50th Post Extravaganza

Bring out the jugglers and the men on stilts! Roll out the lion in his cage and the rings of fire! It's that time once again! Time to celebrate a benchmark in the history of JiVE, it's the 50th Post Extravaganza!

You may recall the last time we celebrated together, over a year ago, on the 20th of October, 2004. It's been a bit more slow going over the past year and subsequent 25 posts. Who knew, for example, that just nine days later, F'er would take a tremendous spill on the concrete? Perhaps that is what caused things to slow down for a bit...

from "On Spills":

"Will I run again? It will never be without a remembrance of today's infamy. It will never be the same. The laughter will have lost its original meaning."

I remember it well, and the heartache that ensued. It was an event that would alter the way I blogged (pronounced b-logged) ever since. F'er would become more elusive than before, often slipping back into the 3rd person, and emerging only now and again sometimes just to keep you aware that he was still there, still on the lookout for brilliant new opportunities to post.

from "Humble Beginnings":

"F'er is no quitter. These ramblings are his humble beginnings. He is learning his craft. He is amusing himself."

Since the 25th post there have been 4 new stories, 3 new poems, and 17 other entries ranging from essay to address to hyrbrid. Looking back over 50 posts, I am proud to have such an eclectic library. Sometimes intensely personal. Sometimes searching. Sometimes commemorating. Sometimes absurd. All F'er. The good with the bad.

And now for the fun part of the post! It's the awards ceremony!!

1. Best post about an awards ceremony:
"And the winner is...someone else...again" (Feb. 28th, 2005)

While this very post was a runner up, the blue ribbon had to go to my tribute post to Martin Scorsese. We're still rooting for you, Marty!

2. Most epic poem:
"Sea Wind" (Jan. 24th, 2005)

Yeah. I recited this poem to a friend of mine at a recent Thanksgiving dinner. No better way to revel in your own arrogance or advertise your genius than by reciting your own poems at joyous dinner gatherings. I wrote this poem after reading Moby-Dick, an amazing piece of literature.

3. Best nature essay (or as close to a nature essay as F'er will probably ever write):
"My Sprite Can" (June 10th, 2005)

I even managed to write about urinals in this post.

4. Best replacement-for-a-journal post:
"too many similes, too many metaphors" (Sept. 26th, 2004)

We're going back a little further for this one, post #20. This was a really tough one to decide, seeing as there were quite a few posts that could conceiveably fit this category, several of which I still like. In fact, many of my options seemed to be jumbled together around this same general period of time. But I had to go with this one. Why? There have been other posts that were much more "journal-istic" than this, but I am rewarding the art of this particular piece. I like that F'er went all out with the imagery in this one. I like that it retains an element of daring and excitement. And mostly, I like that this post was able to spawn a sequel close to a year later (it remains the far superior post of the two).

5. Post that most needs a sequel:
"Gastronomic Dispute" (Nov. 7th, 2004)

I don't know about you, but I am very interested in seeing where this relationship between my stomach and me could go. There could even be material for a screenplay there as a rollicking "buddy picture."

6. WORST POST:
"To be continued" (April 30th, 2005)

I'll be honest. The only reason I posted this crap was to make sure I didn't fail to have something written for the month of April. And a quick buck. I suppose there's an okay theme involved in it, but the post just degenerated. I like cookie monster?? No need to force the stream of conciousness thing, man.

7. BEST POST:
???

I think the jury is still out on that one. I've had some pretty proud moments along the way, like writing a film-noir Christmas story (Dec. 24th, 2004). That made up for forgetting to celebrate Veemas Eve (June 24th) this year. I feel like I'm gonna make a stop animation film for "About Climbing (Or not)" (March 12th, 2005) some day, and when I do, it will make that post even more glorious. And let's not forget my wonderful birthday rants. Unfortunately, I cannot boil it down to a single one. I have yet to publish the perfect post. And until I do, you will continue to be edified and entertained with JiVE. Okay, I'll be honest. I'm leaning toward the "25th Post Celebration" (Oct. 20th, 2004) as my number one pick.

That about wraps it up for me. Once again, we've had a fun time ransacking the past. Who knows what we will rummage through 25 posts from now. And more importantly, who cares?

Bloodred

He walks into the lobby of the Empire State Building. The massive rippling of his bloodred robe dies away in the stagnant interior of the room. Security officers spy him immediately and reach for their walkie-talkies. Tourists waiting in line, young and old alike, are afraid. Children move insinctively behind their mothers and fathers. Mothers think of whispering something to their husbands. Fathers look casually away from the man, as if nothing is out of the ordinary. "This is New York," they tell themselves. The grand lobby will soon be decorated in Christmas splendor, a tree with heavy boughs bearing bright tinsel and stringed lights to take its place against the engraved marble wall.

He is "escorted" down a bland white hallway toward an unknown backalley exit. He no longer resists, his vacant belly slamming feebly against every side of his aging body. His head lowered, he hears a thunderous sound and feels a chill dampness on the tip of his nose, as the men with walkie-talkies forceably release him back into the wild of New York City and shut the door behind them.

The meow of a cat stirs him back to a living state. He begins to discern the presence of multiple cat whines as he lifts his head from the concrete pillow. In a box of cardboard between two dumpsters he sees a litter of kittens, nestling closely against the sleeping mother. The man in red extends a withered hand toward the calico cat, and the damp brown fur merely dents inward. His head bowed low again, his mind conceives a prayer for the sleeping mother, but a desperate resolution stifles it.

He looks up and sees the overcast sky, obscured first by coulds, further blotted out by the mighty fortress from which he has yet again been ejected. Were he a younger man, he would have risked all to climb his way to the top of that abominous edifice. But even now, his hands can distinguish no handhold along the sleek blackened wall. Now more than ever he senses the great gap between heaven and hell. And it puzzles him that this structure points its way upward, sometimes violently piercing its way beyond the clouds, sometimes seeming to stand only as a beacon and an arrow toward earthly deliverance. In one instant he wishes to topple the building down, to conquer the monstrosity and bring it underneath his feet. In the next he desires nothing more than to abandon his lowly existence, to slip into the elevator and let it project him to escape velocity.

He girds himself tightly in his robe and retrieves the dead cat from her place of rest. The kittens weakly cry and raise their noses into the air. They are hardly able to open their eyes, too young to understand their unwonted plight.

Despite the hunger in his stomach, he steps forth from the alley and walks down the twilight streets as a man with purpose and conviction. Wind and rain slap his cheek, but he does not resist. The lifeless creature dangles from his firm hands. His robe tussles and drags behind him. A police car creeps toward the robed man as he walks along. Momentarily, it matches his pace. The man turns to face it. He walks. His stare is hard and unflinching. The sinister creeping object that has haunted him at every corner for his entire life no longer causes him fear and trembling. The car with the moving red and blue lights, keeper of order, oppressor of the outcast. Follower of death. It would arrive at the scene of tragedy and all traces of the devil would be hidden. Where did those men in blue uniforms hide the devil's face? All places in the city were tainted with evil, stained with sorrow. The creeping car with the blue and red lights roamed the streets day and night, searching for the devil's face that it might be studied, collected, and painted over. The man in the bloodred robe faces the police car until it speeds away and around a corner, persistent in its relentless hunt.

He walks for a few hours until his hunger finally causes him to stumble. He enters the doorway of the nearest building, a dilapidated tenement house, and finds the entrance propped open by a phone book. He enters an elevator, his hands still clutching the dead calico cat. He transfers it to one arm and uses his free hand to push the button for the highest floor. The elevator automatically shuts its black wiry gate and, like a knowing Charon, ferries him upward. Shortly after, the elevator stops its rising motion and releases the robed man. He exits and walks down the empty hallway, but stops to gaze on a space of graffiti that he is unable to read. It is an indecipherable enigma to him. And yet he somehow knows that it carries the secret of his life's existence.

He finds a stairwell leading upward and follows its path. The stairway is narrow and unlit. It turns a corner and goes up seven final steps to a closed door. He opens the door and walks out onto the tenement rooftop, the highest place he is able to reach. He walks to the edge of the roof and looks down upon the streets below, searching for substance among the moving shapes of cars and people. All he sees is a constant, baffling world of motion, overshadowed by miles of immovable edifices, a landscape completely lorded over in darkness.

He remembers the day that the two highest towers in the city were brought down to the ground, when the sky was filled with a colossal plume of smoke, and the people wailed and moaned. The beginning of the end. The highest point of a corrupt mankind, the pinnacle of a damned earth, a fortress of steel rising to the threshold of an eternal kingdom, strewn about the cursed ground.

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first!" are the words that trail away in the wind and rain.

Setting the dead cat gently upon the ledge, the man pulls a dagger from within his tunic. With inexplicable tears in his eyes, he forces the antique blade beneath the damp fur. A tiny stream of blood is released. It begins to trickle over the edge of the stone railing of the rooftop and drop its way down toward the sidewalk below. He loses sight of it in the wind and is unable to see where it is landing. Drops of blood, raining down. Scattered. He would do more if he could. He would stand at the edge of a cloud in order to cover all of New York in the calico's innocent blood.

He will sit here and look up into the evening sky, past the subways where the devils roam, past the honking of horns and the treading of feet, past the top of the Empire State Building and the buildings larger than it. He looks for a break in the overcast sky, for even the smallest access point. He would shed his bloodred garment, even his hungry limbs, in order to squeeze through the blanket of darkness. For the tiniest access, he would condense his spirit to a morsel. If only to survive.