I’m writing a codicil to the last entry, which, honestly, wasn’t an entry so much as a whole bunch of words in the same place at the same time, like you’d expect a flash mob to break out in a little word dance number and you’d waste an entire afternoon before deciding it really was just a bunch of words coincidentally hanging out at the same place.
Two of the boxes best and brightest seemed to have misunderstood what I meant and it is neither an attempt to brown nose nor use modesty to be pedantic when I say I was opaque erring on the poetic side. Even if you think them two are the Boxes most adequate, a matter of opinion and I won’t hold it against you for being wrong just don’t squeal to me come diary judgment day when the riders of the apocalypse write a scathing review of George Lucas’s next steaming pile of pabulum, they are folks who, I imagine, have seen their fair share of tornado weather.
Oh, oh, oh. Tangent! Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers. You should probably read that, though if it’s between printings don’t buy a used paperback for rare book price. I only say that because when Stress of Her Regard was between printings eBay and Powell’s were fetching like one and a quarter for “first edition” paperbacks of a guy, who, I believe, is still alive. Earthquake weather is not his best but it’s a hell of a damn title and for casual reading I’m willing to bet there’s something worse on your nightstand. In the privacy of my own shack there was a lot of trashy throw aways on the nightstand, I traveled light though and am living in the attic that not too long ago was the library of a Humanities professor and his family. Um, most of the library is in the storage part of the attic now to make room for humidors, but what I left on the shelf can hardly be considered anything but literature. Well, except for the nonfiction.
It’s possible that the Boxes best and brightest, or most adequate (you just can’t wait to get to hell, can ya?) didn’t live out their tornado seasons in quite as swampy-below-sea-level area as this one right here. For them what’s fortunate enough never to have been to the Midwest or mid-south west, there are tornados all the fuck over the place. Yeah, I know, OK and TX seem to think they have the market locked on tornados, poor OK has so little going on we sort of let them speak on our behalf. Hell some states ban you from the TV if your IQ is lower than TV channel or call letters (there’s only four call letters, still …). So, breeding grounds for the Boxes best and brightest (and, incidentally, skeeters) like, say, Kentucky, Missouri and Michigan, also has tornado season, early spring and late autumn mostly, times when you’re likely to have cool air at one level and warm at another. Here, I mean right the fuck here, the air is green and chewy right before all hell breaks loose.
The still is easy to figure out, all the critter sounds stop, the breeze stops (though it’s not like there are a lot of breezes around here, not at ground level, but the leaves rustling is one of ambient sounds you notice when it ceases), but I could tell tornado weather even if I were deaf. For one thing you can smell the stillness, it’s like the world is holding its breath, but, and again, and even in a codicil, the air turns green, and it will do that even if the sky is deep blue (though often as not thunder clouds bring tornados as their plus one to the party).
It’s entirely possible that this is poetic license on my part. Yet I still know when a tornado is coming if I’m outside. I spent more than half my life, to date I mean, in the Willamette Valley, and still when I saw a black bellied cloud or the air got greenish around the gills I expected some serious shit. I could count the thunder storms there on one hand (granted, the hand would need a bunch of extra fingers) and the tornados on one place where a hand used to be.
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