Cecil Vortex

The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch: Our First Few Steps…

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Today it begins — our first few steps on “The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch.” And I will admit the obvious — that I’m a little intimidated by this old book. But I can share this as well: the last two days, I went off on a little scouting mission — read the first few pages — read them aloud to my better half, in fact, while she tried to sleep. And dang if they weren’t entertaining. At least to me. I had no idea there were so many ways to prepare a banana.
Let’s make the target for this week a touch shy of 50 pages — we’ll make camp at page 47 and the line “time for home.” [update: this is page 54 in the Bantam edition]
If any of youse have any other words orf wisdom regarding the first handful of pages, or good natured advice for your fellow marchers, please use this entry as an open thread fer shoutin’ out.
Thanks and gulp and see you next Tuesday and…here we go,
-Cecil
(For those hearing about this for the first time, you can find all the details — the gameplan, the prizes, the whole sheebang, by going to “The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch” category page. In short, around 20-30 of us are going to try to read this thing in roughly 50 page chunks/week. And for them that make it through and drop a comment here most weeks, there will be glory, and yes, the possibility of a free Pat Benatar CD and/or a mug. All are welcome — Gravity’s Rainbow loves company.)

Shaq Diesel and Me

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Last night I dreamt that Shaquille O’Neal dropped by my house. He had a lot on his mind and he was looking for a distraction — a chat, maybe a movie. I was happy to see him.
We talked for a bit, Shaq and me. Then California Representative Maxine Waters showed up, and she was even more beautiful in person. We were both really struck by her grace and her dignity, her almost shimmering presence.
After Representative Waters left, Shaq Diesel and I sat down to watch the movie Sideways. He really liked the part where the one guy lies about why he’s so late. And we both laughed at the scene with the alligator in the back of their car. That was crazy! It was a living alligator! But before too long, Shaq got up to go home.
It wasn’t that it was a bad movie, he told me. It was just a little bit boring, alligator and all. And he had a lot to do the next day.
Shaq’s a very busy guy.

The Gravity’s Rainbow Pause That Refreshes

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We’re right around 30 people strong and launch is next week. If you haven’t yet purchased a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, and you intend to deathmarch, now’s a great time to pick one up. One thing you don’t want to do is show up for a Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch without Gravity’s Rainbow.
See you back here next week for the starting line….
-Cecil

Office Life

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It’s not natural —
how still we sit
hands hooked
over keys,
fingers curled in
arthritic crunch,
Blinking at
black and white characters.
Blink tap.
Blink tap.
You take an ape.
You want it to sit that still, that long.
You basically have to kill it.

The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch Prizes Revealed!

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You may be wondering: How will you, as an active participant in the GRDM, be rewarded for your considerable pain and suffering? It’s a question as old as The Book of Job. And once again, as with Job, the answer involves Pat Benatar.
To incent group participation (in the form of weekly posting to the GRDM thread), we’ve developed devised a cunningly complex 3-tier program. Here’s how it works:
GRDMer the Third Level (aka Poobah): Post all but four weeks and you’ll receive a copy of Pat Benatar’s 11th studio release: Gravity’s Rainbow.
GRDMer the Second Level (aka Big Poobah): Post all but two weeks and you’ll earn a copy of Richard Brautigan’s underappreciated, and extremely easy to read The Tokyo-Montana Express. (Think of it as a cool down after GR.) As an added bonus, Big Poobahs will also *not* receive a copy of Pat Benatar’s 11th studio release: Gravity’s Rainbow.
GRDMer the First Level (aka Grand Poobah): Post to the GRDM thread each and every week, starting on Jan 11, and you’ll be rewarded with a copy of the Tokyo-Montana Express. plus — and here’s where it gets exciting — a genuine Monkey Vortex brand “I survived the Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch” mug. GP’s will also not receive a copy of Pat Benatar’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Unless they really want to. In which case, oh, sure, what the hell.
Quasi-legaleso: Needless to say, prizes will be limited to folks what finish the book in the course of the Deathmarch. All books and CDs will probably be secondhand, though serviceable. And I’ll set an arbitrary max of 30 winners. Because, much as in real life, there can only be 30 winners. (On the off-chance we break 30, I’ll pull names from a beret or somesuch. At this point, we have around 28 people signed on, so…) Also, what is a qualifying post? Glad you asked. A qualifying post can be as simple as: “still here, still suffering” or: “owie” or even just: “ow.” Really, any old post will do. The goal is just to keep us all engaged and pushing each other along.
That’s it. I hope you’re enjoying the holidays. Now’s a great time to watch a lot of TV. Go outside. Look at some puppies. For soon your eyes will be filled with rainbow.
-Cecil