What, what, what?
After several weeks of dread-filled agonizing and gnashing of terrible teeth, I believe I may have finally located a new story I want to tell. Here's how it begins:
Those were the nights when the thwirp of the propeller from the CIA’s unmanned, RQ-1 Predator could be heard, ever so faintly, over the buzz of the underground generator and the incessant bickering from the monkey cages. Scanning the wooded countryside for any trace of our lair--the silver finger of a broadband antenna, human, or even animal excrement--that metal bird cut a perfect line above the treetops. Some evenings, sensing its proximity as if by a premonition, I put on camos and face paint and slipped outside to wait for it in secret, the wingtips white against a blood orange sunset.
It was me, my wife Ursula, and George. We had our generator, fifteen laptop computers, and a team of eleven capuchin spider monkeys, George’s charge. Supplies were dropped to us by helicopter at four-month intervals: pounds of bananas, powdered milk boxes, rice, canned meats, protein shakes. My wife, a gifted programmer and mathematician, was perfecting an algorithm that would triple our winrate, earn us millions. I was eight-tabling the big $20,000 no limit hold ‘em game on Ultimate Bet, taking in $15,000/hr. for as many hours each day as I could possibly stand. They wanted us dead.
---
Set in a time of American opulence and rampant gambling addiction, the story is about leftist activisits who want to train monkeys to play poker for developing nations...I think infidelity will factor in as well as new world monkeys' tendency to pairbond.
(Even if it's crap, at leat I'm writing!)
Those were the nights when the thwirp of the propeller from the CIA’s unmanned, RQ-1 Predator could be heard, ever so faintly, over the buzz of the underground generator and the incessant bickering from the monkey cages. Scanning the wooded countryside for any trace of our lair--the silver finger of a broadband antenna, human, or even animal excrement--that metal bird cut a perfect line above the treetops. Some evenings, sensing its proximity as if by a premonition, I put on camos and face paint and slipped outside to wait for it in secret, the wingtips white against a blood orange sunset.
It was me, my wife Ursula, and George. We had our generator, fifteen laptop computers, and a team of eleven capuchin spider monkeys, George’s charge. Supplies were dropped to us by helicopter at four-month intervals: pounds of bananas, powdered milk boxes, rice, canned meats, protein shakes. My wife, a gifted programmer and mathematician, was perfecting an algorithm that would triple our winrate, earn us millions. I was eight-tabling the big $20,000 no limit hold ‘em game on Ultimate Bet, taking in $15,000/hr. for as many hours each day as I could possibly stand. They wanted us dead.
---
Set in a time of American opulence and rampant gambling addiction, the story is about leftist activisits who want to train monkeys to play poker for developing nations...I think infidelity will factor in as well as new world monkeys' tendency to pairbond.
(Even if it's crap, at leat I'm writing!)
posted by Ari at 5:26 AM
2 Comments:
I've got the first line of your pitch letter:
"Ari Olmos' poker-themed literary thriller Opposable Thumbs pits man against beast, man against machine, machine against beast, and men with machines against beasts with machines, 'all in' an action-packed ride through the wilds of the Continent -- and indeed, through the wilds of Man's own arrogance. Part Congo, part Positively Fifth Street, Olmos' breathtaking tour de force has something for every reader. Especially the ones who love monkeys."
Now you see why I make the big bucks. Speaking of which, back to work ...
When'd you become so professional? Not too effing bad...
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