Paperclip Safari, 5 The Blackest Friday

Randiddles
by J. Ingram

 Five:  The Blackest Friday, part 1

And so, the mighty Silverback Titan emerged from the frozen earth, looking for his lost pack (of paperclips).  Titan missed his mate Strawberry the most.  And the cub, little Pipa.  The two juveniles he could leave--and Titan grated silvery metal jaw as he hopped along, enjoying the thought of finally being able to put out the irrascible twins.  Joba and Boba were not his own, he sensed, but Strawberry insisted on keeping them along...

Titan had been following his pack's scent trail for many long months.  Through summer and fall, over forest trail, in street gutters, and also through an elementary school cupboard... Titan hadn't figured that part out yet.  Had Strawberry gone to hibernate someplace around people?  How desperate of a situation were they in?

It would be necessary to get to them before true winter set in, because DC winters can be mild and had been for some time before the big blizzard last year.  Among paperclips it was called Clipageddon Three.  The first had been a hundred years ago, when there was a tornado in DC that blew apart any manner of survival chains they had formed to hold onto trees, car antennae, or so very many government buildings.

The second devastating Clipageddon was during the formative years of the Nation's most popular Office Supply Chain, which is having ALL KINDS OF SALES TODAY--BLACK FRIDAY, ALL YELLOW LEGAL PADS 50% OFF, STAPLES 500 FOR $1, AND PAPERCLIPS, WE'LL SHOWER YOU WITH THE HUSKS OF THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF SPIRIT-BROKEN PAPERCLIPS: MOTHERS, BABY CLIPS, WHATEVER YOU WANT, AS SOON AS YOU WALK IN OUR DOORS!!!

And so, you see how terrible it was.

As Titan recalled the old stories (mostly, they were the shiny gesticulations of his grandsire's upper fang), the gray clouds parted over a field in Rock Creek Park and the steely silverback saw what he'd been hunting for.

Strawberry and the cub Pipa were nearby, their scents were unmistakeable.  But if he did not see them, then they were upwind somewhere, perhaps very upwind, hiding out in the safety of treetops.  No sign of her majestic red, oblong curve...

In the winter clearing, two full grown males stood with fangs fully unfolded and bared, each on his own hindleg (clips have but two ends, when you unfold them).  Joba and Boba had grown from juveniles to full silverbacks. 

A dramatic DC winter sky.  So dramatic!

Titan did not like their aggression, he approached from the side, going two-dimensional and less intimidating.  They did not heed.  The foolishness of youth, to approach him like this, with no respect for what he had done for them!  Protecting them, raising them as his own, even if they were vastly annoying and constantly hungry, and launching onto the loose shoestrings of passerby with no regard for the safety of the family pack... and even if Titan didn't enjoy their company... well, he was planning to confront them anyways.  But not so dishonorably!

Strawberry had been right to hide.  These rogue youths had cruel intent, indeed. Titan only hoped that the cub Pipa was safe, as he began to unwind and refold himself, into something that was all fang.

Titan is all fang, baby.  And, some clear tape.

 There had been three Clipageddons in paperclip history.  Titan intended to make sure, for Joba and Boba's ruthlessness and complete disregard for the safety of the pack, this would feel like Clipageddon Number Four:  The Blackest Friday.

...

Next:  Teeny, tiny, tinny battle of the Stripey Link Clan!

(Randitty-o-Meter:  10.  Those paperclips are so adorable.)

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Chapters
1 Paperclip Wisdom :: 2 The Mighty Silverback Paperclip :: 3 The Stripey Link Clan :: 4 The Origin of Office Supplies Species :: 5 Paperclip Savers are Environmentalists Too :: 6 The Blackest Friday

From DC to Hollywood and back

Have you seen Outsourced yet?

The show isn't just funny, it's groundbreaking on many levels.  Outsourced is opening doors, windows--and one also gets the sense that it may one day lower something of an iron-clad drawbridge for up-and-coming artists of my generation who have been hungry for more cultural diversity in the media and popular artistic genres since before Obama.  In Outsourced, we finally have a program that is doing well, by doing right:  making a conscious attempt at showing an authentic India in all its religious and ethnic complexities.  Which, if you can imagine, is only a sliver of what the entire world, of which the United States has always been a part, truly is--a brilliant and often painfully-beautiful multicutural reality.

Consider that, for so long, having a black president on a television show was a hard and fast way to establish setting, as did actor Dennis Haysbert's, President David Palmer on 24, or Avery Brooks' Captain Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine.  Both iconic roles, cast as racially distinct characters, served to help establish the sense of a future where many of humanity's problems were already resolved, and then it was easier for these shows to focus on conveying greater moral battles to the audience.  (It's also tempting to make the connection here, that fiction, in a fantasy setting, is ruthlessly effective at managing the same thing, by leaving what is a human struggle the only familiar element in exotic universes.)  And these days, we're living in that very world where real diversity is right on our flat-screens.  Freaky, huh?

Well, it's really a more intimate, progressive future we're living in than even that:

In an interview that appeared on online magazine Religion Dispatches just last Friday, November 11, a background actress on Outsourced, Sara Zerina Usmen, spoke eloquently about what the show has been able to gift fellow Americans:

"Outsourced is navigating uncharted waters and proving it can be done in today’s climate. American society is more than ready to discuss hot topics in comedy in good measure... In fact, I think we need shows like Outsourced. America is in an identity crisis, and trying to reconcile its past isolation with a rapidly changing global present. There’s a lot of tension in society around race, religion, and economics in recent years spiking in election seasons. If we can’t laugh about difficult things, how can we get through them?"

Sarah is also, herself, the real deal--She's not just a unique, recurring presence on the show, as  possibly the first character in a while on television to regularly wear a hijab.  Sarah is a talented young director and writer working on the ground right now in Hollywood to start her film career.  She's already seen some success too, through Queens of Waban Entertainment, namely for her award-winning documentary Muslims in Love.

For that reason, I was humbled and greatly honored that Sarah Zerina Usmen mentioned me, when asked who her favorite author was:

"And my favorite authors are as of yet unpublished! I would look out for the upcoming fantasy novels of Janica Ingram, whose vivid imagination for characters and storytelling far surpasses mine."

Sarah is familiar with so many random stories I've been telling and writing over the years about talking horses, elephant men who win crowns not for their illegal mating dances but by pretending to be cursed with having to listen to a woman, Muslim princesses who enchant Christian kings through a kind of medieval political satire of their polarized policies, and interracial love triangles that reincarnate themselves from an ancient time to enforce encore apocalypses on worlds that didn't want to discover one another--all in what only at first seem to be your regular fantasy-fiction settings.  Sarah has also read the first chapter of my novel manuscript-in-progress, which is slated to complete late this year.

Likely, this won't be the last time you see a cross-country artistic connection as intriguing as this one, between a black DC native and a South Asian-American Muslim in Hollywood.  It shouldn't be so surprising in this country.  Mostly because, there are so many similar, bright and committed people already in the U.S. who have been wanting a voice too, for a long time now.  As I've already said, the future of story-telling is here.  It's on television in Outsourced, it's already in films like Muslims in Love--and it's only a matter of time before the future is on your bookshelves or clogging up the mysterious innerworkings of newfangled iPads too, with shining gold, bisexual dragons from the ancient Ghananian Empire.

I'm electric that there are artists out there in my generation who are trying to open doors to diversity for all of us, especially in film, where our voices are needed.  Whatever could be next?

Here, I'm tempted to say 'Yo Momma.'  But I don't dare waste this rare opportunity to tell the world about another amazing development and end this article on an intellectual high note--Ah, screw it.

YO MOMMA is next.

...That was so worth it.

...

 We love our hijabi jedi: 
Outsourced, Thursdays 9:30/8:30c, NBC

JBB, No such thing as transitional musak after the Apocalypse

Jawbreak Blue
by J. Ingram

Five: November 13, 2012

After a few days of waiting for ‘better winds’ (during which one of Mister Stimpson’s ‘cousins’ showed up with some money he owed) and ‘a restock of supplies’ (wherein, Dansel was sent with the shotgun for two-day’s journey to the nearest corner store, to fetch Stimpson some lottery tickets, a can of Pringles and then Dansel secretly checked the latest Red-and-Gold-Reserve Presents Our Fair Federal District’s Fantasy Football Scores), then at last, finally waiting for another nightfall itself, (and neither young person was courageous enough to ask why Mister Stimpson wanted to wait that long), the three black Washingtonians walked down a crooked dock and descended into that rickety boat ride the old Boatman Stimpson had promised.

It wasn’t a very large or impressive dingy, and things were also shaky at first while Dansel was made to understand that, no, he couldn’t pace or peer over the edge at starlit-everything.

“Sit.” Said Boatman Stimpson.

“But then, what?” and Dansel grumbled privately, until at the end he exploded, “I just know the Redskins are out there winning, somewhere on TV.  Damn that Cannoneer for making me hope like this.  I swear!  All over my body, it feels as though it itches--”

“Young man, you hurry up and wait.” Stimpson confirmed, flaring knobbed fingers at him.  Then he turned the motor off, now that they were halfway across the Anacostia River.  Next, the Boatman hoisted a sail—which surprised Dansel most, because the young man had financed this journey, personally, with several blue Marion Barry Bills.  And that looked to be the way their night would pass on, rocking gently over the quicksilver Anacostia, until Gyra began singing.

All along, the young lady had been biting her lip at sight of the exquisite full moon, and now she was giving into her own sort of itches.  Gyra opened her mouth to let out something that definitely confirmed she hadn’t finished any kind of schooling—least of all for her voice.  The trembling instrument of hers was too high and off-key at times.  Worse, it appeared capable of catching itself not able to get a certain note, and save the poor hearer by going down an octave... but then not in all such instances.  Gyra got ruddy, she got inventive—she seemed impressed with herself for making up good lyrics so fast, except for at one point in the middle, where she clearly forgot her next line.  She was constantly running out of breath.  Also, for all the two men could guess, she miscalculated by a sixth at one point, but whatever--In the end, Dansel Darrons and the Boatman Stimpson found themselves completely exposed to something sweet but hurt that the young woman must have secretly lullabied herself with, far too often:

Never in DC by randomwitty

Never in DC
song and lyrics by J. Ingram

Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash. 
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.

The first time I saw the moon, girl, she was full.

Crash’a boom-boom.  Crash.

Holding my lover's hand, Mamma Luna pulled on us, and it was, a thrill.

Crash’a boom-boom.  Roar.

Then my love, he explained to me that white stone was pullin' on that sea.
Mrs. Moon was pulling him and us, and all the world, but especially me.

Roar.

Then he said, "Girl, what's this dumb look I see?  Hadn't you learned girl, about these scientific things?"

And I said, "No, only in my dreams.”  And I said, “No, we never learned that in DC.”

Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash. 
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.

The first time I went to college, girl, they made me feel, a fool.

Crash’a boom-boom.  Crash.

Learnin' all kinds of things about that-there white stone.

Crash’a boom-boom.  Roar.

They said Mrs. Moon, made me to even bleed on her time.
Then why hadn't nobody fixed my watch to hers before?  I still didn't know.

Roar.

Teacher said, "Girl, what is this silly frown I see?  Hadn't you learned girl, about these mathematical things?"

And I said, "No, only from a boy I used to see.”  Raised my hand and said, “No, he didn’t get--kids never really learn that, in DC."

Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash. 
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.

Summertime came 'round, and for all my hard-thinkin' I was now alone.

Crash’a boom-boom.  Crash.

Just me, the sand, my perplexities, the water and that big roar.

Roar.

That was when, Mrs. Moon, herself, finally turned to me, and she said—“Lookit here, my old girl-friend, I’m gonna fix you up, like I never fixed anyone before.”

And in that white-night beam, I saw some mother's son, like I never saw the Man in the Moon before.  Roar.

And this fine stranger he said, "Girl, what is this bewilderment I see?  Hadn't you learned girl, about astronomical men like me?"

And I said, "No, learning was never this effective for me.  And I said, no, the school system is not THIS GOOD in DC!  Ha ha ha!"

And he heel-kicked his boots going,
Summer world-white like it was snowin’,
My heart moved, I feared it was showin’,
Anacostia River turned to ice, and suddenly I was flowin'

He heel-kicked his boots still goin,
I felt our friction, it was slowin'
But then my heart blasted off and we were racin’
How many light years had I been waitin?

On, the Moon,
He heel-kicked his moon boots still goin’,
Said we may fall in love light and slow, but never at a rate less than 1/6 of 9.8 meters per second. 
Same gravitational pull that made-the-tides, then we fell back-to-Earth-again.

And, let me tell you he said, "Girl.  Haven't you ever danced, with the Man in the Moon before?"

And I said, "No, I’d lost my heart in DC.”  And I said, “No, I learned, but I never did dare dream."

This was fate, Mamma Moon was waitin’.  And fatin' hard, all for me...

To get up out of wherever folks said I was,
And fight, and learn, and love myself, like he loved me...

Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Crash.
Boom crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.

And now I go about, with Mrs. Moon herself as my mother-in-law.

Crash'a boom-boom.  Crash.

We three get to go where all the other stars do, and you need to get on an A-list just to hear educated-me speak. 

Crash'a boom-boom.  Roar.

And her little man and I,
we stay on the shore alone sometimes,
measure gravitational pull together,
then we fall into a very satisfied sleep.
Cause now I know what I'm capable of and I feel complete.

Roar.

Woe, woe, I once feared I could never reach.

Oh, woah, isn't so nice when a woman realizes DC dreams?

In a very odd way, it made them like Gyra a little less (wouldn’t anyone?), but yet love her a painful-great deal more.*

*Pending whether or not readers quit this blog/my singing, entirely.

...

Next:  I think I should stop telling folks what's next, only to come up with something random--especially within the context of this particular blog.

(Randitty-o-Meter:  10, because the only thing more random than the poorly-sung song, might just be the goofiness of the lyrics, themselves.)

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Chapters
1 The Red and Gold Reserve :: 2 Authentic Agitation :: 3 Bringing the Old Girl to Water :: 4 Message from a World of Fear, Insanity :: 5 No such thing as transitional musak after the Apocalypse :: 6 Fate and Basketball :: 7 Party in Mount Pleasant