{"id":127,"date":"2013-05-15T20:19:34","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T03:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/?p=127"},"modified":"2015-07-27T20:24:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T03:24:12","slug":"scenic-cesspools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/scenic-cesspools\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenic Cesspools"},"content":{"rendered":"

My book “Scenic Cesspools & other indignities”<\/em> came out May 1.<\/p>\n

\"Scenic<\/a>

Scenic Cesspools<\/p><\/div>\n

Scenic Cesspools<\/em> is a tragi-comedy about work. With just enough time travel. And a bucket of grease which has something to do with free will.<\/div>\n
Possibly everything.<\/div>\n

Scenic Cesspools<\/em>\u00a0is the story of a kid who is pulled into his high school disciplinary office to be chastised for achieving some of the highest test scores in the school while still managing to almost flunk out. Upon graduation, there is nothing left but to venture into the workforce.<\/p>\n

Working at a paper mill he discovers the industrial site is an alien landscape filled with green noxious liquids, held in open surface containers, outgassing into the atmosphere. It\u2019s a place where death is as close as a misstep and the air smells a little like poison every day.<\/p>\n

He learns that sales is a religion. A religion based on morning motivational meetings, chanting, and believing. If you are \u201cmoney motivated\u201d all you need do… is believe.<\/p>\n

Leasing low income housing is difficult when your supervisors dislike poor people. Especially when they hate deaf people, because \u201cdeaf people make trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

He learns there is nothing like selling flowers on the street from the back of a pickup; except selling perfume on the street from a cardboard box, or working for Ralph Nader.<\/p>\n

Characters float in and out, sometimes challenging perceptions of time. They are obsessed with nuclear war in Vietnam, sex, Canadians, and unearned heroism.<\/p>\n

[amazon asin=B00CJHGOJ8&template=iframe image]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My book “Scenic Cesspools & other indignities” came out May 1. Scenic Cesspools is a tragi-comedy about work. With just enough time travel. And a bucket of grease which has something to do with free will. Possibly everything. Scenic Cesspools\u00a0is the story of a kid who is pulled into his high school disciplinary office to be chastised for achieving some of the highest test scores in the school while still managing to almost flunk out. Upon graduation, there is nothing left but to venture into the workforce. Working at a paper mill he discovers the industrial site is an alien...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Scenic Cesspools","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,12,2],"tags":[32,29],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-my-books","category-writing","tag-book","tag-david-raffin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3u13S-23","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":198,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/perils-cesspools-treason-in-paperback\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":0},"title":"Perils, Cesspools, Treason in Paperback","author":"David Raffin","date":"July 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Perils of Free Thought (a book of no small danger) now available in paperback. Expanded text.\u00a0 Scenic Cesspools (a tragi-comedy about work) now available in paperback. [amazon asin=1490919112&template=iframe image]\u00a0[amazon asin=1490915974&template=iframe image]\u00a0[amazon asin=1470128403&template=iframe image] \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1833,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/new-books-new-books-for-old\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":1},"title":"New Books! New Books for Old!","author":"David Raffin","date":"January 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Two NEW books for the New World. Sex Robot Cuddle Party & At the Existential Sandwich Shop;An older book: Perils of Free Thought: a book of no small danger\u00a0and my oldest books revised and reformatted for the world of the future, Scenic Cesspools (a novel of transgression) and Hard Fought\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/covers.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/covers.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/covers.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/covers.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/232\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":2},"title":"Perils of Free Thought","author":"David Raffin","date":"July 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A book of jokes, anti-jokes, philosophy, and bears. ebook: [amazon asin=B0080AGLNC&template=iframe image] print:\u00a0[amazon asin=1490919112&template=iframe image]","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Perils of Free Thought by David Raffin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/1077593_10151504553277823_1904869306_o-1024x938.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1023,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/what-is-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":3},"title":"What is good","author":"David Raffin","date":"May 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Flipped through a marketing book. I don't have much love for either marketing or self-help books. I always marvel at how they take so many pages to say so little. Once I skimmed through a book filled with \"information\" and condensed it down to two pages. Sprinkled over 300 odd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/IMG_1346.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/IMG_1346.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/IMG_1346.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":567,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/book-cat\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":4},"title":"Book Cat","author":"David Raffin","date":"January 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine your favourite book. That isn't a book, it's a cat. And it's just sitting there. You have a poor imagination.\u2014 WaterstonesOxfordSt (@WstonesOxfordSt) January 9, 2014","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1000,"url":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/flowers-for-algernon\/","url_meta":{"origin":127,"position":5},"title":"Flowers for Algernon","author":"David Raffin","date":"May 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Author Daniel Keyes died last year. He wrote the masterpiece Flowers for Algernon which was first published as a short story in 1959 and later expanded into a novel. Flowers for Algernon was part of the new wave of psychological science fiction, its story slightly set in the future and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"flowers-for-algernon-book","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/flowers-for-algernon-book-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidraffin.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}