I Could Be Splendid

Bitter Coffee – an end of summer by Were Dead

amygillian — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:03:07 +0000

I thought something was on fire when I woke up this morning. I panicked, jumped out of bed, and ran to the window only to discover that what I thought was smoke was actually just fog – lots and lots of low-hanging clouds. Even if there had been a fire it would have been doused in a hurry by the torrential downpour I could feel coming. My bones ached, my skin felt wet. There was condensation on everything. Just yesterday I was basking in the sun, feeling inspired and invigorated by the warmth. I had hopes, dreams – you name it. Now I wanted to retreat back to bed. All my hopes and dreams were dashed by these low-hanging clouds. Oppressive things, these low-hanging clouds. They make me feel stifled. I can’t breathe. Seeing them is enough to make me feel like someone is trying to smother me with a pillow as I sleep. I want to scream out but I know it would be futile; my screams would be muffled by the condensation in the air.
I thought perhaps a coffee and some toast would do some good, so I ambled to the kitchen and began preparing them. But just a few seconds into the process I was overcome by the urge to give up, to lie down and remain lying down until someone found me or until my heart gave out and I died. I couldn’t handle the thought of slogging through another fall and winter in this city. Even worse, I couldn’t handle the thought of slogging through another fall or winter anywhere in the country. Unlike some countries that have distinct regions with unique weather patterns, this country just offers up much of the same no matter where you go: lots of cold and lots of wet and lots of discomfort waiting for the thaw to come again. I wanted to curse the ground I was sitting on, but I knew that would do no good. Much like my screams being stifled by the clouds, my curses would probably just be absorbed by the cold linoleum and vanish.
After a few pathetic moments of despair, I gathered the will to live for just a few more hours, used the bathroom, got dressed, and wandered outside, hoping to maintain enough strength to make it to a café for a warm breakfast. Everything looked bleak in the city. Moss and mould seemed to be growing everywhere, as though it had appeared overnight. Store awnings protruded onto the sidewalk, most covered with the black filth of years of rain and decay. Everywhere I looked people looked miserable. Dread hung in the air like mist. We were all feeling the same way; collective dread enveloped the populous.
I found a nearly empty café and snuggled into a booth. The place wasn’t too welcoming. The walls were yellow and the tables had fake maple syrup stains on them, but the smell of the cooking was palatable and all I could think of was curing my malaise with some hot pancakes and cheap coffee. But I knew that wasn’t going to be a permanent fix. As soon as I was finished I began to feel the despair creeping back in the form of a caffeine and sugar overdose from the cheap coffee and the fake maple syrup. I began to sweat. I had to tear off my thick overcoat and my toque in a hurry. My mouth was dry. I needed a drink of water but I had to pee from all the cheap coffee I had just consumed. It was torture. If I was one of the damned in Dante’s Inferno, which level of Hell would I be confined to? With whom would I be sharing eternity?
I rushed down the street in a hurry to find a bench or something to sit down on. Sweat was pouring down my face. The back of my shirt was soaked. I was a mess, a total wreck. How had this happened? How could beautiful summer have come and gone so quickly? It took forever to arrive, teased us with its glory, and then disappeared again without even saying goodbye. I was bitter, sick, and angry. With the last of my remaining energy I stood up, raised my fist to the sky, and began berating the clouds. “Fuck you!” I screamed. “Fuck you from all the people who put up with you nearly 10 months of the year!” It felt good to vent, so I continued: “From all of us who live here in this city, I curse you! I curse the earth that creates you. I curse the plants that benefit from you! I curse, I curse, I curse you! Be damned, rain, be damned!” And with that I collapsed in heap on the ground, worn out from my outburst. I was exhausted both emotionally and physically. I had wound myself up so tightly that I snapped like a fatigued guitar string. But I felt better. It was as if the weather and I were even now. The rain had thrown a surprise volley, a first attack, but I had responded and survived – the first battle, at least.

September Writing Challenge

amygillian — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:58:54 +0000

The rules are thus:

Email your written piece (fiction, non, poetry) or visual art piece inspired by the theme below to icouldbesplendid@gmail.com for your submission to be posted on the site.

Perhaps we can do a monthly contest and you know… win stuff? Most likes to your link on our facebook page gets some baked goods? (yes, Stephen, yours are definitely on their way) My friend Amanda Cassidy makes amazing baked goods .. perhaps we will get her to whip up something scrumptious or maybe Amanda Brackett will motorboat you or I will sing you an Afrikaans folk song? Let us know what you want! We can’t give you what you want unless we know what you want!

ANWAYS…

This month’s theme is “The End of Summer“

Have at ‘er and good luck.

Amy

Suggested Viewing – The Walking Dead

icouldbesplendid — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:29:35 +0000

Hello friends. If you like television, may I suggest watching the new show “The Walking Dead”? I watched it tonight with my roomie and we were both VERY SCARED! I haven’t been very scared by a zombie movie since I first started watching zombie flicks at the tender age of eighteen, and as you may know I’m a bit of a zombie connoisseur . I guess what I’m saying is that I feel this show is genuinely great and freaky as it makes me feel like a scaredy baby teenager.

ZOMBIESIEISEIS!

To start afresh…

icouldbesplendid — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:45:42 +0000

Welcome back little splendids… to the new, no pressure, just for funsies Splendid Blog! It will probably just be Amy and I posting here periodically (jobs, schools, bands, tvs, blah blahs, etc) but everyone is welcome to contribute if they have something they want to share.

Aaaaaaaand GO!

Fowl Play, by Calen Degnan

icouldbesplendid — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:41:21 +0000

Father Phillips walked past the gardener’s shed and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“It’s bloody cold out here.” He thought “I’ve half a mind to make the parishioners cut firewood after mass.”

He chuckled, picturing the frail dowagers of St. Thomas-on-the-Moor. Reaching the chopping block a rustle of feathers interrupted his reverie.

“Christ.”

He exclaimed as a grouse darted past him towards the church,

“That was unnecessary.”

As he cut his mind wandered, this winter had been difficult for the small village, and he’d watched attendance dwindle as the younger generation moved to the larger towns around the Sussex area. With fewer contributions from the flock there had been certain cutbacks that he had felt keenly. The kitchen in particular had taken a turn for the worse, the other day he’d caught Mary spreading margarine on his morning toast, margarine!

“Father! Father come quickly, it’s a miracle!”

Shouts tore through the icy air, as did the gardener a moment later.

“In the church, a miracle!”

Phillips ran towards the cathedral, as he pushed open the doors he saw Mary gazing towards the altar. A grouse was prostrated in the aisle below the pulpit. Phillips made the sign of the cross.

“Leave me with the bird. In the Lord’s words, the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.”

The door closed as Phillips walked towards the grouse, then reached down and wrung its neck with a sharp twist. Finally, a miracle to liven up Mary’s awful dumplings.

Confusion in Apartment Complexes: A Quasi-Exposé by Julian Bowers

icouldbesplendid — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:05:22 +0000

My apartment complex is a something of a maze. It took about a year, if not more, for me to get my bearings around the various corridors and stairwells within the building. I felt like I would be going in circles, and when I’d open doors looking for some type of exit, I’d end up in more hallways, drab parking lots or a courtyard with plants which would shatter the usual theme of GRAY, CONCRETE and PIPES. Various friends and pizza delivery men have been lost through the halls, and it doesn’t help that the 3rd floor is where the lobby is on one side of the building. Yeah, that 3rd floor thing still confuses me as well and trying to explain that the bottom is on the 3rd floor makes people look like dogs when they hear a high-pitched noise. I guess we can thank North Vancouver and it’s awkward hills for that.

Below are photographs showcasing some of the features you’d come across in the confusing trek of looking for where I live.

2009 wrap up

amygillian — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:42:55 +0000

First of all, congratulations to Stephen, our Swedish correspondant for his entry “the Surrender” which was the winning piece of the Creative Story contest. Incidentally, his was the only entry so he wins by default, although I am confident it would have been a strong contender in any battle of writ or wit.

Second (secondly?) Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all you splendid people out there. I hope you were filled with joy and love and turkey.

This has been a really fun project for us and although there are lots of things we still have to learn and do, we are having a great time and are grateful for everyone’s participation. We’re working away on getting that magazine out there and in your hands and hopefully 2010 will provide us with some answers, inspiration and funding.

Have a wonderful new year’s eve and stay tuned for some exciting stuff in 2010!
Amy and Amanda

Contest Entry – The Surrender, by Stephen Beckmyer

icouldbesplendid — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:15:07 +0000

It was quiet here amongst the trees, quiet and still and peaceful. The leaves fell, the birds sang, the new shoots sprouted green.
Long had she lain here and long would she remain, slowly becoming one with the nature around her. It had not always been so: once she had lived in the bustling metropolis, enjoying the heady days of her youth escorting her guests through the city. Oh how she had loved it! Dazzling neon, gleaming American automobiles, ladies in daring skirts, wealth, optimism, glamour. Dusty summers, freezing winters, flowering springs, she lived them and loved them all. But time turns always and as her city aged so did she. Soon she found herself abandoned for a new generation, glamorous, lively and naïve as she had been. Now the dust of summer went unwashed from her visage and she found no relief from the bitter cold of winter. She sat alone and waited for the coup de grâce that must surely follow.

But then they came, young and idealistic, rejecting the world that had rejected her. They didn’t care about age or looks—peace and love can embrace all, they said. Together they departed for a paradise land where they would begin to build the new world free from oppression, authority and war. Over golden plains and through white mountains they drove to the sparkling sea. And the forest! Oh what trees as she had never before seen; a thousand shades of green in every glance. Thick, mysterious, alien, enigmatic—dark or light? Welcoming or menacing? But she need not think of it, for oh what a life they lived! Freedom, freedom of body and mind—surely this was how life was meant to be, a return to Eden throwing off millennia of domination and constraint. And they celebrated that enigmatic forest, the life-giving earth-mother. How could such utopia end?

But one by one her companions left, drawn back to the simple comforts of the world they’d rejected, or unable to give up the violence of the society that had borne them. Rejected, jaded, disillusioned, she retreated into the dark woods. Or did they grow up around her? It didn’t matter, she didn’t care; she would never love again. But here in the tranquil serenity, in the antithesis of the clamour and flurry she had lived for, she found something new, nay, ancient, something far older than she that would long outlive her and all the fickle beings who had used her and left her. This ancient power was everything she feared yet here she found love, a real living love like she’d never known before. Let it destroy her! She was glad to fade into nothingness, to become one with this great Somethingness. No longer of use to anyone, left to the loneliness she had so feared, she was truly content.
The leaves fell, the birds sang, the new shoots sprouted green.
All was still.

Another Day, Dreams, and The Sound of Color, by Antonio Suarez

icouldbesplendid — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:47:44 +0000

Artist’s Statement

“What I’ve been trying all this years through my work was to express my current views of the world in a way that is new and that is understood by anyone who lays eyes on them. I’ve been inspired by many different sources around the world and I like to think of my work as a collage of all those things and people that have come to my life and left a deep and meaningful impression on me. My passion have been to create a unique style and a way of expression that will reveal, at its core, my beliefs, my view of life and of the future. I like to make people realize how powerful they are by making them see inside themselves parts of them that have been shrouded in darkness, because of a lack of motivation or understanding. We are all amazing creatures and if I can ever make people see that, then I’ll be getting closer to fulfilling my role in this world.”

Click here to see more videos by Antonio

Route Number Seven, by Calen Degnan

icouldbesplendid — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 07:36:25 +0000

I’ve measured my life in drunks. At every stop sign I can feel the hot breath on the back of my neck, the sour smell of cheap vodka. When I first started I used to stare straight ahead, feeling my palms sweat as they bumped up the stair well. The boozers always talk to me. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, if the team won the game, if Granville St. girls got lost and ended up on my route. They always find something to talk about. It’s not so bad now though, when I’m sitting in the bus depot waiting to start my shift I almost feel like I’m getting a chance to become a different person.

Most of the time it’s easy, they only hear what they want from me anyways. On my route, you understand, they aren’t the casual “pick me up a bottle of wine for dinner” drinkers. They’re the “bottle of wine is dinner” drinkers. Like I said, I don’t mind anymore. With most of them I don’t have to try very hard, just parrot back the last few words. Sometimes though, they know. That’s when I can feel my guts twist around. With these ones I can see they know what they’ve become, and they aren’t drinking to feel better, they’re drinking to die. When you look into someone like that’s eyes, you see how fucked up this city is looking back at you.

There’s this one corner that I always stop at a little longer than I need too. I watch the rain gather in puddles you could drown a kid in and the lights from the theatre smear through the windshield. Nobody ever complains though. Sometimes I look back and half of them are asleep, chins resting on dirty jackets. After that stop something funny happens to me and I start to talk for real. You wouldn’t believe the things I tell these strangers, and the weird thing is; they listen. When I’m walking I won’t even ask someone the time, but there’s something about the bus, the drunks. I tell them everything. You know that part of you that doesn’t let you tell people what you’re most afraid of? Jesus, I can’t hold back.

When I first came to Canada I was scared of everything. Scared of taking too much, asking too little, being alone, being myself. Now though, when I’m driving, when I can smell the fetid stink of whiskey and sweat, I’m just here. Just alive.