Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: Nonfiction

  • entry from this universe – #1

     To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
    Signifying nothing.
    — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)

    It’s been a long time since I last wrote in this online journal. To my surprise, I found out that all my past entries are gone! I have tried fruitlessly locating them, but Penzu has no such easy function to retrieve the past entries UNLESS you have to upgrade to a present version! So, that’s how they make a profit from their business. But as I think of it as some kind of sign to refresh my life, I will not attempt to retrieve the bygone times.

    It’s nice to write anything now using my cute iPad. Don’t get me wrong. I love writing, even though I am not perfect at English grammar. I love the English language and the way of western cilivization, even if the people who were born into the culture do not seem to take a liking to me. I consider the English language to be the most efficient global lingua franca. It’s convenient and catholic. So, what the hell! I am not scared of writing in English because I love the language and the act of writing in it.

    So, job-wise, I think I am doing okay because I am still working at the same place as a case manager assistant. I believe I work the most diligently and efficiently in my team, which is mainly composed of younger people. Yeah, the glorious MZ Generation. But they will not stay young any longer, and mind you and them; they will one day lament the bygone days of their youth. Well, I guess you have already noticed my not-so-kind opinion about them, which might have come from my experience working with them. Hell, yeah!

    Oh well. Enough for pouring this hateful rant about the deplorable generation. I want to focus on the rest of my life and take control of it. I am considering setting up and running my own small online business selling cat toys and cat-themed fancy stationery items via Etsy. Or maybe Amazon. I am seriously considering such a business prospect as a plan B for my economic act, always having backup financial resources in force in significant situations. I do not want to repeat, though helplessly, depressive times when I do not have a job.

  • On Netflix’s “Making a Murderer”

    Brandan Dassey – “The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse” – Samuel Beckett

    Maybe I should not have watched it, but alas, I did, and with the afterimages of the faces and scenes still haunting the brain chambers, refusing to leave, I am writing about the Netflix documentary to cast them out to the wilderness of forgetfulness – but with a voice of the heart.

    The documentary revolves around the death of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, who the county and the state justice believe was murdered by Steven Avery and Brandan Dassey. Since the stories about the accused are readily available online, I will not delve into whether they are innocent or guilty in this post. But I cannot help thinking this: Prejudice by social class prevails over the carriage of justice and the great cultural divide between rural and urban, working and middle classes, and state and federal governments in the States. America is arguably a country of no aristocrats, yet class distinctions are apparent, and stratification is broad. 

    In the case of Steven Avery and Brandan Dassey, although they were not poor, their parents were deemed fit to caricature characters of laborers equivalent to medieval serfs or pre-industrial European peasants speaking with the class jargon in heavy dialectical accents. Would the police and courts act differently toward the accused and their families were it not for their family backgrounds and social statuses? Hollywood celebrities and those with money and power can do anything and yet get away with their wrongdoings because they have the status and best lawyers who can make innocence of murderers, and vice versa. 

    That is why I’m not too fond of police profiling, which always seems to accuse those from unhappy childhoods tainted with physical and verbal abuse, especially and mostly from parents. It’s not only about sexual violence but, most of all, about parental verbal and physical abuses that bludgeon their children’s psychs. You can’t just typecast someone because they fit your profiling for a particular crime type. Where is the goddess of justice? Remember, even the goddess of fortune plays the Wheel of Fortune blindfolded to give everyone a fair chance of a lot because she can’t see who is rich, bright, or beautiful to look at. 

  • Prompt 206 on mind boggling

    What bothers you and why?

    I am bothered by people and their hypocrisy. Injustice, Avarice, Cruelty, and Ignorance. A lack of charity and understanding. Weakness to all that glitters, power to all that pleads. Aristoteles said we can’t live alone unless we are beasts or gods. But I tell you, humans are angels and demons, the children of Janus with two faces of light and darkness.

    People can move heaven and earth, making a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, so much so that we can make a criminal of an innocent man like a human sacrifice to idols or false deities. For example, I watched a Netflix documentary about Henry Lee Lucas on Friday. He was known as a “Confession Killer,” who claimed to have murdered 600 victims all over the U.S. But did he kill them all? He killed his mother for sure because she was atrociously violent toward her son, beating his head so severely that the portion of his frontal lobe was permanently damaged, let alone his right eyeball that burst out, which was later replaced by a false prosthetic eye. Lucas was said to have an IQ of 87, but he could read, write, speak clearly, and draw quite beautifully. It was his social IQ that put him on a pedestal of the mentally inept.

    While watching the documentary, I could not help but think that Lucas was a victim of circumstances and prejudices. He was coerced into confessing falsely to the killings that he had not committed because the sheriff under whose custody Lucas was fatherly to him with warmth and kindness that he had seldom received. It was painful to see Lucas pleading not guilty to the falsely confessed murders through the cell in front of the hordes of reporters and camerapersons as if he were a freak in the circus. He was crying, and even if he might have lied, you could not/should not bear false witness.

    Nevertheless, those who chanted vehement epithets with no mercy but spite for the murders that he had not committed did not apologize to him as if doing it would be an immoral thing to do. And people continue to be merciless to those lowly in social status or need care out of collective neglect. We champion human rights, equality, and justice while doing the opposite things to those who need the championed values. It’s sickening, and that is what bothers me.

  • Prompt 201 on small improvement

    What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

    all the heartaches give me headaches.

    I try not to overthink about things I can’t change or control. I care too much about people’s reactions and feelings at work and home because, as someone with acute sensory perceptions, all my nerves are tuned to the reception, making them exhausted and pained.

    For example, I get very agitated by the total silence created by the other in a room. I have a co-worker who says nothing all day, as if I were invisible in the same office. It bothers me and makes me uncomfortable. I then try to analyze and reason for such behavior, always finding faults in me for being introverted. It only makes my already complex psyche intricated like Gordion’s Knot that only can be let loose by one fell swoop of Alenxader’s sword.

    Alexander and the Gordion’s Knot

    But I don’t need Alxander’s help to cut the Gordian’s Knot because I have the sword. It is Excaliber in my mind that is waiting for me to wield it. With one fell swoop of the blade, I will be able to cut the intricate knot of wrecked nerves, troubled neurons, and interrupted connections between the sparks of the thoughts that will clear away the impurities on the mind so that I can have a clear mind and lively spirit.

  • Prompt 106 on Drink

    What is your favorite drink?

    As some people go to bars to drink, I go to the Green Mermaid’s Coffee Tavern, aka Starbucks, for my favorite drinks with a Kindle and an iPad. Their menu is inventive and innovative, welcoming new additions. These drinks are my sprit drinks.

    My first favorite drink is Iced Hazelnut Oatmilk Shaken Espresso. Because of its oat milk, the flavor is wonderfully smooth, richly silky, and beneficially wholesome. It’s my comfort drink.

    My second favorite drink is Iced Caffe Americano, my staple morning must-have to perk me up. And it is always iced because I find Americano tastes better when cold.

    My third favorite drink is Iced Passion Tango Tea Lemonade. The color says it all about the prettiness of the flavor, which isn’t too sweet but refreshingly delicious and refreshing because it is added with lemonade. Without it, the tea will not be as lovely as it is.

    I believe we should all have favorite drinks because, without them, life would be all gray and grim. Mine happens to be the above-referenced drinks from Starbucks. I am not affiliated with Starbucks to write this column, but I read Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz (you are welcome to click and read on the link.) with relish.

  • prompt 102

    If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

    Wandering Ghost without face

    A ghost wandering with the streams of sorrow’s salt fire billowed on her glass heart, shattered, changed forever, has no face because she knows not what face she has. She sees it beautiful, yet severe, bright but dark. No one wants to see her, and everyone decides to ignore her. She has become invisible, and by and by, she loses her face and thus becomes invisible as people want her to be. Just like her star losing the brightness of the fire, her spirit loses the luster of light. Alas, never to acquaint joy, footless to wander evermore.