|
|
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
| |
9:57 pm - Part Two
|
The receipt of bills paid
The midnight collective had infiltrated the organization of people who always wear masks and identify themselves by number. They had slain number 7. And instead of promoting 8 and everybody moving up one notch, the organization replaced 7 with 10,340, a young man just out of college, used to keggers, and maybe when it was the end of the night and everybody was shitfaced, a little action. Now he sat behind a high pile of paperwork, orders, troop movement, contract negotiations, unsure where to start. His secretary, 492, had left for the weekend. Thankfully, he could not know if she was resentful of his slow initiation into the duties of the post, since their identities and even their faces were permanently concealed. But still, he could come to no understanding of what he was doing. He had intended to go into carpentry, to lay drywall like his father, or maybe do electrical work, even though he had a degree in sociology. But the notice on Craigslist, "$20/hour, secret society, weapons training, no exp. needed", had seemed like just the opportunity to wrench him from the recent depression that overtook him as he looked towards his bleak prospects.
He flipped on the small television embedded in his desk and hoped the base received cable. But it was a closed circuit and only displayed empty corridors, unhelpfully labeled names like, "RA-6B". He rubbed his hairy belly, a little larger since he had quit rugby, and was about to lock the door to start masturbating when, Mystereotrix, the midnight collective's Amazonian super-scientist, cart-wheeled in, her legs spinning like a Ferris wheel.
When a blue skinned, slightly luminescent, supermodel type, cart-wheeled in his door, bare-legged, but hugged by some sort of sophisticated suit, new number 7 did what any man would do. He smiled, and said, “hey”, hoping that this would be the opening of negotiations which would stretch for years, and somewhere along the way, with luck, exhausted from their relationship, they would have to tumble into bed together.
But this is not what happened. Mystereotrix blew a dart from a straw stuck between her buck teeth that struck 7 in the neck, below his mask, which hung not unlike a veil, and displayed, naturally, the number 7 where one’s face ought to be. This froze his body like he had plunged into an icy lake.
Mystereotrix dashed the papers on his desk until they scattered in a violent flurry. She climbed overtop of him, sitting in his lap. Unfortunately, he could not feel the soft cushion of her ass, toned from years of gymnastic endeavors but still coveting a few indestructible fat cells that rounded the thing into the shape of a ripe plum.
This was because he was paralyzed from the neck down, perhaps forever. He did, however, feel the brush of his tormentor's soft hair against his nose. And he could smell her shampoo, some sort of strawberry-apricot concoction.
She apparently discovered what she was looking for, because she leapt over the desk and cart-wheeled out as she had entered, quite silently.
Seven, now growing increasingly uncomfortable, began to panic. He waved his head back and forth, desperately trying to move.
It was only then he discovered he had the power of speech.
“Help!” he screamed. “Help!” over and over again. It was not until half an hour later that his calls were answered.
It appeared that fellow organization member 39 entered the room, and took 7 over his shoulder, which was an incredible feat, considering 7’s impressive size and bulk. I say 'appeared' because it was not, in fact, 39. The real 39 had been slain hours earlier by a gash to the neck from Mr. Reciprocity, leader of the midnight collective, and the one responsible for their recent revitalization.
It was the very same Mr. Reciprocity who was hiding behind the mask labeled 39, and whose extraordinary strength was capable of lifting number 7 onto his shoulder.
He carried 7, who must have at sometime fainted through a journey of backwards moving hallways, empty and demolished hangers, and finally an open desert sky lit with crossing laser beams, all the way out to their craft, eerily hovering, concealed behind uneven desert brush. As the craft lifted off into the sky, its hull pregnant with enemy secrets, it dropped a bevy of explosives to conceal its shape to the grid of deadly neon lasers, and the angry numbered men, running like ants, who had fired the powerful beams.
It was then that 7 was treated with the antidote, a mixture which would make him forget his identity and leave only a ghost of his personality to be refit, at some later convenient time, into the workings of organization of people who always wear masks and identify themselves by number. In the last moments of his experience in which he was himself, he was dreaming of cartoon unicorns, nudging his face, urging him to understand the secret they knew, as if, choking in the mixture of their hot breath, he could come to understand it through their snorts.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, June 16th, 2005
| |
4:50 pm - Blue Diamond Floor Almonds with Drug Dinner
|
In order to taste these almonds you must be on the floor of my father's sixteen seater passenger van. He never had sixteen passengers in there. He just filled it with trash. At first I was reluctant. In fact, I just thought of them as garbage along with the pistachio shells and bread crusts. As I cleaned, I only saved the small change, nickels and pennies. My father looked in, heartbroken.
"Nooo!" he cried in anger and despair. He was genuinely hurt. "Those are my floor almonds!" Recovering he said, "Try one."
I picked one up from the carpet where an indentation remained and slid it into my mouth. It was the most delicious almond I had ever tasted. It was fresh and sweet like a raisin, moist inside, and golden brown like the slender evening sun. Why were they so good? I now recalled my father plucking them from the floor as he drove for many weeks so why weren’t they stale? I ate them as I went, saving the extras in a plastic bag.
I was cleaning out the van because we had a drug dinner. This is when a big pharmaceutical company will take you out to an expensive dinner with other psychiatrists. In order to eat at a drug dinner you have to be a psychiatrist, or, like me, the son of a psychiatrist. Actually, in my ten years of attending them, with the exception of my brother, I've never seen another son of a psychiatrist there.
The company will tell you why their drug helps with anxiety, or bipolar disorder, or manic depression over light mixed greens and cocktails. Over the main course they will dutifully render the potential side effects while in the same stroke dismissing them. You might notice there is a cosmic balance to the mind. For example the erectile dysfunction drug has depression side effects while the anti-depressant has sexual side effects. If you took them both, maybe you would be ok.
If you go, do not choose the chicken. Your best bet is the steak, or if you're going healthy, the salmon with grilled vegetables. There are no other options. Remember to order an expensive drink, like a scotch, or at least a mineral water, because they have to pay for it. You may insult the lecturing psychiatrist with impunity, because he's just a hired gun who has betrayed his Hippocratic sensibilities for a briefcase full of disgusting corporate cash.
My father, always contemptuous of the orators, would whisper slanders to me in his thick Czech accent, his mouth full of tender greens. The graph would rise, showing potentially happy people and he would say:
"It is the same as HEROIN."
And a moment later, "absolute POISON."
Don't ask questions. In the end, they only prolong the wait to dessert, usually an outrageously thick chocolate cake, deeper and darker than the most terrifying depression. Don't take more than one box of sample medications when you leave, like my father does, because I just end up cleaning them all out of the van after a few months as I did when I collected his floor almonds. I showed him the pile of medications, maybe ten thousand dollars worth, with the bag of floor almonds.
"Throw that garbage out!" he instructed, pointing to the medication. World War II and then Stalinism had him hoarding food. In every car were blankets, bottled water, cans, and a can opener. "Any day now it could be complete anarchy." he mused as he peeled open a can of kidney beans in the parking lot sipping first the juice and then taking gulps of the beans with his Swiss army knife. "Save those almonds!"
current mood:  nerdy
current music: Violent Pornography - System of a Down
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, April 11th, 2005
| |
5:29 pm - And what did they do then?
|
I know, after some time, their faces grew watery and dark, but an extraordinary light shone through.
The sun curled around the volcano and the wind grew cold. However, their smoldering brows felt the burden of heat and in their memories their hands were still open and touching the cool sides of their homes to peek at the form of their love.
He was limping between the shadows of buildings.
It was late evening. He was caught uncomfortably inside the last two fragments of sunlight.
He soon moved in to the cover of a large orchard where only chimneys stood to mark the remains of demolished houses. The girls could not conceal the sounds of their bare feet which were uncomfortably smashing apples. A congress of crows, unsettled from their position in a nearby tree, picked through the path the girls left, now littered with small morsels of food.
The ladies also recalled, as the starry curtain of night descended on them, how slender boys would brush up against them in elevators and the long corridors of museums. Strands of the princesses' bundled hair would catch in the first barbs growing from the young mens’ chins. This gentle tug would be the only reminder they were living in an impoverished fantasy.
"Let's just stay here." suggested the oldest of the ladies who was staring at the fulminations of the volcano growing in to an unhappy ashen cloud. "Let's just stay." The moon rose. It was very thin, having bitten the most valuable and radiant pieces from itself in the past two weeks.
The ladies were undecided. In their laps, in the soft grass, their hands wrestled like the lovers they had intended to be.
Eventually, they were eaten by wolverines. The creatures, vicious to everyone but each other, lived in a hole in a pile of branches. There, among an unchanging wall of trees, they slept in a large pile for warmth.
How do I know all this?
The youngest and prettiest escaped. I saw her dragging her limp suitcase across the train station, a beauty mark on her cheek punctuating the bold statement of her nose. Her business suit was free of hairs, loose but well fitting. A pin that held a luminous gem was fastened beneath her lapel, on to a sweater that, to me, looked extraordinarily soft and comfortable.
Miraculously she sat down beside me. We chatted for awhile. She was carrying a library book which was emblazoned with the grey numerals of the Dewey decimal system.
"I'm reading up," she said, stroking the book, reminding herself that it was still in her hands. "I'm reading up and I'm gonna’ find that asshole and I'm gonna’ kill him."
"Oh?" I said, feigning curiosity, and excused myself to quietly wriggle out the tiny window of the men's restroom.
-David
current mood:  giddy
current music: Black-eyed Peas
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
| |
9:24 pm - IT JUST MAKES ME JITTERY
|
|
List of the top 110 banned books (of all time).
Bold the ones you've read.
Italicize the ones you've read part of.
Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).
#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchel
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
current mood:  gloomy
current music: This has been the worst week of my high school career
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
7:52 pm - Pulling a Bob Davis.
|
Advanced Global Personality Test Results | Extraversion | |||||||||||||| | 53% | | Stability | |||||||||||| | 46% | | Orderliness | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Empathy | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Interdependence | |||||||||||| | 50% | | Intellectual | |||||||||||||||||||| | 90% | | Mystical | |||||||||||| | 50% | | Artistic | || | 10% | | Religious | |||| | 16% | | Hedonism | || | 10% | | Materialism | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Narcissism | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Adventurousness | |||||||||| | 36% | | Work ethic | |||||||||||| | 50% | | Self absorbed | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Conflict seeking | |||||||||||||| | 56% | | Need to dominate | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | | Romantic | |||||||||||||||||||| | 83% | | Avoidant | |||||| | 23% | | Anti-authority | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Wealth | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Dependency | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Change averse | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Cautiousness | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Individuality | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Sexuality | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Peter pan complex | |||||||||||| | 50% | | Physical security | |||||||||||||||||||| | 90% | | Food indulgent | |||||||||||||||||| | 76% | | Histrionic | |||||||||||| | 43% | | Paranoia | |||||||||||||||| | 70% | | Vanity | |||||||||||| | 50% | | Hypersensitivity | |||||||||||||||| | 63% | | Female cliche | |||||||||| | 36% | |
| Take Free Advanced Global Personality Testpersonality tests by similarminds.com
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, March 31st, 2005
| |
7:57 pm - MOTHERFUCKER
|
March 31, 2005
Mr. David M. Markus
Dear David:
The Brown Board of Admission has completed its evaluation of nearly 17,000 applications to the Class of 2009, and it is with real regret that I must inform you that your application has been denied.
The great majority of the young men and women who applied to Brown this year are very clearly capable of satisfactory academic performance and of making significant contributions to the college community in other ways. With nearly twelve candidates for every available space, the Board's task in selecting the members of the Class of 2009 has been extremely difficult.
We acknowledge your accomplishments and want you to understand how much care we have taken in the admission process to get to know all of our applicants, and how much more painful it therefore is to deny so many. Although you may well be disappointed by our decision, remember that in the long run where you go to college is far less important than what you do with the opportunities you surely will have.
Your official admission decision letter has been mailed to you. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions that remain after reading that letter. You have our best wishes in the meantime.
Sincerely,
Michael Goldberger
Director of Admission
current mood:  depressed
current music: I don't even have Lexie to comfort me.
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 30th, 2005
| |
5:34 pm - Jerimiah was a Bullfrog
|
There is a bullfrog hollering out back. I wonder what he could be hollering about?
Maybe he is in trouble! I don't hear any other bullfrogs around. Maybe he got mad at his seriously uncool bullfrog parents and decided to run away from home. He probably got far, far away from his home and got scared, and realized his parents loved him and only acted mean because wanted to keep him safe and slimly. Now, he is stuck in a rat-trap, which doesn't really make sense because why would a bullfrog want to get at some cheese. That is probably not the case.
Maybe the bullfrog is just letting out some aggression. He (we are presuming he is a male bullfrog, as female bullfrogs tend to have manners) probably had a really bad day at work, and now he's letting off some steam by hollering in some near mine. No, that's silly. Bullfrogs don’t have jobs! That's ignorant. It is completely ignorant to think a bullfrog is mad about his job.
Maybe he's hollering because he's crazy, you know, like those people who walk around in the city. They just start hollering for no reason. Maybe the bullfrog is crazy like that! Maybe he's cussing out God. That makes more sense than those other two things, for sure! I'll bet you the bullfrog is just crazy as a loon.
No, no. I'll bet you a hundred dollars the bullfrog is just freaked out because he's a guy that some witch turned into a bullfrog! I know if that was actually the case I would be hollering like that too. It would be extremely terrifying to turn into some sort of animal, especially a slimy, bug-eyed one like that. Turning into a dog would be better. At least dogs don't lay eggs. I don't even want to talk about turning into a snake.
That doesn't make any sense either. So, having exhaused all other possible possibilities, our conclusion is that the bullfrog is crazy.
Or perhaps he is operating on a purely instinctual desire to reproduce.
current mood: Lexie is gone for a week
current music: RATM
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
| |
11:19 pm - Boring Amateur Interior Decoration, care of cheap Japantown stores and nearly as cheap Target
|
I wouldn't have done this, except I can beat everybody. What's the point of doing a bunch of stupid shit if you can't tell the inter nets about it?
Ten things you've done that most people probably haven't done
1 - Carried a box full of money in a procession behind the remains of the Buddha
2 - Jumped off a bridge butt naked
3 - Been shot (12 gauge shotgun)
4 - Almost got killed by a spider
5 - Heroin (Irvine Welsh's fault [and a lesbian pharmacist])
6 - Shot a bunch of fireworks inside a hotel room
7 - Demolished a house (leveled using only blunt instruments)
8 - Flipped a car on purpose
9 - Outrun a pursuing police car
10 - Got kicked out of a New Orleans club during spring break for being "out of control"
I could go on and on and on.
but i digress, that is all.
current mood:  mellow
current music: Andrew W. K.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 28th, 2005
| |
8:31 pm - Thou shalt read the bloody assignment
|
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
"There was no way of deconstructing the joke (if you think this is obsessive behaviour, you should try living with it) that didn't rely on the teller and the audience complacently conspiring together to jeer at someone who knew more than they did. It sent a chill down my spine, and still does. I felt betrayed by comedy in the same way that gangsta rap now makes me feel betrayed by rock music."
this comes from The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.
that is all.
current mood:  bored
current music: Wilco - War on war
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
| |
11:32 pm - Peripheral memory/Pericles/Ultimate Nullifier, please
|
I have a peripheral memory. Significant events dissolve into the horizon of my mind, while irrelevant details continually wash ashore like they were the armor of Pericles' father caught in fishermen's nets. In Shakespeare's tale, Pericles, King of Tyre, has just been tossed by the waves of fortune. Shipwrecked in his own land, he is fleeing the answer to a riddle he has solved.
The answer is that the princess he wants to marry is sleeping with her father.
Hesitant, he does not answer. Fearful, he flees. His ship bursts upon the rocks. And he is reborn a protagonist of his own struggle on the bright beaches of the Mediterranean. Before he can begin to move, he has to curse the only thing he can see prone on his back, which is the morning stars, the first reminder upon waking, of his own existence on this earth.
"Earthly man is but a substance that must yield to you." He tells them. He thinks he is made of material less valuable and real than the stars, like he is living as the reflection of a pool of water and is speaking now to his real image, peering down at him from above. Try as he might to disturb his own form, he reforms in to what transpires above. This is, of course, wrong. Who could have guessed the stars, made of simple materials, were the combustion engines which produced him?
At this moment in despair, the fishermen greet him, casting their nets, and pull tangled among them the armor of Pericles' father, a strange artifact, making a singular mark on the sand smoothed by the wash of fresh waves. Of all the details which could survive the eradication of his past, here is a mark of comfort and strength. Remembering the riddle he has unraveled, he seeks to loosen the armor from its nets.
After the death of my own father some eight months ago, I have witnessed the arrival of all of his artifacts upon my shore, owning, in part with my siblings, his house, his cars, his psychiatry practice, his books, his letters, his pens, his pets, his shoes, his crs, tapes, folders, binders, printers, files, desks, lamps, carpets, taxes, skis, debts, fixtures, pictures, binoculars, subscriptions, etc..
The burnt materials the stars produced eventually learned to produce Pericles. When we learned to make things by means of combustion, we made vcrs, tapes, folders, parkas, printers, pictures, places, rings, subscriptions, etc. When each article rolls up to my feet, I feel the same feeling that Pericles must have first felt when he saw his father's Breast plate, how funny, that that, of all things, survived.
Tyre is famous for having valuable items fished from its shores, most notably the murex, a large mollusk that grows happily in those waters, and when crushed yields a magnificent purple dye used to stain the clothes of important people in the ancient world.
The clever product placement of Tyre's founders, the Phoenicians, is the reason we consider purple and blue the royal color. It was their vast network of trading ships that commodified the dye in to an inescapable mark of opulence and status. As a result, if a fisherman was to ever find a single murex enmeshed in their nets, it meant for him a bloom of wealth.
I mention my peripheral memory because I wanted to give you an example. Here are the heralds of Galactus, world-devourer, in chronological order from memory:
The Silver Surfer
Gabriel the Air Walker
Terax the Tamer
Firelord
Nova
Morg
Galactus too, experienced a fate similar to Pericles. In Marvel comics, Galactus was the only one to survive the obliteration of the universe which existed before this universe. Though he rarely elaborates on the experiences of his former life, it was somewhat of an age of Saturn, where Titans of immense power and size lived unimaginable lives. He is the last of these terrible beings, buried and asleep in some way, only to awaken in a fresh, pettier universe, still gripping his foreign strength on new shores.
Somehow, it is demanded of him that he constantly devour planets to sustain himself. He does this by hooking up strange cables from his ship to the surface of the world. Then, as the planet disappears in smears of yellow and orange, he siphons off its energy.
Occasionally, for no good reason, he will choose a herald, granting them a fraction of his power to inform inhabited planets of their imminent destruction, and to find for him suitable meals.
His first and most famous herald is the Silver Surfer, who nobly accepted servitude to save his native planet, Zenn-la, from Galactus' appetite. Like all the heralds after him (with perhaps the exception of Morg), the Surfer felt the pangs of living an existence at the headwaters of annihilation. The Silver Surfer chose Earth as fit for consumption, yet betrayed Galactus for its survival, after being affected by our world's myriad experiences and people. As punishment, it was on the Earth the Surfer was trapped from the late sixties in to the early seventies.
The fraction of Galactus' power granted to his heralds is called "the Power Cosmic". Pericles, if he was really a proper Greek of his mythic era and not a Shakespearian character, would be more apt to call his father's armor cosmic than the stars his head was pointed at, since the word Greek word cosmos referred only to the careful ordered decoration a craftsman would give to something precious like a cup, a plate, some armor, women, horses, or armies. Only much later would the sensation of owning something rare, cut patterned, and ornate, be abstracted to the sensation of living in the world as a whole.
Though "the Power Cosmic" has nothing to do with order or the ornate and instead hints at some grandiose universal secret, the Silver Surfer and many other heralds gleam like they were metal plated trophies, or strange objects of desire. Galactus, like the word galaxy, has the same root as "lactose" and simply means milk, referring to the milky spray that is the stars spread wide, and the big tittied fertility goddesses that maybe made it that way.
Yesterday, Paul and I went to the Baltimore Comic Convention. When it comes to comics my peripheral memory is at its worst. The expanse of the Marvel universe, in all its inane complications, rises in my mind as clear as the invisible woman reappearing. Suddenly I begin to think about the heralds of Galactus, Peter Parker's friends, and the X-men's enemies. It's like a gust of litter blew down my street, newstock printed with important fictional news from my childhood.
There are feelings that accompany the commodities of my childhood, part stupid delight, part gag reflex.
Today, I'm in New York City, sitting in the darkened skyscraper that's Paul's new building. I just drove him up. Paul's next to me trying to steal wireless internet from his new neighbors. We're roughly in the neighborhood of the Baxter building, the Fantastic Four's old headquarters where Galactus stood, a giant between the buildings jutting out beyond my window, as the Silver Surfer betrayed him. I'm thinking of all that purple ink (Galactus wore a purple suit), and what I could have traded for the pigment dots that peppered his costume.
Who doesn't know of the Ultimate Nullifier? It is the device that Reed Richards, head of the Fantastic Four, traded Galactus that terrible day of reckoning that occurred during Fantastic Four #50. In exchange, Galactus promised he would spare the earth. This, in some way, seems to me like Manhattan traded back to the Indians for the same handful of beads. "We kept them safe for you all this time because we knew they were more valuable."
What does it do? Well, it obliterates anything you can think of, then it obliterates your thought, then you. So you can only use it once, but it can be on anything. When used, it emits a slender beam that angles its way through the universe to share that suicide impulse with its victim. The impression one gets is like a math problem, canceling out both sides of the equation.
-David
current mood:  bitchy
current music: Payable on Death
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 21st, 2005
| |
12:44 am - Porquoi
|
"-Voici une carte du ciel! Elle vous indique une planete du systeme solaire appelee terre!
-Comment vous remercier Jor-El?"
--un morceau de "Orphelin des Etoiles"
bon soir!
current mood: fatigue
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 14th, 2005
| |
10:32 pm - The Octapus
|
"Did you know the Octopus is twice as intelligent as the average kindergartner?"
"That's simply not true." I said.
"And its dreams are twice as long."
I watched it thrashing when the car moved. It was spilling Octopus water all across the back seat.
The next week our vcr and stereo were gone. The kitchen had been raided for food. Slices of bread were spread across the linoleum.
"Check the tank."
It was empty.
We found a large wet black egg between the couch cushions.
"Rub it everyday." She instructed.
Seven days later it began to squirm.
"This is it!" She declared.
I felt uncomfortable and a little nauseous. I set it on the coffee table. It wasn't going to get any more help from me.
Nothing came. I would drive home from work thinking about it.
Eventually, it shriveled up in to a little black raisin on top of the magazines. The color in all the magazines' photographs tinted green. The covers stuck to it. I had to throw them out too.
Taking the garbage bag out, I slipped in the falling snow. I cut my head and my hand and tore the bag. The little raisin tumbled in the snow, drawing a tiny path. I picked it up and licked the gash on my hand. The briny taste of its salt was in my blood. Before I could help it I consumed the entire thing. Feeling dizzy I sat down for a moment. A distant sound was in my ears.
She was watching tv as I entered. She looked me up and down. And surprisingly, I found myself studying her damaged grey eyes. I went in to my room and shut the door. I sat in bed and saw the thin blue line beneath the door flashing to the soundtrack of the television.
That night I dreamt of a throbbing heart pumping through a warm liquid.
The next night I had something in my grasp but could not open it. Whatever was inside I knew was delicious.
A few days later I drove to the harbor. I stood on one of the unguarded piers which stretched out on the inky black water. The city's neon signs bounced along the dark surface. I stripped down and stood there but could not jump in. Later, I thought, I'll finish it later.
The next night I was lying in bed. I had just awoken from a wonderful dream. I was lying in soft silt unable to focus on a blurry visage.
Only later when I walked across the living room and she did not turn her head did I realize that I was completely invisible. My body was changing colors to match its background. I waited until she prepared to go to bed and stood in her room. She slipped off her jeans. I looked for my reflection in her full length mirror swinging on her closet door and did not see it. A nightgown fell over her body and she crawled in to bed.
A few strands of blue light fell on to her sleeping form. I could hear her breathing.
The next day I did not go to work. I looked for awhile out the window where the sunlight leaked indoors. Trees stirred there in a troubled wind.
There was a knock at the door. It was the Octopus. To my horror I knew somehow it could see me. It broke the door open and scuttled furiously up the stairs. It veered suddenly to the right, making a beeline for the kitchen, going where I was going, to the drawer where the sharp knives were kept, which clattered on to the floor, spilling everywhere, gleaming brightly, sixteen in all, eight each.
-David
current mood:  chipper
current music: Broken Social Scene
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, February 27th, 2005
| |
8:13 pm - Flames and sandpaper tongues lick you in cat hell
|
At one point or another I'd like to think we've all heard the voice of dog. He appears at times like this in the late winter when the weather is uncertain. His breath is disgusting. Think back to all the places where you've found his portraits. For me, his big murky oil paintings of waterfalls and pine forests hang in the lobby of an old apartment building beside the empty basement cafe where a series of European emigrants could not make ends meet, selling their exhausted fortunes to the next lot. The bread on their sandwiches tasted stale and the sun was blotted out by heavy red tapestries in windows too high to reach. I could not finish the crusts. He would sit in there for breakfast though really it was late noon and would always order the same vegetable soup. He fingered the crackers wrapped in plastic as if he could not get them out of there. He would slip them in his pocket like he was going to work it out at home.
When the time came to pay the bill he was not graceful, but would argue with the management in hushed tones so low I could never hear their conversation. The poor owners head, completely bald, would shine with sweat, as he stooped over that awkward shape. The owner had brought his family so far. He worked all day in stained t-shirts, and poured over books of accounting, softening his senses with arithmetic. His English was smooth and unbroken but still somehow labored. And for this?
I was not happy at the time and took an interest in them both. I slept less to come in early to wait, choked down perfumed teas and sticky candies from the complementary bowl while I waited. The management was almost too comfortable with me being in there, like I represented a stream of new customers, or better yet, a set of regulars. Though in reality, I could not wait to leave. His wife’s skin was etched with glacial lines of age. I saw her only in the doorway to the kitchen, rushing to plunge her arms in to large silver basins and pots to wash them. Though the water in my apartment upstairs was delicious, the smell of their water was somehow repugnant. A glass of it came surrounded by fine crystal while ice melted inside, but I could not touch it. I found a few items on the menu that interested me, french fries, and grilled cheeses with tomato inside which I would dissect for hours in my deliberations, drawing on my resolution to know everything I could, taking notes on my experience with a ball point pen. The old man would cook loudly and with vigor, clashing pots, and yelling sometimes at the flames like they had leapt up to bite him. I can only guess he was preparing meals for the elderly people in the building, who sometimes ordered from him when they were too feeble to leave. He would run their dishes up the elevator himself, leaving only me, apparently, to watch the restaurant if I couldn't hear his wife laboring in the back with the usual rush of water and I saw that her fluorescent light, that gave her shape a funny set of shadows, was out.
Dog would float in, as I said, about noon, hesitantly clicking open the screen door which was the restaurant’s main entrance. It resembled more the equipment that would be on the front of a house than the entrance to a restaurant. I think dog was bothered by me but he wouldn't dare say.
It wasn't all bad. Once I stayed late, and the stale grey that had muted the sunshine cast in to the room disappeared. The great piles of dust were no longer illuminated. The restaurant was baked in the complementary glow of tungsten lamps covered in stained glass. It was somebody's birthday though I could not tell whose. The old man offered me clear liquid that I thought was vodka but tasted like apples, and some flaky cake that was soft and unsweetened so they covered it in a lump of honey, shaking it from the spoon with a tap tap tap. After it arrived on my dessert he smiled and clapped the table once as if that was that. When I tried to thank him he just clasped my shoulder tight like my grandfather did, digging a few talons in to the cloth of my blazer, and shook me hard to say, "You’re ok". He was inevitably likeable then. Classical music piped over a little stereo I didn't know they had, something by Mahler I think, and then a piece I didn't recognize which had a lot of strings driving forward in happy crescendos. The later it became the more the little restaurant crowded with their relatives and friends. Stout ladies wearing weary faces were bound in elaborate dresses culminating in explosions of translucent frills. Rich blooming flowers and other bright designs spilled down their sides. Many of the men wore suit jackets and ties shaded in light pastels. The room buzzed with the crushed syllables of their language, softened underfoot by what must have been an unending series of hardships. It grew very hot, and not knowing whom I could possibly talk to or what I would talk about, and feeling slightly unwelcome, like I always did when I was that age no matter what, I slipped out the shuddering screen door, and then the door to the outside. It was surprisingly warm that late at night, and I knew spring had arrived, clutching for me new thoughts, spilling the contents of her pockets in to my lap.
David
current mood: cheerful
current music: Breaking Benjamin
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Sunday, February 20th, 2005
| |
11:09 am - Your Bickering Is My Vindication
|
It's time to open up the mail bin gain. The storage site has been flooded, so most your recent letters have experienced severe water damage. However, I managed to save a few hundred by baking them on a warm surface and opening them delicately.
Dearest David,
I know a girl on the internet who often posts nice pictures of herself doing things with her friends in her livejournal. Should I ask her out?
clicking away,
Present Structures
Dear Present Structures,
What about the apartment?
What about your wife, Present Structures, awake in the morning, a strand of hair bending in a curl above her head and curtains shifting the blades of sunlight with wind like an unzipped yellow jacket? The freckles on her body draw a map to her mouth, apostrophes to a broken sentence when it opens dry.
Below the poor are trudging home to their suburban hell. It is hailing outside. The sky is grey. The wind is sharp.
Inside your naked wife is smothered in expensive DVDs, rare special editions.
She is reasserting each one. She smiles in the volley of their gleaming bottoms. Their light chimes in the chandelier.
Your high fi stereo is playing melodious recordings. It is polished by your South American maid. She works in cheap tennis shoes from the mall. You find her attractive when she undoes her dark hair and wears light blue. Her tiny muscles strain to push the dust from your hard wood floor on Wednesdays and Fridays. She is dragging a bucket beside the books on your shelf. Reclining photographs of family members wave to you from there. You are supposed to be out. A halogen lamp lights the room. The sky is crowded with spare clouds. Their image is caught in the wobbling glass of your windows. A peak is all you get. You are afraid she will notice the growing line of warm light from the crack in your door.
You slip out to visit an old friend. He is worried about his finances. He has some property he is rebuilding. This area of the city is getting so expensive it's disgusting. There are no stray dogs anymore. They're all attached to women with yoga mats. Some idiot is riding a bicycle in the snow when your soup arrives.
You still smoke in your elevator though most of the tenants complain. It smells like brushed metals and snow in the carpet. You don't work most days. When she opens the door she is so tall you want to knock her over. She's Belgian. She is like a thick wad of butter from the organic grocery store, some elaborate design of the alps on the foil so you know she’s imported. She falls with a flop in to the frying pan, and sizzles, all fat and yellow. She cooks you eggs in the morning, and butters your toast, spreads strawberry preserves all over them, chokes them in preserves. It looks as if your toast has been stabbed and is dying, that’s how goddamn messily she has smeared your thick slice of toast. You smack her white buttery ass and she walks away from the table, and it wobbles beneath pink panties which bring her tiny pimples out. Her ruddy face goes to inspect her fish, choking on all that water.
your friend,
David
David,
Have you ever fought a villain of PURE ELECTRICITY? And, if so, what did you do?
knots loosening,
Trapped in the Basement
Dear TITB,
Electricity's natural enemy is water. Have you tried letting the creature feed on the high voltage power lines until it grows immense, and then luring it in to the nearby bay, or reservoir?
I had a dream recently where an old friend had been elected president. I stood in the crowd hopelessly hoping to snap a picture of her with my camera. She was dancing in a ballroom while I was retained with the riff-raff. How could she possibly do this too me? The way she was acting I knew her policies would be unhealthy for the nation. I struck up a conversation with the police officer who was retaining me in the lobby, from my perch down a few stairs I could see the procession of important people whose company I was denied. Somebody was trying to plug something in, if this helps.
best of luck,
David
current mood:  awake
current music: Vancouver
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, January 13th, 2005
| |
12:32 pm - Set your eyes to Zion
|
i have realized that this journal is useless to me. it was created with a purpose and somehow outlasted the purpose for which it was created. It is with this fact in mind that i will no longer be writing pointless ramblings in this for the amusement of others as the others for which this was initially built have lost the desire to continue contact with me. Do I know why this is true, of course. But because that chapter has ended and i dealt with the bullshit in due course it is closing time. The only question is, WHY THE FUCK DID I EVER GO FOR WHAT I DID IN THE FIRST PLACE? As i reflect i am much happier in my current situation and while at the time i didnt see the gap, the gap is quite evident now. So its last call.
ok?
ok.
now fucking leave.
current mood: mellow
current music: Rage Against the Machine -People of the Sun
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, January 12th, 2005
| |
7:04 pm - The beautiful sky
|
i have become enamoured with a visage of beauty. This has made this period of time in my life have purpose and has allowed me to for the first time in a long while, careless about my physical ailments. I no longer dwell, as i so oft have, upon my physical disability. While it would seem to the casual observer that i overanalyze my predicament, i do not. However this is not the focus of this piece but rather the fact that whiel in a given, near daily experience i truely forget about all that is around me and focus on one person. this is a truely divine and rapturous feeling.
make sence?
no?
oh well, guess your outta the loop.
ok?
ok.
that is all.
D. Micah
current mood:  ecstatic
current music: Breaking Bejamin - Believe
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004
| |
11:18 pm - Bag of nuts, satsuma, wooden train.
|
I am still in Reno and i am quite enjoying myself. I have been going to different parties and the like with old friends of mine and relaxing with Kyle. The weather here is quite nice during the day, however it get pretty cold at night. I still need to go purchase christmas gifts for some people, yet i lack a means of transportation so we shall see how that works.
While I am very glad that i came out here for the holiday it could not come at a more in-opportune time.
I really would like to be back in florida spending break with the best thing in my life right now. thus i cant wait for wednesday to come.
Aside from that not much else to report on.
that is all.
D. Micah
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 20th, 2004
| |
11:50 am - Boom! Shake the room.
|
Just had some downtime thought id update.
Im in Reno Nevada for christmas. Ill be back on the 29 at 10:40 pm so anytime after that im free.
I have 10 gmail ivites if people want them, just let me know.
that is all for now.
current mood:  busy
current music: Coheed and Cambria
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 11th, 2004
| |
8:39 pm - Dr Huxtable's Malpractice
|
Well lets get this through with as i need to waste about ten minutes.....
First off. I now have a girlfriend, i am quite happy. This also presents an issue as most of the IB senior class considers m a bastard for "stabbing my friend in the back", while i know that, generally speaking, i am an asshole; this is not the case. Considering that i took advantage of a situation, that unless prior knowledge of the situation was, would seem that i stole another man's girl. I did not. If this doesnt make sence or you want more information. COMMENT! If you considering me to be a bastard, i really dont fucking give a damn for in 6 months i never have to see you again. therefore, im happy and fuck those who wish to make me otherwise.
Second. I applied to Brown University under an Early Decision Contract, i recieved notification of my admissions status, yesterday at 5 pm. I was deferred, this is both good and bad. Good, i was not rejected. Bad that i now have to wait until April for a decision. I am sad yet not that bad for i am overwhelingly happy from point number one.
Thridly. I recieved notification from Rose-Hulman that due to my "C" in calculus, i was deferred to a later admissions date. This was a month ago. I never got a C in calculus. It was a grading and bubbling error on the part of my teacher thus i had the grade changed and the new reportcard sent to Rose. Today i recieved notice that I was accepted to Rose-Hulman. While this seems good i have changed my major to someything they dont offer thus this admittance has not bearing on my future.
Point Four. In a week i will be leaving for Reno, Nevada. This is both great, and bad. Im going to reno in 18 inches of snow so im super excited. i also get to see Kyle. It will be the last time i ever go to reno as considering Kyle and i are going to college, hopefully together, so i will not be going back to reno. Also since im in Reno almost all of vacation, i dont get alot of time to spend with my girlfriend.... oh well. there is still new years.
Lastly. I gotta end this since i am leaving to go over to my girlfriends house. If you want information of the identity of said girl or to any point herein, please comment and information shall be provided in due course.
that is all.
D. Micah
current mood: grateful
current music: Silverchair - Spawn Again
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 4th, 2004
| |
7:26 pm - The Penguins that watch the Aurora Borealis
|
As with all things in life it has come to pass that i have a decision to make. While on the whole this decision is the easiest of the times and will quite likely prove to by my happiest of the current time, it like the rest of my life does not come without its reprocussions. This decision, while designed to unite will do so but in the process, most likely divide other parties. While this decision has been make to take an action, and while I hope to know the outcome of the action, i know that it will cause a small schism with in the base of people i know. I have the support of many within the group yet there is one that knows not and shall not give blessing. All i can hope is that with this great, and most happy day to come, does not become overshadowed by the sorrow of another. With most of my enties this is cryptic. It represents the happiest i have been in a very long time, however it also denotes the ending of the same feeling of another. None of this makes sence to anyone. Unless you understand the context, and i know of none that read this that do. So wish me luck on this most happy day to come.
I will end this. I have nothing else to say.
D. Micah
current mood:  flirty
current music: seven nations - god
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
prophetofmars's journal