I would include a spoiler warning, only there isn’t much to spoil here. Instead, a summary: “Boys will be killers” is the first story in actor Bryan Brown’s short story collection, entitled Sweet Jimmy. In this story, we are introduced to two brothers, Jimmy and Johnny, and their older cousin Phil, all three well-versed in shoplifting, breaking and entering, and various crimes of that nature. Phil is sent to jail for aggravated assault, but in jail he miraculously turns a new leaf, resumes a relationship with once-girlfriend Maureen, and convinces the prison superintendent to let him grow orchids. Jimmy and Johnny take up trades and use them as covers for burglary, despite Phil’s advice to go straight. Jimmy sleeps around. Johnny falls in love with Daisy, but this romance is cut short when Daisy’s mother decides he’s not good enough for her. When Phil gets out of jail and starts selling orchids, they join him and help out with deliveries. Oh, also, a couple of women get murdered. Terry the detective arrests Phil on the basis that both victims visited his store and gave him their address (and both had orchids at their houses), but turns out it was Johnny, enacting a revenge fantasy on people who reminded him of Daisy’s mother. He then murders Daisy’s mother. The end.
Tag: inspiration
I almost exclusively write fantasy and science fiction. I write about things that aren’t real, that couldn’t be real, not in this time or place. I do this because I love to make things up. I’ve been making things up since I was small. As a child, I populated my backyard with fairies, and I populated the school playground with cheese-eating grass-gulls. I didn’t just make things up. I also read about made up stuff. I grew up with Brer Rabbit and Aslan, and I spent my teen years with Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, and Arthur Dent.
La Monte Young was a 20th century composer who is most well known for his very experimental set of works named Compositions 1960. The most famous, #7, is credited with being the first minimalist piece, being only two notes, a B and and F#, meant to be held for a long period of time. Other pieces instruct players to light a fire, push a piano through a wall, feed a piano a bale of hay, set some butterflies loose in a room (the piece ends when they leave), or just contain cryptic messages, like “This piece is like whirlpools in the middle of the ocean.” There’s also one about grasshoppers. Basically, these pieces challenge the very definition of music and have always been fascinating to me. I recommend you at least check out the Wikipedia page for Compositions 1960, if only to have a laugh. I’m not entirely sure what I was trying to do when I wrote the story, or passage, or whatever, below. Maybe it was a bit of a writing exercise, to see how many references I could fit in. Maybe it was a reflection on these strange pieces, or a tribute. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
So few things in this world are truly original.
So many things in this world are truly unique.