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Archive for the ‘The Walrus’ Category

Zsuzsi Gartner–“We Be Naked” (The Walrus, March 2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Douglas Coupland, Giovanni Boccaccio, Language, Rheostatics, Short Story, The Walrus, Word usage, Zsuzsi Gartner, tagged on March 10, 2014| 1 Comment »

walrusmarchSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Linwood Movie Theatre, Port Dover, ON (December 4, 1999)

portThis is the final concert on of the 20th century on Rheostatics Live (and I’ll be taking a short break from the Rheos concerts after this one).  Even though the site doesn’t list the venue, in the previous show they say they are playing at the Linwood Movie Theater in Port Dover.  As with every other venue, I can’t find any information about this, so I’ll just accept it as true.

The last few shows were recorded from the soundboard, so this one is a little jarring to hear the audience so loudly.  But the sound is good and clean.

They say during the show that they are going to play songs from all 10 of their albums. And they do a pretty good job.  They miss playing something from Greatest Hits (which is kind of a surprise as everyone was shouting for “Wendell Clarke.”  Unsurprisingly they do not play anything off of Group of 7, and, in what I think of as a huge surprise—nothing off of Introducing Happiness—they almost always play something from that album anyway.

The set is comprised mostly of Harmeldia and Melville songs and it’s quite a good one.
“I Fab Thee” even invites audience participation.

This show also has one of the great dialogues between fans and band.  Someone asks if they have CDs available for sale.  Dave says, yes in the lobby.  She asks if they have them anywhere else and he replies “Is the lobby not convenient enough for you, ma’am?” to much laughter.

It’s a good show to end the millennium on. And I look forward to seeing what 2000 brings in their live shows.

[READ: March 6, 2014] “We Be Naked”

I have really enjoyed Gartner’s stories in the past but this one rubbed me the wrong way from the start.  I do not like stories where language is deliberated misused and not explained.  I am fine with dialect and I am fine with uneducated narrators, but when a narrator appears educated enough yet consistently gets something wrong and there is no explanation, that story has a massive strike against it.

So when the story starts

We be naked, not nude. Something to remember as the memory of us moves into the slipstream. Nude is in the eye of the beholder, naked a true enough fact.

I thought the “we be” part was an affectation of that first line.  The rest of the language is quite beautiful.  But no, the word “be” is used as the verb throughout the story.  In more and more irritating ways: “Or demands be modest.  We not be asking…”  Ugh. So what has caused the slip in the most basic verb use that English speakers have?  Especially when two sentences later we get this beautiful piece of prose:

And lay down your arms and pick up your instruments, music being the only true and beautiful man-made thing in this world.

Well, the story begins in April 2014 (which I liked) after the collapse of the Kyoto Protocol after the Pirate Party Bombings.  For almost two years since then they be chill.  Shudder. (more…)

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“Her Big Break: The New Yorker Says Yes to Alice Munro” (The Walrus, January /February 2014)

Posted in Alice Munro, Arkells, AroarA, CBC Radio 3, Dan Mangan, John K. Samson, Kathryn Calder, Library Voices, Moxy Fruvous, New Yorker, The Darcys, The Walrus on January 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-01SOUNDTRACK: NOBEL PRIZE PLAYLIST-CBC Radio 3 (2013).

cbcIn honor of Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize, CBC radio has a playlist of “Literary Music.” Now, I have made many literary playlists over they years myself (including “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors” by Moxy Fruvous which is not included here), but this one consists of a few bands that I don’t know (and two that I do).

  • Library Voices–“Generation Handclap”
  • The Darcys–“Pretty Girls”
  • Kathryn Calder–“Right Book”
  • AroarA–“#6”
  • Arkells–“Book Club”
  • Dan Mangan–“Road Regrets”
  • John K. Samson–“When I Write My Master’s Thesis”

Samson is the only artist I know well, although I know Dan Mangan a little.  It’s a good listen and I’m sure if you scrutinize the lyrics you’ll find their literary worth.

Listen here.

[READ: January 18, 2014] “Her Big Break”

I’ve been a fan of Alice Munro for a while, and I’m always happy to see her in the New Yorker.  Strangely, I have never read any of her collected short stories.  Maybe some day….

When Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I imagined she’d get a lot more press.  And then I realized that it’s a literature prize.  And she’s Canadian.  So, perhaps a few columns in Canada’s The Walrus is all she’ll get.

But this article, which is really entirely this below letter and a brief introduction, explains that on November 18, 1976, Charles McGrath, a fiction editor at The New Yorker, sent Alice Munro her first acceptance letter from the magazine for her story “Royal Beatings.”  Soon after this, she signed a first-reading agreement with the magazine, which I gather means that they will see any of her short stories before she can send them anywhere else.

I am including this letter in its entirety because I assume that most people, like me, have never actually seen an acceptance letter from a magazine for a piece of fiction (I have several rejections).  But even if you have seen an acceptance letter, I can’t imagine that it will every be as thoughtful and considerate as this one.  i also love that as recent as 1976 The NEw Yorker was kind of prudish about their fiction.  I mean, now, the cursing is rampant, but back then the fiction was a more genteel breed.

I have not read “Royal Beatings,” but you can bet I’ve added it to my short list. (more…)

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Nadia Bozak–“Greener Grass” (The Walrus, January/February 2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Dave Douglas Brass Ecstasy, Douglas Coupland, Nadia Bozak, Parenting, Rufus Wainwright, Short Story, The Walrus, Tiny Desk Concert on January 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-01SOUNDTRACK: THE DAVE DOUGLAS BRASS ECSTASY-Tiny Desk Concert #22 (July 20, 2009).

ddThis is the first jazz Tiny Desk Concert.  I imagine it was very loud in there!

So the Brass Ecstasy is a five piece band with trumpet, tuba, french horn and trombone (and drums).  They play three songs: “Spirit Moves” and “Twilight of the Dogs” two compositions by Douglas (who plays trumpet) and “This Love Affair” a Rufus Wainwright song!

The originals are jazzy and fun with a kind of old school feel.  And “Twilight of the Dogs” is even political (and yet instrumental).  I don’t know the Rufus Wainwright song, so i don’t know how well they do it, but i never would have guessed it was one of his.

The blurb says that the trombonist left the contents of his spit valve under Bob’s desk.  Ew.

To see everything (but the spit valve) click here.

[READ: January 18, 2014] “Greener Grass”

This is a story about Canadian hippie parents, which I rather liked.

The daughter of the story is named Shell.  Shell and her parents are house hunting–they currently live in a rental and want to get a proper house–for one where they can have an art studio and a garden.  So when they see an interesting house, they stop the Dodge Dart and decide to investigate the place.

They knock on the door and a boy answers.  He is drinking Mountain Dew and has a harelip.  He calls out “Gare” and a man who Shell calls “Shark Nose” appears. Shark Nose tells them that the house is solid and shows Shell’s dad around.  He talks about all the good things in the house and the sad fact that the basement is always damp (the foster kids all have asthma, so they can’t really stay down there).  [Interestingly, between this and Douglas Coupland’s Eleanor Rigby, that’s two stories that are critical of the Canadian foster system in the 1970s].

Even though the dad is a hippie (big of beard and seeking places to garden), he is no fool.  And he climbs up on the roof.  He also gets all of the dogs (who suddenly start barking) to silence with a shrill whistle.  But the story really focuses on Shell and the little boy. (more…)

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Alix Hawley–“Daniel Boone, By Himself” (The Walrus, November 2013)

Posted in Alix Hawley, Death, Short Story, Sigur Rós, The Walrus, Violence, Yuck! on December 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

cover-10-9_largeSOUNDTRACK: SIGUR RÓS-“Svefn-g-englar” (1999).

220px-SvernCoverAThis was the first I heard of Sigur Rós.  I suspect my friend Lar told me about them and I was just blown away by the first track on this single–a 9 minute swelling, string-filled, otherworldly enterprise.

The first song on the single is “Svefn-g-englar.”  It opens with overlaying chords and the beat is kept by an echoing keyboard note.  It’s very spacey and mellow.  And the vocals are unlike anything i had heard before–not just falsetto, but practically alien falsetto.  There are noisy guitars but they work into the background washes of sound and don’t really register as guitars exactly.  Gorgeous soaring vocals on the chorus, which I’ve always heard as “its you” but is apparently “tjú.”  It’s otherworldly and beautiful  Then at 6:30 the drums kick in and the song gets grounded, taking on more gravitas as the chords grow louder.  This lasts for one minute as the song then slows itself back into its original style.

The second track is “Viðrar vel til loftárása.”  It has a louder bass and great chords.  This slow airy song is grounded by the acoustic piano–a very pretty melody with the strings behind it.  Jonsi’s vocal line is beautiful but mixed very low as if he is so far away.  The song ends with a great string section until the abrupt end.  It clocks in at 10 minutes.

Two live songs “Nýja lagið” and “Syndir Guðs” (live at the Icelandic Opera House, June 12, 1999) show that the band can work this magic live.  The guitar is more intense bring a bit more drama to the sound.  But Jonsi’s voice is still amazing in the live setting.  The first one is funny because you don’t really realize it’s live until the end when people start clapping.  And at 9 minutes it’s an amazing listen.  When it goes into a minor chord at around 5 minutes, it’s really something.

The final song “Syndir Guðs” comes from their debut album Von.  It is only 5 minutes, but it’s really quite good here.  It’s nice to see them translate their style to this older song.  The song is quite a short one for this EP, which totals nearly 35 minutes.  This is a great EP for fans of the band.  Hearing those live recordings is totally worth it.

[READ: December 2, 2013] “Daniel Boone, By Himself”

I don’t know a lot about Daniel Boone, truth be told.  So this story may be very accurate or maybe it’s based-on-actual-research about Boone’s possible mental state at the time of his death.  Or maybe he just made it all up.  Whatever the case, I did not enjoy it.

From the beginning, in which we learn the proper way to scalp someone, to the death of Boone’s son, the story was explicitly violent.  And while I’m no shrinking violet when it comes to violence, there just wasn’t much more to it. I’m sure that Boone’s life was nonstop violence, and that this story is not inaccurate in that way (I don’t even know if he had a son).

And perhaps it was that nonstop violence that prevented me from learning much about him in the first place. (more…)

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Lisa Moore–“The Challenges and Rewards of Re-entering the Workforce” (The Walrus, October 2013)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Lisa Moore, Pregnancy, Short Story, The Walrus, Venom, Voivod, Work on September 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

2013-10SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-“In League with Satan” (1998).

venomI wasn’t aware of this tribute to Venom, the much reviled/much beloved black metal band.  It is titled In the name of Satan. Voivod has done some covers of Venom songs throughout their career, so it seems natural that they would do one for an official tribute album.

The music is fine.  As anyone who knows Venom knows their music isn’t terribly complicated.  So it’s nothing for Voivod to do.  I’m actually wondering if Piggy wanted to spruce it up a bit.  But no, he plays it straight, as does everyone else.

But man are the vocals awful. They are a kind of high-pitched growl–very strangely affected and sounding really weird both for Venom and for Voivod.  I’m not sure who is singing on this track (I assume E-Force given the date).  It doesn’t really sound like either E-Force or Snake, but I’m siding with E-Force because there’s none of the odd pronunciations that Snake is prone to do.

I didn’t listen to anything else on the album, but even for a Voivod diehard, this one is not worth owning.

[READ: September 19, 2013] “The Challenges and Rewards of Re-entering the Workforce”

Lisa Moore doesn’t deserve to be associated with Satan or a less than stellar cover song.  So apologies to her for pairing this together, but it worked nicely in my Voivod timeline.

I was really intrigued by the title of this short story and I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  What I got was a very interesting and very interestingly structured story.  The first thing of note is the pronoun choice:  “Everybody had a target on his back.  His or her back.”  This specification continues throughout the story.  But before we learn why exactly, we learn about the devastation at this job (which is never specified).  People are let go in waves, then in clumps, and just when it seems safe, one at a time.  Some people are moved around to fill those empty spots.  In other words, resentment is breeding wildly.  Rumors spread—they wouldn’t fire people if you stand up for yourselves—but no one wanted to stand up.  And just when we think Moore can’t give any more examples of the anonymous firing, we get into specifics.

The Downeys (who both worked there) were fired on the same day.  The had just purchased a new house as well.  Of course, that was before the summer when the dump started to stink.  So we can anticipate how much they will get when they try to sell. (more…)

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The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue (October 2013)

Posted in Adventure, Andrew Coyne, Biography, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, Dan Rubinstein, Death, Edward Burtynsky, Essays, Fears, Harper's, History, Katrina Onstad, LGBTQ, Matthew McKinnon, Melissa Fung, Michael Harris, Nostalgia, Parenting, Poetry, Political Humor, Religion, Ron Graham, Russell Peters, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Technology, The Future, The Walrus, Violence, Voivod on September 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2013-10SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-The Best of Voivod (1992).

bestvoivodMost Best of records promise you a selection of popular songs from a band.  Voivod never really had any popular songs, so this is an interesting choice to start with.  This may also be the only Best of compilation of a band where people who like some of the songs almost assuredly will not like other songs.

As my posts about the band have indicated, Voivod changed drastically over their first six records (which is the  period this collection covers).  And so in twelve tracks and 50 some minutes you get the very diverse history of this very unusual band.  I’m not going to talk about each track (already done that), but I will list the songs

  • Voivod [War and Pain] classic screaming metal.

  • Ripping Headaches [Rrröööaaarrr] brutal, but I must say sounds a ton better than the original CD.  I wonder if this was remastered for the compilation).

  • Korgull the Exterminator [Rrröööaaarrr] hard to believe they used two songs from this album.

  • Tornado [Killing Technology] heavy but quite catchy.

  • Ravenous Medicine [Killing Technology] signs of complexity enter the heaviness.

  • Cockroaches [EP] a strange inclusion, almost a rarity.

  • Tribal Convictions [Dimension Hätross] very complex with some heaviness.

  • Psychic Vacuum  [Dimension Hätross] I’m surprised they didn’t pick other songs though from this album.

  • Astronomy Domine [Nothingface] their hit.

  • The Unknown Knows [Nothingface] very hard to choose just two songs from this masterpiece.

  • Panorama [Angel Rat] Their newest single and quite a departure from everything that has come before.

  • The Prow [Angel Rat] their prettiest number ever.  If you buy this CD for this song you’ll hate the early stuff.

Although Voivod fans (like Dave Grohl)

are diehard, anyone who would buy only a Best of record from the band is sure to be disappointed. There are so many phases of the band and they are so radically different from “Voivod” to “The Prow” that it’s almost not even the same band.  I’m very curious as to what sales for this album were like.  (Even the cover isn’t that inspired)

[READ: September 2013] The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue

It’s hard for me to believe that The Walrus has been around for ten years (even they seem a bit surprised).  I still remember hearing about the magazine on Book TV from some Canadian channel that I just happened upon.

When I heard about it The Walrus seemed interesting–kind of like Harper’s and elements of the New Yorker but all about Canada.  I’ve been a Canuckophile for decades now, so it seemed like an interesting prospect.  And over the ten years of the magazine, while I haven’t written about every issue, I have read every article.  I have written about all of the short stories that they’ve published.

This issue eschews some of my favorite elements (the short articles in the front and the arts section in the back), but they make up for it with an oversized issue (twice as long as usual and the articles are all packed with content) and some fascinating articles.

And while there are none of the short articles from the front, there are “Time Capsules,” one page articles about things that have happened in the last ten years: The iPhone, Sports Concussions, Armed Drones, The Residential School Apology, Justin Bieber, Foodies, Hand Sanitizer and Cyberbullying.  It’s interesting to read about these phenomena from a slightly different perspective.  We know that Canada and the U.S. share many similarities but there are, at heart some core differences.  And it’s these differences that make you rethink a subject.  (more…)

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Craig Davidson–“Firebugs” (The Walrus, June 2013)

Posted in Canadian Content, Craig Davidson, Death, Fire, Mystery, Robin Thicke, Short Story, The Walrus, Vampire Weekend on July 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

june 2013SOUNDTRACK: VAMPIRE WEEKEND-“Blurred Lines” (2013).

vampblurRobin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” is a huge hit (with a NSFW video).  And I gotta say that I find it insanely catchy, too.  It’s pretty irresistible.  So why not cover it?

Vampire Weekend’s new album is less formal than their first two–relaxing styles and adding a bunch more humor to their sound.  And they make a surprisingly good cover of this song.  Their version is quite faithful to the original (even mimicking the sound a lot).  But at the same time, the band is having a lot of fun with the song as you can tell primarily from the backing vocals.

You can tell hear it’s Vampire Weekend, but it also doesn’t quite sound like them–a neat trick.

Check out their cover (which is not a live concert track, but was recorded for BBC’s Live Lounge (so it sounds good)) at Stereogum.

[READ: July 15, 2013] “Firebugs”

This was, I think, the longest story I’ve seen published in The Walrus.

It begins with several paragraphs describing fire–physical, psychological, intense descriptions.  Since I didn’t realize the story was so long, I actually wondered if the whole story would be like that–if there were going to be no characters in it.  But there are, and quite a few.  And the story is focused on two of them.

Blake Kennedy Jr was a firebug as a kid.  Then he became a fireman (seems this is not so uncommon of a history for firemen and may stem from the desire to control fire).  After many good years, he was injured during training and had to get a desk job. Now he investigates suspicious fires.  Perhaps coincidentally, there was a rash of arson during the year he was born.  Those fires were technologically set–the arsonist used the spark from a telephone to ignite a can of gasoline. Of course, the killer would place the call when he was far enough away.  And he was never found.

This year’s arsonist’s is much more simple–a milk jug of gasoline with a homemade wick left on the front porch.  It is a slow burn, with the gasoline not exploding.  It’s actually the fumes that catch fire, not the liquid.  So, when the wick burns down, the whole thing doesn’t ignite until the milk jug melts and the gas spills out.

Blake is investigating the death of Detta, an older woman who tried to run out during the fire (the state of her feet must have been incredible, he determined). (more…)

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Jill Sexsmith–“Somewhere, a Long Happy Life Probably Awaits You” (The Walrus, July/August 2013)

Posted in Canadian Content, Death, Humiliation, Jill Sexsmith, Live from Mountain Stage, Marriage Trouble, Neurotics, Pokey LaFarge, Short Story, The Walrus, Trees on July 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

walrusjulySOUNDTRACK: POKEY LAFARGE-Live on Mountain Stage (2012).

pokey2I really only know Pokey LaFarge from NPR (they’ve embraced them, but I haven’t heard them anywhere else).  Pokey and his band plays a mix of early string-band music, ragtime, country blues and Western swing, in a completely un-ironic way (they dress the part as well).  Like Squirrel Nut Zippers, but even more so.

Interestingly, I know the first song “La La Blues” from a previous performance (on a Tiny Desk Concert) and I actually liked that version better than this one.  This entire performance feels a little too loose.  Which is weird because the music is designed to be loose, but in the previous performances there was a little more structure which made the songs jump out a little more (or maybe the recording just isn’t loud enough).

There’s 5 songs in total: 4 originals include “Central Time,” “Drinkin’ Whiskey Tonight,” and “Won’tcha Please Don’t Do It.”  And a Jimmie Rogers song called “Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia.”  This final song feels more authentically of the time than LaFarge’s originals but only barely, just barely (perhaps its the “gal pickin’ time” line).  And yet “Won’tch Please Don’t Do It” sounds just right too.

The best joke in the set is when Pokey says they have 78 RPM records for sale (they really do).  But that they don’t have any that night because they are sold out!

LaFarge is an engaging live performer (even if the crowd seems subdued here).  And while I don’t see myself buying any of his records, I would like to see him live–it seems like a fun show.  Check it out here.

[READ: July 15, 2013] “Somewhere, a Long Happy Life Probably Awaits You”

The prefatory paragraph that precedes up this story seems so light-hearted: “Manfred met Elizabeth when she interviewed for a position at his fortune cookie company.  She was a greeting card writer looking to branch out.”  That is an actual quote from the story, but in the story, it is a flashback after the main action of the story has begun.

When the story begins, Elizabeth is trying to protect a tree in her front yard.  It has gotten Dutch Elm disease and is to be cut down this summer.  She would like to know when, but she is only told between may and September.  While she is not going to go crazy protecting this tree, she would like some actual notification, so she can be there to say goodbye.

Going crazy, it turns out is an important thing to note, though.  Because Elizabeth from time to time goes on “safaris.”  These safaris can last an indeterminate amount of time, and in some cases may even require Manfred to track her down.  Like when she was protesting the war in front of a building (where no one else was) or, as in one case, when she was frolicking in a sprinkler in her underwear. (more…)

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Kris Bertin–“The Eviction Process” (The Walrus, July/August 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Arcade Fire, Canadian Content, Drinking, Drugs, Fears, Kris Bertin, LGBTQ, Nils Frahm, Sarah Neufeld, Short Story, The Walrus, Violence, Yuck! on July 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

walrusjulySOUNDTRACK: SARA NEUFELD-“Forcelessness” (2013).

neufeldSara Neufeld has a new album coming out on Constellation Records.  Neufeld is the violinist for Arcade Fire–not someone you think of as a “special” violinist or someone who necessarily stands out in the band.  But her violin here is haunting and beautiful.

The album is pretty much her and her violin with occasional accompaniment.  On this track she is accompanied by pianist Nils Frahm (whom I don’t know).  The song was recorded in a parking garage giving it an incredibly expansive sound.

It opens is a somber tone with repeated triplets.  But once the pianos come in, the triplets become slightly more positive.  For a time.

There is something very simple and yet very pleasing about this track–it doesn’t alter itself very much over its three minutes and yet the subtle variations in notes can really affect the mood of the song as it is playing.

[READ: July 15, 2013] “The Eviction Process”

I don’t know why I’m always surprised by stories that go dark.  But this story is very dark indeed.

It begins with two men and an autistic boy (who proves to be the son of one of the men) visiting The Champ in the hospital.  The Champ is one of their roommates and they have come to tell him that he is being evicted.  They are nervous as anything because The Champ is not afraid to use his considerable strength in a fight (and the narrator has a stashed bottle of vodka in his pants that he would hate to see smashed).

But The Champ takes it very well, considering he is now homeless.

Their next stop is back home where the eviction process continues.  The next person is Morgan, but Morgan is passed out from huffing keyboard duster.  So, they’ll get him later. (more…)

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Mona Awad–“When We Went Against the Universe” (The Walrus, July/August 2013)

Posted in Boredom, Canadian Content, Mona Awad, Pond, Sex, Short Story, Summer, Tame Impala, The Walrus, Yuck! on July 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

walrusjulySOUNDTRACK: POND-“Giant Tortoise” (2013).

pondWhen I first listened to this song I wasn’t all that excited by it.  In part I’ll admit it’s because I was listening with only one earbud (a work hazard).  When I was finally able to listen with both earbuds, the song grew exponentially, turning it from a kind of mundane classic rocker into a trippy psychedelic classic rocker.

There’s not much strikingly original about this song–the sound is totally retro, the riffs are pretty simple, even the recording technique is nothing all that exciting.  And yet when you put it all together in this big soundscape, the song is much more than the sum of its parts.

The guitars are big and expansive like their native Australia, the vocals are soft and processed, and the ending instrumental section is very trippy.  Oh, and three of the members of Pond are also in Tame Impala.  Not a bad side project at all.

[READ: July 15, 2013] “When We Went Against the Universe”

In this story, two girls play a game in which they ask the universe questions and do whatever the universe dictates.  The game, which they call Fate Papers, is very simple.  They take two scraps of paper and write Yes on one and No on the other.  One of the girls holds out her hands and lets the scraps drop.  Whichever lands first is what they do.  And they never go against the universe.

The girls live in Mississauga (which they call Misery Saga) and they have done everything that young teens can do that summer–they’ve eaten all the snacks, hung out at all the places, even talked about everything they could ever want to talk about.

The girls go to McDonald’s and get McFlurrys.  When they are about to leave, Mel, the more daring of the two, says that the three businessmen sitting at the other table were checking her out.  She says she has been emanating sex all day and these men responded.  And so Mel proposes that they should offer to suck off the men for money–at least $50 each.  The narrator goes along assuming that nothing will come of it.  But Mel is serious.  She imagines just how much they could get from each of them (even more because they are virgins).  And she drags the narrator to the bathroom so they can make sure they look good and to see if they guys checked them out as they walked past.

When the narrator realizes that Mel is serious, she says it’s time to do Fate Papers.  The papers say Yes. (more…)

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