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Stamp Out Sin!

1/13/2021

Of the many things that need stamping out, racism is no doubt the one that should be first in line, to be followed of course by all the other bad habits that keep us Americans from achieving the perfect nation toward which we are, or should be, progressing.

We all agree that the list of these habits is a long one. One could begin with the Seven Deadlies: pride, greed or covetousness, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. To this Christian list could be added such obvious ones as hatred, stupidity, stealing, vengeance, murder, suicide, lying, cheating—the list, it seems, is endless.

But here the thought occurs: Why not just stamp out sin as such?

The advantages of working on sin are obvious. First, this bad habit is the root of all the others. It is encompassing. Second, it is doable. If racism can be stamped out, as we should all recognize, why not all the other bad habits? And if all the others, why not future habits of which we now have only an inkling?

We can reasonably hope that by following this path, we will finally achieve the more perfect union of which our sainted forebears spoke.

November 07th, 2020

11/7/2020

I couldn’t see the priest’s face, but I could smell the alcohol. He wanted to steer our little chat in the direction of sins, mine in particular, but I had this gnawing curiosity about hell and purgatory and the difference betwixt. About the time my curiosity got the best of me, he quick excused himself, so instead of givin’ me an up-front answer he gave me an assignment. “Don’t come back,” he barked as he stood up, “until you’ve read all about hell and purgatory in The Catholic Encyclopedia!”

At which point he skedaddled.

Well, this ol’ gal followed his cue. I got the hell out of that hot, cramped box and watched him go pigeon-toein’ off to the little boys room in the garb his business called for, lookin’ like one of them wind-up soldier dolls that were big back in the days of my youth. Right-left-right-left-right-left, swishin’ back and forth at pronto velocity in zig-zag mode.

What They're Saying about Hotel Adios

10/26/2020

From those who have read it.

"Hôtel Adiós has all manner of tweaks and quirks that keep the reader at times off-kilter, puzzled, and delighted. It is both absurd and dripping with true insights . . . Wiebe treats the page like a playground, a stage, and a soapbox from which to shout his wild notions."
--Julie Miesionczek, Independent Editor, formerly with Random House.

"With my delight and admiration."
--Paul Harding, author of Tinkers, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

More on Ab Ennis

10/14/2020

Mr. Ennis remains active despite his wife’s decision to follow his instructions to cremate him after his death; though his brain now shares the ashen state of his former body, it is still able to function—read, write, talk, go to movies and an occasional play, concert, opera, etc.—all with the aid of his non-deceased companion, Ms. Betsy Bedwell.

Endorsement for POTUS

10/13/2020

After much deliberation concerning the weighty question of the candidate I wish to support to become the next the President of these United States of American, I have chosen to endorse Mr. Ab Ennis of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho.

Mr. Ennis escaped Russia in 1906 at the age of twenty-one to seek his fortune in America and to avoid the Czar’s draft.

He learned English from reading girlie magazines. His literary tastes took a turn for the better while reading Lolita, the masterpiece of his fellow Russian emigré Vladimir Nabokov. This experience taught him that erotica is compatible with fancy prose.

Either through shyness or a wish to keep his moral reputation impeccable, he kept many of his book reviews and other scribblings in a shoebox, which he stashed behind a secret still in his landlady’s attic. He has spent a lifetime working on a Tolstoy-sized novel on post-Revolutionary Russia entitled Nyet! This unfinished manuscript was discovered by an anonymous editor, who, with a grant from the National Endowment for Dead Book Reviewers, is currently translating the book from Russian into Yiddish. It is due for publication in 2020.

Ennis was posthumously awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, though the news of this honor has been kept from the American public by the influential New York publishing establishment. This slight of Mr. Ennis, whose work is well-known in Europe, is considered by several reputable experts to be a major cause of the rift between America and the Continent.

More on this candidate, his political party, and his running mate, in subsequent blogs.

Pope Dun: The Church of the Wide Open Door

9/3/2020

Room 345C of the Church of the Wide Open Door was the size and shape of a small concert hall and was furnished with well- padded seats. Benny arrived late and seated himself at the rear. The senior minister, a young man named Sean, was listing the ministries a prospective member might choose to join. If your interest happened to be politics, he explained, there were cells of Christian Republicans and Christian Democrats, as well as a fellowship for the Christian Independents. If your interest happened to be the abortion issue, there were cells for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers, and oh yes, he remembered, a new cell was just getting underway, calling itself . . . the Christian Confuseds. The audience, following the script, laughed. True to its eighteen-month tradition of non-judgmental openness, the minister went on, the church sponsored chapters of both the National Organization of Christian Women and the Christian Promise Keepers. There was also a wide range of Christian support groups, for recovering alcoholics, substance abusers, sex addicts, wife beaters, husband naggers (laughter), gays, straights (more laughter), Jews (nervous laughter: was the minister being anti-Semitic?), Catholics (he was building up to something!), and oh yes . . . Baptists (an explosion of mirth that landed a quarter of the audience on the floor).

Contest: First Lines

8/20/2020

I’m sponsoring a contest to match the first line of each of my eight novels with its title. The first three contestants correctly to match the first lines with the novels in which they appear will receive both hearty congratulations on Facebook and a signed copy of  my initial novel, Crazy Were We in the Head.

To enter, simply match the first lines with their novels and enter at paulennswiebe.com/contact. Guessing is encouraged and in many cases necessary.


First Lines:

At the Vatican, the pope was sound asleep, having four hours earlier mumbled the simple benediction he had learned as a child.

At three o’clock, Calvin Burr had had enough.

He stood before the door of the principal’s office, hesitant.

I couldn’t see the priest’s face, but I could smell the alcohol.

Mother’s plan for Jean-Pierre’s life had not gone well.

One morning not long ago, I awoke with a start from the dead of a dreamless sleep to find that I had no memory.

That a dropout from a rabbinical school in upstate New York, an ordinary young man with the ordinary young ambition of moving to Hollywood and becoming a film star, should be chosen to discover and translate the now-famous Bear Lake Scrolls and then establish what quickly has become the fastest-growing religion in America, seems incredible.

The advantage of living in Inverness back in the forties and fifties was the number of churches you could choose from, nine, which averaged out to a hundred souls per religion.


Novels:

Alone in a Dark Wood

The Church of the Comic Spirit

Crazy Were We in the Head

Dancing Over the Rays of Light

Hotel Adios (in progress)

Just Another Dead White Male

Pope Dun the Incredible

Sacred Books & Sky Hooks

more from Pope Dun the Incredible!

8/7/2020

“Sit down,” said Dennis Bright as large, unkempt Benny Good sauntered into his office.

Benny squeezed himself into the chair across the desk from his smallish, kempt boss, who was dressed in a new Sears suit, a new Sears shirt, and a new Sears tie, a uniform designed to highlight a generic male managerial face still on the pleasant side of forty.

Bright strummed his fingers on the desk. He adjusted his glasses. He cleared his throat. He inserted an index finger under the collar of his new Sears shirt and straightened his new Sears tie. He took a deep breath. He exhaled, slowly but audibly.

“Benny,” he began. “ This is not working out.”

“It’s only been a month,” said Benny.

Bright wagged his head sadly. “The numbers just aren’t there.”

“One. Incredible. Month,” said Benny.

Bright sighed. “Benny’s Begonias is not the blockbuster we’d projected.”

“One month of lively discussion of the delights of indoor gardening!” said Benny, growing eloquent.

Dennis Bright frowned as he tilted back in his chair and placed five pairs of interlocking digits behind his head. “Listen, Benny,” he said to the older man, “I hate to tell you this, but.”

Benny carefully placed a foot on Bright’s desktop. That foot was fitted with a sandal. Between the sandal and a pair of wrinkled shorts stretched an expanse of hairy, well-fed leg. Between the shorts and a soiled T-shirt stretched an expanse of equally hairy, equally well-fed abdomen. The T-shirt bore the insignia of KKKS (“First in Alternative Programming for the Kirkland Listening Area”) and a pocketful of cigars (Swisher Sweets). From this T-shirt rose a head that had broad features, rugged handsomeness, reddish wavy hair, and a light crimson face. “I had five call-ins today,” said Benny in an attempt to shift the conversation in a more promising direction.“

Two were from your regular listener,” Bright pointed out. “She’s very knowledgeable about plants,” countered Benny.

“Why shouldn’t she be? She runs a nursery.”

“Actually, she’s retired from the business. The stress got to her. Probably from watching the plants grow.”

Dennis Bright smiled in spite of himself. But then he remembered his responsibilities as the KKKS program director and recovered his dignity. “One was from Shannon,” he pointed out.

“She asks very intelligent questions.”

“That’s because you tell her what to ask.”

“It’s not just what she asks, it’s how she asks it. Her phrasing is impeccable.”

“Her phrasing may be great, or whatever, but the woman doesn’t know a tulip from a cactus. I oughtta know. Ten years I’ve lived with her.”

“Aha!” said Benny as he placed a second foot on the desk. “So that’s where she picked up her impeccable phrasing.”

Bright ignored this remark, but not the foot, which was dangerously near his coffee cup. He stared at the encroaching sandal. “One was a wrong number,” he pointed out with a warning frown.

Benny carefully relocated his sandal to a site several millimeters away from the cup. “Did you notice how curious she became about begonias? I think we can expect to hear a lot more from that young woman.”

“One was from an Alzheimer,” Bright pointed out. He could be hardnosed. That was part of his job. He liked his job. It allowed him to show the ruthless side of his personality. It also paid reasonably well. It kept the wolf from the door, his wife Shannon in the less expensive varieties of French wine, and the Sears men’s wear department in business.
“
Did I or did I not have fun with her?” wondered Benny.

“You had fun with her,” admitted Bright. “But,” he added, “you gotta wonder how well it went over with your regular listener. I don’t think we can expect to hear a lot more from that old lady.”

“She must like my act or she wouldn’t keep calling.”

Pope Dun the Incredible! (continued)

8/6/2020

And in the Kansas metropolis of Kirkland, not its real name, two men were preparing for a meeting that would launch a chain of events that was destined to have profound consequences both for America and for the largest and most powerful ecclesiastical organization in all Christendom. Unaware as yet of his significance in the grand scheme of things, the older of the two ambled down a nondescript hall towards an unexceptional office at the rear of an unimposing tan cinder block building standing at the foot of an ordinary radio transmitter at the outskirts of this typical Middle-American city.

Pope Dun the Incredible! #1

8/5/2020

Ch. 1: Enter Benny, Stage Left

At the Vatican, the pope was sound asleep, having four hours earlier mumbled the simple benediction he had learned as a child. In New York City, the anchors at the major networks were preparing to sign off after reading the news of the most ingenious and entertaining samples of human depravity that had appeared in the last twenty-four hours. In Las Vegas, thousands of American parents were busy initiating their offspring into the deepest mysteries of the nation’s folklore. At a race track in Southern California, eight sleek thoroughbreds were pounding the turf and coming down the home stretch as the spectators either clutched their tickets in anxiously sweating hands or, resigned to their temporary fate, began to destroy those tokens of hope.