now reading

under milk wood

From the brilliant pen of Dylan Thomas:

Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes, Mr Pugh minces among bad vats and Jeroboams, tiptoes through spinneys of murdering herbs, agony dancing in his crucibles, and mixes especially for Mrs Pugh a venomous porridge unknown to toxologists which will scald and viper through her until her ears fall off like figs, her toes grow big and black as balloons, and steam comes screaming out of her navel.

keeping current

now reading:
World War Z by Max Brooks

now listening:
Son de Mar by Piano Magic

now watching:
Kissology Volume 2 DVD

Life is good.

a true moment of clarity

We are living in hell. We have two choices: we can become a part of the hell around us, or we can find those things around us that are not hell, and give them a form that will allow them to endure. -- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

devilish defacing

I stumbled across this book over a decade ago while browsing through the Henry Miller collection at the Kent State library. In general, I'm against defacing public property, but this smart-ass ballpointed comment always made me snicker.

pure genius

Tyler Durden is really Hobbes

keep digging, watson

When I was eight or nine years old, I read a bizarre short story in our third-grade reading book. I think that it was an old Mexican folk tale, but the memory is hazy, the details sketchy. Here's how the story goes:

There was a bad little boy whom no one could control. One day he threw a rock at another little boy and accidentally killed him. He then propped up the dead boy in the middle of a road where a horse and buggy soon came by and struck the dead boy. The townspeople blamed the driver for the boy's death and either jailed or executed him.

Somehow the bad boy ends up dying (don't remember how). St. Peter takes pity on him due to his age and lets him into Heaven. Big mistake, as the boy commences to torment all the angels. St. Peter then sends the boy down to Hell. The boy torments the demons there even more, nailing crucifixes inside their houses (even at my young age, I chuckled at the idea of little bungalows in Hell, as if the damned had merely been relocated next to a steel mill).

So the boy ends up before St. Peter again--Lucifer must have lodged a complaint with the eternal housing board. St. Peter says that the only solution is to turn the boy into a stone. Rude to the end, the boy insists that he be a stone with eyes. Thus, there is now a stone with eyes as part of the Pearly Gates.

I know what you're thinking: what sick, twisted individual would think that such a story is appropriate for third-graders? Remember, this was the seventies. There was no such thing as political correctness--in choir one year we sang the actual lyrics to the theme from M*A*S*H, Suicide Is Painless, and we also used to sing John Lennon's Imagine. Damn, I miss the seventies.

Anywho, I've been trying to track down this wicked folk tale for years with no luck. That's where you come in, dear readers. Has anyone else ever read or heard of this story? Any idea who wrote it or where I could find it?

Let's make this a contest. I have an extra copy of Blood Sugar by Nicole Blackman. Tell me what this story is, and I will send you the book along with my heartfelt thanks and maybe a surprise gift or two. Please help me solve this decades-old literary mystery!

now reading

I'm currently reading Needle in the Groove by Jeff Noon, a cyberpunk novel that plays with language by updating Burroughs' cut-up technique. Noon uses the metaphor of the remix, splicing and dicing sentences, running words through imaginary filters and phase shifters, playing with meaning like a literary DJ. This approach is demonstrated further in a recent collection called Cobralingus.

So I'm off to do a little bit of reading before the sandman shoots me in the face. Night all.

it's coming

Only Revolutions

when i am king iii

All late-night infomercials will be banned and replaced with this as a test pattern.

The Washington Monument will be torn down and replaced with this:

Photo courtesy of cellar.org


Meet your new Poet Laureate.

robots need love too

Nufonia Must Fall

It's a graphic novel. It's a compact disc. It's a must.