David Everson - Plinky Answers

Adventure, Romance, Warfare, and Pathetic Fallacies Galore: Wolverine v. Tasmanian Devil

2009-10-12T18:44:33-06:00

Purloined from the Canadian wilderness by an ill-tempered Aussie with a thick scar running down his left cheek onto his neck, the wolverine was far from home. His owner did not appreciate either memento from Canada. Late one evening he took the wolverine out on Bass Strait in his yacht. He had intended to get to the deepest part of the strait and dump the entire cage and fell creature overboard. As he lifted the cage and set it on the railing, the wolverine hissed and clawed at its bars, unable to reach its captor. The odor from the cage made the Aussie gag, and he almost shoved it just to be rid of the malodorous beast. He paused, though, as a cruel smirk crept onto his corrupted countenance. The Aussie was an avid fisherman. The yacht was fully stocked with every type of angling equipment. Including a pole and line that just might be big enough to hold the weight of a certain ill-tempered weasel.

He brought the equipment to the deck and leaned it up near the cage. He slipped on his handler's gloves, thick enough to resist the furious claws and teeth of the wild creature. He had a hook the size of his petite ex-wife's hand, which, he thought, should nicely hook inside of its mouth. As the blood of the wolverine drained in the water, sharks might be attracted. Even if he did not have the strength to pull up a shark with the equipment he had, it would be well worth all the effort to watch this foul creature which had left its permanent mark on his face devoured by the sea and its denizens.

With hook ready and gloves on, he opened the cage. He reached for the wolverine's head, hoping to get a tight grip around its throat. From there he would squeeze its mouth open and shove the hook through the inside of its cheek. He never, however, was able to get a grip on the animal. It shrank from his bulky gloves, then darted under them. Instead of attacking the intruding object, it darted out of its prison and onto its captor's denim-clad leg. The Tommy jeans were no match for those razors. As a parting gift, the wolverine chomped down on his upper thigh. Using its upper molar which rotates 90 degrees, from vertical to horizontal, it tore a chunk of denim and flesh clean off the leg, leaving bone and blood. In terror, the Aussie kicked and finally grabbed the beast. Instinctively, to eliminate the immediate threat and horror of being eaten alive, he tossed the wolverine with all his might into the dark waters of the strait.

The wolverine hit the water with barely a splash, like an Olympic athlete. It sank quickly. Its legs, however, began kicking, and it managed to overcome the hysteria which flashed over it the second it realized it was in a strange dark substance. It was used to water, of course; but never before had it been submerged and surrounded like this. A moment ago it was in a fury, but somehow this simple weasel rose to the surface, pointed in one direction, and began to paddle.

It swam the rest of the night and most of the next day. Occasionally, it would rest and float, letting the current take it; but it would quickly return to paddling. An energy was concentrated in that small form which was mightier than the energy any larger creature could muster.

It calmly paddled all day until it found itself nearly overcome by the surf. The waves picked it up and toppled it, submerged and nearly drowned it, but always it fought on. Rather than claiming the Tasmanian beach with victory, the wolverine was washed ashore as a dead thing the ocean gave up. The tide deposited it, and it lay motionless except for the slightest sign of breath in the rise and fall of its small body.

Many hours passed before he could move himself out of the tide's reach and onto dry ground. His fur shed the water quickly, but the dampness still hung on his heart. A rustling came from somewhere behind him. He saw, with weary eyes, a mysterious creature which he had no way of knowing was called a wombat, since he had neither been to this hemisphere before nor could speak any language whatsoever. But it was small and meaty. He sprung and had his first taste of Tasmanian cuisine.

Over the next several days, the wolverine recovered his strength. During his convalescence, he ate wombats and even the native flora. On the fourth day, he came across a strange creature that lay in the underbrush. Here, down below, far from home, he came across his first devil. It barely moved, but occasionally whimpered. It searched the wolverine with one eye; the other eye was blinded by a tumor. The wolverine, sensing no threat, feasted on devil that fourth night.

By the fifth day, the kidnapped and then abandoned wolverine had settled into a new life on the island of Tasmania. It felt renewed. Here was a land where food was available. He could make a home here.

He went about the difficult task of building a home and making a routine. On the seventh day, however, he returned home to a disturbance. Something was burrowing in the very spot where he slept. It was smaller and darker. It moved with a ferocious energy. It looked similar to the dying beast he had seen days earlier. The wolverine approached stealthily, but not stealthily enough. The devil turned and faced him. They stared deep into each other's eyes. Then she lay in his bed; he joined her.

Though rarely seeing each other, the next several weeks were peaceful. The wolverine and the devil lived happily with occasional energetic meetings. They scratched and bit each other with claws and fangs that struck fear into every other animal in the woods. For them, though, it was pleasure. They both emitted a smell that would turn the stomach of any human walking by, but which they wrapped each other in like a blanket.

Then one day things changed. The wolverine, in the midst of their play, bit the devil on its hindquarters too aggressively. She lept aside and stood several feet off. She was bleeding. She snarled. The wolverine cowered. She fled.

A day later, as though by habit, she returned. When she saw her companion in his bed, she snarled. This time, the wolverine snarled back. This was his home. It was the last home he had left. He would not be exiled from it. He jumped out of his bed and stood. He had at least fifteen pounds on her. She did not flee, but circled around him, without lifting her eyes. Seen from above, the devil seemed to orbit the wolverine, circling and circling ever closer, as though pulled toward it by gravity.

She had circumambulated his fixed point nearly 270 degrees when the wolverine struck. Like the lightning bolt which has the thunder announce its explosive appearance but is still sudden and unexpected, the wolverine lunged at the devil. He struck her in the shoulder and they rolled together for a last time. Off balance from his own attack, the wolverine staggered back to his feet, while the devil dug her jaws deep into his rear leg. With the powerful bite that only a Tasmanian devil could deliver, it instantly crippled the wolverine. In these close quarters, however, crippling didn't much matter. He turned and caught her tail in his maw. He clenched his jaw and sharply turned his head, ripping the majority of her fat tail clear off. She released her hold on his leg, and jumped a few feet backwards in shock. Her mangled and mutilated tail behind her, she lunged back into the fray. She landed on the wolverine with jaws open, but he used his weight advantage to topple her. From above her, he sank his teeth deep into her throat. His predatory instincts turned his molar horizontal, and with a back and forth thrashing of the head, he ripped the final breath from his defeated foe.

He stood over her body. Blood dripped from his fur as easily as the strait's water. This carcass would not be a meal. This carcass would be a warning: Tasmania has a new devil.

Bogart makes all movies better

2009-10-12T18:35:20-06:00

From 1943, Casablanca is a nearly perfect movie. Bogey & Bergman, the man who played the womanizing French police captain Renault, and the creepy Peter Lorre.

It is the story of a bitter, sardonic man living in an unbearable situation, forced to reexamine the story that he thought was his life. A love story, war story, and brilliantly witty story. Every line of the sharp dialogue is classic.

Do you know who I am?
I do. You're lucky the bar's open to you.

Ugarte to Rick: "I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust."

Ilsa: Play it once, Sam. For old time's sake.

Rick: I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.

Rick: The wild finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look in his face because his insides have been kicked out.

Laszlo: You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart.

Renault: We mustn't underestimate "American blundering". I was with them when they "blundered" into Berlin in 1918.

Rick: Here's looking at you, kid.

It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles.

Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

Rick: If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

Rick: Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Rick: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* Source: IMDB and my own incomplete memory.

Metaphysics & Morality

2009-10-12T18:30:55-06:00

Professor New was aware of and sensitive to the politics of exclusion and elitism, but nevertheless championed brilliance, genius, and individual accomplishments. He had that about him which I would feign call master. It was the one time I most felt like a true pupil, an apprentice, learning at his feet.

Prof introduced me to Mann, Proust, and Woolf, and gave me a more thorough introduction to Joyce, Kafka, and Faulkner. Alongside these literary giants, he taught me what I really needed to know of theory. It was my second theory class, and unlike the first, in which we sampled every literary theorist of the past 200 years, his class focused on three. Two of those still heavily influence my thinking: the moral philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and the writer (there's no better word to describe him) Walter Benjamin. I am still trying to wend my way through Benjamin's Arcades.

Prof was hard, demanding voracious reading habits. He both expected us to remember minute details and how those led to the universal themes. He challenged us to move from the esoteric, metaphysical nuances in A la Recherche du Temps Perdu to the practical, compassionate realities stemming from such nuances. If Marcel's disorientation is emblematic of the perpetual state of human existence and the source of our desperate outpouring of communication, maybe, also, this understanding could increase empathy and combat the hatred, warfare, and subjugation that humans do in the desire to form some fixed identity.

Overcoming Serpents

2009-10-12T18:28:13-06:00

It was a warm autumn evening, and a warm ocean wind came down the stairs from the upper deck. Summer's vibrancy had faded to a dull heaviness that brought perspiration to the seaman's brow. His muscled, tattooed arms slid the massive metal pipe through two hooks in the cage. The marsupial dozed peacefully, tranquil - tranquilized - on its bed of straw. It would be a long voyage to the new world.

As it opened it eyes, the yearling kangaroo felt her head spin and her body rock. She stood, and fell back into the man-made nest. She lay with her head against the floor for several minutes. Gradually, her head stabilized but her body did not. It was no sickness: she was definitely moving. A large metal bowl of water was bolted to the floor inside her cage, and she watched as the water inside of it rolled to one side of the bowl, then back; roll, then back.

Only 100 days out of her mother's pouch, she had nothing but instinct on which to operate, and instinct was mute in these settings. She balanced herself gingerly, then surveyed the perimeter. She saw something ominous in the unbroken circumference of those black bars, the way a sailor sees dark clouds on the horizon to which he is heading. And like the sailor, she knew she must head into that danger.

Her fleeting vision of danger gave way to a lightning flash of panic. She lunged, behind the force of her mighty hind legs, into the impenetrable bars. Two, three, four times she struck them with her right shoulder. She circumambulated the cage again, and again, until the pain in her right shoulder made itself felt, whereupon she walked back to the bed her captors had made her. In despair, she began to attack the bed - the straw was breakable, malleable, yielding. A couple startled rats fled across the room, slipping effortlessly out of the bars of her cage. Caught up in the power of this act, she didn't at first notice the serpent wending its way along the outer wall beyond her cage.

The seven-foot long, burnt umber coastal taipan blended with the dark, water-stained wooden planks of the old ship. Had the young kangaroo her wits about her, she may have noticed it dart for a scurrying rodent and come up just short, as the rat found refuge in a nook in the wall that the serpent had no desire to enter.

She did not notice the taipan, but the taipan noticed her. And this taipan had gastronomical ambitions beyond the average taipan. Finally tired out, the kangaroo crumpled to the now bare floor. The serpent slithered to the rear corner of the stage, slipped between the bars, and sidled up to the kangaroo's tail. In a moment, the taipan would strike rapidly and repeatedly, injecting its venom; in a moment more, the kangaroo would be convulsing in pain; and if the marsupial could last long enough, kidney failure before inevitable death. The initial strike was only a moment away.

Exhausted, but with its senses heightened through agitation, the yearling felt a sudden coldness as a chill coursing through its overheated body. She whipped her tail swiftly and sent the snake hurtling into the bars of the cage. Half of its length hung outside the cage and half inside over the one horizontal bar running through the center of the hundreds of vertical ones. Temporary suspended, immobile but dangerous with fangs dripping venom, the snake took a strike and then two in her direction. But she kept her distance, cocked her head, and watched the hissing serpent. Instinct told her the predator was helpless, and instinct flexed the tendons of her hind legs; instinct lifted her legs off the strange, unsturdy ground; and instinct drop-kicked the snake against the bars.

The snake hung lifeless from the bars, its body split and its blood dripping onto the wooden beams. The boat rocked, but she no longer noticed it. She rested her head on the floor and rested, awaiting the rest of the journey.