Category: humor

Crowbait

4 April 2023
apocalypsearms, guns, weaponsbodygender, sexualityhealinghumormetaphor, symbolreligion, spiritualityviolence
2 Comments

by Ronald L. Grimes Shirley snapped the pearl buttons on the cuffs of her ragged western shirt as she stepped out of her Airstream into the dark at Spirit Hill Trailer Park. The gravel crunched under her boots.  A flutter of wings. She stops. Listens. Peers over a clump of scrub oak bushes. Whispers, “Angels…

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Sitting in a Sandbox

19 April 2021
apocalypseecology, environmentfuturehumorimagination, creativitymetaphor, symbol
1 Comment

As a kid I spent hours, days, and years exiled to a sandbox a few miles south of Clovis, New Mexico. A drought eventually forced us off the land because we didn’t have the money for an irrigation well. Indoors, Mom was baking chocolate-chip cookies. I wanted to be indoors, but she said I had…

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Why the “White Man” Can’t Dance

3 February 2021
bodyethnicity, racism, multiculturalismgesture, posturehealinghumormemoirmoving, mobilitymusicritual, festival
3 Comments

When I was turning 50, I signed up for an African dance course in Boulder, Colorado. Some of the dances, the teacher said, were “social,” some “sacred” or “ritualistic.” One afternoon during class I shorted out. The feet and hips couldn’t remember their assigned movements. The ass wouldn’t shake, and the drummer’s fine rhythms refused…

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Intimacy and Exposure

27 July 2020
bodydeath, mortality, the deaddiseasefunerals, cemeterieshealinghumorillnessritual, festival
11 Comments

Friendship in the Covid Era Amigos por siempre The year is 1970. I’ve just finished a PhD. This is my first academic position. Hugo and I are teaching at the same university. He is teaching Spanish. I am teaching religious studies. One morning I hear an articulate stream of Spanish swearing echoing down the hall….

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Troubling the Waters

26 April 2020
bodyhealinghumormusicperformance, play, entertainment

Preface The United Nations declared 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons. “Troubling the Waters” is a play I wrote to mark the occasion and enable students to study ritual and performance by exploring a story in the Gospel of John. Since the characters are caricatures of students in the course, I have removed…

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Doctored, Honorarily

16 November 2019
ceremonyessays, articleshumorritual, festivalwalking, processing, marching

Ronald L. Grimes The picture shows how the day looked. Here’s how the day began: Five minutes before the procession, I rush to a basement bathroom with explosive diarrhea. The procession is starting. A marshal comes to rescue me as I am washing spots off my robe. I try to orient myself. It’s 2014. This…

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