The only thing that could possibly improve the following Boy Scout romp from years ago is to hear a personal telling from Vince in his booming baritone voice and fried-chicken like southern drawl. What follows is a light and fun read that you just may want to share with your kids.

Fearful Camping Trip

By Vince Allen

There are many times in life that are very frightening when they are happening in real-time but those same events can seem downright funny when you look back on them years afterward. As a youngster one of those scary nights happened to me and a friend of mine named David Bragg. David and I were the senior members of our Boy Scout Troop 650 from Midway United Methodist Church and because of our senior status we had a tendency to overestimate our wilderness prowess. That dangerous practice came to fruition one night when one of us had our personal space violated by a reptile, the campfire got out of control, and some local farm dogs decided that we were trespassing in their territory.

The weekend started out in the usual way with the Friday afternoon bus ride home from Douglas County High School with everybody’s spirits high and the different groups of friends laughing and making plans with each other for the upcoming weekend. The weather forecast was a good one and even though there was still a profound chill in the air at night because of the time of the year that only made it better for being outside, in the woods, being around a campfire with your friends.

My friend David and I decided that we would strike out as soon as we could after our Saturday chores were finished. So with our chores done and our gear properly packed according to our Boy Scout standards we set off down the gravel country road near our house in search of adventure.

Unlike most organized camping trips we did not have a particular destination predetermined, rather we had decided to just walk out into the country and find a good camping spot we had never seen before. As the old saying goes, “some things are easier said than done”, that proved to be the case for us that afternoon while trying to find a good camp site. Our enthusiasm for adventure carried us down that country road for many miles in search of the perfect camping spot only there just was not one to be found.

As the shadows started to lengthen we decided that we would settle for the next isolated spot that we could find away from any of the houses which had proven to be much more numerous on this road than either of us remembered. Finally we came to a spot in the road that was not close to anybody’s house and was heavily wooded with a new growth of young pine trees as if the property had been logged several years ago and new trees planted to replace them. The trees would provide great cover so that our campfire would not be visible from the road, which was a requirement for the spot since we did not have anybody’s formal permission to be there. Perhaps that minor violation of the Scout code was a contributing factor for the things that happened later that night.

We rested for a short time, drank some water from our canteens, and then began in earnest to clear us a good camping site without doing any damage to the property or the trees. The ground was covered in a thick carpet of pine straw from the trees and so in order to have a campfire we had to clear out all of the burnable material from a ten foot radius from the fire. We raked the pine straw outward from the center of the campsite until we had a ring that well exceeded the ten foot rule and we decided that surplus pine straw would make for a nice soft pad beneath our sleeping bags so we unrolled our bags on top these newly constructed wilderness beds and finished setting up the camp.

By the time we had finished preparing and consuming the evening meal it was dark and we were both pretty tired but having a good time being outside. The chill in the night air was kept at bay by our campfire and we were lounging on top of our sleeping bags talking about the things that had happened at school that week, our girl friends, our parents, and a variety of other topics.

Suddenly my friend’s eyes got very big and he had a strange, scared look on his face. He looked over at me and said, “I think that a snake just crawled up my pants leg.”

At first I thought he was joking but it soon became apparent that he was not. We feared that it could have been a Copperhead because they were fairly common in our area but since neither one of us could see it and David was too scared to move we really could not tell what it was. We knew it was reptilian because he said it felt cold and slim and was wriggling it way up his pants leg.

I urged him not to move as that might provoke a bite. I took off my belt and tied it snugly around his leg just above the knee so that whatever it was could not get too far up his pants while he struggled mightily not to move a muscle. A snake bite on the calf or shin could be survived if treated properly but if he was bitten in the groin that would be the worst possible thing because of the major arteries there.

My hope was that if the snake could not get very far up the leg that it would lose interest and crawl out in search of food after searching and not finding any inside my friend’s pants. I was scared for my friend and felt nearly helpless because anything that I might try could easily provoke a bite. My friend was terrified but he was also very brave to remain still for what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like two or three hours.

Finally the stress and anxiety was just too much for him and he screamed, “I can’t stand this anymore!”, and he jumped quickly to his feet and started stamping his foot and shaking his leg to try and get the snake to fall out.

Just a few seconds later a very large salamander lizard fell out of his pants leg onto the ground and quickly wriggled back under the pile of pine straw that was around the camp from our early campsite clearing efforts. We were relieved and very grateful that the snake had turned out to be a harmless salamander but it still scared us almost to tears the situation was so tense and stressful while it was happening.

Little did we know when we settled down to try and sleep later that night that the snake in the pants scare was not the only surprise that this camping trip had in store for us. After reliving the salamander incident and talking about it several times we drifted off to sleep as the campfire was getting low and the sky was filled with stars. Several hours later, I must have gotten too warm inside the sleeping bag because I had turned down the top corner and had my arm outside the bag.

As I rolled over my arm fell onto the pine straw beneath my sleeping bag and something burned my hand. I woke up to find that we were in the middle of a brush fire! Somehow the pine straw had been ignited by the campfire and now the safety ring of straw around the camp was literally a ring of fire. All of the pine straw in the campsite had already burned except for the straw that was directly beneath our sleeping bags, and by some miracle that straw had not ignited.

I shouted and woke up my friend David and we went to work in our attempt to put out the fire. We knew that if we could not get it put out quickly that it would get out of control in the pine straw and could severely damage the property and the wildlife that lived there. We did not have enough water to use to combat the fire so we stamped out the fire on ground with our feet except for the largest flames which we used out sleeping bags to smother them. So there we stood in the middle of our burned out campsite, sleeping bags ruined, and afraid that the fire and our shouting may have been heard or seen from somebody on the road.

With our nerves badly shaken from waking up in the middle of a brush fire that we had caused the decision to abandon the camp site and head for home was an easy one. Once we made certain that the fire was out for good, we rolled up our burned sleeping bags, packed the rest of our gear, and decided to walk back home even if it was the middle of the night.

Our packs seemed to be substantially heavier when we started walking back up the country road away from the burned campsite than they had been when we confidently walked that way earlier in the day. We were tired from the stress and the lack of sleep but that soon became the least of our worries. Apparently several of the homes that we had passed on the walk during the day had large, mean, dogs that they let out at night to guard their houses and property. We knew that we were in trouble when first one started barking, then another and then even more. Now we are standing in the middle of a dark, gravel road surrounded by no fewer than five angry dogs barking, growling, and even coming close to us and snapping at our legs.

David and I quickly got into a defensive position by instinct, almost as if we had been trained to do it. We got back to back and used our hiking sticks to fend off the dogs when they would get too close or try to bite us. Soon we figured out that getting out of there as quickly as we could manage would be the best thing for us, but we could not turn and run or the pack would have taken hunks out of our backsides as we ran down the road.

So we stayed back to back and began walking and swinging our walking sticks at the dogs who continued to follow us for what seemed like a very long time. We were very relieved when at long last we reached the end of what must have been the pack’s territory because they stopped following us and turned and headed back toward the house where they lived.

Both David and I were very glad to see our homes again early that morning when it was just barely starting to get daylight. We had been scared by a reptile, awakened in the middle of a fire, and attacked by a pack of dogs all on the same ill-founded camping trip. I recently found my friend David on a social website after being out of touch for over thirty- five years and the scary camping trip had remained one of his favorite stories and he too has been telling it for years.

Although I still and will always love camping, the lessons David and I learned on that fateful night have remained with both of us for years.

Editor’s note: Simon Tech  practices science by day and writing by night. Writing satire is his favorite form of composition. It is like setting a trap for human folly.

Tax Cuts and the Universe

By Simon Tech

A catastrophic tidal wave bearing down on the Pacific coast was vanquished by the quick passage of a tax cut engineered by the Republican leadership. In a move that short-circuited a Democratic filibuster, the minority party pushed the bill through, just as the mile high monster wave was about to crash over populated areas along the coastal rim. Republicans scolded their Democratic counterparts for standing in the way of responsible hydro-fiscal policies.

Tremors in the Bay Area subsided after the Democratic controlled Congress caved in to Republican charges of profligate spending. In a hastily called special session, the minority party oversaw the passage of a tax attenuation bill designed to fiscally neutralize the seismographic activity. Aftershocks, registering at 5.5 on the Richter scale, subsided within seconds of enactment.

A killer asteroid bearing down on the American heartland was pulverized in the nick of time by the legislative acumen of the out-of-power Republican Party. The maneuvering, intended to bring the Democratic Party back to reason, included a nationally televised 3D projection of the fire-breathing cosmic aggressor. The Democratic Party swiftly renounced all future attempts to use the tax code for the purpose of social engineering. The bill was unanimously passed and signed into law by a grateful president. Upon enactment the fiscal warhead promptly shattered the onrushing colossus into harmless dust.

Pope Benedict XVI last week delivered his most definitive statement and apology for the sex scandal that has been plaguing the Roman Catholic Church for the better part of  the last decade. Standing before thousands of priests in St. Peter’s Square on Friday, the Pope begged forgiveness and was quoted  by the New York Times as saying he would do “everything possible” to prevent priests from abusing children.

Bishopaccountability.org, a U.S. based organization that documents the abuse crisis in the Church called the Pope’s  remarks a squandered opportunity and asked for the Holy Father to “endorse and facilitate certain external measures that would increase transparency and advance justice,” including posting all abuse cases handled by the Vatican on the Vatican Web site and ordering “his bishops to cooperate fully with secular investigations, not oppose them.”

In revealing a new detailed explanation of the forces at work behind the scandal, the Pope said the Devil was behind the scandal, saying it had emerged now, in the middle of the Vatican’s Year of the Priest, because “the enemy,” or the Devil, wants to see “God driven out of the world.”

The Pope,  rumored to be a  huge fan of the late comedian, Flip Wilson, was reported to have been watching the “Best of” the comic’s 70s variety series just before making his “Devil made them do it” statements. One report also indicates Wilson’s Grammy award winning comedy album, The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress is a favorite in the Pope-mobile CD player.

This reporter’s repeated attempts at reaching the Devil for comment have as yet gone unanswered.

Editor’s note: Anthony Venutolo knows a thing or two about the printed word. An editor for a Pulitzer prize  winning daily newspaper, Ant writes to a different beat when he’s off his day job and penning for his growing following at the Basement.  Bukowski’s Basement that is. A master at the feel and rhythm of a not-so-bygone era, Ant weaves the kind of tales that conjure up  imagery of tough guys and even tougher dames who were routinely sideways with  the law, convention and main-stream ways.

Today he asks some very serious questions. This piece originally ran at Anthony’s blog.

WILL APPLE BURN OUR BOOKS?

By Anthony Venutolo

As writers (and creators) should we be afraid of Apple? While that may sound a tad melodramatic, it’s not that ridiculous of a question.
No doubt the iPod, iPhone and now, iPad all have been media game changers but does that give the company the right to take an aggressive stand as what type of content is appropriate for the devices.

OK, so CEO Steve Jobs (pictured) has said that his gadgets offer customers “freedom from porn.” That’s one thing. Porn is porn and there are lots of places to get it.

But there seems to be some grey areas when it comes to the company’s mission. When the the iPad went on sale earlier this Spring, Apple ordered European mags to cover the scantily clad models for their app editions. Is this censorship?

They also cracked down on certain dictionary apps that contained words deemed “objectionable.” Again, censorship?

What’s more, Apple also put the kibosh on a Pulitzer-Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. They have since rescinded the rejection once major media outlets cuaght wind — something that they are doing more and more and as a result, Apple been doing more and more backpedaling.

My biggest WTF moment happened when I saw that Apple removed the cigarette from the “Mad Men” logo branding on it’s iTunes page. Anyone who has seen the show knows that in the 1960s, cigarettes were a prevalent social convention and practically plays as a character on the show. Apple has since rebranded the page with the cigarette.

Still, the biggest cause for concern as far as writers and creators are concerned happened just this past week. Apple cried foul with the iPad version of “Ulysses Seen,” a webcomic version of James Joyce’s classic novel “Ulysses.” The company said it featured too much nudity. They also questioned an app edition of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” which pixillated a series of comic panels that featured two men kissing. While not my bag, they can’t mess with art.

And yup, then the proverbial backpedal came.

Both bans were reversed after considerable media outcry (Yet another reason the shrinking and fledgling Fourth Estate is needed now more than ever).

While most in publishing (newspaper and books especially) are quick to embrace these new forms of media, we, as writers also have to be aware that companies like Apple may be “policing” too much.

It’s one thing to oversee strict guidelines over quality control with regard to apps and such. It’s quite another to restrict creators from their creativity and alter their art.

While we are embarking on a new age of media and communication, as scribes we should also be concerned and aware.

Keep the words alive. At all costs.

By Suzanne Palmieri

I love online social networking. Maybe it’s because, though I come off as personable, I don’t like people. Peculiar? Not so much. I’m a sociologist and a writer. Both of these professions require a good amount of people phobia.

So of course there’s Facebook— the adult Myspace (though teens are finding Facebook and if it weren’t for Farmville and stalking old lovers, we grown-ups would all surely leave– right? Whatever.) And there’s blogging, and youtube. So many ways to wile away the hours of our lives. But Twitter? Until recently I just didn’t get it.

What’s the big deal? You post your status and then other people react or don’t react. Yawn, right? Wrong, apparently. Twitter has become a platform from which the most amazing things (both good and evil) can spring.  I mean, we’re treading dangerous territory when Ashton Kutcher’s tweets make national news. Sometimes I think Twitter was a concept thought up by smart, angry, nerd elves who wanted to play a joke on the world.  And look, we all fell for it.

The thing is, it really all depends on why you’re there. And it’s definitely a there, a place, believe me. Sometimes I think of it as a large room, like an emptied out dining hall at Yale or some other university, where everyone is meandering about holding a plastic milk crate in one hand and a bullhorn in the other. Every once in a while someone puts down their crate stands on top of it and yells 140 characters or less out through the bullhorn.  Then comes the still. The quiet wait for a response. If they’ve caught someone’s attention that person will stand on their own milk crate and yell back.  If it’s a catchy, witty little sentence many people take to their crates and voila! You’re a success! Or in the best case scenario you get an RT (or re-tweet) or even your very own # (or hash mark) which means you’ve become a trending topic.

But usually your tweet goes unnoticed, so you stand there and everyone walks on by, and you have to get down off your crate and keep milling around waiting for the next stroke of genius to hit you. OR you might get tapped on the shoulder by a fellow twit who will make a comment about your statement privately. That’s called a DM (or direct message) and can only be done if you are mutual followers.

The thing is, what you say out there is heard. And sometimes it shouldn’t be. For example, there are many aspiring authors who’ve fallen prey to the social networking dichotomy. I’m one of them. We are told we need a web presence, so we get one. And we’re writers, right? How hard can it be to throw out a good sentence a few times a day? Well, it’s NOT hard. That’s the easy part. The tough part is what happens while you network.

Editors and literary agents tweet too. And you can follow them and listen in on all of their conversations.

At first, it’s charming! Delightful, even, to hear those you admire come in through the static of nothingness and talk about their kids and spouses, friends and lunches. And sometimes you’re brave, and you reply…. And sometimes they reply back and even (OMG) follow you!

Addiction ensues. You race through your day typing 140 characters, thinking about other people’s 140 characters, listening to stories about how 140 characters change the lives of authors you know. How they tweeted and agents contacted them because their tweets were funny and asked for a rough draft of “whatever” the writer was working on. Or the dramatic events that unfold as an agent who knows they’re about to sign a follower teases them and all of twitterverse by dropping little hints here and there about their potential new client.

Slowly the hell of it all sinks in. As the green eyed monster grows, the bull horn gets heavy, the crate pinches your fingers. And then you start to notice that no one is working, that they’re all at lunch or posting blogs or … or…  tweeting! All freaking day. Because you’re not working any more either, you’re tweeting. And  it’s  become intertwined with who and what you are.

@twit Kidlet one in bath saying funny things.

@twit Can’t crack open these freaking walnuts!

@twit People smell in the elevator.

@twit Hide and seek NOT so clever with 1yearold.

@twit All that glitters is not god

@twit Gold. * Grimaces *

And then you find yourself waiting to hear back from editors, agents, literary magazines, etc and as you wait, tearing your hair out and eating nothing but Cherry Garcia ice cream, they are tweeting about how they just finished reading everything and how hard it was and “phew!” they’re done! But. Wait! Hello? My inbox is empty.

Fu@kers.  Stop tweeting and start paying attention. (I’m still tweeting. Do I have to stop? I suppose it’s hypocritical, right?) Fu#k. Okay I’ll stop if you stop. I can’t stop.

So I get fed up and throw down my milk crate, and scream sarcastically into my bullhorn.  (When did this story become first person?)

@twit if there are any literary agents interested in social media addiction, contact me!

Four seconds later.

DM in my inbox. From a literary agent.

Dear @twit,

It depends on the tone of the book. Why not send me a query?

Really? REALLY!!!!!!!!! You’re F@#*ing kidding me, right?

That’s a true story. Holy crap.

So, to keep myself sane, I’ve come up with a term for all of us. (Excluding, of course, the poets and writers and tweeters who are innocently throwing their beautiful words into the twitterverse for the sheer love of the written word)  The rest of us? We’ve all become Twitterfu#@rs. Now, Let the Twitterfu#@ing begin. Long live Twitterfu@#ing.

L.A. Mujahedin

By Andreas Sundgren

It’s the first week of July 2005. I’m a traveling salesman in LA. In a few days four bombs will detonate in the London underground killing 52 people making it even harder to get through security going back home than it was getting here. Because of the actions of individuals and governments in preceding years the Western world is setting up a new curtain less than a decade after the last one fell. You would think, seeing events unfold, that the world is dividing itself into islands of culture and that complete separation is inevitable. That is until you find yourself in California.

On the furthermost stretch of Ventura, in Calabasas, where it crosses Topanga Canyon Road I hail a cab. The driver is shouting loudly into his cell phone as he picks me up. The language is not immediately recognizable and I start flipping through my head to make at least an educated guess. Then it hits me and I ask him,

”Where are you from?”

”Afghanistan.”

”I’m reading a novel about Afghanistan.”

”Yeah? What’s it called?”

”The Kite Runner”

”The Kite Runner?”

”Yes, The Kite Runner. You know like a kite that flies.”

The guy looks at me in the rear view mirror like I’m out of my mind all the while cruising in high speed left and right between the cars on Ventura on death defying autopilot.

”Ah, what’s it about?”

”It’s about two boys growing up in Kabul before the revolution and the war.”

”What’s the name of the writer?”

He speaks perfect American English.

”Khalid, Khalid…” I can’t remember the name. He interrupts me.

”Have you heard of the Mujahedin?”

”Yes, why?”

”I was in the Mujahedin. I was a warrior. For four years.”

My head is instantly filled with images of serious, skinny, bearded men on gray mountainsides wearing gray turbans, gray shawls and gray kameez smoking and carrying dusty gray AK-47s and ground to air missiles. These are the men currently designated the most serious threat to western civilization. Apparently they drive LA cabs too.

”Must’ve been awful.” I blurt out, struggling to find a way between curiosity and the politically correct. ”The war I mean, the Soviet invasion…” He cuts me off.

”The best fucking four years of my life. When you have a machine gun you’re never afraid of anything or anyone.”

Getting back to the original subject he asks,

”So what’s the book about?”

”Well, after the revolution one of the boys and his father goes to America where the boy grows up and marries. The boy that stays behind in Afghanistan eventually gets killed. I think the story is about the boy that moves to America as he tries to find himself and his quest for…”

I haven’t finished the novel and yet I try to explain the plot, the chronology of it, how as I understand, it describes the segregation between different ethnic groups in the native country as well as after the US asylum. How the segregation becomes even more pronounced when taken out of geographical and cultural context. Of course I fail miserably. But I don’t have to worry. Once again reality trumps my feeble attempt at formulation because in the middle of it the cab driver cuts me off again and, knowingly or unknowingly, summarizes it for me.

”Where in America?”

”What?”

”To where in America does this boy move?”

”To San Francisco.”

”San Francisco? Only bad people went there. Those people will sell anything for money, their own grandmother. You get good and bad people in all countries you know. You can never really say that one whole people is like this or like that. All people are different persons. You know?”

I’m silenced by the overwhelming array of questions I should be asking this man. Like why is he here? How true is his reality in relation to that described by the book? Why is it that we never hear about the underlying issues of class and race that play into the endless conflict when we hear of his country? I also want to say how sad I am that I will never in my lifetime be able to travel freely in this fairytale country of his because I, being Caucasian with a very pronounced American accent and as a consequence of the actions of other men, would probably be marked there from the moment I took my first step on Afghan soil.

In the span of a cab ride however, there is not enough time. That’s the difference between a traveling sales man and a real reporter I guess. The ability to seize that moment to ask the right questions and say the right things.

He turns into the driveway of the Calabasas Country Inn. He stops smoothly, I pay him, tip him, say goodbye and off into the night rolls the LA Mujahedin.

Cutting Dialogue

By Marc Nash

Be it my novel or peer review site postings, a constant question has been asked of me: “why is there next to no dialogue in your prose?” Talking is one of the main things we do as humans. Conversing. Communicating. It helps a reader get a handle of your characters. It would make your book easier for the reader to get to grips with…

Firstly I want to say that I can do dialogue. Before writing prose fiction, I wrote stage plays for 15 years. Nothing but an unceasing diet of dialogue required for a writer. But I have to say it’s my experience of writing dialogue for that realm that partly informs my decisions to keep dialogue down to a minimum in my novels.

Firstly talking isn’t the only thing that defines us as humans. We also think thoughts. We may silently curse somebody for fear of offense, but still the thought is expressed in our mind. We formulate our thoughts and reactions to things without necessarily always feeling a need to articulate them in sound. We think things through, we try and interpret likely consequences of certain of our actions; think of a pursuit of a particular love mate, how much silent thought we pour into that endeavour. Playing over and over each tiny incident for a sign of likely success. These are just as human as the urge to talk. They are forms of self-expression, albeit held within. After all, the mind constructs thoughts with the same tools as we speak with: words.

So I do  not see dialogue as the key indicator of our humanity. Where it ought to rate greater literary significance is in establishing relationship. Most of what I offered above takes place in isolation, us being left alone with our thoughts.

As a side point, reading is also a two-way communication that usually takes place in isolation, relying on the imagination; the definitions become blurred by Proust’s description of reading as “that fruitful miracle of a conversation that takes place in solitude”. A conversation with one of the people involved being absent? Go figure! It relies on both the imagination of the writer’s words and the receptive imagination of the reader to take those words and build the story in his/her mind.

But back to two people in a room talking. You can get to know so much about them and their relationship, by what they say right?

If you’re watching those two people on stage or up on screen, then yes. There it’s all about the portrayal of their relationship. You’re assisted by their facial expressions, their body language, gestures, inflection of voice, how close they stand to one another. You have none of these automatically embedded in lines of dialogue within prose. You could describe them, where the interlocutors’ eyes are looking, what they’re doing with their hands while listening, the rising cadence at the end of a resonant word or the like, but you would double, treble, quadruple the length of the exchange on the page. The prose would grind to a halt. You could do it more sparingly, the blinking of an eye here, the barely perceptible blush there, but then I always want to know what’s going on in this sentence, that is so different from those lines without any such elaboration? Even people sat in place at a table talking, rarely keep still throughout the duration of their conversation. They drink their coffee, they twiddle the spoon, they stack the sugar cubes in the bowl, they trace an outline in the salt spilled on the table. They may even tune out and look at other people in the cafe. Just go people watch and see this happening.

Dialogue in plays seethe in subtext. Since you have the craft and skill of the actor to bring them out. I defer to the master of stage writing, Harold Pinter. It’s what is not said that is absolutely key there. Of course, skillful prose writing can weave in subtext too, but the more dialogue you have, the longer the verbal exchanges are, you either run the risk of over-egging your subtext and repeating it so often so that there’s nothing ’sub-’ about it anymore; or the subtly laid subtext gets diluted by lots of lines which have no ‘added value’. I think this latter is a large part of my gripe with dialogue. Many lines of dialogue add nothing (other than imparting their information) eg “Johnny said he’d be here by 5pm”. The context in which the dialogue takes place would clearly tell us that Johnny was in fact not here and it was past 5pm, or that the two speakers were waiting for Johnny before conducting the key business or that they had a cut-off deadline of 5pm to conclude their business. The dialogue line itself really adds very little.

So I believe less is always more with dialogue in prose. Aside from relationship, which you can also render by describing the relationship in space between two characters, distant/intimate/invasive/recoiling etc, you can paint a character by sparing use of their language. The idiom with which they express themselves, how they see the world around them, or what they deem important enough to put into words. Straight away you’d have an idea of their intelligence and level of education. A four/five line exchange of dialogue can do the work of pages if it is honed enough.

I despair on peer review reading sites, when I get swathes of dialogue to plough through. I always wonder why the author doesn’t write it as a play instead. So often it’s about the author trying to convey plot information in the misguided belief that this mode is more interesting and more readable than doing it as backstory. It isn’t. And inevitably the characters end up speaking like no human being would, as they are forced to spout plotlines.

I don’t eschew dialogue entirely. In one novel it makes an appearance right at the end, when it has two functions; firstly the main character who has been addressing the reader directly (and conversationally in tone if not in speech marks) just like Proust’s homily, now is shown exactly whom else has been listening to her story within the novel; and secondly, without giving it away, that very fact puts into question everything she has related up to this point, because of who she is dialoguing with. Up until this point the reader has been addressed directly and seemingly within one set of parameters, and then all of a sudden, through the introduction of a third party as it were who contributes their pov, the reader now is forced to question any assumptions and conclusions he/she may have arrived at up to this point. Here the limited dialogue is subversive.

A second novel has quite a lot of dialogue, but again it is off kilter. Partly it is dialogue typed out on computers in chat rooms and forums, a very different language from that spoken. Indeed it was a great surprise to me as I wrote, to discover that the narrator’s voice which had been in dialect, could not persist once I reached the point at which he started communicating online with his love pursuit. Because he was typing, I was faced with the fact that no-one actually writes/types in dialect in real-life communications. When the two characters do finally talk to each other in the final section of the book, again it is a subversive act; the man who has been pursuing her behind the relative anonymity of an online identity, reveals in a phone call a very different personality and purpose. His actual voice, heard for the first time, is one full of only previously hinted at menace and manipulation. Here dialogue tramples down the distance and fantasy built up over the rest of the novel. And yet it is still not face to face.

A final example sees a father at the door of his son’s bedroom as he lays silent siege to his room to get him either to come out or at least open up and talk to him. No words are exchanged as the father calculates strategies that reveal both his and the son’s character and the relationship as he perceives it. The end of the novella, having had just one line actually spoken at the end of its each of its two chapters, reveals exactly why no words are exchanged in the real time course of the novel and all the regrets the father has of not actually airing his thoughts to his son.

So I write extensively ABOUT dialogue and communication (or the paucity of it), without writing much in the way of dialogue itself. Language is a notoriously slippery entity for doling out precise meaning. Think about how many misunderstandings you have with people in an average week, based on what they say to you, or write or type in e-mails. Phones are the worst for this as again, you can’t judge reactions. That is what playwriting fostered in me. A determination to probe and get inside the nature of how we communicate, by addressing language in particular.  That to me is about getting inside the nature of being human.

Editor’ Note: John Wiswell is a brilliant satirist whose daily musings can be enjoyed at his ever-popular blog, The Bathroom Monologues.  A writer  who’s spent half his life struggling with a crippling neuromuscular syndrome, John knows a thing or two about the health-care system in America.

Counting with George

By John Wiswell

“You’re going to need a pre-op x-ray/MRI,” Dr. Man said, releasing my knee. For an old guy who specialized in joints, he handled mine brutally. I instinctively clutched the knee, which throbbed more from his two-minute examination than in the three weeks since it my fall.

“Pre-op?” I asked. I did not like the sound of that. It sounded like an ‘op’ was inevitable that way. I couldn’t afford any ops right now.

“Yeah.”

He took up a pad and scrawled something out, not looking at me. Apparently there was nothing more to tell me.

It’s difficult for me to ask people questions when they clearly don’t want to talk to me – I feel guilty for needing information. Only as he looked at the door like he was going to leave did I squeeze out,

1. “Do you know how much this is going to cost?”

“The MRI or the surgery?”

“Either. Both. I’m uninsured.”

“Oh.” He looked at me like I’d farted. “No, I don’t know. It’ll be bad. You can talk to billing.”

Then he looked at his nurse, a plump woman in pink scrubs and beaded hair.

2. “You don’t know, do you?” Dr. Man asked.

Nurse Woman shook her head. Her lips pressed together like she didn’t want to say one word. That was odd since she’d chatted with me for ten minutes before Dr. Man arrived, with opinions on immigration (she was from North Africa), God, Barack Obama and his government, teachers in American high schools, kids in American colleges, math being for snooty people and how much she’d like to write essays if essays weren’t horrible.

Dr. Man handed me his note, ordered me to get the MRI soon, and left. Nurse Woman handed me my pants and followed the doctor.

I wheeled myself to the checkout counter. Outside Dr. Man’s office was a waiting area with at least three desks at every wall, cramming Blood Work and Urology alongside Orthopedics and Joint Specialists.

As I wrote the check for the office visit, I asked the receptionist,

3. “The MRI he’s asking me to get. Do you know how much that will be?”

“No. Sorry.” She gave me a toothy smile, like a parent whose child might not realize the band-aid was about to come off. She took my check and wished me a nice day.

A week later I wheeled into the X-ray center of that same hospital. Two ladies were running three computers behind the desk. I couldn’t see over the counter and so wheeled around the side. The nearer receptionist leaned over to intercept me.

“Can I help you?”

After a brief discussion on how they had X-ray machines here but not MRI machines, and that I needed to go to the basement to get an MRI, and yes I could schedule both an X-ray and MRI from here, but no you didn’t get an X-ray up here if you wanted an MRI, I asked,

4. “Do you know how much this will be? I’m uninsured and have to know I’ll be able to cover this before I do it.”

The nearer receptionist hissed and arched her back like someone was pulling a band-aid off her spine. Lack of insurance can bring band-aids to mind with uncommon frequency.

5. “Ross, do you know how much an MRI would be?” she asked her co-receptionist, who was female, plump, decorated in jewelry and altogether unRosslike.

“No, but you could call Nel,” offered Ross.

“One second,” said my receptionist. “I’m going to call downstairs to MRI.”

She dialed some numbers and got somebody. It went swiftly.

“Oh, I can’t schedule one through you?” the X-ray receptionist said to an MRI receptionist. She nodded for my benefit, power-talking through the call. “Okay. Okay. Yes, I know. I have a patient who needs an MRI and x-ray, and…”

6. “…do you how much that is? No? Okay, thank you. Is Nel in? Yes, I just want to check with her.”

And a moment later, she asked a new person,

7. “…and he’d just like to know how much the MRI could be. Oh? Okay. Thanks Nel.”

She hung up, said, “Sorry” at my general direction, and dialed another number. I just assumed she’d thought of another task that needed doing.

“Hi, is this Billing? Hi, this is George from X-rays,” she said. “I have a patient who needs an MRI and X-ray for his left knee. Yes, no, I just called down there. Okay? But before he schedules, he’d like to know…”

8.“…how much it would cost? Sure. No, they didn’t know either. Thanks!”

After a minute on her computer, George turned to me with a sincerely warm expression.

“I can make your appointment from here, but I’m going to call Billing first to find out how much it will cost for you, okay?”

“Thank you so much,” I said, grinning. I don’t know how long I had been grinning, but I couldn’t stop. It was something about numbers ticking off in my head.

George punched up someone else on her phone.

“Hello, Larry? Hi, this is George in X-rays. I have a patient here who needs an MRI of the left knee. … The left knee and…”

9. “…he’d like to know how much that would cost? Oh, okay. Can you patch me through to her? Okay great.”

She shrugged at me. I shrugged back as encouragingly as possible.

10. “Hi Moe, this is George in X-rays. I have a patient who needs an MRI of the left knee. He’s uninsured and needs to know how much it will cost. … Dr. Curly would know? Thank you!”

Her brows arched at me with excitement.

As she looked up Dr. Curly’s number on her computer, she asked, “What does the doctor think it is?”

“He said it might be torn cartilage. I can’t walk on it at all.”

“Oh, that sounds painful.”

George dialed.

“Dr. Curly? Hi, this is George in X-rays. I have a patient who will probably be seeing you soon for an MRI. No, an M-R-I. On his left knee. He’s uninsured and we’d like to know…”

11. “…if you know how much it will cost him? Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Moe might? But he’s on vacation? Okay. Okay, thanks!”

She hung up and looked dower.

12.  “Dr. Moe wouldn’t know. He never knows. Doesn’t like to deal with bills.”

Wait, was he 12? We hadn’t talked to him. Was it unfair to count him as 12? Was he even a ‘he,’ considering ‘Doctor’ is gender-neutral? Furthermore, why was I counting?

“That’s fine,” I said, trying not to sigh. It might discourage this incredibly helpful receptionist. “I can’t make the appointment without knowing if I can afford it, though. Maybe I can…”

“No, no,” said George, waving an index finger at me. She had a silver ring on that finger. “I’ve got an idea.”

She dialed once more, looking g away gravely, as though this particular person could not be contacted while looking into the eyes of a customer. I imagined she was calling not just down to the basement, but the very bowels of Hell.

“Hello, Satan? Hi, this is George! Yes. How are you?” George and Satan gabbed a minute, then got to,

13. “So I have a patient up here who needs an MRI of his left knee. Do you know how much it will cost him? Okay, can you think who would? Great. Can you patch me to her?”

George threw a thumbs-up without looking at me. She waited, only dropping her thumbs-up when the line beeped. She held the phone in one hand, grabbing paper from the recycling bin with the other.

14. “Hello! This is the X-ray Department. We have a patient who needs an MRI and X-ray of his left knee. He has no insurance. Can you tell me how much it’s going to cost? … Uh-huh. No, I wouldn’t.”

She scribbled on the paper.

“Right, with contrast is different than without.”

She continued listening and raised the paper. It read:

w/c 1,398

w/o 1,308

“Okay. Yes. You guys are so overworked. Thanks again!”

George hung up and leaned over her keyboard as though to catch her breath. She pushed the paper at me.

“So there you go. The bottom number is without contrast. She said it would probably be without, so that would save you some money, but don’t tell anyone I said that. I don’t want to get in trouble. If anyone asks, I’m George.”

Yes, if I ever told anyone, she would be George. I would probably change all the names just to keep the conspiracy safe.

She grinned.

I kept grinning. “Thank you very much, George.”

We shook hands over the paper. She frowned down at it.

“I don’t have that kind of money lying around. Can I make your appointment today, or do you want to wait?”

I frowned at the paper, too. Then I frowned at my knee. “Honestly, it’s been three weeks. I think it’s gotten worse since I saw Dr. Man even though I’m off it all the time. I sort of wanted to know if I could afford the MRI at all, but more I wanted to use it as a guess on how much the operation might be if he wants one. I had my gallbladder out in November and it completely wiped me out.”

“Oh, there’s no way.” George didn’t say whether there was no way an uninsured person could afford such an operation, or no way to find out how much it would cost until it happened. Instead of getting clarification, I made an appointment.

As I look at the bill that’s finally come, I can’t help but think about George and all the numbers. It’s $2,400. Without contrast. I’m relieved that the MRI showed no tears; there’s no telling how much surgery would have cost.

Editor’s Note: This piece originally ran in Like the Dew, Journal of Southern Culture and Politics.

New Normal: Heartland is Not in Kansas Anymore

by Michael J. Solender

The Brookings Institution has just published The State of Metropolitan America report which evaluates census and other data for the nation’s top one hundred metropolitan areas. Their conclusions? As a nation we are reaching critical milestones that if continued to be ignored will dramatically impact our collective standards of living in negative ways.

The report outlines  five “new realities” to be mindful of. They are: Growth and Outward Expansion, Population Diversification, Aging of the Population, Uneven Higher Educational Attainment, and Income Polarization. These realities, according to the report, are redefining who we are, where and with whom we live, and how we provide for our own welfare, as well as that of our families and communities.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the report is a new categorization typology they have developed to better describe the significant demographic differences in an increasingly diverse American Landscape. According to the report: “Large metropolitan areas as a group are ‘ahead of the curve’ on the five new demographic and social realities that America confronts. However, in some ways, large metropolitan areas actually became more different from one another in the 2000s, mak­ing it even more important to understand American society from the individualized perspectives of these places.”

One such typology is the “New Heartland,” defined as metro areas with fast growing, highly educated locales, but lower shares of Hispanic and Asian populations than the national average. These 19 metro areas include many in the “New South” where blacks are the dominant minor­ity group, such as Atlanta and Charlotte, as well as largely white metro areas throughout the Midwest and West, such as Indianapolis and Portland (OR).

The report states that over 100 million of America’s 300 million are seniors and or baby boomers who will require different housing, transportation and service needs than the suburban landscape many have grown up in.

The implications are clear and while the consequences for inaction may be dire, Americans have shown intestinal fortitude throughout history on similar economic and demographic changes and there is no reason why we can’t embrace and leverage these shifts rather than pine for the “good old days.”

My take is we need to get serious in  four key areas under the new normal:

• Education: While municipalities across the U.S. are facing some of the most significant budgetary crises in history, we need to be spending more, not less on teachers and programs that deliver the education our children will need to remain competitive. The costs on the back end of welfare, unemployment, crime, etc. far outweigh front-end expenditures on education. Schools need to be run like businesses, complete with P&L’s and performance metrics that go beyond test scores to measure effectiveness of the jobs they do in educating our kids. We need to embrace radical changes in our education process in this country; too much of it is flat out broken.
• Zoning: Decades of giving the developers the upper hand and virtually the only seat at the table in the growth of our cities has created urban sprawl, gridlock, water shortages and a host of unproductive land use that is unsustainable and replete with empty big boxes. Citizens unite! Take back our communities.
• Municipal government: Does every city or town in this country need its own police department? Fire department? Public works, etc? Town councils? Redundant services are in such oversupply providing excess payroll and considerable duplication. I love the great individuality that this land offers, but perhaps it is time to rethink the cost of having a million of everything.
• The Deficit: It isn’t going away, people. Take a look across the pond at Greece. Americans are sick and tired of partisan politics. When we have our Secretary of Defense standing up and publicly stating he doesn’t want or need the money that congress is giving him, and having that message fall on deaf ears, something is clearly wrong. Defense programs where planes are built in 47 states are going to have support of 47 states’ worth of congressional approval, regardless of what Robert Gates wants.

Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmatic

By Ryn Cricket

I heard two interesting statistics in separate stories the other day reported on CNN.  Eighty percent of all of the schools in the country are making big cuts in their staffing for the next school year because of financial problems.  And America has 5113 nuclear weapons.  Where are our priorities?  The government throws all of this money into bombs that can destroy the earth many times over –because obviously one or two are not enough.  Would anyone even be around to press the button on number 5113?

But the bigger question is why we are so quick to cut our education system that is already poorly funded as it is.  It’s not as if we are Singapore, Hong Kong, or Korea, and we are on top.  We are above Indonesia and Iran, but is this the best we can do?

We never have to vote on war levies or military levies.  We have no choice over what or how much comes out of our income for that, and yet, in an economic depression, we are asked if we can pay more for schools.  Why is it even a question?  Who set the system up this way?

Cutting 10% of the education staff including teachers and administrators (like what is happening in Cleveland, Ohio) hurts everyone.  The teachers are out of jobs, and collecting unemployment and any other assistance they may qualify for.  Their spouses and families, most likely will not have health care.  The teachers who still have jobs, have much more work for that same pay (of course raises are frozen).  And students who are already spilling out of rooms, are even more packed in, meaning a lot less personal attention.  The graduation rate in Cleveland is at 33% percent right now.  How is cutting staff a solution for anything?

There is an experimental charter school in Washington Heights, NYC that has been proving the theory that paying teachers more can make a better school.  They believe that one fabulous teacher is worth more than all the technology and low student numbers you can provide.  So far they are right.  They pay their teachers a starting salary of $125,000 with bonuses.  They work longer days, and have many more responsibilities than an average inner-city, but they are the best of the best.  Eight teachers were finally picked out of 600 resumes.  If you are regarded as part of a dream team, you will rise up to the bar.  We haven’t been able to see the long-term effects yet, but I heard the waiting list for this public school is very long.

So, dear government, could we reassess our priorities, please?  Let’s shift some money around, and focus on our primary education system, because at the risk of sounding cliché, it really is our future.