New Book: An Ocean Of Stories

By Craig: Jay has published a book of sketches and short stories that he has written over the years. Here is the link to purchase it from Amazon.


http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-Stories-Tales-Sketches/dp/061597760X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422498139&sr=8-1&keywords=jay+hipkins

Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977?

Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977? by Jay

Of course he did!  At least to an eight year old kid who went to the cinema to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977)...  For several Saturday mornings before its release in theaters, tantalizing previews were aired to promote the film.  As an impressionable eight year old, anything about mythical monsters and extraterrestrials purporting to be real was food for digestion.  One of the previews I distinctly remembered was a kneeling trapper named Jessup in a campground with his back turned to the camera.  As the camera panned in on him (obviously the eyes of Bigfoot), this ominous music was playing.  Jessup began to turn just as the camera (Bigfoot) cast a shadow over him, and I was left to wonder about the poor trapper's fate.  I had to see this movie!  Several weeks went by as I anticipated the premiere.

I don't know what I expected, but when I finally went to the theater to see it, I left feeling somewhat disappointed.  The basic plot was told in an obviously fictitious docu-drama format concerning an expedition to find the legendary, hairy beast.  Maybe it was the fact that Bigfoot didn't come thumping down the aisles during the showing?  Or perhaps it was because much of the climax was filmed in the dark, and all I could see was a bunch of paper mache rocks being hurled by a guy in a gorilla suit?  Whatever the reason, I left wanting more.  But what? 

Looking back, I think it was the historical mystery itself that gripped my imagination.  The stories of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot if you will, are ultimately something that can't be told successfully on screen.  These are legends that are meant to be told on a crisp, fall evening around a campfire or scribbled about in a collection of stories by a competent and colorful writer.  Myths and legends are meant to have gaps that only one's imaginative thoughts can fill.  Visually, however, Bigfoot is a major disappointment. At least, so it proved to me.  Legends are only meant to seen in the mind of each individual.  Anything else is setting up the creative imagination for failure. 

This afternoon, my brother and I, for lack of anything better to do, decided to watch the film for the first time in nearly thirty eight years.  Someone had downloaded it on YouTube.  Decades after first watching it, the old film was crackly and skipped in various spots, only to be expected from a low budget production made in the mid-1970's.  The flowery music that was played in the background sounded as if it were being piped from a psychedelic, multi-colored love van, and the actors' voices (including a wise old trapper named Josh and a wannabe Indian named Techka Blackhawk) were indistinct and muted, burping forth from shadowy or etiolated faces.  The rugged scenery, with virgin forest and snow capped peaks would have been visually appealing if it were not for the fact that the ancient, forty year old film almost appeared as if it were folding in on itself.  I almost got the impression that I were viewing ghostly glimpses of the dead stiffly moving through the woods on phantom horses in a dim, colorless world which had drifted away long ago.  Even the animals presented, including a mountain lion, seemed to have stepped right out of a taxidermist's workshop.  All seemed dead.  The film seemed to be groaning as if to say, "Please, stop...  no mystery here...  the past is in the past...  no more...  let me settle in upon time and close my eyes... forever..." 

Some of the last words spoken in the film were by the actor who played the pseudo Indian, Techkna Blackhawk.  After failing to capture the ever elusive Bigfoot, Techkna said, "It is done.  We can go home now."

And so it should be said to allow all great legends to continue to grow, and until all time should forever pass into that collective space of forgotten nothing.


   



        

A Brief Moment In Time: Washington D.C. 1975

By Craig: The other day I was going through some boxes in the attic when I happened to find one that contained numerous boxes of old slides and photographs. The slides were in their original boxes and I was intrigued as to what might be on them. A few of the boxes were labeled but most of them were unmarked. Turning on the bright overhead light in my library I held each of them up so that I could see what was on them. I was immediately taken back in time. The images on the slides were taken by my father from the mid 1960s up until the early 1980s. Some of the images were taken before I was born, but most of them were from my early childhood in the early to mid 70s. I was immediately captivated by a series from a trip that we took to Washington D.C. in April of 1975. I was 6 years old at the time but have fond memories of this trip which I previously wrote about in a post a few years back.

Lincoln Memorial 1975

     I had the slides converted with the help of my brother Jay's wife, Tina. As I was going through them one of them caught my attention. I don't know why, but I kept being drawn back to it. It is an image of the Lincoln Memorial. It sits there in all its marble glory, its stairs sprinkled with people dressed in a fashion that today's society would consider alien. It is a brief moment captured in time and hidden in a box for nearly two generations. There is something about the image that captivates my senses. It might have something to do with bright sky that illuminates the scene, almost hidden by the gargantuan monument, or the black recess of the inner chamber which looms menacingly in the center of the photograph. It is dark and mysterious, and the people climb the steps toward it as if they were about to enter into the unknown. And what of the people? Who are they? Where are they from? Where are they now?

Craig & Jay Washington 1975

    About halfway up the first flight of stairs ascends a solitary dreamer. He is wearing a white shirt and a white hat and has sloppily thrown his coat over his right shoulder. He takes it all in. There is something white in his back pocket...a tour guide perhaps? A lady dressed in yellow reminding me of a sunflower stands with her pocket book slung over her shoulder. Her arms are both up, and hidden as if she might be holding something up to her face. Is it a camera? Is there perhaps another image out there sitting in a dusty album, forgotten in a closet that captures the same instant in time from a different angle! In front of the sunflower lady is another woman dressed in sea blue who seems to be running in quick step as if she cannot wait to enter the black hole that awaits her in a few more steps. Why is she in such a hurry? Perhaps she is only in Washington for the day and wants to see more than just the Lincoln Memorial. Now gaze downward to the left and you can see a middle age couple locked arm in arm. The bald man with ear to ear carpet is helping his plump wife who seems to be struggling with the stairs. What might he be thinking as she clings on to him for dear life? Three lazy men sit at the base of one of the massive Doric columns. One of them has his hand up to his mouth as if he were smoking a Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike man seems to be in a heated conversation with a man wearing a red shirt. It is a long lost and forgotten, unimportant conversation that none of the parties involved would ever remember. It might have gone something like this:

Lucky Strike Man: "So you think the Oakland A's will win the World Series again this year?"

Red Shirt Man: "Naw, Hell no! I'd say Pete Rose and his boys will take it."

Lucky Strike Man: "You're crazy! Rose is washed up!"

Whatever the conversation was about along with the identity of the three men and anyone else in the image will never be known. The faces of the people are mere blurs. None of them exist anymore. At least in the form that they took when this image was captured. At least half of them have almost certainly given up their mortal cares and passed into oblivion. The ones who remain alive on this distant day in the future in no way resemble the human creatures that they once were. 40 Springs have now passed... At one point in their lives all of them converged at this singular place, and then quickly separated never to merge again. They lived their lives not knowing that they ever did merge together, or that 4 decades in the future someone would be writing about their dim and shadowy figures on the steps of a monument that will one day crumble to dust as did the Greek and Roman temples of yore.

    
       I take one last look at the image and notice 4 people standing in front of one of the marble columns. It is as if they are posing for a photograph from a distant photographer. A woman in a beige coloured leisure suit with three young boys. One of the boys is holding his mother's hand...I smile.

Elements of Time: The Broken Cuckoo Clock

By Craig: I sit in the dining room staring at the broken cuckoo clock on the wall. It had been a gift given to me and my wife a few years back. My mother bought it for us in Switzerland. Somehow, about a year ago, the windings got out of whack and I still haven't gotten around to fixing it. I sit at the table poking at my supper and staring at that clock that doesn't work. I am eating a Spanish rice dish that I have concocted with my own blend of seasonings and vegetables. Since I now live alone, when I cook, I make a big vat of food and eat from it for three or four days. It's cheap and it is healthy since I know what ingredients are going into it. I am tempted to get up and rip the cuckoo clock from the wall and tear into it with the intention of fixing it. The room is silent and my two dogs sit on my flanks on my great-grandfathers Persian rug which is under the dining room table and encompasses most of the room. They sit there in silence staring at me...hoping that I am generous with my supper. One of them is an old decrepit dog with a lame paw. He most certainly has some Golden Retriever in him, but the ravages of time have given him bloated look so that the sleekness of the Retriever is now hard to detect. The other dog is much younger. He is black and well formed  like a whippet. They peer at me with their black marble eyes and when I raise my fork to my mouth their hungry gaze follows the fork waiting for a morsel to come their way.

"You've been fed." I state simply as if they understand my English.
Still, I throw them each a piece of buttered bread and they snap them up greedily, swallowing it whole.
"In the mouth, directly to the stomach!" I declare.




    
      The room is dimly lit. It is dark outside, and a little chilly. I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge sitting here all alone in the dark in my flannels and stocking cap. I look again at the broken cuckoo clock and a strange thought floats into my head.
"What if all the clocks in the world stopped?...Would time stop?"
It was a ridiculous question since I already knew the answer.
"Of course time wouldn't stop!"
Clocks are a human invention that are merely set to celestial positions. A clock on Mars would be different than a clock on Earth for its rotation is different as is its orbit around the sun. If I were to sit here in my dining room for the rest of the night the Earth would continue to spin on its imaginary axis inclined 23.5 degrees away from the plane of the ecliptic. The room would eventually lighten  with the morning sun and get brighter as the day progressed. If I found myself glued to the chair I would soon starve to death and the cosmic clock would continue to move with the synchronicity of the heavenly bodies. Everything is always in a constant state of motion and change whether or not it is organic or inorganic. The elements change at a microscopic level...Quantum mechanics looking for that elusive state of stability. Indeed! time is a relative concept!


    I finish my supper and cannot help but stare at that damn cuckoo clock. So much to do and so little time to do it. If only time would stop! It was a simple request aimed at the Gods of the universe who arbitrarily set the mechanism of time in relation to matter.