Alexandra Kitty

Genepool Convulsions by The Hives…

Sometimes you just have to cut out what isn’t working.

And start again in a different direction.

So I am working on making changes to both my sites so that it a repeat of this doesn’t happen again…

You can get it on Amazon, and bluechrome’s web site…

Consumer-isms comes out in less than a month.

The countdown begins…

December 08, 2007   If you don’t frequent my other blog, here is the article…

October 14, 2007

In Nap Time At The House Of Pain, the Ryersons live in a nice, big house filled with a lot of pretty things.
But as big and nice the house is, it’s not good enough. Not nice enough. Not big enough.
Oh, the four members of the family aren’t bumping into each other.
But it’s not the nicest and biggest house on the block.
That’s what counts.
It’s never big enough…

October 14, 2007 

It’s a big university dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, kudos, grants, and good press. 

In U Spin Me, Baby! (But Will It Play in PR-ia), Silverport is typical academic university that’s the epicenter of an atypical problem in a shifting landscape, one where gate-keepers are losing their clout and those who know how t beguile those once powerful gate-keepers are finding themselves getting caught up in the middle of a changing battlefield. 

It’s almost as if the university is finding itself trying to swim out of a raging flood. 

Escape out of those invisible waters is the key objective. 

In simpler times, you needed someone who had a map of the grounds and could safely and quickly guide the ship to the gates, and persuade the gate-keepers to open the doors so that the ship could sail to calmer waters. 

It’s harder to function like that these days. 

Even though Silverport is the physical geographical location, the main battlefield is another location — a psycho-geographical one. 

So it really doesn’t matter where Silverport is located or what it looks like. 

Because that’s not where the battle is really being fought. 

October 13, 2007 

 Like any well-heeled, well-connected, well-groomed model, Apricot Leeves has a nice posh place to call home. Clean, clinical, and of course, chic, Miss Leeves’ residence is the perfect place to invite her perfect friends for a perfect party. There is a nice balcony that comfortably holds four people. 

There is Apricot’s bedroom, too, but she only disappears for seconds. Who goes there and why can be a guessing game. 

It’s certainly a guess for the two main characters in the story Lance & Bunny, who have had the misfortune to be invited to the porcelain-perfect ice queen’s frosty lair. 

What secrets lay underneath those layers of ice is anyone’s guess…

October 13, 2007

 It’s the place where Mila settles down with her new husband in War-Torn Mila. It’s an isolated little place. No neighbors. There is a small, cramped house. And a large yard. It’s very much like a maze without an exit. There are dangers everywhere. It’s a young bride’s worst nightmare. A dangerous maze with no exit.

October 11, 2007
 

In Wain in Vain, everything is about the visual and the psychological.
Each room and piece described in the story is sending a message to the audience.
There are sweet statues that speak of quiet grace. There are statues that speak of courage. Paintings that speak of grander days.
And then there’s the room where Divinia hawks her works.
Her room houses anger and hatred.
And she knows how to build it all up — the audience and her hype.
Her reasons aren’t as complex as she’d like them to be.
But in the gallery where her exhibition is on display is complex. It is something of a maze, although at first appearance, it doesn’t seem to be.
So Divinia and the gallery are opposites of one another in opposite ways.
It is not a natural fit.
A gallery with an eclectic works — and it is not a natural fit for the title character.

October 10, 2007 

 That’s where most of the story The Footnote takes place. In an old, dingy, depressing office. 

It is no different than any other small-time office. 

Cubicles, scratched tile floors, old desks and chairs. It’s just a place to pull a paycheck. 

Any which way you can… 

October 09, 2007 

It all starts in an abandoned building in the Godblaze Curiosity. The scavengers come here to find something of value to take and sell. 

What they find shocks them, but it wasn’t easy to get to it. 

The building is crumbling and was already picked over by scavengers before them. 

The Curiosity resides in the most dangerous part of the unstable building: the basement. 

These were real events, and I tried to stick to as close as what the history books recount as the closest approximation to the truth. 

I could have embellished this story, but I didn’t feel as if I had to since real life events were just too fascinating to alter. 

But it all started in the basement… 

In story Snakes Eat Mice Raw, the majority of the story takes place at Statistical Standards, a large corporate statistical test firm. 

It’s cold and clinical. All business, all the time. 

Or so they tell us. 

They don’t say a lot at Keaton-Roberts face-to-face. It’s all through memos, voicemail, and email. 

Employees are expected to look busy at all times. 

Even the husband and wife owners do not see each other very often. 

But the bathrooms have decent acoustics. 

And the company brass have very large desks with versatile uses… 

October 08, 2007 

 In Buy Me Something!. we take a trip to Toy Empire, a large toy store chain. 

The parking lot is big. There are plenty of places to park your car, but it’s winter and nobody wants to park at the back. 

There a lot of aisles all filled with different types of toys: dolls, action figures, books, and trains. All these toys are paraded on television. Every kid knows each toy by name and made up history. 

The parents are not as well-versed in this intricate sub-culture. It’s all the same hunk of smelly plastic to them. 

Even the ugliest of toys represents something noble and good — and ooey-gooey gross. 

But kids love gross. Boogers are always good for a juvey laugh. 

And there is plenty of that to be found at Toy Empire. 

There is too much too be found at the toy store and too little to be found in the wallets. 

And the kids are caught in the middle of this great divide. 

Each aisle and endcap represents something. 

Just something. It doesn’t matter what that something is. 

It better than the something the kids already own. 

Their friends have that something and they don’t. Or the cool kids in their class do. 

It’s something to have and to hold and to play with until the next new something gets unpacked on the shelves or paraded on TV. 

The shelves are a sensory overload at all those somethings that represent fun and play. 

But to their parents, it’s just hunks of smelly plastic. 

It’s a place where roles are reversed: the kids understand the language and culture. Their parents no longer do. 

Toy Empire is a single place that speaks two different languages to two different sets of people. 

Here is where the battle lines are drawn between the children and their mothers. 

The store suddenly turns into a boxing ring. 

Who wins in this five-round match? Place your bets…

October 07, 2007 

 A small, over-heated cheest set where 20 kids had to smile on sad days and dance when they were feeling tired. 

A big paper sun in the background and a multi-level set. 

So 1980’s. So kiddie glam. 

Everything done on the cheap and on the fly. 

That’s what the audience saw every Saturday morning. 

They didn’t see the dressing room, though. 

They didn’t see the cameramen or the director or producers. 

They just saw 20 smiling young faces. 

The set is simple, yet there are many complexities that still haven’t been sorted out in the last 20 years…