(Herodotus: Episode 4 soon!!)
It is simple truth that there are the rulers and the ruled, the powerful and the oppressed, master and slave. Most of us are slaves, though few of us will acknowledge this fact. On we toil, those above enriched as we below are impoverished. Labour enervates, time diminishes, yet our humanity is preserved by one grace: struggle. In our chronic rebellion, in our straining at the fetters that bind us we achieve a measure of dignity. "No," we say, "we have some power. My body is flesh, weak, but my mind is steel, hard, and it bends for no other." The body is chained, the soul free. Humanity endures.
Those who do not participate in the struggle, who embrace their servitude, these we call thralls, willing slaves. Their soul is bent to the master's lash, quivers at his mere approach, desires nothing more than to please. We are disgusted. We explain to the thrall the nature of the their condition. We shout. We weep at their betrayal. All to no avail: the thrall glows with satisfaction. Even the cruelty of the master is explained: this is for my betterment/I should have known better/the master's ways are not mine. The body is flesh and the mind is flesh, each awaiting the imprint of the master's steel. Not a trace of humanity in this one.
Thus Kelly.
***
Endless prairie road lies behind you. The roar of the tires on cracked asphalt is a sound so familiar that silence will seem strange. The paper coffee cup, now empty, at each bump threatens to fall; you would welcome the excitement. The licence plate on the RV in front of you has by now given up all its secrets: you've rearranged the characters into every possible combination, turned them upside down, seen which configurations spell naughty words. Your back is sweaty, throat dry. You've fantasized thoroughly about several women (some stunning, some mousy and strange), even had enough time to imagine dinner and the inevitable breakup (always tearless). Your eye passes over the console: still going ten klicks over the limit, engine temperature still good (you guess?), oil pressure still nominal, gas... ah, that's almost empty. Dammit. Why didn't you fill up in Rat River? Or was it Rat Lake? Rat Falls? These towns all look the same: aluminum shacks lining the main street, Greyhound depot at the corner, yokels riding ATVs through the ditches, drunk on love and probably beer. You think of the colour grey when you think of Rat River (Ratford?) - someone obviously put great care into choosing the name. The day is grey.
After another hundred acres of canola, a sign appears on your right: DONNA'S GAS, 10 KM INTERSECTION OF HWY 1 & RT. 77. Good. Maybe there'll be a phone there. You think of calling your wife, but why? She'll have been watching TV all day. You'll get the report. Who got kicked off the island. Who lost the most weight. Who ate the roasted horsehair. The baby kicked. Terrific. When are you coming home? Soon. I miss you. I miss you, too. Wait, that's a lie. The leaden inevitability of it all makes your head hurt. You have a sudden urge to ride an ATV through a ditch, drunk on beer and love. You fantasize about Donna.
The sign was prophetic. Grateful for the exercise, you press the brake and turn into Donna's Gas. Before you lie two sets of gas pumps, each with four handles. You pull up beside the set on your left. You open the door and emerge into afternoon greylight, and blink. It feels good to stretch. You indulge yourself, and then pick up the pump handle. The pump beeps. You select a grade of gas. You turn, and a grey blob fills your vision. The blob is bounding toward you. It has legs, arms, a head. No ordinary blob, you realize. Greasy blond hair whipped by strong prairie wind. Coke-bottle glasses. Prodigious acne. Short stubby legs eating up the distance in clumsy strides. Footfalls whisper-quiet, silenced by orthopedic slippers. A nametag pokes out of the grey: KELLY. The tag has three little metal pump tokens attached to it. Awards, you realize.
The blob stands before you, trying to catch its breath. Its lower jaw separates from the rest of the head, revealing yellowed teeth and a tongue caked with white. It speaks in curious, awful arpeggios, now tenor, now castrato. You cringe.
"HELLO sir, WELCOME to DONNA'S GAS. MY name is KELLY, and i'd be GLAD to HELP you out. how ARE you on this GLORIOUS day?"
You mumble. Fine, just fine. What does the blob want? You're a grown man. You can pump the gas. You move to put the pump handle into the filler neck of the gas tank.
The blob gasps.
"SIR! it is my DUTY to INFORM you that you are CURRENTLY at a FULL-SERVICE pump. The SELF-SERVICE pumps are THITHER." He swins his flabby arm out and points at the other set of pumps.
It's fine, it's the same gas right? I can handle it.
The blob is unmoved.
"the GAS from the FULL-SERVICE PUMP, beside WHICH you are currently standing, IS DISPENSED at a price FOUR CENTS greater than that of the GAS from the SELF-SERVICE PUMP. i simply CAN NOT allow you to PUMP this gas on your own. it would amount to NEGLECT of my DUTIES as an EM-PLOY-EE of DONNA'S GAS."
The blob is out of breath again.
You scratch the back of your neck. Alright, well, I'm already started here, so why don't you finish it up. I'm going inside.
"SIR! do you NEED me to check your OIL or WASHER FLUID or even TRANSMISSION FLUID? may i WASH your WINDSHIELD, SIDE WINDOWS, and/or your REAR WINDSHIELD?"
Sure, whatever.
"OKIE DOKIE, no troubles, no worries at all! be DONE in a JIFFY."
As the gas pumps, the blob pulls a brush from the water bucket. With expert L-shaped strokes he cleans your windows, even takes the time to buff out imperfections in the glass. You turn to go inside.
The blob gasps.
"SIR! i'm AFRAID that with the hood CLOSED, i am UNABLE to determine the levels of EITHER your OIL or TRANSMISSION FLUID, or indeed your WINDSHIELD-WASHING LIQUID."
Grumbling, you turn back and open the car door. You pull the hood-release. In one smooth motion the blob unlatches the hood and props it up. The blob says something, but you can't hear him from inside the car.
What?
The blob, now bent over your engine, straightens.
"i SAID this is a FINE automobile. you made an EXCELLENT purchasing DECISION."
The blob beams.
You go inside. A bland-faced red-haired teenager is reading a car magazine at the counter. You approach him.
You jerk your thumb over your shoulder. What's the deal with that guy?
Oh him, yeah that's Kelly, nobody likes him.
What's his problem?
The teenager thinks.
Clearly something. I don't know, he wants our boss to love him.
But the customers must hate him. I hate him. Doesn't that make the boss hate him?
The teenager shrugs.
He sells the right things to the right people, somehow.
You struggle with the illogic of it all.
The door opens. The blob comes bounding in. You turn.
"sir your OIL and TRANSMISSION FLUID are just PEACHY." His face darkens. "however, your WINDSHIELD-WASHING LIQUID is DANGEROUSLY low." Now it brightens. "may I suggest a bottle of DONNA'S BRAND WINDSHIELD-WASHING LIQUID?"
How much?
"MERELY FOUR DOLLARS and NINETY-NINE cents."
Outrageous. But you tell him to put it in.
"EXCELLENT, sir. you will also get FIVE *ADDITIONAL* AEROPLAN PLATINUM CLUB TRAVELING REDEEMABLE POINTS."
Well, now I can fly to Rat River, you joke, lamely.
The blob lets loose a peal of booming laughter. His body is convulsed by the effort. Several gasping breaths later, he wipes a non-existent tear away from his eye.
"VERY humourous, sir."
The blob bounds out of the building, windshield-washer fluid in hand. You turn to the kid again.
Seriously, what does he get out of this?
The kid shrugs.
I don't know, it's like his whole life. He takes care of his mom and he comes here to pump gas and stock shelves. I guess it's his form of pride.
But I mean, there's pride and then there's this.
Well, you bought the fluid, didn't you?
The kid turns back to his magazine.
You watch the blob through the plate-glass windows. With aplomb he fills your washer fluid, not a single drop escaping the reservoir. A flourish and he replaces the cap on the bottle. He moves to go inside.
As he approaches the building (bounding, of course), you see three figures advance toward him. Teenagers. They're running, carrying something. They whoop and cry as they make their way toward the blob.
The blob turns. His expression, horror.
The teens let fly from their cargo as they pass the blob. Eggs. In seconds he is drenched head to toe in shiny egg white and runny yolk. They run away, laughing.
The blob enters the building, dripping and sticky.
"those HOOLIGANS have BEFOULED my GARMENTS. a THOUSAND CURSES on them, I SAY!" He storms off toward the back of the store.
The teenager, unimpressed, approaches the register.
With the washer fluid that's forty-two ninety. Anything else?
As he processes your credit card, you can hear the blob talking on the phone in the back.
"NO, MOTHER, i *DIDN'T* fight them. yes, MOTHER, i'm wearing clean underwear. No. NO. mother. MOther. MOTHER. *MOTHER*. GOODBYE, MOTHER."
You hear him slam the receiver.
Stepping over the now-hard egg, you get in your car and drive away.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Reflections: Because Why Not
Love is a mysterious and powerful thing; that's probably why so much literature, music, why so many movies which concern themselves with it. Mysterious, we say, because one day it is present, and drives us to undertake Olympian deeds where no impetus existed before (and this is its power), and the next it is gone, leaving us puzzled amid the effects of our labour, the instrument of their creation having vanished. What is accomplished by love now seems alien in its absence, and one is driven to wonder just what it was that fired his heart in the first place. Spurs applied to the memory are no help - the photograph tells a story no longer true; the letter seems cold and calculating, where once it had seemed innocent and charming; the gift appears a debt that needs paying; the promise, obviously broken, if ever made in good faith.
Distressing, perhaps, but love's mystery is also cause for good cheer: it has come and gone, but it will come again. Absence of love provides its own impetus, a new kind of fire, which smoulders rather than rages, a slow burn of determination. Every setback, every obstacle is material for this flame; nothing can extinguish it, and through the harshest solitary winters one remains content.
These are trite sentiments, but human nonetheless.
Distressing, perhaps, but love's mystery is also cause for good cheer: it has come and gone, but it will come again. Absence of love provides its own impetus, a new kind of fire, which smoulders rather than rages, a slow burn of determination. Every setback, every obstacle is material for this flame; nothing can extinguish it, and through the harshest solitary winters one remains content.
These are trite sentiments, but human nonetheless.
H. of Halicarnassus: Inspired by Some Things That Might Have Happened, Maybe - Episode 3
In which H. maketh a plan - the Streetes bereft of Menne - the linened Headgarb - the districkt of Administration - the Towne crier bekicked - his Exhortatione to the Peoples
3. It was not the best of plans, though H. had to admit that he had few other options. He needed money; to get money he would need to woo a daughter of the nobility; therefore, he had to put himself in a position where he would be in contact with nobles. That meant he had to increase his profile. As a foreigner (a Greek, no less), this would ordinarily be a difficult thing. The only advantage H. possessed in comparison to the average traveler was his formidable education and his reputation as a writer. For, unlike the hordes of semi-literate merchants and dilettante aristocrats who flooded in from the Ionian communities in Asia Minor, H. was already an established author, at least in his hometown of Halicarnassus. Admittedly, his oeuvre was not exactly magisterial, as it mostly consisted of tawdry reiterations of various myths, to be read at the comedy festivals before the main plays in order to work up the crowd, but his name was nevertheless known to a few men. He was already hard at work documenting the histories of a few of the communities he had visited, these being thus far the vast commercial city of Miletus, the island of Samos, and the great and prosperous city of Ephesus.
Here laid his plan: he would have to turn what he had already recorded to his advantage. He needed to organize a reading of his work, that men of substance, learned men, might notice him and invite him to their houses. Of course, the cities he had visited were well-known to all in this area, as was their history, and so he would need to emphasize the unusual, the fantastic.
With the help of Pigrites, he had sorted through his scribblings and had found suitable material with which to sway his audience. Such material had of course to be stretched into a new shape; his purpose was not to preserve word-for-word the tales told him, but to cast light on the marvelous while preserving the broad outline of the story. This is what would win him friends.
Now he just had to get the attention of the people. Shouting at the market corner had proved useless, for it was impossible to make oneself heard over the general din. It was already past noon, and the sun beat mercilessly on the uncovered streets of Asur. The number of customers dwindled, as they sought relief indoors. H. was anxious, for he wished to have an audience before the sun set. This was ambitious, he realized, but he was focused on making his way into the more exotic lands of southern Asia. He would need to make his name known quickly.
H. made his way slowly up the street, toward the government district. Sweat began to soak his fine blue tunic.
"Pigrites," he said as he walked, "it's hot."
"So it is," he heard from behind him.
"What do you propose to do about this?"
He sensed Pigrites was no longer following him. Stopping, he looked back and saw his slave pulling from his girdle a linen towel, which he soon wrapped with astonishing dexterity into a kind of head-dress, complete with a trailing covering for the neck. Pigrites advanced, holding out the makeshift hat.
"Sit would be wise to wear this."
H. put the hat on his head.
"Much better," he said. He watched as Pigrites made another covering for himself.
They continued on their way. A dozen blocks later, they arrived at the intersection of the market road with the main boulevard of the government district. This too was mostly empty in the heat of the afternoon, save for a few men lounging under the entrance to the archival building. Gaily-garbed spearmen guarded the entrance to the colonnaded satrapal palace, and these too tried their best to find themselves some shade under the sheer patchwork walls of the palace. At the center of the intersection stood a ring of stones, around which were placed several granite obelisks. Into these obelisks iron pegs had been driven, and from the pegs were hung little notices, these carved into wood or else, more ostentatiously, painted on sheepskin stretched over a wooden frame. This was where the residents of Asur came to exchange information, and this was where H. had the best chance of getting word out quickly. Dozing in the shade of an obelisk he found a barker. These were slaves employed by merchants and others to make announcements and to make known official proclamations from the royal throne in Susa. Some were even freelancers, and would shout for as long as they were paid. It was one of the latter that H. now found before him.
H. gave the man a light kick.
The man awoke instantly. He jabbered in Persian, and Pigrites cleared his throat.
"He said 'what do you want?'"
Through Pigrites, H. managed to arrange terms with the barker: for four obols, for the rest of the day the barker would make known to passers-by the time and location of H.'s reading.
"Uh, where are we having the reading, Pigrites?"
Pigrites sighed.
"The common garden is free in the early evening, and remains lit until midnight. I suggest sir entertain the masses there."
H. told Pigrites to tell this to the barker, who thereupon nodded and took his payment.
It was a little cooler now, and people were beginning to creep back onto the streets. Noticing this, the barker took a deep breath and began earning his pay. Pigrites provided translation:
"WISE AND UPRIGHT MEN, GIRD THYSELVES FOR A VOYAGE INTO THE FANTASTIC. A SCHOLAR OF A THOUSAND KNOWINGS COMES TO OUR PROVINCIAL TOWN AND BRINGS TALES HERETOFORE KNOWN ONLY TO THE SPIRITS OF OUR ANCESTORS. HE KNOWS WHY THE ISLAND CITY SANK INTO THE OCEAN. HE KNOWS WHERE FROM COMES THE CHARIOT. HE HAS CONFERRED WITH THE PROPHETS AND UNDONE THE MYSTERY OF THE SUN AND THE STARS AND THE SEASONS. OUR INDULGENT MASTER WILL ENHANCE, ELUCIDATE, EDUCATE FOR FREE, THIS EVENING..."
H. sat a short distance away and watched those who came within earshot of the barker. A few particularly wealthy-looking men stopped and heard the barker out, even asking him a few questions. He watched them confer with their retinues before heading off. He was pleased.
3. It was not the best of plans, though H. had to admit that he had few other options. He needed money; to get money he would need to woo a daughter of the nobility; therefore, he had to put himself in a position where he would be in contact with nobles. That meant he had to increase his profile. As a foreigner (a Greek, no less), this would ordinarily be a difficult thing. The only advantage H. possessed in comparison to the average traveler was his formidable education and his reputation as a writer. For, unlike the hordes of semi-literate merchants and dilettante aristocrats who flooded in from the Ionian communities in Asia Minor, H. was already an established author, at least in his hometown of Halicarnassus. Admittedly, his oeuvre was not exactly magisterial, as it mostly consisted of tawdry reiterations of various myths, to be read at the comedy festivals before the main plays in order to work up the crowd, but his name was nevertheless known to a few men. He was already hard at work documenting the histories of a few of the communities he had visited, these being thus far the vast commercial city of Miletus, the island of Samos, and the great and prosperous city of Ephesus.
Here laid his plan: he would have to turn what he had already recorded to his advantage. He needed to organize a reading of his work, that men of substance, learned men, might notice him and invite him to their houses. Of course, the cities he had visited were well-known to all in this area, as was their history, and so he would need to emphasize the unusual, the fantastic.
With the help of Pigrites, he had sorted through his scribblings and had found suitable material with which to sway his audience. Such material had of course to be stretched into a new shape; his purpose was not to preserve word-for-word the tales told him, but to cast light on the marvelous while preserving the broad outline of the story. This is what would win him friends.
Now he just had to get the attention of the people. Shouting at the market corner had proved useless, for it was impossible to make oneself heard over the general din. It was already past noon, and the sun beat mercilessly on the uncovered streets of Asur. The number of customers dwindled, as they sought relief indoors. H. was anxious, for he wished to have an audience before the sun set. This was ambitious, he realized, but he was focused on making his way into the more exotic lands of southern Asia. He would need to make his name known quickly.
H. made his way slowly up the street, toward the government district. Sweat began to soak his fine blue tunic.
"Pigrites," he said as he walked, "it's hot."
"So it is," he heard from behind him.
"What do you propose to do about this?"
He sensed Pigrites was no longer following him. Stopping, he looked back and saw his slave pulling from his girdle a linen towel, which he soon wrapped with astonishing dexterity into a kind of head-dress, complete with a trailing covering for the neck. Pigrites advanced, holding out the makeshift hat.
"Sit would be wise to wear this."
H. put the hat on his head.
"Much better," he said. He watched as Pigrites made another covering for himself.
They continued on their way. A dozen blocks later, they arrived at the intersection of the market road with the main boulevard of the government district. This too was mostly empty in the heat of the afternoon, save for a few men lounging under the entrance to the archival building. Gaily-garbed spearmen guarded the entrance to the colonnaded satrapal palace, and these too tried their best to find themselves some shade under the sheer patchwork walls of the palace. At the center of the intersection stood a ring of stones, around which were placed several granite obelisks. Into these obelisks iron pegs had been driven, and from the pegs were hung little notices, these carved into wood or else, more ostentatiously, painted on sheepskin stretched over a wooden frame. This was where the residents of Asur came to exchange information, and this was where H. had the best chance of getting word out quickly. Dozing in the shade of an obelisk he found a barker. These were slaves employed by merchants and others to make announcements and to make known official proclamations from the royal throne in Susa. Some were even freelancers, and would shout for as long as they were paid. It was one of the latter that H. now found before him.
H. gave the man a light kick.
The man awoke instantly. He jabbered in Persian, and Pigrites cleared his throat.
"He said 'what do you want?'"
Through Pigrites, H. managed to arrange terms with the barker: for four obols, for the rest of the day the barker would make known to passers-by the time and location of H.'s reading.
"Uh, where are we having the reading, Pigrites?"
Pigrites sighed.
"The common garden is free in the early evening, and remains lit until midnight. I suggest sir entertain the masses there."
H. told Pigrites to tell this to the barker, who thereupon nodded and took his payment.
It was a little cooler now, and people were beginning to creep back onto the streets. Noticing this, the barker took a deep breath and began earning his pay. Pigrites provided translation:
"WISE AND UPRIGHT MEN, GIRD THYSELVES FOR A VOYAGE INTO THE FANTASTIC. A SCHOLAR OF A THOUSAND KNOWINGS COMES TO OUR PROVINCIAL TOWN AND BRINGS TALES HERETOFORE KNOWN ONLY TO THE SPIRITS OF OUR ANCESTORS. HE KNOWS WHY THE ISLAND CITY SANK INTO THE OCEAN. HE KNOWS WHERE FROM COMES THE CHARIOT. HE HAS CONFERRED WITH THE PROPHETS AND UNDONE THE MYSTERY OF THE SUN AND THE STARS AND THE SEASONS. OUR INDULGENT MASTER WILL ENHANCE, ELUCIDATE, EDUCATE FOR FREE, THIS EVENING..."
H. sat a short distance away and watched those who came within earshot of the barker. A few particularly wealthy-looking men stopped and heard the barker out, even asking him a few questions. He watched them confer with their retinues before heading off. He was pleased.
Monday, October 12, 2009
H. of Halicarnassus: Inspired by Some Things That Might Have Happened, Maybe - Episode 2
In which H cometh to the Highe Streete - The Peoples in their Many - Accounting of the Journey of H. - The Mysterie of Pigrites - Congress with a Breadmonger - Successful transaction - The Poore and Betrodden - H. to marryeth a Fine Woman of Virtuous Charackter
2. Freshly bathed and glistening with olive oil, H. stepped out onto the market-street of Asur. Pigrites, letting down the door-flap through which his master had stepped, followed close behind. They beheld a river of humanity surging along the market-course, lapping up the goods along her banks, carrying them away to destinations unknown. This brook babbled unintelligibly, at least to H.'s ear; a thousand sounds issued from a thousand exotic tongues, and their congress made them all the more incomprehensible. He watched as representatives from dozens of nations passed by: Phoenicians, Thracians, Bithynians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Lydians, Medians - these among many he could not yet name. Each, he knew, carried a story with him, a fragment of his nation's history, wrapped up in shawl or robe or chiton or vest.
He breathed in the dry summer air and stretched out his arms, as if to take in the entire scene before him.
"Tell me about this place, Pigrites. I was occupied with my writing in the carriage, so much so I hardly noticed when we arrived at the inn. I couldn't even tell you how we got here, or from where we came!"
Pigrites sighed.
"Sir hired a carriage from Ephesus with his considerable inheritance. We followed the course of the south-flowing stream Erydna, a branch of the Maeander. Having travelled for thirty-five parasangs, we arrived in Asur, which lies near the terminus of the Erydna. It is not a large place, but the market here is, as you can see, quite popular. It's one of the few places at which one can stock one's provisions before making the southern overland journey into Pisidia, and so plays host to merchants from all over. It started as a Doric colony, but the population is mostly Carian now. Though under the broader administration of the satrap of Caria, the tyrant Hadocles is still in charge of local affairs here."
H. let his arms fall to his side. He spoke without turning his head.
"How do you know so much, boy?"
Pigrites thrust out his chin.
"My people are taught to pay the utmost mind to everything that falls under our gaze."
"Your people?"
"Yes."
H. turned around and gestured in annoyance.
"No, who are your people? You look Italic to me."
Pigrites grinned.
"Tyrrhenians sell their slaves far and wide."
Unwilling to pursue the matter further with his reluctant slave, H. turned his attention back to the market. He was hungry, and the breakfast of cold lamb brains offered by the innkeeper had turned his stomach. Wading into the crowd, H. eventually managed to fight his way to the stall of a fruit vendor.
The vendor, who had been with cupped hands crying out in Persian what H. could only assume were the types of goods he was selling and their prices, turned his attention to H. as he approached. The vendor addressed H. in broken Greek.
"Ah, you a Greek, yeah, yeah, I speaken it good. Okay, Greek, you liken dates. I know this. You liken olive oil. I know this. You liken the barley-grind and raisins. Yeah." He removed a cloth which had been covering a wicket basket. "'Beholden, Achilles!' like says your Homer." H. peered into the basket. Inside were round flatbreads, brushed with olive oil and studded with dried grapes and dates. They smelled wonderful.
"How much?" asked H.
"For you is special price. I taken one-sixth obol, and you getten one delicious khurpatzum."
Pigrites suddenly came up from behind and began shouting at the vendor.
"Outrageous!" he said in Greek, before switching to Persian, in which he accused the merchant of a wide array of crimes and religious offenses. The merchant raised his hands and began screaming back at Pigrites. Back and forth the accusations flew, until the vendor at last put his palms up, facing H., and said, in Greek:
"Okay, your friend is good guy. One-sixteenth obol, special price only today."
H. looked at Pigrites, who nodded. He pulled a coin from his pouch and handed it to the vendor, and he in turn reached into his basket and gave him a khurpatzum.
"Light of Ahura Mazda be with you, friend Greek."
H. sat beside the vendor's stall on the steps of a covered portico, glad to be out of the harsh sun. Pigrites stood beside him and pushed away or kicked any beggar who got too close. The streets were full of these bent, almost-naked, sometimes limbless men and women, and while at first their wretched condition stirred H. to pity, their unbearable smell quickly drove away any charitable thoughts forming in his breast.
He ate quickly, eager to get on with the day's work. He had, on the advice of a certain merchant in Ephesus, planned to meet with the tyrant in Asur in order to get funds for his trip, but that design had produced no fruit. He was planning to travel to Egypt overland and to write down the history of all the peoples encountered, no small endeavour, and his inheritance, though ample, was nowhere near large enough to sustain him and what he hoped would be his considerable entourage; he needed a patron. If the tyrant wasn't going to help him, then he would need a Persian noble or a rich merchant.
As if monitoring his thoughts, Pigrites broke in.
"Perhaps sir should marry a daughter of the nobility."
H. was stunned.
"How did you know what I was thinking?"
Pigrites looked off into the distance.
"I have no idea what sir is thinking. My thoughts are simply on the attractiveness of Persian ladies. Their long dark hair, their lush lips. Why, if I were free, that's what I would do."
H. took another bite of flatbread and munched pensively.
2. Freshly bathed and glistening with olive oil, H. stepped out onto the market-street of Asur. Pigrites, letting down the door-flap through which his master had stepped, followed close behind. They beheld a river of humanity surging along the market-course, lapping up the goods along her banks, carrying them away to destinations unknown. This brook babbled unintelligibly, at least to H.'s ear; a thousand sounds issued from a thousand exotic tongues, and their congress made them all the more incomprehensible. He watched as representatives from dozens of nations passed by: Phoenicians, Thracians, Bithynians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Lydians, Medians - these among many he could not yet name. Each, he knew, carried a story with him, a fragment of his nation's history, wrapped up in shawl or robe or chiton or vest.
He breathed in the dry summer air and stretched out his arms, as if to take in the entire scene before him.
"Tell me about this place, Pigrites. I was occupied with my writing in the carriage, so much so I hardly noticed when we arrived at the inn. I couldn't even tell you how we got here, or from where we came!"
Pigrites sighed.
"Sir hired a carriage from Ephesus with his considerable inheritance. We followed the course of the south-flowing stream Erydna, a branch of the Maeander. Having travelled for thirty-five parasangs, we arrived in Asur, which lies near the terminus of the Erydna. It is not a large place, but the market here is, as you can see, quite popular. It's one of the few places at which one can stock one's provisions before making the southern overland journey into Pisidia, and so plays host to merchants from all over. It started as a Doric colony, but the population is mostly Carian now. Though under the broader administration of the satrap of Caria, the tyrant Hadocles is still in charge of local affairs here."
H. let his arms fall to his side. He spoke without turning his head.
"How do you know so much, boy?"
Pigrites thrust out his chin.
"My people are taught to pay the utmost mind to everything that falls under our gaze."
"Your people?"
"Yes."
H. turned around and gestured in annoyance.
"No, who are your people? You look Italic to me."
Pigrites grinned.
"Tyrrhenians sell their slaves far and wide."
Unwilling to pursue the matter further with his reluctant slave, H. turned his attention back to the market. He was hungry, and the breakfast of cold lamb brains offered by the innkeeper had turned his stomach. Wading into the crowd, H. eventually managed to fight his way to the stall of a fruit vendor.
The vendor, who had been with cupped hands crying out in Persian what H. could only assume were the types of goods he was selling and their prices, turned his attention to H. as he approached. The vendor addressed H. in broken Greek.
"Ah, you a Greek, yeah, yeah, I speaken it good. Okay, Greek, you liken dates. I know this. You liken olive oil. I know this. You liken the barley-grind and raisins. Yeah." He removed a cloth which had been covering a wicket basket. "'Beholden, Achilles!' like says your Homer." H. peered into the basket. Inside were round flatbreads, brushed with olive oil and studded with dried grapes and dates. They smelled wonderful.
"How much?" asked H.
"For you is special price. I taken one-sixth obol, and you getten one delicious khurpatzum."
Pigrites suddenly came up from behind and began shouting at the vendor.
"Outrageous!" he said in Greek, before switching to Persian, in which he accused the merchant of a wide array of crimes and religious offenses. The merchant raised his hands and began screaming back at Pigrites. Back and forth the accusations flew, until the vendor at last put his palms up, facing H., and said, in Greek:
"Okay, your friend is good guy. One-sixteenth obol, special price only today."
H. looked at Pigrites, who nodded. He pulled a coin from his pouch and handed it to the vendor, and he in turn reached into his basket and gave him a khurpatzum.
"Light of Ahura Mazda be with you, friend Greek."
H. sat beside the vendor's stall on the steps of a covered portico, glad to be out of the harsh sun. Pigrites stood beside him and pushed away or kicked any beggar who got too close. The streets were full of these bent, almost-naked, sometimes limbless men and women, and while at first their wretched condition stirred H. to pity, their unbearable smell quickly drove away any charitable thoughts forming in his breast.
He ate quickly, eager to get on with the day's work. He had, on the advice of a certain merchant in Ephesus, planned to meet with the tyrant in Asur in order to get funds for his trip, but that design had produced no fruit. He was planning to travel to Egypt overland and to write down the history of all the peoples encountered, no small endeavour, and his inheritance, though ample, was nowhere near large enough to sustain him and what he hoped would be his considerable entourage; he needed a patron. If the tyrant wasn't going to help him, then he would need a Persian noble or a rich merchant.
As if monitoring his thoughts, Pigrites broke in.
"Perhaps sir should marry a daughter of the nobility."
H. was stunned.
"How did you know what I was thinking?"
Pigrites looked off into the distance.
"I have no idea what sir is thinking. My thoughts are simply on the attractiveness of Persian ladies. Their long dark hair, their lush lips. Why, if I were free, that's what I would do."
H. took another bite of flatbread and munched pensively.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Sad Romance Fills Diaries: The Misspent Youth of K. Thor Jensen
Founder of the once-popular Portal of Evil site, Kristopher Thor Jensen also maintained an online diary, into which he poured his woes and miseries, thereby making a stew best described as bittersweet. One can't help but be moved by his tales of bungled romance and teenage anxiety, can't help but notice that his acute self-awareness and self-obsession conceal a real talent for putting the right words in the right places. So read the tale of Jenny, and sup at the table of self-imposed sadness.
If one could die of stupidity, I'd have croaked a thousand times. Thankfully, moronism is not fatal, and I've lived to tell about my mishaps. This is one of the worst.As I graduated high school, I had managed to alienate most of my friends. I borrowed $250 from Malia to pay library fines, and then couldn't pay her back, so felt very guilty about hanging out with her; Nate and Ethan, my former bandmates, had recoiled in terror from the sadly non-punk direction my lifestyle was going; and most of my other pals weren't really all that close anyways. I had started to be friends with people I'd never really hung out with before, but not that often. I was planning to move out ofmy mother's house and start a new life.
And then Jenny called.
She was one of the most depressing people I'd ever known; exuding a complete disaffected entropy, she slept through her life like I slept through my Physics class. And she called me and asked me to go to a memorial for the 51st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The perfect goth date.
We met by the shores of Greenlake, floating paper lanterns with Japanese writing painted on the sides; tiny points of light floated off into the distance. I wore a tweed coat and felt uncomfortable. She asked if she could hug me, and I assented. I become very uncomfortable when I was touched, in those days. A finger on the arm would send me into a flinching paroxysm. It was pretty sad and contributed greatly to no dates for me.
This still happens.
She hugged me and I twitched away inside my tweed coat. It was pretty sad. We went and waited for her mother to come and pick her up, and I walked to the bus stop and home, quiet and seething in the cool summer evening. I went over to her house. We made out in the basement with her parents upstairs. A dog was locked in a room off of hers, scratching and yelping. I had never kissed anyone before and it was a fairly inauspicious way to begin a fairly inauspicious career. My timidity irked her; it was here that I first concieved a usage for the word "inept." I would use it constantly for the next two weeks.
I was throwing a going-away party for Nate at my mother's house while she was out of town on a business trip. I cooked jambalaya. Jenny helped; she was there to give Nate his shirt, and had to leave at seven, when the party started. Seven came and went, and nobody showed. I lost it, freaked, started calling people's homes, panicky at every continually-ringing phone, unanswered. Jenny stood, watched. I finally reached Ethan, at home."Nate told everybody not to come..." and I threw the phone across the room, against the wall, shattering the plastic case, bending the antenna, and ending the conversation before Ethan's "...until ten."
I had sadly miscalculated twice. Once by not knowing when to begin; and once for stopping too early. I broke down and cried, hunching down against the wall. I left with Jenny. We spent the night in Paul Edlefsen's bed, her breath against my neck. Everything I had was ruined. I stayed awake all night, breathing in sync with her, barely holding on. I moved out, into my attic room, rigged up a sad little new life for myself, a life which Jenny was now a part of. Long, weird, tearful conversations over the phone, pissing off my new roommates. It was a mess, and I didn't know how much messier it would get.
When a girl says "I don't want to hurt you," it's going to happen. Don't get all macho and bravadoesque. You will get hurt. I did not know that.
We had our first date. I took her to a gallery opening of "outsider art" We rode the ferry to Bremerton and back, hypnotized by black water. It was all very nice and I took her up to the third floor and we had very bad sex.
Ineptitude.
Things got bad. She brought Max over and made out with him on my bed. She called me up, late at night, and asked, if she didn't get to stay with this one guy tonight, could she stay with me? I loaned her my house key. She dropped it through my mail slot at 3AM. When I opened the door, she was out of sight. I didn't wait up.
If one could die of stupidity, I'd have croaked a thousand times. Thankfully, moronism is not fatal, and I've lived to tell about my mishaps. This is one of the worst.As I graduated high school, I had managed to alienate most of my friends. I borrowed $250 from Malia to pay library fines, and then couldn't pay her back, so felt very guilty about hanging out with her; Nate and Ethan, my former bandmates, had recoiled in terror from the sadly non-punk direction my lifestyle was going; and most of my other pals weren't really all that close anyways. I had started to be friends with people I'd never really hung out with before, but not that often. I was planning to move out ofmy mother's house and start a new life.
And then Jenny called.
She was one of the most depressing people I'd ever known; exuding a complete disaffected entropy, she slept through her life like I slept through my Physics class. And she called me and asked me to go to a memorial for the 51st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The perfect goth date.
We met by the shores of Greenlake, floating paper lanterns with Japanese writing painted on the sides; tiny points of light floated off into the distance. I wore a tweed coat and felt uncomfortable. She asked if she could hug me, and I assented. I become very uncomfortable when I was touched, in those days. A finger on the arm would send me into a flinching paroxysm. It was pretty sad and contributed greatly to no dates for me.
This still happens.
She hugged me and I twitched away inside my tweed coat. It was pretty sad. We went and waited for her mother to come and pick her up, and I walked to the bus stop and home, quiet and seething in the cool summer evening. I went over to her house. We made out in the basement with her parents upstairs. A dog was locked in a room off of hers, scratching and yelping. I had never kissed anyone before and it was a fairly inauspicious way to begin a fairly inauspicious career. My timidity irked her; it was here that I first concieved a usage for the word "inept." I would use it constantly for the next two weeks.
I was throwing a going-away party for Nate at my mother's house while she was out of town on a business trip. I cooked jambalaya. Jenny helped; she was there to give Nate his shirt, and had to leave at seven, when the party started. Seven came and went, and nobody showed. I lost it, freaked, started calling people's homes, panicky at every continually-ringing phone, unanswered. Jenny stood, watched. I finally reached Ethan, at home."Nate told everybody not to come..." and I threw the phone across the room, against the wall, shattering the plastic case, bending the antenna, and ending the conversation before Ethan's "...until ten."
I had sadly miscalculated twice. Once by not knowing when to begin; and once for stopping too early. I broke down and cried, hunching down against the wall. I left with Jenny. We spent the night in Paul Edlefsen's bed, her breath against my neck. Everything I had was ruined. I stayed awake all night, breathing in sync with her, barely holding on. I moved out, into my attic room, rigged up a sad little new life for myself, a life which Jenny was now a part of. Long, weird, tearful conversations over the phone, pissing off my new roommates. It was a mess, and I didn't know how much messier it would get.
When a girl says "I don't want to hurt you," it's going to happen. Don't get all macho and bravadoesque. You will get hurt. I did not know that.
We had our first date. I took her to a gallery opening of "outsider art" We rode the ferry to Bremerton and back, hypnotized by black water. It was all very nice and I took her up to the third floor and we had very bad sex.
Ineptitude.
Things got bad. She brought Max over and made out with him on my bed. She called me up, late at night, and asked, if she didn't get to stay with this one guy tonight, could she stay with me? I loaned her my house key. She dropped it through my mail slot at 3AM. When I opened the door, she was out of sight. I didn't wait up.
Friday, October 2, 2009
H. of Halicarnassus: Inspired by Some Things That Might Have Happened, Maybe - Episode 1
In which we meeteth H. and his Manslave - this being PIGRITES - Rude Awakening in Asur - The Haire and the Filth - Origine of the Manslave - Moors and their Paprika spice - Retiring to the Bath
BOOK ONE
1. H. awoke with a foul taste in his mouth. His head throbbed, his muscles felt useless. He opened his eyes, then shut them quickly again, dazzled by the dust-speckled light. It was already mid-market time, and the sounds of a Carian bazaar drifted through the high, narrow windows of his rustic accommodation: voices crying out for buyers and sellers, the bleating of sheep, the grunts of pack-oxen, the shuffle of sandals in the dust, the clink of half-obols and quarter-minas in the brass scales. He rolled over, into a pile of his own vomit, and lay still for a moment.
"Pigrites," he said, his voice phlegmy and hoarse.
Pigrites padded into the room delicately, carrying a large clay pitcher.
"You're awake."
H. hacked and spat on the hard-packed dirt floor.
"Pigrites," he said again, more firmly this time.
Pigrites bowed deeply, hands steepled.
"Yes, your grace," he intoned solemnly.
"That's better. I didn't pay fifty darics for insolence of this sort." He slowly sat up, cradling his head in his hands. "Or was it a hundred?"
"As I recall," said Pigrites, as he filled the washbasin with hot water, "Sir hired me from an Arabian spice merchant in Ephesus at a rate of two obols a day and never bothered to return me." He left and quickly returned with a tray bearing a decanter of wine, one of cool water, and a bronze cup. He poured out an equal measure of water and wine each into the cup and handed it to his master.
H. drank deeply, and began to pick absently at the chunks of vomit in his curly Grecian hair.
"Well, he was supposed to get me an audience with the tyrant here in Asur, but nothing ever came of it. Those damn shifty Arabs. As I see it, you're just a walking debt made good." He tossed aside a particularly large chunk of yesterday's dinner. "Did I ever tell you how Arabians get their paprika?"
"Oh yes, several times on the road from Ephesus, I think. Let's see: young men in Arabia on the cusp of adulthood are given a leather sack and are told they must venture three days into the desert, where they will find the den of a fire-breathing salamander. Such dens are easily found because salamanders sleep right outside their den during the day in order to absorb the sun's rays and thereby stoke the furnaces in their bellies; such creatures being thirty feet long and bright red, their den is hard to miss. By courage or cunning the youth makes his way past the sleeping giant and into his den, where he must negotiate treacherous stone paths laid over rivers of liquid flame. In the bowels of the den our young man, stout of heart as he is, finds endless caverns filled with fine red powder; this, we are told, is what remains of salamanders of ages past, whose bodies are slowly cremated by the intense heat. No doubt by then soaked in his own sweat, the plucky Arab gathers as much of this as possible into his sack and makes a hasty retreat, lest he raise the ire of the elder salamanders, who keep watch over their ancestral burial grounds. And that's why one can hire ten Egyptian mercenaries for a month with a single choenix of paprika."
H. nodded approvingly.
"That's not bad, but you forgot one thing: they have to scoop the powder with a little golden shovel, or else it loses all its flavour."
"Of course. How foolish of me to forget." Pigrites at last saw and smelled his master's unpresentable state. "Let's draw sir a bath."
BOOK ONE
1. H. awoke with a foul taste in his mouth. His head throbbed, his muscles felt useless. He opened his eyes, then shut them quickly again, dazzled by the dust-speckled light. It was already mid-market time, and the sounds of a Carian bazaar drifted through the high, narrow windows of his rustic accommodation: voices crying out for buyers and sellers, the bleating of sheep, the grunts of pack-oxen, the shuffle of sandals in the dust, the clink of half-obols and quarter-minas in the brass scales. He rolled over, into a pile of his own vomit, and lay still for a moment.
"Pigrites," he said, his voice phlegmy and hoarse.
Pigrites padded into the room delicately, carrying a large clay pitcher.
"You're awake."
H. hacked and spat on the hard-packed dirt floor.
"Pigrites," he said again, more firmly this time.
Pigrites bowed deeply, hands steepled.
"Yes, your grace," he intoned solemnly.
"That's better. I didn't pay fifty darics for insolence of this sort." He slowly sat up, cradling his head in his hands. "Or was it a hundred?"
"As I recall," said Pigrites, as he filled the washbasin with hot water, "Sir hired me from an Arabian spice merchant in Ephesus at a rate of two obols a day and never bothered to return me." He left and quickly returned with a tray bearing a decanter of wine, one of cool water, and a bronze cup. He poured out an equal measure of water and wine each into the cup and handed it to his master.
H. drank deeply, and began to pick absently at the chunks of vomit in his curly Grecian hair.
"Well, he was supposed to get me an audience with the tyrant here in Asur, but nothing ever came of it. Those damn shifty Arabs. As I see it, you're just a walking debt made good." He tossed aside a particularly large chunk of yesterday's dinner. "Did I ever tell you how Arabians get their paprika?"
"Oh yes, several times on the road from Ephesus, I think. Let's see: young men in Arabia on the cusp of adulthood are given a leather sack and are told they must venture three days into the desert, where they will find the den of a fire-breathing salamander. Such dens are easily found because salamanders sleep right outside their den during the day in order to absorb the sun's rays and thereby stoke the furnaces in their bellies; such creatures being thirty feet long and bright red, their den is hard to miss. By courage or cunning the youth makes his way past the sleeping giant and into his den, where he must negotiate treacherous stone paths laid over rivers of liquid flame. In the bowels of the den our young man, stout of heart as he is, finds endless caverns filled with fine red powder; this, we are told, is what remains of salamanders of ages past, whose bodies are slowly cremated by the intense heat. No doubt by then soaked in his own sweat, the plucky Arab gathers as much of this as possible into his sack and makes a hasty retreat, lest he raise the ire of the elder salamanders, who keep watch over their ancestral burial grounds. And that's why one can hire ten Egyptian mercenaries for a month with a single choenix of paprika."
H. nodded approvingly.
"That's not bad, but you forgot one thing: they have to scoop the powder with a little golden shovel, or else it loses all its flavour."
"Of course. How foolish of me to forget." Pigrites at last saw and smelled his master's unpresentable state. "Let's draw sir a bath."
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Studies in Pity: Assorted Erotica
Sometimes we find ourselves staring at the wall. Usually we're simply in a daze and not thinking about very much at all; the day, packed full of adventure and mischief as it is, has exhausted us, and we require an object whose contemplation will not add to our fatigue. The wall, in its blank earnestness, seems perfect for the task.
On some days, however, some cruel and lonely days, the wall begins to seem more substantial than ourselves. It seems to have more achievements to its credit, more friends, a more robust constitution, and certainly a better sex life. Some of these walls, you realize, have borne witness to the rising of more than three generations of man. They count you among the least of those upon whom their gaze has fallen. Their whiteness and austerity seem no longer neutral, but condemnatory: "You too, creature of flesh and blood, shall pass." Then you realize the wall has three allies, each of whom appears to be conspiring against you in a different way; in their totality, they imprison you. One threatens to collapse, the other to let in the poisonous curry fumes from next door, the last to steal the moisture from your body. Whispers crowd out sane thoughts. You question next the loyalties of the door: "It's not reliable. It's always changing sides. One day open, on the next, closed. This will not do." Even your bookcases, erstwhile comrades, seem no longer trustworthy. Escape is no longer possible. "Fire," you think. The All-Consumer. It is your only recourse...
There's a deep and profound madness there, one which is assuaged by finding men more pitiable than oneself. Some men need not look very far to find people of that sort: they merely stroll down the hall of their well-appointed office to find someone of lower rank than themselves. This done, they enter the office of their subordinate, whip out their dick, place it on the desk of their astonished colleague, and say "What do you think of that?" Then they tuck their manhood away and saunter off, having gathered energy sufficient for at least a weak. Subordinates must simply put up with this behaviour, though at least they have the opportunity to sexually harass their own subordinates, too, and they theirs, in a long-chain of humiliation and enervation.
But not all of us work in offices or have subordinates. We must engage in a virtual dick-waving, must find ourselves a virtual subordinate to humiliate... uh, virtually. For that purpose I nominate David Gonterman, a man in his late thirties who draws cartoons for an audience of exactly nobody, and poorly. If ever you feel the walls closing in, simply swing on over to The Gonterman Shrine and instantly feel better about yourself. JSP, the curator of all things strange, has seen fit to assemble a number of Gonterman Original Works in one place, and has put his acid wit to work in providing running commentary for Daveykins' comics. Though it's gone without an update since 2001, the Shrine remains amusing nonetheless.
Up next: a short story involving Herodotus and his first love, as it might be told by Herodotus himself. Will his eromenos be a girl? A boy? A god in the form of an animal? An animal in the form of a god? A hermaphroditic Ethiopian, aged one-hundred twenty? Who knows?!?
On some days, however, some cruel and lonely days, the wall begins to seem more substantial than ourselves. It seems to have more achievements to its credit, more friends, a more robust constitution, and certainly a better sex life. Some of these walls, you realize, have borne witness to the rising of more than three generations of man. They count you among the least of those upon whom their gaze has fallen. Their whiteness and austerity seem no longer neutral, but condemnatory: "You too, creature of flesh and blood, shall pass." Then you realize the wall has three allies, each of whom appears to be conspiring against you in a different way; in their totality, they imprison you. One threatens to collapse, the other to let in the poisonous curry fumes from next door, the last to steal the moisture from your body. Whispers crowd out sane thoughts. You question next the loyalties of the door: "It's not reliable. It's always changing sides. One day open, on the next, closed. This will not do." Even your bookcases, erstwhile comrades, seem no longer trustworthy. Escape is no longer possible. "Fire," you think. The All-Consumer. It is your only recourse...
There's a deep and profound madness there, one which is assuaged by finding men more pitiable than oneself. Some men need not look very far to find people of that sort: they merely stroll down the hall of their well-appointed office to find someone of lower rank than themselves. This done, they enter the office of their subordinate, whip out their dick, place it on the desk of their astonished colleague, and say "What do you think of that?" Then they tuck their manhood away and saunter off, having gathered energy sufficient for at least a weak. Subordinates must simply put up with this behaviour, though at least they have the opportunity to sexually harass their own subordinates, too, and they theirs, in a long-chain of humiliation and enervation.
But not all of us work in offices or have subordinates. We must engage in a virtual dick-waving, must find ourselves a virtual subordinate to humiliate... uh, virtually. For that purpose I nominate David Gonterman, a man in his late thirties who draws cartoons for an audience of exactly nobody, and poorly. If ever you feel the walls closing in, simply swing on over to The Gonterman Shrine and instantly feel better about yourself. JSP, the curator of all things strange, has seen fit to assemble a number of Gonterman Original Works in one place, and has put his acid wit to work in providing running commentary for Daveykins' comics. Though it's gone without an update since 2001, the Shrine remains amusing nonetheless.
Up next: a short story involving Herodotus and his first love, as it might be told by Herodotus himself. Will his eromenos be a girl? A boy? A god in the form of an animal? An animal in the form of a god? A hermaphroditic Ethiopian, aged one-hundred twenty? Who knows?!?
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Editorial: Tugging the Heart & Fogging the Mind
CARTER CITY FREE PRESS
HAROLD DEVONSHIRE JR. III - Columnist
May 15, 2009
Ironic.
That's the word that comes to mind when a police sergeant gets their feet cut off by an errant lawnmower.
I looked it up.
Webster's dictionary.
Oh yes.
Irony is the contrast between what actually happens and what we expect to happen.
Nobody would expect a man who spent most of career stepping on others with his Nazi-issued jackboots to lose the very feet which made the wearing of those instruments of oppression possible.
But he did, and in bloody fashion too.
And that's ironic.
All the more so because that lawnmower was being operated at the time by perennial police harassment target Igor Kaminov, that Azerbaijan-born documentary-maker and crusader for human rights, who has made Carter City his home now for some twenty years.
I spoke with Mr. Kaminov at his Plessis St. address.
He lives in a house made from old mattresses.
The mattresses smell like stale urine.
That, he says, reminds him of the kind of urine-soaked justice he received back in the old country.
Kaminov emigrated from his homeland because he was tired of his films being confiscated by the police.
"Every time I tried to make film a couple making love through the windows of their home, you know, the police would like come and, ah, just beat me up and taking my f***ing video away. I wanted to explore the animal kingdom, the passionate sexy animal kingdom, because man is just an animal. I have the teeth marks to prove it."
He shows me where the police bit him, next to the heroin needle tracks on his inner arm.
Taking a massive hit from the crack pipe Kaminov offers me, I find myself sympathizing with him.
Who hasn't been bitten by the police?
Figuratively bitten.
That's some imagery to think about.
I ask him about his life in Carter City.
"At first it was f***ing awesome, man. I could make all the movies I wanted. I got this telephoto lens that lets me watch people f***king from two miles away. I think I've even got a tape of you and your intern here."
He begins rummaging through his bindle-sack.
I tell him there's no need for me to watch myself disappointing yet another woman.
I can see that any time I want.
Just ask my wife.
That whore.
I guide him back to his current predicament, plucking the necessary words from out of the fog of crack smoke through which my mind is wandering.
He points to one of his mattresses, which is flying flat on the ground, and which has a tarp covering most of it.
He lifts the tarp and shows me the huge crop of hallucinogenic mushrooms growing underneath.
"Right, well, there I was mowing my lawn when this f***ing cop comes up and says 'There've been some complaints about you dealing drugs on this corner.' And I'm like, well f*** you man, I won this corner in the '83 Carter City Auction, and I'm not about to give it up. And this guy is always harassing me, telling me I can't s*** where I please and how I can't shoot up in the schoolyard during recess. It's bulls***. Anyway, I start chasing him with my lawnmower, and then he falls down and I f***ing cut his feet off. They didn't come round this way no more after that."
He explained that the man's feet "literally exploded in a shower of blood."
Seems more like a shower of justice to me.
I can still see the stain of justice on the grass where the would-be tyrant fell.
I was going to interview the police sergeant in question, but I felt like I had gotten the full story from this noble crack-smoking Azerbaijani pornographer.
I think the Mayor owes Mr. Kaminov an apology.
I think "my bad" would be a good start.
Isn't that ironic?
Yes it is.
Are rhetorical questions a great stylistic device?
They are indeed.
HAROLD DEVONSHIRE JR. III - Columnist
May 15, 2009
Ironic.
That's the word that comes to mind when a police sergeant gets their feet cut off by an errant lawnmower.
I looked it up.
Webster's dictionary.
Oh yes.
Irony is the contrast between what actually happens and what we expect to happen.
Nobody would expect a man who spent most of career stepping on others with his Nazi-issued jackboots to lose the very feet which made the wearing of those instruments of oppression possible.
But he did, and in bloody fashion too.
And that's ironic.
All the more so because that lawnmower was being operated at the time by perennial police harassment target Igor Kaminov, that Azerbaijan-born documentary-maker and crusader for human rights, who has made Carter City his home now for some twenty years.
I spoke with Mr. Kaminov at his Plessis St. address.
He lives in a house made from old mattresses.
The mattresses smell like stale urine.
That, he says, reminds him of the kind of urine-soaked justice he received back in the old country.
Kaminov emigrated from his homeland because he was tired of his films being confiscated by the police.
"Every time I tried to make film a couple making love through the windows of their home, you know, the police would like come and, ah, just beat me up and taking my f***ing video away. I wanted to explore the animal kingdom, the passionate sexy animal kingdom, because man is just an animal. I have the teeth marks to prove it."
He shows me where the police bit him, next to the heroin needle tracks on his inner arm.
Taking a massive hit from the crack pipe Kaminov offers me, I find myself sympathizing with him.
Who hasn't been bitten by the police?
Figuratively bitten.
That's some imagery to think about.
I ask him about his life in Carter City.
"At first it was f***ing awesome, man. I could make all the movies I wanted. I got this telephoto lens that lets me watch people f***king from two miles away. I think I've even got a tape of you and your intern here."
He begins rummaging through his bindle-sack.
I tell him there's no need for me to watch myself disappointing yet another woman.
I can see that any time I want.
Just ask my wife.
That whore.
I guide him back to his current predicament, plucking the necessary words from out of the fog of crack smoke through which my mind is wandering.
He points to one of his mattresses, which is flying flat on the ground, and which has a tarp covering most of it.
He lifts the tarp and shows me the huge crop of hallucinogenic mushrooms growing underneath.
"Right, well, there I was mowing my lawn when this f***ing cop comes up and says 'There've been some complaints about you dealing drugs on this corner.' And I'm like, well f*** you man, I won this corner in the '83 Carter City Auction, and I'm not about to give it up. And this guy is always harassing me, telling me I can't s*** where I please and how I can't shoot up in the schoolyard during recess. It's bulls***. Anyway, I start chasing him with my lawnmower, and then he falls down and I f***ing cut his feet off. They didn't come round this way no more after that."
He explained that the man's feet "literally exploded in a shower of blood."
Seems more like a shower of justice to me.
I can still see the stain of justice on the grass where the would-be tyrant fell.
I was going to interview the police sergeant in question, but I felt like I had gotten the full story from this noble crack-smoking Azerbaijani pornographer.
I think the Mayor owes Mr. Kaminov an apology.
I think "my bad" would be a good start.
Isn't that ironic?
Yes it is.
Are rhetorical questions a great stylistic device?
They are indeed.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Story: Erotic Fantasy
Eric the Trollslayer was at wits' end. Sweaty, terrified, and exhausted, he was utterly lost, utterly without a clue as to what he should do. His purpose in life was, and always would be, the defeat and killing of trolls, but perhaps he had bitten off more troll than he could chew. But wait a minute. Defeat and killing, you say? Redundant? By no means! The troll, you see, was a fearsome creature: as tall as two stout men, it tipped the grain scales at two hundred stone and had the muscle to matc. Nigh invincible, one could split their skull open, tear their arms from their sockets (covering oneself in tacky lime-green ichor in the process), run them through a dozen times with one's Valiant Sword of Massive Obliterating Destruction, and within a minute the creature would revive itself. As if by magic (and it probably was magic, Eric suddenly realized) flesh would thread itself back onto bone from an invisible distaff, while those same bones would knit themselves back together, guided by unseen needles. Leaching material from the earth itself, failed organs would reconstitute themselves as quickly as an Abyssal fiend takes to unguarded cattle (Eric, never having seen an abyssal fiend, was unsure how quick such a creature was to engage in this sort of thing, but he was willing to trust to the truth of proverbs). Apparently lacking any recognition that just moments earlier it had been an emerald splotch on the road to Waterdeep, the troll would right itself and begin the process of menacing innocents all over again. The troll could be defeated, but it could not be killed.
That, of course, was where Eric the Trollslayer would come in. No mere dabbler in swords and armour he, this Trollslayer had been trained in the ancient art of Trollslaying. Apprenticed to a blind and wizened old man (who was only about thirty-five, retiring age for the understandably short-lived practitioners of this discipline), he had spent years studying the creatures: their likes, dislikes, strengths, weakness, their haunts, their origins. He learned to fight them, to block their claws with a dinner plate fastened to his left arm, to kick them in the genitals when they were over-committed. Every night he would listen to tales of epic battles fought, would cheer at the victories, would raise his tankard and drink his virgin margarita in silence at the losses.
When he came of age, he was sent on his Examination. The task: kill a troll and return with its head. The old man led him to a nearby troll nest (actually more of a ranch, he later learned, specifically designed to test potential inductees; he had failed to notice the fences and feeding troughs at the time). There, standing before the mouth of a low-ceilinged cave (despite their height, trolls stooped to walk around; they liked to look for money and collectible cards on the ground), his master wordlessly handed unto him the product of his experience: the Trollslayer Weapon. Its name, though uncreative, was accurate. This weapon, like all those of its kind, had been enchanted by a grumpy old wizard they kept locked in the basement of the Trollslayer Brotherhood Lodge. A stubby-looking club that hung at one's side from a leather cord, to the uninformed it looked laughably weak. But when brought near a troll its powers came to life. First, the club would begin to glow a dull red. Then, it would cry like a baby; indeed, gurgles, hiccoughs, and slurping could be heard for a mile around, and little drips of baby snot would gather at the club's tip. This noise would engage the attention of nearby trolls, who ever-hungered for tender baby flesh. Closer and closer they would come, seeking the source of the cries, until they beheld a mere manling, hardly worth the effort of peeling the tough manflesh from thick manbones, which themselves contained fruity manmarrow. But press forward they would, all red eyes, long limbs and pumped pectoral muscles, their claws extended, a cloud of dust rising up behind their loping footfalls. Just as they attempted to strike: wham! The club-baby would screech horribly and the trolls would recoil. Flames would begin to spout from the weapon, the heat prompting the user to surge forward and begin his murderous work. Only fire could prevent the regeneration of trolls, and the Trollslayer Weapon contained an inexhaustible fountain of liquid flame. Green flesh would blacken and curl from several feet away; ichor would steam and hiss and boil away at a glancing blow; troll eyeballs would plump and burst from merest glance at the righteous fire. Yet, as though by magic (and, once more, it probably was, Eric mused) the wielder would remain completely unharmed. In fact, no matter the environment, the club would, when its powers were activated, become totally weightless and release a fine perfumed mist, to cover over the stench of burning troll meat.
On that day Eric had had but one troll to kill, and it had been a delightful experience. Proudly had he returned with his troll head, which, like all others brought back to the Lodge, was set above the mantle of their giant stone fireplace. Of course, having once belonged to a troll, the head still maintained a semblance of life: it would take wheezing breaths, searching for its lungs; blood would congeal and uncongeal as it attempted to find a heart to pump it; eyes would loll uselessly, searching for the body that had once carried them to new and exciting places. Members of the lodge would make conversation with the heads, and some of the trolls became quite popular, with one even being elected Lodge Treasurer.
But that was then. Within a year, Eric had slain fifty trolls, but he had become hungry for more. He wanted to take down the most famous troll of all, Push'Pu. Push'Pu was a the product of a union between a dragon-witch and a gay troll and he had in addition to his already fearsome regenerative powers several magical abilites at his command. He had little embroidered wings with which he could fly around. He could turn people to stone by making unkind remarks about their appearance. He could shoot a little beam of damaging light out of his finger just by saying "zzzzzap" with a lisp. Eric knew he would need an extraordinary weapon to defeat this extraordinary troll. He visited the basement wizard and demanded he improve his weapon. "No," said the wizard. "I only make one every week, and no more. Unless," he said, his voice lowering to conspiratorial whisper, "you wanted to release me from these chains." "Of course, noble wizard!" said Eric. The wizard took the weapon and told him to return in three days. Three days hence, Eric returned to claim his weapon. The basement wizard smiled as he presented the new and improved Trollslayer DeLux, a wicked-looking sword. "How is it different?" asked Eric. "Simply tell it do so and it will leap from your hands and hack the head off of any troll, pouring fire down their throat as it does so. Then it will fly into their hoard and bring you a lot of treasure." "Excellent," said Eric, and he turned to leave. "Wait!" cried the wizard. "What about our deal?"
"I've decided not to uphold my end of the bargain. I am treacherous and vainglorious." "Curses!" said the wizard.
Eric set off for Push'Pu's lair. It was deep in the Chartreuse Curtain Mountains, and the path was guarded by many a troll. But, just as the wizard had said, so the sword worked. Every time he spied a troll from afar, Eric would command the sword to attack and, like a magically-powered regular timekeeping device, the sword would fly from his hands and cut his foe to ashen ribbons. And just as regularly, it would seek out the home of the newly-slain troll and return with whatever gold coins and jewelry and magical trinkets the troll had accumulated over the years. Soon he had so much treasure he could hardly carry it. As he scaled the day-glo heights of Chartreuse Curtain Mountain he became very tired and realized he would not be able to carry his loot any further. Using the sword, he dug a hole in the ground and put all his treasure in there, marking the spot with a pile of stones. He would have to remember to pick it up as he left.
Now it was on to Push'Pu. He approached the forbidding cavern and hunched down to enter. As he made his way deeper into the gloomy lair, the sword, unexpectedly, grew heavier and heavier. The effort of crouching and dragging the increasingly weighty sword caused him to begin to perspire. Sweat, of course, was the bane of the Trollslayer, for it caused trolls to enter a maddened frenzy, in which they became extremely difficult to kill. Trollslayers were taught to master the temperature control of their body and instead regulated themselves by urinating frequently - hence their fondness for tunics, in favour of pantaloons. But the concentration demanded by the sword made Eric forget his training, and he forgot to urinate; thus did his brow moisten. Snuffling could be heard in the distance. A grumbling, lisping troll voice echoed in a distant cavern "What iiiiiiis that DEE-lish-US smell? Daddy thinks somone's come to PA-LAY!" Fear struck Eric for the first time, and this caused him to sweat yet more profusely. The delicate padding of what was surely Push'Pu became more distinct; the monster approached. Eric decided to abandon the sword and make a break for the exit. As he turned to scamper away, his arm was jerked back. The sword would not leave his grip. Panicked, he strained and tugged and yanked at his arm, all to no avail: his hand had been magically bound to the hilt of the sword. "Where ARE youuuuuuu?!" In the dim light of the cave Eric saw the shadow of the fell beast round the corner, and soon enough he was face-to-knee with the stooping, florid majesty of the effeminate master troll. "Why you look good enough to EAT!" And then he did. In one gulp down went erstwhile hero and sword, into the distended but well-exfoliated belly of his one-time nemesis. But before he could sit and luxuriate, Push'Pu's belly split open and disgorged a partially-digested Eric and his very disobedient but angry sword. Push'Pu fell backward as the sword's flames ran up and down his exquisite skin, and Eric's corpse thudded to the ground, the sword landing beside with a clatter. For a moment, all was silent.
Then the sword disappeared in a puff of smoke. When the air cleared, behold, our basement wizard. "Asshole," said the basement wizard, as he reached down to pull a cigarette from Eric's mostly-intact leather jerkin. He lit it with a magical flame that sprouted from the tip of his finger. "That's better," he said to no one in particular, taking a long drag. "Haven't had one of these in two hundred years. Oh yeah," he said nonchalantly, looking at Eric, "thanks for paying into my retirement fund." The wizard departed from the cave, collected the loot his sword had gathered, and lived for another forty years in a magic flying yacht in the invisible city of Kua-Lu.
TH'ENDE
That, of course, was where Eric the Trollslayer would come in. No mere dabbler in swords and armour he, this Trollslayer had been trained in the ancient art of Trollslaying. Apprenticed to a blind and wizened old man (who was only about thirty-five, retiring age for the understandably short-lived practitioners of this discipline), he had spent years studying the creatures: their likes, dislikes, strengths, weakness, their haunts, their origins. He learned to fight them, to block their claws with a dinner plate fastened to his left arm, to kick them in the genitals when they were over-committed. Every night he would listen to tales of epic battles fought, would cheer at the victories, would raise his tankard and drink his virgin margarita in silence at the losses.
When he came of age, he was sent on his Examination. The task: kill a troll and return with its head. The old man led him to a nearby troll nest (actually more of a ranch, he later learned, specifically designed to test potential inductees; he had failed to notice the fences and feeding troughs at the time). There, standing before the mouth of a low-ceilinged cave (despite their height, trolls stooped to walk around; they liked to look for money and collectible cards on the ground), his master wordlessly handed unto him the product of his experience: the Trollslayer Weapon. Its name, though uncreative, was accurate. This weapon, like all those of its kind, had been enchanted by a grumpy old wizard they kept locked in the basement of the Trollslayer Brotherhood Lodge. A stubby-looking club that hung at one's side from a leather cord, to the uninformed it looked laughably weak. But when brought near a troll its powers came to life. First, the club would begin to glow a dull red. Then, it would cry like a baby; indeed, gurgles, hiccoughs, and slurping could be heard for a mile around, and little drips of baby snot would gather at the club's tip. This noise would engage the attention of nearby trolls, who ever-hungered for tender baby flesh. Closer and closer they would come, seeking the source of the cries, until they beheld a mere manling, hardly worth the effort of peeling the tough manflesh from thick manbones, which themselves contained fruity manmarrow. But press forward they would, all red eyes, long limbs and pumped pectoral muscles, their claws extended, a cloud of dust rising up behind their loping footfalls. Just as they attempted to strike: wham! The club-baby would screech horribly and the trolls would recoil. Flames would begin to spout from the weapon, the heat prompting the user to surge forward and begin his murderous work. Only fire could prevent the regeneration of trolls, and the Trollslayer Weapon contained an inexhaustible fountain of liquid flame. Green flesh would blacken and curl from several feet away; ichor would steam and hiss and boil away at a glancing blow; troll eyeballs would plump and burst from merest glance at the righteous fire. Yet, as though by magic (and, once more, it probably was, Eric mused) the wielder would remain completely unharmed. In fact, no matter the environment, the club would, when its powers were activated, become totally weightless and release a fine perfumed mist, to cover over the stench of burning troll meat.
On that day Eric had had but one troll to kill, and it had been a delightful experience. Proudly had he returned with his troll head, which, like all others brought back to the Lodge, was set above the mantle of their giant stone fireplace. Of course, having once belonged to a troll, the head still maintained a semblance of life: it would take wheezing breaths, searching for its lungs; blood would congeal and uncongeal as it attempted to find a heart to pump it; eyes would loll uselessly, searching for the body that had once carried them to new and exciting places. Members of the lodge would make conversation with the heads, and some of the trolls became quite popular, with one even being elected Lodge Treasurer.
But that was then. Within a year, Eric had slain fifty trolls, but he had become hungry for more. He wanted to take down the most famous troll of all, Push'Pu. Push'Pu was a the product of a union between a dragon-witch and a gay troll and he had in addition to his already fearsome regenerative powers several magical abilites at his command. He had little embroidered wings with which he could fly around. He could turn people to stone by making unkind remarks about their appearance. He could shoot a little beam of damaging light out of his finger just by saying "zzzzzap" with a lisp. Eric knew he would need an extraordinary weapon to defeat this extraordinary troll. He visited the basement wizard and demanded he improve his weapon. "No," said the wizard. "I only make one every week, and no more. Unless," he said, his voice lowering to conspiratorial whisper, "you wanted to release me from these chains." "Of course, noble wizard!" said Eric. The wizard took the weapon and told him to return in three days. Three days hence, Eric returned to claim his weapon. The basement wizard smiled as he presented the new and improved Trollslayer DeLux, a wicked-looking sword. "How is it different?" asked Eric. "Simply tell it do so and it will leap from your hands and hack the head off of any troll, pouring fire down their throat as it does so. Then it will fly into their hoard and bring you a lot of treasure." "Excellent," said Eric, and he turned to leave. "Wait!" cried the wizard. "What about our deal?"
"I've decided not to uphold my end of the bargain. I am treacherous and vainglorious." "Curses!" said the wizard.
Eric set off for Push'Pu's lair. It was deep in the Chartreuse Curtain Mountains, and the path was guarded by many a troll. But, just as the wizard had said, so the sword worked. Every time he spied a troll from afar, Eric would command the sword to attack and, like a magically-powered regular timekeeping device, the sword would fly from his hands and cut his foe to ashen ribbons. And just as regularly, it would seek out the home of the newly-slain troll and return with whatever gold coins and jewelry and magical trinkets the troll had accumulated over the years. Soon he had so much treasure he could hardly carry it. As he scaled the day-glo heights of Chartreuse Curtain Mountain he became very tired and realized he would not be able to carry his loot any further. Using the sword, he dug a hole in the ground and put all his treasure in there, marking the spot with a pile of stones. He would have to remember to pick it up as he left.
Now it was on to Push'Pu. He approached the forbidding cavern and hunched down to enter. As he made his way deeper into the gloomy lair, the sword, unexpectedly, grew heavier and heavier. The effort of crouching and dragging the increasingly weighty sword caused him to begin to perspire. Sweat, of course, was the bane of the Trollslayer, for it caused trolls to enter a maddened frenzy, in which they became extremely difficult to kill. Trollslayers were taught to master the temperature control of their body and instead regulated themselves by urinating frequently - hence their fondness for tunics, in favour of pantaloons. But the concentration demanded by the sword made Eric forget his training, and he forgot to urinate; thus did his brow moisten. Snuffling could be heard in the distance. A grumbling, lisping troll voice echoed in a distant cavern "What iiiiiiis that DEE-lish-US smell? Daddy thinks somone's come to PA-LAY!" Fear struck Eric for the first time, and this caused him to sweat yet more profusely. The delicate padding of what was surely Push'Pu became more distinct; the monster approached. Eric decided to abandon the sword and make a break for the exit. As he turned to scamper away, his arm was jerked back. The sword would not leave his grip. Panicked, he strained and tugged and yanked at his arm, all to no avail: his hand had been magically bound to the hilt of the sword. "Where ARE youuuuuuu?!" In the dim light of the cave Eric saw the shadow of the fell beast round the corner, and soon enough he was face-to-knee with the stooping, florid majesty of the effeminate master troll. "Why you look good enough to EAT!" And then he did. In one gulp down went erstwhile hero and sword, into the distended but well-exfoliated belly of his one-time nemesis. But before he could sit and luxuriate, Push'Pu's belly split open and disgorged a partially-digested Eric and his very disobedient but angry sword. Push'Pu fell backward as the sword's flames ran up and down his exquisite skin, and Eric's corpse thudded to the ground, the sword landing beside with a clatter. For a moment, all was silent.
Then the sword disappeared in a puff of smoke. When the air cleared, behold, our basement wizard. "Asshole," said the basement wizard, as he reached down to pull a cigarette from Eric's mostly-intact leather jerkin. He lit it with a magical flame that sprouted from the tip of his finger. "That's better," he said to no one in particular, taking a long drag. "Haven't had one of these in two hundred years. Oh yeah," he said nonchalantly, looking at Eric, "thanks for paying into my retirement fund." The wizard departed from the cave, collected the loot his sword had gathered, and lived for another forty years in a magic flying yacht in the invisible city of Kua-Lu.
TH'ENDE
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Blogging: Fatgoons, Another Blog (tag: blog blogs, blogging, bLoG, BLOG)
Fat Goons Blog
What is this, you might ask? A link for my browser? Not on my Internet, good sir, you say. Or, if you were a goon, you might say "goon sire." But if you were a goon you would understand the purpose of the above-posted link implicitly. Confused?
Once upon a time there was a little angry man who worked in the video game journalism industry, a position somewhere between fluffer and Governor of Illinois on the great continuum of respectability. This little angry man thought that he was too good for VoodooExtreme.com, the site at which he worked (and which is currently owned by IGN, along with half of the rest of the internet), and he sought to branch out. Often, while immersed in the excitement of copyediting the reviews of video games made by the big-shot video game journalists at the site, this little angry man would consider the game in question and remark "this sure is something awful!" to no one in particular, for the little man had alienated the staff at VoodooExtreme.com with his less-than-pleasant demeanor. When he wasn't busy failing college classes or contemplating the uselessness of his existence, this angry man dreamed of opening his own website, where he could catalogue all kinds of very awful video games. From his wildest flight of fancy he returned with a name: SomethingAwful.com.
The little angry man? Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka. And he succeeded, beyond his most egregious hopes.
Indeed, what began as a website for the express purpose of mocking dreary video games soon blossomed into a hub of internet comedy. You see, the site also hosted a general-purpose webforum, and in a lot of respects this became more popular than the main site, to such an extent that for a time the catchphrase "there's a front page?!" had considerable currency among veteran posters. While the majority of the humour at Something Awful found its origin in video games, inevitably all kinds of discussions were undertaken on the boards: politics, automobiles, sex, life, money, business, etc. It's important to note that a very specific kind of person is going to be drawn to a site that concerns itself mainly with comedy derived from computer games. By and large, this sort of person is fat, bearded, lonely, socially awkward, and possibly smelly, and the members of the Something Awful forums are no exception to this stereotype. Indeed, their penchant for anti-social behaviour both on and off-line in time earned the posters of this forum the nickname goon (see Fig. 1). There is some history to this.
Figure 1: Typical Goons
One of the features of the main site was Mr. Kyanka's "Awful Link of the Day." Every day, without fail, Richard or one of the posters on the forum would dredge up an example of a terrible website, and would post it on Something Awful with a small capsule review, encouraging the world to visit the site to let its owner know just how terrible it was. The site might be poorly coded, or full of animated kittens and jangling background MIDIs, or even dedicated to the lurid business of pedophilia; whatever the case, as long as it offended the sensibilities of a certain little angry webmaster, it was fair game. People who were linked on Something Awful often found their servers overrun by a new flood of external traffic, mostly in the form of either fans of Something Awful or posters on its forums. These folk were liable to make something of a mess when visiting an Awful Link: they would ravage the website's guestbook, make obscene comments on its forums, harass the webmaster with offensive e-mails, and so forth. Those linked were rarely pleased with their misfortune, and often let Mr. Kyanka know by e-mail about their displeasure. Mr. Kyanka, in turn, would post their e-mails on the forums and make sarcastic comments for the amusement of his followers. One day, a particularly simple-minded webmaster, rather irate on account of the desecration at the hands of Something Awful fans of a website which served as a memorial for dozens of her departed cats, and well-versed in empty American radio talk-show rhetoric, accused Mr. Kyanka of having sent his "goons" after her. The term was adopted by the hateful and maladjusted members of this forum as a badge of pride: from then on, they were goons. Goons had secret code phrases so they could identify each other in real life. Goons expressed remorse for the misfortunes of fellow goons by uttering a solemn phrase: "goondolences." Goons also believed in the existence of a sworn Goon Brotherhood, which reflected their ideals and provided a centre for their way of life. Hence "goon sire" above: believing themselves to be lumpen kings among men, goons felt it necessary to create a new vocabulary suited to their elevated status. Their incestuous brand of pidgin-English only reinforced the native arrogance of the goons, since potential challengers, in the form of non-goons, could rarely make themselves understood.
As has already been mentioned, it's pretty clear what sort of person would put stock in this kind of thing: loners, fatties, autistics, or some combination thereof. To the rest of the internet, and indeed to the more discerning members of the forums themselves, "goon" became a term of derision. Extreme social awkwardness was termed "goony," as was an unhealthy obsession with artery-hardening food (and an utter inability to live like a civilized human being: see Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Typical Goon Habitation (aka "Gooncave")
Indeed, goons became infamous for their disturbing feats of gluttony, which they celebrated on the website with long writeups and with high-quality digital photography. Such feats include the construction entirely from meat of a five-pound model British galleon, the consuming in one go of a gallon of milk, the invention of the "hot-dog rollup," a baked half-pound German sausage covered in two pounds of regular ground beef and 10 oz of American cheddar, and so on.
Thus the fatgoon blog: created as a tribute to the acts of excess on the part of the members of Something Awful forums, it serves as a reminder to all of us how far it is possible to fall in life. When you and your four-hundred pound bulk are reclining in a fetid trailer in West Virgina consuming five pound tubs of Mike and Ikes while watching anime, you know it's time for a lifestyle change. But goons will be goons.
Good night, goon sire.
"Eat your heart out, Rodin."
What is this, you might ask? A link for my browser? Not on my Internet, good sir, you say. Or, if you were a goon, you might say "goon sire." But if you were a goon you would understand the purpose of the above-posted link implicitly. Confused?
Once upon a time there was a little angry man who worked in the video game journalism industry, a position somewhere between fluffer and Governor of Illinois on the great continuum of respectability. This little angry man thought that he was too good for VoodooExtreme.com, the site at which he worked (and which is currently owned by IGN, along with half of the rest of the internet), and he sought to branch out. Often, while immersed in the excitement of copyediting the reviews of video games made by the big-shot video game journalists at the site, this little angry man would consider the game in question and remark "this sure is something awful!" to no one in particular, for the little man had alienated the staff at VoodooExtreme.com with his less-than-pleasant demeanor. When he wasn't busy failing college classes or contemplating the uselessness of his existence, this angry man dreamed of opening his own website, where he could catalogue all kinds of very awful video games. From his wildest flight of fancy he returned with a name: SomethingAwful.com.
The little angry man? Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka. And he succeeded, beyond his most egregious hopes.
Indeed, what began as a website for the express purpose of mocking dreary video games soon blossomed into a hub of internet comedy. You see, the site also hosted a general-purpose webforum, and in a lot of respects this became more popular than the main site, to such an extent that for a time the catchphrase "there's a front page?!" had considerable currency among veteran posters. While the majority of the humour at Something Awful found its origin in video games, inevitably all kinds of discussions were undertaken on the boards: politics, automobiles, sex, life, money, business, etc. It's important to note that a very specific kind of person is going to be drawn to a site that concerns itself mainly with comedy derived from computer games. By and large, this sort of person is fat, bearded, lonely, socially awkward, and possibly smelly, and the members of the Something Awful forums are no exception to this stereotype. Indeed, their penchant for anti-social behaviour both on and off-line in time earned the posters of this forum the nickname goon (see Fig. 1). There is some history to this.
Figure 1: Typical GoonsAs has already been mentioned, it's pretty clear what sort of person would put stock in this kind of thing: loners, fatties, autistics, or some combination thereof. To the rest of the internet, and indeed to the more discerning members of the forums themselves, "goon" became a term of derision. Extreme social awkwardness was termed "goony," as was an unhealthy obsession with artery-hardening food (and an utter inability to live like a civilized human being: see Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Typical Goon Habitation (aka "Gooncave")Thus the fatgoon blog: created as a tribute to the acts of excess on the part of the members of Something Awful forums, it serves as a reminder to all of us how far it is possible to fall in life. When you and your four-hundred pound bulk are reclining in a fetid trailer in West Virgina consuming five pound tubs of Mike and Ikes while watching anime, you know it's time for a lifestyle change. But goons will be goons.
Good night, goon sire.
"Eat your heart out, Rodin."Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Theft: Someone Else's Much Better Work
Laugh. Live. Love. No time for a "real" blog post; instead laugh (perhaps for the first time while visiting this site!) at something a much better classicist wrote. I've been driven mad by Aeschylus, so it's good to know I'm not the only one.
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
by A.E. Housman
CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.
CHORUS
Strophe
In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I at last have come:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT
A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover,
Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.
Antistrophe
Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for,
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.
Epode
But now does my boding heart,
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor omit I the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with woolly deaths
And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament:
And to the rapid
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.
ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
by A.E. Housman
CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.
CHORUS
Strophe
In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I at last have come:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT
A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover,
Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.
Antistrophe
Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for,
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.
Epode
But now does my boding heart,
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor omit I the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with woolly deaths
And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament:
And to the rapid
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.
ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Considerations: The Old World and You
"Progress" is a loaded term. Its Latin roots suggest movement forward, that is, movement which follows the path laid out by the eyes, not that of the arse. A contrast: eyeward movement is good, assward movement bad. When we speak of ourselves and of our society, we often do so in reference to progress, as though moving forward, away from our collective ass-history, is a good thing; if only we could get over the horizon, we say to ourselves, if only we could be in that spot placed by our eyes some fifteen to twenty kilometers distant, depending on weather conditions. There lies happiness. Here, we think, is misery; to go backwards, tantamount to death by strangulation with one's own intestines. Thus our disdain for history, for the old, the ancient, the antiquarian, the antediluvian, the mediaeval, for the arthritic elderly, and so our love for the modern, the contemporary, the chic, the what-have-you. But I think there is much to be said for the occasional sojourn-by-ass. The history of the human race, after all, is not necessarily a tale of uninterrupted "progress," rather it is one of fits and starts, of spastic lunges for material satisfaction and spiritual fulfillment, convulsions of ecstasy, amputations of disaster, and, above all, sinus headaches of human-wrought suffering; if we recognize this fact, then we come to understand that what lies before our the eyes in our head is not necessarily better than that which our asshole's eye beholds. As evidence, I give you five excellent developments of the past that we have abandoned, possibly to our own detriment.
1. Slavery
"Radical opinion, Blogmaster," I hear you sneering to yourself, as you adjust your plastic-rimmed glasses and consider returning to surfing deviantart to look for new anime tattoo inspirations. "Go for the obviously racist idea, that's the height of comedy. Ugh," you say, twittering your disgust to an uncaring and mostly illiterate world. But this is no Michael Richards-esque piece of shock-schlock. I'm not suggesting a return to the racist slavery of America's past, a eugenically-justified bit of social terror totally divorced from political reality. No, I'm proposing a return to the slavery of the ancient world, that which resulted from military defeat. Now that would up the stakes of war. No longer would the world feel but mild indifference to Russia's rolling into Georgia unbidden and unannounced, to its seeking only political points and its wreaking a bit of ineffectual havoc. No; in my world, one of power unbridled and tyranny unshackled, their conquest of Georgia's Russian enclaves accomplished, the Reds would be saddled with some 20,000 slaves from the fatherland of Josef Stalin, which they could dispose of at their whim. Kill all the males, keep the children and women for breeding? You've got it, Putin. Put the males to work toiling in your vast underground vodka reservoirs, prostitute the women remorselessly, assemble the children into some kind of giant hideous flesh golem? Say the word, Dmitry. Either way, the consequences would be very real for both countries, and the rest of the Western world might have cause to react. The Ukraine, fearful of the ravishing Reds snatching their flowering maidens, might blockade Sevastapol and call up a few hundred thousand of their mostly toothless and permanently inebriated troops. The Poles might stop bidding up corrupt construction jobs for just a minute to consider the virtues of a well-guarded border. A return to slavery, then, would keep us all honest, at least from the point of view of realist international relations.
2. Cast-Iron Cookware
Have you ever said to yourself "I'm tired of convenient, carcinogenic, easy-to-clean teflon-coated carbon steel. I want something that's heavy, labour-intensive, that saturates my food with base metals, and which smells bad when maintained." Well, look no further, my friend, for the ancient technology of cast-iron is making a comeback in kitchens everywhere. More than a few hoity-toity establishments offer you steaks seared in cast-iron, breaded-pickerel cooked in butter to tongue-waxing perfection in the heavy black, lemon-dill potato wedges, the flavour locked in thanks to the even heat of Connecticut-forged ferrum fusum. Your food, of course, tastes great, but they don't show you the work involved in using that lovely bit of old world iron. In order to make perfect meals daily, buy a cast-iron pan and do the following: first, one must scrub the shellac or wax from a new pan with steel wool and scalding hot water. Then, the pan must be dried (immediately, or the pan will rust solid and give you tetanus) and coated with oil; as to what kind of oil, opinions differ - the prospective cook must consider the age of the pan, casting technique, pore density, altitude, disposition of the planets, and so forth, in order to decide on the right oil to use. Or they can just slap some Crisco on. Once coated, the pan must be put in the oven for about an hour, at anywhere from 300 to 500 degrees Farenheit. At this stage there will be a lot of smoke, and all of your clothing will begin to smell like your granddad's fishing boots. Repeat this stage several times, in order to build up the "seasoning," or non-stick coating of the pan. When all this is done, you're ready to cook; just make sure you coat the pan in oil before you put it away or the pan will rust instantly (and give you tetanus).
3. Innocence toward Narcotics
As is well-known, Coca-Cola once contained a bit of actual cocaine. Elixirs of alcohol and opium were regularly perscribed for ailments ranging from retardation, water on the brain, lumberjack's rickets, miner's lung, dancer's knee, smoker's choice, and so on, all the way up to womanly hysteria. Cigar tubes containing a mixture of tobacco and marijuana were to be found in the humidors of even the well-heeled; the church bake sale raked in more than a little dough, so to speak, from the sale of ecstasy-laced "GoodTyme" muffins. Alcohol was used to calm infants and to slow their speech - thus the origin of the Southern drawl. It was a different time, before the advent of Prohibition. Now, this blogger dares you to try even to smoke a joint on the steps of your Legislature or state Capitol without getting thrown in the pokey. No, we need a return to the times when our medical establishment looked with cold, dispassionate, sometimes red and somnolent eyes at any potential remedy. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks used marijuana to make rope and to cure ear worms, and that the Scythians would put a little tent over hot rocks and throw in cannabis seeds; crouching down, they would inhale the smoke of the sizzling spermae, and dance a little dance in memory of their ancestors. What is more touching than this? While we heat up heroin on fire-blued diner spoons in the gutted basements of abandoned warehouses, the ancients were laughing it up over a j or two, or else engaging in solemn remembrance of deeds done and battles won while themselves battling a mad case of the munchies. How far we hath fallen.
4. Straight-blade Razors
Death is ever-present. Her cold, skeletal hand never really leaves your shoulder; her fetid, mouldering odour never quite dissipates, as even that of even of the rankest fart does; her sepulchral body, ever crouched over yours, is perpetually ready to ferry your anima, once parted from its earthbound shell, to the torments waiting below. We are too much divorced from the reality of death. We insulate ourselves from death. We rarely actively contemplate our own mortality. Indeed, all reminders of death are removed from our homes: guns are kept locked away, knives are put in the kitchen block, meat comes pre-sliced, the city administration gets mad if you refuse to dispose of your pile of goat carcasses in a timely fashion. What I propose, then, is that we introduce once more into our lives a daily reminder of death. What better way to meditate on our own mortality than by daily putting a lethally sharp instrument against our supple throats for fifteen minutes at a time? Thus the straight-blade razor. Wickedly sharp, it demands consummate skill and devoted care to avoid scarring yourself permanently. Unlike every other object in our overly-padded, safety-belted lives, the straight-razor does not forgive, does not forget. Drop it, and you chip the blade. Store it improperly, it rusts. Forget to sharpen it, enjoy your new pockmarked visage. The work the razor demands in the way of maintenance reminds us of the Sisyphean aspect of life, of the unceasing torment and labour that strangles us all, until our corpses, bereft of breath, are released, free to fall, all limp tumbling, into the Abyss below. Hone for three sessions, strop for two, make a virginal sacrifice on an odd-numbered day with kosher salt. Then your face must be prepared to accept Death's ambassador: pre-shave oil, hot towel for several minutes, lather, lather, apply cream, left hand shave, prayer, right hand shave, prayer, clean face, aftershave, tend to battle wounds. Our forefathers were masters of war and of the straight-razor. We, at least, should endeavour to make ourselves like them in one of these ways.
5. Minding Your Own Goddamn Business
Every gas station employee wants to know how I am these days. Every retail clerk. Every meat-slicer at the deli-counter. Every mid-tier prostitute wants to know how my day has gone. "Good," "Great," we say, or perhaps, "You'll talk when I pay you to talk." Everybody spends their whole day screeching into their cellphone about their latest business transaction, about their new gilded bong, about their boyfriend's sister's wedding and who fucked who in the coat closet there. I say, "Enough." I like to imagine there was a time when the world was full of square-jawed Protestant men who worked eighty hour weeks and who spoke only about their work, or else about their nightly dalliances with "that broad from the typing pool with those gams to die for." It's possible such a world never existed. I might be hearkening back to a Golden Age that never was. Nevertheless, I propose a new rule: "Shut Up For a Minute." Whenever you want to speak, stop and ask yourself, "Is it possible I could not be talking right now?" If so, don't talk. The world will be a happier and more reflective place, and kings and tyrants will have a much easier time of ruling their mute and useless subjects.
1. Slavery
"Radical opinion, Blogmaster," I hear you sneering to yourself, as you adjust your plastic-rimmed glasses and consider returning to surfing deviantart to look for new anime tattoo inspirations. "Go for the obviously racist idea, that's the height of comedy. Ugh," you say, twittering your disgust to an uncaring and mostly illiterate world. But this is no Michael Richards-esque piece of shock-schlock. I'm not suggesting a return to the racist slavery of America's past, a eugenically-justified bit of social terror totally divorced from political reality. No, I'm proposing a return to the slavery of the ancient world, that which resulted from military defeat. Now that would up the stakes of war. No longer would the world feel but mild indifference to Russia's rolling into Georgia unbidden and unannounced, to its seeking only political points and its wreaking a bit of ineffectual havoc. No; in my world, one of power unbridled and tyranny unshackled, their conquest of Georgia's Russian enclaves accomplished, the Reds would be saddled with some 20,000 slaves from the fatherland of Josef Stalin, which they could dispose of at their whim. Kill all the males, keep the children and women for breeding? You've got it, Putin. Put the males to work toiling in your vast underground vodka reservoirs, prostitute the women remorselessly, assemble the children into some kind of giant hideous flesh golem? Say the word, Dmitry. Either way, the consequences would be very real for both countries, and the rest of the Western world might have cause to react. The Ukraine, fearful of the ravishing Reds snatching their flowering maidens, might blockade Sevastapol and call up a few hundred thousand of their mostly toothless and permanently inebriated troops. The Poles might stop bidding up corrupt construction jobs for just a minute to consider the virtues of a well-guarded border. A return to slavery, then, would keep us all honest, at least from the point of view of realist international relations.
2. Cast-Iron Cookware
Have you ever said to yourself "I'm tired of convenient, carcinogenic, easy-to-clean teflon-coated carbon steel. I want something that's heavy, labour-intensive, that saturates my food with base metals, and which smells bad when maintained." Well, look no further, my friend, for the ancient technology of cast-iron is making a comeback in kitchens everywhere. More than a few hoity-toity establishments offer you steaks seared in cast-iron, breaded-pickerel cooked in butter to tongue-waxing perfection in the heavy black, lemon-dill potato wedges, the flavour locked in thanks to the even heat of Connecticut-forged ferrum fusum. Your food, of course, tastes great, but they don't show you the work involved in using that lovely bit of old world iron. In order to make perfect meals daily, buy a cast-iron pan and do the following: first, one must scrub the shellac or wax from a new pan with steel wool and scalding hot water. Then, the pan must be dried (immediately, or the pan will rust solid and give you tetanus) and coated with oil; as to what kind of oil, opinions differ - the prospective cook must consider the age of the pan, casting technique, pore density, altitude, disposition of the planets, and so forth, in order to decide on the right oil to use. Or they can just slap some Crisco on. Once coated, the pan must be put in the oven for about an hour, at anywhere from 300 to 500 degrees Farenheit. At this stage there will be a lot of smoke, and all of your clothing will begin to smell like your granddad's fishing boots. Repeat this stage several times, in order to build up the "seasoning," or non-stick coating of the pan. When all this is done, you're ready to cook; just make sure you coat the pan in oil before you put it away or the pan will rust instantly (and give you tetanus).
3. Innocence toward Narcotics
As is well-known, Coca-Cola once contained a bit of actual cocaine. Elixirs of alcohol and opium were regularly perscribed for ailments ranging from retardation, water on the brain, lumberjack's rickets, miner's lung, dancer's knee, smoker's choice, and so on, all the way up to womanly hysteria. Cigar tubes containing a mixture of tobacco and marijuana were to be found in the humidors of even the well-heeled; the church bake sale raked in more than a little dough, so to speak, from the sale of ecstasy-laced "GoodTyme" muffins. Alcohol was used to calm infants and to slow their speech - thus the origin of the Southern drawl. It was a different time, before the advent of Prohibition. Now, this blogger dares you to try even to smoke a joint on the steps of your Legislature or state Capitol without getting thrown in the pokey. No, we need a return to the times when our medical establishment looked with cold, dispassionate, sometimes red and somnolent eyes at any potential remedy. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks used marijuana to make rope and to cure ear worms, and that the Scythians would put a little tent over hot rocks and throw in cannabis seeds; crouching down, they would inhale the smoke of the sizzling spermae, and dance a little dance in memory of their ancestors. What is more touching than this? While we heat up heroin on fire-blued diner spoons in the gutted basements of abandoned warehouses, the ancients were laughing it up over a j or two, or else engaging in solemn remembrance of deeds done and battles won while themselves battling a mad case of the munchies. How far we hath fallen.
4. Straight-blade Razors
Death is ever-present. Her cold, skeletal hand never really leaves your shoulder; her fetid, mouldering odour never quite dissipates, as even that of even of the rankest fart does; her sepulchral body, ever crouched over yours, is perpetually ready to ferry your anima, once parted from its earthbound shell, to the torments waiting below. We are too much divorced from the reality of death. We insulate ourselves from death. We rarely actively contemplate our own mortality. Indeed, all reminders of death are removed from our homes: guns are kept locked away, knives are put in the kitchen block, meat comes pre-sliced, the city administration gets mad if you refuse to dispose of your pile of goat carcasses in a timely fashion. What I propose, then, is that we introduce once more into our lives a daily reminder of death. What better way to meditate on our own mortality than by daily putting a lethally sharp instrument against our supple throats for fifteen minutes at a time? Thus the straight-blade razor. Wickedly sharp, it demands consummate skill and devoted care to avoid scarring yourself permanently. Unlike every other object in our overly-padded, safety-belted lives, the straight-razor does not forgive, does not forget. Drop it, and you chip the blade. Store it improperly, it rusts. Forget to sharpen it, enjoy your new pockmarked visage. The work the razor demands in the way of maintenance reminds us of the Sisyphean aspect of life, of the unceasing torment and labour that strangles us all, until our corpses, bereft of breath, are released, free to fall, all limp tumbling, into the Abyss below. Hone for three sessions, strop for two, make a virginal sacrifice on an odd-numbered day with kosher salt. Then your face must be prepared to accept Death's ambassador: pre-shave oil, hot towel for several minutes, lather, lather, apply cream, left hand shave, prayer, right hand shave, prayer, clean face, aftershave, tend to battle wounds. Our forefathers were masters of war and of the straight-razor. We, at least, should endeavour to make ourselves like them in one of these ways.
5. Minding Your Own Goddamn Business
Every gas station employee wants to know how I am these days. Every retail clerk. Every meat-slicer at the deli-counter. Every mid-tier prostitute wants to know how my day has gone. "Good," "Great," we say, or perhaps, "You'll talk when I pay you to talk." Everybody spends their whole day screeching into their cellphone about their latest business transaction, about their new gilded bong, about their boyfriend's sister's wedding and who fucked who in the coat closet there. I say, "Enough." I like to imagine there was a time when the world was full of square-jawed Protestant men who worked eighty hour weeks and who spoke only about their work, or else about their nightly dalliances with "that broad from the typing pool with those gams to die for." It's possible such a world never existed. I might be hearkening back to a Golden Age that never was. Nevertheless, I propose a new rule: "Shut Up For a Minute." Whenever you want to speak, stop and ask yourself, "Is it possible I could not be talking right now?" If so, don't talk. The world will be a happier and more reflective place, and kings and tyrants will have a much easier time of ruling their mute and useless subjects.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Dialogue: Ronald D. Moore Pitches "Darker" Re-Imagining of Classic Television
CHUCK GARABEDIAN: Mr. Moore. Thanks for being here today.
RON MOORE: It's my pleasure.
CHUCK: I understand you want to talk to the studio today about this series you're working on.
RON: Right. Yes. Well, you've all seen Battlestar: Galactica, right? I'm looking to do the same thing with that kid's show from a few years ago, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
HAROLD LEWIS: Really.
RON: You've got it. The original series had a lot of unexploited potential, I think. And re-imaginings are all the rage now. I mean, they just had Enterprise, and they're putting Star Trek back up on the big screen. The formula's pretty simple. You take an old series, sex it up with some new special effects, invert the genders of a few critical characters, and, above all, make it darker, or, as I prefer, "darkÿr."
HAROLD: Darker... or "darker?"
RON: "Darkÿr."
HAROLD: "Darkÿr?"
RON: Precisely. So here's my take on the whole thing. Earth, 2027. The United Confederation of Allied States is engaged in war with the Federated Union of Aligned Sovereignties. The fighting is relentless; millions have died; the suffering is palpable. We do a few long shots of destroyed cities and mothers feeding their children the rotting flesh of their deceased fathers, while sister, hollow-eyed and incapable of tears, looks on, prayers for death leaving her softly-fluttering lips. Giant mechanized walkers roaming the wasteland, pumping machine gun fire into wearied refugees (and it has to be machine guns - lasers and shit aren't visceral or "darkÿr" enough). Then, suddenly, an alien threat: Rita Repulsa, lesbian witch-goddess of the planet Puk-Nak and that guy with the blue face have come in big spaceships at the command of Space Emperor Shrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'vu and seek to enslave humanity. We stand at a threshold: do we put aside our differences and unite to combat this new evil? Temporary truce is declared; a task force of both sides' soldiers is put together. Under an ancient Tibetan temple are found giant robots that come together to form a much larger robot. That robot is also gay and does not care very much for its father. But the robot can fly and shoot missiles and it will fight. At least, it will fight for as long as our Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers can conceal their loathing for one another and for all things living. Also, in the temple they find a prophecy concerning the fate of humanity, which will be revealed bit by bit and as I make it up. What I say in the fiftieth episode will probably not be at all consistent with what I say in the first. So. There you have it.
CHUCK: But what's the hook? I mean, in Battlestar you turned Richard Hatch into a woman. That got people saying "This guy has great big frackin' balls."
RON: Well, you remember the Putties, right?
CHUCK: The grey guys, all blooga blooga, yeah?
RON: Right. Well, it turns out they're all mutant experiments gone wrong, horrible semi-fetal laboratory-grown monsters. But they have an ounce of humanity, you see. I think in the first episode somebody will fall in love and have sex with one. And then it will be a ghost in that guy's mind for two more seasons, and then it will go away.
HAROLD: Wow. Why a ghost?
RON: Why anything? Life is doomed.
HAROLD: Huh. Well, I'm sold. What do you think, Chuck?
CHUCK: Ron, will there be a non-sensical plot and no fewer than eleven Mexican stand-offs an episode? Will everyone's teeth be perpetually gritted? Will levity be destroyed along with humanity's innocence?
RON: And how.
HAROLD: Sold. Ron, you've done it again. Collect your bag of money and armful of fawning IMDB posts at the door. Ask Janice, she'll know what to do.
RON MOORE: It's my pleasure.
CHUCK: I understand you want to talk to the studio today about this series you're working on.
RON: Right. Yes. Well, you've all seen Battlestar: Galactica, right? I'm looking to do the same thing with that kid's show from a few years ago, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
HAROLD LEWIS: Really.
RON: You've got it. The original series had a lot of unexploited potential, I think. And re-imaginings are all the rage now. I mean, they just had Enterprise, and they're putting Star Trek back up on the big screen. The formula's pretty simple. You take an old series, sex it up with some new special effects, invert the genders of a few critical characters, and, above all, make it darker, or, as I prefer, "darkÿr."
HAROLD: Darker... or "darker?"
RON: "Darkÿr."
HAROLD: "Darkÿr?"
RON: Precisely. So here's my take on the whole thing. Earth, 2027. The United Confederation of Allied States is engaged in war with the Federated Union of Aligned Sovereignties. The fighting is relentless; millions have died; the suffering is palpable. We do a few long shots of destroyed cities and mothers feeding their children the rotting flesh of their deceased fathers, while sister, hollow-eyed and incapable of tears, looks on, prayers for death leaving her softly-fluttering lips. Giant mechanized walkers roaming the wasteland, pumping machine gun fire into wearied refugees (and it has to be machine guns - lasers and shit aren't visceral or "darkÿr" enough). Then, suddenly, an alien threat: Rita Repulsa, lesbian witch-goddess of the planet Puk-Nak and that guy with the blue face have come in big spaceships at the command of Space Emperor Shrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'vu and seek to enslave humanity. We stand at a threshold: do we put aside our differences and unite to combat this new evil? Temporary truce is declared; a task force of both sides' soldiers is put together. Under an ancient Tibetan temple are found giant robots that come together to form a much larger robot. That robot is also gay and does not care very much for its father. But the robot can fly and shoot missiles and it will fight. At least, it will fight for as long as our Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers can conceal their loathing for one another and for all things living. Also, in the temple they find a prophecy concerning the fate of humanity, which will be revealed bit by bit and as I make it up. What I say in the fiftieth episode will probably not be at all consistent with what I say in the first. So. There you have it.
CHUCK: But what's the hook? I mean, in Battlestar you turned Richard Hatch into a woman. That got people saying "This guy has great big frackin' balls."
RON: Well, you remember the Putties, right?
CHUCK: The grey guys, all blooga blooga, yeah?
RON: Right. Well, it turns out they're all mutant experiments gone wrong, horrible semi-fetal laboratory-grown monsters. But they have an ounce of humanity, you see. I think in the first episode somebody will fall in love and have sex with one. And then it will be a ghost in that guy's mind for two more seasons, and then it will go away.
HAROLD: Wow. Why a ghost?
RON: Why anything? Life is doomed.
HAROLD: Huh. Well, I'm sold. What do you think, Chuck?
CHUCK: Ron, will there be a non-sensical plot and no fewer than eleven Mexican stand-offs an episode? Will everyone's teeth be perpetually gritted? Will levity be destroyed along with humanity's innocence?
RON: And how.
HAROLD: Sold. Ron, you've done it again. Collect your bag of money and armful of fawning IMDB posts at the door. Ask Janice, she'll know what to do.
Vignette: Scenes from Winnipeg Transit
Smoke hung thick in the air, tension thicker still. Naught but the sound of cards flipping and marriages failing could be heard. Glasses clinked, whiskey evaporated; satisfaction lay elsewhere. Men muttered, not to anyone in particular, not about anything in particular, but rather to affirm that they were still alive, that another mission lay ahead of them, that a spiteful God had not yet torn them loose from a hateful world - as they deserved, they would often nod, and would further confirm with a pensive drag on their John Player Specials. Tattooed flesh covered muscles made iron-hard by years of strenuous labour; by no means unfamiliar to them was the rough and tumble of city life. Lurching alcoholic, leering ethnic, rowdy teenager: all had met their match in the form of one of these men.
The doors burst open. Dim light met harsh, and hearts pounded.
“We’ve got a call-in on the 61 Express. Guy’s got to take his kid to Kenora today. It’s for fencing or something, I don’t really know.” The dispatcher narrowed his eyes. “Which one of you motherfuckers wants it?”
Silenced reigned amid the shaved heads and navy blue parkas. Then a grunt, the scraping of a chair, and the imposing bulk of Specialist Jack Henry filled the doorway. Looming over the dispatcher, he stubbed his cigarette on the man’s forehead and blew smoke into his face.
“Fuck you. We’ve lost two guys on that run this month. Who’s going to want it?”
Tears of pain streamed down the dispatcher’s face. Through gritted teeth:
“Chief says there’s time-and-a-half for whoever picks up the slack.”
Henry grinned.
“Well, that’s more like it.” He drew his sidearm and pulled the slide, loading a fateful round into the chamber. Brushing past the dispatcher, he made his way to the garage.
“Fuckin’ college kids won’t know what hit ‘em.”
The dispatcher shook his head.
“On-call guys. Fuckin’ cowboys. Nothin’ but fuckin’ cowboys.”
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Grammar: On Direct Address
One of the great disadvantages of our progressive class structure is that we often find ourselves without a term by which we can politely address someone of different standing, age, and/or gender, of whose name or official designation we are ignorant. For instance, how does a young man properly get the attention of a young woman in a polite fashion, without insinuating that he seeks glory on the fields of sexual conquest? "Hey you" is certainly rude. "Assface" has recently fallen out of fashion. "My dear" is condescending and possibly creepy. "Buttertits" has met with only mixed success thus far. Other, more stratified, cultures do not suffer from this problem. There is nothing overtly sexual about a Texan addressing a young woman as "darlin'" - rather, that a Texan woman is a possible target for a man's crossbow shaft of virile potestas is taken for granted in their culture. Some more progressive women might take offence at the use of the term, but that offence, at least, is not presumed - it's something the addresser learns after the fact.
We certainly do have terms for men, though there are some difficulties. "Buddy" or "my friend" most definitely are acceptable forms of address for men of the same age and standing, though the latter term has a whiff of Birkenstock sandals about it. "Sir" can work for those considerably older than you, though some people do not like to be addressed as "sir," seeing it as too formal, or as a painful reminder of their Imperial Russian past; a delicate thing, then. What is to be done about this?
Toward a remedy, I propose a new set of totally arbitrary terms for direct address. They are to be understood to be polite but straightforward; they do not invite conversation, rather they merely grab the attention of the addressee for temporary purposes, in cases where the addresser is unaware of a better term by which they can initiate dialogue with the addressee, or in cases where it's unnecessary to know their name (as with a whorehouse client to the valet). What is needed is a universal grammar by which one can differentiate age, standing, and gender in an easy-to-understand way. As long as the addresser correctly identifies the nature of his or her addressee, there should be no difficulty in composing terms on the fly.
What would such a grammar look like? Any term employed would be relative; that is, for any given speaker, it can be assumed that they are talking to one of three people: someone of the same standing, someone of lower standing, or someone of higher standing. Then, the gender of the addressee would have to be taken into consideration. Further, the age would have to be differentiated. Components could be dropped if context makes the intended target clear enough. An addressing term, then, would ideally take the form
(gender)(standing)(age)
Gender terms*:
Male = andro(aner)-
Female = gyno(gyne)-
*The term in parentheses is used if the latter two components are omitted
Standing terms:
Higher-than-addresser= -ameino-
Equal-to-addresser = (no term is employed)
Lower-than-addresser = -cheiron-
Age terms:
Older-than-addresser= -geronta
Equal-to-addresser= (no term is employed)
Younger-than-addresser= -paida
So there you have it. Next time you need to shove past an old male member of Parliament on the bus, you just say (allowing for vowel elision), "Pardon me andrameinogeronta, but I need to get past. Well, fuck you too."
We certainly do have terms for men, though there are some difficulties. "Buddy" or "my friend" most definitely are acceptable forms of address for men of the same age and standing, though the latter term has a whiff of Birkenstock sandals about it. "Sir" can work for those considerably older than you, though some people do not like to be addressed as "sir," seeing it as too formal, or as a painful reminder of their Imperial Russian past; a delicate thing, then. What is to be done about this?
Toward a remedy, I propose a new set of totally arbitrary terms for direct address. They are to be understood to be polite but straightforward; they do not invite conversation, rather they merely grab the attention of the addressee for temporary purposes, in cases where the addresser is unaware of a better term by which they can initiate dialogue with the addressee, or in cases where it's unnecessary to know their name (as with a whorehouse client to the valet). What is needed is a universal grammar by which one can differentiate age, standing, and gender in an easy-to-understand way. As long as the addresser correctly identifies the nature of his or her addressee, there should be no difficulty in composing terms on the fly.
What would such a grammar look like? Any term employed would be relative; that is, for any given speaker, it can be assumed that they are talking to one of three people: someone of the same standing, someone of lower standing, or someone of higher standing. Then, the gender of the addressee would have to be taken into consideration. Further, the age would have to be differentiated. Components could be dropped if context makes the intended target clear enough. An addressing term, then, would ideally take the form
(gender)(standing)(age)
Gender terms*:
Male = andro(aner)-
Female = gyno(gyne)-
*The term in parentheses is used if the latter two components are omitted
Standing terms:
Higher-than-addresser= -ameino-
Equal-to-addresser = (no term is employed)
Lower-than-addresser = -cheiron-
Age terms:
Older-than-addresser= -geronta
Equal-to-addresser= (no term is employed)
Younger-than-addresser= -paida
So there you have it. Next time you need to shove past an old male member of Parliament on the bus, you just say (allowing for vowel elision), "Pardon me andrameinogeronta, but I need to get past. Well, fuck you too."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Considerations: On the Intentional in Literature and Life
I am always deeply impressed by intentional action. I rarely act with much deliberation, finding it somewhat gauche. This is not to say that I'm impulsive, or erratic, for I'm perfectly capable of satisfying my short-term needs with intentional action: when sleepy, I go to bed; when thirsty, I reach for some water; when hungry, I stare longingly at my unmarinated cats. What I mean is that I have no broader plan in life. One day melds into the next; time is an ever-receding ever-rushing ocean, and I the graceless feeding manatee, basking in the lukewarm shallows of unfulfilled ambition. I enroll in programs and go to places and do things that will give me credentials which no one will respect, but if you asked me why I preferred this course of action to any other then I would be as bereft of sensible answers as the average Jay Leno program is of humour. It would be more accurate to say, then, that in the grand scheme of things I rarely act with deliberation, which is why I find myself terribly awestruck when people are apparently so deliberative that they plan in advance what literarily significant gestures they are going to execute that day, such as are in accordance with them as a literary character.
To give you an idea of just what it is I'm talking about, read the following passage from the Feb. 2009 issue of Harper's:
"I heard the voices of predators again through the wind. And for loss, for vengeance, for sorrow, I fired the last three rounds that my father had left in my rifle into the dark of the field behind the barn. I was responsible for the bullets and knew, as I sent them, that they would have to fall somewhere."
Here, in the closing words of his tale about his love affair with that most American of objects, the rifled gun, Benjamin Busch acts very deliberately. With his father deceased and gone to that great shooting gallery in the sky, Mr. Busch, now a grown man (a Marine, no less), decides to spend a moment shooting into the darkness outside the family home with the .22 rifle they both cherished. I'm personally astonished by this. Do people really do things of this sort? Who is around to record the significance of this gesture? The wolves in the woods don't care. They don't talk, and their writing is incomprehensible, filled as it is with esoteric references to German philosophy and serving as it does as a mouthpiece for their nationalist rhetoric. For personal satisfaction? If it was personally satisfying then the author would keep it to themselves. The secret, I suspect, is that he was intending to write this article since infancy and has molded his life in such a way as to allow a nice arc of character development, one which ends with a man firing three bullets at nothing in particular and feeling darned good about it. Imagine the planning involved in such an endeavour! Imagine the foresight! Always the question must haunt him when considering whether to do this or that: "is it good for the story?" Even so quotidian a thing as stealing your neighbour's newspaper becomes fraught with worry when Harold Bloom might be opining on its consistency with you qua literary character. "Is this the Benjamin Busch we've come to know in the rest of the story?" Yet, for some reason, Benjamin Busch is full of confidence and energy and is able to achieve gainful employment while I'm left to suffer from catastrophic anxiety whenever I try to explain how to make macaroni and cheese to a six year old retarded girl. Benjamin Busch also plays Officer Anthony Colicchio on TV's The Wire, while I play a short-legged pedant who gets short of breath pronouncing "pronounce." So, in some ways, we're really quite alike.
To give you an idea of just what it is I'm talking about, read the following passage from the Feb. 2009 issue of Harper's:
"I heard the voices of predators again through the wind. And for loss, for vengeance, for sorrow, I fired the last three rounds that my father had left in my rifle into the dark of the field behind the barn. I was responsible for the bullets and knew, as I sent them, that they would have to fall somewhere."
Here, in the closing words of his tale about his love affair with that most American of objects, the rifled gun, Benjamin Busch acts very deliberately. With his father deceased and gone to that great shooting gallery in the sky, Mr. Busch, now a grown man (a Marine, no less), decides to spend a moment shooting into the darkness outside the family home with the .22 rifle they both cherished. I'm personally astonished by this. Do people really do things of this sort? Who is around to record the significance of this gesture? The wolves in the woods don't care. They don't talk, and their writing is incomprehensible, filled as it is with esoteric references to German philosophy and serving as it does as a mouthpiece for their nationalist rhetoric. For personal satisfaction? If it was personally satisfying then the author would keep it to themselves. The secret, I suspect, is that he was intending to write this article since infancy and has molded his life in such a way as to allow a nice arc of character development, one which ends with a man firing three bullets at nothing in particular and feeling darned good about it. Imagine the planning involved in such an endeavour! Imagine the foresight! Always the question must haunt him when considering whether to do this or that: "is it good for the story?" Even so quotidian a thing as stealing your neighbour's newspaper becomes fraught with worry when Harold Bloom might be opining on its consistency with you qua literary character. "Is this the Benjamin Busch we've come to know in the rest of the story?" Yet, for some reason, Benjamin Busch is full of confidence and energy and is able to achieve gainful employment while I'm left to suffer from catastrophic anxiety whenever I try to explain how to make macaroni and cheese to a six year old retarded girl. Benjamin Busch also plays Officer Anthony Colicchio on TV's The Wire, while I play a short-legged pedant who gets short of breath pronouncing "pronounce." So, in some ways, we're really quite alike.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Introduction: Friendly Handshake
Greetings. Welcome to a blog. "Blog" is a rather unfortunate word, but it's the one that's stuck. Short for "weblog," it came about one day when famed computer columnist and masturbation enthusiast Anand Lal Shimpi, attending on the basis of a misunderstanding an event for those who owned and enjoyed Hummers, attempted to pronounce the full word but, busy as he was scarfing down the C-grade salmon caviar and reprocessed toast points on offer, choked before he could complete the first syllable. Thus, confused and aroused onlookers merely heard "kblog," followed by a moist spray of toast point crumbs and salmon egg bits. While the habit of spitting food on interlocutors did not catch on, the neat syllabic truncation did, and a phenomenon was born (or "phenom," in keeping with the theme of this post).
For most of us, then, the word "blog" simply refers to the online journals that certain members of our community keep. They range from the very stupid to the very not-stupid. People in professions which require interacting with the public are virtually required to keep blogs, lest their fans miss their up-to-the-moment thoughts on Obama underwear sales and the American trade imbalance vis-a-vis Chinese lamp oil. For instance, Winnipeg Free Press reporter James Turner keeps a blog where, in the absence of fact checkers and those who know the English language,he informs us, without a hint of irony, that a prosecutor "literally blew through a number of key witnesses." Would that I lived in such a state of blessed innocence! Imagine typing that sentence fragment. Imagine thinking it's very good. You're satisfied. You've done a great job today. You've kept up to the minute, down to the wire, socks up, pants down. You've informed the public. Your career is going nowhere but up. You can smell the Pulitzer. You can almost taste the binding glue of that book you're about to write, the one about the no-nonsense crime beat reporter who "literally smokes a thousand cigarettes a day" and regularly defiles his blooming young secretary. Your vision blurs at the edges as you try to take in the seething crowds of adoring fans and well-wishers. We love you James Turner. Continue writing. Do not stop writing blog articles. But, soon enough, the dream dissolves and you're back in your cubicle at a low-tier local newspaper, where even the tubby, acne-bespeckled teenage interns spurn your clumsy advances. At least you have that blog, you think to yourself, munching on some minced pork.
This too is a blog. I've given it a Latin title. Because I am better than you, I can do this. While most of you have wasted your time "making money," "saving the world," and "buying clothes that fit," I have pursued an education suited for only the most refined aesthetes. With the melodious aid of illa lingua Latina, I can raise condescension to never before seen heights, unde James Turner appears little more than a mus.
Now I've run out of words. Goodbye, gentle reader. May the eyes of Greta Van Susteren follow you eerily wherever you go.
For most of us, then, the word "blog" simply refers to the online journals that certain members of our community keep. They range from the very stupid to the very not-stupid. People in professions which require interacting with the public are virtually required to keep blogs, lest their fans miss their up-to-the-moment thoughts on Obama underwear sales and the American trade imbalance vis-a-vis Chinese lamp oil. For instance, Winnipeg Free Press reporter James Turner keeps a blog where, in the absence of fact checkers and those who know the English language,he informs us, without a hint of irony, that a prosecutor "literally blew through a number of key witnesses." Would that I lived in such a state of blessed innocence! Imagine typing that sentence fragment. Imagine thinking it's very good. You're satisfied. You've done a great job today. You've kept up to the minute, down to the wire, socks up, pants down. You've informed the public. Your career is going nowhere but up. You can smell the Pulitzer. You can almost taste the binding glue of that book you're about to write, the one about the no-nonsense crime beat reporter who "literally smokes a thousand cigarettes a day" and regularly defiles his blooming young secretary. Your vision blurs at the edges as you try to take in the seething crowds of adoring fans and well-wishers. We love you James Turner. Continue writing. Do not stop writing blog articles. But, soon enough, the dream dissolves and you're back in your cubicle at a low-tier local newspaper, where even the tubby, acne-bespeckled teenage interns spurn your clumsy advances. At least you have that blog, you think to yourself, munching on some minced pork.
This too is a blog. I've given it a Latin title. Because I am better than you, I can do this. While most of you have wasted your time "making money," "saving the world," and "buying clothes that fit," I have pursued an education suited for only the most refined aesthetes. With the melodious aid of illa lingua Latina, I can raise condescension to never before seen heights, unde James Turner appears little more than a mus.
Now I've run out of words. Goodbye, gentle reader. May the eyes of Greta Van Susteren follow you eerily wherever you go.
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