"I used to think the brain was the most fascinating part of the human body, then I realized: look who's telling me that."

-Emo Philips

The night, like bacon round a francheezie, has begun to surrond me (and the cheese canal of my inner sanctum)

I wonder if we'll ever know just how many nudes there are sitting on rocks on other planets looking up and wondering how many nudes there are sitting on rocks only to find out that in the end they too subscribe to the notion that one benchmark of civilization is the covering of genitalia.

And so it was that after hours of what seemed to him like spirited debate, Lenny the Statesman realized that the strange creatures hadn't the foggiest notion of what economic indicators were let alone which were best for the long term.

Am I really so fat as to cry tears of jelly?

POSSIBLE REASONS WHY THE PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY ENDORSES THE CREATION OF PERMANENT SPACE POLICE:

-Venus's impenetrable cloud cover warrants, at the very least, healthy suspicion, at worst outright mistrust
-so we don't have to fight them within our own atmosphere.
-disaffected Plutonians' icy stares could bring about a chilling effect on our economic output.
-the fact that the ancient Hebrews called Mercury the star of the sun or the son of the sun seems to mock the new testament and all it stands for: this is needless affrontery indicative of galactic ambitions which, when coupled with the erraticness of its namesake, makes some sort of security measures deperately needed. (magma core of the planet could also afford them the use of fireballs should it come to armed conflict)
-Saturn coddles terrorists
-the moon has to decide whose side it's on
-because freedom isn't free.

"Alright enough! After Bobbo here got shrunk I thought maybe it was you, Big Chief Walks Like Duck, but now it's all too clear: I just saw you shrink Alan Funt, the donkey, Milo the Medicine Man. Now just cut it out, the both of you!"

Now that his Aunt Clorvis was gone, nobody but his trusted horse, Maurice Chevalier, knew what a lively dancer Styles "Two Shoes" Papanikalaus had become. If he ever did make it, he assured his friend he would get the credit for their signature hand claps that he deserved.

And he played and he played. And after while the other Gods were able to convince the vengeful Hera that she was actually a very caring and empathetic immortal. The fact that she had responded to the impolitic boasts of Gerana the queen of the Pygmies - that she was more beautiful than herself - by turning her into a crane and proclaiming that her bird descendants would forever wage war on the already slighted Pygmy folk was really self-defense. So they were half a body shorter than any other human; so they were a winsome people whose only earthly joys came from turning cartwheels, weaving and filberts; so they already lived in paralyzing fear of prairie dogs and hoot owls; a halfling ought to know their place.

Tips for Wrestling with Inner Demons

Because they are inner demons and all of your appendages and weapons are external, traditional combat techniques won't get you far. The timid would tell you you really can't do much but try to drown them with protein shakes. However, in so doing you risk all that protein just making their hair and eyes healthier. Punching yourself will hurt you more than them and you'll lose the respect of your peers. Holding your breath will do approximately the same. Communion wafers and other edible religious artifacts ostensibly seem like the best shot but that presumes that they won't crumble or dissolve on the way down. Eating them whole is better but you risk losing consciousness if they get lodged, thus affording the demons the opportunity to advance no doubt taking a strategic stronghold in your hypothalmus--he who controls saliva production and other autonomic functioning controls the man. Those with acid reflux have an advantage but they've likely arrived at such by indulgent lifestyles which would tend to indicate a weaker constitution anyway. In the end your best bet is probably to punch yourself and mutter.

'yes it is a lovely ham but im just browsing'

It's not really volunteering on a Bolivian peanut farm if you're just doing it for the protein.

What makes you tick, Ol' Ironsides?

Q: Do you consider yourself a conscientious student?

A: I don't know if I consider myself a conscientious student. I pride myself on always having fresh pens and clean paper but sometimes that's not enough.

Q: Why the city?

A: I know lots of people like to flock to the countryside to become more in touch with the great magnet that controls all of our laws but there are laws that affect us right here in the city--such as those laws that force flashers to meet with many levels of city and state approval (even requiring them to buy, and then display, a medallion which is emblematic of that official approval) before they can go on continually exposing themselves to you or I.

mild cheeses: discretion is the better part of cheese-making as well.

No one is indifferent to pekingese. You're either with them or you're against them.

Ask the Last Honest Colo-Rectal Man

Q: Is it harmful to retain flatus (hold in farts)?

A: This is a matter of some historical disagreement. For centuries, people believed that "retaining flatus" was bad for the health. Emperor Claudius even passed a law legalizing farting at banquets seemingly out of concern for poeple's health--though it is notable that the law, as written, only applied to cowmen (half-cow, half-man) who weren't allowed into banquets without explicit authorization from Bovinia the Cow Goddess of Mount Oraple. Then in medieval times people believed that retaining flatus for too long would attract witches. This would have been unequivocally bad but it was thought that witches (and, in limited circumstances, dwarves) were the only ones who could cure you if the Black Knight cursed your chickens. However, they often demanded bread up front or took a percentage interest of the rights to your cobbling proceeds. Then among certain strata of Elizabethan aristocracy it was thought that farting was a decidedly plebian undertaking, and so, in deciding to retain flatus as a demonstration of their sophistication and grace many were later thought to have stunted their growth and hastened the mumps. It was subsequently theorized that the mumps came from gypsy lotharios who did not sleep nearly enough yet still didn't make any meaningful attempts to find any work except in widwifery which they were clearly not qualified for by disposition or training. Today it is an article of faith that retaing flatus helps create jobs.

One wonders how Thoreau's legacy as a transcendentalist and rugged individualist would be affected if people knew just how much he loved the tub.

Excerpt From a Suddenly Renewed Correspondence with an Erstwhile Fat Friend

"...Well I'll be dipped in marmalade. Hi ya, big fella. Glad to hear everything's alright. I hope you're not so big as to block out the sun for the nice aussies/kiwis who've played host to you for these past years. I can still remember that smell of slow death that came from your room every morning and thinking of the way your face swelled when you slept in tents does the same to my heart. Come home to us. Remember the way we'd blend like waters until we couldn't tell where you stopped and I started except by noting that you were the fat one and I was the one you were sitting on..."

Are we really so blind as to think that the strategic value of the middle east has nothing to do with all those genies and their luscious melon breasts?

Another Day in the Presumably All-Canine Canadian Province of Labrador - Chapter 1

The sun was a flaming frisbee as it rose. The Boulevard Rue des Poulet looked as it did seven years ago--enough time for a single revolution of the planet but not enough to gain the support of enough bulldog-proles to unseat Rusty the Poodle King--the last time Chi Chi walked its lengths. He knew the scrutiny of a daylit walk in the capital city spelled trouble for one of his past. But since the disappearance of Ladybird (a.k.a. Wiggles), his friend and lover, he knew a sense of abandon and resignation that almost welcomed a brand of trouble that might bring with it the diminution or outright end of his pain--and besides he loved the smell. As Chi Chi walked he felt a gathering unity in the pull of his hunger, his heartache, and what might well have been heartworm; in the bent reflection of the sun in the now-broken shop windows, and tumbledown shacks beyond, he saw the fleeting radiance and splendor that had gilded the capital city years ago inspiring in all its denizens some kind of ecstatic impulse to just sprint and sprint until they had to lie down on one side, their chests heaving and tongues darting, the nip of water they had just lapped up from the communal fountain, commemorating Rex the founding father and kibble-giver, now on the pavement around their faces in almost its entirety. These images raced through his head with similar frenzy. Illusory as they may have been they only stopped when Chi Chi would have to attend to a persistent itch where his neck met his face or when he thought he smelled news on a tree or fence. He thought he smelled something of note several times yet their was no news--the entire province seemed to have lost its bone yet no one knew where to look; the Poodle-King's sleight of hand had worked; the Bulldog-proles seemed to have forgot almost everything, again, contenting, and seemingly sustaining themselves, with whatever they could find whether it was a scrap of turkey roll, an empty bottle, discarded lightbulb, or styrofoam popcorn packing pieces. Indeed, their had been no news for the year since Chi Chi became a self-imposed exile--living with a nice family in Halifax. He didn't blame the Halvorsons for thinking he was a compelling refutation of the logic that mutts are smarter. They'd tell him to come, he'd stay. They'd tell him to stay, he'd pee. Chi Chi had never known mediocrity in any form. But to say that which follows from a sapping of the will to live is not mediocrity would render the term entirely useless. However, the Halvorsons never seemed to care and arguably loved Chi Chi more for his failings, for the couch he destroyed, for the Easter ham that could not be resurrected. And it was this feeling that dogs were essentially good and worth fighting for that compelled him to return. However, this was not the sort of goal the completion of which would usher in a subsequent period of unfettered elation. This was something Chi Chi thought the world deserved before he left it.

TO BE CONTINUED...

THINGS I’D HAVE ERECTED IF I WERE KING FOR A DAY:

1. obelisk
2. bust
3. arena
4. abstract, sculpted rendering of my fortitude/virility which to the lay eye looks something like an ostrich and a comb
5. ziggurat
6. youth astride a prow representing victory on the top of a pylon surrounded by hippocampi--half horse, half sea creature thought to like plankton in their feed.
6. snack shack

Excerpt From An Immodest Proposal

"...How about a rendezvouz? How bout breathing deep the bold bouquet of brotherhood? How bout drawing long on the frothy flavors of good fellowship and fraternity? How bout singing a song that cant be silenced--a song who's ony words are "we are here; we are now; we are"? How bout setting sail on Nicolai's warm winds as he reads to us his paper on the homoeroticism of the title, Moby Dick? How bout reenacting all those nights when Lil Gapper would claim he was "unclean" and beg us to douse him in soy milk? How bout retracing all those gentle steps we trod to save Guy after he had accidentally swallowed a spork, again? How bout us?.."

"Thirty spokes join together in the hub. It is because of what is not there that the cart is useful. Clay is formed into a vessel. It is because of its emptiness that the vessel is useful. Cut doors and windows to make a room. It is because of its emptiness that the room is useful. Therefore, what is present is used for profit. But it is in absence that there is usefulness."

The ancient masters have debated the meaning of this saying since time immemorial but it probably just means that it's ok that you're stupid.

Without her I'm just a guy thinking about how he should have eaten the last of the cheese and crackers before he left but since he didn't he's surprised that he has to poop.

The Untold Story of St. Louis

As the sun slowly rises under the arch we cannot help but think of the exultation and enthusiasm that must have dawned in the first explorers as they thought they had finally reached the end of this great nation only to see the sun set on those hopes as their worst fears were all too clearly true--they were only halfway across. True many of those self-same explorers grew disenchanted and hardened at this and went on to lead mean lives on the river, stealing what bits of sandwich and hooch they could from those around--though they could never steal back what was so mercilessly torn from their own breast--and eventually were unable to stay afloat in the rising waters of their own shame. Though their lives proved desperate and fruitless a city was born.

Excerpted Intimations of Divine Order from Youthful Memories

...Weekends like that force us to ask ourselves whether we are really bound by our predetermined fates or only by the limits of our imaginations. Was it long written in the stars that I was supposed to run headlong into that salad bar? Was it just an understandable misstep punctuating a night of fancy? Did the dark one in his fondness for chicanery move it closer with a wicked hand? Is there some grand design that choreographed the weaving blows that Gentleman Johnny and I exchanged like a skilled seamstress? Was it for the sake of dramatic flourish that he waited until our second round to put molten lava in my veins and steely death in my eyes? Why did he not do the same for Gentleman Johnny , instead deciding that he should be stopped--knowing, no doubt, that whomever weeped for Gentleman Johnny, weeped for treachery and deceit? Will we ever know? Well, it seems like an awful coincidence if I weren't put on this earth to have told Jerry Joe that his dance, rehearsed as it was, looked like a clipped goose trying to take flight ...

Excerpt From a Chain E-mail

"...If you're receiving this forward you have already been chosen for bad luck. You have no way of telling when this curse will manifest itself. I would stay away from anvils, dynamite and reptile houses in the zoo. Feel free to forward this to whomever you like, you little tomcat..."

Excerpted Quote From a Guy Who Gets Things Done

"...Well then perhaps I can do my Tongan fertility dance to try to bring an end to this rain by instead making Fat Bobby as fertile as the Mississippi Delta..."

Excerpt From an Advice Column

"...I agree. You wouldnt have such sensitive nipples today if you hadn't rubbed them with turkey grease every night until you were 12..."

Excerpt From a Fan Letter

"...Thought maybe you'd like to be the celebrity front of our organization here--the national order of yaffet kotto enthusiasts (kotto refused--we're looking for a fresh face anyway as we near the new millenium). Something tells me you've got just the spunk to make the hearts of those who'd stand against us go all-a-twitter. Well mull it over. Now back to the majesty of that dream within a dream that's sometimes called plankton..."

Common courtesy and propriety are the prince's real jewels, you fucker.

20 easy ways to make your own fertilizer at home

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WHAT FOLK WISDOM MIGHT INSTRUCT ONE TO DO IF LIFE GAVE THEM PRODUCE BESIDES LEMONS:

1) When life gives you broccoli relax and enjoy nature’s intestinal broom

2) When life gives you pineapples feel free to brain passersby

3) When life gives you mushrooms there’s romance in the air

4) When life gives you pre-washed miniature spinach look for changes at the office and/or hang on for the ride of your life.

5) When life gives you yams go ahead and accept that you need a stronger under-arm deodorant than most.

6) When life gives you passion fruit, be sure not to miss Dogs With Jobs on Animal Planet—they sure seem only too happy to work, what’s your problem?

7) When life gives you blood oranges you will be betrayed by someone close to you—that is, unless you get them first.

8) When life gives you sprouts go ahead and make lemonade anyway—it’s a burst of country-fresh refreshment.

POSSIBLE BEGINNINGS TO THE MARCH OF EVENTS WHICH ENDED WITH THE ENTRYWAY OF MY FORMER BUILDING BEING BEFOULED (if they were fancifully chronicled):

1) As she stepped onto the veranda a warm wind whipped across the street picking up the faint scent of shabu shabu…

2) Vance Diddlehopper had always thought of himself as somewhat of a beau brummel…

3) At first blush, the idea of reconstituting someone’s colon with fiberglass seemed the stuff of science fiction…

4) “Why no, I never have rolled my own sausage,” replied Anderson…

5) Shwartzberg had known nights like these before--high dew point, low barometric pressure, hanging cloud formations--and they'd always spelled trouble of a strange sort...

6) Bhuela Jenks stopped as she noticed herself mouthing the lines she'd rehearsed and then decided to say it one last time: "You're out of the gastrointerology game for good Dr. Splotznik,"...

"Just last week I murdered a stone, killed a stick; I'm so bad I make medicine sick.
I tustled with an alligator wrestled a whale, handcuffed thunder threw lightning in jail."

-Muhammad Ali

dodgeball v. bombardment

In dodgeball hitting an opponent in the face is sufficient to sideline them. In bombardment, you hit someone in the face and they're still in, which, to the industrious or the depraved affords the opportunity to repeatedly hit the weak in the face without them having any hope of finding sanctuary by being forced to sit out.

Excerpted Memories of a Past Birthday As Gleaned From Thoughts the Following Day

Well, another one hung on the line. The confetti and streamers that winded through the air are now settled on the ground; the smell now begining to subside; those that passed through it now in agreement that it was human feces; the finery now put away or replaced; the french horns now silent...

The Tojo Chronicles September 1, 1912

All of this writing has given that little voice inside my head (that sounds like my Bubby but who i call Tojo) an opportunity to be a bit of a roust-about, unmonitored as he is in my need to train my focus on more pressing matters. Today, he told me to tell a girl that I didnt like her shirt. I didn't, in fact, like her shirt but Tojo told her it made her look like a post-apocolyptic ostrich hyena cross-germ. Her response was surprisingly favorable.

Last night i dreamt of a beagle and the great pacific northwest. Dreams of beagles have foretold romance for me in the past but they carry with them an unmistakeable warning to stay away from broths or bouillon cubes. While in the pacific northwest water-wonderland, don calloway--a fat, boyhood friend who once told me that if you ever run out of things to say to a girl "just ask her what she likes to eat,"--was injured when his legs gave way beneath the weight of his toiling mass as he tried to run along a brook. But I had no time to be a gloomy gus about it with all that water to splash around in!

Dear Sir:

I live alone. This is by my own design as I don't like people touching my things or eating my mild cheese spreads. Please don't take me for a misanthrope. It's not that I don't trust my fellow man. It's just that I won't give them the opportunity to betray me again. Still, I would entertain the idea of receiving guests into my apartment--one at a time, with sufficient advance notice, so long as they bore gifts (or at least greeting cards or paper towels).

The problem is since no one has been in my apartment since I took my oath to secure the borders of my efficiency or die trying, I really cannot be sure if it smells. To be sure, I find a pleasant odor commonly curling through the air which is no more objectionable than a piece of toast or chicken Ala king. Indeed, I have always thought of myself as invariably sweet smelling, descended from a long line of softly musky lawmen and notaries. But I've found, as I'm sure you have, that the human condition affords us a great capacity for acclimating to foreign effluvia. In short, I feel that I cannot trust my own sense of smell. But, I would be simply mortified if I finally put down my arms to welcome back into my inner sanctum those whom I had summarily banished all those years ago, only to see a look flash over their cursed little faces of having smelled something foul--because who are they to stand in judgment with their mean little lives replete with wrist-watches, mouth wash, 3 alarm chili, tropical fruit medleys, and upright vacuums?

My question is: is there a way of determining if my apartment smells without inviting someone in for their opinion? I appreciate your counsel.

Faithfully Submitted,

Phylis Stein

long-distance hurler

THINGS THAT MAY HAVE TRANSPIRED WHILE MY EYES WERE JUST MOMENTARILY FORCED SHUT BY THE SURGE OF A COMING SNEEZE (as they may explain the state of things in front of me just after—i.e., a guy giving me a dirty look):

1) man across from me realized that he had not cried since he was a boy and quickly sought to hide from an ocean of feelings that had gone unexplored for a long time by giving me a look of disapproval.

2) man shot out of my nose landing across from me and was immediately filled with a sense of anger at being detached from the comfort he had known while living in the womb-like, cozy confines of my inner sanctum.

3) man across from me suddenly seized with the unmistakable fear that he may never be loved the way he loved others could only glare at the essential cruelty of life which he saw inexorably issuing from my nose.

4) man across from me, who had only just noticed me, immediately assumed that I had taken, and now wore, his favorite shirt which read “what part of bad don’t you understand?” The look which flashed across his face at this revelation finds sufficient explanation in the shirt’s message.

5) man across from me filled with a sense of hope at finding fleeting sanctuary from my look of disapproval could only feel anger once I trained my sights on him once more.

6) man across from me was quickly reminded how much he hates people who lack the discipline to stop sneezing.

7) man across from me was reminded of how he used to pinch his nose when he'd sneeze until his equilibrium was forever ruined forcing him to sit while he pees.

Communism: there's a reason why it's called 'the party' . . . pretzels!

Guess which hand?

Well don't just sit there; go get some juicy melon for your self.

"...You're not using your loaf, Phylis; it's in there like the lonesome in a coyote or the pucker in a persimmon--you can't just take the fat out of milk."

Some say that they really don't have that much in common--except, that is, that they both speak to the best parts of every single one of us. What?

a. tattoo removal; mole removal
b. Balki; cousin larry
c. time travel; egg salad
d. squirrels; scrimshaw

Could he write his own story without it being one of his patent-protected cook books?

I know they said results may vary but I don’t like how seriously I’m taken when I use that conditioner.

"Captain, fitted bathing suits are a privilege not a right."

"You and I, we part our hair on the same side. I'm afraid that's where the similarities end, though, as you are the worst kind of Russian beet farmer and I sell c batteries."

It's a shame when senseless pageantry and competitiveness obscure the real miracle that is digestion.

Whoever said a messy home is the sign of a messy mind never considered how messy it can be just to get those damn sardine cans open.

As many people as could have guessed that these would be the sort of questions you’d ask yourself when faced with the dilemma of ____(1)_____ far fewer would have expected that your answer would be ____(2)_____.


A) the choice of spatulas; the big one
B) which robot to choose; the salad shooter
C) how to mend a broken heart; bubbles
D) waning natural resources; bubbles
E) how this will all end; walking pneumonia

Whomever put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop was most likely a rank opportunist. But whomever put the sham in the shamma lama ding dong was clearly a psychotic.

"See those peonies; so vulnerable; their pain is man’s pain."

"I really don’t see how."

"Ok, you’re right."

It'd be plain silly to grow a beard and then cut your nose hairs. We can forgive people's contradictions but don't make fools of us.

"Why are sea nymphs always throwing themselves around in such a maudlin way?"

By now we know virtually all there is to know about the wild kingdom. Whole libraries house documentary footage of almost every moment from the lives of almost every member of every phyla in every far flung stretch of humid reeds. But in all that footage we see no evidence of any wild animals itching.

We itch.

Our domesticated furry friends itch perhaps more than anything else in a given day.

So why don't they--living out there amidst whole minions of living, air-borne irritants--itch?

Who's fooling who? I want answers.

"These are my birthday shoes!"

"What do you mean? They were a gift?"

"No, never received a gift in my life; these are my birthday shoes!"

"You never received a gift?"

"Well, I once got a gift certificate but I don't consider that a meaningful gift--there's no thought in it."

"Sure there's thought in it--namely, 'this whole rigamarole is not as inherently meaningful as it is that you get something you want. your pleasure is more important than your being flattered by my thoughtfulness.'

"Oh, that's a lot of hooey. Time is money so you can subtract from the overall value of the gift certificate the cost of my time."

"So you're sayng that the measure of a gift's thoughtfulness is its cash value."

"Listen, bub, you gonna buy my birthday shoes or not?!?"

"How much?"

"20"

"10"

"Sold!"

"What do you mean 'you've always thought that eastern standard time was the correct time', Captain?"

"Just what I said: eastern standard time is the correct time."

"But we're in the central standard time zone."

"Well, it can't be two different times at once or nobody would ever be able to make plans. I think they've got it right in the east. It's 8:15 right now, not 7:15. And just as sure as the sun is risen, you can't tell me that it's 6:15 or 5:15. After all, our founding fathers came from the east."

"The sun's probably not up in Oregon yet so it makes sense for it to be 5:15."

"Loggers and tramps. I'll give them 20 more minutes--probably had a bit of a bender last night."

"The fantastic and the pedestrian meet in us--and where else, the world offers no other corners but the self. It's all just a metaphor that's designed for us to live in. Can't you see that?"

"OK Captain but I think you've misunderstand that particular metaphor about being married to the sea."

"..."

"Even if you're right, I won't be the flower girl."

"..."

"Oh, OK, don't have to go shouting 'mutiny!' every time you don't get your way."

"Oh, all any man really wants is to feel your nose split the breeze, to feel the ether glide by, to feel it all pass."

"Fine Captain, but I think you just like the way your voice sounds with your face in the fan like that."

Many complaints can be leveled against me and my mordant, incisive, rapier wit. However, no one can ever say I didn't eat lots of bananas.

If you do possess the auto-cleaning bio-faculties that you claim, why unspool whole rolls of toilet paper at a time? To make such a mess using something the only earthly purpose of which is to clean--but to clean others. Truly your vindictiveness is only matched by your cunning, cats.

"The night before as I tried to sleep there was a light on somewhere in my mind. As hard as I tried I could only find a faded and worn darkness. Today there was perfect blue around me, on me, in me--like that egg of a sun had finally been cracked and beaten into the blue. Could a life be lived like that? When the warm breeze comes along and makes you think that everything is the same such that the thought of the grey seems the skeptic's very pith. I can't be surprised that I was able to see it coming--looking back I've always seen it coming. He ws right when he said that the world was round. We think we're chasing the twilight when we're really just chasing our tails. Well, as the sun sets slowly so I commit my body--the soul's vessel--to the sea with this our faithful boat--a vessel in an unmetaphorical sense--the last great sailor has finally weighed anchor for good. "

"I don't even know what that means Captain. You've got the prickly heat again. OK, you're the last great sailor but that doesn't mean you have to prove it by drinking sea water by the bucket like this. We have that pump and the boat hasn't even taken on that much water. It was just a little spray."

"Sure you're a little green around the gills...that reminds me, can fish smell? If so, do they do such out their gills?"
"It would be in their gills not out."
"What?"
"I don't feel much like talking Captain."
"What was I saying...oh yeah, you think you're down and out now but have you ever had nothing to eat but sand? Sure, but have you ever had nothing to drink but sand? Well, I didn't think so. Between you and me I don't recommend any wild weekends in Juarez--you can never trust a place that's land locked. Take it from me, you just don't feel alive when you can't see the swells and smell the mackerel. You see, now finish peeling those yams."

She was a succubus, a cunning temptress, adroit acrobat, competent ornithologist and celebrated sprinter. She was also the operative that I was tasked with eliminating from the CIA's list of violent femmes and enraged suffragettes--me, a guy who a year ago was deemed unfit for service in the merchant marines after initial testing demonstrated a predisposition and predilection for high stakes games of truth or dare, on the lam now for three years trying to forget that fateful night when all I had to say was "dare" and everything would have remained the same--still living in Dubuque with Basque seperatist wife, Fabiola, and three loving children, Toulouse, The Greek, and Little Chaka, still eating the same old Basque finger sandwiches that Fabiola made, still watching The Greek excell at home economics and civics, still trying to find the time to fix the roof, still wondering how long I had to stay away from rhubarb before the swelling would go down, still a palooka. What happened? Well, I can't tell you that but let's just say that a poster campaign to end women's suffrage I had made in the 12th grade finally caught up with me. I'd approach, ostensibly inquiring about the eating habits of the tufted puftin, and she'd withdraw. She'd approach, lured by the identity I'd assumed which held itself out as an expert in ancient kitchenware, ostensibly to ask about a 8th century fork that she had a line on in Oman, and I'd withdraw. And so we danced--both knowing full well that one of us would win, one would lose, both understanding that the future vindication of our respective world beliefs depended on the other lying dead in a kiddy pool, both slaves to the common blood which surged through us demanding with the pound of every heart beat that we don't ask and just take, that we extinguish the flames of our missions by pressing together our wet bodies like amorous seals, both knowing that love, the only adventure we had left, was something the world would not allow us--at least not until it was too late--a series of events having been set in motion that could only end with the world merging back into a single continent under the publicly intrepid urging, and secret machinations, of a single frenchman who dared to dream--a dream from which no one would ever wake up.

"The present is the only time when we touch, the only time when we smell." thought First Mate Mullochnik regrettfully as he began preparations to leave the head.

"Don't smile at me Mitchey!" bellowed the Captain; he continued "You should just let your hair be naturally wavy. We're not pulling over for relaxant once we're on the river!"

"But captain, I meant no offense--I just don't think you would send your subordinates the right message if you wore a lady's fragrance--even if, as you say, in it you smell every one of the manifold mysteries and incantations of the Mississippi."

Sometimes everything around you slows down to such a light trot--sometimes everything seems so perfectly balanced on its head--to such an extent that we almost don't notice that the oxen have become unyoked and empowered.

Yes, when you smile the whole world smiles with you, but only because you have spinach in your teeth.

What kind of a hootenanny is this? Where are all the folk-singers? Where is that will to overcome which can only be coaxed out by incisive, spoken, political poignancy helped along by gentle acoustic strumming? What do we want? When do we want it? What do you mean any stew with my turkey leg? I thought people were dressed like that as a throwback to that strange psychic bridge between the 60s and Rennaissance times which so fueled our convictions and ignited our determination through tunics and the like. No, I don't want to watch them joust. Charles Reich clearly said "[The revolution] will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. This is the revolution of the new generation." . . . Well, if what you say is true this is very aptly titled 'Medieval Times'

Sometimes in life you don't just leave these things to that magic hand of chance--you order extra sauce.

What business is it of theirs if in the inviolable, sacred precincts of my own home i decide to plot the violent overthrow of the management of that Bennigan's?

You've asked me and I'll tell you. My favorite thing to do on days like these--when the sky seems as big as it ever was and riding atop every breeze is the sweet certainty that everything's alright--is to slowly, deliberately fill my cheeks to capacity with air and then slowly, slowly release a stream of this air at the unsuspecting subway passenger next to me until no more remains.

"I heard there are more sheep than people in New Zealand."

"You're thinking of Wales"

"No, sheep."

"There's fish out there. When you've danced with the lady of the sea as much as I have you just know."

"Who's the lady of the sea?"

"See that moon hanging low in that sea of a sky?"

"That's the sun."

"Oh...you know what a white sun means?"

"No"

"The lady's taken her bride."

"She's a lesbian?"

"What did you call that cursed hooch you gave me? I must admit I am under its spell. Either that or everybody is actually trying to steal my food. What an enchanting elixir, it's as if that conviction of every great poet that the world is capable of sudden and complete changes has suddenly been realized exposing only the skeptics and those who demurr as the real drips. In the words of Wallace Stevens 'we purge ourselves in the meantime in what are intended to be saintly exercises.' Before I purge, I ask again dear boy what you call this heady brew."

"Zima, Captain"

"Hell, don't call me captain. I've learned as much from you this strange night as you from me. Call me Lloyd."

"Listen, it's pretty clear that this impulse of yours to always interject with platitudes issues from feelings of intellectual inferiority."

"Prick"

"It's just like someone who's combative to compensate for feeling vulnerable. By the way you do that too. But for now let's focus on your feelings about my advanced coursework."

"Just because you take a karate class at a community college, taught by a 75-year old white guy who insists you call him Master Knuckles, does not make you a doctoral candidate."

"Oh dear, this is more serious than I thought. I'm glad we didn't wait any longer; you're beginning to resent me for the discipline and internal order that Master Knuckles has drummed into me."

"He's brained you with his walker three times now. I get the feeling that he's not a karate expert of any sort, is given to easy agitation, and does not like your company."

"If it's easier for you, we can treat Master Knuckles as the sort of personification of all of the ruin of your life, your aversion to stretching, your angry neglect of the internal energy highways..."

"Will you please just climb down from there. I believe you."

"We're berthing! We're berthing!" cried Mitchey the invalid just as a forboding nimbus appeared over the rubber pile. "That's right, Mitchey. We've berthed. Where are your shoes?" replied Captain McWickle.

You say to me that you think God is in the birds and the trees and the grass and the bees. All I can say to you is: the bees?

The Falconer and the Stone

"Why can't I feel my leg?" cried the Falconer.

"Why can't I feel my leg?" he repeated.

"Did you try rubbing it a little?" inquired Bartlbous the Steward

"That really seems to help." explained the Falconer, relieved.

"What kind of a life is this?"

"What do you mean?"

"This is mad. Running electrical currents into your body will not make you more appealing to her."

"If I thought that you thought that that was why I'm doing this...well I just don't know what I'd do."

"OK, then why are you doing it?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Well maybe that's true but your hat seems to have caught fire again."

""

"You don't even want to know why I'm doing it?"

"You just said I wouldn't understand."

"Try and guess."

"No."

"Leave me."

"Alright, alright...Is it for science?"

"Yes, but what science?"

"I don't know."

"A curse on you and that little tart of yours."

"OK, alchemy?"

"No, but that'll do. Tell me, if you will, what is it that seperates us from mere stones?"

"Life, consciousness, reason, emotion, volition, movement..."

"I'm not so sure that you have more reason than a stone if that's your best answer."

"Well what then. Night falls even as your brilliant mind begins to light the way."

"I am brilliant."

"Just tell me already."

"Why, so you can continue to pluck what petals my dear step-mother has left?"

"Get on your mule."

"OK, OK...stones want, stones feel, stones roll, they just do it very slowly. Stones know everything that goes on around them. Not in the way that we focus our senses on a single thing at a time and then make broader sense of it later. They know everything that's ever happened and everything that ever will happen. They may not make shows of their freedom but that's only because they feel no disassociation with which to regret on the one hand and then revel in on the other. If they had a similar tragic fall they decided to stay right where they landed."

"So why are you doing this?"

"Promise me you'll leave my step-mother alone."

"Come on."

"Leave me at once!"

"How'd you like it if I brained you with this stone-companion of yours?"

"How'd you like it if I stole your shoes again?

"Just tell me."

"OK. So if we agree that stones enjoy more freedom than humans I'll proceed."

"I didn't agree to that."

"You can't protect your precious chickens when you're asleep. It'd be a shame if any harm befell them."

"We don't have chickens."

"..."

"Where was I? . . . What else could we rightly say enjoys more freedom than humans?"

"If stones do then surely we can say that logs are just behind."

"No, but I admire your answer... It's Falcons!"

"So what?"

"I'll tell you what. The only reason Rorfie the falcon left me was because I wasn't free enough to go along with him. And you know what? He was right. I would've held him back."

"..."

"So surely there's no way to become any more like a falcon. But there's certainly a way that I can become more like a stone--another thing that knows freedom everlasting."

"By laying on this hill with your shirt off?"

"My shirt's off?"

"Yes"

"No, you fool. By giving myself more of what divides us from stones thus making me more free than a stone."

"Electricity?"

"At last. It is by electricty that we think. It's by electricty that we feel. It's by electricity that we act."

"Wouldn't being more electric make you less free if less like a stone?"

"Good question. We now know that many remedies work by ostensibly exacerbating the problem to a point where it simply corrects itself."

"Your step-mother is waiting."

"You leave her alone!"

"I'm your father, you tit!"

"Look" said the Saxon "I told you that that strange intoxicating scent could only mean we were in Old Rangoon." "Get below deck" thundered the captain "you know perfectly well we're on the Missouri River."