Saturday, July 26, 2008

  • The Slow Climb and Rapid Descent of a Hill Called Gork


    by the time greeley and gilbone climbed up that hill the sun was gettin' pretty low but that was okay cause they brought some beer, actually quite a lot of beer and i tell you somethin' you gotta work to walk up a big hill in vermont with a tent and sleepin' stuff and a case of beer and so they was tired by the time they got there but it was worth it. folks called that hill gork hill and greeley never quite knew why maybe it was from the russian "gorki" which means bitter but there didn't appear to be much bitter up there only soft green and a three hundred and sixty degree view of all the green august mountains and there was a lake down below too it was really beautiful but not bitter. anyway, greeley and gilbone arrived up there and set up the tent and proceeded with the drinkin' and pissin' (away from the sun) and drinkin' an pissin' (toward the sun) and as that sun began to set behind the soft shoulder of a distant mountain they was talkin' 'bout all them things young men talk about when young men drink and pee together, like how stuff works and how to build things and maybe goin' to mars someday and fusion reactors and oh yeah, definitely girls. 

    and as they watched the shadow of their own bald-topped gork hill lengthen across the pond below and onto the far mossy bank a thousand feet below they decided to start jumpin' up and down real high to see if they could see themselves in that shadow below but they couldn't cause it was so far away. everything down there looked like magical, and early that evening everything was magical, talkin' and pissin' on the top of the world amidst the glory of creation on that blessed hill. 

    then round about a little after midnight, a few hours after the boys had laid themselves down in their spinnin' tent and more or less passed out into a dreamful sleep, greeley was woked up by a flash of lightning. and a little while later came the thunder rollin' in, bouncin' off the mountain peaks. and pretty soon there was another flash and a boom and another. half asleep greeley thought to himself in his haze "ohboy we get to see a knocktournal thunderstorm!" and with his head back on his sweater-pillow he opened his eyes and looked at the flashing canvas above him, takin' it in, listenin' to the rain as it beginned to patter the tent.

    he realized gilbone musta been awake too when out of the darkness inbetween flashes came a calm "hey greeley?"

    "yeah?"

    "what do you think are the chances of getting struck by lightning on top of a round, bald hill?"

    (gilbone asked the question in a measured monotone, but the emphasis shown here was not added by this author.)

    holy shit, thought greeley. "pretty damn high, now that you mention it." said the suddenly awake, suddenly pale, suddenly sober young man. and i tell you what you ain't never seed no one unzip a tent door and race outside and curl up in the nearest shallow depression faster, which is exactly what greeley did - and after he did he peeked up his eyes like a turtle and he looked around and looked at where them flashes was comin' from and each and every one of them flashes was comin' from a cosmic-blue bolt, and each and every one of them bolts was strikin' precisely the top of every single mountain and hill in the vicinity. it was like thor himself was was havin' some kinda sexual intercourse thing with them mountains. and one thing was sure - greeley wasn't about to wait around to be no nylon-coated wet spot. it tooked them two boys over an hour to climb up that hill but only about ten minutes to slide back down it.

    and when they was finally down all covered in mud they got in the truck for shelter and realized they should have brought some water and not all beer for this trip (cause they was stupid like that back then) and they was presently sufferin' extremely hot pipes so greeley turned the ignition and the two started out, in rural vermont, at about 2 AM, on a weekday, in search of water to drink.

    they were caught some time later, stealing ice from a ten dollar motel.

     

Comments (51)

  • notforprophet

    so nylon tents are Thor's condoms?  i am a clear advocate of safe erotic destruction.
  • AlabasterAndChrome


    Knocktournal.


    I like.
  • k8tthelate
    yay!

    I like how girls and going to mars are on the same train of thought.

    I love these stories (i have learned how to make myself breathe when I read them now) and you are freakin brilliant.

  • llibra

    mjolnir - lectricalmgnetism 

  • storyslut
    Awesome!

    I felt like I was there!

  • JessicaSpeak

    you crack me up bear. only boys (and note boys, not men) would be silly enough to try something out like this. 
  • be_the_rain

    see greeley knew, he just forgot, that there's nothing like water.


    this lightning stuff scares the out of me.
  • curtainsopen

    crazy fellas obviously werent boyscouts or they would have caught some rain. 


    i liked the flow and imagery of this story.
  • fey_little_fay
    zap!

    in more ways than one.

  • Swirling_Spiral

    Thank God you got out alive.
  • anonymous

    Lovely. I'm glad I came back to visit today. I hope you're doing well! I'm pulling my hair out with grad school applications- but so is the life of a soon to be college graduate. Heh. Take care my friend.

    Claudia
    A.K.A. The_Life_Of_A_Poet
  • complicatedlight

    @Claudia - hi there. i'm fine. easy does it with the stressin' on those applications. what fields/departments are you applying to? and how come i can't get to your site?

  • clothespin

    aaah, had me wonderin fer a minute...

    "(cause they was stupid like that back then)"
  • Fields_and_Fluxes

    beer poisons and water pacifies, but people often choose the poison because they'd rather distort the world than clear their eyes.
    ___


    I hand you two nonzero vectors v and w and say that they are related by v - w = 0, where 0 is the zero vector. I ask you if they are linearly independant and you tell me _____ ?
  • Just__Jen

    Hello.  Please ignore my first comment because it is incoherent and very stupid-sounding.  I was not exactly in the most functional state.  I hope you don't think any less of me.  Haha. =)
  • complicatedlight

    @Fields_and_Fluxes - they certainly point along the same line, and even have the same magnitude, so i'd say no, they're *not* linearly independent. at least unless they're both zero, then the dependence would be undefined.


    i'm pretty sure, you gordon geeko.

  • complicatedlight

    @Just__Jen - what first comment? ;)
  • Fields_and_Fluxes

    @complicatedlight - yes but here is the trick: if we look at it as the set {v,w} and since we know that v-w=0 then v=w, and so we have that {v,w}={v,v}={ v}(since writting v twice is redundant in set theory). And now we assumed the vectors were nonzero and so { v} is linearly independent, because it's impossible for a single vector to be dependent unless it is the zero vector.


    I tricked several of my math professors a few years ago with this, so don't feel bad. Plus you're reasoning is right too. This is like a definitional-paradox. I guess it shows we need to be careful with our definitions and define them well.

  • complicatedlight

    @Fields_and_Fluxes - wouldn't it be reasonable to say that a vector v is trivially linearly dependent with itself? you might not gain any enlightenment out of doing so... but then again, what is the sound of one hand clapping? ;)
  • Just__Jen

    @complicatedlight - HAHA.  You are T3H AW3S0M3z, Phil.
  • Jifr

    i miss greeley! love his little stories.   

    i am hearting you.
  • cestmoe

    with experience comes wisdom.....ya, I got nothin'
  • aaronmcnees

    hi greely.


    motel ice theft, eh?


    i'm intrigued.
  • aaronmcnees

    ok here you go phil:


     i was 16 and my little sister and i were tripping really really hard with a test tube of .... anyway we got kicked out of the house for being too alien and so we had our rain slicker ponchos and a test tube of ... and i had the forethought to steal the neighbors newspaper before we headed out to the woods. we gathered some dead cedar trees and weighted them down with large, flat rocks. i mange to get the newspaper lit, then set the dead trees on fire. it was drizzling rain and late fall. fire fire fire is good for tripping siblings in the wet rainy woods at night. we were just starting to relax when my sister starts having some kind of teeth grinding migraine pressure wave headache and drops. she says she hars some kind of ringing noise thats hurting her ears. i tell her she's just tripping when all of the sudden i hear it too and right then a sofball sized fire ball shoots out of the fire. we both freeze. the fire seems angry. then anohter SQUEEEEEEEEE kind of sound and this huge glowing flat rock flys spinng right between where we're sitting. it would have decapited one of us for sure. we run, and theres this multiple explosion thing going on from the fire. we dont speak and slip back into our rooms thru our windows because were aliens in exile. later the next day, still tripping balls from the test tube of ... we discover that the rocks we used to weight down the fire with were limestone with a bunch of hollow pockets in them...perhaps even filled with dinosaur farts or something...that rapidly expanded when heated by the hot cedar fire. this caused the rock shrapnel and glowing red sparks when it blew up the campfire. fortuneatly, the ground and everything was pretty wet so the fire just went out on its own.


    wanna go camping some kind?


    i make some really good flap jacks.       ; )
  • complicatedlight

    @aaronmcnees - thanks. great story. dinosaur farts. i can just imagine...



    ...flapjacks?

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