Wanda Le Sabre and Minnie Invicta
(with Electra Hemingray)
HOOTERS AND HONKERS
The Editorial We
by Le Sabre, Invicta and Electra
Electra Hemingray
My mother said she named me after the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon of Greek mythology, and this may have been true—but I find it hard to put aside the fact that daddy's first new car was a Buick Electra, purchased the year I was born—1959. He wasn't very musical but my earliest memories are of him singing bits of an old Buick jingle while he worked in the garage: "Le Sabre, Invicta, E-leccc-tra—Buick, THE car!
For the longest time I thought he was singing about me and that my middle name was Buick. Imagine my surprise when I came to work for the Gazette and found Wanda Le Sabre and Minerva Invicta already on staff—and neither with any apparent automotively induced role confusion. We won't get into it in any depth, but daddy's bank account barely stayed ahead of my therapy bills during my adolescence. I still get wet when I hear expressions like 'twin turbine torque converter'. By the time I was on my own, I had brought the transference full circle and re-entrenched my sexual priorities where they belonged—in an Alfa Romeo (and my own private mechanic, Antonio Le Rocca). Oooh, fix it again, Tony!
It was Wanda's idea to call this issue Hooters and Honkers—think she was getting even with Ernie Junior for his comment that 'romance literature' was an oxymoron. If anyone should know about oxymorons, it's Ernie—ask him about his journalistic integrity or professional courtesy. But I don't mean to get off on an Ernie slag—I'll leave that to Wanda!
Wanda Le Sabre
Don't get me started on Ernie—we'll be here all day. Besides, I'm a firm believer in the expression, "Don't bite the foot that stomps your grapes." I'm the first to admit I've got a cushy number as fiction editor and I wouldn't want to rock the boat too much. Am I mixing metaphors? No matter. When I was young, we called cars like Buicks 'boats'—and my knowledge of those babies is limited pretty much to the back seat. As for being named after cars, Le Sabre is the monicker of my ex-husband—the best thing he ever gave me, it turns out. I always thought it would make a good stage name for a stripper, should literary journalism ever let me down.
Hooters and Honkers is the name of a sleazy pretense of an automotive magazine which exists purely as an excuse to show off a bunch of nearly naked women. I spent some time going through the stacks of them in the bottom of Junior's gun cabinet and there are no redeeming articles to justify the pictures which fall just this side of porn, in my opinion. Hey, I don't mind naked women as art and I can get just as high as the next person on the sexuality of a machine—I'm a great fan of HR Giger, for instance. And remember that poster of of the nude draped all over a motorcycle? Heaven. It was a challenge finding the work for this issue, but I do think we've met it head on with some interesting reading as a result. I imagined more hooters than we ended up with, but guess I'm slightly relieved.
Minerva Invicta
Sorry, Electra, but I can't imagine anyone getting that jazzed over a car or a name, though I've been saddled with pissers on both counts. My first name is also mythological and my last name means invincible. I'm not. A car is transportation, a means to deliver you from here to there and back. I know the value of paying someone else to work on them—and the futility of being involved with someone whose first love is a vehicle. Some of them are beautiful, but it is dangerous to let them take on too much importance. That's true about the cars, too.
In spite of my prejudice (and with a little help from Bob Arter), I managed to find some tasty links for your enjoyment, so after reading these great articles and stories, stop by for a cup of hot coffee and a delightful surfing session. You'll find Tasty Links on the main page under the Masthead or at the end of the poetry section. The featured poet, btw, is an exception to my rule about autophiles—what a sensitive hunk he is! Thanks to iggy, for delivering the goods yet again.
Oh, one more thing—check out the latest edition to PREVIOUS ISSUES on the Masthead (EXISTENCE IS FUTILE). We are working to bring more past issues to the web soon.
© E. Hemingray, W. Le Sabre and M. Invicta 2002
BODICE RIPPERS
by Ernie "Junior" Hemingway (with Wanda Le Sabre)
Bodice Rippers! That's the last time I ditch a programming meeting so I can go fishing—who the hell would want to dedicate a whole issue of this rag to that seamy underbelly of literature, the romance novel?
"Coffee, Mr H?"
"Thanks, Wanda. I'm struggling with this editorial. I've got no time at all for this genre—the force fed pap of feeble-minded, frustrated female readers."
"Feeble minded, frustrated female readers? Are you buckin' to wear this coffee, Junior?"
"Give me literature like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls. OK, so Papa may have been the ultimate in machismo—the adventurer's adventurer, but no one can deny that what he wrote transcended gender."
"Crap. No way I'll ever trade in my damsels in distress for bullfighters and war heroes. Are you saying we should only read to satisfy intellectual needs? That's SO mental! You mean you never get off vicariously from the written word? I've seen your cabinet full of Hooters and Honkers."
"That magazine has received a bad rap I buy it for the articles. And, the pictures—the cars, of course."
"Yeah, right, Junior. Give me a good love story over a war saga any day, even 'real literature' as you put it—Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, for example."
"Oh, puh-lease. Let's leave those withered old Bronte prunes buried. I'm talking about authors who wrote quality literary fiction that didn't capitalize on sexual frustration. Nabokov, D H Lawrence, uh, well maybe not the best examples. Let me see what I've got on my shelf—ahh, Ulysses by James Joyce, an adventure based on Homer's Odyssey. Now here's a man's book:
The whir of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop. Throb always without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me you who can. Bawd and butcher, were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A look around.
"Classic—and manly".
"Have you actually read this, Mr H?"
"Well, no. I found it on the seat next to me at a bar once. I discovered that if I carried it around with me I was attracting more interesting women. Funny, none of them ever stayed long."
"I can't imagine that. Hand me that book for a second. Thanks. Now listen to this passage from your manly adventure book—hmm, where is the beginning of this sentence? No matter. And in honor of your dad, we even have the sea and Spain:
...O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusion girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
"Beautiful. Say, Wanda, you were hardly looking at the page—have you read this before?"
"Several times, Junior—I left my copy in a bar somewhere. I think I'd better let you get back to your editorial—this issue's already late and I have a date with a hot bath and a Harlequin. See you tomorrow."
As I was saying, Bodice Rippers—now there's a genre with an inexplicable mystique. Readership? Market share? Enough to make one stand up and pay attention. Literature? I guess we need to let each written work find its own level in the test of time. If a million monkeys were turned loose on a million typewriters, in time one of them might manage a work such as Joyce's Ulysses. All the rest would be making a healthy living writing romance novels! That's all I have to say on the subject—you're on your own.
© Ernie "Junior" Hemingway 2002
EVERGLADES BOY DOES FINE
FA — A LONG, LONG WAY
by Wanda Le Sabre
There was a piano in my house, right by the front door—I was to have lessons someday. I have no recollection of hearing it played, but I do remember pumping up and down on the brass pedals in my bare feet. The folks traded it for a '36 De Soto before I could reach the keyboard. Hey, no skin off my nose—the De Soto had pedals, too. My older brother played trumpet in the school band. I couldn't make any noise come out of it, no matter how hard I blew. Dad told me girls shouldn't blow horns, that they'd get fat lips. I remember seeing Sophia Loren in The Boy and the Dolphin and wondering what kind of horn she played.
I love to sing. By the time I was nine I sang in choirs at school and at church. I learned to read the music and could blend in well enough for a time, but as my voice matured it became evident that my range was narrowing and maintaining pitch a real piece of fiction. I gracefully dropped out after the choir director told me that refrain means don't do it. Now I only sing in the car with the windows rolled up.
When my daughter was born, I bought a piano. I thought maybe giving her piano lessons would make me feel better about never getting to take them myself. I sold it to buy a '63 Chevy step-van after my ex ran off with our daughter's piano teacher. What goes around comes around, I guess. 'DO' always comes back to 'DO' eventually.
As fiction editor of this rag I am spoiled for choice most of the time and this issue was certainly no exception. We may have taken a few liberties with the mnemonic for remembering the notes of the treble staff lines (EGBDF), but we certainly took no liberties in assuring an excellent selection of fiction and poetry for this issue.
© Wanda Le Sabre 2003
TASTY LINKS
by Minerva Invicta
Unfortunately, the bulk of the content for my Tasty Links was the selection of esoteric links matching the theme of each issue. The context of my opening lines is lost without the relevant links and many of them have gone bad over time, which is why we eventually went for a fixed page of literary links. Here are a few of my early openers:
ARACHIBUTYROPHOBIA: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Do you think there is a word for words that make you wretch when you pronounce them? Many of the links below were found by googling the words of this issue's title, Peanut Butter Fugue, a reference to the magic of a child's point of view. If you have never googled, remedy the situation by adding the first link below to your list of favorites. I'd be lost without it. After you are finished, please enjoy the rest of the links without me—by the time you read this, I will be away on my dream vacation (Ernie's picking up the tab) with the rest of the GSG staff.
~
Last month I told you I was going on my dream vacation - well, guess I need to think about scaling my dreams up a bit. The free trip to Glasgow was a bit disappointing. When Ernie said not to worry about money for meals, I had no idea that meant he would be supplying each of our shared rooms with a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
Good thing I took my savings - I had a lovely time wandering around the town and met the most adorable guy with a kilt at the Gallery of Modern Art. Who says the Scots are cheap - and what a babe, though I expect that the kilt was more for effect than tradition. He gave me his e-mail address - maybe I can talk him into to visiting Gator Springs some day.
Enjoy!
~
One-Eyed Jacks always sounded a bit perverse to me, like it meant something I shouldn't ask about. When I was growing up, we played lots of silly poker games—Indian poker, for instance, in which you stuck a card on your forehead with spit and bet on your chances of winning based on what you could see on everyone else's head. Winning didn't make much difference to me—I was in it for the social experience.
I play poker about the same way I play chess—act quickly and on instinct, never thinking about it at all. I felt cheated the first time I played with guys as an adult. They were playing jacks or better to open, trips to win: you had to have at least a pair of jacks just to open and you couldn't win with anything less than three of a kind. I was folding on every hand and then I noticed that one of the guys won a hand with three tens, even though he threw away three cards. Hey, I said—I thought you had to have Jacks or better to open and you just drew that other ten! He just laughed. I saw very quickly that the rules only served to make honest people losers. I soon learned to play my innocent, honest girl face—ask a few strategic dumb questions, then bet like you know what you are doing, whether or not you have a clue. Not exactly according to Hoyle, but I'd like a nickel for every time I have bluffed someone into folding with that strategy. BTW, did you know Edmond Hoyle died before poker was invented?
I thought it might be fun to put up some online poker links, but every time I clicked on any of them, the pop-ups were attacking like mosquitos. You're on your own there, folks. I hope there is something of interest for you here—if not, go read the stories and poems again, or write your very own and send it to us.
~
As they say, March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, so why all of this talk about elephants? White ones, at that! I'm not sure what the iguana is going on about (assuming that it isn't just another one of Jake's tall tales). I've never heard iggy say anything, through my mind or otherwise—nothing, that is, but a bunch of angry clicks when he's reading poetry submissions. But he does manage to come up with some excellent poetry for iguanaland and the Gazette, so I'll keep my mind off the hook just in case and keep his tequila bowl full.
~
Oh, wow, I thought: Music is a great wetsuit to strap on for some all out power surfing. Surprisingly, however, I kept ending up in other places, some that were just plain boring and others just a little too savage for this breast. Maybe, it's just the mood I'm in with all of this damned rain. The issue had some excellent work in it (as always, right?) which tied together remarkably well. I didn't want to get too general with my list, so I've kept it short and sweet.
You don't have anything better to do, so go for it, why don't you?
~
Is blood thicker than water?
In CGS measurement, a force of one dyne is needed to move one square centimeter of the liquid or gas relative to a second layer one centimeter away at a speed of one centimeter per second, then the viscosity is one poise.
If water's viscosity is 1 centipoise, then blood might be 5 - 5.5 cps.
But then, who am I to say - I have more experience with centerfolds than centipoises - here's a shot from my portfolio:
~
This noir stuff is a trip for me—I thought it was going to be all, like, DARK and stuff, and I guess some of it is, but for the most part it just makes me laugh. I try not to be too judgmental, though, and hope I've found you some good links.
Enjoy!
© Minerva Invicta 2002-2004
© Carrie Berry 2008 | morpheus arms | fandango virtual
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