Category: Writing

A collection of my published works on the interwebs

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Essays Writing

Connected: Whole-brained logic / Half-baked construct

(originally published @ Tekhne.com)

a movie review by JAMES DAVID PATRICK

Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth walk into a bar.

After La Jetée explains that he’s an experimental short film told through still images and narration, they decide to collaborate on a movie about everything from the Big Bang to Twitter and beyond. A modern movie. A cautionary tale about where we’ve been, where we’re at and where we’re headed. Hours pass. Enthusiasm tempers. Champagne becomes Wild Turkey. How could they thread together a movie about their lives, their fears, the world, globalization in under 90 minutes? They ring Terry Gilliam. Gilliam says, predictably, “With cartoons!” Clearly! They sketch their scattered ideas and doodles on post it notes that wallpaper the bar top. Still the connectivity of it all escapes them. (An important concept in a movie called Connected.) “Excuse me,” a voice says. It’s Michael Bay’s Collective Filmography. “I couldn’t help but overhear how you’re unsure how to bring the audience along on this wild ride of barely related consequences.” La Jetée and An Inconvenient Truth agree that despite the cartoons and charts and flowcharts something is still missing. Bay’s filmography continues. “Easy. Explosions. And the suspension of disbelief.” They rejoice.

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Categories
Non-fiction & memoir Writing

Mickey Tettleton

(originally published @ Specter Magazine)

creative non-fiction by JAMES DAVID PATRICK

Randall hated pitching. He preferred fielding grounders and jumping the fence to retrieve home runs. But it was his turn, and there were no allowances in the rules for Rolaids Relievers. Jeff had collected four consecutive singles, groundballs beyond the pitcher, before turning to Mickey Tettleton, our favorite Major-League emulation, to cap his miracle comeback. The eophus pitch countered the Tettleton. With a hitter slinging a weightless plastic bat through the hitting zone at hernia-inducing speeds, it proved nearly impossible to wait long enough for the loping perabula to drop into the hitting zone. Jeff’s first and second swings resulted in air displacement, neither within three inches of Randall’s eophus. I expected a third. As Randall started his motion, Jeff stood tall (but still very short), limp-wristed, bat cocked. He waited… waited… waited… timing the moment he would throw his hands forward… and then… contact. More than contact. A roof shot, fair, careening off the pitched roof.

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Categories
Non-fiction & memoir Writing

A Vinyl Revival

(originally published @ PANK Magazine)

It began innocently. These things often do. A Zenith turntable/8-track/cassette combo player rescued from my grandmother’s house in Wisconsin as we sorted through valuables and priceless non-valuables before the estate auction. I took a few of those records (leaving the crate of worn Roger Whitakers), a box full of 8-tracks and her guitar, a guitar that had always just been a piece of furniture. It wasn’t until after she died that I considered the significance of that guitar. Though other tchotchkes collected dust the guitar never did. Unfortunately these things often wait too long. Now that guitar sits, propped up against my own bookshelves and I still can’t help but wonder: What was her connection to music? And then, inevitably: What is my connection to music?

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