tales of tension
Welcome to the tension headache prose library, where we invite you to scroll, browse, peruse, and otherwise lose and amuse yourself with our selections. Just keep an eye peeled for Colonel Mustard, With The Candlestick.
A Most Reclusive New Yorker
…sloths well deserve their deadly-sin namesake –– they sleep most of the day, barely move at all when they're awake, and are generally happiest if you would just go visit some other animal…
"matilda" is a two-toed sloth who lives in the central park zoo's rainforest pavilion.
matilda spends most of her time in such well-hidden obscurity that even zookeepers who have worked there for years have seen her only once or twice. many never see her at all (although they all seem to have stories about "that new keeper who saw her twice the first week they worked here.")
sloths well deserve their deadly-sin namesake –– they sleep most of the day, barely move at all when they're awake, and are generally happiest if you would just go visit some other animal. the main atrium of the rainforest pavilion has dense foliage so it's easy for matilda to be a very happy sloth indeed.
surely other animals must resent her. they work hard for their high-protein biscuits and birdseed day in and day out, getting mis-identified by well-meaning parents ("look at the flamingo, stewie, up in that tree! look at the flamingo!") and generally being on point all the time while matilda secludes herself in the thickest foliage and does nothing for most of the month. through our various inquiries we learned that she limits her appearances to the rare evening around closing time when she climbs down to drink or poop (rare because sloths take care of such business about once every week or two. hey, they're sloths.) but we love an animal challenge and so decided that we were going to get ourselves a sloth-sighting.
alas, frequent visits to the zoo turned up nothing matilda-wise. after more than a year of trying very, very hard to spot her we began to wonder whether or not she actually existed. of course, every time we asked the keepers about her they always promised us that yes, she is real, she's here somewhere, she's healthy and well, blah blah blah… were we being pranked? it was getting hard to tell for sure.
then, on the first standard-time sunday of the fall, we dropped in at the pavilion close enough to closing time to require some haste in our visit. the atrium area relies primarily on the sun for light and with the earlier hour of darkness things were quickly becoming very murky in there. zoo-goers were being shooed out by staff but for some reason we lingered in the gloom, becoming almost the last people left.
we were making our way to the exit with one of the volunteers (we'd been discussing matilda with her) when two girls ahead of us started pointing at something down below us, asking each other "what is that thing?" the keeper looked down and said "hello, matilda!" sure enough she'd been right below us, rolling around under the walkway (an unusual location for a sloth, who generally prefers to hang upside-down from a tree branch).
we'd heard that news of a sighting tends to spread through the keeper community like wildfire and sure enough, several of them materialized out of the woodwork to catch a glimpse; one official had some rather impressive camera gear with him. so it was us and the keepers gushing over the rock-star sloth, while the remaining visitors (who did not seem to be "matilda-conscious", but were becoming matilda-curious in a hurry) were getting shooed out rather emphatically by a staff person. we'd waited over a year for this chance however, and we were not giving up that easily. my companion looked at the the shoo-er and said, "i'll move as fast as matilda does".
amazingly we saw matilda again on our next visit. we spotted her ourselves this time, mostly obscured by thick vines. she was clinging to a wall-mounted birdhouse, too much in shadow to be photographed with much success (by me, anyway). we pointed her out to a passing zoo staff member who immediately got on her walkie-talkie, and once again keepers and volunteers converged to catch a glimpse. visitors seemed a bit perplexed… we were all standing in one spot staring at a spot on the wall and i guess they must have thought it was some kind of test or something.
Christmas in L.A. (.pdf)
Christmas In L.A. originally appeared as a holiday greeting card sent to a small number of close friends. The outside of the card depicted a hard-boiled egg sitting in a nest of holly.
…I came to, the light forcing my crusted eyelids apart gently, like a crowbar. Light so strong it hurt my teeth. All that destructive power from a crummy 40 watt bulb, suspended naked from the ceiling. Thanking my lucky turtle head that it wasn't me suspended naked from the ceiling…
Manhattan Plaza News "Recertification" spoof (.pdf)
To begin with, a bit of background for those who may be unfamiliar with the subject of this particular piece:
Manhattan Plaza is a federally-subsidized artist's housing complex. Over 2,000 people live in its two high-rise towers, and most are involved in the arts on a professional basis (whether or not they're working this week may be another story).
By normal NYC real estate standards, the MP rental arrangement is atypical to say the least: the majority of a resident's income must come from work in the arts. Tenants submit yearly statements of income derived from artistic endeavor in order to verify that they have the right to retain their apartments. Using the information supplied, the governing board at MP then computes each tenant's rent for the coming year based on a sliding scale.
Being something of its own neighborhood, Manhattan Plaza has its own newspaper: a monthly 12-pager reporting on items of interest to the actors, musicians, dancers and others who live within the project. During the 1990's, Manhattan Plaza News was edited by the late Mitch Redman, a friend.
"Isn't it kind of a hassle for residents," I once asked him, "going through the whole rent thing every year?" . "You're telling me," he replied, "It's called ‘re-certification’, and people hate it. It's an enormous hassle. But of course, it's worth it if you get to pay $800 a month to live in a place like that."
And so the idea for this article was born. The piece ran in the April 1991 edition of Manhattan Plaza News, just in time for April Fools.
…RECERTIFICATION TO SEE MAKEOVER — TALENT MAY BE REQUIRED Sources close to the recertification authorities at Manhattan Plaza have finally admitted off the record that the process of review for each tenant at MP has become too overwhelming to cope with. The paperwork of financial statements and tax records has risen to diluvial levels, outpacing an overburdened staff. When questioned more closely by this reporter, the admission was finally made that new standards, which have been under consideration from time to time in years past, are on the verge of being adopted…
Ohio Confidential (.pdf)
Ohio Confidential originally appeared as a as a short feature in the Summer 1996 issue of Wind-Up Toy. W-U T was known, among other things, for continually varying its name based on each issue's theme. The Summer '96 "all-Ohio Issue" was called Wind-up Butter Cow.
…Waiting nervously in the front seat of the Ohio State Police patrol car. Right off the bat, I notice they get a lot less radio traffic out here than your average NYPD BlueBoy does on his Motorola. Long pauses between bursts of transmission. We are waiting to hear that the rented minivan I was driving is not a stolen rented mini-van…
The "Luanda Letter" (.pdf)
We have unearthed the legendary Luanda Letter. Long thought to have been a figment experienced by overworked employees at Matador Records, we know now that The Luanda Letter actually existed, arriving anonymously at the label sometime in its early heyday, probably around 1993. We are not expressly admitting authorship of this document, mind you. Nor are we claiming that we had nothing whatsoever to do with it. tension headache is happy merely to be able to bring to light this artifact of minor social significance, a snapshot of a particular moment in time and place in history.
"…Dear Person In Charge, It seems as if all you ever read about is sexy Liz Phare, erotic gods gift Liz Phair, Blowjob Queen Liz Phare…"
Pondscum Entertainment Contract (.pdf)
The Pondscum Entertainment Contract was prepared specifically to be given away at one of the many musical performances presented during the 1993 CMJ Music Festival. Copies were printed on flimsy tracing paper, "distressed" to give a tattered appearance, and placed on tables at the venue; the idea being that everyone who attended the show could be assured the recording contract for which they had traveled so many miles and endured hours of boring seminars while fighting off sleep deprivation and waves of alcohol poisoning.
"…PONDSCUM ENTERTAINMENT & THE VERY, VERY BIG RECORD COMPANY RECORDING CONTRACT ** SIGN HERE BEFORE READING ** The party of the first part (hereafter referred to as US or WE) and the party of the second part (hereafter referred to, when referred to at all, as YOU) do now hereby and eternally enter into the following, utterly irrevocable agreement.…"