conundrum.

May 3, 2015May 3, 2015 / mscharlies / 1 Comment

This week, spring bloomed here on the East Coast (at last!) and I had a flurry of conference calls with Hollywood folks (new project!). With Southern California and movies on my mind, I scrolled through the WordBowl archives to revisit a flash fiction piece inspired by a word suggestion from Los Angeleno(a?) Jan Ostergard, which I share with you below.

Do you have a favorite word? I would love to see it! Drop it to WordBowl HERE

“conundrum” is from the brain of Jan Ostegard who profiles musicians/actors/authors/filmmakers, writes about all manner of creators/creation, and is a “Phantom Creations” co-conspirator.

These executives were presented as important, but none wear ties. Confusing, business-makers dressing same as artists. Do they want to be artists? No one handed him a business card, which prevents him from addressing anyone by name. None of them have been to Japan, one says he has not left California except for tripping a road to Mexicali.

Rhythmic, mexxxxicaaallleeee, a word for Satoshi to stretch-beat-pulse into a fight sequence soundtrack. He wishes Satoshi was here. His producer only agreed to send him, alone, after many requests from the film festival — hinting, awards — and calls from studios.

He wants to ask these movie executives why interest in his film. Hollywood is big movies, big explosions, big stars for global audience. Japanese film is for Japanese. They discuss remake, “Americanize”, colonial word, to make something not from America into an American thing. The conversation whirls, smiles stretch across faces, English whips through his head before he can fully translate, they interrupt, overlap, agree, agree, agree.

He struggles with the order of the words, multiple negatives, questions within a question. Any answer may offend his hosts.

Perhaps he misunderstands, his many years of English inadequate preparation. He has not slept on this side of the globe, the elastic hours snap him awake.

They keep turning to his film festival escort— Reena, difficult for him to pronounce — who speaks a bit of Japanese. His English is much more, but she is native-speaker so they are reassured.

Mizubasho Sake at Wasan (east village)

Important he does not make a mistake. Making a U.S. film changes everything. He looks around at expectant faces, laughs a moment after everyone else. The room nods. Smiles, handshakes, laughing bows. Exit. Reena hugs him, says they never meet with anyone that long, ever. Time for drinks with naked women at hotel pool. Did she say this? She says, this is just the beginning, of the night or his U.S. career, uncertain.

Their arrival greeted by an aquarium-lounging, bare-breasted mermaid blowing kisses through scarlet lips; they join a parade of ropey women in flimsy dresses, led by the trajectory of their impossible breasts. Hollywood, hard masquerading as soft, or the inverse. Poolside, everyone smiling at their barely-sipped drinks, scanning potentially prettier parties, whispering names of spotted celebrities. Thumping music impairs his hearing, he surfs waves of laughter more easily with every florescent cocktail.

Sushi appears, the rice is wrong. A man as indiscernible as any American waves over a Taiwanese Toy Tycoon who orders shochu, which this bar does not stock, settles for a bottle of premium tequila. They converse in English, their common language.

No one is attending the festival, but all are impressed Scorsese is introducing his film. Their party swells, lights shimmer, bright-haired, big-teethed girls spill across laps, mermaids all.

Reena is with him again, skin glowing, her American breasts inviting his admiration, as big and welcoming and possibly insurmountable as America itself. He asks, again, if Scorsese-san watched his film before agreeing to introduce to American audience. Reena laughs, what did you say?

“conundrum” (which started out as a much longer story and required considerable whittling before it was suitable for you to read here) was written with a gorgeous sake and perfectly pickled vegetables at Wasan (east village, nyc)

Do you have a word just begging for a story? Send it in!

loquacious.

February 14, 2015 / mscharlies / Leave a comment

Today’s luscious WordBowl word comes to us from Lydia (thanks, Lydia!) of Urban Sound Review

“…so we’re all up in it, mad drum’n’bass, excellent tracks I picked up in the UK — what a trip, Raindance, Genisus88, the beatmasters who ignited this thing, you gotta get your ass over there — I’m scratching in some funk, and we roll the video, projected wall-to-wall, blown-up and out, slow-mo, I’m deepening the groove, heavy sub-bass, and no one recognized it, even though it was on CNN like non-stop for a while, such sick shit — literally sick, everywhere — George W. Bush yakking into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, and the faces, the horror on all those faces surrounding him,”

Bloody Mary schlurp, bits of horseradish clinging to the stubble above his lip.

“Jerked” Margaritas?

“Oh man, I can practically feel the vitamins coursing through my veins! Whatever that sparkly girl, the one with the butterfly wings, handed out was cut to shit with speed,”

Thumbs drumming scarred bar.

“You were already out of there, right? Damn! Check it: when the camera zoomed in on Bush’s face, we paused, and I sampled the “turn around, bright eyes” snippet from that Bonnie Tyler song, it was transcendent — seriously! — the humanity in those eyes, they melted the screen. Our president, the leader of the free-fucking-world, but in that moment a man, a human felled by microbes or parasites or some shit, all his political power meaningless. He who gave us Desert Storm, our first fucking televised war, captured on video bowing — literally, doubled over — obsequious to a higher power, to the body, or nature, primal forces the existence of which is unacknowledged until we are felled by their effects.”

Calloused thumb flicking lighter to flame, flicking to flame, flicking to flame.

“Like this Rodney King shit. unacknowledged undercurrents, fears and resentments gurgling underneath this construct we call civil society, and I’m not talking just about anger, righteous anger. I’m talking about hope.”

Plucking ice cubes from his glass, dilated pupils dancing, still raving.

Not your everyday cuppa

“Don’t look at me like that it was hope, is hope! Hope for a future without artificial barriers between races, man-made class structures, peoples housed in specific geographic zones within our city, like Indian reservations, all the same bullshit, inflicted by those who seized power, declared war, claimed victory. So even as shit-crazed as these past weeks have been, as Los Angeles burned, so did something else, and at some point we rubbed the ashes from our eyes, looked at each other and really saw each other, as people, because once rage burns away, we are left with is hope. And love! Yes, I said love!”

Tugging frayed jacket, exposing fresh t-shirt, rainbow graphic L-O-V-E beaming bright.

Miss Lily’s ONE LOVE BELLINI

“Someone was selling these last night, LOVE a sellout, we wore our love like tribal colors, a love tribe! It’s 1992, we are dancing toward a new millennium, we are shaking off the shackles of a corrupted past, rocketing past corroded ways of thinking — designations based on race or gender or nationality, music ticking to a specific meter, sexuality codified within specific confines — we are all human, we are a world race, we are melding into one glorious, orgasmic species, Our Brave New World an extended middle finger to Huxley and Orwell because we survived the Apocalypse, we are post-apocalypse, post-race, post-gender, there is no turning back, we incinerated those bridges, we are beyond just getting along, we will be worthy of our hope, worthy of love.”

Out of loyalty to the dearly departed 7A (although in truth I had not been in for a 3am patty melt in years), I initially eschewed Miss Lily’s Avenue A but on a bitter winter weekend afternoon their World-Music-by-way-of-Ibiza vibe proved irresistible.

And if you have yet to experience Everyman Espresso, drop whatever you are doing and head deep into Soho for — depending on your mood — one of the most thrilling or satisfying cups of caffeinated deliciousness in town.

Coffee for everyman…

What’s YOUR word?