author - "Patrick Sean Lee"
Skip Morley and Jimmy McGuire have carelessly shot a match from the second floor balcony of The Comet Theater, into the hair of a girl below them on the main floor. Pandemonium breaks out. Skip and Jimmy immediately leave, hoping that no one sees them in the chaos.
Frank, Jimmy McGuire's electrocuted pet snake, is in animal heaven, praying for revenge. Miss Marilou Jenkins is at her private girls' school across town, knocking down straight-A's. Skip Morley is scratching his head, trying to stay out of trouble and get straight C's. Jimmy doesn't care; he's bringing the English language down to new lows.
Skip's mom decides one gorgeous Spring afternoon that he is going to go to Saturday evening Benediction services with herself and his father. No ifs, ands, or buts. Naturally he is devastated, so Mrs. Morley takes pity on him and invites Jimmy along. Jimmy's mom agrees...but Jimmy is pissed! He dreams up another little innocent caper...
The neighborhood kids have inadvertently started a young girl's hair on fire at the local theater...and then fled the scene of the crime. Hiding behind the neighborhood library...having the "matchgun" technology explained to two of the boys by the oldest member of the "gang"...the little snot "Dennis" spots them and blackmail ensues.
Dennis winds up with the matchgun...:)
"Bordering the broad parkway, towering elms stood, perfectly aligned and spaced. They were trimmed as if a small army of tree barbers spent innumerable hours each day manicuring them, until even the squirrels and birds donned tuxedos before entering the branches."
At nineteen, I was in college, sitting on the window sill of one of the classrooms one afternoon, gazing out at the city, a book of E. E. Cummings' poetry in hand. I was, at the time, enamored by words and fragmented images, more so than conventional prose.
And so, I wrote these...
Hell.
It brings shudders to everyone, if only in our secret thoughts. What do YOU imagine it to be? A nightmarish kingdom such as the one Hieronymus Bosch envisioned, perhaps? A perilous account by Dante, guided by Virgil?
What would happen if you were unjustly sentenced to go there...without an explanation why? For all Eternity?
I received a package in the mail recently, wrapped in a battered and soot-blackened wrapping. Intrigued, yet somewhat wary of the contents that might lie within, I poured myself a cup of strong coffee, retired to my comfortable chair in the living room of my modest home in front of a cheerful fire, and then opened it tentatively.
There was no note; no explanation concerning the "gift"--who might have sent it, or by what post it was initiated. A thin book, in worse condition than the package wrapping. Scarred by fire, bent at the edges, altogether distressing.
No title. No author name.
I carefully flipped the cover, curious but unafraid by then. I had opened...a diary. An account written by the hand of a man named Terence, as I was to discover. The first words captivated me. "He's watching me. He beats me when I cross his path." The rough script nearly illegible at first.
And so, I read on. This was NOT Dante, but it was fascinating. See for yourself. Take a seat before your warm, crackling fire, and then walk with this soul through Hell.
A short story adaptation from my novel,"Cathedral".
Matthew Ash, world famous, but lately-failing author, has gone to a scenic lodge, high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in order to break the back of the horrible beast that has grabbed hold of him–writer’s block.
A few of the paintings I did back in the late 80s and early 90s. I was totally into non-representational art; enamored with the L.A. school at the time.
Rollo Heinz, burglar extraordinaire, gets nabbed one night. Sent off to jail, issued a pair of sneakers ten sizes too large, he sits handcuffed in the holding tank, waiting for admission into the main population. He has a vision...across the room hangs a painting, the famous Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. The nametag in bronze on its frame says, "Painted by Laverne "Buddy" Budd, Antonio "Zippo" Gonzalez, and Rollo Heinz.
What the...?
Rollo is admitted, and what transpires in the following hours, days, and weeks is as brilliant as Michelangelo's masterpiece, although everything has a price.
Winner of the 2015 Official Member Writing Contest (OMWC)
An administrator to the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad is sent on a mission to establish the arts and sciences in a small city sitting on the banks of the Tigris in 1,000 A.D. He enters a Kaveh Kanes incognito one evening, followed by an assassin...
The modern coffee house took its "modern" form in the Islamic Empire during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphs many centuries after the birth of Christ. Baghdad was the center of civilization at a time when Europe found itself mired in intellectual darkness. Men gathered in the Kaveh Kanes to drink the strong brew, discuss events of the day, and keep the knowledge of the classics--Greek, Roman, and their own--alive. We owe much to these men of culture and learning, not the least of which is the modern coffee house.
In 2005 I finished the first draft of The Redemption of Marvin Fuster. I loved the version in which...Marvin has just burned down the clothing store a few hours ago. Maribeth, daughter of the governor, has run over him as he flees the scene of the crime, and taken him home to The Governor's Mansion, filled with sorrow for having been speeding in her Mercedes roadster...again.
Daddy is NOT happy when he discovers a bum living in his basement.
I found the governor's character a bit unrealistic, and so I revised the chapter in 2012 in which...Marvin and Maribeth have returned from the bookstore where Marvin has stolen an armload of books on genetics. Earlier in the day he had an encounter with a cop, and following that, narrowly escaped the Major at the Salvation Army Mission. Marvin was naked.
The second version is the final. BTW...Governor Richard Harris comes to love the crazy old man in time. Well, who wouldn't?
Skip Morley and Jimmy McGuire have carelessly shot a match from the second floor balcony of The Comet Theater, into the hair of a girl below them on the main floor. Pandemonium breaks out. Skip and Jimmy immediately leave, hoping that no one sees them in the chaos.
Frank, Jimmy McGuire's electrocuted pet snake, is in animal heaven, praying for revenge. Miss Marilou Jenkins is at her private girls' school across town, knocking down straight-A's. Skip Morley is scratching his head, trying to stay out of trouble and get straight C's. Jimmy doesn't care; he's bringing the English language down to new lows.
Skip's mom decides one gorgeous Spring afternoon that he is going to go to Saturday evening Benediction services with herself and his father. No ifs, ands, or buts. Naturally he is devastated, so Mrs. Morley takes pity on him and invites Jimmy along. Jimmy's mom agrees...but Jimmy is pissed! He dreams up another little innocent caper...
The neighborhood kids have inadvertently started a young girl's hair on fire at the local theater...and then fled the scene of the crime. Hiding behind the neighborhood library...having the "matchgun" technology explained to two of the boys by the oldest member of the "gang"...the little snot "Dennis" spots them and blackmail ensues.
Dennis winds up with the matchgun...:)
"Bordering the broad parkway, towering elms stood, perfectly aligned and spaced. They were trimmed as if a small army of tree barbers spent innumerable hours each day manicuring them, until even the squirrels and birds donned tuxedos before entering the branches."
At nineteen, I was in college, sitting on the window sill of one of the classrooms one afternoon, gazing out at the city, a book of E. E. Cummings' poetry in hand. I was, at the time, enamored by words and fragmented images, more so than conventional prose.
And so, I wrote these...
Hell.
It brings shudders to everyone, if only in our secret thoughts. What do YOU imagine it to be? A nightmarish kingdom such as the one Hieronymus Bosch envisioned, perhaps? A perilous account by Dante, guided by Virgil?
What would happen if you were unjustly sentenced to go there...without an explanation why? For all Eternity?
I received a package in the mail recently, wrapped in a battered and soot-blackened wrapping. Intrigued, yet somewhat wary of the contents that might lie within, I poured myself a cup of strong coffee, retired to my comfortable chair in the living room of my modest home in front of a cheerful fire, and then opened it tentatively.
There was no note; no explanation concerning the "gift"--who might have sent it, or by what post it was initiated. A thin book, in worse condition than the package wrapping. Scarred by fire, bent at the edges, altogether distressing.
No title. No author name.
I carefully flipped the cover, curious but unafraid by then. I had opened...a diary. An account written by the hand of a man named Terence, as I was to discover. The first words captivated me. "He's watching me. He beats me when I cross his path." The rough script nearly illegible at first.
And so, I read on. This was NOT Dante, but it was fascinating. See for yourself. Take a seat before your warm, crackling fire, and then walk with this soul through Hell.
A short story adaptation from my novel,"Cathedral".
Matthew Ash, world famous, but lately-failing author, has gone to a scenic lodge, high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in order to break the back of the horrible beast that has grabbed hold of him–writer’s block.
A few of the paintings I did back in the late 80s and early 90s. I was totally into non-representational art; enamored with the L.A. school at the time.
Rollo Heinz, burglar extraordinaire, gets nabbed one night. Sent off to jail, issued a pair of sneakers ten sizes too large, he sits handcuffed in the holding tank, waiting for admission into the main population. He has a vision...across the room hangs a painting, the famous Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. The nametag in bronze on its frame says, "Painted by Laverne "Buddy" Budd, Antonio "Zippo" Gonzalez, and Rollo Heinz.
What the...?
Rollo is admitted, and what transpires in the following hours, days, and weeks is as brilliant as Michelangelo's masterpiece, although everything has a price.
Winner of the 2015 Official Member Writing Contest (OMWC)
An administrator to the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad is sent on a mission to establish the arts and sciences in a small city sitting on the banks of the Tigris in 1,000 A.D. He enters a Kaveh Kanes incognito one evening, followed by an assassin...
The modern coffee house took its "modern" form in the Islamic Empire during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphs many centuries after the birth of Christ. Baghdad was the center of civilization at a time when Europe found itself mired in intellectual darkness. Men gathered in the Kaveh Kanes to drink the strong brew, discuss events of the day, and keep the knowledge of the classics--Greek, Roman, and their own--alive. We owe much to these men of culture and learning, not the least of which is the modern coffee house.
In 2005 I finished the first draft of The Redemption of Marvin Fuster. I loved the version in which...Marvin has just burned down the clothing store a few hours ago. Maribeth, daughter of the governor, has run over him as he flees the scene of the crime, and taken him home to The Governor's Mansion, filled with sorrow for having been speeding in her Mercedes roadster...again.
Daddy is NOT happy when he discovers a bum living in his basement.
I found the governor's character a bit unrealistic, and so I revised the chapter in 2012 in which...Marvin and Maribeth have returned from the bookstore where Marvin has stolen an armload of books on genetics. Earlier in the day he had an encounter with a cop, and following that, narrowly escaped the Major at the Salvation Army Mission. Marvin was naked.
The second version is the final. BTW...Governor Richard Harris comes to love the crazy old man in time. Well, who wouldn't?