Rabbit (Short Story Review)

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Prelude:
Now before I delve into my review of the short story Rabbit that was published in the October issue of Prairie Fire I feel that I must touch base on what drew me to this story, it was the title. On Thursday I was  privledged to sit on the panel of my fellow classmate Robert Zirk's college radio show, Did You Just Make That Up. It could be compared to a radio version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Fellow comedic classmates Dylan Hughes, Chuka Ejeckam, and Brea Perrelli along with myself ended up entangled in a improv skit about killer rabbits; I have not been able to fight off these images since. Aside from that my favorite pet ever was a rabbit named Twitch I had for 13 years which being a Netherland Dwarf had a life expectacy of only 6 years. I was also  born in the year of the rabbit. Now enough about and on to my review.

About the Author:
Rabbit was written by Theodora Armstrong, a fiction writer and poet who lives in Vancouver. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, Grain, The Fiddlehead, Descant, The New Quarterly and CV2. She has won a Western Magazine Award and holds a MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and is currently at work on her first novel.

The Review:
Rabbit is told through the eyes of a nine year old girl named Dawn. Dawn lives with her single mother who works in the city. It is never mentioned what has become of her father, she has a brother who just turned 18. He is very self absorbed and has spent more time living abroad with other relatives than he has with his mom and sister. He has been back for nearly a year. The story opens up after the abduction of a young teenage girl has taken place. Dawn is hiding in the curtains watching her mom stand outside in the first snow fall talking to the man from next door. The street is a buzz with police cars and consoling, gossiping neighbours.

"My mom's breath is like a beautiful bubblegum balloon, so thin. It keeps reaching out, almost touching the neighbour, and then it disappears."

Above is just a sample of the great poetric description that Armstrong has emerge from the mind of a nine year old. You fall in love with Dawn instantly as she decribes so many different things such as watching her mom remove her pantyhose which can be a completely different experience depending on the weather outside or when she is spying on her 18 year old brother recieving oral sex from a 13 year girl who had just graduated her elementary school the year prior. This alone, that her brother Matt has been seen with this girl, has their mother upset, people talking, and the girl's father outraged.

The first time the word Rabbit is mentioned is when Dawn is submerged in the tub listening to her mother and brother arguing. She compares her tummy that has become red from the heat of the water to that of the skin as a rabbit followed by them being too squishy. It is mentioned again near the end of the story after her brother runs away from home. She is laying in the snow of her backyard where it meets the forest. She recalls a day where she spyed on her brother  as he shot his.22 rifle at soup cans and missed  nearly every time.
"I wish my brother would take me rabbit hunting, that way we could have rabbit stew for supper instead of soup."

You learn in this story that soup is a huge staple for Dawn as she has to prepare her own supper often when her mom works late.

 I loved this story it brought me back to when I was nine, or just a little boy in general. I remember sitting in those cylinder cement block spying on things with binoculars or lying in the snow or grass or up in a tree being an observer as mind ran wild with innocence.

When you think of a rabbit you think of them sitting quiet, often you are unaware that they are. They are one of nature's greatest observers. Through this story, Dawn's observations are also often undetected.

Rabbit is not about an animal but is an analogy for the quiet  undetected observations of Dawn.

Long Fight, Fresh Start (List Poem)

Cannabis

Pipe; it’s a habit

Lucky rabbits foot; well not for the rabbit

Poncho; to keep the rain out

Flask; half full; to dull the pain out

Copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; a guide

Passport

Ticket stub; I had a ticket to ride

Durable hiking boots; for the rough road ahead

Picture of a girl I once knew, we are strangers now; too much has been said

Sweater; to keep the cold out

Journal; to pour the soul out

Wallet; half empty; not much to my name

A memory,  A Zippo, with barely a flame.

Uncle Ben Vs The Cream of Wheat Guy

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In getting all caught up with posting assignments I have forgot to include the lighter side and how this blog first began; Bea VS Betty, the Golden Girl with the  Golden Gloves.

So now we will disect Which Grain will get the Gain with little, or no Pain 

Uncle Ben VS The Cream Of Wheat Guy

Personally I think they are the same guy, but so were Tyler and Cornelius (One of Edward Norton's many support group names) and look how good some of their fights were.

I can just picture the training for their Fight Club, instead of in a back alley, they are in a field.

"I want you to hit this ear of corn as hard as you can," says Uncle Ben to his Cream of Wheat less cool self. "How much does one know about themself if they have never shucked something up."

I think Uncle Ben would be the Durden of the two for sure. He definitely oozes more cool than the Cream of Wheat guy and Much like Norton's character, do we really know the Cream of Wheat guy's "real" name. No! With that being said Norton  was Durden all along and he shot himself in the face and that's badass Cream of Wheat Guy may just be the Chuck Norris of porridge.

Uncle Ben probably picks up single chicks at weddings after throwing his rice at the Bride to be; after using pick up lines like Hey Baby, I'd like to stick closer to you than the white on my rice."

 The Cream of Wheat guy and his Uncle Ben alter ego, the only thing linking them is their stange love for grain and bow ties.

Who would win in a rice flinging, pot wielding, all grain no pain fistdacuffs?

Now before you submit your answer, remember Cream Of Wheat is like the original Wheaties and Bruce Lee lived on rice and he was the bad ass of all bad asses, will that diet do the same for Ben; you decide.

The second rule of Fight Blog is that you must comment on Fight Blog

Don't break the rules, take a moment have some fun, give your answer and why.

"I am Ben's fluffy addiction."
"You are not your breakfast cereal."

When you stop fighting, you start dying: The Book Launch of Andrew Unger's Inches From America

"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you someone else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting."

The above quote makes me think of the protagonist in Mike Unger's first novel Inches from America; that was launched on November 14 in the atrium of McNally Robinson at Grant Park Shopping Centre.

Markus Dumont is the name of the protagonist character in the novel. Mike is a dual citizen from Canada who is living in Minnesota. He has just lost his girlfriend to a religous fanatic this only fuels the fire to his already burning hatred for religion and politics. The story take place during 9/11 and Markus feels nothing when he sees the Twin Towers being destroyed. He had lost the fight to care.

Andrew Unger a high school teacher from Steinbach speaks to the intimate crowd in the atrium at McNally Robinson. He stands at the podium like a champ, he won his fight, his struggle to get his first book published; a work that had been in progress since 2003.

Unger gives us highlights of the book and reads us passages and pages as the crowd listens intently. He intrigues us by letting us know that his protagonist character Markus Dumont gives up his fight and commits suicide which is what made me think of the quote I started my blog with. Markus tried to make his suicide look as though he was murdered by his ex-girlfriends new love interest; the religous nut.

The rest of the novel is told from the perspective of a dead Markus as he is stuck in purgatory. This is interesting because even as we live and breathe, if we stop fighting for what we are passionate about, what is right, what makes us tick, then we too are living in purgatory.

From what I have read and heard from Andrew Unger I reccommend this to be an interesting darker read from the anti- American perspective of a dead man. I plan to continue reading it myself and will be sure to update my blog again when I do.

If you have a dream fight for it to become a reality, it worked for Andrew Unger, a now respected published author.

Fighting A War Is Hell But So Is Training To Be A Warrior: A Veteran's Tale

But so is training..... A look into what Veteran Lawrence Blair has seen and experienced

“War is hell” was once quoted by General William T Sherman and if you ask Veteran Commander Lawrence Blair; training with the good intentions to fight in one, can be a paved road to it. Blair sits in the booth, eased, his elbows on the table, with the face of a well-groomed St. Nick, as a Jack Nicholson type of tongue and cheek emerges from it. Blair entered military training in 1970 and thought it was perfect fit from the background he came from.  “ I came from a violent brutal family. My father’s idea of disciplining me was punching me in the head, bouncing me of walls, and throwing me down flights of stairs,” says Blair. “He tried to knife my mother twice and burn the house down. I got used to this sort of thing and grew up around people being hurt, killed or beaten to a pulp. Both my step and real father were military men and when I was 16 I followed their footsteps and joined the infantry.

When Blair was 27 he worked as a street line guard at Princess Diana’s 1981 royal wedding. He recalls it, as an intense time and that there were threats to blow up the barracks where he was stationed. Over all he recalls it as a memorable time where he got to meet a lot of interesting people. “They have a different mindset about them out in England,” says Blair. “If they lose ten men out of a hundred during a training exercise, they find that to be an acceptable loss, whereas in Canada we find it hard to accept one loss without really good justification.”

Blair joined the military during a time in which he calls a lull period where there weren’t any wars to be called to. “There are many lives of soldiers that are lost in the training to fight for their country that go unrecognized,” says Blair. “I was one of the lucky ones and an adrenaline junkie at that, I let nothing affect me and I was foolish in my youth, and yet got out with barely a scrape while many of my comrades weren’t so lucky.”

Blair trained in Siloh Manitoba with the German Army, “It was foggy one night and they had their squadron of tanks out, we didn’t know where they were coming from. Our captain had been squished by a tank track, he was flat like a tube of toothpaste with his head popped off like the cap.”  Blair has seen things in training that most of us will never be able to relate to, with the exception of the special effects we see in the movies, except there is no second take.  “I’ve seen young soldiers die needless deaths with acts of haste in their preparation for battle. I recall a female soldier who rolled a gasoline truck, she survived for about 6 months after but was a mess and in constant pain. At nearly 21 she committed suicide by throwing herself in front of an oncoming semi-truck.”

“I fear for my soldiers.” Commander Lawrence Blair admits he is no hero, but that there are many who are. He doesn’t feel that war should be glorified, if anything he feels it should be demonized. 

“Many people have freedoms that they wouldn’t have had if things had turned out differently,” says Blair  “Whether soldiers die in training or in war they go through hell and sacrifice so others can live better lives and we need to remember them more than just one day a year.”

 

Remembering the Ones Who Fought For Us

On the morning of November 11, 2010, the sky was a little darker, and hearts were a little heavier. People of young and old stood as tall as the pine trees at Vimy Ridge Park at 10:45 am. Veteran Tony Heppner comments, "There seemed to be more attendance last year." Father Captain Mawson led the invocation. There was a warmth of unity in the cold air, the chill cut beneath the skin, as did the message."Lest we forget." The season’s first snowflakes fell like tears, camouflaging real ones on the shivering faces that remember.

Father Mawson spoke of a soldier named Robert Metcalf that we lost a few years back when he died of natural causes at 90. "It’s amazing that he didn’t die at 20," said Mawson. "He was hit in both legs by shrapnel and en route to the hospital, his ambulance came under fire by a German tank. Robert Metcalf is the soldier standing at attention on our ten dollar bill."

An interesting piece of trivia that may have people remembering Metcalf’s sacrifice not just once a year, but next time they spend it on luxury.

Young Royal Winnipeg Rifle cadets fired their rifles three times, as a salute to past and present soldiers. Mittens become earmuffs for bundled-up children but they still remained quiet and watched with intrigue. Veterans stood at attention, as young greenhorn buglers played the last post. A Moment of Silence lingured as did the faint smell of pines trees in the brisk air. Father Mawson read the Act of Remembrance as veterans followed through with the laying of wreaths for the fallen but not forgotton

Craig Riddell remembers hearing stories of his grandfather and how he fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Although he never knew him, and lives out in Transcona, he travels down to Vimy Ridge Park to honor him every Remembrance Day and has been doing so, for as long as can remember.

"Whether we knew them or not, it’s important to remember the sacrifices that they made."

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