I think this is the second time I’ve had to reach beyond my treasured, “120 Minutes”-era musical fetish to find a tune which fits a Flash Fiction Friday. I blame Siddhartha, for the Parisian prose in his post, since it reopened that festering debate about how cringe-inducing cliches which brown writers seem to sweat (henna, silk, spices, MANGOES) make us all want to vomit…curry. Or something. I’m not too broken up about this, though; if I had to use something other than excellent alternative music for our theme song, ain’t no shame in my Nina Simone-soundtracked game.

It’s the second time for something else, as well. Today, I invite you to create 55-word stories which sound like they were taken from “The Arranged Marriage of Crazy Curry-lovers in Marin” or whatever disposable lit you care to mock mercilessly. The December 16th, 2005 “Why Can’t I Be You?”-edition of 55Friday nominally used a similar theme, though what I really asked for then was for you to borrow the voice of someone famous for us to later guess…Sajit made a special request for some tamarind-flavored 55age and you came through like champions. My favorite two from that edition are below.

The Ill Hindu himself contributed this miniature masterpiece, before he was a Mutineer:

His tigress.
Desire crowded his mind like pilgrims at Benares. Her silken lips, cinnamon eyes, lashes like Assam tea. Her breasts, twin Taj Mahals at sunset.
How exquisitely she played his shehnai. The taste of her mango lassi.
A monsoon of sadness flooded him.
“ItÂ’s been fun,” sheÂ’d said. “But IÂ’m having an arranged marriage.”

GENIUS. After that, Badmash dropped the J-bomb (sorry, Saheli):

The elephant in the newsroom was her use of cheap metaphors in foreign assignment pieces from exotic locations. The juggernaut of letters to the editor from offended Sepia readers concerned him enough to call her in for a meeting. How would he ask her to tone down the spice without invoking the wrath of Kali

Weren’t those fab? I expect no less from all you ardent members of the Anti-Mango Brigade. I know that Red Snapper may not forgive me for exhorting you to do this, but cliche away! Continue reading →

Yesterday, I wrote the first of two posts about the anomalous attention paid to (in that case) two brown actresses by the popular “Go Fug Yourself” blog. Fluffy as that post might have seemed, the discussion it prompted was by no means insignificant. My delayed epiphany about Mindy and Parminder was inpsired by their skin, specifically, how it didn’t conform to what much of the diaspora considers beautiful. It was the color of their skin and I know fellow older alt-music fans, it wasn’t black metallic.

This Friday, my thoughts move aimlessly, passing so many things: beauty, skin, pigmentation, fireworks, torture, St. Catherine of Alexandria. Perhaps your mind is similarly adrift– if so, write. Write about any and all of the above, or none of it if it doesn’t move you. The important thing is that you write a very short story, a tale so brief, it is composed of exactly 55 words. Ah, this Friday wanes, my energy with it…think of me when I’m sleeping. Of all the secrets that I’m keeping, some of which, I promise, will surface below…but only after you spill yours, my dears. Continue reading →

This marks the second time that fellow Mutiny-organizer Amardeep has inspired the theme for our Friday 55 Flash Fiction orgy; what might be even more amusing is that as with last time, today’s post is about…relationships. Hmm. I think I’ll start calling him Dr. Drew instead of Dr. Deep. 😉

Seven hours and over 100 comments later, the discussion roars on about Blacks dating Asians, Asians dating Whites, Whites dating Blacks…yet curiously enough, no one seems to be dating Latinos. 😀 Silly rabbits, don’t you know your roots are in the sand?

I keed. What I am consummately serious about, however, is nanofiction. Tiny little stories with exactly 55 words– what could be better? Ah yes…one from YOU. As always, you are welcome to write about topics of all colors, shapes and sizes, but for those of you who like the bondage of instructions, you’ve got ’em. Please leave your mini-masterpiece in the comments below; meanwhile, I’m going to try and get one catchy INXS tune out of my head. Continue reading →

When I was very young, I used to say that I wanted to grow up to be a Congresswoman from California, so that I could live and work on both coasts; to my very simple mind, it was the only way to do such an impressive and unique thing.

I fell in love with the east coast after a childhood trip to both New York and Washington, D.C. and the right side of the lower 48 has never loosened its adamantine grip on my heart. But, unlike some of my loved ones who have swtched sides, I am not happiest when I’m across from where I’m from. I wish that were the case, but as giddy as I am to live somewhere where the Smithsonian is mine for the wandering and New York is but a cab ride and Amtrak trip away, I’m haunted by homesickness far more often than I prefer to admit. If anything, I’ve made my uneasy choice because when I’m here, I miss Northern California slightly less than when that situation is reversed– but we’re talking about a 55/45 split, so it’s nowhere near an ideal situation.

Listening to Dinosaur Jr. last night certainly didn’t ameliorate the situation, but making tentative plans for a possible journey home did. I think I’ll take a few days off at the beginning of September to hug my Mother, check on my Godson, THROW AN SF MEETUP, get pedicures from people who know what they’re doing, drink plenty of Peet’s, dodge marriage queries, eat real sourdough, hold office hours, irritate my Mother and otherwise bliss out as I zip about Davis and Snob Hill in my much-missed sick civic.

I know that I’m not unique, that many of you are also far from your ‘hood, where the food is fantastic and pure love flows freely; if you care to follow a 55Friday theme, write about home, the sickness it evokes or just plain missing someone whom you love. As always, you are welcome to flash us with a story (and nothing else!) on any subject under the sun, just be thoughtful enough to leave your nanofiction below. 55 words about distance, where you grew up or the sweet thrill of “goin’ home”. Ready, steady…go. Continue reading →

Spring has long sprung and like several of you, I was at a wedding last weekend. ‘Tis the season for bridal registries, trips out-of-town and getting faded on Black at receptions (via trunk bar or open, natch). Even though it has almost been a week since I saw a priest recite ancient exhortations at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, I’m still very marriage-minded on this Friday. You would be too, if you had been at an Orthodox ceremony; I had several hours to ponder tradition, obligation and tying the knot (both literally and figuratively).

Then there’s the Mutiny’s role in keeping the vedding bells ringing in my head; I had read the “Modern Love” essay penned by Sarita James when it came out, but Amardeep’s post from earlier today prompted me to visit it again, since I knew it would be a hot topic (I predict 300+ comments). It’s mildly amusing to me that the one issue which can bring this entire community together/rouse lurkers from their anonymity/stir up so much drama is marriage. Not politics, not Arundhati, not spelling. Marriage. It’s a testament to how much angst and weirdness we all feel about this rite of passage, that whenever we feature a post like this latest, every F5 will bring you a brand new comment.

While we already had a Friday nanofiction orgy which featured a few 55-word biodatas, I think that the time is right to “go there” again. We haven’t 55’d in a while, might as well get reacquainted via a subject which inspires all of us to say something. As always, you may flash us with fiction about whatever you wish, just be kind enough to leave your words (or a link to them) in the comments below. I know, I usually name our 55Fridays after music I listened to in college, but no wedding reception is official until you’ve played Frank (though to be clear, the couple I just celebrated with danced to U2’s highly awesome “With or Without You”.) What are you waiting for? Nanofiction, already. Continue reading →

If youÂ’re reading this, you are reading a poem, and you are worried it will be one of those poems, the kind that is confusing, precious, and obscure. The kind someone makes you read.

If you’re reading this, you’re choosing to do so, probably wondering whether poetry is worth your time and energy, since “normal” writing is much more rewarding, and the weekend is coming up. It is a good question to ask while you’re reading this.

If youÂ’re reading this at work, you are thinking about your boss discovering that you spent the whole afternoon dawdling on the internet. But your timepass is our business, so please keep dawdling. Your boss needs to read this too.

If youÂ’re reading this, and I hope you are, you may be waiting for me to get to the point. Continue reading →

What a week it has been, for printed pages, for brown people, for the Mutiny. Kaavya and Opal, Kaavya and Katie, Kaavya and Megan. The teenager from Harvard turned Mutineers against each other while energizing idiots on Yahoo! to diss desis– there’s nothing like a brown scandal to unleash smug, ignorant racism.

The most important aspect of the whole fustercluck might just be our collective, unexpected education about the process of publishing. For some, this was cause for disillusionment; many of us had indelible visions of a solitary artist, sacrificing themselves to merge imagination and soul in to a pristine, sacred creation. Learning about production companies shocked us in to a deep dismay. Wasn’t it supposed to be about the writing? Has EVERYTHING become a commodity, an image, a focus-group-tested myth? Were books being produced instead of written? Suddenly the idea that words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm is stuck in my head, all to a wistful electronic beat.

Though the vast majority of you were reared better than to admit such things in public, I know that hundreds of you read about “Opal’s” backstory and thought to yourselves, “I could do that. How hard can it be?” Well, why don’t you find out? Leave a concentrated, concise story containing no more than fifty-five words, in the comments below.

Write about whatever you feel like, don’t let my memories of Nick Cave songs force you in to feeling some mercy. If you don’t want to 55 here, leave a link to where we can see your flash fiction elsewhere. You might not get half-a-million dollars, but isn’t the love and appreciation from other Mutineers worth so much more? Continue reading →

Our resident bean left us a comment which reminded me that we wrote haikus to celebrate a rather obvious holiday two months ago. This, of course, made me feel guilty for being tardy with the 55Friday flash fiction free-for-all, so to distract myself from the shame, thoughts of a third writing exercise which employs “resource constraints” came to mind. Behold, a “Fib”:

Blogs spread
gossip
and rumor
But how about a
Rare, geeky form of poetry? [linky-poo]

What is a “Fib”? It’s a six-line poem inpired by the Fibonacci (Cough! Hemachandra Cough!) sequence, which controls how many syllables can be in each line.

The allure of the form is that it is simple, yet restricted. The number of syllables in each line must equal the sum of the syllables in the two previous lines. So, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, which is also 1, 2 comes next, then add 2 and 1 to get 3, and so on…Fibs…top out at line six, with eight syllables.[linky-poo]

According to the afore-linked NYT article, April just happens to be National Poetry Month AND Mathematics Awareness Month, so the sudden craze for “fibs” seems especially appropriate. Know what else is apposite?

The earliest known reference to Fibonacci numbers is contained in a book on meters called Chhandah-shāstra (500 BC) by an Indian mathematician named Pingala. As documented by Donald Knuth in The Art of Computer Programming, this sequence was described by the Indian mathematicians Gopala and Hemachandra in 1150, who were investigating the possible ways of exactly bin packing items of length 1 and 2. [wiki]

Paging “Everything-is-Yindian”-Uncle!

I know I usually name our nanofiction-orgies after some much-adored song in my catalog of tunes which I cried to in high school and or watched on “120 Minutes”, but I’m so fascinated by this “new haiku” that I’ll refrain from capping this post with an angst-ridden hat. Everything else is the same as it ever was, so leave your bit o’ brilliance (or a link to where we can find it) in the comments below. 55-word gems which tell a story, haikus which reference mezze and poetry which reminds me of that mindless Da Vinci code…come fifty-five, come all. Continue reading →

I kept wanting to make our flash fiction extravaganza relevant to current events, but I couldn’t find songs in my music collection that I loved, which contained any of the following:

• -March
• -Madness
• -Sixteen
• -NO productivity thanks to bracketology and compulsive SM-refreshing

Since I just read Manish’s snide post about hackneyed, caffeinated metaphors, this granddaughter of a coffee-grower suddenly has java on her mind (but sadly, not in her tummy). As a result, unforgettable horns and Peggy Lee’s silken voice waft through my head and there we have it. A title for our weekly 55.

So, write your 55 perfect words about the potent potable I reference above OR its affect on animals (Wheeee!) or the “third place“-establishments which charge you far too much for the privilege of sipping something acrid which apparently came your way via fair trade. Or, ignore me completely and write about whatever strikes your fancy this Friday. As always, leave the next chapter of your oeuvre (or a link to where we might discover it) in the comments below. Thank you and remember, there’s no shame in drinking decaf, I don’t care WHAT anyone says. 😀 Continue reading →