Author Archives: A. B. Smith

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South Central Idaho

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gods_smuggler

GOD’S SMUGGLER, THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1990s, others

Brother Andrew, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill and Pope John XXIII (Chosen Books, 2001, ISBN 9780800793012), Thomas Knox (W. A. Wilde & Company: Boston, 1896, ISBN (reprint) 9781409970385), Peter Townrow and Ron Martin (editors) (Routledge, 2002, ISBN 9780117023659)

A wearisome ancient practice requires the journalist to begin his description of any country or region by describing it as “a land of contradictions”.

The charitable view sees this as the journalist’s admission that he hasn’t comprehended his subject. That he views the disparate facets he’ll go on to describe as contradictions, comprehending too little about the country or region to harmonise them. Continue reading

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Gallo

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buffalo_66
BUFFALO ’66 
Dir. Vincent Gallo. Perf. Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci. Cinépix Film Properties, 1998. Film.

 

I revere Vincent Gallo’s film Buffalo 66 as a work of genius. From the outset, the film seizes our attention through its humour and stunning photography. Buffalo looks like Orwell’s bright cold day in April when the clocks struck thirteen. Gallo’s flurrying delivery leaves us in hysterics.

At first, we despise his protagonist. After heckling her away from the
payphone, Billy mooches phone change from the tap dancer and then sneers at her in return.

Continue reading

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Denominations

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DENOMINATIONSdenominations

This shows the trajectories of particles emanating from several moving bodies. Each body belongs to one of five denominations: those that expel dark blue particles, those that expel light blue particles, those that expel gold particles, those that expel scarlet particles or those that expel white particles. Each body and all the particles that emanate from it accelerate with a constant magnitude of acceleration towards the closest other body of the same denomination. Each particle fades as it moves. Continue reading

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Clearwater Primeval

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A Clockwork Orange
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Burgess, Anthony (William Heinemann: UK, ISBN 0434098000)

 

The Monash Transfer and Recycling Station on Ferntree Gully Road gives you the best chance you’ll ever get to tolchock your property without bothering your conscience.

After paying their veck on the way in, you back your automobile up to the edge of a concrete pit three-feet deep. For as long as you want, they let you throw your stuff down there, watching it fly apart as it hits the ground. Boxes tear apart and CDs fly out through the holes. Electric kettles bounce like skipping stones, trailing their electrical cords. You pitch your microwave up into the air as hard as you can, grunting. For one crystalline moment it hangs in the air, rotating with the door open, before it explodes against the concrete. Continue reading

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Alien Women

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Holy Bible

BOOK OF LEVITICUS

Lamsa Bible (Chapter 20, Holy Bible, ISBN for example 9780060649234)
Amplified Bible (Chapter 20, Zondervan Publishing House, 1995, ISBN 0310951852)
Paradise Lost (The Portable Milton; Paradise Lost, John Milton, Penguin Books, 1976, ISBN 0140150447)

In the book of Leviticus, God reveals further commandments conceived in the all-encompassing fire of limitless intellect. For example, from Lamsa’s translation, Continue reading

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Arrakis [pt.2]

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dune

DUNE

Herbert, Frank (New English Library, ISBN 978-0450011849)

For Sophie, physical necessity, by itself, didn’t fix the moment when the future must arrive. Time marched rubato, stretching and bending to the individual rhythms of the players. As long as you stuck to the spirit of the arrangement, Time would turn a blind eye to a few extra minutes here or there.

To those with a pragmatic turn of mind, the view must’ve seemed an unmitigated failure. You found Sophie forever running late, out of petrol and waiting on her next paycheque to make the phone work again. Repossession agents chivvied her in flocks while friends she’d failed to meet crammed her answering machine with irate messages. Continue reading

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Arrakis [pt.1]

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dune

DUNE

Herbert, Frank (New English Library, ISBN 978-0450011849)

Sophie kept a boyfriend named Alan – the same way that one might keep a housecat or a gerbil. Alan belonged to that shadowy class of persons who somehow leave no discernable impression in your thoughts. You would’ve found him listed in the credits as ‘fireman #3’ or ‘guest at party’.

 

 

He had a genial temperament; he’d amble out to see you when you arrived and make small talk. He just appeared underwritten. When you looked up from a conversation, you’d find him standing in the background fiddling with something, as if his actor didn’t have any lines and needed to full up the time pretending to do something. His presence left so scant an impression that to this day I can remember only two facts about him: he owned a video camera and slept heavily. Continue reading

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Plants

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PLANTS
mrblo

I grow plants in pots out front of the apartment. Sonia tells me that the neighbours believe I’ve decided to grow marijuana there; right out there in plain view. According to Sonia, the neighbours identify the third or so of the pots in which nothing has yet germinated as the nascent marijuana plants soon to deliver policemen and dishonour to their neighbourhood.

I look like the sort of guy who might grow marijuana, but should I resent as an insult the implication that I could prove so simpleminded as to grow it in plain view, right out on the porch in front of my apartment?

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Boosterism [pt.1]

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babbitt

BABBITT

Lewis, Sinclair (Bantam Classics, ISBN 9780553214864)

Hilary and I both held tenure as delivery drivers at a pizza restaurant on Centre Road called, ‘La Casetta‘. I majored in second-hand smoke inhalation while Hilary pioneered a study into the effects of alcohol on Italians.

The cook used a substance called, ‘Beef Booster’. Like Sinclair Lewis’ boosterist, he knew that you had to have pep, by golly. When the pizza needed more pep he would open a bucket of Beef Booster and heap it on. Continue reading

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Saturation

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SATURATIONsaturation

This shows the trajectories of some blobs of colour as they egress from three moving bodies. Each body and all the blobs of colour that egress from it accelerate towards one of the other bodies with a constant magnitude of acceleration: the yellow blobs and the body that expels them accelerate towards the body that expels magenta blobs, the aquamarine blobs and the body that expels them accelerate towards the body that expels yellow blobs and the magenta blobs and the body that expels them accelerate towards the body that expels aquamarine blobs.

Over the course of its life, each blob loses brightness. If it passes close to a body other than the one that expelled it, it also loses saturation. Continue reading

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Majestic

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the_holy_bible_lamsa_trans

BOOK OF EXODUS

Chapter 21 (Holy Bible, ISBN for example 9780060649234)

Halfway through the book of Exodus, God proclaims to Moses the ordinances governing different kinds of ox gorings[1]. For example,

 “And if one man’s ox gores another man’s ox so it dies; then they shall sell the live ox and divide the money; and the dead ox also they shall divide.”[2]

It amazes one how relevant that remains today. Continue reading

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