 Reading for Christmas by Sacred Chickens Staff Merry Christmas Eve! Since it is that time of year, the entire team at Sacred Chickens would like to share with you some books that put us in the holiday mood! Enjoy your eggnog and happy reading! This Christmas, Julie's reading.......  Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
By Louisa May Alcott If I’m trying to get into the Christmas spirit, I always find myself slipping backwards into my childhood, and for me that means diving back into old favorites, since I spent a great percentage of my childhood deep inside the pages of books. For me the spirit of Christmas is wrapped up in two books, Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. Each of these books has a Christmas scene that has somehow wrapped itself around my brain to form a pattern of what Christmas should look like with stockings in the morning and a dance in the evening. Of course, no real Christmas could match up to such expectations, but I enjoyed Rose’s Christmas vicariously. There are, as with any books of a certain age, problematic portions of the books where a younger reader would benefit from discussion and knowledge of historical context, but as I reread the books now, I find Alcott’s thought processes even more interesting. At the time of publication, the book Eight Cousins scandalized many parents because Rose’s Uncle Alec taught her anatomy and forbid her from wearing corsets. Like Little Women, the two books display Alcott’s unconventional wisdom about how women should behave. So each time I read the books, I not only get a Christmas feeling, I get to think about how grateful I am that things have changed and I’m not wearing a corset while opening gifts around the tree.
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 Merry Christmas! from Uncle Morty Uncle Morty and Jupiter want to wish everyone happy times during the holidays whether that means staying in bed with the covers pulled up, watching anime until you puke, hiding in the closet with your pet possum, or eating your grandma's sweet potato casserole and taking a nap. If you want to spend the holiday reading good books, check out all the reviews here and pick something out for yourself or someone else. By the way, Uncle Morty is very pleased with his animated self. If you need to animate someone or something, contact julie@sacredchickens for information about our artist, Carmen Jones. She does great work for reasonable prices.  Vote You Fools! by Uncle Morty Your Uncle Morty has been listening in and once again some of the living are making him shake his bony old head in disbelief. Some of you think maybe there are no good choices to vote for. You think you won’t bother. What difference does it make?
Look at it like this. You live in a rickety, rackety, clickety clackety falling down apartment. You and the other residents are kind of ticked that you’ve had a series of bad landlords but you’ve never pulled yourself together to do anything about it.  Tales from the Other Side With Uncle Morty Some of you have been asking about your Uncle Morty’s condition. How? You ask. Why? No offense, but the flesh-covered are dense, stuck in the material world like flies buried in Jello. I’m not sure I can really explain my condition to you. As to how? It’s complicated, technical and a little boring when you get right down to it. Why?Let’s just say I might have crossed a few metaphysical boundaries here and there while I was embodied. I might have broken a teensy rule or two on the other side too. Anyhoo…my bad luck is your learning experience. I’ve decided to publish a few tidbits of conversations from the other side. Here begins Morty’s transcription of messages from beyond.  An interview with Uncle Morty As some of you may know, Uncle Morty, is Sacred Chickens’ best loved (and…okay…only) blogging skeleton. He mysteriously came to stay with us after a Halloween party a few years ago and somehow never left. Morty doesn’t like to talk about himself too much. He’s been a little close with his history, although he does occasionally dispense his wisdom in the form of a blog post or a pithy saying. But for the first time, he’s agreed to sit down and talk about himself. Q: The first thing I really must ask is why you have a tendency to talk about yourself in the third person? Some people find it a little disconcerting. Maybe even off putting. A: Well, your Uncle Morty hasn’t had a very comfortable relationship with himself since he lost his suit of skin. Without a heart beating inside these old bones and a head full of matter and electricity, Uncle Morty hasn’t exactly felt like a “self.” He experiences consciousness in a much less physically unified way you or your readers. It’s difficult to explain for him to explain exactly what he means across such a wide existential gulf. But if you think it will help insure that your readers are not “put off,” the poor delicate flowers, your Uncle Morty, excuse me, “I” can try to use the first person more often in my writing. Of all people, I understand that concessions must be made to the flesh. Q: Question number two is something that I’ve never really been comfortable enough to ask you and even now I’m not sure how to phrase it. Ummm…can you help the reader understand your “condition”…I guess what I’m trying to say is… A: I get what you’re trying so eloquently to say. (For those of you reading who may not know your Uncle Morty so well…please infuse the previous sentence with a healthy dose of sarcasm). Quit pussy footing around. I’m dead. That’s my condition. I’m not really permitted to go into the metaphysics of my state (nor would you have any hope of understanding the technicalities involved.) But I will say this: it’s certainly not a reward. I prefer to think of it as not exactly a punishment either. It was presented to your Uncle Morty as an opportunity – a sort of correction if you will. And before you ask…I would prefer not to answer questions about my previous embodiments at this time. I will dispense such information on a need to know basis. And I sincerely doubt that anyone will need to know anytime soon. I would hate for the information to be...misapplied. Q: I wasn’t actually trying to be nosy about your previous life. So let’s change the subject back to your current…errrr….existence. How did you end up here at Sacred Chickens farm? No one at the party can exactly remember asking you. Not that we weren’t happy to see you, of course. It was Halloween, after all. A: The Universe has a strange way of working itself out, doesn’t it? And by that I do not mean that it has a plan. Merely that it has a strange way of working itself out. You may take that as you like. I do love bonfires and marshmallows by the way. That was delightful. Although the beer and condiment selections left something to be desired. Could we please move on to the next question? Q: What do you see in your future? Anything you want to accomplish? A: Well, I’m coming off a difficult period physically, literally losing my head for a bit, as you well know. I think it’s definitely time for Uncle Morty to begin sharing his wisdom again. I’m also thinking of starting an advice column for the living and perhaps writing my Automortography. Also, I’d love to update my wardrobe and spend more time meditating. My favorite hobby, startling people, will take a bit more social effort (and possibly skill) on your part. In the meantime, perhaps I’ll take up knitting. Incidentally, if anyone craves Uncle Morty’s advice or simply to share a story with him...errr... me, please send your clearly stated fears, problems or opinions to [email protected] with Mort-uary in the subject line. Q: Anything else you want to say to the readers? A: The same advice I always give to fleshlings. Don’t be Dead while you’re Alive. Be Alive. You’ll be resting your bare skull on a guest room pillow and being asked to write blog posts soon enough.  Uncle Morty has told me in no uncertain terms that he is not ready to write a blog post yet. (I mean, c'mon he just got up a few DAYS ago.) But whatever. He wants to share his favorite video with you. It's a video by our mutual friend Troy Lukkarila. Remember Uncle Morty is dead. He picks some kinda creepy stuff sometimes.  Fear and Nostalgia Uncle Morty is writing another post today. Please remember: he’s dead. He rambles. It can’t be helped. He’s also morbid and melancholy – which his doctor says is normal for a person in his condition. His topic today is Fear and Nostalgia. Here begins the blog post of Uncle Morty: (by Uncle Morty) Now that I’m dead, I note something interesting about flesh - skin and bones and nerves and meat, all connected, indissoluble - that something is FEAR. I’m not talking about the delicious kind of fear with which we tease our bodies by riding roller coasters or seeing movies starring some of my friends. I’m talking about the underlying bodily fear that dogs our every move (when we’re alive – really there are some advantages to being on my side of the question). The flesh filters reality through a rippling net of emotion and never stops to consider the subjectivity of its interface. One such emotion underlies all flesh at every moment: fear. Flesh is conditioned to provide for its own survival. To this end flesh interjects the fear of dissolution into every experience, though it may be mixed with joy, excitement, sorrow or any number of other emotions, perhaps even enhancing them with its sharp spice. Many humans live lives of courage and honor in spite of it. In fact, one might posit that bravery could not exist without fear. But until the last nerve quivers to a final halt, you will never understand this most basic of human emotions…the underlying filter…the need for safety that helps you make every decision, illuminating life in sharp relief, light and shadow. It’s only after the clarity of death that you can see the pervasive nature of this pressing emotion. And this basic fact of human nature, if unacknowledged, leads down strange pathways in search of safety. A grave danger to modern culture is the steady and hypnotic attraction of nostalgia. I see people speak in glowing terms of their own childhoods as golden ages of peace and superior child raising techniques. People speak of eras dead and gone as times of peace and prosperity, reaching heights of spirituality and manners – even when those times included the subjection of whole segments of the population as slaves or second class citizens or considered half the population to be property. Oh yes…your Puritans were pretty in the Thanksgiving pictures in your school books, but where are the pictures of them whipping the Quakers out of town? Burning down the villages of the indigenous people? These actions, at the time, were largely due to fear, perhaps self-induced by grasping for an unknown afterlife that poisoned the immanent. And fear hardens into hatred. (It's a terrible thing to sacrifice the present to the future. But that is a topic for another time.) I’ve lived a long time, and I can tell you that the golden age is always beyond grasp…either in the past or the future. The golden past doesn't shine in the light of present. I would disabuse you of your fantastic notions that some point on the space/time continuum there existed a refuge from trouble. While a madness for the future is the purview of the radical, the mad optimists, those who rush past the present moment unheeding, trying to outrun and ignore the needs of the flesh, the past is the territory of the fearful, those who would protect themselves at all costs. The past is safe because it's over. The children who tormented you have gone away. Your father – whose belt tore your flesh and left scars on your body and your mind – is gone. You may now well sympathize with his bewilderment, his inability to control life and the fear for his own flesh and the issue of his flesh, the terror and inadequacy against the crush of life that pressed him into punishment, into making the world small, wrapped in a cloak of anger he prayed would offer protection against all he feared. The times you feared you couldn't afford food or shelter have left your memory. The times your parents had those fears, may never have reached your level of consciousness. Remember, there was much to fear in the past. Mistakes were made. Events could have gone very differently. That night you drove your car through the neighbor's fence because you were tired and you’d been up all night at a party? You could have killed someone, including you, by the grace of God or random chance, those mistakes left you standing. However it happened, the past has been lived through. It is now impermeable, a fortress of concrete and steel that cannot be assailed by the winds of change. Those fears and regrets are dead, having been swallowed in the river of time. How many dystopias have been created, not by the breaking down of walls of the present to let the future flood in, but by trying to retreat into a past that never was? Unfortunately pipe dreams of former times are more like a pipe bomb when tossed into the present. The past was once the present, rife with choices and possibilities, with more horror and happiness than any one person could experience. If you were transported to the past on the timeline and allowed to experience it again, the same fear would grip you; the same choices would have to be made. There is no escape from fear only ways to avoid looking at it for a few moments. Indulge in nostalgia occasionally but don't try to drag the past into the present.  Since I have been experiencing some difficulty in managing to sit down and write a blog post, Uncle Morty has agreed to take on this task today. I find that his condition gives his writing a certain rambling quality. Nevertheless...here it is....Uncle Morty's first blog post.
I believe his topic today is "The Fear of the Apocalypse Among the Living." Sounds more academic than it probably is. Good luck. I'm off to take a nap. Here begins the blog of Uncle Morty: (by Uncle Morty) Hello my flesh covered friends. It's your Uncle Morty, here to deaden up your day and give the living a little perspective. I was once covered with fear and flesh myself. There's nothing wrong with blood and nerves; I remember the feeling of the cool wind on warm flesh, sliding across my arms like water in the hot summer air. I probably appreciate your position more than you do as I've seen this thing we call life from both sides now, as I sit on my bare and unforgiving bones, under appreciated and nigh forgotten. However, I will give up complaining for a few moments as I have a chance to give you an outside view of the culture of the living. Think of me as an anthropologist of sorts. When I am bored, I watch a bit of television and some of your films, just to see what you are up to. (Something I would have said I wouldn't be caught dead doing when I was alive...oh well...you die and learn.) And something I've noticed is that you've caught a collective fear of the apocalypse - zombies (some of my best friends and I can't say I appreciate how they've been portrayed), disease, nuclear war, asteroids - you name it the living will fear it. The living fear death and being narcissists, the death they fear - their own - becomes the death of the world itself. But their fear of death is also a longing. There is a part of every living person, no matter how good, no matter how unselfish that relishes in the destruction of the sensual and the physical. Why do they long for the end? Perhaps it's the need to just get it over with. Perhaps they have been infected by that noxious philosophy of the living that tells them that evil resides in the carnate flesh. (Do without flesh for a day or two or have a conversation with a vampire; you will see that living flesh is not evil and evil does not need living flesh as a residence.) Of all people, your Uncle Morty understands the pleasure with which one might consider the destruction of this rat race, if for no other reason than to rid the world of Reality TV. (By the gods, but life is wasted on the living sometimes!) Dead or alive, the thought crosses your minds that starting over might be all for the best; and that ending it might be all the better. Most of you feel this way because you are weary of the weight of your flesh, and the spinning of this old world seems to be in the wrong direction often enough. So you indulge yourselves in a mythology which allows you to explore the possible endings and judgments and the moral implications of being a living creature hurtling towards death with all the other fleshlings inhabiting this planet with you. If you're building a bunker or asking your local gun shop owner which ammo is better for killing zombies? Or some of you religious people who can't wait to see God smiting your enemies and tearing the place down...I don't even know how to speak to you about such longings. If you are that far gone, you will probably be unmoved by the advice of either the living or the long dead. But back to the rest of you...for whom this is a normal and probably somewhat healthy fear/fantasy. I have a couple of things to say about your cultural obsession. First, you have it all wrong...it's not going to happen the way you think it is. Case in point: Underarm hair. I haven't seen one TV show or movie depicting the apocalypse where the women have armpit hair or unshaven legs. If you can't even predict that the ladies aren't going to have the time or interest to comb through the ruins of Walmart looking for razors after the apocalypse then you probably should just quit making predictions at all. At least you should acknowledge the somewhat mythic nature of your predictions and enjoy them for what they are instead of getting caught up in actual preparations and fears for a thing that will most likely never happen in the way you imagine it. The creation of a death story should be a spur to live in your flesh while you have it; not a means of separating you from the world you must inhabit. Second, while you must think about the future to some extent, those of you still covered in your suits of skin must live in the here and now. Your puny little arms can do a surprising amount of good in the present you must inhabit but they are quite useless in the future, which is not yet your country. It seems to me that such an array of terrible stories, apocalyptic stories, would have you fleshlings running about like mad rabbits, trying to combat the prophesies therein contained. Instead, they merely serve to make you cynical and useless. (My living host for instance, is taking a nap...fiddliing while Rome burns...sleeping away the moments that count). At any rate, it doesn't quite matter to me I suppose. I will take my old bones back to the library and rest up. (I have a good bit of complaining to do this afternoon and I need my energy.) See you on the other side. |
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