Rigel

It's a good story--I just read this week's installment. (Kudos to Chris!) However, as a former resident of White Oak, I'm pretty sure that Chris James has made up a lot of the geography. While the river seems loosely based on Northwest Branch (with perhaps a bit of Paint Branch tossed in for good measure--and "branch" is a local term for river or creek--it's actually the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River)--there are no lakes in the area. The mill is possibly a romanticization of the Burnt Mills that used to stand on the Northwest Branch near where Colesville Road crosses it, but the Parsons farm is a complete creation of Chris James's wonderful imagination. The other fascinating architectural thing the area has going for it is the Polychrome Historic District (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrome_Historic_District) --five houses built out of prestressed concrete in the 1930s, a technique later used on big office buildings, but rarely used in home construction. The concrete had brightly colored aggregate embedded in the concrete, and with their art deco design, they are wonders to behold, although obscure to the world that lives beyond the immediate neighborhood. --Rigel

You want yodelling? Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_KomqNtKY. (Hint: it's someone you've probably never thought as a yodeller before.) --Rigel

There's a problem with this list of "red state" institutions. California is decidedly not a red state. Scratch Stanford, California, and USC from the list. New Mexico is still a blue state. Scratch New Mexico. Pennsylvania is a blue state. Scratch Penn State and Pittsburgh. As is Michigan--scratch Michigan and Michigan State. We can quibble about Ohio (Ohio State), but the list still looks like it was composed during an attack of color-blindness. --Rigel (though I like the initial advice which began the thread--if you select a mate for superficial reasons, you're likely to wind up with a superficial mate)

An absolutely amazing story! My eyes are teary with admiration for love so beautifully expressed. Of course, when I got to the end, I needed to re-read the entire story with different eyes. --Rigel

"curb strip" in southern Connecticut, although only big cities like Bridgeport or New Haven had them--not suburban towns like the one where I grew up, which was quite devoid of sidewalks. --Rigel

Wow and double wow! I'm amazed by the most recent chapter, with Andy's photograph becoming a metaphor reflecting the parallel psychological conundrums of so many of the characters. Not only is the book one amazing read, but I'm beginning to realize that further plot developments are likely to be dependent on the character of the characters we know. I'm still trying to figure out how the various talents of Todd, Andy, Geoff, Mr. Mortensen, and Mr. McCluskey (and perhaps Monica) will be used to protect our crew against the horrible wiles of Vic Harper. That's not a level of involvement I achieve with most novels. Thank you, Cole, for writing this. --Rigel

The amazing thing to me is declaring the inerrancy of the King James translation. After all, the original books are in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). There's an old truism: "Translations are like women: they are beautiful but unfaithful, or they are faithful but ugly." The KJV is too beautiful to be accurate.

Updating the discussion with a resolution to the situation: --Rigel (former New Haven resident)

Sorry to hear about your dad. It sounds like the gradual decline of his health allowed you to go through some of the mourning process in advance. Don't sweat the grades--any academic administrator who isn't a heartless bastard will take into account the family circumstances--and being there with your family as you were is far more important. A class can always be repeated, a test taken later, a paper postponed; your father only dies once, and the scheduing of it is not something you get a say in.May your memories of him serve as blessings, and also fodder for future writings.--Rigel

I'd quibble with the decision to put JFinn's "The Human Condiiton" under Incomplete Stories. While the Nifty version promised more chapters and storytelling, the story is in fact quite complete, the prologues serving as a present-day glimpse of the charcters and the main flashback part of the tale telling how they got there. It's not likely to have additional chapters added to it, but it is quite complete. Somewhere, on some forum, I think I even remember someone discussing this with her, and she admitted it was complete. --Rigel

I'll second the motion, for what it's worth. The dates were an easy indicator to see if a story had been updated since my last visit here.

Void where prohibited.

I just hang out with neighbors for New Years, and we're purists enough to sing "Auld Lang Syne" to the original tune that Robert Burns indicated (see his Scots Musical Museum), rather than the errant tune that everyone else uses. (Click here for the REAL tune.)--Rigel

Let me second vwl's comments on Second Wind. Second Wind is that rare Nifty story that involves adults rather than teens. It creates realistic drama from very well-written characters, many of whom are capable of change and growth over the course of the tale. While there's some sex (hey--it's posted on Nifty!) , much of the sex actually fits in with the story and character development. The description of the ethnicity of the Italian family is spot-on, as is the entire Northern New Jersey suburban setting. If it doesn't get selected for Best of Nifty this month, I suggest that it be renominated for another attempt. --Rigel

The Post Express, my local free rag distributed to commuters in the morning, has a brief article about this with the wonderful headline: "Anti-Gay or Anti-Munchkin?"

Part 4, chapter 15 has been posted at iomfats. http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/grass...end-pt4-15.html Now I've got to go read it.--Rigel

The beachball riot reminded of a game that used to be played on Yale University's Old Campus called "Bladderball." There were no rules, only a series of teams , each of which anarchically decided what its own objectives would be. Perhaps the best summary of the game was "a formal confrontation with the absurd." A nice history of the game can be found at http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=14884. --Rigel

And Chapter 14 is ready: http://members.gayauthors.org/littlebuddha...tw/SOOTB14.html

I'm not sure how much of a departure from his previous writing "Fallow's Creek" is. Grasshopper already tried one murder mystery--"Dreamchasers"--and this one has even more matured writing, a more developed tone that revels in the contradictions and foibles of human behavior-- "I peed, brushed my teeth, fake-yawned widely and pulled on my old threadbare sweatpants, the ones I wore when I wanted to feel ugly. Ash watched me from his side of the bed, not commenting on the sweats, but knowing that I was silently telling him to keep away." I await further developments with eager breathing. --Rigel

Another new story begin by Grasshopper, "Fallow's Creek," just begun (13 March 2006) at http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/grass.../fallow/01.html Further chapters and other stories can be accessed at the slightly more general URL of http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/grasshopper/ --Rigel

Is there a guitar part? Or maybe a tune, unless it's a talking blues? Seems like it's meant to be performed... --Rigel

The "cowboy story coming on" mentioned by Grasshopper above has been written, and it's one of the best things Grasshopper has written (and given the other things he's written, that's high praise indeed!). An amazing gloss/variation on Annie Proulx's story, set 40 years later, written from the heart, and less tragic. The story (9 chapters plus epiogue) is called "Promises to Keep" and is available at: http://www.iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/grasshopper/ --Rigel

There's a fascinating essay by Lee Harris (http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011606D), which launches off of a discussion of Brokeback Mountain and the characters of Ennis DelMar and Jack Twist to question the very validity of labels such as "gay" or "straight," "homosexual" or "heterosexual." An excerpt: "What the two cowboys of Brokeback Mountain were rebelling against was not being forced into normal marriage by society, but against being forced to define their humanity in accordance with other people?s ideas of what they should call themselves. They simply wanted to be treated and looked upon like men -- not as queers or homosexuals or gays -- but simply men. "

Great story, and thanks for posting all of it. But you've got to replace that photo of the Beaux Arts bandstand in the middle of some big city with a photo of a nice Victorian bandstand in the middle of a park in a small town. Maple trees in a regular pattern, large Victorian houses with at least a little space between them on the streets on the other side of the park... The story is great, but the setting in that small town of Clarkesville is what makes it. --Rigel

Well, I saw the film today. (We tried to go last night, but every showing on all three screens was sold out. So we got tickets for today. Can you believe that even the Sunday morning and early matinee shows got sold out?!) Then I spent part of the afternoon rereading the short story. The film is quite faithful to the printed story, but conveys a lot of its information cinematically. Heath Ledger deserves all sorts of awards for his performance as a man of few words, who conveys as much by what he doesn't say as by what he does. There are a lot of great reviews and articles generated by the movie. Roger Ebert's review ( http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...S/51019006/1001 ) does a fine job of discussing the motivation of the characters. And the New York Times has a great piece on the difficulties of being an actual gay cowboiy in Wyoming today ( http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/fashion/...LhGDFEE+WIT06CA ). The one person I'd really love to see personal reflections on all this from is Grasshopper (Jamie), who now lives on a ranch in the American West. Another person with experiences of local expertise I'd love to contact is a high school classmate who now lives and teaches school in a small town in Wyoming. They're probably in places where seeing the movie at a reasonable location isn't going to be a possibility for a while, though there are plans to expand it to more and more cities in the next couple of weeks. It's probably going to take some Academy Award nominations to get it into theatres in small-town America, but the film is good enough that it's not just a hopeless dream for that to happen. --Rigel