Thanksgiving

I'm not convinced that our economic system meets the needs, material or spiritual, of its citizens. For example, I have the material need to get a good night's sleep. But this is not possible when your father curses in the middle of the night because he hates his job. So I indict our economic system for giving my father nightmares about financial security in his golden years.

The solution now is to medicate people who are reacting normally to a profoundly false social system. People will naturally react to insecurity, fear and acute stress with the biological response of depression. It's not because our brain isn't properly regulating serotonin; it's because our lives actually do suck to a phenomenal degree.

More on Death and Dying

We did not make this world, but we make part of this world. In dying we let go of both the things that we make and the things that have been made. Because death is a normal, healthy way to end one's life, it is helpful to consider the things we will miss, but equally important to consider the many things we won't miss.

Most of us have some idea of the things we will miss. Chocolate, for instance, is high on everybody's list. Also, ice cream. Consider now, some things we won't miss, like men who adjust themselves in public. I hold out great optimism towards death for this reason alone. Also, network news-broadcasters.

Diabolique

Saturday night I was not permitted to attend a fetish ball because I wore objectionable pants. I was instructed to take them off, if I wanted to attend the event. As I rode the subway home, I considered the advantages one enjoys in rejection. Fondly I recalled the time I was rejected at a dance club because I wasn't wearing a wife-beater or adjusting my genitals in conversation with friends. I thanked the bouncer--now I had money for milk and bread. Social rejection is a big money-saver.

When you are rejected from Philadelphia's premiere fetish event last Saturday night, you do well to have cab fare home. Instead, I wandered Northern Liberties wrapped in pantyhose and duct-tape with welder's goggles dangling from my neck. Poor people are not really interested in this, but that does not make riding the subway any less upsetting. I was fortunate to have my work jacket at my disposal, even though Saturday was very warm night.

A Brief Reflection on Saturday Night

Music isn't any kind of life. I can't hear out of the left side of my head. I spent yesterday in my bedroom, with the bedsheets secured against the windows and my corpse immobile for the duration. It was a good show, overall. I wasn't nauseous until this morning; it always takes a few days for my nervous system to bounce back. I'm not any kind of performer, is what I mean. Just ask my ex-girlfriends.

Music and women don't mix. Anyone who goes into music to just to get girls is a lot smarter than me--but that doesn't mean you'd be very impressed by them. They're the type of jerks who, when you drink a beer with them, they're constantly in a good mood, on account that they got a girlfriend by posturing as some kind of musical jackass. I can spot a musical bastard like that a hundred miles away, because they usually have a hot girlfriend. That's the goddam pisser about it all. One time I knew this jerk in a surf band who was a real talented bastard when it came to being musical. I mean, I'm maybe half the jackass this particular individual was when it came down to sheer talent. Anyway, he had this girlfriend that was always popping up at his goddam shows--I only know because I had a close friend who enjoyed this sort of thing, and so I'd try to make an appearance and all--and you couldn't help but notice that this girl was pretty. Even my friend would tell me all about it. Well, one time we all sat together and I asked this girl what she was studying in school. I feel like I'm constantly asking girls what they're studying in school, but you can hardly blame me. You have to take an interest, particularly in other people's girlfriends. So this girl started telling me about how she studied philosophy and how Kierkegaard thought you shouldn't believe in religion, but that you should act like you do. I couldn't imagine how she'd gone so long dating this chooch. I don't want you to think I'm drawing any kind of lousy conclusions about this. I'm just saying that music is a crumby way to meet girls, especially when they become attracted to you so easily.

Concert at Penn State

An article about tomorrow's Overlord show at Penn State. Fine quips from Mr. George.

Historians Dispute Analogies to Germany, Japan, with Iraq

The Bush administration has continually compared the situation of post war Iraq with that of Germany and Japan under occupation after WW II. At one point, administration spokesmen even alleged that US troops in Germany had faced attacks by "Werewolves," or, former SS men. This allegation is unfounded. No US troops were killed by Werewolves in post-War Germany, and they assassinated maybe one mayor, though I understand that is controversial.

Likewise, the administration of Japan was by old New Dealers who strengthed trade unions and democratized. The major projects of the Bush administration in Iraq have been to dissolve existing unions, to completely throw open the country to unregulated investment (which could easily turn speculative and predatory), and to install a regressive flat tax that will favor the emergence of super-rich robber barons.

--Juan Cole

Conclusion

How did our narrator solve this puzzle?

The narrator cannot ordinarily afford to drink Vitamin D milk out of a glass, but on this particular evening he made an exception. The total calorie content of this food exceeded the narrator's normal suppertime allowance, causing his stomach to expand and subsequently creating a sensation of 'fullness'. It was this physiological manifestation which the narrator mistakenly took for an interloper.

House
cont.

But tonight the taverns would not have me to swindle! I sat down at my desk and lighted the overhead lamp. From my shelf I selected only the most appropriate title for an eve as fine as this. And do not doubt for one moment that this eve was not a fine one--indeed, one of the finest in recent memory! Every thing about it was ideal; every last detail conspired to make it great. The light from my lamp had never burned so benevolently. And the words illuminated! For your life, you have never seen a text so positively readable. My hands, in sifting the pages, never once fidgeted or took to distraction. My general posture, in fact, had never before been so sensible. My hair laid agreeably and my toenails did not quarrel. My nose contented itself above my mouth as never a nose has been observed to do. My eyes! I daresay my eyes were so excellent that just one of the usual pair of ocular organs would have suited me on this night. The desk could not have been a better height; the chair rose to greet my fundament with the most conciliatory of expressions.

There can rarely a comparison be made to the miraculous fever of industry which
took hold of me that night. All around me the house was still--perfectly still!--as though
its very breath had been suspended for my labors! But, no... that was not entirely true; there was an odd presence here now--I could sense it! There was something else here; something not made of wood, brick, or mortar. Surely I know a stranger in my own home! But I will tell you what was stranger still: something was moving in the very chamber where I now sat!

I cast the lamp about in every dark corner. Nothing. I addressed my intruder in a respectable tone: "Hello, there, my friend. Do not be alarmed. Come out into the light where I can see you better! There's no reason duck about in the shadows--ha ha!"

Just then the foreign presence moved, pressing hard up against my abdomen. I fell upon the bed with surprise. It was then that I realized the folly of my pursuit.