Howard and Grace

I recently read a horrible story about two children abandoned by their parents in the woods. It makes me sick. The father, Greg Cutter, had called authorities to report his wife had died in her sleep, and that his two children were missing. Search and Rescue teams equipped with
search dogs and thermal imaging equipment teamed with local fire departments,
and combed a twenty square mile area for a week until the search was called off. The community was devastated. Local search teams were formed and continued the search efforts
with no success. Church services included the children in their prayers and
shrines were erected in various parts of the town. After a month, a large funeral
was held Howard and Grace Cutter in the park, with most of the town attending.
Five weeks after they were reported missing, the children showed up at their fathers’
house. The news spread through the town like fire. The Sheriff learned about it,
and went to the house to question the children. They told him that their mother
had abandoned them in the woods not once, but two times, and the father had
been made to go along with her plot. They said she drank a lot of whiskey and
beat their father. Greg had then burst into tears and told the sheriff about
how controlling his wife had been, and how they had no money for food, only
whiskey, and how she had called him a sissy and made him go along with leaving
them by a fire, telling them they would return. The children then confirmed
this and said they had found their way back to the house the first night only
because Howard had dropped white pebbles as the parents led them into the
woods. By these they found their way back. The mother had been furious when
they returned, and locked them in their rooms and got very drunk and bellowed
curses around the house. The second night they had been unable to find their
way home because the crumbs from the éclair Howard had dropped had been eaten
by the birds. They were lost in the woods for three days and stumbling with
starvation when a nice old lady saved them, and fed them and gave them water. They
had stayed there in her clean beds, regaining their strength while she read
them stories and kept a nice fire burning. After that she was always giving
them treats and being nice so that they would stay there with her. They had
thought her to be a lonely old lady, so they had stayed a while out of
compassion. It turned out she was a member of a satanic cult who believed that
power was gained by eating children. She had locked Howard in a cage and made Grace
feed him all sorts of fatty foods like Doritos and spam, and she would strip
down to a g-string and sing and do all sorts of wild dances around his cage.
One day she told Grace to light the big oven in the back of the house, it was
time to eat the boy. She told Grace she would have to participate in the meal.
The girl thought about this and then told the lady that she couldn’t figure out
how to light it. It was an electric start. So they old lady crawled in to look
at the switch mechanism and Grace shut the door on her, and turned on the oven.
The old lady was confirmed dead. She then she let her brother out of the cage
and they easily found their way home in the light of day. Except they had
almost been stuck when they had come to a large expanse of water, but they had
seen a duck swimming nearby, so they sang him a song so he would help them. He
ferried them across one at a time. Grace had wanted them to both jump on, but
Howard told her that was silly: the duck was clearly too small for both of
them. Other than that their trip back was uneventful.

Three Little Piggies

A song I used to love as a teenager leapt into my head today. It is a spin on the tale of Three Little Pigs written by a rock group called Green Jello. I thought it was interesting that the song came into my head, being that it is just like our assignment due next week. Their version is that the first pig is a hick who spends his time farming, chewing tobacco and dreaming of the city. One day he buys a guitar and takes up playing it in the hay above the horses. He is struck by inspiration and moves to Holloywood on a whim to find his stardom. Of course, living on the farm, he knew nothing of the city. He was square dancing at the clubs and making a fool of himself, and he built his house from straw, which is no challenge to a Big Bad Wolf. And they have a sort of Romantic feel to their song, one reason because the pigs do not physically die, only apparently. The second pig is a stoner who spends his time smoking pot on venice beach. He built his house from old pop cans and cereal boxes and other trash. One day he was smoking a joint in his house, his brother pig visiting from hollywood, when the Wolf pulled up on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The pigs slip away without us knowing. The third pig is a rich architect student, the son of a rockstar named Pig Nugent. He drew out the plans and built a big, sturdy mansion with a custom security system. The pigs were having drinks on the roof when the Wolf showed up at the door like a vagrant. The third pig, the english student of the bunch, called 911 from his cell phone, and the cops sent out Rambo to handle the job. Rambo pumps him full of lead and the piggies live happily ever after.

Let me see if I can make this video appear here:

Happy Endings

Dr. Sexson made it clear to us in class today that our perfect romances must have happy endings, and I was thinking about this. Why does everyone have to live happily ever after? I have had romances of my own that have ended in tradegy, but they were still romances, and the women in them still hold a place in my heart. But we do not read romance to experience the same tragedies that have taken place in our own lives. A story is a sacred thing when it takes away from us our suffering, our sorrow, and what better way to do that than the happy ending? We all know they are rare in life and Frye points out that they tend to come at the cost of other's suffering and death being forgotten. They are for the survivors. But when I read a story I am exempt from guilt of being happy for the survivors. I am free from the constraints of reality, and I want the story to create for me a reality with true love and virgins and happy endings. Even though I do love a good Cormac McCarthy book. In my naive reading of a perfect romance I am whisked away with them on their adventure, I weep with them when they are in pain and I blush when they are intimate. In this state I could not bear for the story to end tragically. It would shatter the perfect world around me that the story has created. The perfect ending in this naive state of blissful reading then gets the neurons firing in such a way that is not experienced in ordinary life. Medicine for the soul. On the other end of the scope is the story that does not grab my attention because it is not well written. When reading these stories, and on the rare occasions I finish them, I tend to feel let down that the lovers do not die some terrible, creative death. But in my naive state I can appreciate everyone living happily ever after.