The Journal of Provincial Thought
Hex Libris

I Clued a Goose,  by Nonni Willpo                                                              

The young journalist writes about her legendary infiltration of Bioversions Chromosomics Int’l. and the uncovering of highly controversial trans-species genetic blending.  Beginning with simple flashcard sessions with a Bean Goose (Anser fabalis) that had been implanted with Human Mental Factor subparticulate, Willpo (or Tadonna Wee, Xenotechnician, as she presented herself) was able to teach the goose much of what it means to be human—the pride, the sacrifice, the resolve to persevere in a world wracked by pain and injustice perpetrated by those who care more for their own comfort and aggrandizement than for the fundamental rights of others to live, to be free, to find fulfillment and to stand as equals in a universal enterprise of mutual betterment.  Unfortunately, the goose’s unsophisticated, evolutionarily primitive coping infrastructure was unable to deal with what it is now thought to have seen as hopeless incongruity in the human condition; and if this is the state of affairs for the most advanced of creatures (the goose must have reasoned), then truly have the lower orders been blind to the pathetic futility of their own existences.  Willpo returned to the laboratory one morning to find that during the night, the goose had flown up and put its head through the fan grate.  She was devastated.  The goose had become like a spouse to her.  “That was the end, for me,” she writes.  “Bioversions would now have to answer.”  Using her feathered friend’s grievously surrendered blood—caput mortuum, the color of mummy wrapping—as a grim paint, its head stalk as a gruesome brush, Willpo struck upon the wall the war cry heard round the world:  “Let a man be a man; a goose, a goose.”  —It is noted that amid the public and legal wrangling that followed, Bioversions Chromosomics brought forth on their behalf geese of several varieties who indicated that Ms. Willpo did not represent their views, and furthermore took issue with her presumption to speak for all (indeed, any) geese across the spectrum.  (“Miss Willpo—or ‘Wee,’ is it—where are your wings?  Where are your feathers?”  [translation])  The tactic seems to have met with some success, as the message resonated in sectors of society that understood the frustrated desire to someday live like human beings.    

These Things We Believe:  A Statement of  Our Collective Position on the Issue of Trans-Species Genetic Blending, by the the Geese of Bioversions Chromosomics International, Executive Committee for Policies and Affairs      

Released in response to journalist N. Willpo’s I Clued a Goose—a scathing denunciation of interspecies gene swapping—this translated paper articulates the case for continuing research from the perspective of those who believe they have much to gain:   the geese.  (Critics, it is fair to note, argue that the authors, however unnaturally earnest and eloquent they might have waxed, and however adroitly they might have arrayed themselves into little governments and committees, know only what they have been taught by their masters and brainwashers, who are Bioversions Chromosomics.)  A lively read, this offering will firm your grasp of vital issues that one day soon we could all be called to decide.  Published and distributed by BioChrom Press, a wholly-owned subsidiary of a closely held subsidiary of a corporate sister of a well-hidden subordinate subsidiary of Bioversions Chromosomics International.      

Can You Come Out and Kiss Me? by Ellevieve Cantostrononi-Cone

In another dark romantic thriller, veteran heartstring-raveler E.C. Cone again visits upon her protagonist the crescendoing desperation of surmounting the insurmountable.  Bursie Whatley, a 28-year-old cupcake designer with fast-track management prospects at the posh bakery where she has just jobbed on, seems to have all her cookies sugared.  She has flown a drip-can apartment in a flat-tire town to sublet a condo on the vibrant seam of the metropolitan hemline, and since landing she has met the man to strike fire to her fantasies.  Tags Bollocobb is in accounts receivable at The Uptown, an upscale downtown department store.  Business downtown at The Uptown has been up and down of late, responding to uncertainties fueled by erratic government projections of long-term economic growth trends and adjustments in market confidence as relates to fluxes in the margin of  returns.  But when Bursie and Tags are together, none of that matters; theirs is a sugar-glazed golden love delicately confected in Heaven’s own patisserie.  He is everything she needs but can never be; and so, to him, is she. 

But Bursie is a woman with a past; and in an Ellevieve Cantostrononi-Cone yarn, the past never stays put:  “It starts with the dreams. . .yet. . . not dreams, but perhaps whispers riding the tattered crimson edge of consciousness.  She tries at first to deny them, to turn them back, to push them down, to shut them out, to drive them away, to throw them off and dispossess them of that part of her she fears to surrender.  But ever more persistently they come, like kittens scratching at a velvet purse, until. . .until. . . ‘Can you come out and kiss me?’  No, it cannot be!  A voice she had thought never to hear again!  ‘Bur-sie. . .’  That name, her name, pitifully intoned by a voice that fate had surely silenced on that day long ago when the four-wheeler flipped.

“It had not for her been a joyful marriage, nor one of convenience.  For sympathy alone had she consented to be pulled down the aisle, her heart sighing surrender. . .  Nudney’s death had sprung the cage; the insurance check had given her wings.”   

But now an old darkness settles anew, and it won’t be long until Bursie gleens a chilling clue:  Her ex, Nudney, is back as ex-Nudney, and he wants what he would have lost, had it ever truly been his to lose.  Met instead with contempt, fiercely rebuffed, he grows belligerent, punctuating his demand with supernatural manifestations macabre.  “Come out.  Can you come out and kiss me?”   Swept up in a growing maelstrom of horror that threatens to bear her into an abyss of lost and tortured souls, Bursie fights back; she too can hurl books, can break mirrors, can start up chainsaws at 2 A.M, if these are the ordnance of metaphysical strife.  Tags, caught in the crossfire of an unholy and unfathomable war, begins to come unhinged as the casualties mount—numbering among them courage, faith in the power of commitment to remedy all discomfiture in a relationship,  and prospects of anything more than a piecemeal approach to lasting contentment.              

Deep in the chambers of the earth, older and darker forces, a long time sleeping, are awakened.   And. . . . . . . . . . they. . . . . . . . . . hunger.

The book is Can You Come Out and Kiss Me?   It’s by By Ellevieve Cantostrononi-Cone.

Granny Bones Jumpin Unky,  by  Fallon Hoffa Toylitt

“It’s about this book I wrote about my Granny Bones,” says professor Toylitt (honorarial).  “When I was little and used to go and see my Granny Bones, sometimes my Unky Royroy would cuss about somethin, and one time my Granny Bones told him go and get a bar of soap and worsh his mouth out with it or God would come against him to put him down in hell.  She talked about it because she was Unky’s mamma, and her face went like a stove when he cussed.  But Unky Royroy said pretty loud, ‘They ain’t no God.  Where is he?  I don’t see him, and you don’t neither, and that boy don’t neither.  Show him to me.  Bring him here in this room.’  I think Unky Royroy was drinkin beer sometimes, too.  My Granny Bones run me out of the room right then.  But there was just a whole bunch of beads hangin down in the doorway between the rooms, so I moved them a little bit and looked in there, and I could see Granny Bones jumpin Unky.”     

If You Grind It, Cops Won’t Find It,  by Les Kilrovy Waid, Detective (Ret.), Metro P.D.

Mr. Waid was frequently asked why his press conferences were filled with details of successful criminal techniques and revelations of the mistakes that got crooks caught.  He gave the short answers, as in this reply to one question:  “Although these suspects did not know about the chemical detectors in place near the mall entrance, we’re pretty sure that everyone else does, so we’re not really giving anything away, if you stop and think about it.”  [Though if you don’t stop and think about it?  Waid winks.]  In his book, Waid fully treats the issues raised.  His reasoning is more suitably outlined than one-lined. 

            A) Let the First Amendment concede to authorities the same right of expression that the Supreme Court supposes it lavishes upon the profligate, who Waid feels simply must not be the ones to dictate where the low bar is set in the case of destructive information. 

            B) Scooping the groovy poop makes Waid a big cheese among mice and men, which is certainly preferable to watching some rat reporter grab the Gouda. 

            C) Since before the advent of the microphone, it remains sound law enforcementology to dazzle the citizens with a magic act, pulling rabbits out of the hat and birds out of the waistband, leaving John and Jane Q. Taxbase wide-eyed in grateful conviction that spectacular results are worth spectacular (reason’s enemies will predictably say exorbitant) fiscal outlay.    

            D) If publicizing successful crime techniques—howling the how-to’s—might help even one person avoid becoming a victim of certain flavors of crime, then

................ 1) Waid says let’s go ahead and also howl the how-to’s even in instances where knowing the how-to’s has nothing to do with avoiding the crime, and

            .....2) There’s a certain musky rush in educating Slow-Joe criminals to methods that would not soon have occurred to them, and in spurring to criminality some vacuous Slop-Job individuals who were not previously contemplating any.  This initially leads to more victims than Waid saved by howling the how-to’s, yes, as it puts destructive power in the wrong hands as well as in the self-defining right.  But he’ll be applauded after the thankful testimonials of the one he saves, whereas nobody will be able clearly, credibly to pin the downers on him; there’s just too much intervening cause-and-effect.  Pity about them.  BUT: 

            .....3) There’s more good news to masticate.  Waid says, “Our freshly aroused Slow-Joes and Slop-Jobs will venture out again, and we will catch them because their defining trait is unstinted stupidity.  A little knowledge, courtesy of the House, will prove their undoing.  Behold, the magic show of law enforcement becomes a fullblown carnival!  Witness John and Jane Q. Taxembase snapping the locks off the public treasure chest.  The Department exponentiates in size, reach, and attitude virtually overnight, transcending the bounds of traditional time and space; and what does this mean in non-relatavistic terms?  More takedowns, more howling the how-to’s at magical press conferences, more Slow-Joes and Slop-Jobs venturing out, more takedowns and more public treasure.  Cycle city deluxe edition.  The release of law enforcement’s legions into the streets, swinging about in the high-tech turrets of tomorrow’s toady-chauffeured patrolousines.  For the citizens, increased ground support, increased awe.  For the bad guys—well, for the sad bad boggaloggas and the bozo odorboasters, there really won’t be all that much to cheer, as the sky for them just went a little greyer.               

What about his book’s title?  Former Detective Waid explains that the evidentiary trail that led federal investigators to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and opened up vast networks of critical intelligence and robust inquiry, began with a metal fragment bearing part of the serial number of an explosives-rigged van.  “You guys really should not ever make that mistake again,” he says, punching the microphone with his index finger.  “If you want to keep at large to see more missions through to their logical conclusions and make our job next to impossible—tie a string around your finger—remember to grind off that serial number!”  He shakes his head.  “Geez, it’s just, I can’t bear idiocy!” 

In the final analysis, the views and principles that Mr. Waid enunciates are, well, stated.

 Brat-a-tat: My Bad, by Capt. Stonewall Fungun, Metro Air Assault Unit

“Yes, I accidentally strafed a schoolyard,” writes Capt. Fungun.  “How about a freaking break already?  The casualties are in the ground; the public needs to summon some gumption and move on, and this book was written in hopes of making that happen.”  The author helps a bitter pill go down easy, with a generous dose of flyboy anecdotes and gallows humor.  Weathering a storm of calls for his ejection from the cockpit, Capt. Fungun has said, “When they pull my bullet-riddled, missile-mangled carcass out of a fiery tangle of twisted metal, I’ll think about retiring.”  Easy, Captain—there are those who might look to seal that deal with you.                    

It’s A Lame Old Game:  An Afternoon Exchange, by Midwestra Munchie

“If you boys could see how preposterous you look.  I suppose, with your little stick ‘bats’ and pea pebble ‘balls’ that you stand swatting into the weeds, a cliché-rotten stream of egomaniacal lunacy burbling out of your mouths—‘. . . and it’s in there for a steee. . . ohh, he almost takes  that one downtown. . .’—that you’re persuading yourselves you’re some kind of professional baseball players (yes?), each in his own mental closet  schizophrenically hallucinating that he is an opposing pair of franchise stars (‘. . .there’s some bullpen action as the Big Unit falls behind. . .Ortiz backs outta the box’) while flashing on iconic likenesses of those stars poised respectively on the mound and at the plate, likenesses vividly recollected from baseball cards he’s been suckered into plundering off store counters in a supersaturated fool’s market.  Well, you have not within you the merest seed of those stars’ abilities.  How important are you, hanging around here, scattering the state’s gravel,  pretending you’re somebody else, somebody whose real life is about a little cork-and-rubber ball, at that?   —Look, look there.  Arm like a toothpick, and you run as though your butt had been stapled together.  “Perfesh’nal”?  None of you here is ever going to be an athlete at all, much less a “perfesh’nal.”  Do you know what I saw over in Glenside this morning?  I saw a half-dozen boys playing ball, all of whom are better, they’re faster, they’re stronger and they’re sharper than any of you mess here, but none of whom will themselves ever reach anything approaching “perfesh’nal” caliber.  That’s the reality.  Here you are, though, big shots, wandering how much your autographs will be worth behind the glass in Cooperstown.  Well, I’d say every bit as much as they’re worth right now.  Every bit as much.”

"Kiss a ass, mister.” 

            “Yeah, take your shopping buggy and go back under the bridge.”   

                        “Yeah, your rat burger’s getting cold.”

                                    “Who wet your britches?”

It’s Whose Ever’s Got It.  So Give It.  by  Francis of the Shadows  

“Life is a jungle.  The law of the jungle is there’s no such thing as stealing.”  Thus begins this autobiographical training manual for thieves, penned from behind bars by the king of the modern-day nonviolent redistributionists.  “Hardly ever rob anyone outright,” Francis advises, “Unless you’re one hundred percent certain that you’re armed and loaded and they’re not; that what they have is worth a lot; that they are not of the damn-the-bullets, bring-it-on disposition; that there’s nobody around who might see you or jump in; that you have a clear avenue of escape; that the floor’s not slick; that there’s no banana peel; that police will not know immediately who you are by a simple description; that you will never, ever run into this person again; that they’re not cleverly sending out the whole encounter over a cell phone or recording it with a trick pen; that they are not a voice expert or a professional age- or weight-guesser; and that you don’t mention any friends that you might have in common.”  Along with high marks for the obligatory how-to’s and confidence boosters, the book scores points for its sage cautions and thorough and thoughtful “don’t-do’s” drawn from the author’s colorful experiences and those of others:  “DON’T TRY TO SMASH OPEN A STOLEN SAFE BY DROPPING AN ELEVATOR FULL OF PEOPLE ON IT.  This was told to me by a guy who worked with Donny Comet for a while before Donny fell out of a helicopter.  I’ll call the guy Slats.  Like Donny, Slats was no Eizenstein.  Slats and Donny Comet had gotten a safe out of an apartment, but they couldn’t slip it out of the building.  Donny suggested they jump the elevator cables and drop the elevator on it, try to spring the safe.  Well, seemed it was that or call the game.  They got the safe to the basement and into the shaft, but Slats got to thinking about, ‘What if it isn’t heavy enough to do the job?’  Donny thought a minute, then he said, ‘You know that crazy-eights game going down up on eighth?  About thirty minutes they’ll be. . .’   ‘. . .Going down,’ Slats finished.  ‘Going down,’ Donny said.  That elevator was from the land before time, no challenge for Donny Comet.  He used to go in abandoned buildings and drop them for fun.  Little better than half an hour later, eighth floor packs to the gills with goons, and Donny lets ’er rip.  Sounded like a train screaming down that shaft.  Hits bottom and just explodes.  Donny and Slats aren’t even first on the scene.  They can’t get near the area, and even if they could, there’s a mountain of debris piled on top of the safe.  If anybody got the goodies, it would’ve been the work crew a few weeks later.  Now, this story’s a bunch of meringue, like the guy who told it, but it does illustrate one kind of thing not to do.” 

It’s Whose Ever’s Got It.  So Give It.  by  Francis of the Shadows.  92pp.  Published by Metro Prison Press.  A percentage* of all proceeds goes to the Warden’s Fund for Advancement, a designated entity like over 25,000 charitable organizations.

*over 1%**

..........**way over 1%***

....................***between 70% and 100%, actually****

..............................****inclusive           

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reviewlettes (works for which, for one reason or another, serious review money has not as yet made forth. We emphasize to serious authors & publishers that serious money = serious review.)

World’s Most Hated Man 2043, by Michael More. Bush 2 again, 43rd consecutive year.
World’s Creepiest Guy, by Wullia Meech Freefer. Young man, raised in family of Elvis & Priscilla impersonaters, trying to go straight. Shux, ma'am, it ain't even easy to move with your arteries full o' peanut butter an' bacon grease.
Man of Interests, by Dr. C. Pree McGorkle, M.D. ....Zany variety show host Chet Chumly is again a “person of interest,” now in a Los Angeles tire-slashing wave.  Chumly has been named a person of interest by authorities in twenty-seven diverse crimes going back to the mid-eighties, but has never been officially charged.  In one of the more famous cases, a coal-burning train disappeared from the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  Chumly, a recent visitor to the attraction and known to collect amusement trains, was thought to possess just the “loco motive” required for such a heist.  Indeed, Dolly’s choochoo was eventually discovered abandoned in a field near Chumly’s posh Beverly Hills mansion, his “DNA all over it,” according to police records.  Nevertheless, the charismatic Chumly remained but a “person of interest” until a tip led police to a homeless suspect, who was detained for several weeks before being released.

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pay-per-review better pay = better review Malinda McMalisse
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