times, cocking his head slightly. “Are you fucking kidding me? What does he look like?”

“Black dude. Tall. Weird eyes. Really bright, green eyes. Never seen eyes like that on a black guy before.”

Fat Frank glanced at Dante, who seemed kind of dazed all of a sudden. Frank leaned across the table and shouted, “Tino, describe the guy, in detail.”

“I just did!”

Dante leaned way back in his chair, as if gazing up at an imaginary sky, his entire presence seeming removed from its surroundings, as he murmured to himself, “I don’t fucking believe it.”




©2008 Eric Vincent

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Curve Dominant,

I am a liar by nature, by trade and by default, but I am not a bad man. Oh, it’s true that I have had my failings, but all of this had not prepared me for my incarceration in the walls of Bedlam. A pox hung on this place in the form of persistent low-lying clouds which blotted out the sun, to say nothing of the iron grillwork of the windows which laid the sky into cold, square sections forever out of reach. But my life had not always been thus and even as I related my story to my friend, who sat in the corner with one eye fixed against a telescope he had brought in, I knew that the rare gleam in my eye, sparkling as any minted coin, assured all around me that I, Sir Tomas Rakewell did not in fact belong in confines such as these.

Yet we must take our lot in life, pony up and pay our ante though I have always been loathe to do so. Here in the dark gallery waiting for the sun to unsheathe and filter in, amidst the lunatics and hysterics, I think often upon more respectable times. They began with the death of my father, a mere few years ago.

quote:

......

©2008 Eric Vincent

Wow, Curve, that was some great stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by shake:

quote:

......

©2008 Eric Vincent

Wow, Curve, that was some great stuff.

Thanks, Shake. It's one chapter of a yet-to-be-published 200-page novel called "Ejector Seat," which I'm putting the finishing touches on.

A brief synopsis is on my website.

-Eric

Thanks, I'll check it out.

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK

It got louder as Tristan Boumann trod further up the stairs and closer to the third floor. The stairwell was drenched in noonday sun that blazed through plate glass windows which walled off the Broad Street side of the large rehabbed industrial building at the corner of Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia. The Sato Dance Arts studios were headquartered here, on the fourth floor. On the third floor, Yukio Sato’s older brother Seiko operated a Japanese martial arts studio called Seiko Sato Kendo. Seiko also was Sato Dance Arts’ business manager, and he generally looked after his younger brother and the dance students.

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK

A few steps from the third floor now, the volume of the whacking sound spilled loudly into the concrete and glass stairwell. Boumann dabbed at the sweat on his forehead with the short sleeves of his heather-gray polo shirt. The plate glass windows seemed to amplify the sunlight and singe his skin like he was a bug under a magnifying glass.

Boumann was feeling sleep deprived. Lisa had spent the night with him, something she hadn’t done in almost a year. They didn’t sleep much. In the morning, Boumann diced some crimini mushrooms and chopped up some baby spinach leaves and cooked Lisa an omelet sprinkled with grated Gruyere cheese. She sat eating at his kitchen counter wearing nothing but a t-shirt he lent her, cooing over every bite, while Boumann ground some La Colombe coffee beans and fixed her an espresso. When she was finished, she said, “I have to use your shower again. I can’t go out like this, smelling like sex.”

“Go ahead, and I’ll shower after you.” Lisa peeled off the t-shirt and walked naked over to Boumann. They kissed for a bit, then Boumann said, “How much time do you have?”

“Why, lover? Are you still hungry?” She led him back to his futon, and it was another hour and a half before they finally left his studio, and he walked here to Broad and Washington to deliver new music for Yukio Sato’s upcoming show.

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK

Boumann hadn’t planned on an encounter with Seiko, but as he walked by the door to the martial arts studio, Seiko seemed to be sensing his approach, and was staring at the open doorway as Boumann passed. Boumann glanced in out of curiosity. Seiko was standing several yards inside, staring at the doorway, and caught Boumann’s eyes like a laser. He reached his arm up and beckoned Boumann inside with the back of his hand in a characteristically economic gesture.

Muscular, clean-shaven and deeply tanned, Seiko sported a military buzz-cut. He wore a tight and immaculately white short-sleeved golf shirt tucked into a pair of tight black sweatpants, and plain white Adidas sneakers with black stripes. He stood perfectly erect, not stiff, but impeccably balanced in his poise. As Boumann approached him, he marveled at what a contrast Seiko was to his pale, hairy, disheveled and emaciated younger brother Yukio.

In the middle of the large hardwood-floored studio space, two men were attacking each other methodically with large white bamboo swords. They each wore white face-masked helmets and padded white vests. On a bench in the back of the room sat two young men in identical garb, but they had their helmets off, and were visibly perspiring. As Boumann walked over and stood next to Seiko, one of the young men on the bench put his helmet on and stood up, brandishing his own bamboo sword. Seiko looked at his watch for a moment, and barked, “HEI!” in a short, sharp and loud baritone chest voice that reverberated through the studio. The two jousting men stopped abruptly, one of them walked to the bench, and the new student walked to the middle of the studio. The man who remained on the floor faced off against the new guy, and again Seiko called out, “HEI!”

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK…they went at each other. This was Seiko’s Saturday morning Kendo class. Kendo is the ancient sport of Japanese fencing. Seiko is the only teacher of it in Philadelphia, and he teaches it to only a small, elite group of students.

“Tristan. The man who remained on the floor. Do you know who he is?”

“No, who is he, Seiko?”

“Timothy O’Dowd.”

“Police Commissioner O’Dowd?”

“Yes. He’s fifty-two years old, and those other three students cannot keep up with him. And they are all about half his age.”

“Sheisse!”

Seiko nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Tough old Irishman.”

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK…

“You have business with my brother Yukio today?”

Boumann patted his black shoulder bag. “New music.”

“Good. Our family appreciates the work you’ve done for us. Yukio’s troupe has gotten a lot of attention since you two started working together.”

Our family…

Boumann was taken aback a little. He’d never thought of it in that context before. It had all started with Yukio and Boumann hanging out in bars together, back when Yukio was running a tiny dance studio out of a rented back room of a small theater, and Boumann was playing electric guitar in dive bars with impromptu ensembles while supporting himself as a short order cook. One night, the two were getting drunk at a dark, dingy bar Boumann had just got done making noise at, when Yukio suddenly declared, “You should write some music for me, to choreograph to.”

“But I don’t write music, Yukio. I’m self-taught. I don’t know what I’m doing when I play.”

Yukio grinned mischievously, pointing his index finger up at Boumann. “That’s what would be cool about it.” He flipped his long black hair away from his face. “I can’t stand the music that comes from academies. It’s so fucking boring. Everybody does that. I want to be different.”

“Yukio, if I write music for you, and you choreograph a dance piece to it, it will be different, trust me.”

In the following weeks, Boumann produced a recording of a noisy, cubist, vaguely Asiatic-sounding instrumental piece. Yukio choreographed his team of eight dancers to it, and staged it at a large theater festival. Rave reviews for the piece appeared in the local press. Suddenly, the two were the “it-boys” of the Philadelphia modern dance scene, to the point that even the stars of established ballet companies were appearing at the performances, and hanging out with them at the after-parties.

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK… Commissioner O’Dowd was now tearing into his fresh new opponent.

Yukio and Boumann went on to collaborate on several more long-form modern dance pieces. The theaters got bigger, the press coverage went national, and the after-parties became more star-studded. Grants for Sato Dance Arts flooded in. Boumann started getting lots of soundtrack work, something, it turned out, he had a knack for. The Satos bought these big new studios at Broad and Washington, and Boumann bought his first ProTools system.

Our family…

At a party following one especially spectacular standing-room only performance, Boumann and Yukio were drinking together, and Boumann shared something that had been on his mind since the day they had met, but had never gotten around to mentioning. “Yukio, you share the same name as my favorite writer.”

Yukio swiveled at Boumann abruptly, nearly spitting his drink out. Then he seemed to almost choke on his drink. That wasn’t the reaction I expected, Boumann thought. I didn’t know what reaction to expect, except something along the lines of, “Oh, really? Who?” Yukio straightened himself up. He actually seemed to sober up in that moment, which seemed a feat, given how intoxicated they had become by that point. He then glared very seriously at Boumann.

“Continue, Tristan.”

“Yukio Mishima.”

Yukio was still locked in his gaze into Boumann’s eyes. “Tell me you didn’t know, Tristan.”

Boumann shook his head, intrigued, “I didn’t know what?”

Yukio sipped what was left of his cocktail, placed the empty glass on the table in front of them, placed his palms together, and looked Boumann in his eyes. “Tristan, Yukio Mishima was my great uncle. I am named after him.”

Our family…

WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK…

“HEI!”

Seiko looked at his watch. “It’s twelve o’clock, Mister Commissioner.” Commissioner O’Dowd removed his helmet.

Slapping Seiko on the shoulder and excusing himself, Boumann headed out the door and up the stairs to the Sato Dance Arts studio. Yukio was just wrapping up a rehearsal, and he motioned Boumann to the main studio area. Company dancers and dance students were milling about in tights and tank tops, and were sprawled around on the floors, stretching their bodies. Most of the women were spectacular looking. Boumann tried not to stare at them. He met Yukio by a corner of the hardwood-floored rehearsal room, where an elaborate sound system was situated. Large nightclub-sized PA speakers hung high in the corners of the studio. Yukio liked his music loud. Boumann slumped into an old wooden classroom chair that was sitting by the sound system and pulled a CD from his bag, handing it to Yukio, who slipped it into the CD player, and pressed play.

A low-pitched, surreally warping sound flooded the large space. It was a recording of cellos, played in reverse. Yukio immediately smiled and spun around to the middle of the studio, looking up at the speakers. Harsh intermittent static cut in rhythmically. A steady tribal beat gradually faded in. Yukio started tapping his foot, his arms folded in front of him, one hand at his chin, his head nodding in rhythm. An ominous violin melody began weaving its way in and out of the bizarrely contrasting background elements. Yukio looked across at Boumann and called out, “This is cool, buddy,” then looked back up at the speakers. After a few minutes, the violin melody began breaking off into counterpoint melodies. The backwards cellos abruptly switched from legato to staccato, and the beat became weirdly syncopated. Yukio suddenly appeared disoriented, frozen, staring at the CD player. “What the fuck just happened?”

Boumann put his face in his hands.

Yukio stalked toward the CD player. “Did the CD skip?”

“No, Yukio, it’s the beat. It’s called a broken beat.”

Yukio stopped the CD and pressed the backwards search button. The music squealed in reverse for a few seconds, then Yukio let it play again. The broken beat came back. “What the fuck, Tristan? Are you fucking with me?” Yukio was yelling now. “It sounds like a mistake!”

Boumann stood up. “Yukio, I’m not in the mood for this today.”

“I don’t fucking care what you’re in the mood for!” Yukio screamed.

“Stop your fucking yelling, Yukio,” Boumann hollered.

The dancers who had been sprawled stretching on the floors around the two of them were now gathering their things and getting up.

Yukio thrust his finger out at Boumann as a long lock of black hair fell in his face. “You were supposed to bring me MUSIC! THAT IS NOT FUCKING MUSIC!”

“DON’T FUCKING YELL AT ME, YUKIO! I AM NOT GOING TO DO THIS AGAIN! WE ARE NOT GOING TO FUCKING GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN!”

Dancers and students were now streaming for the doorway to the stairwell in exit, some of them glancing back, wide-eyed and terrified.

“I’VE GIVEN MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE FOR THIS, TRISTAN!” Yukio screamed aggressively, violently. “I’VE GIVEN MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE FOR THIS!”

The young girl who was manning the front desk by the entrance shot up, grabbed her handbag, and hustled to the door.

“MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE!”

Boumann now thrust his finger at Yukio, “WILL YOU PLEASE STOP FUCKING SAYING THAT TO ME!”

Seiko appeared at the doorway. “Gengi de’suka?” he calmly yelled out.

“Gengi,” Yukio called out. Then he turned to Seiko and screamed, “GENGI!”

Seiko lingered in the doorway for a few seconds, then turned and disappeared. Yukio and Boumann were now alone in the studio.

“Jesus Christ, Yukio,” Boumann said, wiping his brow. “Was that necessary of you?”

“Me? Me? What is with these broken beats you bring me? I have a show coming up! The advertising is paid for. We bragged in the press release that you’re writing new music for it.” Yukio walked over to him and slumped on the floor. “Tristan, you don’t fucking get it sometimes.”

“You wanted to be different.” Boumann knew from the sound of his own voice that he was being defensive.

Yukio slapped his palm to his forehead and laid back flat on the floor, exasperated. “Yes, different, Tristan. Different, but not impossible. You cannot totally reinvent this stuff all the time. Dancers have to learn this stuff, and their bodies have to move to it.” He sat up suddenly, “I have to teach it to them!” Yukio’s eyes grew wide, as if he just realized that fact. “So, you come to me with music that sounds like it’s from another planet, something that only space aliens could move to, and you hand it to me, seven weeks before a big show, just like that, as if it were so fucking easy. That’s why I get pissed off and start screaming.”

Yukio pulled his knees up to his chest and sat with his arms wrapped around his shins. “It’s not that your music isn’t good, Tristan. Your music is brilliant, and you are brilliant, and I love you like a brother. But you are also stubborn, Tristan. You are a stubborn, stubborn man.”

Boumann put his palms together. “Yukio, I appreciate your honesty. But as long as I am so stubborn, please give me a chance to convince you why you should at least try to use this beat.”

Yukio threw a hand in the air. “Why can’t you just give me a simpler beat?”

“Because that wouldn’t be very stubborn of me, for one thing.” Boumann held out his hand at Yukio. “And for another thing, it would make our stuff that much more like everyone else’s.” Boumann stood up and went to the CD player. “Bear with me here.” He cued the CD back up. “People hear what they see, correct?”

“Explain,” Yukio now looking skeptical but briefly interested.

“When you play this music, you are only hearing it. You are not seeing an event in syncronization with it or to it. So it sounds completely out of context, and our physical universe doesn’t work that way. We experience sounds and visible events together as singular events. For example, when you see a SEPTA bus crash into a tree, you hear the crash and see the smashing bus together as a sight-sound event. So if you’re only hearing a bus engine humming and then hear a crashing sound, it’s going to leave you a little confused at first. Right?” Boumann played the music. “Okay. This beat only sounds confusing at first because you’re not seeing a dance synced to it. But once you do…” the broken beat came in, and Boumann made some minimal arm and body movements to the asymmetric groove, “It makes sense to the audience. Especially when the cycle repeats itself…” Boumann was still moving to the music. “Miles Davis famously stated once, ‘If you make a mistake, repeat it, and it will sound deliberate.’ The same principle will work here.”

Yukio leaped to his feet. “You’re not dancing, you’re conducting.” He reached for the CD player, skipped the music back, and let it play again from the beginning of the broken beat.

Boumann shrugged. “I’m not much of a dancer.” He pointed his finger up, “That’s not the point. You see the effect. You’re seeing something happening in time with this odd beat, and after it cycles once, you can register it.”

Yukio stepped out into the middle of the floor, facing the long wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors that is standard in every dance studio. He started improvising modern dance steps, but got twisted up in the beat. “I don’t know, Tristan. Play it again.” Boumann cued up the beat and let it play, and Yukio began falling into the groove, but faltered again. “Tristan, conduct it again, but just with your hands, like a traditional conductor.”

Boumann re-cued the CD, then stepped over to face Yukio, his hands in the air in front of him.

One – two/AND – pause/AND… One – two/AND – pause/AND…
One – two/AND – pause/AND…One – two/AND – pause/AND…

Yukio fell into the groove, his arms, legs, hips and head slicing the air, now perfectly locked with the asymmetric groove. It was the closest human impersonation of the inside of a Swiss watch Boumann had ever seen. He kept guiding Yukio with his hands while Yukio improvised a few variations on his movements. Boumann called out, “It’s going to switch up in a few measures. The hole in the beat will move back one bar, and the accent will move forward one bar. I’ll guide you through it. Here it comes…”

One – two/UH – AND/pause… One – two/UH – AND/pause…
One – two/UH – AND/pause… One – two/UH – AND/pause…

Yukio fell into the variation without missing a beat. Boumann kept conducting. The music was pumping loud through the speakers. Midday sun screamed through the windows facing Broad Street, drenching the large room in natural light. A cool breeze suddenly swept through an open window and across the hot space. Yukio was now spinning and pivoting across the floor at geometric angles, surgically dissecting the space-time continuum like a vast four-dimensional Kandinsky painting. “The syncopation is going to switch up again…”

“I know,” Yukio called out, and as if by ESP, he knew how and when it would, and his calculated thrashing fell perfectly in sync with the change. “I know you, buddy. You do everything in threes.”

“YEAH BABY!” Boumann hollered out. “YOU GOT IT!”

Yukio found himself positioned at a far wall. He began furiously cutting back to the middle of the room, pounding the floor with his bare feet, arms slicing the air like windmills. As he reached the center of the room, he broke into what appeared to be a cartwheel. Just as his body was perfectly upside down, he froze for a beat, collapsed to the floor, spun around break-dance style for a couple of beats, then shot up high into the air, arms and legs outstretched wide, flying forwards. Boumann stepped back, alarmed by the spectacle of it, the sheer physical danger and abandon. He’d never seen anything like it in Yukio’s dances, or anywhere else. Yukio landed hard on the floor with a loud guttural grunt, knees bent, fists clenched, jet-black hair cascading around his shoulders. He landed precisely on the “one” beat.

Yukio stood up, at ease, putting his hands on his hips. Boumann was shaking his head in amazement. “Damn, dude. That last move was crazy. Can you get your dancers to do that move? Like that?”

Yukio walked to the CD player, nodding, hair in his face, drenched in sweat. “They’ll do it.” He turned the music off. “I’ve got at least three guys and two girls who can do that move. They’re going to do it in unison.” He was still breathing heavily. “We’ve been working on that one.” He leaned one hand on the stretching bar against the wall, his other hand on his waist. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to unveil that move.”

Yukio finally stood up straight, swept his hair back over his shoulders with both hands, and paced around the floor with his hands on his hips. The sound of traffic four floors below on Broad Street crept up through the open windows.

“So, Yukio…”

Yukio turned to Boumann, “Yeah, buddy?”

“Do you think you can use these beats?”

Yukio burst out laughing, and Boumann began laughing with him. Yukio pointed to the speakers. “I’m going to try to use these broken beats of yours.” They both laughed, much harder now. They high-fived, and Yukio hugged Boumann. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“Me too.”

Yukio collapsed on the wooden classroom chair and leaned back on it, stretching his legs out, his face pointed at the ceiling. “Seriously, though…” He swiveled his head toward the CD player. “I know exactly what to do with this new music of yours. This new piece is going to raise the bar.” He sat up in the chair, looking pensive. “The local dance community is going to really hate me for this one.”

“Hey, you’re nobody until somebody hates you.”

Yukio winked and raised his thumb into the air, nodding. “Word.”

“I’m going to let you get back to work.”

“Hey, Tristan…do you have a name for this piece?”

“I was thinking of calling it ‘Searching For Signal.’”

Yukio stared off into space. “Searching For Signal.”

“Does it suck?”

“No, it’s kind of cool. I might use it.”

“It’s yours if you want it. As is the music. Sayonara, mien brudder.”

Yukio reached out his hand and Boumann shook it. “Thanks again, Tristan.”

As Boumann passed the third floor landing going down the stairs, Seiko barked, “Tristan!” Boumann skidded to a halt and doubled back, peeking into the dojo. One young man was sweeping the floors with a wide broom and another was dusting off windowpanes with a cloth rag. Seiko was standing in the middle of the dojo with a clipboard in one hand and beckoning to Boumann with the other. Boumann walked over to him.

“Tristan, I don’t want you and my brother fighting like that in front of the students.”

“I apologize for that, Seiko.”

“I understand you two are artists, and you’re both very passionate.” Seiko pointed upwards, “But that studio is a place of business, and you both must act accordingly.”

Boumann nodded in concurrence, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I will tell Yukio the same, but he should know better.”

“It’s mostly my fault, Seiko.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. He should know better.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“It’s nothing personal, Tristan. Listen, you and my brother can beat each other bloody for all I care. But you must take it outside from now on.” Seiko motioned around the dojo and, smiling, added, “Or do it where there’s nobody around.”




©2008 Eric Vincent

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Curve Dominant,

She plays classical guitar.

Gary was walking quickly, almost not noticing a car that would have hit him as he crossed the street.

It was autumn. The weather had just changed, and autumn weather always had a peculiar affect on Gary. Jack o’ lanterns and all that, kids in costume, sometimes days before actual Halloween.

Someone at work called Halloween the autumn festival, but that was weird because he meant harvest festival by it. Like farmer’s food on long tables and dancing.

She plays classical guitar.

Autumn always made him think too much, and thinking of girls at autumn probably wasn’t wise. Gary was good at messing things up.

A nearby church bell rang. Gary half smiled. It fit the weather, as the wind was starting to now come up.

This felt different than what had turned into his past escapades.

He had seen her twice, both times in the park. She played her guitar, and a couple people walking by would stop, listen, and leave some change in her guitar case.

The first time he just walked past her, pretending not to even notice that she or other people were there.

The second time he paused and listened for a couple minutes. He put his hands in his pockets, realizing he had no money, and walked on.

She could really play. It was just that none of what was happening fit this area of town. People liking what she played, that was special around here.

Odd, but he felt like he was falling in love and getting way ahead of himself.

None of this was a good idea.

What would a person who plays classical guitar be like on the inside? How would you talk?

Gary walked over to the park.

* * *

That is the absolutely craziest thing I have ever seen, a kid thought to himself, as he pedaled away on his bicycle.

Some chick plays guitar while a guy sits on a bunch of newspapers and carves a pumpkin as people stop to give them money.

Can't find the random thread and it's dark out now. The tiny bird in the grass is just a Shrodinger's figment now- bird or meal or somehting small and bent.

Seeds in paper envelopes. Moisture is far away. The drip of h to oh in the sink. Tick tock, keyboard noises. What happened to the IBM selectric? 50 lbs of cold metal, let your paper know you meant business. So, stream of conciousnous would really make noise.

What happened to all those golfball type elements? Earrings? Grinding to dust in the dark backs of metal drawers, I think. Empty warehouses in Flint full of old Steelcase, with spiders building webs.

Nope, not enough sleep, or time to read, so here, here is a post so you know the body is not dead. Maybe the spirit is, but the fingers still type.

Sleep is a concept. Perhaps best to implement without a charted plan. (first, lie down on a soft surface)

700 billion dollars. Where's my cut? Oh, nevermind. The $$$ are all imaginary any way.

quote:

Originally posted by SRu:

...here is a post so you know the body is not dead...

< lusaka tower> Copied! < /lusaka tower>

[hello, SRu]

---

"Why didn't you tell me about the chicken coops, man?"

"The chicken coops?"

"The fucking chicken coops. I heard about the chicken coops."

"Oh, shit man, I didn't know you were interested."

"Of course I was interested. How many times did I write about the goddam chicken coops? It was nothing but fucking chicken coops for months."

"Fuck, you know I don't remember shit like that, man."

"Next time you will tell me about the goddam chicken coops."

"Brother, you ain't gonna be there next time. You gonna be sittin' at home with your wife and drinkin' lattes and all that gay-ass Seattle shit you homos do."

"True. I will be living the alternative Seattle lifestyle. However."

"Dude, if there's ever another chicken coop, I will call your ass."

"You will pick up a phone-"

"Dude, I will call the fuckin' watch and tell them to get hold of your gimp ass-"

"-and they will tell me-"

"-and they will tell your degenerate fuckin' Satan-lovin' ass all there is to know about whatever fuckin' chicken coop I am lookin' at."

"Well, that's all I ask."

"Dude, you are all fucked up."

I am dead and am rotting. There is grass growing up through my bones. People have come to live inside my ribs they weave a thatch among the spars of my sternum and make a temple there. The smoke from a fire threads its way up through the sockets my eyes have left I remember my sisters face, before the end, I could see the outline of her skull there. It was the future.

Her face is there, on the moon and the tiny people inside my bones spy it and give it the name of a God. They worship in the light from her features and make sacrifices to her and they want to last forever but they will not.
Years pass and my bones are yellow and sunk into the ground and the people are there no more but instead are themselves little bones inside me. I know that other creatures will come and see what structures they made of me and will look at the moon with my sister’s face and wonder if their language had a name for her.

I like both of those, Split and Uber.

This is the first draft of this thing. Going to translate this into a script and then video. I wanted to try to visualize some of the things going on behind the scenes in the world and kind of make it a bit more accessible to everyday folks.



Neurofinancer

In the grip of a recurring dream, Jayce saw the neon unfolding origami trick reveal it's coming shape, creasing and folding, a paper airplane. Smoke billowing from two towers, parachutes the color of Visa cards, woven of strands of fine print, and tricks more subtle still. From the black hearts of square pyramids, giant squid burst forth, escape the raging mob in a cloud of shadow economics and CNN apocalypse babble. Below, hordes of mindless zombies, their eyes glazed orbs filled with television, shamble in waves through the streets of New York. They follow the Zombie Master, wrapped in a flag, pointing the way with a cross, as he leads the zombies into a red white and blue factory. Inside, the zombies are chopped, ground and made into wafers the color of money, then piped into the dark pyramids, war machines in distant lands, and into the mouth of the Zombie Master and his cephalopodic brethren. The few remaining humans still with brains intact scream desperately upon deaf zombie ears, plead for them to stop and think, to realize the doom they are blindly stumbling into. But the zombies only groan and eat the brains of the humans, carry their bodies along into the factory. The squids' tentacles strangle Jayce's mother, tear her from the IV in her hospital bed, rip her worthless home off its worthless foundation. They eat her alive as he stands there, doing nothing. Willing his feet to move, his hands to reach out, his vocal chords to scream 'no', her name, something, anything. But his body remains silent. "Eat me, you fuckers!" Ignoring even his attempts to cry.

The city is quarantined; bridges out of the island are mined and walled off, the surrounding waters hum with fatal electricity, radar-armed helicopters circle continuously, and officers with night vision are posted at towers, ordered to shoot on sight anything attempting to escape. Snake Pilskin crawls out of Lady Liberty's empty eye socket, covered in blood, grime and scars. "This is your boom stick, Jayce."

"What do I do with it?"

"One of them tries to eat you? You stick it in their mouth, pull the trigger."

***

Jayce glanced at the red and blue lines of stock and credit markets scrambling like erratic Richter scales on the edge of his heads-up display, tectonic and dire. Surging out of the Myspace sprawl, he could see the silhouette of Wall Street clearly now. Black corporate towers overshadowed by the monstrously inflated pyramids of AIG, Bear Sterns, JP Morgan,
Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Goldman Sachs, taxpayer money gushing in through the hypodermic needles of bailouts like so much heroine as the leviathans shuddered in withdrawal. Below, the mushroom-dust cloud of the Lehman Brothers data structure spreading through the streets, eating money market funds and stifling bystanders in a fog of fraudulent data. Every structure shrouded in miles of ICE, the structures themselves black as an abyss in space, no light escaping, no light reaching the shadow financing within. Cash flow pipelines slithering out from the great black heart of America's financial system, silently sucking on the oblivious population.

ECONOMIC CRISIS! ARMAGEDDON AT HAND! "The fire on Wall Street is going to spread to Main Street if we don't join as one nation and pass this bill. Whether you can stay in your home, pay for your child's college, get health care, even get groceries will be endangered if we don't come together right now and act." The zeppelins of CNN and Fox News in patriotic neon circling the skies like great vultures. Presidential candidates and talking heads declared their bipartisan leadership in time of crisis with one hand as they tossed mud with the other in meaningless soundbytes, cut to lipstick drama.

The scene on the ground was a dystopic sci-fi cult film if low-budget CGI had been around in the early 80's. The streets were flooded with raging avatars, cyber riots had started to break out, cars set on fire with open-source animations, the cheap ray-tracing algorithms bathing the angry faces of the mob with flickering red light the color of discount fake blood. Screams and cries rained in from all directions. "Fuck the fat cats!" "Just say NO to 'No Banker Left Behind'!" "Eat my debt!" "Last time I believed you I lost my left nut in Iraq. Well you can suck my right!" "Impeach the financial terrorists!"

"Shit, man, this looks seriously heavy. Like 28 Days Later or something. What the fuck is going on here, Jayce?" Max said, navigating them through the crowd.

"What's been going on for the last few decades or so, only more apparent now. Just keep our eyes open, it's gonna get dark real soon."

As they neared the outer gate to Wall Street, the Chinese soft transformed their mask into the former CEO of a recently crashed major insurance company, looking to re-invest his multi-million 'goodbye' bonuses. The guard, an FBI avatar complete with bone mic, let them through with a smile that should've come with an orderv.

***

"Mama, we need to talk about the house. You're barely meeting the mortgage payments now and it's only going to go up, we've got to look at options."

"Oh don't worry your sweet little head about that now baby. We're Americans. We put a man on the moon, beat the Russians, we're God's free people. Go on try a slice of mama's apple pie, it's a new recipe I picked up from The View, it'll have you feelin’ right in no time, make you forget all these numbers nonsense."

"Mama, listen to me..."

"Now don't forget to pick up Janie from soccer practice, I got a doctor's appointment this afternoon. They want to take another one of those MRI things where you go in that little space ship and make all these growly rumbly noises, say they want another look at something. Should've eaten my apples I guess. Oh, that reminds me, do you think I could borrow some money for groceries, Jayce? You wouldn't believe the prices their charging nowadays..."

***

Passing into the Wall Street inner sanctum, also known as "Firewall Street", Jayce could've sworn he felt a real cold wash over him. The virtual light of blogosphere colonies behind them at last faded on the horizon as they entered the chasm between two towers. He could make out nothing but darkness, save the digitally engraved signs and heavily guarded gateways, but he felt the ever vigilant stare of defensive AI, lurking somewhere behind one way mirrors.

"Where the hell is everyone? Is this a rich asshole field trip day?" Max asked.

"No, it's quite a busy day on Wall Street. Look."

With concentration, one could see that the fabric of cyberspacetime appeared to be rippling, as though projected onto a canvas in a light wind. Looking closer, discrete entities and streams of information could be discerned passing between the towers, although ultimately unidentifiable.

"Credit default swaps. Derivatives. Unfettered leverage. Insiders."

"Shit. I don't know what the hell that is, but it sounds pretty bad."

"$1,200 trillion in financial turnover per year. Twelve Hundred Trillion. Talk about headfucks, huh? Twelve times the GDP of the fucking world. If you could reach your hand out there and grab just one minute's worth of the money flying around, you could provide health care to every American, get the US off of foreign oil in ten years, and rebuild the majority of the infrastructure in the country. But instead it just goes to buying more houses for people with too many of them. Ultimately it's $44,000 stolen from the pocket of every citizen, every year, to go to the top 0.1% bluest of bloods."

"Wow, that's fuckin' crazy, man. You're sure this is gonna work, right?"

"Sure enough. It's just a heist job: get in, grab some credit, get out. Stealing from the rich. Our employer got us into Google, remember. And we need this, Max. It's reasonable, calculable risk." Jayce saw his mortgage payments and his mother's medical bills skyrocketing in his minds eye.

"Oh my god, Jayce, this has to be bullshit, CNN is saying Washington has just been hit by a DDOS attack and a dirty bomb."

"The fuck." Jayce popped up a window to the live feed.

"Shortly after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's announcement this morning that she was confident the $700 billion dollar bailout had more than enough support to pass this time, Washington DC was simultaneously hit by a radiological dispersal device, or dirty bomb, and a devastating cyber attack that has all communications in the DC area shut down. Experts are sayiing the attack was 'unmistakably coordinated' in order to prevent the vote on the bill from taking place..."

"This is looking seriously fucked up, but we've got to finish the job. All right, we're coming up on it. Let's turn the bullshit box up to a level fit for the American economy."

On their descent to the gateway of the Goldman Sachs tower, their avatar underwent another metamorphosis. Young hotshot-hair thinned to just a grey snapfrost ring from temple to temple, a pair of rimless spectacles snapping in place. The long, hawkish face pulled into a smile, offering credentials for US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson to the automated guard at the entrance to the Goldman Sachs building.

"Holy deregulations, Batman, we're Mr. Hanky Panky Paulson himself! I saw him on Leno the other night. He's the... Secretary of the Treasures or something right? In charge of the US finances."

"Yeah. And oh, it gets better. 'Secretary Paulson' is here to 'oversee' the $700 billion bail out of Goldman Sachs, the very bank that he was CEO of until his appointment by Bush as Treasury Secretary."

The guard's Hal-like eye glowed green, reinforced doors sliding open as it rolled aside.
"Welcome back, Mr. Paulson. It has been twenty two hours since your last visit to Goldman Sachs."
Jayce exhaled. Already, they had gotten further than any regulatory entity had been in years, thanks to the chainsawing of market regulations by congress during the Bush reign, and Paulson sitting on his hands throughout the sub-prime mortgage crisis to the present one.

Max punched them forward, smooth and calm, even the gait and tie adjustments of an uber-suit rendered with world-class effects-house precision. Ambient effects reverberated footsteps Cathedral-like down the cyclopean hall, polished real wood floor rendered to the last millimeter of grain that Jayce wished he could steal for his overpriced prefab shit hole. Gold-ensconced portraits of wrinkly pink faces lined the throne room, a long procession of bastardhood feu