Ofelia Hunt

I discovered Ofelia a few months ago perusing the backwaters of online literary zinedom. I found her in a website called Bear Parade.

She has a collection of stories there called My Eventual Bloodless Coup which is exactly like J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories in the fact that there are nine of them.

I've dubbed Ofelia's writing "candy nihilism" because, although she is sweet, she is also destructive. She tends to write about unhappy relationships and hurting people. But in a nice way.  "I don't think that the little children are thinking about anything because all little children are selfish nihilists because they just want to have fun all the time and ignore the world and drink soda and eat candy, which is why the world is meaningless and boring and stupid." ("I Want the Glass Panel Tinted")

Here are some notes I took while reading My Eventual Bloodless Coup.

"Don't Slide the Couches" - mother's peg leg. recants and negations.

"I Want the Glass Panel Tinted" - "I don't necessarily want to remove these pieces of myself." things about nihilism = soda + candy.

"The Refrigerator Divides Also" - breathing/ not breathing/ air molecules in a refrigerator. "Nobody tells me what to do."

"I Am Happy Today, I Think" - more things about communism. eating peanut butter. "I stepped into a puddle." more Pepsi product placement. the reduction of consumerism to an equivalent transaction of products for currency. is Safeway a pun/metaphor?

"It Is Flat There and You Will Be Happier" - more things about happiness: the desire for lack of desire, flatness, swimming penguins, going to the bathroom, cleanliness, the radio, commercials for wine, windows, waving, ice cream.

"Quietly" - kissing after cutting off cat heads. she writes the word "tongue" as if she had one. kittens as a symbol of something.

"Penguins Swim Around" - more things about zoos, penguins, hondas, npr, i think there is something about being normal in the face of adversity.

"One Baby is Like Any Other Baby" - more things about boyfriends. leather = animal skin. more rain. this time commercials on the radio are sad. "sporadic clumps." the name Christopher Walken ten times. sex in a movie theater? the f word. being kidnapped again but not being a kid. is a burlap bag the same thing as a canvas sack?

"The Room is Full of Me" - "Chris says 'I don't understand.'" why doesn't she ever like the person? lurid brow. i think about the fact that she is sitting on the toilet too much. i wonder if the phrase "I should be disqualified as a human being" is inspired by No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai? "I feel alternately like an alien and like a robot."