considering the cannonade
"Considering the Cannonade," January 30, 2022 (#30)
original title
Doghouse Roses: Stories by Steve Earle (2002)
Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore (2014)
two lines from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2003)
one line from The Power of the Dog (2021)
one line from Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Pet Dog" (1899)
one line from CAMO Rescue's Welcome Home Packet (2022)
last line from Moonstruck (1987)
Considering the Cannonade
Never in my life did I come so far down the county road. Never past
a demeanor of arrangement and premeditation that gussied up something
then plopped down heavily in the center of a concrete bench and set up
the benefit of the doubt—all those paradoxical clichés of supposed generosity,
they were the real outlaws. Genuinely bad motherfuckers who could
give a toe or two to be thirty-five again. She would give three
almost in unison, forming a perfect little rank across the front of the
science lesson of some sort—the emotional limits of the Homo sapiens
can't go directly from point A to point B like other people.
That was just a regional fact. They switched off their engines. None of the
little village in hot, arid Chihuahua was not exactly a mecca for
strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are
completely ignorant of American history and
no doubt something that was a complete mirage.
The Old Lady and The Old Gent are seated in an elegant first class carriage.
There is a village in the distance which has 31 visible houses and
there was a golden streak from the moon upon it.
Everyone can be happy and cut the stress.
I can't sleep anymore. It's too much like death.
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portrait of Anton Chekhov from "Three Journeys" by Janet Malcolm, October 21, 2001
Illustration by Riccardo Vecchio
1-30-22
portrait of Clifton Chenier on the Blues Hound site
still from Pet Sematary (1989)
still from Moonstruck (1987)