 What’s up with “THE NAME

Posting # 3 Tell Me Something New "In the Shadow of the Strip"

Argue in favor of:

• Shop clerks dressed in stern lines, as in Michael Ventura's "You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel"
  
• What's up with "THE NAME" in "Bowling with the Christ Child" by Dayvid Figler
  

In the short story "You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel", a familiar line pricked my consciousness in the same way Virginia resented the clerk's reception towards her. Let us take a glimpse at this event: the store's clerk dressed in stern lines [132] asked Virginia "Is there something you would like to buy?"[133]. This excerpt from the story suggested a condescending tone in the way the shop's clerk approached the pregnant Virginia regardless of how the latter looked or dressed. The clerk was rude and lacked the appropriate mission statement. Similarly, such a rude reception was no different from my own shopping experiences in some of the stores in Las Vegas. Like Virginia, I want the clerk to let me know what I need to know, and when I need to know it. In the same manner, I totally feel uncomfortable when a store clerk follows me around.

On the other hand, equally delightful was the short story "Bowling with the Christ Child" by Dayvid Figler (even his name sounds funny). Figler's short story got me off with rollicking and hilarious laughter. This literary work certainly loose me up quite a bit and was a joy-read. I certainly snuggled in with-the-groove and I felt funny tears running down my cheeks. Consequently, I've come across characters similar to some of the characters illustrated in Figler's short story: i.e., folks looking like Sean Penn and their blonde or blonde-looking spouses. On a closer look, some of these blondes appear to represent as close-encounters of Viking-Bruhildas' minus the long braids. Toss in silk nails and baseball caps and you get a pass of Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears look-alike. If you want to laugh, read these stories repeatedly and keep the book! Sequentially, I couldn't agree more regarding the "Christ Child's Name". It is one eponym spoken and breathed out too often. This Name represents a kind of exhilaration one could pair with: folks' first/last names, reverent as an epithet, screamed out loud in jubilation, at birth times, loosing a car/house title at a craps table and etc.. Likewise, most folks will agree that this particular Name could pose as an allegory, as to shock, death, joy, or even orgasm.

"I like words. I use them".

Maritess S. Taylor, College of Southern Nevada