This afternoon @layinda awarded me the Creative Liars Award. I’m just not sure why.
THAT’S A LIE.
I know exactly why she awarded it to me.
THAT’S ANOTHER LIE.
Huh. It’s getting kind of obvious, isn’t it?
Now, I am just getting ready to go on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow, so this is going to be a mish-mash of nonsense (like my blog posts aren’t that anyway), and it will be incumbent upon you, dear reader, to interpret it as you see fit.
First I must thank Layinda and direct you all back to her. Thank you, Layinda! I think.
Then I must tell you seven things about myself, with the new wrinkle that I can lie.
- I don’t know who my father’s paternal ancestors were, only that my grandfather’s grandfather was shot in the back in a vendetta killing.
- I’m directly descended from a Colonel in the Revolutionary War and therefore eligible to be a DAR.
- When I was ten my mother won a washing machine (and, I assume, dryer) on The Price is Right dressed as a Hershey’s kiss.
- I can say “onion,” “crazy jackass,” and, “When love falls on a shit-pile it will still hang there,” in German.
- My son was born in Canada.
- My husband is French.
- I have two middle names.
Then I must direct you to six other liars. Wow. Who’s NOT? I’m sorry, my brain is popping and fizzing like a frying egg. It took me a whole day to come up with the folks for the Versatile Blogger thing. So please refer to them. I assume they all lie. You can ask. They’ll probably lie about it.
Then I’m going to list here six classic, possibly under-exposed fiction authors because, as we all know, fiction is lying at its very best:
Jane Bowles. She’ll freak you out with her sheer artlessness. Read Two Serious Ladies, which was just re-released by Sort of Books in the UK. Then read the rest of her tiny legacy in My Sister’s Hand in Mine. Guess what? Everything you think you know about fiction IS WRONG.
Isak Denisen. The queen of layering, storytelling, abject profundity, Denisen can drop you like a pebble down a well, and you’re the one whose brain explodes when you never hit bottom.
Richard Brautigan. Strange as the day is long, he twisted the fictional form like taffy and left it torqued permanently beyond recognition. In Watermelon Sugar is my favorite because of the river in the living room, but Trout Fishing in America is another great adventure in fictional play you’ve never even considered before.
Paul Bowles. Beautiful language, beautiful imagery, beautiful juxtaposition of fact and fiction. Read his travel stories, Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, and translations like A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard. You think you know how to tell a story? You don’t know how to tell a story.
Horace Walpole. Read The Castle of Otranto. Just that. The little acorn from which the entire Gothic genre grew. So worth it.
Emily Bronte. Blow yourself sky-high with Wuthering Heights, then spend the rest of your life trying to reconstruct the legendary background story of Catherine and Heathcliff in the magnificent saga of Augusta Geraldine Alaisda of Gondal and her Byronic love affairs, now tantalizingly only in contradictory fragments.
All right, you guys! You’re on your own!
I would *not* lie if someone asked about my Versatile Blogger award! I’m inordinately proud of my aspiring lunatic status. If you’d made a badge to go along with that. I’d totes display it on my blog.
*waits for badge*
*waits more*
*gets bored of waiting*
*scuttles off to pour another glass of wine*
Anyhow, nice choices on the fiction! Though even after reading Paul Bowles, I’d still say I know how to tell a story. Just not Paul Bowles’s way. I do it my way. The aspiring lunatic way. You’ll like it, or you won’t. Deal. I’m still good.
Also humble. I’m very humble.
And apparently prone to long blog comments. How did I not know this about myself before?
Enjoy your vacation! 🙂
Uh, Simon? Kiddo? Just pick it up and put it on your blog. It’s my gift to you. You can even add the Aspiring Lunatic line and attribute it to me if you like.
I’d do it, but 1) I’m going on vacation the minute I’m done with this comment, and 2) I am incapable of creating virtual badges. The best I could do would be to scrawl one on a piece of paper and put it in the mail.
This one’s for Simon.
Okay, I’m guessing that the Price is Right is a lie. I, myself, have two middle names, so that sounds plausible. I think I believe the rest of them, too.
Nice touch, to put the classic fiction authors as the liars – I haven’t actually read Brontë or Dinesen, embarrassingly content with seeing Out of Africa and the PBS version of Wuthering Heights, but you have inspired me. I’m headed to the library.
Have a good vacation! 🙂
Layinda, thanks for guessing!
Actually, they’re all lies except #4: “Zwiebel” (which I was taught to pronounce “Zveevil”), “verrückter Esel” (which I was taught to pronounce “freektur Edzel”), and “Wenn die Liebe auf den Mischthaufen fallt, bleipt zie auch hangen.” (My ancestors were Germans from Russia, so their dialect is quaintly individual, to say the least.)
The Price is Right is true, but it was my husband’s mother, not mine. My mother would never in a million years dress up as a Hershey’s kiss.
Now, I will admit some of them are only partial lies:
#1 is a lie because I can actually trace my paternal ancestors back to the original John Mixon who came over as an indentured servant in 1670, but my grandfather’s grandfather really was shot in the back & killed in a vendetta in Louisiana in 1868, just a year after the end of the Civil War.
#2 is a lie because, although I really am a direct descendant of Colonel Haynes Morgan (half my son’s name is from the Haynes), I doubt I could get into the DAR. They don’t want the likes of me in their midst.
#6 is a lie because, although Osier is a French name, my husband is about as French as I am. Except he has a goatee.
The rest of them are pure & simple b.s.
Oh, hell on a tricycle. I was looking in the wrong post for the badgeski. But now that I’ve found it, with your ever-so-kind directions, may I offer a BAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAA!!11!1!! ? Good. I shall, then.
BAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAA!!11!1!!
Mr. Victoria A. Mixon? I am a fan. Now *that’s* a blog award worth sharing! I’ve this week scheduled already on the ol’ blog, but next week? I declare it Victoria Mixon week on my blog. Howzabout *them* peaches?
Hope you lovely people enjoyed your vacation!
😀
I get a whole week to myself on your blog? What on earth will we talk about??
I will tell Mr. Victoria to check it out. Maybe he’ll make a badge for it.
And thank you, yes, we enjoyed Portland a lot, although we are not used to city life. Now we are enjoying sitting around our own house in our jammies even more. Telecommuting’s the life.
Wow – I was completely wrong. You ARE a good liar! 🙂
Thanks for including the pronunciations. “Verrückter Esel” rolls nicely off the tongue – I’ll have to remember it for future use.
Clarification: This was not to say that I didn’t think you would be a good liar, but that my guesses were off target. 😮
P.S. In my book, being a good liar is a compliment! 🙂
No, you were right the first time, Layinda. I’m a good liar!