lundi, mai 21, 2007

My New Book

I thought I'd try my hand at the Great American Novel. Here is my strong opening paragraph.

The wind from the east tossed the garland jauntily about her wimple. It was the kind of effect that drove him crazy with lust. Pant. Pant. Pant. Her bodice was laced tight enough so as to restrict her breathing. This also was the kind of effect that drove him crazy—this time with something not quite lust, but closely resembling it. He could have put his finger on it, but his hands were occupied with the act of fidgeting in the folds of his tunic, looking for the silver drachma he was sure he had placed there before leaving the house, if for no other reason than to be able to locate it for just such an occasion as this. Presently his hands found other things to do. Mainly, a genteel caress of her nape. Now it was inevitable. Kiss. (pause) Kiss. (longer pause) Kiss. He looked deep into her eyes. Once they had stopped kissing, that is. With his left hand, he began once again the search for that damned drachma. His right hand he raised to her voluptuous face, placing it on her cheek, which was blushing. “My darling,” he said, and gently squeezed her goatee.

What do you think?

jeudi, mai 17, 2007

Psuedo Paradox (is What Happens When You Don't Sleep)

The nonsense of Dreaming makes waking lucidity possible. There's a word for that . . . Sort of like when you've been up for days and you realize suddenly that:

In order to work towards a colorblind society, our government and news media must be constant and feverish in their delineation of races and the reporting thereof.

In order to make freedom meaningful we must force our version of it upon others.

In order to make freedom fair we must take money from people who have it and give it to people who don't.

To be interesting to a mass audience, liberty has to include vice and destruction.

In order to establish the equality of the sexes, we must assure that women are every bit as vile and violent as men.

Reproductive rights are secured by preventing reproduction.

Being the party of limited government means spending more money on a military you have sent to a foreign country. (And possibly spending more money, period.)

If there are an above average number of hurricanes, blame it on global warming. If there isn't, keep your mouth shut.

If the president's approval rating is 33%, put it on the front page. When the new Congress gets a 27%, bury it.

The basis of your opinion on national issues and world events is a show that makes fun of national issues and world events.

If a Muslim trying to kill Jewish women and children happens to blow up a Jewish soldier, he is still a terrorist. If a Jewish fighter pilot trying to kill terrorists happens to kill a woman and a child, he is also a terrorist. Either way, it is America's fault.

As an American, you are to be derided for not living in the moment and keeping to your own shores. But you also have a responsibility to feel guilty and fretful over events in the past and conditions in the present that you had nothing to do with, have no control over and can do nothing about.

Rich white people don't go to jail for drug offences, they go to rehab. And they don't have to stop polluting. They purchase carbon credits.

When Al Gore says carbon dioxide is CAUSING warming, make a movie. When he goes before congress and says that, historically speaking, carbon increases have FOLLOWED temperature spikes, cut to commercial.

In order to have credibility and influence, a band must have hits and sell records, in which case they have sold out and have no credible influence.

80 million Elvis fans can't be wrong. But McDonald's has sold 5 billion hamburgers and they are still evil and their food still sucks.

On the one hand, we must not judge people by body type or appearance. On the other hand, obesity is the new plague and anyone caught eating trans fats will be strung up by their cellulite and shot.

Smoke marijuana and you're a free thinking open minded progressive. Smoke tobacco and you're a parasite and a pox who mustn't go near children. (Corollary: smoking pot in movies is hilarious--smoking cigarettes on film is verboten!)

A male teacher who has sex with a student is a pervert and a predator. A female teacher who has sex with a student is a tabloid darling.

Some say sleep is the most important meal of the day. Others point out the fact that it is a gigantic waste of time. (Einstein's own calculations prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that mass increases with velocity making it impossible for anything but light to travel the speed of light. And yet here I am going mad with sleep deprivation, shortening my lifespan by the square of the speed of light by working around the clock. An early grave assured and confirmed by the observation of light bending around my head during the eclipse that occurs when my head comes directly between the sun and my pillow approximately once every hundred years. A lunar eclipse happens more often, but you get the same effect from heavy amounts of pollution.)

Julia Roberts and George Clooney can demand more money than they will ever need in three lifetimes to make one movie. But an oil company is not allowed under any circumstances to make a profit.

If you morn the death of Jerry Falwell, you're an idiot. If you rejoice in his death . . . you're still an idiot. Sometimes people can agree to agree. And that is what we call hope.

mardi, mai 08, 2007

I Agree with Jason

Something has to stop. Now. It is the constant misuse of the term ANAL.

ATTENTION, ALL YE ENDS OF THE EARTH: "Anal" means "having to do with the anus." That is all it means. I can't figure out why anyone commiserating about shopping or talking about someone's housecleaning prowess would bring up their anus. And even if you are making reference to the "anal retentive" state elucidated by Freud, that doesn't mean what you think it means. I believe what the guilty, and all their anal ilk, mean to say is "fastidious," or something along that vein.

So let's all stop this clear and corrosive adulteration of our language. If my impotent screed here doesn't cure you, google the word "anal" just once, even with the safe search on. It will take you a good long while to find a reference to someone who is detail oriented or germ phobic. And you will NEVER misuse it again.