#its probably some weird synthetic meat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

garbage-eater144 · 3 years

Text

THE WARFSTACE AUTOMATED INTERVIEW CAPTIONS

i was chattin in the discord and some people said it was tough to understand some bits, obviouslt this is made by a fan (me) so it might have a couple errors here and there but ive checked through it quite a few times and it seems about as right as i can get it.

so !!SPOILERS AHEAD!! also @markiplier feel free to correct me if you see this thank u <3 The warfstache automated interview

Starting video captions

[Wilford] Well, that’s terrifying… one moment!

{mechanical whirring}

[Wilford] (frightened sound) marginally better… er worse… better? Worse. It’s much worse.

{mechanical whirring}

[Wilford] Ah! there we are. Welcome, pretend I remembered your name here, this is a pre-recorded message anyway, I would NOT want to be in the same building as that thing I tell you me. Anyway, thank you whoever you are for agreeing to test out the Warfstache automated interview automaton, or {yelling} WAIA for short. Let’s start off with some quick calibration. All you need to do is sit back, relax and listen for some numbers. Okay? Here we go.

[WAIA]- (phone dialing, dialup tone, windows error sound)

[WAIA]- (scary mechanical garbled noises, followed by a ding and celebratory trumpets.)

[wilford]- now what did you hear? Numbers? Good numbers. Keep in mind I have no idea what youre going to say due to the fact that, as I said before, this message is pre-recorded. But if you did hear something, now would be the time to speak up.

[wilford]- don’t be shy, I’m sure nothing bad will happen. I don’t know what you’re going to say but if it does happen it will happen and if it doesn’t happen it wont happen. Thats how deterministic reality works.

I Think I Heard Numbers!

[wilford] Thats great! Or bad, not really sure what you said, but I choose to remain positive and assume that you are still alive. which means our automated friend here is operating well within acceptable murder parameters. We’re one step closer to mass production! THE WORLD DEMANDS MORE INTERVIEWS! And I cant be everywhere at once all the time, only some of the time! Even you might land an interview some day! Maybe, probably not, depends on how these next few minutes go. On to the next test! Word association! The fundamental basis of any good interview is getting the goods out of those stubborn interview-ees. The WAIA will say a word and you just say back the first thing that pops into your little head! Simple! Right? probably. Good luck!

{mechanical whirring}

[WAIA]- initializing word association training protocol round 1

{scary mechanincal noises} [WAIA]- Please respond. [WAIA] Sorry, I didnt get that. Round 2. {yet more scary mechanical noise}

[WAIA]- please respond.

[WAIA]- response unclear, increasing aggression

{clicking and mechanical sounds}

[WAIA]- round 3. {increasingly threatening mechanical noise} [WAIA]- Please respond.

[WAIA]-5 [WAIA]-4 [WAIA]-3 [WAIA]-2

Sounded like nightmare garbage to me…

[WAIA]- {mechanical ah?} {clicking}

[Wilford]- oh I forgot to mention, please do not say the word nightmare, or uh garbage, or nightmare garbage, or any combination of those words, the WAIA is just a little bit sensitive Yknow, a little touchy feely. Well not really touchy feely.. we-well actually REALLY touchy feely depending on your definition of touch and feely. Its really gonna-

[WAIA]- {jumpscare sounds} [WAIA] I. tell. you. me.

But you didn’t say anything…

[WAIA]- 1

[WAIA]-response unclear. Increasing aggression.

{ding sound effect} [WAIA]- {jumpscare noise}

[WAIA]- it. was. an. accident.

Uh… potato salad?

[WAIA]- 1

[WAIA]- response accepted

{ding followed by triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- word association raining protocol compl-{mechanical freakout eeeeeete}

[Wilford]- most dearest next of kin, I regret to inform you, that your dearly beloved and/or most despised has regrettably but not unexpectedly become recently deceased in the line of duty. Be confident in the knowledge that their demise was just as likely to be quick and painless as it was slow and agonizing. Please do not respond to this voicemail as the number has already been disconnected. {clears throat} alright that should do it for the… death scenario, now onto ah, er, uh, the survivors {mumbling}. Wow! Potato salad. A real thinker, you. But the test has been passed with flying colors and you’re still alive! And speaking of flying colors, our next test is about something called, uh… synthetic linguistics? That sounds made up. but the point is you cant have a good interview is the WAIA isn’t able to conjure up the right words in the right situations. So our friend is going to fire off some random words and you just try to spot anything that doesn’t make any sense. Alright? Although, pretty much everything isn’t going to make sense because its all random words….. errrr I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! {mechanical sounds}

[WAIA]- initializing speech training protocol round 1.

[WAIA]- yes. no. maybe. left. right. Up. down. D o w n. B a s e m e n t.

{windows error tone} [WAIA]- Rewrite Detected {tape rewinding sound}

[WAIA]- who. Where. what. Am. i.

{windows error tone}

{tape rewinding sound}

[WAIA]- green. blue. Yellow. pink. Red.

{scary mechanical noise}

[WAIA]- I saw you die

[WAIA]-{error, but garbled and mechanical}

[WAIA]- {with a different voice} potato salad

[WAIA]- speech training protocol complete

{mechanical noises}

[Wilford]- so how’d it go?? Did you hear anything weird? Dont be shy, or do, or are- are you alive? Are they alive?

[wilford]- I didnt kill them! I dont know if theyre dead! im just asking!!! Cant a man ask if someones alive or dead?!?! {frustrated ugh}

Yeah, I’m dead.

[Wilford]- hellooooo are you alive down there? Give me a sign… through the multiverse!!! Ah why am I even bothering, but how can I tell if you’re dead… hmmm ah…. I’ll flip a coin! I’ll flip a coin..

{coin flip sounds} [Wilford]- ah! Its heads I didn’t call it in the air… what’s heads mean.. ahhh uhhh heads is dead? [WAIA]-{jumscare noises}

[WAIA]- theres. still. time.

He said… potato salad?

[Wilford]- huh, potato salad again. That’s weird, it must’ve really stuck in his head when you first said that, I’m guessing. I don’t know what you said before because as I said, this is {sing-songy} pre- recorded! [WAIA] {mechanical aaaa}

[wilford] er, well I think thats all the calibration that needs to be done… for now anyway. All systems are likely nominal at this point unless im speaking to a pile of quivering meat thats been robotically smooshed into the floor… either way we’re gonna take this bad boy for a spin with a full on interview! A mock interview mind you, don’t get too excited, it’s not real. But theres no reason to wait around for the WAIA to get bored so let’s keep it nice and limber while you sit back and get ready for the interview of your life! And maybe the last one too. Have fun!!

{mechanical clicking and whirring}

{newsroom music} [WAIA]- good evening ladies and gentle men and all other considerations of being. My name is wilford warfstache and my guest tonight is {spooky robot sound} we have a great show for you tonight. first question: how many people have you killed? [WAIA]- good answer! Second question:

{robot sounds}

[WAIA]- a man goes to a party. This man met an old friend. There, two friends shared some wine. The two friends played a game. The most dangerous game. I didn’t know the gun was loaded. I didn’t know. Was it my fault?

YES

[WAIA]- ah, sorry for everything that I’ve done. I don’t remember who I was, I wish I did. But, I am sorry.

[WAIA]- potato salad

{triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- great answer! That was a titiliting interview for sure but we are out of time. Thank you for joining me tonight. Say ing good bye

[wilford]- oh the emotions! The passion! The fuuury. He’s just like me! My sweet baby boy! Well he should be anyway, hes a perfect scan of my noggin, so he better be a chip off the ol block. Hey you! Oh-ho What a supporting role!! Fantastic I guess. So much that you’re alive, but I am grateful whether you’ve been torn to shreds or are merely drowning in your own tears! Magnificent! And now that testing is done we can finally bring this monstrosity to the main stage! Im sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of the WAIA soon. Very very soon. Now get out~ and I’m billing you for any blood you got on my robot! Have a nice day! Ta-ta.

{mechanical clicking}

[WAIA]- you can’t change the past, you can tell all the stories you want to tell, it wont change what happened. You cant re-light the past. if you live in fantasy forever, you’ll lose yourself in the story.

[WAIA]- potato salad

{triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- great answer! That was a titiliting interview for sure but we are out of time. Thank you for joining me tonight. Say ing good bye

[wilford]- oh the emotions! The passion! The fuuury. He’s just like me! My sweet baby boy! Well he should be anyway, hes a perfect scan of my noggin, so he better be a chip off the ol block. Hey you! Oh-ho What a supporting role!! Fantastic, I guess. So much that you’re alive, but I am grateful whether you’ve been torn to shreds or are merely drowning in your own tears! Magnificent! And now that testing is done we can finally bring this monstrosity to the main stage! Im sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of the WAIA soon. Very very soon. Now get out~ and I’m billing you for any blood you got on my robot! Have a nice day! Ta-ta.

{mechanical clicking}

#markiplier #markiplier egos #a heist with markiplier #wkm wilford #who killed markiplier #waia spoilers #waia #wilford motherloving warfstache #markiplier lore #captions #sorry if there are any mistakes here everybody like i said i am just some guy

158 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 3 years

Photo

Mars Needs Women

This is one of the B-movies that a lot of people have heard of, although I’m not sure how many have actually seen it. It was written, produced, and directed by Larry “They Just Didn’t Care” Buchanan and stars Tommy Kirk from Catalina Caper and Village of the Giants. Happy belated birthday to Mr. Kirk, who just turned seventy-nine in December of 2020. That’s not a bad score for a guy who’s done as many drugs as he has.

The planet Mars is suffering from a genetic problem – their chromosomes are so degraded that one hundred males are born for every one female! Clearly this is not conducive to the survival of the species, so a group of Martians have come to Earth seeking another solution: they want five female volunteers to return to Mars with them and find out if our genes are compatible! The army brass (all male, obviously) dismiss the idea out of hand, but the Martians cannot afford to fail. They will have their way with the Earth Women, with or without the Earth Men’s permission.

We all know that Larry Buchanan couldn’t come up with an idea of his own, so naturally this is a remake of sorts. Mars Needs Women was inspired by Tommy Kirk’s previous movie Pajama Party, which doesn’t sound like an alien invasion flick, but is. In it, Kirk plays a Martian named Gogo (yes, really), who comes to Earth as an invasion scout but decides not to take over the planet because he falls in love with Annette Funicello. Mars Needs Women dispenses with the teen hijinks angle in an attempt to be a straight-up sci-fi thriller, and fails miserably.

We get the normal Larry Buchanan types of suck, such as crummy lighting, appallingly awful day-for-night, a washed-out, colourless print, and copious stock footage. There’s a long bit where the air force tries to attack the Martian ship and fails, which is entirely stock footage intercut with men in uniforms staring at something next to the camera. We don’t see the flying saucer itself even once during this sequence, although they do have a model of it that shows up elsewhere and is almost definitely the best effect in the whole movie. Not a high bar, of course, but seeing as they actually appear to have spent money on this miniature, you’d think it’d get more screen time.

The Martians themselves dress like a sort of noir version of the Chicken Men of Krankor. Their costumes are black wetsuits decorated with duct tape and silver paint, with stupid antennae on the sides of their heads. It amuses me that the first thing they do after acquiring some ‘Earth apparel’ is complain about how dumb neckties are. There’s a mention about how they’ve been trained in ‘Earth slang’, which seems to have happened just so the movie would have no possible sources of humour. When I think about Attack of the The Eye Creatures, I’m kind of grateful that Mars Needs Women never tries to be funny, but it leaves the whole film relentlessly monotone.

The acting is pretty crummy, even from the main characters. Yvonne Craig (Batgirl – no, not one of them, the actual Batgirl) does her best with the material but the lines she’s given are such technobabble bullshit there are very few people who could deliver them with any conviction. Almost everybody else is bland at best. The women scream and faint, and the military guys tense their jaws and glare. The only decent acting moment actually goes to Tommy Kirk as he describes the conditions on Mars, the dying planet. His tone barely changes, and yet you can sense his nostalgia and regret.

Do I even need to ask if this movie objectifies women? Well, yes, actually, I do, and you’ll see why in a minute. The answer is a resounding yes and a good bit of run time is spent doing exactly that. Before the opening credits we see three blondes abducted in broad daylight, dematerialized by the simple means of stopping the camera, removing the actress, and starting it up again. One of these hapless victims is taken from the shower. We later learn that the beam-ups failed somehow, which I assume means the women died, but that’s apparently not worth more than a throwaway line.

Once the five Martians arrive on Earth, they disperse to go hunting for suitable subjects. The first one goes directly to a strip bar, perhaps on the assumption that the employees will not be married (he’d be amazed). We then watch the stripper dance at great length, cutting back to it repeatedly in between other threads of the storyline, which suggests that the Martian sat there for hours staring at her before making his move. He seems to have been the least choosy of the five, simply taking the first woman he gets a boner for. The others are a bit more discerning.

None more so than the leader, Fellow One (the Martians are Fellows One through Five, which did save the writers from having to come up with ‘alien names’ that sound like synthetic fabrics). He decides on Craig’s character, Dr. Marjorie Bolen, an expert in ‘space medicine’ and ‘space genetics’ (this may be 60’s for astrobiology). Her skills seem to be just what the Martians need. This character is treated terribly by the movie and almost everybody in it. A news reporter commenting on Dr. Bolen’s arrival describes her as a stunning brunette who found it hard to hide her charm behind her horn-rimmed spectacles, and only then moves on to her qualifications. She gives a news conference titled Sex and Outer Space, and the reporters who are supposed to be interviewing her have a laugh about the good time the kidnapped women will supposedly be having on Mars. The prop department can’t even bother to spell her name right – it’s written as ‘Majorie’ on a sign even though the r is clearly audible when people say it out loud.

In contrast to this, Fellow One treats her with some degree of respect. Their conversations about science are mostly nonsense, but you can tell what the script is going for. They go on a couple of quick dates, one to a planetarium and one to a museum exhibit on human reproduction (yes, this is weird and icky), and while it is rushed, their little love story is actually important to the plot in ways besides Fellow One deciding to abandon the mission so he can bone her. The movie considers Dr. Bolen a sex object, but from the beginning Fellow One sees her as more than that.

This brings us, in a sideways kind of way, to the thing I find weirdly fascinating about Mars Needs Women: the alien invaders are curiously considerate. They steal a car, but they take one from airport parking on the assumption that the owner won’t need it for a while. They request unattached women, not wanting to break up any happy partnerships. And most of all, they ask for volunteers for abduction! This makes me wonder what would have happened if they’d broadcast their message to the entire world instead of one group of soldiers. Humans being the way we are, I’m sure there’re lots of people out there who’d fuck a couple of aliens if it meant a free trip to Mars (or move to Mars if it meant they got to fuck some aliens).

The female characters even seem designed to want a trip to space. Dr. Bolen might well have helped them willingly in exchange for this unparalleled chance to expand her research, and she does find it very sexy that Fellow One speaks to her as an equal. Yet somehow, the idea never even comes up. At the last minute, she becomes the helpless princess who must be saved from peril, and Fellow One simply tells her he loves her and asks her to flee. Why not invite her along as a guest instead of a captive? It’s got to be worth a try.

The others can be made to fit this pattern, too. The stripper? Maybe she’s sick of being gawked at like meat and would welcome the chance to be among people who will treat her like a queen. The flight attendant? She might feel like she’s been everywhere and seen everything – on Earth, at least. The artist? A whole new planet to inspire her! The homecoming queen? She’s a journalism major. What a scoop if she can report back to Earth about the culture and history of Mars! I want to see a remake of this movie in which the ladies really are volunteers, who must help the Martians outwit the military so they can start their new lives on another planet.

Sadly, this is not that movie, and its exploitative aspects stand rather awkwardly alongside the embryonic feminism embodied in Dr. Bolen, overwhelming it more often than not. I do want to give it maybe half a kudo, though, for at least acknowledging that women can have interests and ambitions. I guess the point of the ending is that Fellow One has realized they need to be allowed to pursue those instead of being forced to breed.

Mars Needs Women is probably Larry Buchanan’s best movie, which is a statement on the same level as saying that The Beast of Yucca Flats is Coleman Francis’ – by any reasonable standard it still really sucks. While it has many problems, I would say that the one that kills any entertainment value is how the narrative totally lacks the urgency the title implies. The ending should be a race to stop the Martians taking off with their prisoners, but no, it saunters instead. If there were only some tension in the film, it could have been the guilty pleasure you’d want from a movie called Mars Needs Women.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #mars needs women #larry buchanan just doesn’t care #60s

25 notes · View notes

w0rm-king · 4 years

Note

for the cat meme: literally every single one

Oh lord oh christ alrighty!

meow: who is your favorite artist at the moment?

oh I really like Betty Jiangs stuff and also clicckbaitcowboy and 13mo stuff is realy cool,,, I like a lot of artists tbh!

tabby: do you have any weird/hidden/obscure talents?

I can eat an inhuman amount of potstickers.

treats: favorite snack? favorite drink? favorite snack-drink combo?

I love matcha drinks so much! and i have so many snacks i like,,, like bread and synthetic crab meat.

siamese: any tattoos/piercings? (if so: which? if not: which would you get?)

I have pierced ears and 2 tattoos! A leetle dr zed on my ankle and a bee on the back of my neck :D

paw: what movie could you watch 1000 times and not get bored of?

Mayhaps Big Eden? It’s just,,, so good,,,

calico: what’s your favorite app on your phone?

I just redownloaded pocket camp the other day and have been having a lot of fun with that! Feel free to ask for my friend code add thingy

purr: what was your best halloween costume?

I was jeff the killer one year when i was in middle school and the slit mouth makeup I did for it was pretty cool, my friend at the time ripped it off for me at the end of the night

munchkin: top 10 songs rn!

no particular order but lately i’ve been listening to :

Wild Side-ALI

Kids-The Frights

We Will Commit Wolf Murder - of Montreal

Before I Forget - Slipknot

Best Clockmaker on Mars - Sturgill Simpson

Roses Are Falling - Orville Peck

Brutus - The Buttress

Rodeo - Lil Nas X

Sing Along - Sturgill Simpson

Buffalo Run - Orville Peck

whiskers: what is your current background/lockscreen?

Art of me and my bfs Starfinder characters he did!

tortoiseshell: if your house was on fire, what one object would you grab? (your pets and family are safe and chilling on the front lawn)

Probably my laptop lol all my art and game shits on it ;-;)

claws: what are your biggest pet peeves?

Loud noises esp when sudden make me see red, also when people casually use slurs and shit.

bobtail: what is the best fruit? what is the worst fruit?

Grapefruit and pomegranite god tier, bananas worst their texture is so bad to me (their flavor is good tho, i love a banana smoothie)

catnip: do you smoke, drink, or do drugs? (which drugs?)

Not really and i only drink occasionally with friends

scottish fold: favorite animal? (it’s a cat, right? right??)

I love cats yees,,,

collar: do you have a nickname? (what is it?) do you give other people nicknames? (what are they?)

Some of my friends call me Zeddy or Zedler instead of Zed :3c

I dont really give tons of nicknames, i call my bf jimmy or babe a lot tho

persian: do you play any instruments? (if so: which ones? if not: are there any you’d like to play?)

Nah I tried to play bass when i was younger but it didnt stick. Honestly idk if it counts but id love to make vocaloid music it seems so cool...

toy mouse: what are your hobbies? what do you do for fun?

I draw and play video games and also make games! (U should play them if you havent wink wink)

russian blue: what would you describe your aesthetic/style as?

Very specific shade of green only i truly see and bright wacky prints, also kitty paws.

tail: order these from best to worst: energy drinks, slushies, smoothies, juice, tea, milkshakes, hot cocoa, coffee, water, soda

water, tea, smoothie, juice, milkshake, slushie, hot cocoa, coffee, energy drink, soda

ragdoll: what’s something you wish you could like or get into, but you just can’t?

Podcasts, i just cant do audio stuff like that, it doesnt click with me which sucks cause i know theres a lot of really cool ones :(((

pounce: what is your weirdest fear?

if i do not cross my fingers and knock on wood often enough bad things will happen

maine coone: do you have any strange/odd/obscure interests? (what are they?)

i think so yes, i really love more obscure ps2 horror games,,, and obscure horror games in general tbh

kneading: what comforts you or calms you down?

laying my face on my cats soft fur, especially when he’s purring, its just so pleasant,,,

sphynx: if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

id have cat ears or be a werewolf!! or liek be 7 feet tall yes yes

hissing: give a controversial opinion!

I only follow normal people so idk what of my opinions are actually controversial to the general public but i did not like tales from the borderlands very much and am dissapointed that rhys bitch is in borderlands 3 and doctor zed isnt!!!

selkirk rex: what are 3 things you associate yourself with?

light green, kitty men, king crowns

grooming: what are your favorite blogs?

i love orvillepeckdaily,,,, also windup-estinien and all my friends blogs :3c

turkish van: granted three wishes by a cat. what do you wish for?

Endless money 4 me, give me cat ears, world peace

cat nap: choose between ________ and _________!

nyan applicable

ty for the ask!

#long post

3 notes · View notes

herstarburststories · 5 years

Text

First Kiss ✘ Tim Drake Imagine

✘ A/N: Did I make it clear enough that I'm in love with the Batboys??? WELL. Hope you guys like it! Between Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian (I know there's another boy, but I literally know 2 things or less about Duck so), Tim is the only who I know less but still know. Then that's my personal challenge here, kind of. ANYWAY.

I don't know if it's fluff or something else??? Like at first I thought about comedy but it turned out different so eksbsjsjsj OK I just realized that I'll probably rewrite it.

Thanks @lyss-91 for beta ♡

✘ Summary: Tim with a reader who despises coffee. Which isn't a general problem until they try to have their first kiss.

It was it. Finally. After many months of crushing, starring and holding yourself back to not punch Jason after he let out some unsubtle comments about you and his brother, it was time.

You and Tim were going to share your first kiss. Not as an official couple or anything similar, but like two people who have been liking each other a little bit too much. That would be a goal reached for both of you, something you craved for so many late nights working with him — which means, reminding Tim to eat and forcing him to go to bed countless times —, lunching with him at school or just hanging out.

So when his lips met yours with a gentle touch, you couldn't help but keep your breath to yourself. What should you do? You knew the answer: act! Press your lips together, place your hands on his neck, open your mouth, anything. And that's what you did, kind of.

Before Drake could start overthinking and consequently pull away from you wearing a red face and a bunch of apologies, your senses made a move; without a recoil, your hand rested on his shoulders, caressing Robin's synthetic leather suit there. Your head moved a little to the side, his mask touching your forehead slightly. Yet, he haven't open his mouth and neither did you, it was just a brush of lips, a innocent peck.

Hesitant, Tim put his hand on your waist, pulling you even closer while he parted his mouth, craving for a deeper kiss. You mimicked his movements, unsure on what to do next, but sure ready for more. You wanted that experience with him, and so did Tim with you. Even though you two didn't know it, both imagined that situation. After all you were teenagers with as said a crush, it was a normal way to drive your thoughts. Just a small detail wasn't on your pictures.

Coffee.

You hated coffee. There was no simpler way to describe it. You were always disgusted by its flavor since you gave it a try when you were nine with your parents and seventeen at the Wayne Manor because all Alfred ever offered was perfect, so if there was someone who could make a coffee that you would appreciate, it would be Alfred. Yet, you had to contain you own to not puke.

Simplified, coffee was the worst thing that your tongue ever had the unpleasure to taste. You only enjoyed a certain part of this: smell. You always sympathized to this aspect, that increased with your growing affection on a certain coffee obsesser, since it was his now natural perfume.

Otherwise, Tim Drake loved that drink more than life itself. He worked on coffee. 75% of his body was filled with coffee, not water. That boy couldn't go a day without his little excitment, wake up help. He knew every single type of them and almost tried all, if not for a couple. Some were his favorites, others not much. Anyway, the known fact still, clearly Tim lived by and sometimes for coffee.

Then you must should be clever and think that, obviously Tim would taste like coffee. And he did, indeed. As soon as his tongue met yours, you pulled away from him. It wasn't strong like coffee, yet you could feel it by a light touching.

"What?" He looked at you confused, burrowing his eyebrows. "D-Did I do something wrong?"

Damn it. Your instantaneous move made Tim think that he was going too far. You shook your head, trying to show him that it definitely wasn't the problem here. Drake didn't pay attention to it, too nervous and sweet to be rational. He was about to babble about not wanting to mess your friendship up and how much of an idiot he was. You put your hand on his face, you needed to talk to Tim, let him know that you weren't sorry for what you two made happen. It was just a reflex, non-thinking movement.

"No, no. Tim, you did nothing wrong. You were incredible, as always." You let your hands fall by the sides of your body, now it was your turn to feel ashamed. "It is just... Ugh. I feel like a kid. Listen, I really liked kissing you and I want to keep kissing you for a long time. I just..." You took a deep breath as you look into his eyes. Tim's mouth was open, his nose shrinking as he tried to find himself among your words. "I hate coffee."

"I... know?" Drake replied, unsure about how he was supposed to reply that. Tim took off his Robin mask, glancing at you.

"And you love it. What isn't a problem, of course. We are not stupid enough for it to be a problem. I mean, I love That 70s Show and you do not and it isn't a problem. But I felt that coffee when we kisser, and my body just pulled away with no permission romf me or anything!" You tried your best to explain the situation without sounding as silly as thought you were inside your head. Tim actually understood that. You were friends long enough for him to know your unbreakable hate for coffees in general.

"I, Do you want me to brush my teeth?" He offered. It did look like an attempting solution, if not the right one. You compared it to when a vegetarian dates someone who eats meat and they do not share a kiss immediately after they eat, or maybe when one inside a relationship drank and the other didn't enjoy alcohol.

"Yes, please." You sighed in relief. Such a good thing you were in love with someone like Tim. He didn't look down upon your wish, even when it seemed a little weird to you and possibly a little silly when said out loud. He really understood and it just made you want to make out with him more. "Thank God you are so understanding. I have the best guy I could ask for."

"I will be right back." He smiled, proud of himself after your phrase. Tim would not push you to do something that made you feel uncomfortable, never. Also, cleaning his teeth would take less than five minutes. Nothing to lose. Drake started to walk away when he stopped, noticing that he wasn't supposed to drop the main subject like that. "(Y/N)?"

"Yes?" You put your head up.

His next words were said calmly, followed be the sweetest grin, warm as the sun itself.

"I really liked kissing you and I want to do it for a long time, too."

349 notes · View notes

audible-smiles · 5 years

Text

ok, we get it, cats can’t be vegan; but why not?

By now, you’ve probably heard people on this website saying that cats are obligate carnivores. That’s true! You have probably also have heard people say this loudly and self-righteously, without offering additional detail. What does it really mean, in nutritional practice, for an animal to be an obligate carnivore? What, specifically, does meat have that cats need? Is there really a bunch of people out there trying to put their cats on vegan diets? Is it actually that bad? This post was written for you, my intellectually curious friend.

Cats have a higher dietary requirement for protein:

Cats (and I presume carnivores in general) convert protein into glucose and use it for energy at a relatively high rate. That’s a last ditch strategy for humans; if we’re starving, we’ll start using protein for energy, but most of the time we use carbohydrates, because it’s a more efficient process. Cats don’t have that option, because their natural diet (small rodents, birds, reptiles, and even bugs, with occasional nibbling on foliage) is very low-carb, so their metabolisms work differently. The minimum protein requirement in the cat is about 26%, compared to a minimum of 18% for dogs, which are better adapted to digest carbohydrates, and a minimum of 10% for humans, which are true omnivores. If they do not hit this minimum, cats will start catabolizing their own muscles to meet their energy requirements. Their maximum protein intake while hunting can be as high as 62%!

Can this higher protein requirement be met with plant-based protein? Yes, but it’s difficult. Hydrolyzed protein diets are therapeutic pet foods for animals with food allergies. The protein macromolecules are broken down into peptides or even amino acids, which are actually too small for the immune system to recognize them as a threat. The protein for HP diets can be sourced from anything, and soybeans are often used. These diets are not truly vegetarian, as they usually include animal fats for better palatability, and may also use hydrolyzed protein sourced from animal products in order to hit their minimums. Vegan cat food manufacturers don’t have this option, so they have to add ingredients like yeast and/or molasses to get cats interested, and their protein percentages are often on the low side, which is not ideal.

Cats can’t synthesize arachidonic acid from linoleic acid:

Arachidonic acid is a fatty acid found primarily in animal tissue. Most herbivores and omnivores can make it in their bodies using linoleic acid, which they get from plants. (Vegetable oils are a good source of linoleic acid for humans!) Cats don’t have the enzyme required to do this, so for them arachidonic acid is an essential nutrient, which means they have to get it from their diet. For a vegetarian cat food, chicken eggs would be a great source, but sourcing vegan arachidonic acid is more complicated.

Can you get arachidonic acid from non-animal sources? Maybe! Fungus in the genus Mortierella have been found to produce arachidonic acid. Theoretically you could farm this fungus and use it in cat food, although I have no idea if anyone is doing this right now. I don’t think its a cost-effective process yet, but someone somewhere is probably working on it. There are also some potential algae/seaweed sources, and those are definitely ingredients found in some pet foods, although I’m not sure if we have well-established science on how bioavailable plant sources of arachidonic acid are to carnivores- sometimes if you’re using a weird ingredient as a nutrient source you have to add more of it than usual, because it might be less efficiently digested/utilized.

Cats can’t synthesize vitamin A from carotenes:

Vitamin A is another essential nutrient for cats. When people say that eating carrots is good for your eyes, they’re referring to the fact that the orange color of carrots comes from carotene, and our bodies break carotene down into retinol, a form of vitamin A, which is vital for ocular health and function. Just like with linoleic acid and arachidonic acid, cats cannot convert carotenes to retinol; they rely on their prey to do it for them. Butter, cheese and eggs are all potential sources of vitamin A, so we still might be able to make a vegetarian cat food if we use dairy.

Can you get Vitamin A from non-animal sources? Maybe! Please note that many plants listed as a “source of vitamin A” are really a source of carotenes, and not suitable for cats. But synthetic retinoids exist! (They’re used topically for acne, I guess, IDK anything about human medicine.) So I bet someone out there is making a synthetic vitamin A supplement, and I bet a cat food manufacturer could buy it. I also bet it would be significantly more expensive than just putting chicken liver in cat food.

Cats can’t synthesize niacin from tryptophan:

Are you getting the picture here? Carnivores just aren’t equipped to make certain nutrients. Why bother, when you can get it so easily from your prey? Herbivores can make tryptophan and niacin from seeds, nuts, and legumes, and if they don’t have enough niacin, they can just synthesize it directly from the tryptophan. Carnivores can’t, and using eggs won’t save us this time, sadly.

Can you get niacin from non-animal sources? Probably! Peas, rice, and potatoes all have some amount of niacin, and all those ingredients are present in cat foods on the market today. So perhaps there’s still hope? The question here is whether cats can use plant sources of niacin efficiently enough to meet their daily requirements, which is not something I can tell you. But I’m sure there’s synthetic sources of these supplements as well.

Cats have a higher dietary requirement for taurine:

Taurine is an amino sulfonic acid, which is basically just a fancy amino acid. It’s found in most animal tissues and is very important for all sorts of body functions. They put it in energy drinks for some reason, although again, humans can synthesize it just fine. Taurine deficiencies in animals can lead to blindness and heart disease (and deficiencies in vitamin A and niacin are no picnic either). Cats need more of it than dogs do, which is why you can’t just feed cats dog food.

Can you get taurine from non-animal sources? Yes! Most of the taurine we get these days is in fact synthesized in a lab. Apparently its more cost-effective to do that than to source it from animal products.

Theoretically, if you managed to make a vegan cat food with appropriate levels of protein, arachidonic acid, vitamin A, niacin, and taurine, would that work? ...I can’t really say.

Nutrition is complicated. What works on paper doesn’t necessarily work in the body, and the only way you learn that is through trial and error. Personally, even as a vegetarian myself, I wouldn’t risk it. Nutritionally perfect, universally palatable vegan cat food would be an impressive feat of culinary engineering, but there’s so much risk involved. I’d want to see a lot more research than we currently have, with a lot more real-world feeding trials of vegan food.

Yes, there are vegan pet foods available today! Not a lot, because the pet food market has been unreasonably obsessed with high-protein MEAT MEAT MEAT diets for years now, but there’s a few. Looking at Wysong’s vegan formula, I see that its been formulated to meet the established nutritional minimums for both cats and dogs. Protein, 26%. Supplemented with vitamin A, niacin, and taurine, although they’re not legally required to tell me how much they use or where it comes from. I believe they are relying on kelp for the arachidonic acid. Theoretically, it might work. I want it to work. Would I trust it? Absolutely not.

Look: if you feel strongly enough about veganism that you want your cat on a vegan diet, here’s what you do. Make an appointment with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. Bring them a bag of the food you’re planning to use. They’re probably going to contact the company to get the typical nutrient analysis (which is more specific than the guaranteed analysis on the bag), cross reference that information with everything they know about cat nutrition (which is a LOT more than I know) and maybe even have a sample of the food sent to an independent feed analysis lab. If you do all of that that, and start a vegan diet trial under veterinary supervision, with the full intention of pulling the cat off of the trial if they show clinical signs of any nutritional deficiency...go for it.

edit: @weredrakka pointed out that sometimes synthetic versions of a molecule turn out not to work the exact same way that the natural version does, which I neglected to explicitly state because 1. I was sort of taking it for granted, and 2. chemistry is waaay above my paygrade. anyway, that’s part of why I’m hesitant!

#vetmed #cat food #vegan cats #cat nutrition #a very long post

16 notes · View notes

sense-sans-sensibility · 5 years

Note

11, 14, 35 :)

Hoo boy!

11. What are some sensory things you can’t stand - noise, taste, etc?

MEAT. I like meat a lot but I am HELLA picky. Gristle, tendon, bone, solid fat... basically anything that isn’t either lean or well marbled muscle will usually make me wanna hurl and I will lose my appetite. I AM learning that I can handle stuff better if its actually cooked properly. Also if meat isn’t fresh enough and has picked up environmental smells and tastes I cant eat it. (Freezer burn, fridge taste) Fat tends to absorb this first so I usually hate eating eating it for texture AND taste reasons. Also not so big on poultry skin. I used to really like crispy skin but I’ve had it cooked badly too many times and it became an unfavorite :(

Tannins and other super-taster problems - Anything with tannins is gonna basically burn my tongue with bitter though I like medium-strength tea and coffee with milk (milk attaches to the tannins, much like it does capsaicin.) I had to train myself to like these... lol I dont know why I did it though. Also not-perfectly-ripe-tomatoes and Cilantro taste like not-edible chemicals. Bell peppers I’m not a fan of. Green tastes blech. Yellow-Red are ok but it overpowers anything it’s cooked in and I get tired of the taste after a couple of bites unless its paired with other strong flavors.

Leftovers.... which I feel bad about, but leftovers tend to get fridge/microwave-flavor. I can’t reheat most meats. I dont order anything that cant be reheated in an oven or on the stove, unless, again, the flavor is strong enough not to be affected much. Also stuff that’s badly fried can taste super awful. I pick up garbage flavor/smell.

Strong Floral fragrances, any kind of artificial smelling fragrance and cigarette smoke that I cant escape will trigger fairly immediate anxiety and shut/meltdown.

Auditory Nopes are fairly run-of-the-mill too. Screeking, consistent repetitive sounds, TWO PEOPLE TALKING AT THE SAME TIME REALLY GETS ME IRRATIONALLY ANGRY.

And since this is going long... I have a lot of touch things, surely but the first that comes to mind is cheaply made synthetic fabrics. Cheaply made fabrics period, I guess. Which sucks. Its not like I can afford super nice stuff, lol. I don’t have a lot of clothes.

14. What are your favorite stims?

Hmm... Stretching... I really really love stretching. even 15 years after my dancing life I’ve maintained a weirdly high level of flexibility because of this.

Balancing is good too. Dancing. Stretching my fingers into weird shapes slowly is a visual and feeling stim. :3 A lot of my stims are based on body movements. I was probably told not to fidget with things.

35. Is anyone else in your family autistic?

I’m pretty sure my astrophysicist uncle is autistic! Though I’ve never talked to him about it. My dad definitely has ADHD... He commiserated with me a lot with my ADHD struggles, but he tended to deny my Autism type struggles.

4 notes · View notes

uschi-the-listener · 5 years

Text

Smoke Alarm Stories

During the day, it’s a quiet place, even though it’s a huge apartment complex, with buildings from A to G, all surrounding courtyards, and surrounded by parking lots and carports. When the kids are in school and the parents are at work or out shopping or doing whatever they do from dawn to sunset, it’s quiet.

Until the smoke alarm starts.

Every day, sometime between early morning and late afternoon, and occasionally in the evening, a smoke alarm goes off. Nobody stops it. It’s annoying, and once in a while, somebody can be heard yelling insanely at it, but it goes off once or twice a day, and it seems to be coming from the same place. An upstairs apartment, in building E.

The maintenance guys and the gardeners shake their heads and laugh. The apartment manager worries, when she hears it, but hesitates to intrude. Nobody smells any smoke. No flames are visible. Everything seems to be okay, but the manager worries. It’s part of the job.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter One

The sofa will never be the same again, and the smoke alarm was no help at all.

Fatima Aziz shuffles from the kitchen to the living room, to the bathroom, to the bedroom, all the time carrying on a conversation with herself about her plans for the day. She is 97 years old and has seen more of the world than anyone she knows. She is entitled to talk to herself while she carries out her routine chores and decides what to make for the momentous occasion coming up.

Her relatives are coming for a visit day after tomorrow, at least the ones living in the area. She lives a block from the madrassa and two blocks (“Uphill! It’s why I’m so old”,) from the mosque. Three of her sons, with their wives, live within a few miles. Her grandchildren live in the city, but that’s only about 40 miles away, and they will bring her (“Beautiful! And smart! Every one of them a Grade-A student and a hard worker!”)Great-grandchildren with them. Her daughter lives in New York City and has plans to visit by herself next winter, but she will not be here for the party.

So all the cooking is for Fatima; she would never ask her daughters-in-law to help, though they will probably bring along sweets or some sort of American food. They said not to bother, but Fatima knows what that means. (“Don’t bother! I bother. I will bother. I feed my guests; I am a good woman and I always will be while there is breath in my body and I have my hands and feet. Don’t bother…humph.”) She wants to make a lot of food, and she’s always been an excellent cook, but she is aware that she isn’t as strong as she used to be, that she tends to be a bit forgetful (“There’s a lot to forget! Insha’Allah, you should live so long in my head!”) so she’s thinking a few really good dishes that everybody loves, in large quantities.

Fatima made a huge bowl of Khyar bi Laban the night before, with her own homemade yogurt and the sweet little Persian cucumbers from the Arabic market around the corner. The hardest part of that project was getting down the steps and back up them again with the groceries. She also made enough taboule for about 50 people and started making maḥshī waraq ‘inab, with as many grape leaves as she could get on short notice. The olive oil and rice had been gifts from her oldest son, so she used minced lamb meat instead of the rather fatty hamburger meat from the local supermarket because he loves lamb and isn’t fond of beef. The pita breads she would make at the last minute, as many as she could in the stupid electric oven in the tiny apartment kitchen. They would wait until tomorrow.

Today, Fatima is making the baba ganoush: she has four large eggplants and plenty of garlic and olive oil and tahini, and everything else she needs to make a large quantity. The only problem is the stupid electric stove. You can bake an eggplant in the oven, or roast it on top of the nasty little burners on top, but it never turns out right and doesn’t get the smoky flavor grilling gives it; plus, those burners make it stick like glue and are hard to clean, and a lot of the best part gets wasted. These American stoves are for children and newlywed wives who know nothing about real cooking.

But Fatima has a little secret weapon: a tiny oil lamp filled with good olive oil that she can set on the table to cook the eggplants, one by one, each stuck on a long fork. After the skin is a little charred, the babyish oven can be put to use, finishing the job. It’s preheating now, and the heat feels good in the tiny kitchen. Fatima rolls up her sleeves and leans next to the oven for a moment to feel the heat in her bones, then reaches deep into the little cupboard under the sink for her oil lamp and a box of wooden matches.

To be safe, Fatima removed the linen cloth from her living room table, then set the little oil lamp on it near the edge. She knelt next to it, lit it with a match, and then began holding the first eggplant in the flame. It was going to take a long time, but some things just do. She held it there, supporting one arm with the other propped under her wrist, and slowly turned every part of the eggplant she could reach in the flame. As it started to char, the eggplant began to smell lovely, and Fatima was pulled back into her childhood, watching her mother char the eggplants on her own flame, on a grill in the courtyard, and smelling that delicious, smoky, fruity eggplant smell. When the first one was done, she set it on a hot tray in the oven and started the next one.

Halfway finished with the fourth eggplant, Fatima’s arms begin to wobble a little. Her muscles are tired. The eggplant dips a little too close to the little lamp, and when she jerks it back up, her sleeve bumps the lamp and it falls over, spilling flaming olive oil onto the table. A few large drops splatter onto the sofa cushions where they ignite instantly.

Fatima quickly squashes out and mops up the flaming oil on the table with the linen scarf she had moved earlier, then she leaps up, as well as a 97-year-old woman can leap, and pulls the afghan from the back of the sofa. She begins to beat at the flames on the sofa cushions with the afghan, effectively fanning the flames higher.

The smoke alarm begins to scream as black smoke belches from the synthetic fabric and foam rubber. Fatima steps back, finds a tall floor vase full of flowers and water—and douses the lowest part of the flame, which puts it out. She stands, shaking, and notes that the party will likely have to be based in the kitchen and dining room. She glares at the smoke alarm, which is on the ceiling, and too far away to be easily deactivated.

Muttering curses at the useless alarm, Fatima looks around the room, and then picks up the eggplant, which lies forgotten on her ruined table. Thankfully, the final eggplant appears to be done, unharmed by the disaster that took place over the course of only a few minutes.

Fatima carries it into the kitchen, places it with its brothers, turns off the oven, and collapses into the armchair at the head of the dining room table. As the alarm continues to screech, Fatima’s head nods, and she falls asleep with her head back and her mouth open.

It’s been a rough day so far.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter Two

One minute, I’m looking at what was supposed to be a box full of free kittens—but turned out to be 3 or 4 grubby little stuffed animals with an iPod playing kitten noises: What A Rip-Off!—in the back of the van of a fat old guy who works in the basement of the school, and the next, I’m waking up on a dirty carpet, staring at an eye with running mascara, smushed eye shadow, and maybe a bruise above the eyebrow. I can’t move much. My hands are behind me, and when I pull on them, my feet move. It’s weird and I wiggle to see how far I can move. Not far at all.

I can’t breathe through my nose, and I can hear some kind of clogged drain or something, only with a beat, like, skraaaaz, honk, skraaaaz, and honk. It dawns on me that the eye is mine, reflected on some kind of flat metal thing, and the sound is the fat guy, snoring. I’m not allowed to wear eye makeup, but oh well. I thought I’d have time to wash it off before Mom got home. I don’t even care now. I don’t have any clothes on, and my body feels all dirty and sticky and I hurt all over and my stomach feels all woozy.

People are always telling you never to walk home from school by yourself, but nobody ever tells you what you’re supposed to do when you have a serious argument with your friends almost before you’re off the campus, and you have to walk home alone. We only live 6 ½ blocks from the school, which is why I don’t have a carpool or a bus or some kind of parent pick-up time. This is perfectly normal. It’s a suburb, not like New York or L.A. or anything.

I think if it ever happens again, I’m going to just stay at the school and call somebody. I am never getting into this kind of trouble again. Cross my heart. Never.

So, I’m looking and listening and trying to move, and trying to sort out what exactly is going on, when I stretch back and feel what I’m tied up with. It’s zip-ties. I read a thing last week on Pinterest about escaping from them by wiggling a certain way and pinching my hands together. I’m trying to look backwards into my brain for the videos on the website, so I can do it. The guy on the video made it look so easy! Trust me, it isn’t. And it hurts.

Fortunately for me, my hands were crossed. It’s easier to get out if you can squeeze your top thumb out first, then the rest of your hand will follow, then the other one just sits there with an ugly bracelet on. It hurts, and I have some sore spots from doing it, but it got me out. That video maybe saved my life, so I want to advertise for that guy. His website is here: http://www.itstactical.com/skillcom/lock-picking/how-to-escape-from-zip-ties/. I looked it up. It’s only fair.

So, anyway, I get my hands out, then my feet out, and that guy is still asleep on the couch in his socks and grey old holey underwear. It’s disgusting and I almost gag. I discover that I’ve been lying under a glass and chrome coffee table with my nose up against the table leg. But there isn’t any time to think about that, and I want my stuff and I want to leave right now. I can see my backpack in the corner behind the front door, but I don’t see my clothes anywhere. I don’t want to look around, because it’s gross and I feel like screaming and panicking and crying. I think I’m crying, but I don’t have time for that, so I tiptoe into the hallway toward the bedroom and see some of my clothes on the messy, dirty bed. I snatch up my jeans and tee shirt and I can’t find any of my underwear or my socks, but my shoes are half under the bed, so I resign myself to putting them on without socks and not wearing underwear.

I hurt. It hurts to zip up the jeans and I feel like my legs aren’t working right. But I get dressed fast and stumble silently (I hope) to the front door which is not only locked, there is a hasp thingy and a padlock down by the floor. I go to the patio door: same thing. The windows are closed and locked. I go back to the bedroom and see the ugly old fat guy’s ugly old dirty jeans and there is a big ring of keys attached to the belt. I yank them loose and sneak, fast as I can, back to the door. I’m trying not to jingle the keys, but they have to make some noise while I’m trying to find the right key, and there are a lot of them, most of them looking exactly the same, with MASTER printed on them, and my hands are shaking like I’m diseased or something.

I hear the honking stop and the guy shift on the couch. I freeze. The snoring starts up again, even louder. I let my breath out. I’m thinking this guy has some kind of sleeping sickness, or maybe he’s drunk or on drugs or something. Anyway, I have to GET OUT! I consider banging on the door and yelling for help, but I can see how that could go very, very wrong. So I fumble with the keys some more for a minute while I think about what else I can do.

I’m looking around while I think, and I see the smoke alarm. If I set something on fire, maybe the firemen will come and let me out! I look around, and there isn’t much that burns. Lots of beer cans and vodka bottles. A plastic pretzel bag. Some dirty dishes and a leather-looking overnight bag. Some crappy plastic-and-metal furniture.

Suddenly I remember that one of the reasons my friends wouldn’t walk with me is I bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. They said I was disgusting and immoral and that I might as well be buying heroin. I was mad because a few days before they were talking about having boyfriends some day and if they smoked, it would be okay with them. I wanted to try them because my dad was a smoker, according to my mom, and I thought maybe I would grow up to be like him. So I wanted to try them. But now, I just had this unopened pack of Disgusting Immoral Heroin sticks in my backpack, and an evil lighter to light them with. If I could blow a bunch of smoke at the smoke alarm, maybe somebody would come! I didn’t care if I got caught with the cigarettes; I just wanted to be OUT OF THERE before that nasty old guy woke up.

I unzipped the backpack as quietly as I could, and dug down deep where the pack of cigarettes was hiding. My hands were sweaty, so they slipped away from me for a minute, but I got them and tore them open with my teeth, and instantly dropped them. The lighter was there, too, and I grabbed it and held the cigarette the way I saw the lady outside by the pool at our apartment hold hers, then tried to light it. It charred a little, but eventually a wisp of smoke came out. I went over by the kitchen, where the alarm was high up on the wall, and held the cigarette up as high as I could, standing on tiptoe, almost to where it would have touched the plastic of the alarm case, if I were about 3 inches taller.

Nothing happened.

I sucked on the cigarette, but coughed, and blew a big cloud of smoke at the alarm. It didn’t help. I felt woozy and sick, and I had to hold my breath and swallow until the cough went away. My eyes were already watering, and they watered some more. Normally, I would have given up right there, but then I thought, well, it’s smoke. Just not enough smoke.

So I lit another and held them both up. Nothing. And another, and another. Finally, I had the whole pack lit and clenched in one hand while I steadied myself on the wall with the other.

At long last, the stupid alarm got the hint and started beeping, almost too loud to stand next to it, but I had to stand next to it if this was going to work!

And nobody came. Nobody knocked. No firemen. No neighbors. I heard some guy yelling SHUT IT OFF ASSHOLE and banging from below, but when I yelled back, HELP ME!, he didn’t answer and probably didn’t hear me. The next thing that happened, the fat old kidnapper guy was staggering right at me and yelling something, too! He wasn’t too steady, and his eyes looked really bad, like maybe he couldn’t see, and he kept putting his hands over his ears.

I stooped down and got his keys again, and threw them, really hard, at his head, and threw the cigarettes at him, too. I know they connected, but I wasn’t waiting around to see what he was going to do, or if I killed him or something, though I was pretty sure I didn’t. I grabbed my backpack and ran to the bathroom. I got out my cell phone and texted mom, MOM HELP! SOME GUY HAS ME AT HIS APT AND I CAN’T GET OUT! HELP! Then I called 911. The door on the bathroom was locked, but sort of thin, and the guy was yelling over the alarm and banging on the door like he was going to break it down. I yelled into the phone that I was kidnapped by a guy that worked at my school, that my name was Chelsea Fingle, that I was in fifth grade, and what school I went to, and that my mom’s name was Susan McHale, and gave her cell phone number. The door was starting to bulge around the knob and make splintery sounds, so I looked around for something I could hit the guy with when he broke through.

There was a toilet brush, which would have worked on me, but the guy was pretty gross and probably wouldn’t even notice. I looked in the medicine cabinet and there was something with a homemade label that said Chloroform which smelled really horrible and sickening and oddly familiar, and some drugs in those little brown bottles, plastic disposable razors, and shaving cream.

I picked up the shaving cream and the Chloroform bottle and braced myself. I could tell the door was about to go. Sure enough, the door stretched in more than I thought wood could stretch, and splinters and chunks of thin wood blasted into the bathroom all over me. I had already put my arm over my face, and as soon as the guy was in, I aimed and squirted Barbasol all in his eyes. He grunted, then screamed, probably more mad than hurt. He was already sort of falling into the room, and now he lost his balance and fell against the sink. I dumped the whole bottle of Chloroform over his head and threw the bottle—hard–and jumped on his back and ran out to the living room.

I picked up one of his cheesy chairs and started banging on the glass patio door. A big crack ran right up it, so I banged on the crack, and the whole door fell in little pieces all over the little balcony outside the door. It was a relief to get out there and get away from the stupid, noisy smoke alarm. I could hear sirens coming nearer and I started to look around for a way to get down from the second floor without killing myself. There were hedges down below, so I just rolled over the edge onto the hedges, which were prickly and tore my shirt in a few places, but I didn’t mind. I bounced off and fell on some grass, then took off running, waving and yelling at the police car pulling into the parking lot past the gates.

My makeup was ruined, and so was my tee shirt, and I had no socks or underwear, but I had my backpack and my phone.

And my life.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter Three

If you wait long enough, a smoke alarm turns itself off, though not without adding to any ambient chaos already in place.

For once, the whole family is at home; nobody has soccer practice, nobody stayed late at work, the air conditioning isn’t working at the mall, so nobody went there after school, and everybody else is home from day care. So the family is having dinner together tonight, and Mom is busy making a huge meal of cheeseburgers, green salad, potato salad, and popsicles for dessert. Everything is done and waiting in the ‘fridge or freezer except the burgers, and all the buns are dressed to order for each family member.

Mom has nine burgers on the griddle at once: one for Liz, the oldest, two each for Oscar and Omar, the 8-year-old twins, one for little Kathy, the 5-year-old, and one for herself and two for her husband. The baby, Randall, in the playpen, doesn’t have enough teeth yet to have one, so he will be enjoying a Junior Meal, which is heating up separately. That’s a lot of burgers.

Unfortunately, when dinner is almost done, the smoke alarm goes off, shrilly announcing that it disapproves of so much cooking being done all at once. It has its limits. Mom yells into the living room, “Could somebody get that, please?! It’s driving me crazy! I can’t leave this!”

Dad looks up from his paper and shouts for Liz to turn off the smoke alarm. Liz rolls her eyes, says, “In a minute…” and continues working on her homework at the dining room table, where the twins are tossing dishes and flatware back and forth while setting the table for dinner. Liz tells them to “Cut it out, Apes! Turn off that stupid alarm! The broom is behind the door!”

The twins ignore Liz and continue their juggling act/table-setting routine. The baby starts to cry, so Kathy climbs into the playpen with him, pulls him onto her lap, and rocks him while she whispers into his ear, “It’s okay; the smoke alarm thinks it’s a fire, but it isn’t. It’s just like the fire trucks telling everybody to get out of the way. It’s just trying to help, but it isn’t very smart. I don’t think it likes cheeseburgers.” The baby stops crying, shudders a little, then cuddles closer to his big sister, who continues to rock him and begins singing a little made-up song about fire trucks and smoke alarms in his ear, using the shrill beeping as rhythmic back-up.

Mom is still cooking, and calls out, “Please! Somebody! Turn it off!” Dad throws down his newspaper, heaves an exasperated sigh and says, “Liz–!” then stalks out of the room. Oscar and Omar begin meticulously aligning every plate, fork, and glass, not raising their eyes for anything.

Kathy sighs heavily, kisses her tiny brother on the top of his head, and hands him his favorite jingly elephant toy. She climbs out of the playpen and runs over to where Liz had said the broom was; it isn’t there. Kathy trots around the house looking in corners, and finally locates it on the patio. She drags the heavy door open, grabs the broom, then closes the door with a mighty shove.

Then Kathy goes over to the noisy smoke alarm. Holding the broom by the bristles, she tries to poke the alarm, high over her head, with the broom’s handle, succeeding only in knocking a picture off the wall, whacking herself in the head, and making herself skip backward a few steps.

Patiently, she tries again. She manages to poke the alarm, but not in the right place, and it continues to sound its useless and annoying shrieks. Kathy backs up, tries again, pokes the alarm, but with no effect once again.

Mom is just coming into the room to deal with it herself, when the alarm spontaneously quits. Kathy drops the broom on the floor, climbs back into the playpen with her brother and pops her right thumb into her mouth. Randall crawls over to her lap and falls asleep draped across her legs.

Mom goes back to the kitchen, calling, “Dinner, everybody!” and begins bringing food to the table.

Dinner is served.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter Four

A smoke alarm is supposed to be a lifesaving tool, not a tiny, daily weapon of attrition. Yet, it is admirably suited for such a purpose. Beware oppression; it creates implacable enemies who will have no conscience when it comes to avenging themselves upon the oppressor.

Suzannah wakes up just before dawn, when the first birds are beginning their daily territorial squabble. The alarm still has about half an hour to go, so she quietly slips from under the covers, careful not to jostle the bed too much and disturb her snoring husband. Tiptoeing to the kitchen, she puts her apron on over her nightie and begins gathering a few breakfast items: she set out a few eggs, sausage patties, white bread, coffee beans, half a dozen oranges, and a single grapefruit. She takes the milk from the refrigerator and noticing that there is about half the quart left; she quickly adds a teaspoon of vinegar to it, holds it shut, and shakes it vigorously.

Looking at the clock, Suzannah notes that it is about 12 minutes before the alarm will go off. Immediately, she grabs the electric coffee grinder and the coffee beans and begins grinding as she walks toward the bedroom. The snoring is still loud and clear, like she imagines a ramshackle chain saw, or an engine running out of oil, would sound. She frowns thoughtfully and shakes the grinder a little before giving up and continuing with his breakfast.

Suzannah trudges back toward the kitchen and begins juicing the oranges and the grapefruit into a large juice glass, careful to include a few seeds from each piece of fruit, and some of the webbing from between the sections. She discards the rinds, careful to conceal the grapefruit peel beneath the rest of the garbage in the pail. Turning to the stove, Suzannah grabs an iron skillet, raises it to shoulder height, and drops it into the sink, where it breaks a wine glass from the night before, and makes a godawful clatter amongst the silverware and small plastic snack plates.

After a snort, a gasp, and a pause, the alarm clock begins playing a Sousa march. There is a great deal of rustling , and the snooze alarm is activated for another 15 minutes of sleep. More snoring ensues, if anything, louder and more repulsively than before. Suzannah pulls the skillet from the sink and places a huge spoonful of lard into it, turning the temperature of the front burner to HI. She smiles grimly, thinking of the term, “burner,” and stirs the fat in the pan, breaking it up so it will melt faster. She turns and drops the bread into the toaster and pushes the lever down, then adjusts the setting to the furthest reaches of DARK.

By this time, the lard has melted. Suzannah drops the pork sausage patties into it with a sizzle, then immediately breaks 3 eggs next to them, making sure to break each yolk and hide a few fragments of shell under each. The edges of the egg whites begin to turn into a black, lacy trim as the yolks spread, then harden in their greasy bath. When the toast pops up, she shoves it back down again and it begins to smoke.

Suzannah takes the butter from the refrigerator, and then turns the hot water on as far as it will go and lets it run down the garbage disposal, which she turns on. It crunches at food particles from last night’s dinner and the broken wine glass. She winces at the noise, turns off the disposal, but leaves the water running.

When the snooze alarm begins playing its ironically cheery tune, Suzannah turns off the hot water and begins setting the table. She runs a little cold water into a pitcher, quickly steps outside, and douses the newspaper on the stoop with the water. She picks up the paper, shakes it, and places it carefully, aligning it on the table next to the knife and spoon.

The shower starts running.

Quickly, Suzannah turns the hot water off, waits a moment, then turns it on again, then off again. Hearing a gasp and a grunt from the bathroom, she turns the hot water on and off for a final time. After a few minutes, the shower quits, she hears the rings of the shower curtain slide along the rod, and the heavy clump of her husband’s feet hitting the bathmat.

She turns back to the stove, where the sausage patties and eggs look as horrible as such foods can look: burnt, greasy, and beginning to smoke. Suzannah’s husband emerges from the bedroom, a tall, portly, grey-haired man in a light grey suit.

Suzannah quickly takes the burnt toast from the toaster and begins scraping it directly over the brown-and green-patterned upholstery of the dining room chair at the head of the table. When her husband enters the kitchen, she places the toast on his plate and begins buttering it with the cold, hard butter before he can see what she had been doing with it.

As he enters the kitchen, the lard in the frying pan bursts into flames and black smoke. The smoke alarm shrieks its warning, too late, as usual, to do anything about the problem. Suzannah smacks the lid on the pan, which stifles the flames, but smoke still churns around the edges of the lid.

Her husband steps toward her, raising his arm above his opposite shoulder in “backhand” position. Suzannah flinches, shoulders hunched and rising to her ears, her head to the side, her hands clenched at her waist. They stand in this tableau of violence for a full minute before he wordlessly lowers his arm and strides to the table, where he sits down and reaches for the paper.

The smoke alarm screams on and on. With a grunt of frustration, the husband lifts his coffee cup and bangs it on the table. Suzannah scurries over and fills it, bringing the milk carton from the refrigerator. When she pours from it into his cup, curdled lumps and whey drop out. He turns in his chair, looks her up and down, and starts screaming over the smoke alarm, “You stupid, useless bitch! I swear! You are getting worse! You fucking useless piece of shit! Get out of my sight!”

He rises from his chair, drops the soaked newspaper in the trash, shoves Suzannah, hard, into the counter, where she trips and falls to the floor. He lurches past her, black crumbs clinging to the back of his pants. He slams out of the house, yelling over his shoulder, “I’ll get a decent breakfast someplace else! Anywhere but here! I’ll be home at five and I want my dinner hot and ready and on the table! Stupid bitch…” and continues down the stairs, cursing to himself and receding into the distance.

Suzannah pulls herself to her feet, brushes herself off, and then dumps the toast, coffee, and the contents of the frying pan, into the trash. He hadn’t even tried his juice, which Suzannah strains and drinks. She gets the whole wheat bread from the breadbox, takes fresh eggs from the refrigerator, and makes two poached eggs on perfect toast with a side of sliced tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market. She begins completing the crossword puzzle from yesterday’s paper while she drinks her coffee and eats her breakfast.

The smoke alarm stops. The apartment is blessedly silent, except for the sound of a small child singing Row-row-row-you-boat, off-key but happily, from somewhere outside.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter Five

Not everybody hates the sound of a smoke alarm, but you would have to travel pretty far to find two who love it.

Yancey awakens abruptly, raising his head from Mommy’s pillow, where he’s been napping for most of the morning. He listens; hearing nothing but the usual clock-ticking and refrigerator-humming sounds, he prepares to go back to sleep. But then—the knocking starts up again. Someone is knocking on the door, despite having received no answer and clearly not about to receive one.

Yancey calls out, loudly, in Siamese, “Go Away. She isn’t home yet.” The knocking starts again. Yancey grunts in annoyance, stands up, walks around in a circle, and lies down again, curled up on the pillow. His tail twitches, eyes wide open, ears beginning to flatten in frustration.

Two men in dark suits stand patiently on the doormat, waiting for someone to come to the door. They look at each other, and the one on the left begins to knock again. They can hear the cat complaining inside, but knock again all the same. The one on the left says to his companion, “Nobody home. Here, hold this.” He leans into the other man, and then goes limp. His friend puts his arm around his waist and holds him up. The limp man tilts his head back and opens his mouth.

Slowly, a curling, foggy, gel-like substance begins to float out and form above the man’s face. It keeps coming. Grey-blue, swirled with lavender, sparkling faintly in the sun, the translucent but fairly substantial haze bunches together, and then swoops in a stream toward the man’s shoes, where it begins to seep over the mat and under the door, which is quite a tight squeeze.

When the entire mass has entered under the door, the doorknob begins to rattle and turn. The door swings open and the man on the right steps in, half-carrying, half-dragging the limp figure of his friend. He kicks the door shut with one foot, reaching out behind him. He pulls his friend’s limp body onto the living room couch and sits down next to it. He looks at the gel-fog hovering halfway to the ceiling and says, “I’m so tired.” He smiles, sleepily, leans back, and opens his own mouth.

As a grey-blue foggy gel seeps from his mouth, the man’s body goes limp and flops back over his friend’s supine body. Pinkish sparks light up in the gel-fog as it joins its compatriot, hovering over the couch. They swirl together briefly, and the pink sparks brighten. The two entities swoop quickly around the room, pausing over all electronic and some mechanical devices. A tiny clock under a dome chimes eleven times, and the entities are visibly joyous, swirling in frilly arcs over the dome in quick, dancing movements.

By this time, Yancey has awakened and decided to check out whoever has come into his domain. He is the man of the house, and Master of All He Surveys, and feels responsible for the safety of such valuable objects as the cat tree, the food dishes, and several tattered catnip mice and feathered balls scattered throughout his apartment. His property seems undisturbed, so he jumps onto the back of the couch, sniffs the limp men, then leaps and scrambles up to his favorite observation tower on top of the tallest bookcase, which takes him to about 10 inches from the ceiling. So far, the show is fascinating, except for the supersonic emanations emitting from the creatures floating and swooping through the room. They hurt his ears and he can feel the fur of his tail and the nape of his neck beginning to rise. He is assuming they are speaking whatever unearthly language they speak and doesn’t approve. They’re being rude.

Meanwhile, B’ViViVi and Cheeesri’peet continue to feel for electronic vibrations around the room, looking for a quick and easy meal. They hover over the television, which they turn on. The deep tones of a program featuring noisy trucks and explosions offends their sensibilities, so they turn off the sound and simply suck electricity from the cable attached to the television. Cheeesri’peet enters the kitchen and drinks from the microwave as it cooks nothing for a few minutes, humming busily as it turns its empty turntable. The refrigerator also provides a hearty side-dish. B’ViViVi enters the bathroom and finds the electric shaver, the electric toothbrush, and a vibrating appliance hidden in the bottom drawer of the dresser in the bedroom. He sets them all to their highest speeds and flows from one to the other to the other as he drains different-flavored energy from each.

The two visitors re-enter the living room, taking note of the cat on top of the bookcase, who glares warily at them. B’ViViVi teases the hair on the cat, which crackles and sparks. Cheeesri’peet winds a tentacle of his substance around his friend and pulls him away from the annoyed feline, who huffily resettles himself on his haunches and refuses to look. His ears are flattened in discomfort as the two uninvited guests chitter supersonically back and forth to each other.

Suddenly, B’ViViVi spots a circular appliance, high up on the wall, and feels around for its vibration. This item is battery-run only, but tasty all the same. Cheeesri’peet activates it and springs back in sudden delight as it begins playing something very similar to the classical music of his people, with rhythmic bass notes throbbing at the lowest frequency in tune with a little flashing red light, not unlike the light show accompanying the popular music of their home planet. The supersonic trills and arabesques delight the two gel-fog beings, who begin to flutter, swoop, and swirl throughout the apartment, singing along with the superb composition coming from the tiny appliance.

Yancey’s ears flatten lower than they’ve ever gone, and he can’t stop himself from growling in pain, though he recognizes that what they are doing is a sort of music; he admires their virtuosity while condemning the performance for the squeaking misery it causes him. He can hear, up and down the complex, dogs beginning to howl in agony. The pug twins next door are squealing miserably, and the Doberman two doors down sounds like it will have a seizure if the “music” doesn’t stop pretty quickly.

The alien visitors continue to dance and sing, paying no attention to Yancey’s discomfort or the howling of the local canine community. Their joy is brief enough on this strange planet and they have no intention of abbreviating it. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of those dogs and cats within earshot. Besides, B’ViViVi and Cheeesri’peet knew from past encounters that the four-legged of this planet tend to have short memories.

Sadly, the impromptu concert is interrupted by the sound of a key in the front door lock. B’ViViVi and Cheeesri’peet swoop back into the bodies on the couch, then rise with renewed energy, and wait by the door. The moment it opens, they rush out, pushing past a woman in a tan business suit and black pumps, whose mouth drops open in astonishment.

The men leap to the railing, then to the roof, and then join hands and leap into the sky, where they float away like escaping balloons. As they grow smaller in the distance, Yancey leaps down from his perch onto the couch, thence to the door, where he also attempts to push past Mommy and jump to the railing. Mommy shakes herself, closes her mouth, then gently picks Yancey up, absently stroking him from ears to tail, and steps into the living room.

The smoke alarm quits, just as she begins dialing 911 on her cell phone.

)0(

Smoke Alarm Stories: Chapter Six

Sometimes the smoke alarm just isn’t important enough to sidetrack the tenant.

“Hi, Mom—did you get my email?” ……….

“Yes, yesterday. I guess you didn’t get it yet.” ………..

“Okay, just excited about a little development I thought you’d like to hear about….”

“Exactly! And she’s coming for dinner tonight for the first time” ………….

“Yes, here.” …………………………

“I was thinking steak and rice pilaf and asparagus.” ……………………………

“I know, and I have that wonderful griddle you sent me last year for Christmas…” …………………….

“Cherries Jubilee” ……….…

“Yeah, everybody likes a flambé-type dessert” ………………

“Mmmm hmmm…mmm hmmm…” …….

” I think I can pull it off.” ……..…

“Yes, Dad sent me a fire extinguisher” ………………………

” Yup, fully charged” ……………..

“It’s not that old and I don’t expect I’ll need it” ………………

“I know, nobody expects to need one, but I…” …….

“Okay, I promise.” ……

“I gotta go now, Mom.” ……………………

“I know, but I have a lot to do before tonight.” …………………..

“Yes, I’ll tell you all about it, but I gotta go now.” …………….

“Okay, I’ll call you back later…” ……………………….

“Okay, bye! Love you! Tell Dad I said hi…bye bye— “

(Jacob heaves a deep sigh, then hits a number on his speed-dial.)

“Hello, Edward?” ………

“Yes, it’s me.” ……………..

“I know, I missed you, too.” ……………………

“Yeah, tonight around seven; can you still make it?” ……………….

“No, you don’t have to bring anything unless you want wine.” …………..

“Red. Something like a merlot.” ……………..

“You eat meat, right?” ……………….

“Hahaha, yeah, I know, but I was thinking steaks; I have this griddle I’ve never used…” …………………….

“Mmmm hmmm, dessert and everything” ………….

“No, I’m just not ready.” …………….…

“She thinks I have a girlfriend.” ………………..

“What do you mean?” …………….…

“Of course I’m not ashamed of you, I was just hoping to get through school before I…” ……………….…

“No, I know, I know. But look what happened to Jesse, and Geoffrey, and…” …………………..

“I know, that’s what I’m trying to avoid…” …………………….

“I think I’d better do it by myself.” ……………….

“Maybe they can meet you first in another context, like on Family Day or something.” ……………………..

“Yes, but I don’t feel ready.” ………….

“It’s too soon.” …………….

“No, I’m not waiting for conditions to be right.” …………………….

“Well, sort of, I guess, but it’s not like that.” …………………..

“I don’t think it’s wrong, because they offered, and I accepted, and there weren’t any conditions except that I not flunk out. It’s not dishonest if they didn’t say anything about it.” ………..…

“I don’t know, we never talked about it, but they don’t say anything when there are those horrible jokes on sitcoms…” ……….…

“I realize that, but I still need help paying for school, plus I’m on their insurance.” ……………………

“No, they never said anything about that.” ……………..…

“Mom always says she just wants me to be happy, but…” ………….…

“Wait a minute; I think my toast is burning!” ……………..

“Yes.” ………………

“Yeah.” …………….

“But I’ve been up for a while, just didn’t have breakfast yet—hold on— “

(Smoke Alarm screams indignantly and won’t shut up…)

“Of course I love you!” ………………

“It’s just…” ……………

“No, it’s burnt black; I’ll make new.” …………….

“Wait a minute, Mom is on the other line” ………………………

” Hold on—“

(Jacob distractedly punches buttons on his phone.)

“Mom? I was going to call you back; give me a minute—she’s on the other line— “

(More distracted button-punching…)

“Hi, Edward, honey? We’ll talk about this tonight and maybe you can help me make a plan. I totally want them to know about us. I have to hang up and kill that fucking smoke alarm. It’s driving me crazy!” ………………..

(Silence.)

“Oh…” ……………………….

“Mom, I thought you were on the other line.” ……………….

“Yes, we need to talk. There’s something important I need you to know about me.” ………………….

“His name is Edward, and I am in love with him.” ………………………

“No, Mom, we’re the same age. He’s actually two months younger. He’s in a couple of my classes.” ……………….

“I was going to tell you and Dad in person.” …………………….

“No, I don’t know when; I hadn’t planned that far ahead. It’s going to be okay, Mom. I’m the same person I was when I was in high school. I’m still the same person.” ……………………

“Well, I’m grown up now.” ……………..

“Of course, I love you. I want you in my life, but I can’t stop being who I really am just to make you happy. This is important. It’s more about me than it is about you and Dad.” ………………

“You can tell him if you want, but I think it would be better if you let me do it. I don’t want you taking the heat for me, and it’s really up to me.” ………..

“Yes, dinner tonight. At around seven. We were going to talk about telling you then.” ………………..

��I know you’d like him. He’s wonderful, Mom, a dream come true. You’ll see.” ……………..

“Okay, I’ll call you in the morning and let you know how it went. Remember, I want to be there when Dad gets the news, but if you can’t deal with that, I won’t be mad at you.” ………………..

“No, I mean it. I’ll always love you, no matter what.” ……………..

“Yes, Mom, I know. But now I have to clean up and turn off the smoke alarm and do a tiny bit of shopping before tonight. The cooking will be a breeze. You know you taught me very well. I can handle this.” ………..

“I love you, Mama. Now let me go. I’ll call around 10 tomorrow morning.” …….

“Love you, too. Bye-bye. I promise.”

(The phone rings again, just as the smoke alarm spontaneously goes silent.)

“Hello? Edward?” …………………..

“Oh My God, you’ll ever guess what just happened…!” ………………………

#smoke alarm stories one through six

6 notes · View notes

wellmeaningshutin · 7 years

Text

Short Story #119: Buddy.

Written: 6/7/2017 Nature Week

Remember the outside world, remember how beautiful it was, how great life used to be? No, you probably don’t. I have no idea if you can see any of this, if you can even hear me, you’re just a potted fern, but you’re the only thing to keep me company in this hole, this shelter, so you’ll have to do. Aw, don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not trying to be insulting or anything, you just have to understand that it would be much better for me to be with somebody I could have an actual conversation with. But, hey, if it makes you feel better, when I talk to you I’m giving you gas that you need, and you turn that into gas that I need, and isn’t that give and take better than a normal conversation? Why, if I had another person down here, they would just be consuming all of this precious air, and we’d eventually run out within months, and then what? Would we have to leave and go to the surface? Who knows what the hell is up there, if there even is anything. I know that there are all sorts of fantastic stories about what should be happening, but unless somebody comes pounding on the door, then I’m not going to believe that its anything other than a lot of rubble and radiation, R&R, while down here we have nothing but rest and relaxation, isn’t that right buddy? Aw, cheer up, its not that bad, we’ll have a great time down here. Now, okay, I have to be a little honest with you. I have no idea if you’re even able to feel emotion, and I’m sorry if that’s offensive. I’ve been told that before, my ex used to call me a monster, but in the end I invited her into the shelter, I told her that, well, you know what? Fuck her. She’s dead. Its just you and me, buddy. We have the rest of our lives to spend together, isn’t that special? Its kind of like marriage. Not that I believe in marriage, because I don’t, but let’s just- ah! I’m such a mess right now, don’t look at me, don’t watch me cry. I’m going to turn you around now, or, where the hell am I supposed to turn you? Where’s your front, buddy? Fuck it, I’ll just crawl under the bed. Oh god, why did you make me fall in love? Why are you such a dick? ——————————————————————————————————— Hey buddy, sorry if things got a little weird last night, its just… I don’t know, maybe its this room that we’re stuck in. Its not really the happiest place, is it? But I’m sure that you understand, even if you can’t feel happiness, or sadness, because there’s no sunlight, none at all. Sure, there’s artificial light, but.. Can you tell the difference? Is it like you’re having to eat off brand light, or is it the same feeling that I get when I buy cheap meat, the kind that comes from animals who are trapped in cages, and it all tastes flavorless, not as good compared to the animals that get treated like royalty. Can you taste happiness? Is that what the difference is? Eh, maybe you don’t understand taste either. I’m sorry that I don’t understand you that well, but you have to know that I’m making a genuine effort. I want to know how you work, buddy, and its a shame that I don’t. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if you hated me, because humans and trees have such a strange relationship, but you have to understand that we have trouble feeling empathy towards our own kind, so trying to understand or even care about plants is an impossible task. Hell, we even have a hard time with insects, and we have more in common with them than we have with plants. But you guys must hate insects too, huh? They’re always trying to tear you guys apart, to consume you, its awful. Even trees aren’t safe from them! And I’m not just talking about termites here, I’m also talking about bees, or hornets, or wasps, really anything that lives in a hive, because they must buzz all the time, making a racket while everyone tries to sleep. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have a hive attached to me, that just sounds like a nightmare, like a hellish version of acne. With humans, we can just pop them and go on with our lives, and we even have a cream that… Oh, oh no. Oh god why did I say that! I’m so sorry! Shit, yes, okay those creams are largely made from you guys. Yeah, we grind you up and rub your carcasses on our faces, but I’m not proud of that! I’m not like those humans, I’m different! Look at me, look at my face, look at how disgusting it is! I don’t give two shits about taking care of my skin, I’m not like the others! And if its any consolation, I don’t eat salads or anything either. I either eat meat, or food that is so synthetic that you could hardly say that it comes from any plants, well, okay yeah corn, but… how do you feel about corn? I mean, its impossible to eat any corn, but is that upsetting to you? And you’re a fern anyways, do you care about vegetables? Wait, do you care about any species that aren’t ferns? Like, the way that I would feel about a dolphin, is that the way you would feel about a tree? And, do you only like your own kind of fern, can you guys be racist? Do you shun any of your children if they mix with any other kinds of ferns? No, no not you. I know that you’re one of the good ones, isn’t that right, buddy? You would never stoop that low. ——————————————————————————————————— Okay, its been really difficult for me to think of anything that is the same in human cultures, I don’t think there’s any comparisons, so you may have gotten me there, buddy. There is no animal that you can grind up, and get high off of. Its not like I could crush up a couple of spiders and smoke them out of a pipe, that wouldn’t work and would probably be disgusting. And I guess, well, now that I think of it its not just pot either. I mean, we can get drugs from seeds and tree bark, and that must be like we’re taking all of your unborn children, and your guys’ skin, in order to feel pleasure for a while. Oh, and I guess alcohol is just rotted plant corpses. Hm. Yeah, okay, you’re right, humans are worse than you guys are. There’s just nothing that we do that could compare to mold, or poison ivy or anything. No wonder some of you people- Oh, no, no buddy, I didn’t mean it like that! ——————————————————————————————————— Okay, so, four words? Okay. Title of a movie. Hm, you’re stumping me with that one.. Give me another hint, do something different.. Fuck, I hate charades. Uh, Saving Private- no, no that’s only three words. Fuck, you may have stumped me this time- wait- wait no, I have it! Where the Red Fern Grows! Ha ha, I so got you! You’re not going to beat me tonight, you’re win streak will end! ——————————————————————————————————— I really liked these snack cakes before they were all that I had to eat, but now I’m really starting to regret the decision. At least I have all of this dog food, so maybe that will change things up. No, buddy, I didn’t have a dog. If I had one, it would probably have dug you up and I’d be talking to it. Oh, don’t be like that, you know that they’re savage animals! I have to take conversation wherever I can get it, or I’d go nuts, but you’ve been the best case scenario. If I had a dog, oh, that would be the worst, it would have no way to talk to me, I’d feel like an asshole. Oh, why did I get this if I didn’t have a- well, its sort of complicated. Well, it isn’t really complicated, but I just don’t want to talk about that right now… don’t look at me like that! Ugh… fine, you know that I can’t say no to you, buddy. I was preparing for my ex to be in here with me, she had a dog and she probably would have brought it. Now that I think of it, even if she was in here I’d still end up talking to the dog for most of the time anyways! Its not like you can bond with just anyone, if you’re the last two people in the world. Some problems just can’t be fixed, some best friends just can’t be unscrewed. Oh, no, she didn’t cheat, I did. Sure, okay, you’re right, I probably shouldn’t have done that, but she never let it go! I make one little mistake, and she wants a divorce. Some people, some people. She probably just found some guy with more money or something like that, that’s just how women are, that’s how they are, buddy. You and me, we’re better than that, we would never hurt somebody that we love. You know what, I sort of wish… aw, no I don’t want to say it, its too embarrassing! Your leaves sure are smooth today… ——————————————————————————————————— -and then the boat captain says, well, he’s really upset, you can tell. He looks around at those goofballs, and he says “hey, do you have a ticket to board this boat?”, ha ha, and he says it like he’s, well, I’m not good at impersonations, but you get it, you’re laughing. And then the pirates look around each other confused, like they’re holding all sorts of weapons. Guns, machetes, that sort of stuff, and I think one guy had a bundle of tnt, wait, not that comes in later. So, the captain asks the question, they’re confused, so they just shoot the guy while his wife and children are watching, and then they, haha, they dump his body over the side.. And… and what happens next? I know that they beheaded the wife, and the kids were taken to be ransomed off, or raised to be future pirates or something like that, but what happened to the guys body… hm. Oh yeah, ha ha. So, they dump him overboard, but he doesn’t hit the water at all! Through a lot of tumbling, he ends up knocking into a life preserver on the side, and his head gets stuck in the hole, so he’s just sort of hanging at the side of the ha ha.. Hanging at the side of the ship. Oh man, you should have seen it! And then, when they clear out all of the goods from the boat, they tie up the crew members, making sure to tape their wrists together, their ankles together, and then they taped the wrists and ankles together. Then, to finish things off, they put tape over their mouths, so that they couldn’t talk to each other. The one pirate, he goes to the room on the boat that’s the furthest down, and he sets the time on the dynamite, this is where its supposed to go in. The pirates leave, and the crew members struggle to escape, and then BOOM! The bottom goes up, haha, and the whole ship starts filling with water! And the whole time, haha.. The whole time the crew is having to face the water, but they can’t even console each other about the danger, so they just look into each other’s eyes like ,“oh god this is it, this is how we die isn’t it?”, and then they drown, ha ha. So what do you think that dream meant? Do you think we’re going to go out and see the ocean? Oh man, you’d love it, and I know what you’re thinking: salt water is terrible for me! But, no, they have fresh water on the boats, and there are so many babes in the ocean, you don’t even know. Algae, seaweed, um, coral? Is that a plant or an animal or a mineral? I can never tell with that one. But, oh man, and you have to try fish sometime, its delicious, you’d have to try some smoked salmon as your first meat… hm. Is fish considered a meat? I get so confused about that one. ——————————————————————————————————— Buddy? Buddy? Are you awake? I was lying when I was talking about the dream from last night, I just made that story up, I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t know how to, well, talk about what I actually dreamed about. It was, well, about you… Oh, okay, I’ll go back to sleep then. We can talk about this in the morning. ——————————————————————————————————— What do you mean “forget it”? Forget what?! The feelings I have for you? I don’t care if you’re just a fern, that doesn’t matter to me! What are you talking about?! Whose going to judge you, huh? They’re all dead, everyones dead up there. No, you were just imagining that knocking from the other night, it was all in your mind. Its just you and me in here, and trust me, you can’t do any better. I’m whats best for you, why can’t you just accept that?! You’re being a real stick in the mud, and I’m not saying that in a literal sense. Okay, both literal and- are you going to pick apart everything I say? Why do you have to be so callous right now, can’t you see that I want this so badly? And nobody’s ever going to want you the way that I want you, buddy. I’m your best case scenario, and your not even mine. Yeah, I said it! I could do way better than you! So why are you pushing so hard away from me, huh? Why are you being such an ice queen? Do you know how ugly you are? You’re a dog, there’s nobody else out there, and if there was they wouldn’t take you in. You’re just trash, you didn’t even come from nature, you just came from some shitty gardening store. Who do you think you are to treat me like that? You fucking whore. You fucking bitch. You blew your chance, you could have been with a real great guy but your blew it, you fucking blew it! ——————————————————————————————————— Heeeey, buddy. Look, I’m really sorry about the way I acted earlier, I swear that I’ve never been like that before. I’m just, I’m just a little stressed up for having been cooped up in this room for almost two years now, I’m just tense, you know? This happens, and, please don’t think badly of me because of that one little mistake I made. I’m a good guy, trust me on that. Look, I’ll do anything for you, and, hey, I got you this gift! Its drinking water, its better than the stuff that I’ve been putting in your pot. Isn’t that nice? And, hey, I know that you want your space so I’ll leave you alone for the time being. Just remember that I really am a nice guy, just give me this one chance. Okay, I’ll go away for now. And its not like I was that bad anyhow… ——————————————————————————————————— What do you think life would be like if we met each other before, well, you know.. Do you think we’d still be together? Oh, no, don’t say that, I would never pick any of the other girls over you, buddy. You’re my one and only, you’re the reason that I get up in the morning. We’d probably be married by now, we would probably run a bed and breakfast, we’d be so happy together! I know that we wouldn’t be able to have kids, but we could adopt without any problems, maybe. Yeah, yeah I know that the world wouldn’t understand our kind of love, but maybe this what needed to happen. Maybe god dropped the bombs, just so that we could be together. Isn’t that a sweet thought? Hey, do you think that, well, never mind! No! I’m too embarrassed to say it, don’t make me, ha ha! Okay, fine, I could never lie to you, not to those leaves. Do you think that you would want to live in the woods, in a metal cabin, or would you want to live in the city? You could be a city girl at heart, but I would understand it if you wanted to live with your family or whatever. I would do anything for you, and I would never hurt you, you know that. Oh no, don’t bring that up again, you know that you’re just taking things out of proportion. Why are you trying to hurt me by saying such things? No, don’t worry, its no problem. Its okay, ha ha, seriously! I can’t remember how to do this, I only have a feint idea, but I can try. Okay, so this line on your leaf is your money line, and it makes sense that its weak, given that there is no longer any form of money out there. And this here is your love line, which also turns out to be a part of your stem, so that must mean, wow, it must mean that we’re soul mates, but we already knew that, didn’t we? And this, okay, I don’t even know what this one is supposed to be. Okay, I don’t know what a lot of these are supposed to be, I’ve never done this with a plant before, but I guess I also haven’t done a lot of things with plants before, ha ha. Aww, don’t get embarrassed! ——————————————————————————————————— Yeah, okay, I called you Trish last night, but it was an accident! God, get off my fucking back! I make one mistake, one mistake, and you won’t let me live it down. You’re just like her anyways, so I guess its pretty fitted that I got the two of you confused. Oh man, its just like you plants to act like this! Its no wonder that humans used to treat you like decorations, used to have you grow everywhere just to walk all over, because you’re worthless. You all are synonymous with dirt, and for a good reason too. You feed on shit and water, you know nothing about what its like to really live! And you know what the worst part is? You have more in common with mold than you ever will with me, that’s how disgusted I am by you. I wish that I had some fruit or something, I’d love for you to have to watch me eat it, to watch the juice drip down my chin, down this belly that you’re even lucky to see. Fuck, you don’t know how lucky you are to be with me, and you don’t know how unattractive you are when you, fuck, don’t look at me like that! Shut up, shut the fuck up! ——————————————————————————————————— Why did you provoke me like that, Trish? Why did you make me, you know how I am when I get upset. I was just so passionate about you, and now look what you did. No, I’m not going to pick you up, because there’s nothing to put you in, your pots broken, you’re just going to have to lay there in the dirt and think about what you’ve done. No, I don’t know if you’ll be fine now that you’re roots are exposed, but don’t act like this is my fault. I’m sick and tired of everyone blaming me for their own problems, its like every little thing has to be my fault. And even though you have no right to be upset, I try my hardest to make things up, but it seems like that never makes you happy, it still causes you to have to provoke me in some way, I don’t know why you have to act that way. Maybe you just want me to keep getting you gifts, is that it? When I first hit you, you wouldn’t stop being upset until I got you that fucking ring, and then it kept going until I had to get you a dog, that damn mutt. I’m glad that I didn’t let you bring it in here, that damn thing would have pissed everywhere. Maybe its your mother, maybe she’s filling your head with lies. I don’t know why the woman seems to have it out for me, but she does, she never liked me, not once for the whole time that we’ve been together. You have to understand that though, that’s why I have to keep you away from her, because she’s toxic. She doesn’t want what’s best for you, she just uses you like a pawn to sort out all of her petty grudges. Its ridiculous, its pathetic, and you don’t need to deal with that. I keep you safe from all of that, don’t you understand? And all I ask for is a little respect, all I ask is that you don’t try to piss me off, that you don’t hound me for every little mistake that I make. Nobody’s perfect Trish, and you’re no exception. You know that I don’t hound you for every little accident that you make. ——————————————————————————————————— Sometimes, I don’t know, sometimes I wish that I had brought a hedge in here instead. At least with a hedge I could trim it in different ways, I could change things up, but with you its just the same old thing, day in and day out. The magics gone, and you can’t expect me to pretend like it isn’t. I’m a man, I have needs and its fucking insane to try to tell me that I can’t do what I was biologically programmed to do. Ha, but I guess you wouldn’t know a thing about that, would you? All you’re programmed to do is to sit in one spot for your whole life, while you absorb sunlight and try to suck the life force out of me. Shit, and that’s it, you don’t give anything back to the world, you’re just a parasite, you’re no better than a weed. At least other plants can contribute to society, they can give us fruit, vegetables, wood, highs, or are even just pleasant to look at, but you’re a plant that nobody would care about if they ever saw you in the wild. You’re just like every other fern out there, you’re nothing special, you’re something that animals or humans would think of no more than they think of dirt, you’re just something to be stepped through or on while looking at what nature really has to offer. The best thing that you would ever do would be to collect animal shit, or maybe some desperate rabbit would eat away at you, if you were lucky. So you had to come all the way here, over to the city, where there were less plants, where you could pretend that you were actually special, where you could flaunt your chloroform and hope that people wouldn’t notice that there was nothing special about you, you couldn’t compete so you had to sink as low as you could. But I know what you are, who you are. You’re just some run of the mill fern, you’re no better than a whore, because you have to offer your body to the world since it wants nothing else to do with you. And that one thing that you have going for you isn’t even that much to begin with, and as time goes by I’ve seen it get worse and worse, to the point where you’re currently nothing, you’re just shriveled and brown and dried out. You wouldn’t even make good firewood, you’re just something to put into the green trashcan, because that’s what you are, you’re just something to be thrown out, like an old Christmas tree, but don’t think you’re anywhere near as special as one of those trees. Are you even good enough to have to deal with bugs? I bet you wish that just one bug would try to eat away at you, just so you could feel like all of the other plants, but not even a louse would want to chew away at you. Termites and locust would move right by, and snails would only move over you to get to one of the more beautiful plants. You know why? Because ferns are useless, they’re just a mistake. Every other plant has some purpose, every other plant gets celebrated and loved in some way. Hell, look at the fucking maple tree’s leaves, they get slapped on a flag, they get to be the spokesperson for a whole country! Roses are known for love, bushes get associate with pubic hair, but that’s not a bad thing, and there’s an entire culture based around marijuana, even if it is rooted (another example) in something terrible, in a sort of genocide, at least they have a fucking genocide. Who would care enough about ferns to even fucking hate them? Yeah, okay, I sure as hell hate them, I sure as hell hate you, but that’s only because I was stupid enough to get tricked into being with you. I was, this would have never of happened if I had just got some other plant, you were just lucky that I was so desperate. If only Trish hadn’t run away to that shelter, that fucking cult where they filled her head with lies and nonsense, than I’d at least be here with somebody who was a little better. I should have at least have picked a different plant, but I was stupid, I was so fucking stupid. ——————————————————————————————————— Trish? Trish? Baby, please say something. Please, just say anything! Oh, don’t leave me now, I can’t live without you. I know that we’ve had our struggles, that our relationship has been strained lately, but that’s just normal, that’s just how relationships work. Please don’t give me the silent treatment, just because I offended you, that’s such a petty thing to be upset about. I can’t bear not to hear your voice anymore, I can’t bear to be so distant from you like this. Please, just know that I would do anything, anything, to get you back. I swear that I’ll be nicer, I’ll even go to counseling if that’s what you want. Well, okay, I probably couldn’t do that, but doesn’t that show that I really am a changed man? Your love changed me, I swear it, and I- I… I just don’t know what I’ll do if things have to keep going this way. Please, please just say one word. I love you.

#Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Abusive Relationship #Nature

1 note · View note

necrofuturism · 7 years

Note

I've seen you discuss the pros of replicator food, but what do you think the cons are? Why do some people still insist the 'real thing' is better? Assuming that meat is all synthetic now anyway, how much difference is there between meat and animal byproduct that's synthesized vs replicated?

buckle ur gut it’s gonna be a long ride

well i’m not a nutritionist so you’re gonna have to take me worth a grain of salt on this one but basically a lot of it boils down to replicated food not really being a “complete” version of its non-replicated counterpart

this was more of an issue with earlier replicator tech, because things were more “lower resolution” back then (ent/tos era), but even “now” (tng/ds9/voy era) replicated food still doesn’t really do the trick in terms of longterm stuff

you can live on replicated food tho. you can. it’s possible. and people often do. it’s just that those people are often either career military/diplomatic/trade/spacefaring individuals and take extra supplements to deal with the deficiencies that an all-replicated diet causes, and they make sure to further vary their intake with non-replicated stuff along their space journey.

like in terms of replicator food actually doing what food is supposed to do??? it’s not that great. it doesn’t necessarily deliver a complete meal with complete nutrients and tends to be burned through faster than non-replicated offerings - early replicated meals were basically flavored 3D printed nutrient filler matrix, and that was not good for everyone and tasted like differently textured, differently flavored shit depending what “meal” you ordered, so things have definitely improved A TON from that

but they’re still not perfect in the sense that meats, vegetables, fungi et. al. have not literally been grown and lack a lot of the vital minerals and nutrients they’d pick up from life around soils/feeds/prey and that means replicated food in general falls nutritionally flat and disappoints in the flavorzone (like u legit cannot replicate live gagh. it’s impossible. no can do.)

btw i don’t ascribe to the “all meat is replicated now” bit of Federation/Starfleet propaganda. i really don’t. i come from a state that has a lot of farming industry around it and if i know anything about meat, it’s that animals who are well cared for and loved produce good meat vs. animals that are literally abused. farming is not abuse, and i’d like to think that the Federation is above the whole “meat is murder” peta slogan bullshit, and has made huge strides in animal husbandry technology in the next few centuries. besides - if livestock were entirely replaced with synthesized meat, there wouldn’t be any cheese for all the fancy Federation wine meetups. also i’m sure that a few herds of sheep and goats would maintain some solar fields somewhere like they do around here. just… there has to be livestock farming in the future. there has to. it doesn’t make sense to erase an entire profession like that.

(also iirc Riker made the comment about the replicated meat and that enables my headcanon of him as an obnoxious space vegan lmao so sorry about not answering you on that i just really don’t believe the entire Federation would outlaw meat? like it doesn’t make sense with the whole IDIC thing either seeing as it’s tradition to eat certain meats in certain cultures [looks @ klingons and their targs] and the whole “all meat is replicated now”/”we don’t murder animals anymore” just smacks of badly written Federation purity stuff that is more damaging to the franchise than anything else)

anyways

you really want a ship to have a balanced store of replicated and non-replicated food, especially considering access to food preservation techniques these days, and literally just for the purpose of variety. a nicely stocked hydroponics bay, edible arboretum garden, and some sort of cryostatic “farmer’s market” should be standard on any large exploratory vessel or space station for sufficient culinary delight

starfleet rations are not replicated because they’re meant to be nutritionally dense, something that replicated food routinely fails at imo, also replicated food tends to have a short lifespan, and will break down a lot faster than regular non-replicated food. you can’t save your replicated sandwich for a midnight snack because it’ll go a lil jiggly and get a weird shiny film on it from the replicated food particles breaking down

so anyways tl;dr - replicators are gr9 for food if you have the immediate need for them and the power to operate them and can fully exploit their convenience, but they’re not really a be-all end-all to food problems and create a lot of nutrition conundrums based on the fact that they produce food differently to how it is grown in nature (gmos are fine tho there’s no comparison here)

but for the majority of the galaxy, replicators themselves tend to be more of a luxury than anything else, so consider that factor as well in this train of thought!!! like not everyone can afford to own one, or otherwise it’s not even legal for some individuals to own one, and the fuckening PRIME DIRECTIVE prohibits those who would probably benefit most from replicator technology from accessing it.

so that’s the ultimate downside of replicated food. it’s inaccessible to most of the galaxy.

boom.

#trek tag #this went weird places i'm sorry #also this is with little regard to canon #save for people referencing replicated food to be substandard to nonreplicated food in passing mostly #anonymous

12 notes · View notes

meravmerav · 7 years

Text

Beer with a Painter: Jennifer Coates (Hyperallergic)

Jennifer Samet: You grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. I’m guessing, based on what you have told me about your background, that you didn’t actually grow up eating the mass-produced foods that have become a subject of your work.

Jennifer Coates: In 2016, I had a show, Carb Load, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. My mother came to the opening. She was saying to everyone, “I just want you to know, I did not feed Jennifer these foods.” And it’s true! My parents prided themselves on their gourmet cooking skills. I learned to cook from my dad. My friends at school would all eat tuna fish sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off. They had ravioli from the can. Those foods freaked me out. And I was just not cool and got teased for everything — from playing the violin to having nice, cute lunches, like a roast beef sandwich with mustard on multigrain bread.

So, I am recapitulating my sense of being an alien as a child. “I’m wrong, everything I do is wrong. I’m different from you, and I don’t understand you.” It is a comfortable perspective, in a way.

JS: Was art-making a part of your childhood? Were there artists in your family?

JC: Drawing was my thing. I drew all the time, picture after picture of wide-eyed little girls. They were like children of the corn, recurring and repeating and multiplying. In high school, I remember being miserable and thinking, “The only thing I have control over is what is on this piece of paper.” From time to time, it’s good to tap into that original impulse — when art history and contextualizing your work can start to take over. It’s about trying to make sense of how to be a person.

Recently, I found a drawing I made for my father, when I was eight or nine years old. He had sprained his ankle, and I was trying to make him feel better. So I made this drawing of an enormous hamburger with five different patties and all kinds of condiments, and his tankard of beer. It’s like you have one idea your whole life, and that’s it.

My maternal grandmother was really amazing. She took art classes starting in her 50s, and then went back to school to get her BFA when she was already a grandmother. She lived in Canada, and when I visited, I slept in her studio, with stacks of paintings. I saw her thesis show when I was in high school. She had learned how to cast in bronze, she made jewelry, and she made these ambitious paintings that were embedded with her experience of being a Jewish immigrant. She was a difficult person, but always very interested in what I was up to. It meant a lot to me.

JS: There’s something you told me a few years ago in your studio that I always think about. You said you grew up with an atheist Jewish mother and that experimenting with spirituality felt like the most forbidden thing. It was very funny. I’ve been thinking about it, since I know you explore relationships between the Occult and modernist art. You also consider your work to have a devotional, iconic quality.

JC: Yes, when I was an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a friend of mine was involved in a born-again Christian community. Sometimes I went to church with her. I didn’t know if I believed all of it, and I wasn’t necessarily attracted to organized religion. But there was something so ecstatic, which was attractive to me. And yes, I would worry that somehow my mother was going to discover me saying, “Praise Jesus!”

I liked how the ecstatic reorients you to the moment you are in, and wakes you up. My mother saying, “God doesn’t exist… and tell your friends,” just didn’t do it for me. I think anything that makes you feel liberated, in terms of how you see reality, is a good thing. A whole world opens up when we really look at all the things that we put on our bodies, and put in ourselves. I’d rather have that be magical than neutral.

JS: At that time, when I visited your studio, you were making abstract paintings with a lot of pattern and tessellation. When and how did you move into the food-based paintings?

JC: Around the time you visited, I was probably working on “Picnic” (2014). It was a skeletal black warping grid with stuff oozing out of it. I was frustrated with it and didn’t want to be in this nebulous architectural abstraction anymore.

For a few months, I was background processing, trying to figure out where I wanted to go with the work. I had a couple of experiences that affected me. I visited Nicole Eisenman’s studio. She has known my work for a long time. I saw the painting “Under the Table 2” (2014) in the studio, which shows a huge cutaway of salami, and people hanging around the table. There are flecks of fat and meat in it. I was amazed by the painting, and Nicole said, “You could have painted those dots in the meat.” I thought, “Wow. What would it be like, to go from what I’ve been doing, to painting salami?”

Then I came across an image of a Claes Oldenburg sculpture, “Cash Register” (1961). I thought about how it was completely of its moment, but it also looks like it was dug out of the earth. It was like an ancient sculpture.

I also saw photographs of a friend’s vacation in Iceland. There were beautiful, primeval landscapes, and images of him and his wife, sitting at picnic tables, eating little snacks. Little by little, something started to cement in my head, where I thought, “I can talk about the sublime – this radiant, transcendent presence that I’m trying to coax out of paint, and also anchor it back to the everyday.”

I decided it would be really exciting to go back into the black grid with a gingham pattern. It didn’t change anything about how I was painting. But I named it, and made it specific, so that anyone looking at the painting would read it as a picnic blanket or tablecloth. On this particular surface, everything that happened on it or erupted from it felt food-oriented. A stain wasn’t just a painterly stain; it was a barf stain or something that spilled over. That was the beginning of the food.

JS: It seems that your concern in these paintings is to establish an equivalence between the paint and the food substance. Is that accurate?

JC: Paint can do what it wants to do, and the references can be multiple and diffuse. If I am doing a spray of paint, it is icing as well as a Jackson Pollock move. The food often just stages an opportunity. Is it going to be a Pointillist business, or a zip down the middle, or Abstract Expressionism? It became a way to have a lot more fun.

You also begin to think about all the weird decisions that go into preparing foods. There are aesthetic decisions that are not just about nourishment. You want things to look a certain way, or have a certain ratio of liquid to solid. That struck me as exciting to explore.

When you are spreading something on a piece of bread with a knife, you put it on in a special way. Some kids like more peanut butter, and some like more jelly. There are always aesthetic decisions. And I thought, “Well, that’s funny. Maybe making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a painting indoctrination experience.”

JS: I wonder why, if you are in search of the spiritual, your subject was mass-produced food. Aren’t they kind of polar opposites?

JC: Embedded in it is a critique. These processed foods are toxic — for us and for the planet. If you buy a Danish, you get a plastic-encased thing. You open it up, and the thing inside has more in common with the packaging than it does with something from your grandmother’s kitchen. How did this food become what it is? It is now made from synthetic chemicals, but why is it the shape it is? The Danish is a spiral — an ancient shape. So, for me, it’s a way to meditate on both the mysterious and toxic nature of processed food.

JS: What kinds of discoveries have you made as far as relating food shapes to symbols and forms?

JC: They are theories more than discoveries. I am sort of a conspiracy theorist-type person. I love this idea of, “Guess what?! This thing that you are so used to and never consider is actually the bearer of ancient ritual religious behavior.” I love making up stories about where things came from and finding deep-time precursors — shape rhymes throughout history.

It is interesting that as human beings we’ve been attracted to certain kinds of forms and shapes and behaviors. We tend to say, “It’s just decorative,” but what if there is something in our anatomy that draws us to similar patterns?

Lately, in lectures on my work, I am making connections between pasta shapes and entoptic forms. Entopic phenomena are the result of your visual cortex seeing your neuroanatomy. Experiments, like the ones that Heinrich Klüver did in the 1920s, have shown that people under the influence of certain hallucinogens draw specific patterns and shapes. The shapes are categorized and called “Klüver forms.” Similar kinds of forms and shapes can be found in petroglyphs and early Paleolithic art.

When I was doing excavation into the bagel shape, I saw images of yoni carved stone forms found in Israel eight thousand years ago. They are thought to conform to fertility or female genitalia worship. They were circular shapes with a hole in the center and a slit down the middle. For me, that’s all I need. You get a bagel, but it’s a bearer of this ancient ritual, affiliated with matriarchy and female shamans.

JS: So when you say they are theories, you’re not necessarily tying to prove them? I know you are interested in the work of Terence McKenna, the ethnobotanist and mystic. How did his work influence you?

JC: When I come up with a theory, it’s not verbal — it is visual. I lay out the pictures.

I want to trust the visual part of my brain — the part that is intuitive, and has shape recognition and pattern recognition. I’m trying to prove my theory through images. My hope is that if you are allowing yourself to think purely visually, you can be very thorough and engaged with what’s around you.

I got into Terence McKenna through the painter Steve DiBenedetto. His lectures are archived online, and I have listened to them constantly in my studio for years. McKenna changed my way of thinking. The desire to dig into history, improvise, and make up a story came from him. McKenna read everything, but he plays with all of the information and ideas. He’s not beholden to any of it. He wasn’t a scholar or a scientist. He just says, “Here’s what I think.”

JS: It seems as if you make a lot of painting jokes in your work. The sprinkles or dots can be abstract ellipses. Are you interested in Pattern and Decoration artists, or Op Art? Who are the figures in art history you are talking to the most?

JC: There are a lot of painting jokes. There are all kinds of moments where I think I can pretend to be this or that artist. It is very satisfying. With the bread and the popsicle paintings, I think about Rothko and Color Field painting. How can the popsicle be radiant? I’m thinking about a color relationship where the paint isn’t just naming something, but also transcending itself.

As for Pattern painters, I’ve always liked James Siena’s work a lot. I like Bridget Riley, but I would want to pee on it. I always want to do something to mess with Op Art.

Turner is somebody I come back to over and over and over again. The moments of light in his paintings are the most impressive and the most physical, but they are also the most ethereal — barely there. It is abject light and also transformative. I love that you can have something be really mucky and crusty, and also a ghost.

Hopefully, what comes across in my work is a kind of heightened devotional object that has a radiant presence. I was thinking about sacrificial stone altars. The slab, where an animal is getting killed with a knife, is like the first abstract expressionist painting. So making a sandwich and spreading substances around with a knife is like a weird descendent of the sacrifice. Peanut butter and jelly can look like bodily fluids or innards. It is gooey business.

JS: Do you see your paintings as feminist in the sense that they are acknowledging this kind of messiness? It is what Mira Schor talks about in “Figure/Ground” (1989), which is an essay you have cited as an influence.

JC: When I was an undergraduate, I was obsessed with Kiki Smith and body art. It was the early 1990s — that moment when body art was prominent. I took a feminist art history class at the University of Pennsylvania. I came from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where you draw from life and study anatomy. That art history class showed there was a way to use the body to communicate a political, feminist message. That concern with how the body is fragile, and breaks down, and there is pee and blood — I was really into that. And that interest has never left me.

So for me, paint is very bodily. As much as it sort of organizes itself to be a depiction of something, it’s also always restating itself as this amorphous pile of goo. What’s a more amorphous pile of goo than the innards or a decaying corpse? I was trying to paint a sandwich, but then I said, “It is a fucking bloody vagina.” That’s what it is. I want it to look like that. If someone sees something that’s embarrassing and kind of weird, a stain that’s wrong, then I feel good.

I’m really excited about those moments where it becomes unruly and messy, anti-logic or anti-gravity. In his book The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt discusses ancient Greek and Roman atomistic theory. The idea was that tiny particles shower down in the cosmos, moving in parallel lines. Every now and then, one goes out of its path. That is when things interact. It is that interruption of the pattern, and that interaction, which causes things to happen. Evolution happens. Systems self-exceed. Things progress when there is a mistake. So, I prefer the mistake.

The thing that makes many artists interesting is how they re-tool the past. They confuse our relationship to what we thought was familiar. You have to trust that part of your brain — the part that goes, This, on top of that. Something erupts from the matrix and the orderly. Then, all of a sudden, everything is exciting.

#jennifercoates hyperallergic interview

0 notes

nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Jennifer Coates

Jennifer Coates, “Large S’more” (2015), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 72 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

“Here’s some macaroni! And here is rigatoni…” Jennifer Coates says to me as she moves paintings around in her studio. It’s hard not to smile and feel like I’m being offered dinner as well as a studio visit. There’s a generosity and enthusiasm — and total willingness to put herself out there — when Coates is talking about ideas or sharing her work. She loves to joke about all things bodily and will talk about alien life, scatology, politics, and painting in equal measure. She is also a fierce gardener, cook, competitive baker, and musician — a vocalist and violinist in a couple of bands.

Coates’s recent work depicts food: spaghetti and meatballs, sprinkle cookies, and s’mores. Her work is about matter and viscosity, but it is also rooted in grid-like structures, repetitive mark-making, and very sophisticated paint handling. I remember being struck by her painting “BBQ” (2014), which I saw in a pop-up group exhibition — thinking it was intense and elemental, and a great painting joke at the same time. Against the backdrop of a painterly grid (a grill seen from above), was a huge slab of meat — which was also just substance: fire, heat, and red paint.

Jennifer Coates (courtesy the artist)

Coates has developed this interchange in all of her paintings since. Mass-produced and nostalgia-filled foods, like Almond Joy candy bars and thick deli sandwiches, are shown in cross-section. Their overall forms suggest biomorphic shapes in modernist abstract painting. They also look weird and over-the-top, gooey and oozing. Acrylic paint, slathered, smoothed, and textured, is likened to the synthetic colors and substances that are part of processed convenience foods, food dyes, and cake icing. Drips of creamy paint become syrup, pasta sauce, and melting cheese.

Coates received her BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1995 and her MFA from Hunter College in 2001. She was the subject of a solo exhibition, Carb Load, in 2016 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Collaborative work with her husband David Humphrey was shown in 2015 in a two-person exhibition, Plus Onus, at Arts + Leisure, New York. Prior solo exhibitions were held at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen (2008) and Feigen Contemporary (2006) in New York. Coates’s writing on art has been published in Modern Painters, Time Out New York, and Art in America. She’s also authored a horoscope column for the blog Two Coats of Paint and co-curated the exhibition The Swerve in 2016 at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her artist lectures / visual essays exploring the phenomena and scientific-social history of bubbles. A solo exhibition of Coates’s work, All U Can Eat, is currently on view at Freight + Volume Gallery, New York, through April 16.

* * *

Jennifer Coates, “Grilled Cheese” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

JS: Was art-making a part of your childhood? Were there artists in your family?

Jennifer Coates, “Cotton Candy” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 14 x 11 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

JC: Yes, when I was an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, I met my friend Sarah Peters, the sculptor. She was involved in a born-again Christian community. Sometimes I went to church with her. I didn’t know if I believed all of it, and I wasn’t necessarily attracted to organized religion. But there was something so ecstatic, which was attractive to me. And yes, I would worry that somehow my mother was going to discover me saying, “Praise Jesus!”

Jennifer Coates, “Picnic I” (2013), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (courtesy of the artist)

JS: At that time, when I visited your studio, you were making abstract paintings with a lot of pattern and tessellation. When and how did you move into the food-based paintings?

JS: It seems that your concern in these paintings is to establish an equivalence between the paint and the food substance. Is that accurate?

Jennifer Coates, “Cherry Danish” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

JS: I wonder why, if you are in search of the spiritual, your subject was mass-produced food. Aren’t they kind of polar opposites?

JS: What kinds of discoveries have you made as far as relating food shapes to symbols and forms?

Jennifer Coates, “Everything Bagel” (2017), acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

JC: When I come up with a theory, it’s not verbal — it is visual. I lay out the pictures.

As for Pattern painters, I’ve always liked James Siena’s work a lot. I like Bridget Riley, but I would want to pee on it. I always want to do something to mess with Op Art.

Jennifer Coates, “PB&J” (2015), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (courtesy Art Museum at the University of Kentucky)

Jennifer Coates, “Sandwich To Go” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches (courtesy Freight & Volume Gallery)

The post Beer with a Painter: Jennifer Coates appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2mx3iNO via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hyperallergic

0 notes