tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67884223945109304262010-04-23T13:38:01.202-05:00The Chippens Every So OftenThe Chippens Every So Often is a periodically updated (every so often) blog of contemporary writing. We are open to publishing anything in this space: personal essays, creative nonfiction, book/movie/music reviews, fiction, poetry, sports, travel, politics, you name it. Please, send us your stuff.chippenseditor@chippens.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-18153940098981472152010-04-23T13:37:00.001-05:002010-04-23T13:37:52.980-05:00This blog has moved<br /> This blog is now located at http://blog.chippens.com/.<br /> You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click <a href='http://blog.chippens.com/'>here</a>.<br /><br /> For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to<br /> http://blog.chippens.com/feeds/posts/default.<br /> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-1815394009898147215?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-8983198101332922182010-04-17T13:37:00.000-05:002010-04-17T13:37:04.708-05:00Timon Cat: A Friend's Decline<a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/greenberg.html">By KJ Hannah Greenberg </a><br /><br />Timon was born in the fall of 1981, in Iowa City , Iowa . His initial human caregiver was a student in my officemate Jerry's class. I had been urging that officemate, a young fellow who had helped me secure a space in his rooming house, to adopt a pet. I believed a pet could help Jerry be less introspective. Timon, I believed, would socialize Jerry.<br /><br />I adored Timon. Often, I would knock on Jerry's door to invite Timon to my room for a visit. In addition, I readily volunteered to watch Timon whenever Jerry went out of town.<br /><br />While I was becoming enamored of that feline, Jerry, too, was experiencing love. Not only had he begun to engage other folk in conversation, but he also acquired a girlfriend. Ironically, his newfound darling despised the very kitten that had helped Jerry become available to her.<br /><br />Jerry made plans to move out of the rooming house and into his gal’s apartment. I made plans to adopt Timon.<br /><br />While I prepared papers for my Master's tutorials or assessed my students' work, Timon grew. Having never owned a cat, I raised Timon as I had raised puppies. Consequently, Timon greeted me at my door when I returned from classes. He slept with me, shared my food, and enjoyed the company of my housemates.<br /><br />The following year, when I married my husband, an East Coast fellow I had left behind to pursue my education, Timon and I moved east. Interestingly, although my mate had grown up with cats and knew how to coexist with them, Timon continued to select only my lap for comfort. Accordingly, we adopted a second cat, Cleo; it was important to have marital harmony.<br /><br />Timon and Cleo seemed to like each other. They groomed each other, slept as a single ball of fur, and otherwise practiced mutual destruction of our small plants and delicate objects. Yet, Timon continued to sleep only on my pillow.<br /><br />Meanwhile, we erred. In our misguided attempt to successfully integrate Cleo into our family, my husband and I admonished Timon for not sharing food or other important elements of his territory. Later, we’d repeat that same mistake when introducing CDR into our small, domestic pride.<br /><br />CDR, too, was a potpourri cat and, like Cleo, incommoded Timon. Beyond annoying our original familiar by constantly trying to snuggle with him or to otherwise bond with Timon, CDR was an intruder.<br /><br />In the interim, I wrote my dissertation. Timon’s neurosis emerged.<br /><br />His first abnormal behaviors were his seeking out my husband and his spurning me. When those actions failed to capture my attention, he took to overgrooming. Several vets later, we concluded that our “first born” had no physiological ailment, but rather was despairing of receiving enough of my time and energy.<br /><br />The overgrooming was a destructive, but self-comforting action. Timon would lick a spot on his body, usually one of his inner thighs, until that spot was denuded of fur.<br /><br />We tried to deter our cat’s self-destruction by applying ointments to his legs, but our cat gave little regard to those potions’ supposedly bitter taste. What’s more, though I meant to give him more time, I failed since I was juggling a full-time job, a dissertation deadline and personal issues.<br /><br />Despite Timon's reflected dissatisfaction, he remained a fiery Tom. Once, when my sister mistakenly let our indoor cat out, he treed four of our neighbors’ fully clawed felines. Thereafter, he attacked another neighbor's collie.<br /><br />When, at last, I completed my degree, I accepted my first "important" position. Sadly, Timon continued to groom and Cleo began her own deviant behavior; she began to pee on select spots in our livingroom. Likely, the cats sensed my work-related tension; by year’s end, I resigned from my job because of sexual harassment. The subsequent litigation and mediation sapped my energy and further pulled me from our cats.<br /><br />Eventually, the legal battles ended. I found a new job, enjoyed the publication of an academic book and received a significant academic award. My husband, our cats, and I relocated. In our new town, we continued to seek help for Timon and Cleo's behaviors.<br /><br />One vet's suggestion to dose our furry children with semi-lethal chemicals sent us in a new direction. We hired a holistic animal doctor. Timon (and Cleo’s) behaviors did not improve, but they ceased to worsen.<br /><br />A short span later, we purchased our first townhouse. Each of our cats selected a site within our home that suited him or her. We had long since stopped trying to making our pets abide by human or by canine rules for interaction.<br /><br />Thus, we were amazed when the three cats seemed to peacefully share the sunlit portion of the carpet on the diningroom floor. As the amount of time during which my husband and I ran no interference grew, Timon even began to tolerate CDR's unflagging affections. Two years later, though another interloper arrived.<br /><br />All three of our cats watched our oldest child’s homebirth. Timon and Cleo snuggled with me when I used the "nursing chair" with Cleo usually purring loudly. The cats maintained their destructive ways, but did not increase them.<br /><br />When our second child was born, the dynamics again shifted. Whereas Cleo still purred and snuggled while I nursed and CDR continued to try to nap with the baby, Timon had become dispassionate.<br /><br />At about that time, our oldest offspring became sufficiently developed in cognitions and motor skills to learn how to gently pet the cats. First Timon, then Cleo, began to snuggle with her. Soon, Timon was found on her bed as often as on mine.<br /><br />When our second child also became a toddler, he, too, learned how to gently touch the cats. Timon sometimes tolerated our son’s ministrations.<br /><br />By the time that our third child arrived, Timon was increasingly keeping to himself. Moreso, during that span, whenever I was stressed by personal or by professional issues, Timon became "bouncy" as well as overgroomed.<br /><br />I took meditation classes to help me regain my center and to aid my unhappy cat, but little else seemed to enhance his serenity. It was as though his feeling of safety had completely vanished. Timon lost much of his body weight.<br /><br />Perhaps age was a contributing factor to his decline. Perhaps he was shrinking because of his prolonged, over almost a decade, experience of vomiting up the hair he ingested while grooming. Perhaps he faded away from grief.<br /><br />We gave him enzymes to help him digest his food. We gave him purposeful attention. Time passed. Another child joined our family.<br /><br />Timon seemed temporarily interested in our last baby. He even: experienced intermittent perky periods, tried snuggling with my husband, and began to chase imaginary critters. During his final weeks, he even took a passing interest in a piece of string. At seventeen human years of life, however, he died a sad cat. <br /><br /><i>KJ Hannah Greenberg and her hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs fly the galaxy in search of gelatinous monsters and assistant bank managers. Although Hannah had worked as a rhetoric professor, she gave up all manners of academic hoopla to raise children. Evidence of that endeavor can be found in </i>Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting<i> (French Creek Press, Spring 2010).</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-898319810133292218?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-28159131395633277752010-04-02T15:30:00.001-05:002010-04-02T15:32:49.374-05:00Robbing Banks Isn't Big or Clever<b>Robbing Banks Isn't Big or Clever</b><br /><br />(spoiler alert if you're never done it)<br /><br />By <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/whitehouse.html">David Whitehouse</a><br /><br /><br />Holiday time and I'm watching movies. My girlfriend is here, cooking up some pasta in my open-plan kitchen. She's pretty normal looking. She's not good looking or ugly. You wouldn't notice her on the street. She works at a zoo, giving children guided tours. She gives them talks about seals. The kids stroke guinea pigs with her.<br /><br />She holds the guinea pigs on her long pleated skirt. Between her breasts there is a snake tattoo.<br /><br />In her purse she carries a pair of pink fluffy plastic handcuffs, ready to put on anywhere at a moment's notice.<br /><br />It's <i>Dog Day Afternoon</i>. Al Pacino has just watched himself in <i>The Godfather</i> and now he is robbing a bank. The robbers have no masks or anything. One guy chickens out at the start so the gang is down to two. The bank has hardly any cash and the two hang around fielding personal phone calls to the staff when they should have been getting away. Soon the place is surrounded by cops.<br /><br />Al, it would appear, is the only winner here.<br /><br />The guy, the real one who did the, later wrote from prison that the film was a piece of crap. The FBI didn't need to kill his accomplice at the end, like the film made out, he wrote. But of course he loved Al Pacino. I can see his point. Al standing there outside the bank entrance, white flag in hand, with a pretty tidy female bank clerk. There's a massive armed police presence and a huge crowd. The accomplice has the rest of the hostages at gunpoint inside. Al boots the glass door and tells the cops to get back and put their fucking guns down. Attica! Attica! Bring on the prison riots. The crowd goes wild. The blonde bank clerk, tinged with sweat, refuses to go with the police and follows him back inside.<br /><br />Yeah, you need to be a bit of a showman to pull that off.<br /><br />-The real robber said this film is a piece of crap, I tell my girlfriend. They didn't really need to kill the accomplice at the end. They had him restrained already. But he loved Al Pacino. The trouble is, robbing banks is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration. Like anything. Like writing, y'know. Planning, execution, hard work. Gotta have all the ideas yourself, like he said, gotta do everything to keep it moving along. Just like Bukowski. Don't try being a genius if you aren't one. This guy tried to do it on inspiration alone. But you can't just watch The Godfather and wander in there. Doesn't work like that. Doesn't work unless you're a total genius.<br /><br />-If you're going to be an accomplice, you have to choose your friends very carefully, she said. Can you get me a strainer for the pasta please?<br /><br />-I mean, no masks? C'mon. How were they ever going to spend the dough with no masks?<br /><br />I can see the attraction with Bukowski. Unfettered male freedom. A life of debauchery, playing with words just something to do until drinking and the horse races start. It's a hobby, 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration. That kind of hobby. Tricky if you have to go to work already. The same as robbing banks, I guess. Which is also more fun as a hobby. Doing over a bank can hardly be counted as a serious activity. The act is essentially petty: what you want is a quick heist and a long boozy lunch. The guy might have got away with it if he'd played it cool. It would have held drinking time back until early afternoon, at least. But he started to take it too serious, that's the problem. Demanding planes, choppers, this and that. <br /><br />A letter to the bank manager would have had a better chance. If you told him the zoo needed the dough, to extend the seal aquarium for instance, they might go for it. They'd just write it off if you couldn't pay it back.<br /><br />A couple of weeks later and you just phone up and ask them for more money.<br /><br />I pour myself some wine. I ask if she wants some. She says no.<br /><br />-A stroke of genius could have got him through, though, I tell her. When he was chucking the money around and everyone was scrambling to get it, he should have run into the crowd. He could have got away. He was just a 95% genius. Didn't quite have 100% star quality. That's why Al Pacino had to take over.<br /><br />Stop trying to act like you're something, the bank manager told Al. Stop showing off and just leave me alone.<br /><br />-In Asia in the second world war, I tell her, the Japs had to shoot all the animals in the zoos. Korea, Burma, places like that. They knew that no-one could stay there to guard the zoos once they retreated. So they gunned down the big game down so that it wouldn't escape onto the streets. Just like that stupid accomplice in the film.<br /><br />-Pass the parmesan?<br /><br />I walk up behind her as she stands at the sink and put my hands on her hips. <br /><br />-I want to see the look on the lama's face, I said.<br /><br />-I'll never put the cuffs on in the zoo, she said.<br /><br />-We could wear masks.<br /><br />-Stop asking me that.<br /><br />I get some more wine.<br /><br />-Typos are worse than fascism, I tell her. You know who said that?<br /><br />-Why not just do it, she said, if you want to lead the same sort of life as Bukowski. There's nothing to stop you. No-one's relying on you, certainly not me. Chase girls and puke up the side of trees at 9 in the morning if you wish. Stop tucking yourself in to bed with your Bukowski book and your mulled <br />wine and just do it yourself. If you think it's so very nice to live like that.<br /><br />-Do you realise that the surrender of comfort required to write a sentence is enormous?<br /><br />The big bountiful plates of pasta are now visible.<br /><br />-Another thing, she said. Even if Al Pacino had got away his friend would still have been shot. Are you going to lay the table or what?<br /><br />*<br /><br /><br /><i>David Whitehouse, who is British, works as a journalist in Paris, where he has lived for 14 years. Previously he lived in Japan. He's married with three children and edits the </i><a href="http://www.lesserflamingo.net/">The Lesser Flamingo</a><i> ezine, which accepts poetry, flash fiction and short stories.</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-2815913139563327775?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-82926364351268931912010-03-13T11:02:00.000-06:002010-03-13T11:02:49.317-06:00MenaceBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/ahmad.html">Sarah Ahmad</a><br /><br /><br />Confined to a fragile war<br />Targets hanging by the deprived<br />Deceitful hope of the prime youth<br /><br />Presence explodes<br />in the face of easy questions<br /><br />Exploitation a lost prey for the weak<br />Conscious methods cornered and disguised<br /><br />Hunger for apathy sustains the deprived.<br /><br /><br /><i>Sarah Ahmad, 22 years old, was born in India and lives in Pakistan. She considers herself a struggling poet and artist as in her world where life is so fragile, not knowing if you will return alive every time you step out of the house, getting someone to acknowledge your art is a real struggle. Her work has appeared in various e-zines and magazines and that gives her a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Her chapbooks are </i>Unfulfilled Doubts<i> (2010) from Artistically Declined Press and </i>Chaotic Disillusion <i>(2010) from Calliope Nerve Media. </i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-8292636435126893191?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-6764230878045575622010-02-17T00:00:00.006-06:002010-03-13T11:03:52.588-06:00Among the CommonBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/cone.html">Pamela R. Cone</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">When you hear warning signs and still keep walking the results are </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">equivalent to stumbling into a snow storm. Your only reason is what you</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">have been searching for has suddenly appeared on the other side of the</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">hill. These sightings are rare. You have come to realize you weren't meant</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">to walk among the common. You don’t exactly blend in no matter the</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">intellectual composition of the crowd. Your last attempt was an affair held</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">in some place you wouldn't normally frequent. You introduced yourself but</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">your name didn't sound familiar in their pitches. And their tongues seemed</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">to cling to the roof of their mouths like that of liars. This is why you</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">are searching for this aberration reported by those consecrated to the</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">same. Your allegiance to one another is tighter than the secret hand shakes</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">other members of various clubs salute one another with. Armed with a flash</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">light, you hope you won't return still common.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">II.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">We all are but men. The wicked man preys on the common. The ignorant man</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">who stands head bowed holding his hat in shame. The shame of being hungry</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">and powerless. His faith in a creator to lift up his formation. The father</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">to even the bastard. To him, his soul sits high, his words silver flowing</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">from his tongue. But the vile man's lips are his own. He refuses to exalt</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">another. He stands high at every corner. With </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1266383771_3" style="font-size: x-small;">bloody hands</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> he professes</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">himself. He too is but a man.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">III.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">The street was crowded with people headed all in the same direction. Moving</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">as if an alarm had sounded warning them of the end of time. They marched</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">like slow stepping soldiers headed for certain death with their eyes</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">looking straight ahead. No one was directing them; but they all were</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">responding to the same voice shouting orders over the intercom in their</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">mind. In the background haunting music played providing them their rhythm.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Their destination seemed un-mark able and their passage incessant.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">IV.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Riding on the street car, the passing streets are untitled. They're</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">intertwined like a spool of yarn finally unraveling at the intersection of</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">town where the homeless woman searches for her lost life buried in her</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">rubble. Her face is exposed. But her identity is found on the stamped</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">passport she keeps strapped to her waist telling of places she once roamed.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">The sidewalk will roll up at dusk--both tired of the feet that has tread on</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">them all day. Their assigned position in life, it seems, is to scurry for</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">the crumbs that fall from the table, to answer when called, to not curse</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">when their mouths taste of bile.</span><br /><br /><br /><i><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/cone.html">Pamela R. Cone</a> is an interior designer and writer residing in Dayton, Ohio. She has been published in </i><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1266383772_0">The Clarion Review</span><i> and on her blog, </i><a href="http://pamelaconespoetry.blogspot.com/">Sometimes I Talk to Myself</a><i>.</i><span style="color: #898989; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-676423087804557562?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-68480615940133933592010-02-03T00:00:00.003-06:002010-02-03T19:44:11.658-06:00WeedingBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/greenberg.html">KJ Hannah Greenberg </a><br /><br /><br />At one point in my life, my husband and I purchased a home in a fairly upscale neighborhood. Although ours was the small cottage among towering McMansions, our domicile was our heaven, sanctuary, and laboratory. Our youngest child was born there. Our interest in sacred matters was nurtured there. My rebirth as a writer began there.<br /><br />That revival came about through a process of weeding. Somewhere, amidst our intentional gardens and our wild flora, I found a piece of me that I had previously and wrongly believed ought to be discarded as no longer serviceable. When we moved from apartment to condo, when we transported from rental to sublet, when we had no backyard, I had focused my energies on greenhouse beauties, both real and figurative.<br /><br />In other words, rather than allow myself to become vulnerable to the enchantments of motherhood, e.g. to the chromatic nuance found in moon flowers and in other funnel-shaped blossoms, I directed myself toward things academic. That is, I allowed myself passion for only those blooms which are easily identifiable in catalogs. I cared nothing for dandelion or for chickweed, or for any other potentially healing agent. Artifice sufficed until goopy faces and filled diapers returned me to sensibilities.<br /><br />Whereas it’s difficult to pursue footnotes with a toddler howling in the background or with a nursling plucking at your blouse, it’s not impossible to double dig a row of eupatorium or to sow seeds for a crop of hormone-friendly wild carrot while the kids fling mud. When I could no longer concentrate on the third level of linguistic abstraction, literally, on “the gist,” of a passage about deconstructed prose, I was still able to discern between chokeweed and horseradish. During that period, in preparing lecture notes, I frequently confused ancient criteria for determining truth with contemporary skepticism, but had little trouble teaching my preschoolers to nibble daintily on the petals of lemon sorrel or to suck the sweetness from honeysuckle.<br /><br />I am forever appreciative that my family had the opportunity to own enough land (albeit far short of even an acre) to watch groundhogs borrow after eating our plantain, to observe local deer tasting our wintergreen, and to spy on tiny spiders that made their way across the arches of our Dutchman’s pipe. Together, my loved ones and I learned a lot by listening to the warbling emanating from within our junipers and the chirping echoing out from beneath our spreading wild grapes.<br /><br />Remarkably, such moments occurred many years ago. My babies are teens now and getting older. My family’s home is no longer in a hardiness zone with regular cycles of heat and of cold, but in an area classified as a desert. Today, I am not mystified by milkweed or bewildered by lavender. I know thyme to be a powerful friend against respiratory infections and I recognize aloe as an ally for skin ailments. I applaud the march of tiny hedgehog feet across grand stretches of asphalt and smile as lizards scamper on my sun-soaked merpesset.<br /><br />I still encourage my children, though, to celebrate life’s diverse goodness. Yet, during this chapter, it is my teens who overtake me when identifying roadside artemisia or distinguishing a parking lot full of prickly poppy. My not-so-little ones see as commonplace a bud’s ability to restore and to teach and they take for granted that their mother dances not only with research on semantic veracities, but also that she documents her life’s answers in essay and in verse.<br /><br />As for me, bereft of those times of sticky fingers, while gladly rid of that span marked by performance-based outcomes, I watch the hummingbirds, bright in their iridescent dress, drink from the geraniums sprouting in my office window. Beneath those fliers’ busy wings, I track submissions to trade publishers, to staid literary magazines, and to women’s journals. As I move words around on my electronic pages, I remain thankful that some time ago I learned to value those seemingly undesirable elements that were growing around me. Specifically, I remain grateful that someone taught me the worth of “weeds.”<br /><br /><br /><i>KJ Hannah Greenberg and her hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs fly the galaxy in search of gelatinous monsters and assistant bank managers. Although Hannah had worked as a rhetoric professor, she gave up all manners of academic hoopla to raise children. Evidence of that endeavor can be found in </i>Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting<i> (French Creek Press, Spring 2010).</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-6848061594013393359?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-35702827092155200052009-05-13T00:00:00.002-05:002009-05-13T00:00:00.298-05:00Two poems from Charles Freeland<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Editor's Note: The following poems are excerpted from Charles Freeland's chapbook, </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Eulalie & Squid</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >, forthcoming from Chippens in June. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br /><br />Detached from the Aggregate</span><br /><br /><br />The silver seems to have been handed out by those who think Squid too reclusive. A man who doesn’t understand his obligations to the park system. And the volunteers who patrol its borders. They have been reduced by quarantine and apathy. Turned into specters by the things they’ve seen. Tumblers lying about, cracked and empty. Leaves stamped with the spindly trails of mold growth. Or other otherworldly materials. Pretending to belong to this one. Squid has a lesson at twelve and another in the morning. But suspects he has already covered those chapters and will just be wasting his time. Besides, Eulalie won’t give him credit for being somewhere crucial. For creating a part of his life that doesn’t resemble all the others. She thinks him shackled to the wasp’s nest. Straining away at the scent of alder. But that doesn’t mean she’ll just wave her hand and dismiss the project. He knows through hard experience she will take copious notes. And try to make him believe something he doesn’t actually believe. Eulalie is tricky that way. She is constantly turning over on the floor. Peering up at him as if she has just come to the most sinister realization. And she is waiting for the right moment to inform him of it. To pronounce it in short, clipped syllables.<br /> I think Squid probably should have bought Eulalie the fish tank. He should have pushed it into the corner with a dolly. Rather than just expecting the winds to take care of things. They are almost always arriving just a minute too late. Disturbing sheets of paper. Carrying with them the sound of people trying to do the right thing. It is a sound that tends to be mistaken by the uninitiated for that of someone drowning. So far off shore there is little help, I suppose, available. Though not so far as to fail to register altogether.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">As the Total of the One is to the Total of the Other </span><br /><br /><br />Someone’s going the wrong way. It’s inevitable. The sooner we accept that the bargain is not really a bargain at all, but a decoy, the sooner we can get back to the tales that nearly always begin in Bulgaria. We can grab up whatever celery is on the plate along the way. Just as if we won’t know what the climax sounds like without such assistance. Without the ladders threatening to fall over at the slightest provocation. Eulalie throws innuendo over her shoulder like salt. And the fact that Squid does not lunge ought to buy him some respect among those who knew him when he was a boy. Who thought he would never find himself in this situation. The sedan stuffed to the roof with steam trunks and cans of albacore tuna. The radio tuned to whatever doesn’t have any tympanis in it. This should tell us all we need to know. And if it doesn’t, if we are still searching beneath the mattress deep into the following morning, that doesn’t mean we are disabled in some crucial way. It just means we will not be given a place on the life raft, should matters come to that. Should the oceans start spilling over the sides of their containers. And running through the streets like domestic animals loose from their trailers. She finds his silence suspicious. The kind of thing that one wraps the body up in just when the body has become most vulnerable. When it is most likely to succumb to scrutiny. The heat of the Idaho sun. And if she is going to position herself correctly, she knows she must first determine where Squid will be at any given moment. Next to the rollaway bed. On top of the statue of himself that was erected secretly, in the middle of the night, downtown. And when the reporters came to ask him about it, to all but accuse him of arranging the project himself, he scoffed in a voice that left little doubt of his guilt. But no one could put a finger on exactly why. Sure, there was the timbre of it. Weak and watery. The sort of thing one expects to hear from the tailpipe of a Buick. Or the mechanism of the pen when you are just about to sign your name. But you hesitate for a moment because you’re not quite clear which line is the correct line. And which is liable to get you sent to the cabin in the piney woods. From which, it is rumored, no one ever comes back again. Where they ply you with soda crackers and fragments from the illiterate poets of Greece. Until you can no longer remember exactly why you turned your back on the old life. Why you lampooned it so cruelly in the pages of the phonebook.<br /> But just try figuring it out without the assistance of the woman you love! Try scratching at the bricks on your own. It won’t be but a matter of weeks before you are slinking back, defeated, into the corner of the garage. Hunting up the gas cans for one final inhalation.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/freeland.html">Charles Freeland</a> lives in Dayton, Ohio. His books, e-books and chapbooks include <span style="font-style: italic;">Through the Funeral Mountains on a Burro</span> (forthcoming from Otoliths), <span style="font-style: italic;">Grubb</span> (BlazeVOX books), <span style="font-style: italic;">Furiant</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Not Polka</span> (Moria), and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Case of the Danish King Halfdene</span> (Mudlark). His website is <a href="http://www.charlesfreelandpoetry.net/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Fossil Record</span></a> and his blog is <a href="http://charlesfreeland.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Spring Cleaning in the Labyrinth of the Continuum</span></a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-3570282709215520005?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-45675641899741284662009-04-29T00:00:00.001-05:002009-04-29T00:00:00.834-05:00Two poems from Adam Henry Carrière<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Editor's Note: The following poems are excerpted from Adam Henry Carrière's premiere chapbook, </span>Zigeunertänze<span style="font-style: italic;">, forthcoming from Chippens in May 2009. </span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">sinistrose, morosite</span><br />(dismalness, gloom)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mon amitie est vive encor, malgre l'absence. Hate-toi!</span><br />My friendship is warm still, despite absence. Hurry!<br /><br /> — Guilliaume Apollinaire<br /><br /><br />Small pretty statistic, what's the use?<br />A person's gloom is their birthright.<br /><br />When I left for the glowing pink neon, <br />you were shed, a mirror image <br />spilt over colorless sand.<br /><br />But, like old cobblestones, you still smile,<br />hiding the affectionate beach in the mortar below.<br /><br />You have no reason to sero-fancy and forget-cell;<br />Feel the atlas of your remaining <br />body the way I once did,<br /><br />Put up, put out ... out<br /><br />the stiff upper lip sewn into the quilt,<br />tripping up your one-step on the way in.<br /><br />Do not swallow the pharmacist's pleasant <br />jingle; build the home away from home <br />sweet homo we naïvely wrote of <br />in puppy-loved Valentines<br />illuminated by medicinal torches <br />now lining our hands.<br /><br />Your bodily breakdown, dismalness bathed <br />in light, dines with us in Thanksgiving, <br />this hospice meal.<br /><br />I am your last, best friend:<br /><br /> No matter the blueprint of the coming<br /> lull, your voyage is mine,<br /> our antibody leaves fall together.<br /><br />The dialect of our Magyar and Saxon eyes, <br /><br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">incandescence</span><br /><br />full of unlived yet permanently minor life,<br />almost deliriously lurks <br />behind the Hapsburgs' many great facades.<br /><br />Its gloom burnishes the epitaph<br />haggard pilgrims shamble toward<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Queer Quadrille</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Tell me, how many of them would deliver themselves up deliberately to perdition (as He Himself says in that book) rather than go on living secretly debased in their own eyes?</span><br /> <br /> — Joseph Conrad, <span style="font-style: italic;">Under Western Eyes</span><br /><br /><br />Aloof, Voltaire would advise looking for someone less <br />like a character in a book; Goethe agrees, adding, <br />'A little less re-writable, please, or less so than I.'<br />Genet shouts, 'I want a boyfriend!' <br />With an anxious nod, Forester peeks open <br />his journal, noting “He can look like this: <br />Bare, often, warm in the dark, soft to the touch."<br />Myakovsky growls, 'Zapadniks!' and seizes a quill, <br />scrawling, "Short, sweet-smelling hair, fingers to glide <br />over the ice of my heart, nipples for my erect tongue to caress."<br />Isherwood raises a gloved hand. 'What about, "Lips <br />tight over closed eyes picturing him, an out-of-fashion movie <br />unnoticed by the Society page." Hm?' Fugard claps politely. <br />Greene sneers perfidiously. 'Veneration doesn't propel boys <br />into refuge. The wind does. "Let the West Country breeze<br />hide with him in my soul." Or something like that.'<br />Hiding under the buffet, Kundera tosses a note <br />onto Schiller's lap. The German reads it skeptically: <br />"A near-perfect banquet that isn't a black grave." <br />La Rochefoucault pours more wine. <br />Da Ponte and Schikaneder carouse duetically.<br />Williams scurries out through the back door. <br />Mishima takes his bread. Goddard scribbles up the tablecloth: <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Captured in silver dust, framed in gold, the boy makes the man one.</span><br />Stone drunk, Fitzgerald approves; Gertrude and Zelda demur. <br />Tchaikovsky begins a seventh symphony on the spot,<br />but cannot decide what to call it. <br />Balzac, smelling of cognac, proves no help. <br />Marlowe begins to bicker with DeVere. <br />Yevtushenko wins a drinking contest with a bitter Hemingway<br />and takes the floor. 'A man's love is voluminous! <br />Glorious! Victorious!' Brodsky cheers ostentatiously.<br />Seeing Mandelstam hasn't yet arrived, they both weep.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Winner of the Nevada Arts Council’s Fellowship in Poetry, <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/carriere.html">Adam Henry Carrière</a> publishes</span> <a href="http://dansemacabre.art.officelive.com/default.aspx">Danse Macabre</a><span style="font-style:italic;">, Nevada’s first online literary magazine. He lives in Las Vegas.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-4567564189974128466?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-86293772879356640492009-04-22T00:00:00.001-05:002009-04-22T00:00:00.788-05:00Les UrgencesBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/whitehouse.html">David Whitehouse</a><br /><br /><br />The old man had fallen to the pavement and his wife couldn't get him up. A passing woman, plump and middle-aged, had helped him to his feet and that was how I found the three of them, locked in a tight, immobile huddle in the bright light of a winter's afternoon.<br /><br />-Are you going to be all right now? I heard the plump woman asking them.<br /><br />The wrinkles on the face of the old man's wife were fragile like the threads of a spider's web.<br /><br />-You'll be all right now, won't you? the plump woman said.<br /><br />The wife's eye, encrusted with flaky skin, was delicate as that of a young doe as it shifted shyly through her wispy brown hair toward me.<br /><br />-I'm afraid I really couldn't say, she said.<br /><br />I took the man's arm. He was big and burly with thick white hair. His wife smiled at me and the seed of youth was in her smile.<br /><br />The plump woman was gone.<br /><br />-Dad! What are you doing? We're going to be late for the PARTY!<br /><br />My kid, who I had fetched from school, was using a lamppost to swing himself round and round.<br /><br />-Go on, the old man said. Don't waste your time. You'll be late.<br /><br />-Don't worry, I said. We've got lots of time. We're early.<br /><br />The three of us shuffled forward, the wife holding one of his arms and me the other. It was a hundred meters to his house, he said. But he couldn't keep going and I caught him as he slumped down again. We got him back upright but he could go no further. We were stuck.<br /><br />-DAD! I don't want to stand here in the COLD!<br /><br />-I'll call an ambulance, I said.<br /><br />I pulled out my phone.<br /><br />-Thank you, the man said.<br /><br />The call was answered straight away. I told the woman where we were.<br /><br />-His wife and I tried to get him home, I said. But he can't walk any more. We're stuck.<br /><br />-Is he inebriated? said the voice on the line.<br /><br />-What?<br /><br />-Is he in a state of inebriation? Is he drunk?<br /><br />-No, I said. He's an old man.<br /><br />-I'm 85 years old, the man said.<br /><br />-He says he's 85 years old, I said.<br /><br />-And he's not drunk? the woman said.<br /><br />-No, I said.<br /><br />-I'll send an ambulance, she said.<br /><br />We waited motionless. My child sulked. His wife, elegant in her long black winter's coat, said nothing.<br /><br />The ambulance arrived, together with a police car. Three young men jumped out of the ambulance. Two blue-uniformed women emerged sluggishly from the car. They wore black boots and carrying long black truncheons. The old man's wife stood aside and looked at me, as if puzzled.<br /><br />We were in France. I held the man up from behind by slipping my arms under his armpits.<br /> <br />-Good afternoon, sir, said the ambulance driver. We've come to take you to hospital.<br /><br />-I'm not going to hospital, the old man said. I want to go home. It's a hundred meters down this street.<br /><br />-If you want to go home, call a taxi, the young man said. I can only take you to hospital.<br /><br />I was starting to sag under the old man's weight. The five uniforms stood impassive before us.<br /><br />-I'm a bloody doctor, the old man said. And so is my daughter. I want to call her. Her number is at home.<br /><br />-It's best to be examined, I said. Then you can call your daughter.<br /><br />The driver of the ambulance folded his arms.<br /><br />-Yes, he said finally. You need to be examined.<br /><br />-Maybe your wife can go and get your daughter's number? I said. While you get in the ambulance.<br /><br />-Don't ask her, the old man said. She's got Alzheimer's.<br /><br />At this, the other two young men from the ambulance moved forward and grabbed the old man's arms. The driver, arms still crossed, gave me a small nod. I stepped away. My child, like a wild horse springing out of a box, charged headlong down the street.<br /><br /> *<br /><br />It started the next Sunday morning as a dull ache in my testicles and got worse. By the time I stood in my living room, in front of the parents of the new kids at my children's school, it felt like a spoonful of molten lead had been dropped into each one of my balls.<br /><br />They had come round to discuss how we could share the job of taking our children to school.<br />Five assorted kids were running wild in the background. The visiting mother was a tall, large-breasted woman and as the pain grew worse, I struggled to keep my chin up to meet her gaze.<br /><br />-I'm a public relations consultant, she said. So it's very difficult to know exactly where I will be on a particular day . . .<br /><br />-Stop leaning against the wall, my wife said. Why can't you stand up on your feet?<br /><br />The husband shook his head and sighed, staggered by the dimensions of the problem. I wanted to cup my balls.<br /><br />An intense round of negotiations followed. I smiled through gritted teeth. There were numerous complications. Mondays. Tuesdays. Wednesdays. Thursdays. Fridays.<br /><br />I could feel a fever coming on. After what seemed long enough for the international war crimes trial of a minor African warlord, it was done. <br /><br />-My balls are hurting, I said to my wife once they had gone.<br /><br />The emergency doctor came straight around and we grappled briefly in the children's bedroom, my wife having indicated this was where the examination should take place. My temperature was through the roof.<br /><br />-You should have done straight to hospital, the doctor said. Rather than calling me. If there's torsion in the balls, you have only six hours to save them.<br /><br />-Six hours? To save my balls?<br /><br />My balls: six hours.<br /><br />-When did they start hurting? he asked.<br /><br />-They've been hurting for . . . a few hours, I said.<br /><br />The ambulance was soon there and I was bundled into the back. Off we went, red light flashing, into unchartered territory. My amazing years of potency, it seemed, could be drawing to a spectacular end.<br /> <br />When I came back home it was possible that I would be . . . something else.<br /> <br />At the hospital a woman in a white coat pulled me out of the waiting room and took me to the guy that was going to examine me.<br /><br />Except that there was no guy.<br /><br /> How could there be no guy? She wasn't going to . . . it wasn't possible that . . . oh no.<br /><br />I looked at her again and three crucial points struck me. In this order.<br /><br />1. She was wearing knee-high leather boots.<br />2. She was wearing black pantyhose. It had to be pantyhose, the alternative didn't bear thinking about.<br />3. A quick glance at her face showed her to be aged between 18 and 70 and free of any major disfiguring marks.<br /> <br />This was an infringement of my human rights. I would write to my health insurance company. I would complain to the association of balls doctors.<br /><br />No, more than that. I would contact my Member of European Parliament.<br /><br />I took my trousers off in the changing cubicle. Then I stepped into her office.<br /><br />I lay down glumly on the couch.<br /><br />-Please take your penis in your hand, she said.<br /><br /> She was wearing latex gloves. She rubbed a cold liquid on my balls. The she ran a scanning device across them. She studied the results on a big screen in front of her. I could see now that she was about 50, wore glasses and had brown, mousy hair.<br /><br />Her manner was quick and professional. This was crazy beyond my wildest dreams. My private little world had not been breached. She might as well have been a dentist. It might as well have been my teeth.<br /><br />-There's no torsion, she told me. You have a minor case of epididymitis. You'll have to take some medicine.<br /><br />-No torsion, I said. I struggled to absorb the news.<br /><br />I was still me. I was going to leave here and end this day just as I had started it.<br /><br />-I just need to do one more test, she said.<br /><br />She squeezed the skin on one ball between her fingers and I screamed. She squeezed the other ball. I screamed again.<br /><br />-That's right, she said. Scream! She grinned at me with a toothy leer. Come on, SCREAM! Which one hurts the most?<br /><br />-Both of them!<br /><br />-Perfect, she said.<br /><br />She laughed and I roared in tortured relief.<br /><br /> *<br /><br />At home I sagged triumphantly into an armchair. I was exhausted but the medicine was already starting to wash the pain away.<br /><br />-Dad! Dad!<br /><br />One of my kids came hobbling up to me.<br /><br />-What?<br /><br />-My little toe is hurting. I think I need an ambulance!<br /><br />I called out to my wife.<br /><br />-He says his toe is hurting.<br /><br />-Just kidding Dad, he said. And off he ran.<br /><br /><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/whitehouse.html">David Whitehouse</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> is married with three children. He works as a journalist in </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240366907_0">Paris</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, where he has lived for the last 13 years, after moving from his native Britain. He edits</span> The <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240366907_1">Lesser Flamingo</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, a new ezine.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-8629377287935664049?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-30790457752093309792009-04-15T10:38:00.004-05:002009-04-15T10:53:23.533-05:00Three poems from Felino Soriano<span style="font-weight: bold;">Painters’ Exhalations 91</span><br /><br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">—after John Coyne’s </span>Flight in Green<br /><br /><br />Because the ocean<br /> reverts<br />to mirrors on waves’<br />tabletop function<br /> scripting<br />an unknown causation<br />stating sense dangles from the tongue<br />-caused interpretations,<br /> inversion<br />proclaims sans standing philosophical<br />head-standing,<br /><br />flight can deem itself contained by framed borders<br />man refuses to dislodge. This though<br /> does not<br /> deter<br />the winged from acrobatics atop air’s angled,<br />unbounded stage<br /><br />as day of emergency transforms psyches into<br />lost and winded animals<br /><br />catapulted among their foreign reactions.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Painters’ Exhalations 93</span><br /><br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">—after Elsa Dax’s </span>The Night<br /><br /><br />Night constructs nest<br />mosaic ingredients softened mirror<br />for owl rest subsequent hunt,<br />feed, meander between itchy bark.<br />Stars incorporate flickered pause<br />saluting scientists attempting<br />ascertaining distance<br />relative to a pebble future from<br />man’s grabbing hand. Navy<br />pocket square president’s fold<br />sky’s tailored blazer. Music<br />becomes a multiplying flesh:<br />wind, mythical ambiance, goddesses<br />announce in retribution, decrees<br />not a whim among the ruling<br />giving surnames to stars’ orphaned<br />children.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Painters’ Exhalations 94</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> —after Joe Machine’s</span> Sailor at Rest<br /><br /><br />Sustained water life, stilled on<br />sea’s obese spectrum<br /><br />authors insanity in an etching scrape<br />across altered pining psyche. Misinterpreted<br /><br />tranquil blue slaps the unaware, predetermined<br />fallacy placed in soil of gullible beliefs,<br /><br />the ignoramous. Rest from the dance of waves<br />vomit<br /><br />the mopping of decks aware of their reeking<br />cells.<br /><br />Cliché sailor posing, respite on a bar’s hardened stool.<br /><br />Head submerged, thoughts the drowning hands<br />grasping at answers found floating amid<br />inebriation. Snake<br /><br />tattoo slithers in overhead light, the rare light<br />alive atop existence’s manifested<br />darkness.<br /><br /><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/soriano.html">Felino Soriano</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults in California. He is the editor of the online journal, </span><a href="http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/">Counterexample Poetics</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, which focuses on International interpretations of experimental poetry, art, and photography. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-3079045775209330979?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-51716156005691904852009-04-08T10:26:00.002-05:002009-04-21T21:27:53.201-05:00Opening Day 2009<span style="font-style: italic;">Editor's Note: Major League Baseball opened its season April 6, so this week we asked a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and a fan of the Chicago Cubs, arch rivals in the National League Central division, to offer their reflections on Opening Day. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Out of the Cold, a Need for Closure</span><br /><br />By Matthew Melick<br /><br /><br />I woke up on Opening Day dreading the thirty degree temperatures and snow that had pushed into St. Louis the night before. But I knew that these temperatures were short-lived—it was baseball season. Each spring in the Midwest, Opening Day—as all the great baseball writers have written—signals an end to the cold and darkness. As a Cardinal fan, Opening Day usually means two things—the natural beauty of spring and its longer, warmer days will be arriving shortly, and Cub fans can be excited about their team’s prospects for a couple weeks.<br /><br />But this year, it is our turn to be excited, hopefully for more than a couple weeks. This is the year the Cardinals take back the Central, the year they come up with an answer in the bullpen. In 2008, the Cardinals blew a Major League-leading 31 saves and somehow still managed to finish just four games out of the wild-card. But that was last year. This year, the Cardinals have a great new closer and all of the problems of last year (and the year before) were just that, problems in the past. Right? For some reason (probably like most Cardinal fans), on Opening Day 2009 I had an uneasy feeling about the prospects of a bullpen anchored by a former catcher with only eleven prior Major League appearances.<br /><br />Unfortunately, my feelings were validated—so much for change. So much for the chance to be hopeful about your favorite team’s prospects. Opening Day 2009 will forever be imprinted in my memory as the day I learned that one team can have two blown saves in one game. <br /><br />Yet at the end of the day, somehow, hope had returned. It is spring, things change and grow, it is just a slow process. That is perhaps the best part about Opening Day. If your team wins—“awesome, this is the year”; if your team loses—“oh well, it is early.”<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">October Doesn't Care</span><br /><br />By Bryan Timm<br /><br /><br />As a Cubs fan, I have come to a realization that is going to make this season a little different from those past. October just does not care.<br /><br />October doesn't care about Opening Day. October doesn't care about players being tired from the World Baseball Classic. She doesn't care about signing a fiery right fielder or about the struggles from an imported center fielder. She doesn't care about the Houston Astros looking for some semblance of revenge for what Carlos Zambrano did to them after Hurricane Ike devastated Texas.<br /><br />I encourage Chicago Cubs fans to ignore all the columnists, talking heads and any other random idiot trying to make a case for caring this early. It doesn't matter to me anymore, and it shouldn't matter to you. The only thing that matters is what the Cubs do once the season changes from summer to fall and the playoffs arrive.<br /><br />I understand the excitement surrounding Opening Day because I feel it too. The prospect of sitting outside with a cold beer in my hand listening to Pat and Ron call a game is just as attractive to me this year as it has been in years past. But this year has to be different. It has to be.<br /><br />The Boys in Blue may get off to a fast start and run away with the division. They may struggle early and have to hold off the Cardinals down the stretch to get in. But barring some sort of insane string of injuries, the Cubs are going to win the division, probably quite easily. So while I may be yelling at the television in May because Kosuke Fukudome misplayed a fly ball, resulting in a Cubs loss, it will be a reserved yell. Because quite simply, October just does not care.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Matthew Melick is an associate attorney at Carmody MacDonald P.C. in St. Louis, Missouri. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bryan Timm is a cross country and track coach at Rosary High School in Aurora, Illinois. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-5171615600569190485?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-22674510604267284412009-04-01T00:00:00.001-05:002009-04-01T00:00:00.362-05:00Two poems from Ray Succre<span style="font-weight: bold;">This is the Spark</span><br /><br /><br />Early by a dawner's clock,<br />with sleep to come where sleep should end,<br />I am bound all licked by a pastime become time thief.<br /><br />If I reach your trickling alarm without shut eyes,<br />in that you rouse and find mine red,<br />as I sit and bloody my head with the ever-leaping story<br />of a character in a game on a screen,<br />fetch me from this pleasurable invention.<br /><br />Start with profanity, or call on guilt, use nudity or bacon.<br />Up all night, I'll haven't a care; turn it off or take over—<br />only fetch me and send me on.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In a Pit of White</span><br /><br /><br />The cold year banked in less-lit December,<br />stumbled past, wings straining and indignantly spread,<br />straight into the snow—all it could do to stop.<br />Of all the things it could have spun anew,<br />thought to mention in passing over to next year,<br />this year chose to impart nothing but frozen children,<br />back from the white and stuck for long spans<br />in an un-sunned, wishful house.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/succre.html">Ray Succre</a> currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son. He has been published in </span>Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, <span style="font-style: italic;">as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novel </span>Tatterdemalion <span style="font-style: italic;">(Cauliay) </span><span style="font-style: italic;">was recently released in print and is available most places. A second novel, </span>Amphisbaena, <span style="font-style: italic;">is forthcoming in summer 2009. He tries hard.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-2267451060426728441?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-34635579303615742942009-03-25T00:00:00.001-05:002009-03-25T00:00:00.539-05:00Two poems from Felino Soriano<span style="font-weight: bold;">Painters’ Exhalations 90</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> —after Ella Guru’s </span>Congregation<br /><br /><br />Staring into a body felt<br />by the unseen eyes. The listening<br /><br />discerning pebbles placed atop lake<br />tongues, swallowed, —this is a talent<br /><br />multitude hiding often in wrinkled fabric<br />the mind cannot mend until<br /><br />light threads altered connotations. They a smiling<br />foreground<br /><br />to the jazz inheritance full-swing method<br />riding the trumpet solo<br /><br />away into imagination’s various homes<br />forming bodies with fingers<br /><br />snapping echoes available for lengthy<br /><br />musical interpretation. Wine glasses sipped dead.<br /><br />Absence here means nothing<br /><br />as in a crowd of anger, the sole smiling<br />forced to cower<br /><br />within corners of malevolent confinement.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Painters’ Exhalations 92<br /><br /></span> —<span style="font-style: italic;">after Susan Constanse’s</span> In the Aftermath<br /><br /><br />In the aftermath<br />absence curls its shadowless<br />monuments around the pupils<br />too aware of conscious perception.<br /> Chairs lined<br />criminal profiles with messenger<br />witnesses too afraid to sit<br />or compose facial feature<br />recognition.<br /> Bodies reside here<br />only by name tiptoeing memory<br /><br />thus<br /> façade panels<br /> the weakened room<br /> allowing<br /><br />for the dead to reborn selves<br /><br />after dust dissipates<br /> revealing<br /><i>tabula rasa</i><br /><br />skin<br />akin<br />to conception ensuing saddened death,<br />mother pounding questions.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/soriano.html">Felino Soriano</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults in California. He is the editor of the online journal, </span><a href="http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/">Counterexample Poetics</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, which focuses on International interpretations of experimental poetry, art, and photography. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-3463557930361574294?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-86969735044591139432009-03-18T06:47:00.008-05:002009-04-21T21:27:53.201-05:00Are You There God? It’s Me, March MadnessBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/christol.html">Brandon Christol</a><br /><br /><br />It’s March, and you know what that means: It’s Fire Prevention Month!<br /><br />Oh, and it’s time for March Madness! Ah, March Madness—an annual tradition of buzzer-beaters, upsets, watching basketball at work while trying not to get caught, and—most exciting of all—lots of numbers accompanied by alliterative adjectives (e.g. Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four). It’s an extended sports spectacle that grabs the attention of Americans young and old and fills the coffers of bookies everywhere. Sixty-four teams enter with one common goal: to apply the concept of Murphy’s Law to my bracket by losing if I pick them to win and winning if I pick them to lose.<br /><br />March Madness is one of my favorite times of year, mainly because it features 126 hours of sweet hoops action spread out over 10 different days. But there are many other reasons to feel much gladness about March Madness:<br /><ul><li>You get to hear Gus Johnson call last-second shots. “Rises and FIRRRRRRES … GOT IT!!!!” Sometimes I spice up my day by pretending Gus Johnson is announcing my actions. As in: “He drives down the road, looks right as he goes to parallel park, squeezes in there, straightens it OUUUUUUUUUTTTTT … GOT IT!!!” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, or even if you do, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcglOItcKoM">click here</a>, sit back and enjoy the beautiful rhetorical stylings of the third greatest announcer in the world.<br /></li></ul><ul><li> The Chippens NCAA Tournament Challenge! </li></ul><ul><li>It means baseball’s Opening Day is just around the corner. In fact, the championship game often coincides with the Cubs’ first game (like it does this year), which is like having your birthday on Christmas or buying a house and discovering that it comes with a BMW. </li></ul><ul><li>It’s college basketball with no Dick Vitale. Why won’t he stop yelling at me? I don’t care what BMOC stands for. What did he say? The ACC is strong this year? I can’t understand him when he screams like that. He sounds like Kermit the Frog if he were afflicted by voice imodulation disorder and injected with some sort of serum limiting his speech to strange and ridiculous exaggerations. </li></ul><ul><li>Winning the Chippens NCAA Tournament Challenge!</li></ul><ul><li>One word: Drama. It’s Win or Go Home. There’s something natural and Darwinian about it. Teams play 25+ games, fighting and clawing to claim a spot in the tourney, and then all of a sudden—BAM!—a last-second heave from half court (hopefully called by Gus Johnson) can send them packing ‘til next year. There’s no best of five, no byes, no Papajohns.com Bowl. It’s drama to the 64th power. </li></ul>If you want to reminisce, or perhaps whet the palate in preparation for this year’s Big Dance, check out some of these clips:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZh0g82Bv24&feature=related">Western Kentucky over Drake, 2008</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmrvVQFGFlY">Illinois vs. Arizona, 2005</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t3rg_AptzM">Top ten March Madness buzzer beaters from ESPN</a><br /><br />Enough already, just tell me what to do with my bracket!<br /><br />OK, now that we’re all ready for the games, I’m going to share with you my unrivaled expertise and guaranteed predictions. That’s right—advice straight from the person who finished in a respectable 8th place last year, and quite presciently predicted that all four #1 seeds would make the Final Four. (Pay no attention to my 43rd place finish in 2007, in which I guessed only one of the Final Four teams correctly.)<br /><br />While there’s no one team with a stranglehold on the title this year, I still think the sport is top heavy. I have two #1 seeds making the Final Four this year (Louisville and Pitt) along with a couple of #2 seeds. I think Pitt, with the talent and athleticism of DeJuan Blair, Sam Young & Co., will come out of the East and ultimately defeat Louisville for the title. I love the Cardinals out of the Midwest—they didn’t just survive the insane gauntlet that is the Big East, they won the regular season and conference tournament titles, and I don’t see them losing to a young Wake Forest team, a strong but rebuilt Kansas squad, or the solid but not-quite-at-that-level Michigan State. In the South, I think UNC will stumble in a shootout with Gonzaga, opening the door for Oklahoma. And out West, I have Memphis taking down UConn in what should be a great game.<br /><br />Teams that could advance further than expected include West Virginia, Purdue, Clemson and Utah State, who travels to the neighboring state of Idaho to face a Marquette team that has dropped five of six after losing Dominic James. And though I’m a big Illini fan, I’ve got them bowing out as the victim of the classic 12/5 upset. While Bruce Weber is one of the best X’s and O’s coaches in the tournament and has had them overachieving all year, U of I lacks a go-to guard in the clutch. Plus, Chester Frazier, their best defender, is most likely out. Either way, I don’t think they’re getting through Gonzaga, though I’d love to be wrong.<br /><br />But enough talking about basketball—bring on the games! Enjoy!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/christol.html">Brandon Christol</a> is an assistant director of admissions at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill. To read more of his sports writing, visit his blog </span><a href="http://waittilthisyear.blogspot.com/">Wait ‘Til This Year</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-8696973504459113943?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-91200282508569575162009-03-10T23:00:00.001-05:002009-03-31T22:14:09.398-05:00Two poems from Ray Succre<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Fulgent Men</span><br /><br /><br />divide themselves young on a thermonuclear<br />regain of slussy or cwat or punt or tritch,<br />obscene term for female genitals,<br />with a crescent wrench hostility,<br />a gain of signatures from unfortified ponies.<br /><br />Or as they think.<br /><br />Deep retracted from this expansive show,<br />I've learned to hold hands, clean or vulgar,<br />hands, domestic or dizzying, rid of glary bits<br />and brimming with notice, and divide myself<br />to tandem memory, day by bang-up day,<br />as goes this less sleepy, stellar sort of me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dead On (Indirectly)</span><br /><br /><br />Contents_Hot thinks well of himself, per se,<br />and thinks you're the virtue circular<br />he met through an online dating mess.<br />You should know, Miss_Gourmet,<br />Contents_Hot spends Thursdays dunking<br />his costumes in Tide for the churner-paddle,<br />eating microwaved sandwich pockets<br />(the package warning from which he<br />designed his longstanding screen name),<br />and then gesticulating wildly with his genitals<br />while reloading downloadable content.<br /><br />You will likely find in him a grand monologue<br />of dorkdom from feverish, ongoing isolation.<br />He needs you, you know, a poise of parole,<br />and would treat you to his restoration,<br />should you greet him more than the once,<br />tonight and blind, to the misjudge of pictures,<br />should you become happy with him and decide<br />to quell the chessboard of your seldom pleasing<br />days.<br /><br />You're no gourmet and you want to be in love.<br />He's an intuitive kisser-at-the-door, you know.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/succre.html">Ray Succre</a> currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son. He has been published in </span>Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, <span style="font-style: italic;">as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novel </span>Tatterdemalion <span style="font-style: italic;">(Cauliay) </span><span style="font-style: italic;">was recently released in print and is available most places. A second novel, </span>Amphisbaena, <span style="font-style: italic;">is forthcoming in summer 2009. He tries hard.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-9120028250856957516?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-20327218564458320162009-03-03T23:00:00.005-06:002009-03-04T14:53:14.641-06:00Truth and ResurrectionBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/taylor.html"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_1">Megan Taylor</span></a><br /><br /><br />Newspapers everywhere are dying.<br /><br /><span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_2">Mass extinction</span> has threatened their medium for some time, and those that live on may only do so by way of evolution into something else entirely. What will someday be classified as a “newspaper” may, by journalistic standards, be a “publication” at best.<br /><br />It is widely speculated that dinosaurs died off as the result of some cataclysmic meteorite crash into the earth. Just like scientists argued over the cause of mass extinction, analysts have their different theories about what ails the newspaper industry today.<br /><br />Most often, we hear the Internet threatens to dissolve print media. News done <span style="font-style: italic;">a la</span> Internet is instantaneous. Readers can follow a story as it develops, and, for the most part, it’s free. Advertisers may no longer think about things like circulation when considering their best resource, but rather about Web hits, which typically outrank the circulation of even the best of pubs.<br /><br />Threat initiated by the latest <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_3">technological advancement</span> is nothing new. Imagine the fear newspaper publishers must have felt when television producers began providing viewers with live news coverage. But newspapers have proven that they can ride out change, and this should again be the case as papers contend with the Internet. When marketed properly, a Web edition of a newspaper can help bring in more revenue and garner more exposure world wide. Many pubs use the Internet to build readership and promote their print editions. Indeed, the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_5">World Wide Web</span> is not what afflicts newspapers today.<br /><br />If newspapers (increasingly viewed as archaic and dated) are the dinosaurs, then greedy corporate America’s mismanagement, and not the Internet, will be the meteor directly linked to their demise.<br /><br />In corporate culture, making money is more important than serving the public. Pressed by a limping economy (which gains its crippled status through the greed of other corporate enterprises), newspapers have seen a significant drop in revenue generated through advertising. Couple that with increasing print costs, and newspapers executives everywhere feel the pressure to crunch numbers.<br /><br />Thus, the newspapers let accountant types and advertising clods run the show instead of editors. Devoid of all passion for truth and journalistic integrity, these number crunchers make cuts in the most illogical places while spending more money trying to sell ads. They can hire more people to sell, but if the product is compromised, who will want to buy it? It’s true a newspaper also is a business, but it can’t be run like any other business, because it is not.<br /><br />In these cases, upper management seems to forget that in order to maintain or increase revenue, a desirable product must first be established. When the product is no longer desirable, sales go down. A newspaper is like a garden and the editorial staff cultivates a marketable product. The fewer gardeners tending to it, the more weeds. Weeds are things like national news filler or national photos where interesting local stories used to flourish.<br /><br />Back to the dinosaur analogy, let’s look at the evolved “newspaper” of tomorrow. Because of the pursuit of the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_7">almighty dollar</span>, advertising executives now exert all influence over the <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_8">editorial board</span>. Truth is buried because it may offend one particular advertiser. “News” now becomes stories suggested by the ad execs about things like new products sold by a participating advertiser or a business’s 11th anniversary. The newspaper is no longer a force for accountability, but a white elephant advertising-for-editorial swap meet.<br /><br />The new creature dragging itself out of the muck bears the semblance of its former self. But underneath its skin it harbors a fatal flaw. It will only be a matter of time before it is picked off by something stronger and better equipped to stand the test of time.<br /><br />Let’s hope whatever survives has the pursuit of truth in mind. That and that alone will ensure the newspaper's survival.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Megan Taylor is the former staff writer for </span>The Town Meeting<span style="font-style: italic;">, a weekly newspaper of </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236131818_9">Elk Rapids, Michigan</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, which closed its doors on January 23, 2009 after more than 30 years of business.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-2032721856445832016?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-63445656395082579472009-02-24T23:00:00.001-06:002009-02-25T09:47:18.382-06:00Rent-a-speechBy <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/chorlton.html">David Chorlton</a><br /><br /><br />The use of language is a deceptive enterprise. Words don’t necessarily mean what they were meant to. Take the rental agreement issued by a prominent car rental company for example, in which the customer’s pink copy bears the details whose ink already appears faded in the moment they are printed. Toward the upper right-hand corner the letters spell out: DAY = CALENDAR DAY. My wife, having had to rent a car for a few days, asked what this implied. Jeremy, the enterprising assistant, mumbled something about the date and sounded deliberately non-committal. So the renting of the vehicle ensued, and when time came to return it my wife, who has lived her entire life with 24-hour days, had her sense of time challenged. According to Jeremy’s calendar, a day is a day even if it doesn’t begin until 5pm or if it ends at noon. Put plainly, counting the calendar day rather than the number of hours enables the enterprise to squeeze an extra day’s fee out of the customer to go with the additional insurance charges.<br /><br />Jeremy, I am sure, is simply an obedient soldier in the army of commerce doing what he is trained to do. So let us check in with some of the published comments the enterprise in question makes about itself on its Web site, starting with “Personal honesty and integrity are the foundation of our success” and continuing through the stated intent “to exceed every customer’s expectations.” Shouldn’t “foundation” be plural? Never mind, at least we can guarantee that the customer’s expectations will be exceeded when twenty-four hours turns into two days. This observation simply points to a corporate manner of communicating in a promising but ultimately uninformative manner. Political language is taught in the same schools.<br /><br />Vagueness in speech is never as useful as when employed in circumventing ethics in behaviour. At least the seven deadly sins were listed with specificity. In our time, we need to be sharp enough to interpret what is said to us and especially when it is said by politicians, the natural allies of enterprising corporations. Take “an honest mistake,” as it was brought up as a defense of the nominee for the position of Treasury Secretary when the news broke that he owed $34,000 in taxes and was still the choice to oversee the IRS. What exactly is an honest mistake and when does it become a tax break?<br /><br />Slogans are designed to raise expectations without ever stating exactly what it is we can expect. You could be considering a career with our unnamed car rental company, the one that claims, “We built our company around being honest and fair, and at the same time, incredibly motivated and entrepreneurial. This is where your potential becomes reality.” All the qualities mentioned sound just fine, but in every one of them there is some of what we may call wiggle room, enough to accommodate a flexible interpretation. This is an even more cozy situation for those who invest in themselves by describing themselves glowingly. Public relations and advertising are excuses for corporations to lavish the kind of praise on themselves that we, as individuals, would find arrogant and objectionable should we speak of ourselves in the same way. Therein lies the difference between language as we use it to communicate and the neatly processed phrases with all the spontaneity ironed out of them in conferences before they are broadcast to the rest of us.<br /><br />Imprecise language is, sadly, a staple in foreign policy. Consider the number of times “American interests” abroad are mentioned by spokespersons for the administration in their appearances on TV news shows to justify actions of a military nature. If the word “interests” were replaced by “military base” or “energy source” we would hopefully be more suspicious. Developing a sharper ear for manufactured speech should be then first line of defense against being personally manipulated and ultimately being party to the policy of killing for profit and power. Jeremy might think about applying for one of those jobs with the administration; he’d likely earn more than the car renters pay him.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-6344565639508257947?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-26254751281790470702009-02-17T23:00:00.002-06:002009-02-25T13:59:51.692-06:00Two poems from Francis Raven<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Editor's Note: These two poems are from Francis Raven's chapbook, </span><a href="http://www.chippens.com/chapbooks/The_Failures.pdf">The Failures</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, which was recently published by Chippens. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />They Call it <span style="font-style: italic;">Wolfing</span></span><br /><br /><br />In the end I just knew there was no way<br />I could have eaten all those hotdogs.<br />It wasn’t my first competition, but what was I thinking?<br />I invited everyone, my mom, her husband<br />(Who I absolutely refuse to call my stepdad), my sisters<br />And their short-term boyfriends. The thing was<br />It was hot. Have you ever tried to eat a lot<br />When it’s really hot; it’s not that easy.<br />It’s sort of like the sweat restricts your throat<br />Or sort of pokes your uvula so you gag.<br />I puked. It was embarrassing, but it was puke or die<br />And in that situation you’d probably have chosen<br />Much like me: I didn’t die: I failed.<br />I thought they’d support me<br />But they really didn’t.<br />They all sort of made fun of me and made me<br />Watch them eat lunch at the after-party.<br />That’s why I don’t really have much contact<br />With my family<br />Anymore.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />The Lottery<br /><br /></span><br />By God I’ve scratched; bought and scratched;<br />The minor wins merely pique the urge to scratch: I scratch.<br />I know it’s not in my best interest but<br />I don’t scratch for a minor boost<br />I scratch for a qualitative difference.<br />I scratch for a new car, and not just any new car<br />But a car I can’t afford now.<br />I don’t even know what car that is, but I scratch for<br />That which could scratch me up a notch<br />If only scratching could stop the itch<br />But it just brings my needs to a froth.<br />If only I hadn’t seen how the other half lives,<br />But it’s not just the other half any more;<br />It’s everyone appears to live the same,<br />Though they can’t possibly. Thus we’re all scratching<br />Futilely as the swisher under the bullet proof glass spins money<br />Towards a disgruntled employee who knows I haven’t won<br />Before I do. It’s in his eyes. It’s always in his eyes<br />Sort of like dust rigged against me.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/raven.html">Francis Raven</a> is a graduate student in philosophy at </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1234929441_0">Temple University</span><span style="font-style: italic;">. His books include </span>5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible<span style="font-style: italic;"> (Blue Lion Books, 2008), </span>Shifting the Question More <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1234929441_1">Complicated</span><span style="font-style: italic;">(Otoliths, 2007), </span>Taste: Gastronomic Poems <span style="font-style: italic;">(Blazevox 2005) and the novel, </span>Inverted Curvatures (<span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-style: italic;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1234929441_2">Spuyten Duyvil</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, 2005). Francis lives in Washington DC; you can check out more of his work at his website: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.ravensaesthetica.com/"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1234929441_3">http://www.ravensaesthetica.com</span></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1234929441_3">.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-2625475128179047070?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-8846214666486546062009-02-11T09:00:00.002-06:002009-02-11T11:13:52.518-06:00The Opposite of The Alphabet<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Editor's Note: This week's post is an imitation of Jennifer Knox's poem, "The Opposite of Crunchberries." </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2009/02/one-week-from-tuesday-february-17-630.html">The Alphabet</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">is a 952 page book by <a href="http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Ron Silliman</a>. </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />The Opposite of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Alphabet</span></span><br /><br /><br />The opposite of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Alphabet</span> is<br />a stylish pullover.<br />The opposite of a stylish pullover is<br />Brussels sprouts.<br />The opposite of Brussels sprouts is<br />fuzzy dice.<br />The opposite of fuzzy dice is<br />The Ivory Coast.<br />The opposite of The Ivory Coast is<br />a monster truck rally.<br />The opposite of a monster truck rally is<br />gel pens.<br />The opposite gel pens is<br />a cinderblock.<br />The opposite of a cinderblock is<br />a ventilation shaft.<br />The opposite of a ventilation shaft is<br />a bloodbath.<br />The opposite of a bloodbath is<br />a water landing.<br />The opposite of a water landing is<br />a retarded butterfly.<br />The opposite of a retarded butterfly is<br />applesauce.<br />The opposite of applesauce is<br />the General Lee.<br />The opposite of the General Lee is<br />an 18% tip.<br />The opposite of an 18% tip is<br />a perp walk.<br />The opposite of a perp walk is<br />a steamer trunk.<br />The opposite of a steamer trunk is<br />Jose Canseco’s jockstrap.<br />The opposite of Jose Canseco’s jockstrap is<br />a whale song.<br />The opposite of a whale song is<br />spurring a tumbleweed<br />away from unwanted octuplets<br />and—onward!—<br />toward <span style="font-style: italic;">The Alphabet</span>.<br /><br />By <a href="http://www.chippens.com/contributors/theune.html">Michael Theune</a> and Chip Corwin<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Michael Theune is Associate Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is the editor of </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span> (Teachers & Writers, 2007)</span><span style="font-style: italic;">. Learn more about poetic turns at his Web site, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://structureandsurprise.wordpress.com/">Structure & Surprise</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To learn more about the process used to write this poem, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://structureandsurprise.wordpress.com/pedagogy/writing-knoxs-the-opposite/">click here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.<br /><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-884621466648654606?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-63871218317528331702009-01-20T11:00:00.005-06:002009-04-21T21:27:53.201-05:00American RenaissancePolitics, the arts, and sports may not seem to have much in common, but in the last 16 months I have discovered that they have at least one common thread: they are all concerned with testing the limits of what is possible and with re-imagining an apparently fixed reality.<br /><br />From September 2007 to August 2008, I was a sports writer covering high school sports for four small, weekly newspapers in rural Northern Michigan, and since August, I have taught humanities and English at Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois.<br /><br />As a sports writer, I watched as high school kids dared to have dreams that outsized their God-given circumstances. Many times, those dreams were realized, and those teams and athletes that achieved unexpected or unprecedented success did so not only because of their talent and preparation, but because they allowed themselves to think bigger than their current sphere of possibility, to have the same type of ambition as Captain James Cook, who once said that he wanted to “not only go farther than anyone else, but as far as it was possible to go.”<br /><br />Looking on from the sidelines, I could always tell when a team succeeded in breaking limits that had been set and hardened by a grim history: the athletes always had the same look of joy that I saw on the faces of those in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night last November and on those filling the National Mall during the inauguration. It’s a look of faith rewarded.<br /><br />I’ve seen that same look in the eyes of some of my students when they’ve been transported into a new world by a work of art and have not come back the same. The world has changed. What once seemed immutable, judicious, and even natural now seems transient and arbitrary.<br /><br />These students, just like the young athletes I admire, also have faith in an ability to reach beyond the seeming boundaries of possibility and to trust what is found there.<br /><br />The election of Barack Obama has made me realize that politics, despite what the cynics say, is no different. Art, sports, and politics, at their fundamental level, are all concerned with first dreaming and then achieving a new possibility. What we call tragedy is when those possibilities are put before us and then denied by malign fate. <span style="font-style: italic;">Romeo and Juliet</span>. Steve Prefontaine. Bobby Kennedy.<br /><br />But, so far, the story of our new president has not been tragic. Our sphere of possibility as a people and as a nation has been irrevocably expanded. And this time it was not just one man with a dream, but an entire nation that rejected its historical limits of possibility for one of its own citizens and thus for us all.<br /><br />President Obama opened his inaugural remarks by addressing us as citizens, not just as Americans. On election day, each citizen had at least as much faith as the candidate, for each one was required to imagine something that has never been and trust in it. Each one was required to go beyond his or her previous limits and be willing to not come back the same. The candidate, now the president, led us there, but not by force.<br /><br />By doing so, Barack Obama sustained the American Dream in a way much more profound than by giving Joe the Plumber a tax break. He led us to renew that dream ourselves through our own act of faith; he did it by leading us to trust in our own hopes for rebirth and change. He led us to believe once again in the main tenet of American idealism, that present circumstance is never to be confused with inevitable destiny.<br /><br />Barack Obama led us to have the same faith in politics that we do in sports and in the arts — a faith that doesn’t seek to overcome the impossible, but rather a faith that validates our American belief that some things only seem that way.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-6387121831752833170?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-35500031323540083382008-06-23T16:16:00.001-05:002009-02-08T17:20:46.029-06:00StarstruckIt was just another day at Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport last Wednesday night. At least, that’s what it seemed to me. Little did I know that while I waited for my 7 p.m. flight to Detroit, a god was soon to touch down amongst the large population of cherry orchards and grotesquely obese women that make this region famous.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">‘Twas a June night in TC, when all though the town</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />not a fat woman was eating, not even Doris the Round<br /></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">The candy and chips were all stuffed in the cabinets with care</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">in hopes that St. Simmons soon would be there</span><br /><br />I had been waiting patiently in gate 3 for my boarding time to arrive even though my flight was scheduled to leave out of gate 4. As the time got closer and my plane arrived at the gate, I decided I’d better move the fifteen yards from gate 3 to gate 4, lest TSA rendition me to an Afghani torture prison for not waiting for my flight at the assigned terminal lounge.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">My carry-on was nestled all snug in my chair,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />when visions of genital electrodes straightened my hair</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />And W. at his ranch and I in my cell</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">had just settled down for a long day in Hell</span><br /><br />As I gathered my things together and got up to move, people started spilling out of the jetway from the flight that had just arrived. I was halfway between the two lounges—directly in front of the jetway—<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When in the depths of the tunnel there arose such a clatter</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I froze in my steps to see what was the matter</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />And what to my wondering eyes should appear,<br /></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">but none other than Richard Simmons, that miniature queer </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He came out of the jetway so lively and quick,<br /></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">I knew in a moment it must be St. Dick </span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />He was gay as a lark, a right jolly old elf,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself</span><br /><br />Simmons’s hairdo was reminiscent of Jackie Moon, only more sparse. He was decked out in a splendid uniform consisting of a dark windbreaker over bright red short shorts of the kind that would make even Daisy Duke blush, complemented with white sneakers and heavy white socks pulled halfway up his rather thick calves. From where I was standing, I could have reached out and touched him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He was dressed in skimpy cotton, from his head to his toe</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And he proudly displayed his thinning brown ‘fro</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />A shiny rainslicker he had flung on his back</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">while his knickers rode up a bit, just exposing his sack</span><br /><br />Simmons took a moment after exiting the jetway to mingle with the common folk. “It was all very clean, very clean!” he said to the gate attendant, gesturing with both hands. “I hope we didn’t destroy the bathroom too badly, hahahaha!!!”<br /><br />The crowd around the gate stood in awe of the great man as he then proceeded down the terminal flanked by his posse of personal assistants; he was walking in such a way that it seemed as if he were trying to pinch a heavy, greased object where even his native southern California sun doesn’t shine.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He sprang to his luggage, to his team he gave a whistle</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />and away they all flew like the down of a thistle</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he waddled out of sight,<br /></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">“A good night to all, and to all eat right!” </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-3550003132354008338?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-86112560374667867972008-04-25T21:02:00.001-05:002009-02-08T14:37:17.178-06:00Get Outta My Town!Well I've had it. My quiet town has just been overrun with the return of dag blasted summer people. I've started walking to work because I know that my parking spot is going to be taken and I'll have to park farther away than I live anyhow. Winter was bad enough with the snowmobilers, but these summer people are worse than the snowmobilers! For one thing there's more of them, and at least the snowmobilers don't take my parking spot. Plus I have to wait like twice as long now before I turn the corner in town.<br /><br />What's worse is that I have to pick a new running route. Can't run through town anymore because the sidewalks are filled with these jokers looking in all the shop windows and oohing and aaahing at all the trinkets and knick knacks, and then they look at me like I'm getting in their way! My coffee shop is now littered with these tittering people, just so happy to be back in town. I'm sure the bar will just be packed every night too and I'll have to wait in line to get served there too. I'm a preferred customer! They know my name and my order! But now I'll have to deal with drunk summer people crowding me at the bar while I try to unwind from working 60 hours a week just to keep this hole going in the first place.<br /><br />And it's only APRIL! Jeez, one warm day and you can't even breathe in this town. I can't imagine what June, July, and August will bring. Oh, they all come up here with their boats and their campers and they think they own the dang place. Then they have the gall to write these obnoxious letters to the editor that I'm forced to read every week. Actual example: "Don't pave the road, we like to keep the country feel." Yes, the rest of us should live in the 18th century so that after your vacation you can go back to your suburb and tell all your friends about how you roughed it in your "country" million dollar mansion on the lake with all the rubes up north. You can even tell them how you talked with one of the locals and how surprised you were to find he had all his teeth! And they weren't rubbed down at all from all that bark he had to eat all winter! Amazing!<br /><br />Hey, I know! Let's get rid of all the modern medical equipment too. That way when one of you flatlanders cuts your leg in one a my possum traps we can just apply a tourniquet and cut it off.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-8611256037466786797?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-86839902075300651272008-04-04T21:00:00.001-05:002009-02-08T14:40:38.236-06:00Superdelagates, Unite!If the Democrats are to win the White House in 2008, they need to start acting less like movement conservatives in the way that they stubbornly hold fast to ideological principles despite all the evidence that suggests their sacred ideas are bad ones.<br /><br />And as a good liberal, I’m worried. I’m worried that the Democrats’ inability to treat their nomination as a practical matter, and not as a sanctified exercise of democracy, will ultimately lead to another Republican administration.<br /><br />While watching HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” recently, I was discouraged when Mr. Maher acted as if there were no potential consequences of a long nominating process. The votes of all Americans must be counted! That’s what’s most important, right? Not even close.<br /><br />Democrats, superdelegates especially, need to be reminded that there are real things at stake here, things that supercede philosophical debates about party rules. In all likelihood, the next president will nominate two supreme court justices, inherit a recession, and have the opportunity to reshape our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s a full platter.<br /><br />I’m horrified by recent polls that suggest Obama and Clinton supporters won’t vote for the other candidate if their first choice does not win. I can understand the disappointment of not having your greatest hopes realized, but now is not the time for pouting on the sidelines.<br /><br />Instead, unhappy Democrats should just do what my brother advises and “hold your nose.” After all, that seems to be the Republican strategy.<br /><br />Before Mr. McCain won his party’s nomination, there was widespread speculation that conservatives would not get behind him.<br /><br />But, eureka! Miraculously, he seems to be enjoying ample support from his base. Perhaps movement conservatives have perfected what liberals should start practicing: considering the alternative.<br /><br />Republicans have an agenda that they are committed to advancing, and their internal squabbles are quickly forgotten when the big picture comes back into view. Those that fall en route are quickly trampled over as the rest of the group marches toward the One End.<br /><br />Democrats, on the other hand, squirm endlessly over relative minutia and worry constantly about who might be left behind. In this case, that means agonizing over whether delegates from Michigan and Florida will be seated. Or whether every state will get a chance to cast votes. Or whether pledged delegates or the popular vote is more important. Or whether big states or small states or traditionally blue states or the overall number of states is the most important.<br /><br />Fueling these pointless hypotheticals is the ideological opposition Democrats have to disenfranchisement — the “will of the people” must be protected at all costs. A noble aspiration, indeed, but no way to win an election. Here, again, Democrats should take a cue from Republicans: worry about ideology after you get elected.<br /><br />At this point in the Democratic race, it has become obvious that Mrs. Clinton can not overtake Mr. Obama in either the pledged delegate count or in the popular vote. She is sustained only by her own ruthless ambition, which has recently led her to claim that pledged delegates are a “misnomer,” and by superdelegate fence-sitting.<br /><br />There is no reason for this to continue. It’s time to make a choice before we’re all forced to go down with the ship. If superdelegates are worried about the party’s selection process appearing undemocratic, then they can take heart in the fact that most of them are currently serving a term in Congress, and they got there because people in their state or district elected them to make choices on their behalf.<br /><br />And if, as a constituent, you don’t like who the persons you voted for are propping up for national office, then there’s an easy, built-in democratic solution: elect someone else to represent you. Or, form your own party, make your own rules, and run yourself. Joe Lieberman did.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-8683990207530065127?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-40655315034336517032008-02-05T15:15:00.002-06:002009-02-08T14:41:09.429-06:00Elections 2008: Time for a Change<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Editor's Note: This essay originally appeared as an editorial in the Jan. 10, 2008 edition of </span>The Town Meeting<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />By Brian Keilen</span><br /><br />Ah, 2008 is finally upon us. But from all the talk surrounding this year’s presidential election, it feels as though it’s 2009 and George Bush’s successor is already comfortably situated in the Oval Office.<br /><br />It certainly is shaping up to be an exciting year, if you can stand all the political commercials for the next 11 months. Come November, we could see our first female or our first black president. Not that Michigan has much say in whether Hillary or Barack even have a shot of replacing the big W.<br /><br />No, no, we, in extremely uncouth fashion, had to go ahead and “break party rules” and move our primary to Jan. 15. Boo-hoo.<br /><br />So now I don’t have the chance to vote to give some guy I’ve never met a free trip to Denver so he, in turn, can vote that we can vote for another guy (or gal) in November. I’m sure my extreme disappointment exudes off the page.<br /><br />But never fear, my fellow Michiganders, we will have the opportunity in November to go to the polls and vote for some more guys to go to Lansing on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (whenever that is) and vote for who the 44th President of the United States will be. And we’re worried about elections in Pakistan and Iraq.<br /><br />I, for one, have not missed and will not miss the mudslinging that would have inevitably been taking place at this very moment had we not “broken party rules.”<br /><br />Speaking of that, since when can “breaking party rules” disenfranchise an entire state? Not that our votes really meant that much to begin with, but still.<br /><br />It’s funny how every election year the talking heads are always lamenting the low voter turnout in the United States and describing how every other country has such better turnout and then our political parties tell us our votes mean nothing anyway.<br /><br />I received an e-mail today (Jan. 7) from the Michigan Democratic Party encouraging “fellow” Democrats to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary. Will wonders never cease? Democrats encouraging people to vote for Republicans? I’m bound to see cats and dogs playing together on my way home. At least now I have a choice other than “uncommitted.”<br /><br />The last time I checked, the right to vote was in the Constitution. I can’t find anything in there about Republicans and Democrats (or Whigs or Federalists or any other political parties, for that matter). So how come political parties have such great control over how we vote? When did it become a good idea for the people in the election to determine the rules?<br /><br />No, my fellow Americans, our system is not perfect, not matter how much Washington wants us to think it is. In a country that touts itself as the bastion of freedom and integrity in the world, it takes no less than four votes to determine our chief executive. This year, a change in who lives in the White House is inevitable. A change in how the next person gets there is needed.<br /><br />At least Ron Paul’s not complaining.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Brian Keilen</span> is the editor of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >The Town Meeting</span><span style="font-size:100%;">, a weekly newspaper in Elk Rapids, Michigan.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-4065531503433651703?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788422394510930426.post-13222399785787336002007-11-07T11:00:00.002-06:002009-04-21T21:27:53.202-05:00To Marathon<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Editor's Note: This essay orginally appeared as a column on page A1 of the November 7, 2007 edition of the Antrim County News following the death of Ryan Shay. </span></span><br /><br />In 490 BC, a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran the nearly 26 miles from the battlefield outside the town of Marathon, where the Greeks had just vanquished the Persians, all the way to Athens. “We are victorious!” he shouted, just before collapsing to the ground, dead.<br /><br />When you consider the story of Pheidippides and his mythical run, it seems like he was just fulfilling his own destiny.<br /><br />When you consider the extraordinary life of another marathoner, Ryan Shay, the same appears true.<br /><br />Ryan’s life seemed to be plotted toward one ultimate design: qualifying for the Olympics.<br /><br />At the Olympic Trials on Saturday, Ryan died trying valiantly, as he had done his entire life, to fulfill that destiny.<br /><br />On Sunday evening, I had the chance to sit down with Joe Shay, Ryan’s father, and he tried to summarize Ryan’s commitment to running by telling me a story.<br /><br />“Sometimes I would get people calling me,” he recalled, “and they would ask ‘Do you know your son is out running in a snow storm? Why does he do that?’”<br /><br />Here Joe paused and turned his head to look me in the eyes — “It’s who he is,” he said.<br /><br />“For Ryan, the moment he woke up, running came first.<br /><br />“It was a singular passion.”<br /><br />If you talk to the people who knew Ryan best, they describe a person with the ambition to set lofty goals and the work ethic, determination, and willingness to make the sacrifices needed to achieve them.<br /><br />“If he had a goal, he was going to get it,” Eric Shooks, Ryan’s friend and former teammate, said. “The commitment he had to running was unbelievable.”<br /><br />Current Central Lake Athletic Director Quinn Barry was a teacher and the varsity basketball coach during Ryan’s high school days.<br /><br />“Ryan was one of those kids who from early on you could tell always had an intense desire,” Barry said. “You can’t compare his work ethic (to anyone else’s).<br /><br />“I convinced him to play basketball because I told him it would improve his fast motor movements for track.<br /><br />“I remember, we’d have what I thought were grueling two-hour basketball practices, and after they were over, Ryan would put on his sweatpants and hat and go for a 12-mile run.”<br /><br />Making the Olympics in distance running, especially the marathon, is probably the hardest thing to accomplish in all of sports.<br /><br />There are 360 very well-paid professional basketball players in the NBA, many of whom never even play in a game.<br /><br />There are even more professional football and baseball players in the NFL and MLB, respectively.<br /><br />But only three — three — marathoners make the Olympic team every four years, and you only get one chance on one day to do it.<br /><br />It was a challenge that Ryan had devoted his life to overcome.<br /><br />“He was second to none in his drive to compete,” Notre Dame head cross country and track coach Joe Piane said. “He wasn’t as gifted (as other runners), but he made up for it with his work ethic.”<br /><br />Ryan may not have achieved his goal of qualifying for the Olympics, but in dying on the course on Saturday, he fulfilled a different plan he had for himself.<br /><br />“Ryan used to say that he’d ‘rather wear out than rust out,’” Joe Shay said.<br /><br />“If he could script the end of his life, I don’t think he could have wanted it any better.<br /><br />“Not many people get to end their life doing the things they love, and he did.”<br /><br />The story of Pheidippides was resurrected in the late 19th century by the English poet Robert Browning, who writes, “Run, Pheidippides, one race more! … He flung down his shield / Ran like fire once more … Joy in his blood bursting his heart, — the bliss!”<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6788422394510930426-1322239978578733600?l=www.chippens.com%2Fblog.html' alt='' /></div>chippenseditor@chippens.com0