Birds of a Feather Flock Apart

 Prompt - Upside Down (400 words): “I will start out this evening with an assertion: fantasy is a place where it rains.” – Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988). Write a story in which common assertions are turned upside down in the vein of Italo Calvino’s statement above. Perhaps a commuter sees the packed subway train as a melting pot of psychologists, artists, and philosophers. “The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.” – Italo Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979).

***

    I don’t always like my best friend.    

    Oh, don’t get me wrong, we can talk about anything. And after we are apart - for months, sometimes when I demand it - when we get together, it’s like we were never separated.   

    But ... whenever she screams at a female employee, Jamie donates to feminist causes out of guilt. And because she’s a control freak with anger issues, she’s on the boards of at least five national feminist organizations.  

    I think she loves me because I don’t hold my tongue around her; she knows I love her fiercely, and I force her to respect my sometimes unreasonable boundaries.  (She’s not the only control-freak, here).  

    But she’s crazy-loyal, and if I need her, she’ll be at my side in a heartbeat. She rarely promises anything, but when she does, she’s compulsive about keeping them.

    When I found out I was pregnant a few days after my ex walked out, she promised to be there with me when the time came, and she kept that promise even though I spent the next nine months ranting at her, at the world, and at my ex. When I went into labor, Jamie walked out of one of her board meetings, drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital, and, in the 36 hours since, had barely left my side.   

    But, whenever she stepped outside - to get me ice chips, to get a nurse, to bully the janitor into cleaning somewhere else, to drag in the anesthesiologist, she left a swath of destruction 10 miles wide.  People would enter my room and look at me warily, glance at Jamie, and then their looks changed to such … pity.

    “Jamie,” I puffed between rhythmic breaths, “promise me something.”

    “Yeah? What do you need?”

    “Take my baby in case I die.”  

    She turned pale. “Kate, you are NOT going to die today. I will NOT allow it.”

    I paused for a contraction. “Jamie, don’t be a bitch. Of course, I’m not going to die today.  It’s - if I get hit by a bus or something.”

    She’d never wanted kids, but there was no hesitation. “Yes, I’ll raise her.”

    “Just … promise me that you’ll love her like you do me, never ever abuse her like you do your underlings. And … teach her to be nicer than either of us.”  There was a very long two-contraction-worth pause while I waited for her to answer.  

    She scowled at me, then took a deep breath. “I promise, but … I don’t know how I’ll manage that last one.”

    “You’ll figure it out.”

    “Yes, I will.”

-- Oct 19, 2022

June 1944: Killing a Kübelwagen - version 5

    One story my grandfather told more than once was about the non-commissioned officer in his Maquis unit who, through a spectacular bit of sharpshooting, shot the driver of a Kübelwagen (German equivalent to a jeep) that contained the commanding officer of a German unit. The car wrecked, killing all three men inside.  

    I have two versions of the story from my grandfather (from 30 and 44 years after the events), one from the son of his commanding officer (written in 1955), and one from a non-fiction book. You can read all four versions here.

    A couple of days ago, I found what is very likely a fifth version.  One that contains the names of the Germans killed in the wreck.  Certain details match up - The date (June 28, 1944), the fact that there was a German convoy, and that the German commander was killed when the car was destroyed, and the location (Ourches valley, on the way to La Rochette-sur-Crest).  But other details vary, like the weapons used (gun, hand grenade, sticky bomb), and the vehicles used. But, here it is, written by Nick Beale:

Obltn. Stefan Ulrich, in La Rochette, 2 km S Ourches, (no time or cause stated).Uffz. Aloysius Hennecke, at 10.00 hrs. in La Rochette, multiple injuries from an “adhesive charge” (a Gammon Grenade?).Ogefr. Werner Gaudigs, in La Rochette (no time or cause stated).

That three men of a motorised unit were killed and that a “sticky bomb” was involved suggests an attack on a vehicle or vehicles and Resistance historian Joseph La Picirella has written that a convoy of 10 trucks from Valence, each carrying a dozen men, was attacked by the Maquis en route to La Rochette-sur-Crest. He says that the vehicle carrying the detachment commander was destroyed and the bodies of the occupants were taken to the house of the mayor. This account seems to fit what is known of the deaths of Gaudigs, Hennecke and Ulrich (whose rank may mark him as the commander of the operation). The mayor of La Rochette, Paul Baude, later certified, “that on the 28th of last June the old village of the commune was burned by the Germans by means of incendiary bombs without the inhabitants being able to remove their furniture”.

    I've found independent verification of what happened to the bodies (taken to La Rochette mayor's house, and the reprisals). Now I need to find Joseph La Picirella's writings.  Pretty cool, to find more verification!

All cemeteries in France are publicly-owned

Cimetière de Ourches

    Well, not private family cemeteries, but all of the others. 

   Every once in a while, I discover a significant cultural difference between the USA and France that catches me off guard.  This is one of them.

    All cemeteries, even ones that historically belonged to the churches, including those in attached church yards, are owned and maintained by the municipalities.

    This has been true in France since the 1905 law separating church and state, which transferred ownership and maintenance of cemeteries to the towns and cities.  This was to ensure that cemeteries remain secular, and that no one would ever be denied burial due to their religion.  Churches were granted exceptions to the law, allowing them to use cemeteries (i.e., public spaces) for religious purposes.

    It's a little weird to me - evidently, most USA-ian cemeteries are municipal, too, but plenty are owned by the churches, particularly when the cemetery is in the attached churchyard.  There has never been a time in my life in which Americans wouldn't totally lose their shit if their local church cemetery were confiscated and given to the town.   So that makes me wonder how the French populace responded back in 1905.  Don't get me wrong - I have no issue with how the French administer their cemeteries - it even seems like it might be a good idea, particularly in a country with centuries of historical conflict between catholics and protestants. It's just not what I'm accustomed to.

        So, the walled cemetery in Ourches, where my grandfather stood guard for a night in June of 1944 (panicking because he couldn't remember how to arm his gammon grenade), had TWO gates, one for Protestants and one for Catholics.   

    I had assumed it belonged to a nearby Catholic church, Église Saint Didier, which is a few blocks away. Evidently, the church dates to medieval times, so I figured the land that the cemetery sits on had belonged to the church, and that over time, the land between the two was sold, hence the separation in location.   So I had called it "Cemetery Saint Didier." But something bothered me about that: the cemetery doesn't seem to have an official name (it's just labeled "cimetière" on Google Maps, and none of my internet or AI-assisted searches gave it a name). So I did some digging (the results of which are above), and found out that "Cimetière de Ourches" is more probably correct.

Glad I looked it up. :-)

Workplace Safety

 Prompt - Allusion (300 words). Think of a famous historical event, a well-known piece of literature, or a familiar story from a fairytale. Use one of these as inspiration for a story, but do not specifically reference it. For example: “a baby in a blanket is found in a dark side street on the edge of a river dotted with litter strewn from a nearby upturned dumpster.” A simple allusion can add weight to a story with a few words, tapping into global knowledge and offering additional depth to a character, setting, or scene. Be careful not to allude to something which is not widely known, as the reference may be missed.

***

    Henry wondered whether he’d live to see the new millennium - 36 years to go.  He’d be 73 then - and given that his grandpa was older than that and still kicking, he figured he had a pretty good shot.  Hard to believe it was almost the end of November - it was still pretty nice out, but Dallas didn’t get cold until January, and even then, it just never got that cold.  

    The president was in town - there was supposed to be a parade later.   Henry didn’t like crowds, and he didn’t much like politics; in his experience, both just made people mean, so he avoided them.  He could hear people starting to gather outside along the parade route. He shook his head and got back to work, moving boxes to the other side of the building.  The former tenant who rented the top floors had stored something that leaked oil all over the place and hadn’t bothered to clean up, and now it had soaked into things and made a real mess.  What assholes.  

    They’d put plywood down to keep things up off the oily floors while they made repairs and cleaned up the oil.  Henry picked up another box of books and put it on the dolly. When it was full, he wheeled it over to the plywood floor and unloaded it.  His back ached, but not too badly, so he ignored it and kept working.

    The din and cheers of the crowds had gotten louder. He guessed the motorcade was getting close. He moved a few more boxes.  

    Pop! Pop! Pop! 

    Henry jumped, and then he heard people screaming outside. He gritted his teeth and started hunting through the nearly deserted building for the idiot shooting off firecrackers inside an oil-soaked book depository. What were they thinking, scaring people like that? They were going to get a good talking-to about workplace safety.

-- May 25, 2020

Dallas County Administration Building,
formerly the Texas Book Depository

A writer's pet peeves: Cliffhangers

Source: Merriam-Webster Cliff-hanger Etymology

    I don't really like cliffhangers, in particular BLACKOUT cliffhangers.

    That's not to say that cliffhangers can't be useful when well-used. They build suspense, they pick up the pacing of the story, and when used sparingly (as they should be!), they lend power and emphasis to the event.

    In literary terms, most chapters have exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution, just like a short story.   A cliffhanger is a chapter in which you end with the climax (the resolution is moved to a subsequent chapter). 

    Suspense writers use them more frequently than other types, and a skillful thriller author knows how to walk the cliffhanger line, using just enough of them to not tire the reader too much.

    Rookie writers tend to overuse cliffhanger chapter endings. Christopher Paolini published his first book, Eragon, when he was still a teen. The kid was a helluva storyteller, but not an especially accomplished writer (he's 41 now, but I haven't read anything of his since the Eragon series, so I have no idea if he's gained any literary chops since then; I assume he probably has).  Anyway he used the OUT COLD BLACKOUT in two or three chapters of Eragon; the main character gets knocked on the head, and everything goes black.  He continued the trend in later books in the series.  To be fair, his age isn't really relevant - rookie writers of all ages do it.  But, because of Paolini, whenever any writer ends a chapter with everything going black, it's like (apologies for the cliche) nails on a chalkboard.

    It's gotten so bad that I don't even like the SLEEP BLACKOUT variation, where the chapter ends with the character falling asleep (which technically isn't a cliffhanger).

    Well, today I discovered another cliffhanger ending that is nearly as bad as the POV character getting knocked unconscious.  It's the SEDUCTION BLACKOUT.  In this type of chapter, the narrative builds up to a character initiating a seduction, and the author concludes the chapter with that initiation, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination.  It's a form of literary premature ejaculation, where the climax is not (ahem) the climax.  

    In this case, the culprit is not a rookie writer, but a seasoned one, and it's in what many people consider the author's masterpiece. But she died before it was completed, so she gets a pass. It's in Irène Némirovsky's book Suite Française:

    “Don’t cry,” she said very quietly, her voice faltering. “Only children cry. You’re a man. When a man is unhappy he knows what he needs …” 

    She waited for a response but he said nothing and lowered his eyes. His mouth was closed and sad, but his nose wrinkled and his nostrils quivered slightly. So she said in a very quiet voice, “Love …”

    Némirovsky was murdered in the Holocaust before she could finish her book, so it feels a little insensitive to criticize, particularly because she might well have fixed the problem if she hadn't been denied the opportunity.  But, I don't like the fact that the seducer is probably in her 30s, and the seducee is a 17-year-old boy who ran away to join the French army (imagine people's attitudes if the sexes had been swapped). And, I hated how she ended this chapter, but it does give the reader a moment to ponder the implications. The desperation of the characters is palpable, as they find comfort in each other, despite the terror of their situation (they are in an inn, and a detachment of the German army is celebrating the armistice just one floor below them).  

    For what it's worth, I once saw a variation of this cliffhanger, which I'm calling the RAPE BLACKOUT, in a stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and it was one of the most effective scene ends I've seen.  Stanley drops Stella onto the bed, reaches up to the pull chain for the bare bulb hanging just above them, pulls the chain, and the stage went black. It was breathtakingly well done and far more effective than if they had portrayed any of the violence that was to follow.  

    It is possible for BLACKOUT cliffhangers to be used effectively, but for goodness' sake, use them carefully and sparingly.

Adventures with Tlayudas

 Ever since I saw this video ...

... I have had a hankering for tlayudas.

    However, I live a long way from Los Angeles and even farther from Oaxaca. There are very few places in Minnesota that work with fresh masa, let alone make large-format corn tortillas.  In fact, burrito-sized corn tortillas are so unusual in the United States that most recipes direct you to substitute a flour tortilla, which is wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Tlayudas at 12"-14" in diameter (30-36 cm) seem to be a cross between a giant quesadilla, a tostada, and a taco, but it's cooked over open flames. It's sometimes described as "Mexican pizza" but the comparison seems too simplistic -- that's like describing avocado toast as a mini pizza.

    Anyway, there's not a lot of guidance about making Tlayudas from scratch, but here's what I know:

• Instead of a ball of masa that is ping-pong ball-sized (as for a regular corn tortilla), you use a ball of corn dough the size of a tennis ball.
• You make it a little thicker than usual (about 3 mm thick)
• You cook it until it's semi-toasted, harder than a soft taco, but softer than a tostada.
• It's cooked over a charcoal fire and flames
• Toppings include a thin layer of asiento (unrefined lard), black bean refried beans, cheese and salsa, but also anything else you might like.

    There seem to be two main ways of serving it: folded over (it's just soft enough to fold), topped with a slab of pounded-thin meat, which is served as a meal for one person, or open-faced, crisped up like a giant tostada, and topped with more goodies, which is most often shared. 

    One: the tortilla. I had to buy an extra-large press, and I found this one on Amazon. Note: it weighs 18 pounds. I'm more interested in this one from Masienda, but it's so big and heavy (40+ pounds) that I wanted to see if I liked tlayudas well enough to invest in one.

    Two: the masa. I've got the setup for nixtamalizing my own corn and starting from fresh masa, but a good masa harina, such as Bob's Red Mill, or Masienda brand, would work fine, as would the old standby Maseca (not the kind for tamales, though), which is available in most grocery stores.

    Three: the asiento.  Yeah, as a vegetarian, that's not happening in my kitchen. I've learned that to adapt meaty recipes, you can't just leave out the meat; you have to replace the flavor with something else.  So I decided to make a mixture of a good olive oil and enough butter to make it solid but soft at room temperature, infused with roasted garlic. Basically, it's a spreadable Mojo de Ajo.

    Four: the smoke.  Masa, particularly after you press it, is delicate, and the bigger the tortilla, the esier it is to munge it up.  You have to be pretty careful with it until it's cooked slightly, which makes it much stronger. So, I'm planning to par-cook the tortillas, just to the blanda stage (blanda is what you call a giant tortilla when it's cooked to be soft like a soft taco) on my griddle or comal, just long enough so it can survive the trip outside to the grill, where I will take it to the tlayuda stage (semi-crisped). That will infuse the giant tortilla with a bit of a smoky flavor.  I'll freeze them, and when I want a tlayuda, I'll take the tortilla out of the freezer, heat it up briefly on my stove, top it, and then serve.

I will keep you informed on how things go.

Bibliography

• Netflix Street Food: Latin America, episode 3: Oaxaca.
• Gaviria, Jorge, Masa, p 209
• Overa, Enrique. Tu Casa Mi Casa, p 26

Mojo de Ajo (Garlic Oil Sauce)

I found this recipe in a vegan taco cookbook, and it adds fantastic flavor to a wide range of dishes. It's not a vegan recipe, per se, just a normal recipe that happens to be vegan.

Ingredients: 

• 4 cups of a good, fruity olive oil
• 2 cups of peeled garlic (this is a LOT).
• 2 tsp of coarse salt 
• 1 cup lime or orange juice

Instructions

1. Pour the oil, garlic, and salt into a saucepan
2. Boil the garlic until it turns golden and is soft enough to mash.
3. Mash the garlic with a potato masher.
4. Carefully stir in the citrus (it may bubble and sizzle).
5. Boil for another 10 minutes, stirring regularly (the garlic will sink after it's mashed)
6. Let cool, stir, and transfer to a jar. 
7. Store at room temp (3 months) or in a cool dark place (6 months)

To make a spreadable version: substitute ghee/clarified butter for half of the olive oil. Here's how you clarify butter (it's very easy).  At room temperature, it will be very thick, but still liquid, and the garlic will still sink, so once it's cooled to room temperature, transfer to the fridge (still in the pan) and chill overnight. Remove from the fridge, stir the now solid mixture to distribute the garlic, and transfer to a jar. Keep refrigerated.  If you let it come to room temperature, it will re-stratify, and you'll need to chill and stir again, if so.  

If you need it to be spreadable at room temperature, increase the percentage of ghee. 

To keep it vegan, use refined coconut oil.

You can add other yummy flavoring agents like black pepper, cumin, or chili flakes to taste.