THE ALLEGORY OF THE BEER CAVE

- - - -

[Glaucon] And now, he said, to prove my understanding of your meaning, let me show you a similar figure—Behold! Humans living in a beer cave which has an automatic glass door; here they have been since childhood when they first snuck in, and they are duct taped so they cannot move; and they have nose piercings which are snagged, being thus held from moving their heads and they must look only at a blank wall under a Super Bowl poster. Behind and above them the fluorescent lights are always on, and between the punks and the lights is a display area where beers are kept at a constant 34 degrees.

[Socrates] I see.

[Glaucon] And do you also see, he said, clerks passing along the display area carrying vessels of all sorts, and cardboard stand-ups of models and original party animals?

[Socrates] You have also shown me strange images and strange prisoners, I replied.

[Glaucon] So much like ourselves, they only see their own shadows and the shadows of one another on the wall. And of the objects which are being carried, they would only see the shadows as well?

[Socrates] It is certain.

[Glaucon] And, he said, if the prisoners were able to speak to each other and see each other's shadows, would they not call each other "dude" or "bro" and also give names to the other shadows, like "babe" and "spuds"?

[Socrates] You may rely on it.

[Glaucon] And assume that the walls of the beer cave had an echo, and when one of the shoppers or clerks said something, would the prisoners conclude that the voices came from the shadows?

[Socrates] Without a doubt, I said.

[Glaucon] To them the truth would be nothing but the shadows.

[Socrates] The outlook is good for what you have said.

[Glaucon] And now look and see what would happen if one of the punks was freed and could see the misconceptions they had believed. At first, one would be in pain from the removal of the tape and the continued discomfort of the remaining glue. Then he will turn around and see the objects as they really are; the direct light from the neon signs will hurt his eyes, and he will not be able to see his former reality anymore. Further imagine when he is able to see the objects in the beer cave—what will be his reaction? Will he not be dumbfounded when asked to name the stand-ups and the beer-case-coliseum? Will he not think that the shadows of his former world were more real than these?

[Socrates] Most likely, I replied.

[Glaucon] Assume again that he is able to walk to the seeing eye, and the automatic door slides open, and he goes out into the convenience store, as is within the alcohol laws in this State; would he not wait in checkouts and see the tabloids and Slim-Jims, and would he not see them as being not real?

[Socrates] Signs point to yes.

[Glaucon] And, he said, if he went out in the sun looking for a party, would he not begin by going to baby showers and bar mitzvahs, as he would be too dazzled by more hardcore parties?

[Socrates] You may rely on it.

[Glaucon] Would he not then work his way up through ice cream socials and Tupperware parties to get to tailgate and toga parties?

[Socrates] Yes, but aren't they all?

[Glaucon] Finally, he said, our punk will be at a bachelor party on New Year's Eve on his twenty-first birthday at Mardi Gras in New Orleans under a full moon at midnight.

[Socrates] Don't count on it.

[Glaucon] With strippers and ten kegs?

[Socrates] Easy now, I warned.

[Glaucon] And when they run out of beer and have to send a freshman back to the beer cave, do you not think that he might look upon the changes he has made to himself and pity those still dwelling there?

[Socrates] It is decidedly so.

[Glaucon] What if he returned to the beer cave and saw the prisoners as they played games amongst themselves, predicting what the shadows would do? What if he sat with them and tried to play alongside them; would he not still be buzzed and unable to compete against them? Would he not be ridiculed by them?

[Socrates] Yes.

[Glaucon] Would he not have to practice going into and out of the beer cave to teach them to party? Whereas there are those that say that partying must be put into the soul, does not our dialogue prove that the ability to party exists in the soul already and the knowledge to use it must be learned by bits and sips?

[Socrates] It is certain, I said.

[Glaucon] Then those that have partied in the world must be made to sober up and return to the beer cave to take a turn living amongst the punks to make them the next generation of party hosts. For it can be said that the party at which the hosts are most eager to share their beer is always best, and in which they are most reluctant, the lamest.

[Socrates] Without a doubt.

[Glaucon] You must create for your future hosts a better party; for only in the State which offers this will they party who are truly awesome and fun; and all truly awesome parties must be hosted by a philosopher-partier.

[Socrates] Yes—definitely.

[Glaucon] Now, he said, if I have proven my understanding, shall we discuss how such hosts are to be trained, and parties to be planned and funded, which will, in turn, lead to the allegory of the man-cave?

[Socrates] As I see it, yes.

- - - -

Thanksgiving talking points.

1. Talk about a huge breast!
2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.
3. It's Cool Whip time!
4. If I don't undo my pants, I'll burst!
5. That's one terrific spread!
6. I'm in the mood for a little dark meat.
7. Are you ready for seconds yet?
8. Its a little dry, do you still want to eat it?
9. Just wait your turn, you'll get some!
10. Don't play with your meat.
11. Just spread the legs open & stuff it in.
12. Do you think you'll be able to handle all these people at once?
13. I didn't expect everyone to come at once!
14. You still have a little bit on your chin.
15. How long will it take after you stick it in?
16. You'll know it's ready when it pops up.
17. Wow, I didn't think I could handle all of that!
18. That's the biggest one I've ever seen!

An open letter to my government representatives: Don’t let us down on health care reform

An open letter to my government representatives: Don’t let us down on health care reform: "

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Senator Bennet, Senator Udall, Representative DeGette:

As we all know, the nation has been alive with discourse of all flavors over the current state of the health care system and the insurance industry. Recently, Senator Baucus has brought forth his proposal, dubbed by some critics (rightly so, in my opinion) the “Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.”

Please listen: The very reason we need the government to intervene is because millions of us have a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Private industry has already proven that it cannot be trusted to look out for its bottom line and simultaneously safeguard and maintain the health of the American people, even if some of us are misguidedly rallying in the streets against our interests at the urgings of their preferred Chicken Littles of media and industry.

It is my belief that what needs to be accomplished is the affirmation of every American citizen’s right to a basic level of health, security and well-being above a private company’s right to make a profit, which it currently does in part by conveniently discounting and disregarding its customers’ human rights at its whims. Private insurers need to know, as my mother would say, that “your rights stop where another one’s starts.”

Legislation that hands millions of new customers directly over to health insurers, who have made clear that they give their profit motives precedence over honoring their commitments to their policyholders, sometimes with deadly consequences, is simply a conversion of taxpayer money into more income for the industry and a tacit acceptance of its horrific business practices.

As a taxpayer, I have no qualms about the cost of health care reform–I consider it our duty to one another as citizens, as a community, and as a nation. How do you think it looks when Washington puts us all further in hock frivolously throwing money down the toilets of the banking industry, tax cuts for the rich, and Iraq, to cite a few recent examples (our last president tried to flush Social Security as well), and then tries to tell us that we’re not entitled to a health care system that won’t be tainted by continued rewards to an industry with no reservations about flipping us the middle finger and leaving us for dead when we dare get sick? Why are regular people being taught to accept the ever-growing obligations to war, to creditors, and to failed industry, and at the same time not to make an across-the-board investment in one another as this nation’s human capital: workers; thinkers; doers; entrepreneurs; taxpayers; human beings?

I am free to help pay your medical bills, and those of my grandparents, and for those of us in states of extraordinary need, but not for a system that’s going to be there for me, free from the tentacles and inflated costs of private interests, even if I don’t have the right job, the right friends, a trust fund, a winning Powerball ticket, or the good fortune to remain healthy and free of accidents between now, at the age of 29, and my 65th birthday, should I find myself again without income or coverage?

Is continued corporate captivity the thanks we are going to get from our representatives for supporting them with our votes and paying for their salaries, benefits and pension plans? We not only sacrifice our own salaries, benefits and pension plans (and for many of us, our homes) for others’ bad decisions and greed, but now we can expect to be groomed to accept some compromise from Capitol Hill that may or may not improve our lives while the jackpots continue to flow upward?

A hostile climate has been created for every working person in this country. We have been told for years by the powerful, privileged and obscenely well-compensated that we are going to have to do things like “tighten our belts” and “weather the storm” (or, as some have called it, the “rough patch”). We’ve individually and collectively been subjected to repeated assaults on our financial well-being, our employment opportunities, our civil rights, our health and our futures by an ever more demanding section of the population so far insulated from what we are truly facing. One can turn on the television and at any given time watch a politician, executive, “industry expert” or news reporter talk about our right to access affordable health care, even though they themselves would never fathom or accept such treatment, as though United States citizens were no better than numbers on a balance sheet or some rogue band of freeloaders trying to burgle the upper class.

We all know who is really being burgled.

Let me tell you something: I don’t care to hear what anybody in a position of privilege has to say unless they have truly done their homework or they have first-hand life experience to back it up. I don’t care if some insurance executive is going to have to postpone the construction of his exact replica of the M.C. Hammer mansion in Dubai if he doesn’t get some additional payoff from the American public. I’ve got skin in the game here, too, and you and the rest of our representatives have the opportunity to come through with flying colors for me and for my fellow citizens. We’re all counting on you, even those of us who don’t know it or won’t admit it because it wouldn’t fit their politics or their way of thinking to do so.

We as Americans need to join the rest of the West in providing each other, across income, party and racial lines, with a guarantee of basic care not as some so-called “middle-class entitlement,” as I have heard wafting condescendingly out of the windpipes of more than one multimillionaire, but as a long-overdue recognition of our needs and our rights, and perhaps the making of amends over the treatment so many of us have endured from entities that have been allowed growing and crippling control over the quality, course, and length, of our lives.

If a strong stand is not ultimately taken on our behalf, it will be a damning and ominous indicator of what this country truly thinks of me, my neighbors, my family, my friends, and the rest of my fellow citizens. I implore you: Keep an irrevocable public option on the table and stick to your guns on it. To be blunt, some of your colleagues absolutely will do their best to beat you over the head with whatever you do, so you might as well make it worth doing in the first place and roll with the punches so that we, as a nation, will come out better for it. I don’t want something for nothing, as the elites would put it–I want something better for what I have put in and will continue to put in, and the people of this nation have more than paid for it in service to their employers, their families, their communities, their country–and some with their lives.

Thank you,

A. N. Cargo

Denver, Colorado (CO-01)

"

Saul Williams - List of Demands

Les chansons d'amour

Les chansons d'amour
Uploaded by jydom. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Lyrics:

Lave
Ma mémoire sale dans son fleuve de boue
Du bout de ta langue nettoie moi partout
Et ne laisse pas la moindre trace
De tout ce qui me lie et qui me lasse
Hélas

Chasse
Traque-la en moi, ce n'est qu'en moi qu'elle vit
Et lorsque tu la tiendras au bout de ton fusil
N'écoute pas si elle t'implore
Tu sais qu'elle doit mourir d'une deuxième mort
Alors... tue-la

Pleure
Je l'ai fait avant toi et ça ne sert à rien
A quoi bon les sanglots, inonder les coussins
J'ai essayé, j'ai essayé
Mais j'ai le coeur sec et les yeux gonflés
Mais j'ai le coeur sec et les yeux gonflés

Alors brûle
Brûle quand tu t'enlises dans mon grand lit de glace
Mon lit comme une banquise qui fond quand tu m'enlaces
Plus rien n'est triste, plus rien n'est grave
Si j'ai ton corps comme un torrent de lave

Ma mémoire sale dans son fleuve de boue
Lave
Lave
Ma mémoire sa dans son fleuve de boue
Lave (lave)

The Budget

wood

Don’t ask, don’t kill

It’s probably only a matter of time before President Barack Obama eliminates “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. This is on the forefront of many a gay activist’s agenda. Protesters are pushing Obama to “keep his promise” after gay linguist Daniel Choi was discharged for coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show. But of all the promises Obama has made, striking DADT is far from the top of my list of important national priorities. Instead of investing all of our money and time pursuing our militaristic desires, I’d like to propose that all gay activists worldwide combine our efforts to push Obama to keep another one of his promises – namely to end the goddamn fucking war!

I have listened to many queers tell me their rational for wanting full military equality. I have dear friends engaged in this fight. And if we were Sweden or Jamaica, I’d totally agree that gays should serve openly. But we’re not. We are the U.S. fucking A. Our business is to expand the empire and commandeer the resources of weaker nations for our own consumption. I find it immensely difficult to muster patriotism when it comes to the imperial objectives of the U.S. government. We have continually witnessed the abuses of American nationalism through war and conquest. I don’t want the freedom to invade foreign countries. I don’t want the freedom to drop bombs on villages that kill innocent children and families. I don’t want the freedom to roundup dark-skinned people in midnight raids. I don’t want the freedom to waterboard and torture. I don’t want the freedom to bully and intimidate the world at the end of a gun.
Not now, not ever. The U.S. Military is a corrupt institution. It thrives on rabid sexism, racism and homophobia to enforce discipline. The military strips down recruits by initiating them into a world of extreme machismo and authoritarian obedience. Women and queers have traditionally been used as epithets to degrade the training soldier. This is of course to make them better, more compliant machines. Janice Karpinski was the commanding general over Abu Ghraib. When she was on KRCL’s RadioActive a couple years back, she threw out a sobering fact. She told the listeners that if you are an enlisted female you have over a 50% chance of being sexually assaulted. Not by the insurgents mind you, but rather your fellow soldiers. According to a March CBS report, in 2006 there were “2,974 cases of rape and sexual assault across the services”. On top of that, The Pentagon acknowledged, “some 80 percent of rapes are never reported.” I wonder what the stats will be for openly out and proud queers.

There are branches of our military that depend on your ability to kill another human being. The military dehumanizes the “enemy” with xenophobic epithets like “sand-nigger” and “hadji”. It’s so much easier to kill someone after you strip them of their humanity. This is something that we “queers” should understand all too well. To covet membership in a sexist, racist organization that routinely denigrates and viciously marginalizes “enemies” should be anathema to every American faggot.

And of course what about our returning soldiers? Divorce rates for Iraq war veterans have been spiking. What good is finally getting a gay marriage if it’s going to hell once you get back from your third tour of duty? What about the psychological and emotional impacts of invasion and occupation? How do you live with yourself when you have killed in the name of the flag? Are you prepared to fight the unending medical bureaucracy just to get basic health care when you come home fucked up? Are you ready for a government to tell you that you don’t have the symptoms you say you do? Or that exposure to some ungodly chemical agent isn’t why you are cramping, bleeding and dying?

Before we get all fired up over the unfairness of not being allowed to drop a cruise missile on an Afghani wedding party, let’s stop and take pause at what our devotion to militarism has cost our nation. We have invested in a trillion dollar war and now experience economic recession. Our citizens return maimed, and are too often unable to access services. Torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition and a disregard for our best principles have compromised our national soul.

I know we want to believe Obama will turn things around. But when I see his commitment to military tribunals and his refusal to hold torturers accountable for their actions, I become suspicious. I’m not interested in a kinder, gentler empire. I’m interested in the US being an upstanding global citizen.

Americans get off on violence. For god’s sake, our national anthem is a war song with the “rockets red glare” followed by all those “bombs bursting in air”. I get it. War kicks ass. And a group of angry queers bullied in high school probably could do all kinds of damage with a knife and a grenade. My recommendation: if you want to be a mercenary for hire, then go join Xe, (the Security Organization Formerly Known as Blackwater). There you can shoot and maim to sustain our empire – for profit! The pay is unmatched and you can literally make a killing.

And finally, the last thing we need is a flurry of out gay veterans leaving the service and bringing a military worldview into the gay political movement. Spare us please. If we think assimilation, male privilege and compliance to heterosexual norms is bad now, imagine what it could be with a bunch of regimented, sexist automaton fags. The only gay soldiers I want to see are in porn. This is the best practical place for them. Slap that Kevlar and show me your salute! Other than that, the gay community should not be foot soldiers for imperial demagogues. We’ve got more important work to do people. Don’t ask, don’t kill.

MPHO - Box N Locks (HD)

Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm (Complete)

Röyksopp - The Girl And The Robot

Bash Back!

mvp.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

THE TOM TOM CLUB CATECHISM

- - - -

LESSON 1

On the End of Man

Q. What you gonna do when you get out of jail?
A. I'm gonna have some fun.

Q. What do you consider "fun"?
A. Fun, natural fun!

LESSON 2

On the Genius of Love and His Perfections

Q. Who made us?
A. The Genius of Love.

Q. Who is the Genius of Love?
A. Well, he's the Genius of Love.

Q. Why did the Genius of Love make us?
A. He's got a greater depth of feeling. He's so deep.

Q. Had the Genius of Love a beginning?
A. There is no beginning and there is no end.

Q. Where is the Genius of Love?
A. Time isn't present in that dimension.

LESSON 37

On Heaven

Q. What is Heaven?
A. Feels like I'm dreaming, but I'm not sleeping.

Q. In what does the happiness of Heaven exist?
A. My boyfriend, my laughing boyfriend.

Q. Who is waiting for us in Heaven?
A. The maven of funk mutation Clinton's musicians, such as Bootsy Collins.

A LOST LESSON

On Stepping in a Rhythm to a Kurtis Blow

Q. Who needs to think when your feet just go?
A. Bohannon! Bohannon! Bohannon! Bohannon! James Brown! James Brown!

Gotta Get Wed (Same Sex Marriage Music Video)

Leviticus

Gay marriage is bad. It is morally indefensible and repugnant to anyone who has experimented with gay sex in college and Anne Heche.

Yet it seems every other day, some state is legalizing the breakdown of traditional American values. It's true that some traditional American values, like slavery and the right to privacy, needed breaking down. But every time I see or hear about another gay pride parade or Rosie O'Donnell YouTube rant, I want buy another Bill O'Reilly t-shirt. Seriously.

The real reason the gays want to marry is the same reason everyone wants to be an illegal alien. It's the benefits. 'Why," says the gay man, "does the guy doing my lawn get free medical from the state, but I have to pay full price for my life partner's colonoscopy?"

Why indeed? Well here's the answer. Because you broke God's law, moron. Instead of going out and having multiple partners, having unprotected sodomy with other sinners and spreading the HIV virus as God intended, you have chosen to be homosexually monogamous.

EMOTIONAL STATE 3A

- - - -

It has recently been brought to our attention that some of you are stuck in emotional state 3A, Consumed by Fear. Though we have made a number of announcements recently about the need for an emotional-state change, and had hoped that this would be a relatively smooth and uniform process, we understand that 3A is a particularly robust state and that many of you may need further guidance on how to proceed.

You might remember that 3A was invoked, as a purely temporary response, after the Event of Great Magnitude. At the time, it was thought that 3A would be in effect for no longer than a short period, and that it would be at most a medium-term measure. We never intended for 3A to be a long-term solution. That said, it has become obvious that some of you have been unable to extricate yourselves from state 3A, despite our continued suggestions that you do so, and, thus, are attempting to function in an emotional state that does not efficiently deal with our current reality.

It has been found that an incremental approach may prove fruitful. Perhaps it would be helpful at this time for us to make some specific suggestions of alternative states you may want to explore, as a way of gradually distancing yourself from 3A. Our studies indicate that good first steps might be 5E, Generally Fearful; 10B, Apprehensive; or 11C, Jittery. (Check your manuals for appropriate definitions.) Again, these would only be stopgap measures, methods for moving slowly away from 3A and toward one of the currently recommended emotional states, such as 75D, Cautiously Guarded; 78A, Vaguely Alert; or even 105M, Mildly Optimistic.

Some of you may be tempted to try to go cold turkey, as it were, and plunge directly from emotional state 3A into one of the recommended states in the 70s or 80s. Though such efforts are not unheard of, we would emphasize that nearly all the known successful attempts have been conducted in laboratory settings, and that the procedure is rarely successful in real-world situations. That said, if you remain determined, we have made available a number of pamphlets outlining the generally accepted research in this area.

Please be aware that we are by no means recommending that you try to go anywhere near emotional state 800A, Calmly Focused; 805B, Gently Aware; or any of their associated states. As you probably know, these are advanced states that require a great deal of practice, and, depending on your region, there may be licensing requirements. These states should only be attempted by trained professionals operating in controlled conditions.

This brings us to the subject of unauthorized emotional states. As you may know, we have received multiple reports of unauthorized emotional states, many of them emanating from Sector 2 (not that we are pointing any fingers!), and we find ourselves Troubled (53B). Therefore, this may be a good opportunity to review some of the basic tenets of the Emotional State Paradigm, as agreed to at the 11th General Council, many of which relate directly to the aforementioned occurrences.

Emotional state 485G, Wild Abandon, is officially reserved for weddings and public holidays, with significant leeway given for personal triumphs. The same goes for 430A, Effusive Joy; 430B, Elation; and 437C, Overwhelming Glee. (Again, see your manuals for definitions.) Although the decision to officially sanction these emotional states was regarded by some at the time as controversial, it was seen as a necessary precaution in the wake of the High-Level Hoax (remember how that turned out?) and, though carefully regulated, these states are now standard.

Given the large number of reports of recent instances of officially controlled emotional states, we would like to recommend some viable options for those of you wishing to express a more vibrant point of view. For those of you tempted to exhibit 485G, Wild Abandon, may we suggest 375B, Moderate Giddiness? This would provide the necessary irreverence of 485G but without the inherent danger. Another viable alternative might be 493E, General Excitability, which provides a similar adrenal rush but in more controllable doses. We have also seen success with 487C, Wholehearted Enthusiasm. Whatever method of substitution you choose to pursue, the main thing to keep in mind is that moderation is the key.

We are living in tumultuous times, which have obviously proved challenging, both for those of you striving to return from previously used emotional states that are no longer desirable and for those tempted into unauthorized states as a result of the recent, broadly perceived changes. Our goal is to be encouraging, not prescriptive, and punitive only in the face of the most egregious violations. We draw your attention to the large number of publicly available resources existent to help you through this period, and, as always, we remain humbly at your service.

INTERNET-AGE WRITING SYLLABUS AND COURSE OVERVIEW

- - - -

ENG 371WR:
Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
M-W-F: 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Course Description

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.

Prerequisites

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

Required Reading Materials

Literary works, including the online table of contents of the Huffington Post's Complete Guide to Blogging, will serve as models to be skimmed for thorough analysis. Also, Perez Hilton's Twitter feed.

SECTION 1:
LECTURE AND DISCUSSION

The Writing Is on the Wall:
Why Print/Reading Will Go the Way
of the Pictograph

Four weeks will be devoted to discussing the publishing industry and why―with the exception of wordless celebrity glossies―the print medium is, um, boring and, furthermore, totally dull.

Week 1:
Reading is stoopid

This fundamental truth may seem obvious to today's youth, but this wasn't always the case. Students will examine why former generations carried around heavy clumps of bound paper and why they chose to read instead of watching TV or playing Guitar Hero.

Week 2:
Printing words isn't good
for the environment

Students will evaluate why, as BuzzMachine founder Jeff Jarvis articulates, "Paper is where words go to die." Paper is also where rainforests go to die, which, needless to say, isn't good for the Hyla rhodopepla tree frog. Thus, while older generations wax nostalgic about curling up by the fireplace with a good book or the Sunday paper, students will be encouraged to remember The Lorax (the animated anti-logging-industry television special, not the book).

Week 3:
Curling up with
a good book/newspaper
is dangerous

Students will explore the dangers of curling up by fires with books and newspapers. That paper could catch fire should an ember unexpectedly pop out. And all that curling is not good for people's backs. Especially since most readers of books, magazines, and newspapers are elderly and are thus already more likely to suffer from back ailments.

Week 4:
The Kindle Question

Is Amazon's wireless reading device the Segway of handheld gadgets? Should it be smaller, come with headphones, and play MP3s instead of display book text? Students will discuss.

SECTION 2:
WRITING WORKSHOP

I Can Haz Writin Skillz?

This section of the course is a workshop where students will work to perfect their tweeting, blogging, and short-form writing skills.

Week 5:
Grammar and Technique

Navigating the ever-changing landscape of Internet slang and chatspeak is essential to creating effective tweets, instant messages, and text messages. Students will practice using emoticons to create powerful dialogue and to establish dramatic irony. They'll learn to gracefully integrate complex expressions into their IM writing, substituting the trite LOL ("laughing out loud") and "meh" (the written equivalent of a shrug) with more-advanced expressions like BOSMKL ("bending over smacking my knee laughing") and HFACTDEWARIUCSMNUWKIASLAMB ("holy flipping animal crackers, that doesn't even warrant a response; if you could see me now, you would know that I am shrugging like a mofu, biotch"). Students will be encouraged to nurture their craft, free of the restraints of punctuation, syntax, and grammar.

Week 6:
140 Characters or Less

Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets come alive with shallow wit. They'll learn how to construct Facebook status updates that glitter with irony, absurdity, and dramatic glibness. When tweeting, for instance, that "John is enjoying a buttery English muffin," why not add a link to an image of a muffin with butter oozing from its nooks and crannies? Or why not exaggerate a tad and say that there's bacon on that muffin, even if there's not? It's called poetic license when writers do it! Students will be encouraged to show honesty and vulnerability in their tweets: "Lydia is lounging about in her underwear at 401 Park Street apartment #2, feeling guilty about telling her boss that her uncle died but enjoying the day off." There's no such thing as oversharing when you're a writer.

Week 7:
Blogging

No postprint writing class would be complete without a comprehensive overview of blog writing. Students will work to make their blogging more vivid using the fundamentals of the craft, such as imagery, foreshadowing, symbolism, and viral paparazzi photos of celebrity nip slips. Students will practice posting viral YouTube videos with eye-catching headlines like "Check this out," "BOSMKL," and "Doesn't this CRAZY cat look like she's giving that ferret a high-five?" Students will learn time-saving tricks, like how to construct an 800-word blog entry in 30 seconds using a simple news article and copy-and-paste. And, as an exercise in the first-person narrative form, students will blog intimate details about their lives, their studies, and their sexual histories (with pictures), with the intent of being linked to by gossip sites and/or discovered by future employers.

SECTION 3:
LECTURE AND DISCUSSION

The Industry—Getting Published

Students will learn inside knowledge about the industry—getting published, getting paid, dealing with agents and editors—and assess why all the aforementioned are no longer applicable in the postprint, post-reading age.

Week 8:
New Rules

Students will analyze the publishing industry and learn how to be more innovative than the bards of yesteryear. They'll be asked to consider, for instance, Thomas Pynchon. How much more successful would Gravity's Rainbow have been if it were two paragraphs long and posted on a blog beneath a picture of scantily clad coeds? And why not add a Google search box? Or what if Susan Sontag had friended 10 million people on Facebook and then published a shorter version of The Volcano Lover as a status update: "Susan thinks a volcano is a great metaphor for primal passion. Also, streak of my hair turning white—d'oh!"

Attendance: Unnecessary, but students should be signed onto IM and/or have their phones turned on.

Evaluation: Students will be graded on the RBBEAW* system, developed to assess and score students based on their own relative merit.

A+ = 100–90
A = 89–80
A- = 79–70
A-- = 69–60
A--- = 59–50
A---- = 49–0


- - - -

* Raised by Boomers, Everyone's a Winner

Free Will

PRAYER OF GRATITUDE
TO THE TRICKY GODDESS OF BENEVOLENT MISCHIEF

All hail the Tricky Goddess of Benevolent Mischief, also known as the Cosmic Instigator of Healing Trouble. Let us praise and ratify her ingenious plan to turn the status quo upside-down.

The vivid exposure of greed, corruption, and delusion among the top echelons of the American political and financial hierarchy is a blessing on all of humanity.

The eruption of fertile chaos is making it difficult to carry on with business as usual, and we could not have received a more energizing gift.

A prayer:

Oh Wise Trickster Goddess, You Compassionate Conjurer of Relentless Change, You Righteous Rascal in Charge of Keeping a Steady Flow of Sacred Uproar Pouring into Our Lives:

Please continue to influence the masters of plutocracy and war and their media minions to be ever-more obvious as they spin out their perversions of your glorious creation, so that more and more of our sleeping tribe will wake up to the Open Secret.

Inspire the enforcers of mass hallucination to display their hypocrisy in an ever-escalating melodrama of spittle flecks and sour faces, as in a slapstick morality play from the Middle Ages, so that we, their captive audience, may convulse with purgative guffaws that shatter the mass hallucination.

And if you don't mind, Sweet Divine Rebel Goddess, please allow us to nurture a spark of hope that the breakdown in the Way Things Have Always Been Done will lead to fresh, hot, tidal-wave breakthroughs of beauty, truth, justice, equality and love everywhere we turn.

And now, in my capacity as Sacred Janitor of the Invisible Government of Sweaty Meditation, I hereby declare the entire United States of America a Temporary Autonomous Zone.

A Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) is any festive event that liberates the imaginations of everyone present, thereby making it possible for life to be penetrated by the Marvelous. Authority and dignity and routine have no place at a TAZ; an uninhibited quest for rabble-rousing conviviality must be the only guideline.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started in creating your own local celebration of TAZ. Feel free to dream up your own, and make sure to tell me about them.

Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence and spiritual beauty. Burglarize houses, but instead of stealing, leave behind beautiful and confusing gifts. Spread gossip about the unsung genius of people who don't get nearly enough credit for their good work.

Take a few friends and a boom box to an all-night grocery store and engage in ecstatic, whirling dervish-style dancing in the aisles until you're thrown out. Scrawl the following graffiti in courthouse lavatories and on playground walls: "I dare you to scare yourself with how beautiful you are."

Pick people at random' and convince them they're the heirs to an enormous, useless, and amazing fortune—say, 5,000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or a leper colony in India, or a collection of alchemical manuscripts. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, and will perhaps be driven to cultivate a more intense quest for exhilarating adventures.

Scrawl the following poem by Hafiz in courthouse lavatories, on playground walls, and through e-mail lists:

AT THIS PARTY

I don't want to be the only one here
Telling all the secrets --

Filling up all the bowls at this party,
Taking all the laughs.

I would like you
To start putting things on the table
That can also feed the soul
The way I do.

That way
We can invite

A hell of a lot more
Friends.

Satire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Satire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humour in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.

A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, however, is that 'in satire, irony is militant'.[2] This 'militant irony' (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack."

Through My Eyes - Trailer

A message from your lord.

People say I've changed recently, and it's not just because I spent two months in the casket of Ra, soaking up his powers. I mean, sure, that probably has something to do with it, but it's tangential at best. It's true, I didn't used to be able to call down pestilence from the heavens or raise souls from the underworld, but that's not what people are noticing. OK, so you might be distracted by the crackling aura of my power, or by the growth of my beak, but it's the changes inside of me that are truly remarkable. And I'm not just talking about my ability to crush things with my mind.

It's hard to see my maturity as a human god-being through the piled bones of my enemies, but if you look beyond them you'll realize that I've gone through some remarkable growth. You might think that vanquishing armies with targeted meteor strikes or subjugating the nations of the world to my despotic rule shows my changes, but really it's what I learned from that.

My changes didn't just happen all of a sudden—other than the horns; those did sprout up out of nowhere—it was a process. When I was on the fields of Athenry, raining boiling acid on the plague-ridden people of Ireland, I thought to myself, "Damn, this is some heavy shit." (Forgive my language.) It might have been a one-time thing, but it happened again a week later when I was flooding Vancouver with the foam-capped waters of the Pacific. As the citizens desperately tried to reach higher ground, I had to step back and gain some perspective, man. I had just unleashed a flock of flesh-eating vultures when I really took stock of things. I mean, there I was, already the emperor and beloved deity of half the world, but was I happy?

I don't think it fully sunk in until a month later when the last free remnants of humanity tried to resist me in Jakarta. Between bouts of laughter over their attempts to fell me with mortal weapons, I realized my place here. I quickly set off the Merapi volcano and, as the lava chased my foes into the waiting mouths of my shark servants, I retreated to the temple my vassals built out of human skulls, for some serious reflection. I thought to myself, What is the point of global conquest if you have to melt the brains of your closest friends to get there?

Now, I know you're probably thinking that it's pretty convenient I went through this realization after I enslaved the human race, and several lesser races, but I really have changed. Just the other day, a rebellion flared up in Rio de Janeiro and I only ordered the sacrifice of half the rebel families (and the deaths were painless, too!), a complete 180 from last month in Orlando.

I want to assure you that from this point forward I plan on being the best Supreme God and Ruler of the Planets Earth and Mars that I can be. I'm thankful you took some time out of carving Mount Everest into my likeness to listen to what I have to say. It was difficult to get that off my chest, but you were a very supportive audience. Have a pleasant three-hour night rest period.

This recession is awesome!

Mom and Dad keep talking about this recession and I gotta say: it's awesome! Yesterday, I ate pizza for breakfast, mac and cheese and hot-dog cubes for lunch, and then more pizza for dinner! Mom said that I could eat as much McDonald's as I want, and she even offered to leave me there in the ball pit for an entire day while she went and looked for new jobs! Awesome!

Every day after school, I used to go to violin lessons, but now Mom says I don't have to go anymore! This is so awesome because the violin was so boring and my teacher, Mrs. Calabrass, smelled like the attic and didn't let me drink soda! But now I don't have to deal with Mrs. Calabrass or listen to stupid Brahms with her! I hate the attic—but I love this recession!

We'd planned to go to France or something for our family vacation. But now, since it's the recession, we're all going to Gilbert's Goofy Park and playing minigolf and going on the go-karts! And even batting cages maybe, too! I don't think France has any batting cages or go-karts, so this is an amazing, amazing thing! I think if I'm good I can probably eat pizza at Gilbert's Goofy Park! I love pizza and I love this recession!

Dad's been home so much recently and it's been awesome! He just wears underpants and watches sports highlights and eats Cooler Ranch Doritos, which sounds super fun! I have to go to school, so I only get to see him when I get home, but yesterday Dad and I played Xbox together for six hours! He started off pretty good at the games, but each hour he got worse and worse, and soon he started making weird noises! He even started saying his words all slow and jumbled like a crazy man! He's really having a good time in this recession! So am I!

We used to have to drive like a gazillion hours in the car to get to Grandma's weird big blue house with no TV, but now Grandma drives her new house over to us in her new RV! It's amazing! I totally didn't know cars could also be houses and have stoves and have TVs, but they can! Grandma has it all thanks to the recession. And so do I!

Man, I hope this recession never ends. Me and my friends always high-five each other when we hear an older person say, "Not in this economy," because we know it always leads to something awesome for us! This is the best childhood ever! I could live like this for the rest of my life!

I love this recession!

The Itenerant Gourmet

Here's a poem from 1829 about gay marriage:

I will tell you a Joke about Jewel and Mary
It is neither a Joke nor a Story

For Rubin and Charles has married two girls
But Billy has married a boy

The girlies he had tried on every Side
But none could he get to agree

All was in vain he went home again
And since that is married to Natty

So Billy and Natty agreed very well
And mama's well pleased at the match

The egg it is laid but Natty's afraid
The Shell is So Soft that it never will hatch

But Betsy she said you Cursed bald head
My Suitor you never Can be

Beside your low crotch proclaims you a botch
And that never Can serve for me

The poem was written by Abraham Lincoln, 180 years ago.

State of the Internet - In Verse

In nineteen hundred and fifty-seven,
The Soviets were the first to leaven
Into orbit a little ball of tin
Entitled Sputnik, which, to the chagrin
Of a mortified American pride,
Signaled to the world a colossal stride
In the national race to outer space.
Quickly the Yanks, fearing further disgrace,
Directed the Department of Defense
To spare – as usual – little expense,
And see ordained with urgent fervency
The Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Abbreviated – as per convention –
To ARPA, whereat anal retention
Was a dubious trait among the staff.
‘Twas the ARPAn charge to redeem the gaffe
Of a languorous technical culture,
And salvage from that lauded sepulcher
Of the second world war some remembrance
Of minds that minted atomic ordnance.
So in the service of militant might,
The scientists, often into the night,
Researched and reported on their findings.
For the most part, there were little tidings,
And they may or may not have been aware,
When, in sixty-two, by the constant glare
Of the Cold War, the American Air Force
Set the RAND Corporation on a course
To study how the military brass
Could maintain its command o’er the ass
Of every missile and B-fifty-two
Bomber in the unthinkable boo-boo
Of a thermo-nuclear snack-attack.
To its eternal credit, RAND came back
To recommend a “packet switched network,”
Which, to those for whom such jargon is murk,
Suffice to say is what started the fun.
And so at last, by ‘sixty-nine, ‘twas done:
Together were linked four physical nodes –
Minicomputers from the brains’ abodes
Of S.R.I. Stanford, UCSB,
UCLA, and Utah U. You see?
Now, with its architects fully acclaimed,
The ARPANET was their cartilage named,
And slowly its number of nodes increased
Until, in ‘seventy-three, with at least
Twenty-three machines in operation,
The developing conglomeration
Bodied from it forth TCP/IP –
A protocol built to become the key
By which diverse networks could integrate.
‘Twas from this arrangement did circulate
The first coinage of that word, “Internet,”
And slowly therefrom advanced the onset
Of additional nodes, exacting codes,
And ARPA-funded academic odes.
By ‘eighty-three, sporting some five hundred
And sixty-two host computers, kindred
But by their mundane, numbered addresses
That, for to recall, caused many stresses,
The U of Wisconsin – praise them their wits! –
Fashioned a means where the network transmits
Its delicious packets to domain names
Instead of numbers, and thus the mainframes
Assumed a more humane disposition.
Seven years later came the fruition
Of hypertext, a system to provide
Wanted information in simplified
And more efficient form across the means
Of three hundred and twelve thousand machines.
Two years later ‘twas nineteen ninety-two.
The number of hosts connected thereto
Had by exponential explosion grown
To over a million, and formed the zone
To be known thenceforth as the world-wide web.
‘Twas a breathless place of negative ebb,
Where, with the following year’s addition
Of a graphical user condition
Called Mosaic, one could request a page
To prove the Internet had come of age.
So from this story, told a priori,
What, pray tell, hath become of its glory?
Emoticons! Quote-a-thons. Fucked-up views.
Fan-fics, tittie-pix, monetary news.
Policies: Privacy, Piracy, Spam,
Pop-up ads, silly fads, yet another scam.
Chain letters, game debtors, meaningless shrines,
Guest books, best looks, apocalyptic signs.
File-sharing, couple-pairing, wireless LANs,
Broadband, viral-scanned, hacker-friendly WANs.
E-mail fraud? E-mail God! “Enlarge your Cock!”
Mortgage rates, candidates, self-serving schlock.
Armies of shoppers with credit for cash,
Pirating swappers of digital trash,
Consummate lippers with nothing to say,
Farcical ‘shippers all ‘blogging away.
Please create a username: something Zen.
Now relate a password – six keys to ten.
Make it oblique, to none of it speak, then—
Oops! Invalid password, please try again!
Needless to say, I’m dismayed at the way
Its fleshy content ‘pon the vertebrae
Of electronic phonic has fattened:
‘Tis too far gone fast beyond the satin’d
Simplicity of its body’s intent—

FIFTY YEARS OF POPULAR SONGS CONDENSED INTO SINGLE SENTENCES

- - - -

The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"

I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Led Zeppelin, "Whole Lotta Love"

I want to do it with you.

- - - -

James Blunt, "You're Beautiful"

I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Sir Mix-a-Lot, "Baby Got Back"

I want to do it.

- - - -

Elvis Presley, "Hound Dog"

You're doing it with everyone.

- - - -

R. Kelly, "I Believe I Can Fly"

I believe I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Patsy Cline, "Crazy"

I want to do it with you so much I'm going fucking nuts.

- - - -

Frank Sinatra, "Strangers in the Night"

I'm drunk and I want to do it with you.

- - - -

The White Stripes, "My Doorbell"

Using metaphor, I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Little Richard, "Good Golly Miss Molly"

I'm doing it with Miss Molly, and she's totally into it.

- - - -

Duran Duran, "Rio"

I'd love to do that chick dancing on the sand.

- - - -

The Beatles, "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"

I'd like to do it with you right now.

- - - -

Carly Simon, "You're So Vain"

We used to do it, but then you did it with someone else, and now I'm not going to do it with you, although I wish we were still doing it.

- - - -

Pulp, "Common People"

I once met a stuck-up European who wanted to do it with me.

- - - -

Radiohead, "Creep"

I'm filled with self-loathing, and, though outwardly I hate everything you represent, I want to do it with you.

- - - -

Kate Bush, "Wuthering Heights"

I'm an 18th-century fictional character and I want to do it with another 18th-century fictional character.

- - - -

Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind"

The Man is currently doing it to you.

- - - -

Elvis Presley, "Jailhouse Rock"

Incarcerated men will on occasion do it with each other.

- - - -

Meat Loaf, "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)"

Hey! You won't believe what this one chick said while I was doing it with her!

- - - -

Kings of Leon, "Sex on Fire"

I did it with you, and now it hurts when I pee.

- - - -

Céline Dion, "My Heart Will Go On"

Even your death has not stopped me wanting to do it with you.

- - - -

AC/DC, "You Shook Me All Night Long"

We did it yesterday.

- - - -

FIRE: THE NEXT SHARP STICK? - A Conversation Among Cavemen.

- - - -

Setting: The offices of Ten Men Who Help Each Other But Are Not Brothers, a firm located near the River That's Not as Wide as the Really Wide River.

(ONE WHO HELPS THE HAIRY ONE is seated, going over some notes. Enter MAKER OF FIRE.)

ONE: (Standing.) Hey, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming by.

MAKER: Thank you, One Who Helps the Hairy One. I'm sorry I'm late. Somehow I ended up by the Really Wide River.

ONE: Really? When we met by the Sticky Tree, I thought I said near the River That's Not as Wide as the Really Wide River.

MAKER: That is what you said. I must have gotten turned around at the Sharp Shells.

ONE: Oh, yeah. That happens a lot.

MAKER: I must have just spaced.

ONE: No harm done. Do you want a Stick That Tastes Good to Gnaw On?

MAKER: No, thanks. I just had one. I'm a bear if I don't have one before Hot Part of the Day.

ONE: (Doesn't understand, a little afraid.) Excuse me?

MAKER: (Laughs.) Sorry. Sorry. I'm not actually a bear. I just mean that I'm like a bear if I don't have a Stick That Tastes Good.

ONE: You pretend to be a bear?

MAKER: No. I feel like a bear feels when he wakes up. You know, grumpy, impatient.

ONE: Do you become a bear when you say it?

MAKER: No. I just say it.

ONE: (Still doesn't understand.) Oh. OK. I see. Well, in a way, that's exactly why I asked you to come down here. As you know, Ten Men Who Help Each Other But Are Not Brothers is a very old and established firm.

MAKER: I do know.

ONE: I mean, for me, it's a real honor to be associated with the Hairy One and to be his helper. The Hairy One's a visionary, you know. But he's—how do I say it? He's older than the Old One, and, as a result, I think that Ten Men needs to think about its future and think about how it can stay competitive in changing times.

MAKER: Naturally, I agree.

ONE: When we met by the Sticky Tree, I immediately thought, Here's a guy who's ahead of the curve. Here's a guy who maybe can help Ten Men make the transition into That Day That Isn't This Day but Also Isn't the Day Before or the Day Before That.

MAKER: At the Shallow Pond With a Terrible Odor, we call it "tomorrow."

ONE: Really? "Tomorrow"? Very clever. But the point is, we were talking about fire, and it seemed to me after we spoke that this could be just the thing to carry Ten Men into "tomorrow."

MAKER: Well, there's no question that fire has a lot to offer any firm, Ten Men included, and I'm happy to show you why. But I think you need to think seriously about what your fire needs are. The truth is, this technology is so revolutionary that I think the real question won't be whether fire is right for Ten Men but whether Ten Men is ready for fire.

ONE: (Nodding seriously.) True. True. Well, what I have planned is pretty informal, just a meeting of the minds, so to speak. I've asked the Hairy One to sit in on this meeting, since he'll have to approve anything that might happen Not Now but Another Time. You may have to take it a little slow with him—he's a bit of a Neanderthal when it comes to this sort of thing, if you know what I mean.

MAKER: HA HA HA HA HA HA!

ONE: HA HA HA HA HA HA!

(Enter the HAIRY ONE, carrying a sharp stick. ONE immediately stops laughing and falls to the floor completely prostrate, arms and legs spread, face down. MAKER smirks and does not move.)

ONE: (Speaking into the floor.) Oh, hey, Hairy One, how are you? Thanks for coming by.

HAIRY ONE: (Grunts to MAKER.) Where are the Sticks That Taste Good?

MAKER: I think they're over there.

(HAIRY ONE crosses to side table to get a stick and begins gnawing it.)

ONE: (Starting to raise himself.) I just gathered them, Hairy One, so they're fresh. (Pauses. Looks to MAKER.) You know me: I'm a bear if I don't have one before the Time You Tell Us When We Can Eat.

HAIRY ONE: (Stick drops from mouth in fear.) BEAR! BEAR! (Raises sharp stick and crosses to begin hitting ONE with it.)

ONE: No! Not bear! Not bear!

MAKER: It's just a saying.

ONE: It's just a saying!

(HAIRY ONE stops his attack and stares at both of them suspiciously.)

ONE: (Rising, then sitting down.) I'm not a bear.

MAKER: It's just something that he said.

HAIRY ONE: (Completely indifferent.) Whatever. (Retrieves stick and sits down at head of table.)

ONE: Hairy One, Maker of Fire. Maker of Fire, the Hairy One.

MAKER: My pleasure, Hairy One. I've followed your work with Ten Men for a long time. It's a remarkable firm.

HAIRY ONE: So you're the one with the fire?

MAKER: Yes.

HAIRY ONE: Is it here?

MAKER: Well, no.

HAIRY ONE: Where is it?

MAKER: Well, in a sense, Hairy One, fire is everywhere. Rather than being an object, say, like your sharp stick, it's really a process, so it can't really be said to exist anywhere. In a sense, fire exists in its own imaginary, virtual space, where we can only talk about what is not fire and what might become fire.

HAIRY ONE: Whoa whoa whoa! English, please!

ONE: I think that what the Maker of Fire is trying to say is that—and let me know if I have it right—while I may have one fire, and you may have another fire in another place, and the One Who Helps the Hairy One may be planning to make a fire, the truth is that it's all fire. It's all the same thing. It's all fire.

MAKER: That's true, in a rudimentary sense, but for our purposes it'll do fine.

ONE: What's great about fire, Hairy One, is that it combines many things in one. Light, heat, pain—all in one. It's all those things. It's multi-thing.

HAIRY ONE: I thought you said it was all the same thing.

ONE: It is!

HAIRY ONE: But now you say it's multi-thing?

(ONE is confused, looks to MAKER OF FIRE.)

MAKER: It is and it isn't. It depends on how you define "thing."

HAIRY ONE: And where does the bear come in?

MAKER: It doesn't.

ONE: That was just something I said.

HAIRY ONE: I get that, OK? I just wanted to know if a bear was involved in fire or not.

MAKER: It isn't.

HAIRY ONE: Good.

MAKER: See, the thing about fire is that it's totally interactive. Fire isn't a bear, but if you put fire on a bear, then the bear becomes fire. It's completely responsive to your needs at a given time, reacting specifically to your fuel input and usage paradigm ...

HAIRY ONE: OK, stop right there. Here's the thing. I've heard a lot about this fire already. Everyone is saying how shiny it is and how flickery it is. But you have to agree that that's very specialized. I know you folks at the Shallow Pond With a Terrible Odor are making a whole big deal about this, but we here by the River That's Not as Wide as the Really Wide River, well, we're simple folk. We want to know: what can it do for us? And the thing is, until people really figure out how fire can be used, I just can't see it becoming a staple of everyday life.

ONE: If I can just jump in here for a moment, Hairy One, think of it like the sharp stick. You know, many, many, many nights ago, everyone was using a blunt stick for clubbing and for poking at things we had no name for. We didn't even call it "blunt stick" back then. We just called it "stick."

MAKER: Exactly.

ONE: And then someone came along and said, Hey, let's take this rock and push it on the stick and remove parts of the stick at one end until it's different than it was before. Everyone called this someone Crazy One, until Crazy One took the sharp stick and put it in the Loud One's eye.

HAIRY ONE: Someone didn't do that. I did.

ONE: That's what I'm saying. Once we had the sharp stick, the Loud One became One Eye, and the Crazy One became the Big Hairy One.

HAIRY ONE: I'm the Big Hairy One.

ONE: That's what I'm saying. You don't want to be the One Who Didn't Like Fire. Fire is the sharp stick of ... of ... tomorrow.

HAIRY ONE: What's "tomorrow"?

MAKER: Well, that's not entirely a correct analogy, since fire can't really be compared to anything that isn't fire, but ...

HAIRY ONE: (To ONE.) OK, but I think you're both overlooking an important thing: fire is very, very scary. Even when sharp stick got big, there were a lot of people still using blunt stick because they knew what blunt stick could do. People still love their blunt sticks, and it is many, many days and nights later. So I can't see how this fire thing is going to work until people have a reason not to be scared.

MAKER: Well, before we go on, we all have to accept that not everything is going to appeal to Johnny Blunt Stick.

HAIRY ONE: OK, but let me tell you that it's Johnny Blunt Sticks that made Ten Men one of the top firms by the River That's Not as Wide as the Really Wide River. Johnny Blunt Sticks like me.

MAKER: Look, I didn't mean to offend anyone. Listen, I have to use the dung heap. Why don't I step out for a moment and you two can decide how you want this meeting to go. OK?

HAIRY ONE: No offense, no offense. We'll be here.

(MAKER exits.)

ONE: I'm sure he didn't mean to suggest that ...

HAIRY ONE: I don't care about that. I know how they are by the Shallow Pond. You know I've met him before?

ONE: You have?

HAIRY ONE: Sure. Many, many, many, many nights ago on a business trip. I was over by the Shallow Pond, and all the Shallow Ponders were laughing at him. You know what they used to call him? I mean, before all this "Maker of Fire" bullshit?

ONE: What?

HAIRY ONE: They used to call him the One Who Knocks Two Rocks Together Over Dry, Dead Plants.

ONE: Oh, man, really?

HAIRY ONE: He's a complete lunatic. Not just not like us—not like anybody.

ONE: But what about fire?

HAIRY ONE: Oh, he may have fire, but "Maker of Fire"? He's an idiot. Where did you meet him?

ONE: Over by the Sticky Tree. He wanted to know if Ten Men would want to give him some food and then he would give us some fire.

HAIRY ONE: He what?!

ONE: He called it "barter."

HAIRY ONE: Well, I call it bullshit. He's obviously deranged. I thought he was here to invite us to go to the Shallow Pond and kill everyone and take fire.

ONE: No, he wants to "trade."

HAIRY ONE: Now I just feel sorry for him.

(Re-enter MAKER OF FIRE.)

MAKER: Well, have you thought it over?

HAIRY ONE: Maker of Fire, you do us great honor by traveling so far to visit us two men of the Ten Men Who Help Each Other But Are Not Brothers. But until I get a sense of how fire could ever be useful I'm afraid we're just going to have to muddle along without it.

MAKER: I understand. Not all are fire-ready.

HAIRY ONE: And I'm sorry about the Johnny Blunt Stick business. Please, come over here and join hands.

(MAKER goes to join hands. The HAIRY ONE stabs him with the stick, and then beats him until he is dead.)

ONE: What are you doing?

HAIRY ONE: There, he's out of his misery, poor fellow. Now go through his skins and his magic bag.

ONE: What? Why?

HAIRY ONE: We're looking for fire, my helper! We're looking for fire!

ONE: Oh, you truly are the Wise and Big Hairy One!

FINIS

- - - -

Matt Alber

Proust Ballet - Le combat des anges

Proust Ballet - Le combat des anges
Video sent by marc1756

Opéra de Paris - 2007 :
"Proust ou les intermittences du coeur".
Un ballet de Roland Petit
d'après "A la recherche du temps perdu" de Marcel Proust.
Saint Loup, l'archange de blancheur, et Morel, l'ange noir, deviennent amants.
Mathieu Ganio, (danseur étoile), est Saint Loup.
Stéphane Bullion, (danseur sujet), est Morel.
La musique est "l'élégie op.24 pour violoncelle et orchestre" de Gabriel Faure.

Von Sudenfed - Fledermaus Can't Get It

AFTER ALL

IN AMERICA THEY KILL TO GET ON TV
CHANGE SEX AND DENOUNCE EACH OTHER TO THE AUTHORITIES FOR THE SAKE OF 15 MINUTES OF FAME
NOT TO MENTION COPULATING WITH CATTLE LARGE AND SMALL
AND WITH ONE'S OWN PARENTS
SENDING BOMBS IN THE MAIL
EATING CHILDREN AT NIGHT
STICKING NEEDLES INTO WATERMELONS
KICKING THE PREGNANT IN THE BELLY

AFTER ALL SEX AND VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY STUFF THAT IS NOW SOLD AND BOUGHT THAT DISTURBS THE SOUL AND BRINGS JOY TO THE HEART
SEX IS VIOLENCE IS SEX
SOMETHING OF WHICH THERE CAN NEVER BE TOO MUCH

DO YOU ENJOY IT WHEN YOU ARE BEING RAPED?

ARE YOU BEING RAPED WHEN YOU ARE ENJOYING IT?

Just 2 Guyz

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