Decrepitate.

Decrepitate. Define it, you say, being a person of youth.  Well, may I say that I've trodden the sands of time...marching through my childhood years...hopping...skipping...dashing...involving some fists on occasion...sobbing...and sauntering through manhood...braving its tides...to taste and savor all of life's nectar...including matters of the heart, which can prick one's soul with a thousand needles, and that's just for starters...an endless appetizer, if you will—because should you delve into the heart's affairs more deeply, you'd find out soon enough that the thing has swords for teeth that cuts and grinds as sharply as it exalts in exceeding and inexplicable ways one can hardly believe sometimes.  Hence if you fear a thing like love, as others may call it, which I rather refer to by its very act—of care...compassion...affection—you might not want to go there, that is if you expect your beneficiaries to reciprocate all that you extend.  But you might miss something so simple, yet so significant and profound at once, should you skip over it.  I, however, am in my third act, traipsing over this stage called life.  I've seen a thousand moons and witnessed stars shine and recede into oblivion, if not first ushered out by the depths of time, which spares no one, even stars that only fizzle after birth.  I've climbed the highest peaks, each attempt maims so severely at times, one falls in the deepest valleys with such dismemberments unheard of in still callow, incubated minds, and you ask of me to define decrepitate.  I've bathed in the sun's radiance and roasted in it all the same; its luminance stings, like salt to a worm in a slow burn...  If I crackle when I roast in fire, I can't possibly hear the sound of my anguish, as I languish inside.  So you tell me—do I crackle when you see me roast in fire?  I've seen and heard of unnumbered souls, both young and old, suffer in endless torment.  Deprived of any means of protection, their lives are all they have until their blood is shed by savages.  By the way, did you see it too—the endangered beasts on the news last week?  The harmless rhinos do naught but roam the fields in peace.  But they, while unsuspecting of predators, are bled to death in Africa since the market in Asia is too lucrative for their lovely horns.  Such events remind me of pink dolphins...or man's history.  Makes me wonder which animal is the real beast on earth.  You ask of a decrepit man to define decrepitate.  I say, stop trying to look for meaning in words.  Look and observe around you.  Perhaps that way you'd discover something...if there be any road worth traversing...a wave worth riding...a meaning to derive from life at all.  Then tell me what you find.  Hear me now, go on.  Live.

Of Seminar on Broadway

by amica paige

To quote the memorable lines in the play, Seminar, is to copy almost the entire script.  But Theresa Rebeck wouldn’t like that.  And when dialogue starts to invade one’s mind like a phantom, perhaps it's time to apply occlumency against Snape’s cunning.  Except Snape isn’t the villain messing with people’s heads this time.  It's quite good, really, and reminds me of some indie films that I’ve watched over the years, such as Party Girl, Anything Else, and She’s the One, where the more contrived aspects of the story mesh well with the whole substance, if taken well.

@Seminar with Alan Rickman

You’d think that writing seminars, even when not really all that grand, however expensive, would still be at least useful to those seeking to enter the tortuous literary profession.  Well, this private seminar exposes the little insidious corners writers may find themselves in, if only for two hours in the stinging spotlight, under the direction of Sam Gold.


When four aspiring fiction writers employ the tutelage, or mental mutilation rather, of an embittered ex-novelist turned editor/journalist, they’ve not only hired a mentor with a penchant for dismissing their writing aspirations, forget about any potentials they might have, but they also unknowingly called on board a literary Lucifer who does not hesitate to  scourge them regularly with insults in their meetings.  So Leonard calls Martin a 'pussy' for his insecurities and refers to Douglas’ writing as a kind of 'whoring' for the Hollywood limelight.  What makes it worse for these guys is that they’re really pretty tame and aren’t at all interested in bedding their teacher for a mere chance of breaking into the writing profession, though their female counterparts might have been all along.  And the ever gracious fear goes around to befriend all and hand out shame...and one doesn’t have to be a writer to know it, even brutes and bullies aren’t impervious to it...not even Leonard.

Seminar could get you all punched up and thirsty for another round of quips.  You’d want to imbibe this seemingly understated show again...and again.  At least, I do.  Its stripped-off production is just a clever disguise to rouse the audience’ reception for increased penetration, figuratively speaking.  Its set design and music is striking, alluring, cozy…anything but plain.  Neither Izzy need lift her shirt nor Kate bend over for you to see the moonlight and take pleasure in the show.  By the way, I know we’re dealing with fiction here, but come on.  Who gets to have nice body parts while they are glued to their seats, hardly sweating except in a figurative sense, as they try to churn out well-cooked words in the real world, really?  I must be missing something.  But them fine folks have just begun to learn the business, so you say.  Okay, I get it.  I get that they get to consume half a gallon ice cream, a bag of potatoes, and a bowl of cookie batter while moping over their scourged hearts and flayed minds due to Leonard’s relentless slayings, lest I forget that art and the stage allow for a wide berth and a license to keep bodies firm and aesthetics intact, especially in the Upper West Side.  I so get it.

Unsurprisingly, Alan Rickman is in character once again and madly entertaining as the imperious, pitiless, slick tongued Leonard who lacerates his inferiors’ insides, but not to kill their bodies.  But who else could inflict wounds and infect the mind as severely as he?  Still, his cast mates shine no less in their roles that are conversely steeped in raw, pitiful naiveté:

Hamish Linklater idealizes the quixotic soul of a brooding, insecure, tortured writer in Martin.
Hetienne Park embodies Izzy’s blithe attitude through sex and, if possible, through writing and sex.
Lily Rabe cultivates the well-oiled yet inexperienced feminist-socialist in Kate by devising a fictionalized memoir, whatever that means, and fabricating a cross-dressing Cuban character to impress Leonard.
Jerry O’Connell dresses up the disillusioned, yet hip and endearing, cluelessness in Douglas.

@Seminar with Jerry O'Connell

How the characters navigate through their personal lives and if they survive their class sessions and learn anything at all, you’d have to see the play.  Seminar would be a nice requisite for aspiring writers, even professionals, to bring in the "exteriority" and fresh air into the dank "interiority" of the literary world, to use Douglas' words.  When prickly repartees fire off as soon as the curtains are drawn, it’s definitely a show not to miss if you can help it, even when there is no intermission, for some mental stimulation and laughs, and did I mention that I went to see it in January as a birthday present?

A few memorable lines I took home with me:
"You'd always be a talented nobody."
"After I write, I feel like evaporating..."
"Do you want to write, or not?"
"The problem with writers is their audience are humanbeings."
"It’s hollow. The work is hollow. I’d think about Hollywood."

Wonder...wander... What's your story?

I'm a not a fatalist. I do believe in willpower and magic and hope...for a better place and justice. I just can't smile with happy people all the time and think positive away the demons at play...while we try to survive the best way we can—some of us in yachts and castles, and others beneath bridges...in tunnels...or on benches, and still others stuck between walls in the middle. And still others...the helpless ones imprisoned in silent rooms...who are silenced by those who are drunk and deluded with power, like God...

Hunger...

I just cannot think positive away the demons at play. But I can help keep human garbage at bay and pick up my share the best way I can, and maybe tune in and lend an ear to see the inaudible, invisible cries...that I, too, might understand their pain...that I might extend a hand or walk a mile...perhaps. And when that still isn't enough, I hope for a better place.

Will power's persistence in this befuddling existence—that is magic. And only because of love, without which what other means must we employ our ultimate will? Where did we get it from—this love?—who instilled it in us humans? I used to think I knew so well, but the wind changes course... Now I only think about it too, sometimes. But I, like you, won't know the end of the story until I get there. Until then, I must keep going and live this thing...this role...this play...on this stage, and not waste so much time thinking about the director...since the time given us is short.

Yet I just can't smile with happy people all the time and think positive away the demons at play. But don't hate me. I'm just a realist, not an enemy. I am not against you, just maybe your ideals sometimes. Meanwhile, I still smile and look up at the sky, whenever I'm not tripping on and picking up garbage.

J.R.R. Tolkien said: "Those who wander are not always lost".

And so, I wonder sometimes.

Organic nocturne: Cool world.

by: amica paige

She heard the radio play Spacehog's 'Space is the place', which took her down the memory lane of her underground days. Cool World was the place to be then.
At least if you chose not to jiggy with it elsewhere or retire early at home with the remote control or a tome, or hang out at a friend's rat hole after the last coffee shop had closed past ten, and should you have chosen to delay your trip at a 7-eleven beside the gas station for warm nachos yellowed by melted cheese from the pump. It was where you danced the remainder of the night away freely and someone else began to sway beside you without smug imposition, and you two ended up organic...dancing together through dawn's wee hours, with neither a strategy nor an agenda. It was where you met both cool and ugly people, and those that made you want to sleep with the bears, if they let you, rather than suffer another drab company; and those that perpetually slumbered, literally, on the stained couches leaning against the adjacent walls in the corner: perhaps the last three characters slept with each other there, though she couldn't say for sure. She never even saw their true colors—the couches—since the only source of light in the scant place were the few moody spotlights in the ceiling that casted shades onto its nocturnal floor and occasionally flashed hints of the fetid, sullied sofas defiled by butts, smokes, beer, puke, armpits, and sweat.

Music Review: Christmas in DeverseCity

by: amica paige

I wouldn't call myself a Christian; I'd rather wait for Truth in the end to reveal what's beyond this fragile life, which is nevertheless sprinkled with beauty, peace, and joyful things, if we only cared enough to see that the glass is indeed half-full and not always view it from the top as half-empty and lacking. I consider myself a hopeful skeptic, an occasional atheist, a nature worshipper, and a lover of art, music, and words. In other words, I'm a doubting Thomas and a crumb-licking dog searching for home. I'm both spiritual and worldly, if there is such a separation. I regard myself earthy, since I, like you, am grounded by gravity no matter how different our spiritual takes are, and recognize that our only exit is exactly the only exit from this life—to dust.


Why the long intro just to review an album? Well, my theatrics lead to this: my general fondness for music. I keep my ears open—yes, even to those labeled as "Christian" music, which are sometimes disregarded, mocked, just plain hated, or unnecessarily worshipped even more so than the God in their message. I believe that music, in all its forms, opens the mind, touches the spirit, and pierces the soul, if it bears any substance at all. Having said all that, here is my experience with TobyMac's Christmas in DiverseCity, a collaborative album.

Words that came to mind upon the first listen:
Breezy, Jingly, Snappy, Dancy.
Melodic. A soulful variety.
Tender...yet hard enough to rock to or, as I prefer, dance to.


And after the 2nd and umpteenth plays, here's what I think:
Christmas This Year rings in beautifully with a smooth blend of Toby's arresting ease and Leigh Nash's angelic vocals—there she goes again!—complemented by the entrancing background piano.


The First Noel is a strong follow with a rhythmically captivating arrangement, while Mary's Boy Child is definitely one of my favorite songs in the album, as even a bitter soul may render this soothing tune as ear candy—a delicious mix of intoxicating calm and head sway.


I seriously would dance or jog to O Come, All Ye Faithful—alright, I actually did dance to it and would have also done the latter if I didn't have a problem with sweaty earbuds slipping from my ears. However, singing along to this euphonic tune can make one feel like a real phony, especially if you like to question the Being being sung about. I couldn't help it though. When a song is brilliantly executed with just the right amount of funk, a listener can get carried away.


Little Drummer Boy is rich in beats, yet manages to hold its footing quite well, not losing grip of its context in all the fun, whereas This Christmas (Father of the Fatherless) is a tuneful chant of its title in parenthesis.


Carol of The Kings is a finely crafted symphonic song, making it a real treat on that point alone. As an aside and not to discount the artist's own merit, the rapper sounds like Kanye West, whose rapping style, per se, I like.


Birth of Love exudes energy. I'd play this as a backdrop for a Holiday fashion show if I moved in that arena.


What Child is This? penetrates the way a song should...even if you didn't bother with Christ. Its musical strength can mesmerize.


It Snowed is rock, pure and simple. If guitar riffs could jolt you into head bobbing, you'd dig this. But I dance to the beat of brit pop and funky or entrancing songs, and relish the slightly tamer side of some alternative and indie tunes.


Angels We Have Heard On High presents yet another angelic voice, wrapped in heavenly harmony and goosebumps-inducing chorus, warmly tied with an instrumental ribbon. There is a bit of narrated biblical message later in the song, as a sidenote to those who just can't be bothered with it or those whose ears are simply numb to it.


Santa's Coming Back Around is a jazzy R&B, a style that doesn't quite stir my spirit, like rock music, and the outburst in the intro can be grating. Still, it's just my queer taste and certainly not a pompous or foolish attempt to disregard the artist(s). Ditto for Christmas Time which is another flavorful R&B, at least for those who jive with those beats.


To end, if music is chocolate, this is definitely a box worth grabbing this season. The only difference is, it would never run out on you. If likened to coffee, DiverseCity is a nicely brewed holiday album, infused with  melodic ease, funk, and musical depth - elements that arguably prevent an album from turning into just another overprocessed junk in a music industry often stricken with a toxic tick that saps the sublime out of its pop music, leaving them as substanceless as soda pop, regardless of its spiritual angle, or lack of. I give this Christmas album a 9 3/4 out of ten stars, only because I'm still stuck at King's Cross and could never quite get to a perfection such as that of closure...wishing that the Great Hall had never closed its doors...
Perhaps, I should give DiverseCity a few more hundred listen to give it a perfect ten.

It was my fault

by amica paige



*2011 Writer's Digest November Pad Chapbook Challenge - Day 10
Prompt was to write something from a totally different angle.
This examines the thoughts that might assail a person victimized as a child by sexual abuse.

How did I get there?
I just went for a ride.
Mother okayed it,
she worked late on most nights.
Coach was always so kind,
Dad was nowhere in sight.


How did I get there?
I just went for a ride.
He was being so nice
for nearly no price.
Except for the dark times
when he did me much harm.


But I just could not say things
that would ruin him, dear.
I've had to consider
the more critical things.
Should be easy to do that,
if I swallow my pride.


Tried to push them away
from the back of my mind.
Yet the nightmares resurfaced,
as my dreams dissipated.
I've grown from a mere boy,
fed with guilt, shame, and pride.


I've tried to move on with
the rest of my life.
Yet the nightmares continue,
as my dreams disappear.
I try to forget it,
but mother sinks in her grief.


How did I get there?—
I still ask myself this.
Why should anyone fault him?—
no one fed me those fears.
It must have been me,
I must have been sick.

Tempest In A Cup (poeTry)

by amica paige



***My entry for Writer's Digest 2011 November Pad Chapbook Challenge - Day 2; unfortunately, due to a glitch in the system, I resubmitted it on Day 3's page

“I can resist anything but temptation,” says Wilde—
that’s Oscar.

I start again today, I say,
tight grip on my resolve.
But what’s another cup—it hisses
Just another sip—it whispers.

Too much caffeine
is bad for me;
it lulls me like a harp,
you see.

It taints my teeth,
and my insides burn
from excessive
stomach acid.

But water just won’t do it.
And tea just doesn’t cut it.
You know your thirst could only be quenched
by nothing but dear, old me.

Alright! Okay! I’m in for now.
Just this, just once. A grande cup.
Make it iced, Splenda and cream on the side.
And then I’m sure, I’d be done with him.

Whatever. If you say so. Absolutely!—
my dear, for I’ll always be here for you, you see.
You will realize soon enough, I’m sure,
you can’t possibly live without me.