McSweeney’s

Open Letters: An Open Letter to the Fastest Jogger at the Park by Eric Torres

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

Dear Fastest Sir,

I am writing to you on this fine day not just out of admiration for your athletic prowess, as so many others no doubt already have, but also to express my solidarity with your cause. I know that great men of your ilk are often beleaguered by isolation; your life has transcended the paltry understanding of the masses, and you must feel very alone. But I reach out to you today to inform you that your greatness is not lost on me.

To begin, let me go on record as saying that you are, undoubtedly, the fastest jogger at the park. You burst out of the wooded thicket and into my sight like a firework of sweat and sleevelessness amidst Sunday’s leisurely banality. Kicking up a trail of dirt and pebbles, you weaved and dodged through the crowded walking path like Hermes in Raybans, and I could not look away.

What was, moments before, a scene yawning with the Seraut’s malaise, you transformed into a dazzling stage for your Olympian performance. Head down, arms slicing through obstructing air, you sped between the elderly and over the disabled—a breathtaking demonstration in speed and agility.

“On your left!” you yelled to some sauntering herd as you careened around the walking path’s gentle bend, but the family of ignoramuses couldn’t make even the simplest of inductions, so rather than stepping collectively to the right and letting you pass unobstructed, they turned toward you like dumbfounded animals, only to scatter clumsily as you exploded past, forcing you to practically hurdle two elderly women trying to feed some ducks.

And that was not your only brush with disaster! Confronted by those two toddlers meandering aimlessly about by the lakefront, a lesser man would have knocked at least one of them down the precipice and into the water below, but you are as lithe as you are powerful! You bolted between them, averting collision with your iron will and your impeccable coordination, sending the one with the Mickey Mouse hat to tears out of the sheer grandeur of the moment in which she had participated. Though their mother gestured indignantly at your fast-vanishing shadow, you should not be distressed. There are many who do not understand the nature of your work, but you must not feel obligated to dignify their sniveling ignorance with your attention, least of all for those who cannot recognize the precise, deliberate manner in which you stampede between their infant children.

I do admit that it is troubling to consider the injustice of your position. What kind of society do we live in, after all, when our übermensch are forced to commingle with the apathetic dregs-pseudo-practitioners of the fitness arts who treat a run in the park like a stroll in the park? Ambling listlessly, these lazy Sunday walkers tend to take up all of the best sprinting routes at all of the best sprinting times, leaving men of your caliber no choice but to risk life and limb dodging their obstructing girth. Watching them endanger you time and time again this afternoon nearly drove me insane!

But I wonder, am I projecting my resentment? Are you even bothered by the peril and dishonor of being forced to blaze your glorious trail amongst contemptuous indifference to your need for space? You may be filled with righteous indignation, fastest jogger at the park, but you did not show it today. From the moment you exploded into my life at the forest’s entrance until you disappeared from my sight in the midst of those skittish Japanese tourists, you wore a countenance of singular determination.

I like to believe that, when you reach your full velocity, you are transported to a zen state of ancient, primal satisfaction; unconcerned by the petty misunderstandings of the surrounding world, you are like a wild horse running at full gallop down the halls of a retirement home, blissfully indifferent to the decrepit minds that can’t even decide if the wonderful creature bearing thunderously down on them is a horse, or a steam-engine, or their nephew Theodore making a fuss about the pantry being empty when he’s had more than enough sweets for one day.

Yes, there were many at the park today who didn’t seem to understand the sublime feats of speed and agility that you were carrying out in their midst, precipitously close to their toddlers; but I saw you, fastest jogger at the park, and if the Gods find me a worthy vessel for the tale of one so fast, I will dedicate my life to singing your deeds.

Sprint on, my friend!

With admiration,
Eric Torres

“Big” Hank Bricklaw: Art Coach by Oyl Miller

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

What was that out there? You call that a circle? It looked more like a soggy donut dipped in weak, watery coffee from some generic New England diner with abrasive neon lighting like they have at the DMV. Is that what you want to evoke with your painting? Because that is what people will see. You’ve gotta want that circle. You’ve gotta commit to the circle. You’ve gotta bare your soul for that circle! We’ve traced ‘em a thousand times in practice, and here we are at your live art show, and you’re absolutely choking.

- - -

Your abstract paintings are a disgrace! I know they aren’t supposed to depict identifiable subject matter, but you’ve gotta convey something with your work!! Emotion, repressed memories, a political viewpoint. A childhood fantasy that got crushed like that Christmas when you thought you were getting a Teddy Ruckspin, but your sister got one instead. Look at your work, you’re just throwing paint around. Disrespect that canvas! Be rude to art history! Don’t listen to a word I say! That was a joke. But seriously, I’ve seen more expression in an Excel sheet than I see in your abstract paintings. There is no purpose to your blotches. No verve in your splatter. No virtuosity in your drips. You are a blurry, pixelated approximation of Pollack. You make a mockery of the proud tradition of action art.

- - -

What the hell are these still lives? You’re just going through the motions with your painting, kid! These are high school level art class toss offs. You wanna make it to the kind of cutting edge galleries whose walls are bare and only open to B-list celebrities on Tuesdays at three in the morning? You think a smudgy pastel rendering of an inoffensive, submissive, realistically colored little peach is your ticket there? What if it were rotten? What it if had a deformed arm sticking out of it? What if it had dinosaur fangs that represented capitalist desire? These are exactly the kinds of thoughts real artists think. Do you even think? You need point of view in your work rookie. The artwork needs to drip with your disturbing vision.

- - -

This is the worst line work I’ve seen in thirty years of coaching artists. You’re phoning this sketch in rook!! Where is the desire in your cross hatching? Where is the emotion and the guts in your shading? You’re like a robot sitting in front of a sketch book. I’d expect better cross hatching from R2-D2. I want to see some innovation and some signature moves in your style. How are you gonna differentiate yourself from all the other artists crammed beneath the crust of the art world you’ll be competing with for wall space. You gotta get hungry in this post-modern, minimally styled artist loft you’ve paid three grand a week to rent out and listen to my comments in!!!

- - -

Why are you laughing? Do you find something amusing in that ill-conceived cartoon of a bird? Do you think putting a beak on a businessman makes you the next Parra? This is a New Yorker wanna be. You’ve gotta draw differently if you want to turn your illustrations into a globally viable and self-sustaining brand. People have to think there is something wrong with you. If you want your cartoons featured in Juxtapose magazine and find your pithy, pedestrian illustrated type on the pages of FFFFOUND, you gotta get crazier. This is just lazy sketching. Don’t bother scanning that shit in and adding color separations in Illustrator. In fact, I’ll rip that page out right now…

- - -

Are you mocking my art coaching by smearing some coffee over your colored pencil rendering? Since when did this artist retreat ever stand for haphazard mixed media compositions? Is that something you read about us in our brochure? That’s a trick question! We’d never have a brochure. You’ve gotta shift your mind kiddo. Making these fanciful, typical collages in your notebooks may have earned you creative credibility in high school with the goth crowd. But I assure you, this tranquil space of kindred artists will not tolerate these random acts of artistry. We build sharp, hungry, flesh-eating (or appropriate vegan metaphor) artists here. Were not an artist colony of dabblers. We commit to our canvases and sketchbooks in a way that is meant to scare our contemporaries and our rival artist retreats. We’re in the business of training cult leaders here.

- - -

You are not Banksy. You are not even WK-Interact. I don’t care how many pop culture references you scan into your little MacBook Air and rasterize in Illustrator with a grungy photocopier filter over it. Your social commentary isn’t biting or sharp enough to use the language of street art as your vehicle. You don’t take risks with your work. You scan conservatively. You use the Adobe Creative Suite like you’re still following the tutorials.

- - -

I can’t take this anymore. You have five hours to create the next game-changing art movement. I’m gonna go find some inspiration on Tumblr.

Non-Essential Mnemonics: Pontiffs Can Certainly Forgive Sins, But Excommunication Has Obvious Recreational Benefits by Kent Woodyard

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

A recently leaked email from Pope Benedict XVI’s inbox reveals the truth about papal authority. Also, a mnemonic for the instruments in the woodwind family (piccolo, clarinet, contrabassoon, flute, saxophone, bassoon, English horn, oboe, recorder, bagpipes).

The Consumer Product Safety Commission Has Issued a Voluntary Recall for “Baby Boomers.” by John Flowers

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the makers of “Baby Boomers” are issuing a voluntary recall for all persons born between the years 1946 and 1964. Consumers should stop using these devices as elected officials, executives, educators, economists, analysts and authorities on any subject of any kind.

Name of Product: Baby Boomers

Units: About 70 million

Manufacturer: The Greatest Generation

Hazard: A software glitch is causing the device to get stuck in “expert” mode. This can lead to performance issues as well as compatibility problems, particularly with other Baby Boomers. The product also has a tendency to remember things as they never were and ask, “Why not?”

Incidents/Injuries: The device’s alarm goes off at all hours of the day, due to a design flaw that results from connecting it to the cable news and talk radio feeds. Attempts to disable the alarm only trigger the “You’re Attempting to Disable the Alarm” alarm, also a design flaw.

There are also a number of errors in some of the pre-loaded educational and business software. The section on literature, for instance, often mistakes song lyrics for poetry, and the units on geometry and film both confuse length with depth. Also, the device’s version of Quicken uses a faulty, non-GAAP measure of household income and debt called “Earnings Before Accounting” (EBA), and users report the device can explode if placed near an open flame or large piles of other people’s money. Furthermore, while Baby Boomers enjoy a premium sound system, its sound card seems only able to play the The Big Chill soundtrack.

Consumers who purchase the product may be under a false impression their device is in working order, as the System Diagnostics Test is a subroutine of the Confirmation Bias Program. And while a byproduct created by some Baby Boomers is generally thought to be non-toxic (see, “Hipster Recall”), the expense associated with its upkeep grows with age.

Reports that the device has absorbed Jeff Bridges into its mainframe in order to secure its lust for power currently are being investigated. Please contact Bruce Boxleitner if you are worried this may have happened with your device.

Description: Product currently comes in gray or white with extra padding.

Sold on: Anything with the word “Kennedy” in it.

Remedy: Consumers should stop using the product immediately and contact The Greatest Generation for a full refund or, failing that, a bigger check for their birthday.

List: And When Your Sister Said That, You Knew She Was a Narcissist by Megan Twiddy

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

“Everyone really liked me, I could tell.”

“That’s kind of exactly what I’ve been doing… except I’ve been doing it for a while.”

“Listen! Listen! This is the best thing! And I came up with it in ten seconds!”

“I’m pretty sure I saved his life.”

“I’m applying to graduate school because I want people to call me doctor.”

“Don’t stand next to me. It makes me look too elegant.”

“Hello Family and Friends! The holidays are here again, and I just wanted to say, my book is a great gift idea.”

“I know we agreed that you would drive, but I’m driving.”

“I did not spend three hours standing in front of the mirror! It was two hours and forty-five minutes. What is your problem? Why are you lying about me?”

“He said, ‘If that’s the worst thing you’ve done, then don’t worry.’ But he meant it like, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’”

“Oh, I know they’re for everyone. But you had to know they’re my favorite. Who told you they’re my favorite?”

“Wouldn’t you love to live right next door to me?”

“Why are you interrupting? You called me, remember?”

“I won’t apply for regular jobs. You know, the kind that would expect me to be there on time.”

“What did you like about what I just said?”

The Chorus Boy Chronicles: A Bandit, Full and Hollow by Brian Spitulnik

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

It’s January 10th, 2009. We are all wondering if Obama will lead us out of debt and out of Iraq when he’s sworn into office ten days from today; I’ve been dancing in Chicago for a year and a half; it’s been two months since James dumped me; the time is nearly 10:20 pm, our two-show day is finally coming to an end, and tonight, it’s Saturday night on Broadway.

We’re all moving to our places for the finale. The girls descend from their dressing rooms, having preemptively removed their fake eyelashes in preparation for leaving the theater as soon as the curtain falls. The seven of us boys surface from where we’ve been reading the Post and US Weekly in the theater’s basement, chatting about whom we are seeing after tonight’s show and where we are seeing them. As the actresses playing Roxie and Velma deliver their last lines before the finale, the ensemble clambers onto the stage, hidden from the audience by a curtain of gold tinsel that covers the onstage bandstand. I prop myself up on a girl wearing a fishnet body stocking. It’s a different girl from the one who wore the costume last week: that girl was fired or her contract was up or she’s on vacation (it’s hard to say, people come and go so quickly here).

As the gold curtain rises, the orchestra begins to play the reprise of “All That Jazz.” I lift myself into a pose that I hope passes for Fosse-esque: shoulders hunched forward, feet turned in, elbows bent, wrists attached to my hipbones. I suck in my stomach, pulling it back, away from the black mesh shirt, and become aware of the sensation that my navel is kissing my spinal cord, a feeling at once delicious and nauseating.

Though we have been directed to slither and ooze off the bandstand with the same energy and focused intention we display during the opening number of the show, I find I can’t quite muster it tonight. The surge of energy I got from taking three Hydroxycut pills at the top of the show has long since worn off.

I slink downstage toward the audience with the rest of the cast, all of us dancing in unison now, thrusting our hips back-back back-back, arms in the air, swatting our hands as if flicking wet toilet paper from our fingers—at least that’s what the choreographer has told us it should feel like—but at this moment, it feels like slamming my limbs into concrete again and again. I could swear there was a time when my feet easily left the floor, when my hamstrings were elastic, when I could ride the air as effortlessly as walking. There may have been a time when those things were true; it might have been true last night, and it might be true again tomorrow, but it isn’t true now.

I know what comes next in the choreography; I know that we spin out and then back in. But which way is out? Where are my feet? Where is the audience and where is the orchestra? Everything seems to dim and blur. I think I might be dying. If I’m dying, at least I’m dying on Broadway.

And then I see him: a handsome stranger sitting in the audience, second row, aisle seat. He must have been sitting there all along. How could I have missed him? I can see that his hair is too sculpted, his eyebrows are too plucked, his smile is too bleached. But he is smiling, and he’s smiling at me. Suddenly, I feel as though I could dance the show again from the top. This time, I could give it everything I’ve got. This time, I’d let the hunger pangs fuel me on instead of enervating and slowing me down. I am an animal; I am a god; I don’t need food, I can survive on will power and the attention of a handsome, overly groomed stranger sitting in the second row.

After the cast has bowed and we have climbed the six flights of stairs to our dressing rooms, I try to convince the boys in the ensemble to come out for a drink at Trauma, a fussy midtown gay bar we all love to hate.

“Will the bandit strike again?” one guy asks.

Since James and I broke up in November, the Chicago boys have not-so-jokingly nicknamed me “the Make-out Bandit of Ninth Avenue.” I’ve fallen into the habit of getting drunk, sloppily kissing strangers at bars and clubs, then disappearing into the crowd before my victims have the chance to ask for my name or my phone number (or worse, not ask for my name or my phone number). Most days, I’ve been waking up with debilitating hangovers and the sense that I spent the previous night acting like some seventh grade girl with low self-esteem who thinks boys will only like her if she sticks her tongue down their throats. I don’t feel great about the way I’ve been acting, but it all feels pretty harmless until I realize I’ve been trying to get the strangers I’m making out with to actually like me. “I’m thinking of applying to grad schools,” I find myself yelling over thumping music at a bar. “I’m in search of a true spiritual community,” I slur while someone soaks my chin with his tongue. “Have you read The Power of Now?”

I’m sure that when tomorrow morning comes I’ll be less than thrilled with my decision to go to Trauma tonight. But seeing a dude in the audience looking at me (me!) has gotten my blood rushing, and at this point, all reason has been obscured. I convince three of the boys to come out to the bar by lying and saying that there might be a group of guys from Wicked meeting us there as well. I lock myself in the dressing room bathroom, take two more Hydroxycut pills, just for energy, like having a late-night cup of coffee, and we walk out the stage door onto 49th Street. I look around to see if the stranger I saw smiling at me from the second row is waiting to introduce himself. He isn’t. I can feel my high begin to falter, but I quickly send a text message to Sam, a guy with whom I’ve been on exactly one (very PG) date. I tell Sam to come meet me at Trauma, he replies that he will, and my high is instantly back in place. The boys and I head west, away from Broadway, toward the nightlife of Hell’s Kitchen.

When we arrive at Trauma, we commandeer a table on the second level of the bar and start in on our first round of vodka sodas. We pretend to make conversation with one another, but really we’re just scouting the room, looking for people we know or might want to know.

Sam soon arrives at the bar and I decide that yes, without a doubt, tonight is the night I finally get over James. Sam is a Broadway dancer from somewhere out west; he never has to wear deodorant no matter how much he sweats, he can fix a wobbly chair with one smooth, efficient twist of his hands, and he has naturally broad, hairless forearms, inherited, presumably, from generations of fresh-smelling, chair-fixing farmers and cowboys. Whenever I’m near Sam, I find myself very aware of the prominent curve of my nose.

Although I haven’t slept with anyone since my break up, it has been the opinion of my co-workers that the only way to get over James is to be a man, do what men do, and have sex with as many people as possible. “Diva, you’ve got to move on,” has been an oft-repeated refrain on the sixth floor of the Ambassador Theater since November. The problem (and I haven’t yet admitted this to my castmates) is that I have never had sex with anyone I wasn’t in a long-term relationship with, and there are a number of things now holding me back. I’m scared of disease; I’m scared that my stalwart, comforting belief that I’m fantastic in bed could be proven false; I’m scared I’ll fall in love with the first person I have sex with and wind up in a new relationship before I’ve patched myself together from my last breakup; and I’m scared that if I don’t fall in love with the first person I have sex with, sex will forever be ruined for me, robbed of the significance it has always carried.

But, enumerating these fears in my head as I suck down another vodka soda and look at Sam’s pouty lower lip and broad, hairless forearms, I try to reason with myself: I’m twenty-six years old and far past the age when it’s considered either charming or appropriate to be operating under these kinds of delusions. I do still want to believe that sex is something special and intimate. I do. But I also really, really need to get laid.

Sam smiles his closed-lipped smile and slides into the booth next to me. “I can’t stay,” he yells into my ear over the blaring music. “Early audition tomorrow.” He might as well have punched me in the stomach. The hand holding my vodka soda begins to shake at the thought of going to sleep alone in my bed, yearning for James for yet another night (though the shaking may just be the result of the Hydroxycut mixing with the vodka). Still, as Sam leans in to kiss me goodbye, I notice that even after performing in two shows today, he smells like clean laundry. He really doesn’t need deodorant. If he asked me to marry him this second, I would say yes.

Once Sam has left Trauma, I look around to find that a few new guys have joined our table. They are talking in loud, animated voices—boo, I said, no, give me a nice step-touch ‘cause my twirling days are done—and ordering shots of something blue and frothy. We all consume the shots and I take a moment to assess the group. Everyone seems cute, though that could be because the lights in the bar are all colored and flashing. Everyone seems successful and witty, but I can barely make sense of a full sentence over the pounding music. I fix my eyes on one guy who is standing next to our table, grooving to the music, wearing a pinstriped newsboy hat ever so slightly askew on his head. I learn that he was on the national tour of something with a friend of a friend of mine, and is now dancing in some Broadway show or other. I lean over to a friend sitting next to me and whisper, “He’s hot, right?

“Hot,” my friend replies. “Go for it.”

I stand from the table and, as quietly as I can over the music, yell to the guy in the newsboy hat, “Come downstairs with me.”

He follows me as I push my way through the dense, coconut-scented fog. We zigzag through the wall of guys standing nuts-to-butts, all trying to get the attention of the bartender and of each other. When I reach the bathroom entrance, I lean back against the door, hoping to both look seductive and to remain upright without teetering. I pull the guy in the newsboy hat toward me and discover that he is an exemplary kisser, that his name is Caleb, that he lives two blocks from my apartment in Astoria, and that he thinks I should really go home with him tonight.

But all the swagger and aggression I displayed in getting Caleb to come downstairs with me seems to evaporate the moment he speaks the words “my place.” I tell him I really can’t desert my friends, but maybe we can meet for coffee later in the week.

“Come on,” he says, running his hands down my torso as I notice he’s got incredibly broad, hairless forearms. “I’ve got baked ziti with homemade meat sauce in my fridge.”

I can’t remember the last time I ate pasta. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I ate anything at all. And meat sauce. At this moment, homemade meat sauce has the ring of something primal and dangerous, a call from the wild, inviting me, daring me, to go native.

After a quick cab ride to Caleb’s apartment in Queens, we are standing together, still making out, in his bedroom. Aside from a bed, some pillows on the floor, and the TV he immediately turns on, there isn’t much to the room, unless you count the heavy, chemical scent of Axe body spray as a physical presence, which I do.

Caleb asks if I want a drink. I say yes, though the phrase homemade meat sauce is pounding in my ears, muffling everything else. He brings me a pink mixture in a clear Budweiser glass, and, lightly pressing one hand to my sternum, pushes me backward onto his bed. As I try not to spill the drink on his duvet, Caleb climbs on top of me, and I wonder why he seems so much less attractive now that we are horizontal. I close my eyes to block out the sight of his eyes and nose, which are nightmarishly distorted at such close proximity. But closing my eyes makes the room lurch and heave. I snap my eyes back open and try to remember what it is I had planned on doing once I got myself beneath this person I don’t know.

“Baked ziti!” I say, trying to sit up and realizing how very much bigger he is than I am. “You got me all excited for that baked ziti.”

“I’ll get the ziti in a minute,” Caleb murmurs, pushing me back down onto his bed and inching my shirt up over my torso.

I grab his face, look him in the eye, and say, “You promised me homemade meat sauce.”

My desperation seems to startle and crack his determination, at least for a moment. He pushes himself off me and heads for the kitchen. I sit up on the bed and plant my feet on the floor, a trick I learned in college that’s supposed to make the room stop spinning. Caleb plods back into the bedroom, carrying an oversized disposable aluminum roasting pan and a fork.

“Baked ziti with homemade meat sauce,” he says, a note of resignation and annoyance in his voice. He sets the pan on my lap. I dig the fork into the dish, and shove five or six noodles, globs of melted cheese, and large chunks of beef and tomato into my mouth. I close my eyes, the room not spinning at all now. I chew and swallow.

“This is good,” I keep repeating, shoving forkful after forkful into my mouth. “This is really, really good.”

Caleb smiles, says he’s glad I like it, and attempts to get me to set the fork aside by kissing my ziti-filled mouth. I indicate with an apologetic shrug that I’m not done eating so I can’t possibly kiss him back. I dig my fork back into the dish and keep inhaling the pasta.

When I finish the entire pan of ziti—which had been more than three-quarters full when I began—Caleb levels his gaze at the empty aluminum dish and asks warily if I want some of the cookies his mom sent him at Christmas. I nod and grin. He brings out a tinfoil-covered serving tray and reveals dozens of shortbreads, sugar cookies, ginger snaps, and frosted chocolate cakes. I consider at least attempting conversation at this point, perhaps about Obama’s upcoming inauguration, perhaps about the show he’s performing in. But I forgo dialogue in favor of focusing my full concentration on the cookies in front of me.

“Feel better?” Caleb says once I’ve put down the cookies, leaving two or three on the plate with a tremendous force of will. He again begins to push me down onto the bed and lift off my shirt.

“Yeah, but ya know, I should really be going,” I say, suddenly both strong enough and clear headed enough to pry him off of me and sit up straight.

“Are you serious?” he says, his eyes wide, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his newsboy cap.

I look around the room for my shoes, which I don’t remember taking off, and start saying something about going through a really tough break-up recently and just needing some me time. I tell him I’ll find him on Facebook, I say goodbye, and I hurry out his door into the cold January night.

As I walk the two blocks from Caleb’s apartment to my own, I’m aware of a sharp embarrassment—an embarrassment that feels remarkably similar to gallons of pasta and cookies stretching my stomach to a painful distention—and a stinging guilt that demands I consider how I’ll undo what I’ve just done. Thinking about the meals I’ll skip tomorrow and the hours I’ll spend at the gym, I hardly notice that, while passing the darkened homes and late-night bodegas of Astoria, I am, for the first time in my life, completely alone.

Tontine Rules by River Clegg

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

1. Each participant shall volunteer one personal item for the tontine, after which no participant may access any of the tontine items.

2. Upon the death of the penultimate remaining participant, the lone survivor shall take possession of all the tontine items.

3. Gary, if he receives permission from at least one other participant, may access the tontine items, but only to look at them and not to touch.

4. In accordance with the significance of the tontine pact, all items volunteered must be valued at no less than three-hundred dollars by an independent third party.

5. Gary shall be allowed to judge the monetary worth of his contribution. No one shall complain about this, as it would embarrass and upset Gary.

6. Under no circumstances shall any participant attempt to retrieve his tontine contribution and exchange it for another item, regardless of the new item’s worth.

7. If Gary suddenly feels ashamed of his tontine contribution and starts yelling about how he wants to exchange it, he shall be allowed to exchange his item for another item.

8. If Gary has no clear idea of what he would like to exchange for his first item, but nevertheless demands to take back his first item and starts thrashing around, he shall be allowed to take back the item.

9. The tontine items shall be kept in a secret, neutral location to be unanimously determined by the participants.

10. If Gary has one of his friends over and they refuse to believe his story about the tontine, Gary shall be allowed to reveal the tontine items and their location to his friend.

11. If Gary’s friend still does not believe his story about the tontine, the other participants shall come to Gary’s defense, saying that the tontine is very real and that they all like Gary and think he is cool.

12. In the event that Gary wishes to use any of the tontine items in construction of a fort (outdoor or indoor), Gary shall be allowed to use the items, as fort-building seems to help Gary relax.

13. Should the fort fail to relax Gary, the most nearby participant must offer to give Gary a backrub. (NOTE: Under no circumstances should Gary be touched without first being asked!)

14. If Gary, after having one of his night episodes, calls another participant and asks to come over and sleep beside them, the participant shall oblige Gary and, if necessary, ask that their significant other please sleep elsewhere.

15. Should Gary’s current living situation not work out, the other participants must arrange to house Gary in one of their homes. The participants may determine for themselves whose home it shall be, but they are reminded that Gary does not like large rooms or brightly colored things.

16. If, after moving into one of the other participants’ homes, Gary decides to make his pancakes for breakfast, his new host must eat all of them. If Gary informs his host that the pancakes are invisible, the host shall pantomime until Gary moves onto the next thing.

17. Should the participants play Monopoly, Gary gets to be the car.

18. In the event that a tontine participant is found to be responsible for the wrongful death of any other participant, that participant shall be expelled permanently from the tontine pact.

19. Rule 18 does not apply to Gary.

20. Any food items contributed to the tontine must be appropriately preserved.

Graphic Dispatches from a Recent College Grad Still Living in a College Town: That’s So Awkward by Larry Buchanan

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

Monologue: I’ll Be Knocking Out Beautiful Poetry This Whole Goddamn Flight by Sean Adams

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

I’m sorry ma’am, but if you plan on sleeping from take off to touch down you’re in the wrong seat, because as soon as it’s safe to use portable electronics, it’s gonna be PIPITY PIPITY POW right here next to you. Which is to say you’ll be startled awake by the machine-gun like sounds of wild, emphatic typing rising above the whine of the jet engines and the low growl of my torturously inspired mumbling.

You see, I’m not just a passenger; I’m a poet. And while they may be able to buckle me into this tiny seat, they won’t be able to contain my inspiration. No, ma’am. I’ll be knocking out beautiful poetry this whole goddamn flight.

What will it be about? Anything. There are no limits to my subject material. I’ll write a poem about flowers. I’ll write a poem about dragons. I’ll write a poem about a flower that fights a dragon and you’ll be all smug and think, Well obviously the dragon would win. But don’t get too comfortable with that mindset because, like a stealth bomber ravaging your brainscape with heartfelt language, here I come out of the blue with all these poetic details explaining why the flower winning is not only plausible but necessary.

That’s not the end, though. No way. Just when I have you willing to believe in a floral victory, that’s when the flower will take off its mask to reveal that it’s actually been a dragon all along, and its need to disguise itself is a statement about how everyone feels insecure sometimes, and also about the mask industry, because, damn, masks are crazy these days, am I right?

Sounds epic, huh? Long? Rambling? Probably 100 lines minimum, right? Wrong. I’ll shove all that into something as compact as a haiku. Because efficiency is beautiful. You know which great American poet taught me that? Henry Ford. He wrote poems so crazy they came out as cars.

That’s not to say I just write haikus. No, I’ll write within any poetic structure. And I’ll write about any poetic structure. I’ll write a sonnet about limericks and a limerick about villanelles. I’ll write two sets of heroic couplets about two sets of heroic couplets that are themselves a heroic couple, because they have super powers and they’re in a romantic relationship.

But if it’s a haiku, it’s going to be about dragons fighting flowers that are dragons in disguise. That much you can be sure of.

Pop quiz: “Just breaking lines, blowing minds.” Is this A, a saying that I live by; B, what’s printed on the flagship coffee mug of my line of “Inspirational Cups for Inspired Poets” (available on Etsy); or C, what I’ll be doing until the tray tables go up and the electronics power down?

The answer is E, all of the above.

What was option D? You’ll never know. That’s a lesson about writing poetry: sometimes it’s best to leave things unsaid.

Here’s another saying I live by: “Write fierce enough verse to put you in a hearse.” And by the way, you’re not driving that hearse; you’re in the back of the hearse, i.e. you’re a dead person. Because I’m writing verse so fierce that it could kill you, figuratively speaking. Not like its ferocity would make you consider a job as a hearse driver or something. Or, at least, that’s not my intention, but who knows? Maybe it will. You can never be sure how poetry will affect someone. With that being said, I try to avoid hearse-driving imagery in my work, because it seems like a pretty grim career, and I don’t want to be held legally responsible if thing’s don’t work out.

So close your eyes and turn on your noise cancelling headphones if you want, but it won’t help. Because you can block out sound but you can’t block out my creativity. And I mean that to be forty-percent a statement about how moving it can be to watch an artist work and sixty-percent a warning that I throw elbows when I get creative.

An Important Message From the U.S. Bureau of Chronology by Dan Guterman

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

For nearly 200 years, the United States Bureau of Chronology has worked tirelessly to ensure the proper linear continuum of all things taking place. That is to say, when things occur, it is our job to make sure they do so in the correct chronological sequence.

Which is why we must now regret to inform you of a future time-related mix-up, taking place earlier next Thursday shortly before what preceded it.

You see, this is exactly the kind of thing we are talking about.

How this embarrassing aberration came about we cannot say for sure. One minute, things were happening in an orderly fashion, and the next minute… well, the next minute came first is the problem.

Please remain calm. We are, or have been, or will eventually be doing everything in our power to resolve this crisis of chronology.

For instance, our agents will be dispatched into the field to monitor the matter firsthand, just as soon as they return from the field, to which they have already been deployed.

Rest assured, we have the best and brightest minds working around the clock—and due to the sudden jumps in time—across the clock.

However, until we determine what exactly went wrong, we are advising all U.S. citizens to remain indoors, stock up on canned goods, and if at all possible refrain from taking part in any activity with a distinct beginning, middle and end.

We recommend watching the films of Federico Fellini. Or the sport of soccer.

Also, please be advised that due to this unexpected deviation in time, some everyday experiences may now proceed in a manner you may find alarming. Such as drinking a glass of water, which may now start empty, and then slowly fill itself with each regurgitated gulp from your mouth. Or the act of finding your soul mate, which may now begin with eight months of messy divorce proceedings.

Also before they even start, could now end abruptly, the reading of sentences.

Incidentally, do not phone the U.S. Bureau of Chronology and leave panicked voice messages regarding the disastrous plot to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand, the debut of Cop Rock on ABC, or any recent encounters with a large Ankylosaurus grazing in your backyard.

We are aware of such phenomena and are trying to address each as best we can. Unfortunately, until some of us recover from a sudden onset of toddlerhood, and become interested in things other than choo-choo trains, there is little we may be able to do.

We know that time is running out. Unfortunately, it now appears that time is also running in.

This has been an important message from the U.S. Bureau of Chronology. We will eventually thank you for your patience.

Incidentally—gesundheit. You’ll understand why in five hours.

List: New and Noteworthy Name Generators by Allen Rein

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

Sandwich Name: Direction you are currently facing + name of the street you are currently on + main course at your most recent holiday meal.

Rock Band Name: Your least favorite color + your most recent physical ailment + high school mascot, plural.

Discreet Sex Toy Name: Your favorite hard candy flavor + type of flower indigenous to your current state of residence.

Fruit Smoothie Flavor Name: Your first name, possessive + your favorite color + the kind of fruit you most recently consumed + the worst weather conditions you’ve ever experienced while on vacation.

Highbrow Circus Show Name: Your favorite smell + your least favorite time of day (both translated into French).

Grocery Store Name: The street you grew up on + “Organic” (optional) + “Harvest” (optional) + “Farmer’s” (optional) + “Market.”

Sitcom Name: Whatever you last screamed at your children.

History’s a Bitch: A Dog Walk Through Time: Wait for Me by Robb Fritz

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

Feed a dog for three days and it is grateful for three years. Feed a cat for three years and it forgets after three days. — Japanese proverb

- - -

The relationship between dogs and loyalty is like the relationship between honey and sweetness or Mitt Romney and mealy-mouthed equivocation. Such a given, such an accepted cliché, it hardly bares repeating. The name Fido—a canine name so comically archetypal it’s occasionally used as a stand-in for the word “dog”—actually has the very non-comical meaning of “I am faithful” in Latin. Growing up with collies as I did, I was well aware how much more reliable dogs were as a source of love and devotion than their fickle human counterparts.

The primacy of the relationship between people and dogs is such that even the Odyssey, the sequel to the first extant work of Western literature, takes time to paint a vivid picture of this relationship. Odysseus, finally returned home after twenty years, discovers Argus, the dog he’d trained as a puppy, ancient and flea-ridden and lying on a heap of manure (yes, okay, Homer was laying it on a little thick here, but the detail sure does stick). The broken dog is too weak to stand up, but his ears perk up at the sound of his long-absent master, and he wags his tail and drops his ears. Odysseus, in disguise, pretends not to recognize Argus, but sheds hidden tears at this display of affection from his old dog. Argus, apparently having fulfilled his sustaining desire to see his beloved master one last time, is then seized by “the dark finality of death.”

Homer must have had a dog.

In the modern history of loyal dog stories, the Japanese story of the faithful Akita Hachiko stands out, and has the rare advantage of being well-documented and completely true. It even eventually involved Helen Keller, no slouch in the inspiring story department herself. Oddly, as I first started to read about Hachiko, I happened to be screening a friend’s movie that had been filmed in Tokyo, when one of the characters suddenly related a brief synopsis of the very story about the loyal Akita that I was starting to research. I took this as a positive, if random, sign.

In 1924, Professor Hidesaburo Ueno, a member of the agricultural department at the Imperial Tokyo University got an eight month old Akita puppy from Odate, a town in the mountainous Akita region after which the breed is named. Akitas are solid dogs with a thick double coat, two fuzzy pointed ears that are wide at the base and jut jauntily out from the crest of the neck, and a friendly, full, bearlike face. They are referred to in Japan as “ikken isshu” or “one-person dogs.” Hachi would realize this trait to its legendary fullest.

As an aside, it bears pointing out that Professor Ueno (whose first name is sometimes Westernized as Eisaburo) was a brilliant scientist and would be better known as the father of modern irrigation and land reclamation practices were he not now more famous for being the owner of a dog.

The professor named his new puppy Hachi, Japanese for eight and meant to represent strength and confidence. Hachi soon began a daily practice of walking with his loving master to the train station in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward. After the professor got on the train to go to work, Hachi would return home. Later that day he would make his way back to the station to await the professor’s return at three o’clock.

May 21, 1925 most likely began like any other day, but most books and movies about Hachi “based on a true story” take their greatest poetic license at this point. Human sentiment and narrative tension being what they are, it is apparently necessary to depict Hachi experiencing a preternatural knowledge of the tragic event to come and displaying an unusually heightened degree of affection and playfulness during what would be his and the professor’s final farewell at the station. Whatever the case may be, after leaving Hachi that day and going to the university, the professor suffered a fatal stroke during a faculty meeting, and when Hachi showed up at Shibuya station at his usual time, the professor never returned.

The professor’s grieving widow sold her home, and Hachi was sent to relatives eight miles away. He escaped soon after and managed to figure out his way back to the professor’s house. The new owners chased him off the property, and he went to Shibuya station. After more failed attempts to find him a new home, he was finally taken in by the professor’s old gardener who allowed Hachi to roam freely. Where he roamed was back to the station. He became known by the station director and the station’s vendors and shopkeepers as “Chuken Hachiko,” or faithful dog Hachiko, and they would provide him with water and food, including occasionally chicken yakatori, barbecued chicken on skewers, his favorite food.

His vigil continued for nine years. One of the children’s versions of the story that I read to my daughter showed the passage of time with leaves falling from the trees, growing back, then falling again. In the Lasse Hallström film Hachi: A Dog Tale, an Americanized version of an earlier popular Japanese film, Hallstrom renders this “passage of time” theme literally, showing Hachi in close-up waiting devotedly, while behind him a tree blossoms, turns green, then golden, finally shedding its leaves in an autumn wind, then repeating this cycle again and again all in a matter of seconds.

Hallström, choosing to forego the absurdity of a Japanese story set in Tokyo being spoken in English, cast Richard Gere and Joan Allen as the leads and placed the story in what appears to be a quaint small town in the Hudson Valley north of New York City. By the end of the film you will either be deeply sad or you will have long since, with rolling eyes, thumbed the “stop” button in terror at the prospect of being infected by Capra-esque levels of irony-free sentiment.

As Hachi waited, his local legend grew, eventually coming to the attention of writer Hirokichi Saito, a founding member of a society dedicated to the preservation of native Japanese breeds. The first of several articles he wrote about Hachi, “Faithful Dog Awaits Return of Master Dead for Seven Years,” appeared in 1932, and caused an immediate national sensation. For a population largely too poor to support pets of their own, Hachi became Japan’s national pet, and the quintessential embodiment of the nationally revered traits of loyalty and devotion.

As is the case with any genuinely true and moving sentiment, Hachi’s devotion was quickly appropriated by the government, in this case as a living symbol of the loyalty one should demonstrate to the Emperor. The government created stories about Hachi in textbooks for children. If the Emperor had given the imperial equivalent of a State of the Union address, Hachi no doubt would have been brought in as a special guest. One can picture him sitting in the balcony, seated next to the Empress, tongue lolling before breaking into a comfortable wide yawn, charmingly oblivious during the part of the speech in which his story was told to the feeling of united purpose and patriotism his furry presence was causing to swell in the hearts of the Japanese people.

People began to travel to Shibuya station just to touch his fur, thinking this would give them good luck and honor. Children would hug and nuzzle with him. A bronze statue of Hachi was commissioned and on April 21, 1934 the statue—inscribed with a poem entitled “Lines to a Loyal Dog”—was placed at Shibuya station in a widely attended public event. Hachi—old and battle-scarred and gradually slowing, his left ear now permanently bent downward—was there, blissfully unaware of his status as the ceremony’s guest of honor. Less than a year later, on March 8th, 1935, he died. The government declared a day of mourning and he was given full Buddhist rites lasting forty-nine days, an honor no other dog had ever received.

The boundless devotion of a dog has come back into the public attention recently with a spate of YouTube videos capturing dogs reacting to their soldier masters’ returns from tours of duty in the Middle East. One shows a dog at the airport greeting his master, a female soldier home from Afghanistan, with such unfettered abandon the dog is writhing around her literally whimpering with the unbearable agony of the reunion. One has an enormous black dog tearing through his house, actually smelling his returning master all the way from outside, then bursting out the door and leaping on his master in fatigues, who, despite being a seasoned U.S. vet, is nearly pushed over by the sheer velocity and impact of his dog’s crazy love. We can only dream of such unfettered displays of emotion from our human friends and relatives.

There are other well-known devoted dog stories. Shep, a dog “of collie strain,” showed up at the Great Northern Railway station in Benton, Montana in 1936 when a casket, presumably his master’s, was being loaded into the train, then showed up for every train after that. Shep kept up his vigil at the station for the next 6 years. He was killed in 1942 when he slipped off the tracks into the path of an oncoming train.

Probably the other most famous Western story of a devoted dog is Greyfriar’s Bobby. Bobby was a Skye Terrier who was widely known in 19th-century Edinburgh for spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner John Gray. When Bobby himself died in 1872, he, like Shep and Hachi, received a statue in his honor. In 2011 however, Jan Bondeson of Cardiff University compiled fairly damning proof that Bobby was in fact little more than a very successful publicity stunt aimed at boosting local tourist revenue, and was in fact two dogs, one, a scrappy stray, that lived until 1865, and another more groomed Skye Terrier that lived until 1872, both fed by the cemetery curator to keep them close to John Gray’s grave. But myths die hard, and sentimental myths die harder. People simply want to believe. Bondeson realized this, and acknowledged in his book that the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby would never be debunked where it mattered, in people’s hearts.

In 1937, two years after Hachi’s death, Helen Keller, impressed by the stories that she had heard of Chuken Hachiko’s devotion, determined to get an Akita. The Japanese were touched—many Japanese considered her a living saint—and when she visited Japan she was brought an Akita puppy called Kamikaze-Go. Her teacher and friend Ann Sullivan had died the year before, and when Keller would still occasionally cry about it, Keller said that Kami would touch her knee or lick away her tears. Kami would be the first Akita in America, but would die at eight months from distemper. Keller said of him, “If ever there was an angel in fur, it was Kamikaze. I know I shall never feel quite the same tenderness for any other pet.” When the breeder heard of Kami’s death, he sent Kami’s brother Kenzan-Go to Keller as a gift from the Japanese government, and Go-Go, as he came to be called, lived with Keller in Connecticut for years.

During World War II, Hachi’s statues—the one in Shibuya station and the one erected in Odate, his birthplace—were melted down for ammunition. Even worse, because of Japanese rationing, pets could no longer be fed, and dogs were being starved to death or being killed outright for food and in order to use their pelts for clothing. Akita breeders, determined to give the once royal breed a chance at survival, released them into the mountain forests in the hope that some might hunt and survive. A handful did, and as a result the breed now thrives today on both sides of the Pacific.

After the War, the Japanese—desperately in need of a morale boost—began a drive to rebuild the statue in Shibuya station. Money poured in from around the world, including from America, and Ando Tekeshi, the son of the original sculptor, made a bronze replica of the original statue, which was dedicated in August 1948.

Hachiko was again in the headlines just last year. In March 2011 a coroner determined that his cause of death had been terminal cancer and a worm infection, not, as had been long believed, a yakatori stick that had ruptured his stomach. That a dog’s death could inspire a full autopsy 76 years post-mortem is a clear measure of his status in Japanese society, and one wonders if it was initiated by the descendants of the yakitori vendors at Shibuya station, mortified at the thought that their forebears were to blame for the death of Japan’s favorite dog. The ghosts of those vendors can now rest in peace.

Today, Shibuya station, once a quiet, practically rural station, is now the center of a crazy hub of urban Tokyo traffic in a fashionable, youthful district. But people still rub Hachi’s paws for good luck, and everyone knows where to go when someone says “Meet me at Hachiko.” Every year on April 8th a celebration is held at the station in Hachi’s honor. And there is an ongoing tradition of couples pledging their undying love in front of the statue of the dog who was the living incarnation of till death do I part.

Purchase This World Champion’s Locker Room T-Shirt and Associate Yourself With Greatness by Mike Carrier

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

It’s time to celebrate in proper attire. The playoffs have climaxed with a thrilling victory by your team. Let’s be honest, you earned the trophy just as much as the players. Now is your chance to wear the same gear your favorite athletes wore following their monumental win.

This officially licensed shirt will commemorate your couch lounging accomplishments this season. Let it be known that the amount of watching you did was directly related to the team’s performance. Had you not avoided several major life events to tune in, they would not have won so many road games.

The countless times you anxiously hollered at the television while the family cat stared at you in bewilderment were all painful milestones along the path to triumph. That simple animal isn’t capable of understanding what influence you have over the events of time.

People are segregated into two categories: those that have golden trophies screen-printed onto their clothes and those that do not. No longer will you be defined by your personality, your appearance, or your identity. You will strictly be associated with the outcome of a single sporting event. What does that mean? You will strictly be associated with greatness.

Long gone will be the days when people talked behind your back about that regrettable DUI you got a few years back. Instead, they will feel compelled to discuss the new you that appears sans criminal record.

When your snide neighbor sees you mowing the lawn in this fashion statement, his eyes will burn with envy. Mmm, taste the succulent jealousy of your peers. Now is the time for you to be the supreme alpha male of your suburb. This is your last chance at reclaiming the raw power of your teenage years.

This crew neck shirt is a token of appreciation for all those hours you could have spent looking for a job that matched your interests. But hey, nobody likes their career, right? At least the commute isn’t too long and the salary is commensurate with your experience. What a wonderful way to let that foxy intern just entering womanhood know you’re a member of a fraternal brotherhood of winners.

Without question, this piece of clothing will heal all your psychological wounds for approximately one week. Consider it a temporary bandage for that aching loneliness you’ve been running from. When you do eventually visit a therapist, there’s no better short-sleeve shirt to show them what your previous remedy was.

After you drive a number of hours to be at the team’s victory parade, this T-shirt will allow you to humorously accuse the players of copying your outfit. You can chuckle and think they heard you.

Share the bragging rights and buy one for your wife. Whether she wears it while tending the garden or buying stamps, she will become a living mannequin for the best team in the league this year. You’re there for your wife when you have time. If something was really tearing her up inside, she would interrupt your impassioned shouts and aggressive stomps. Those tear-soaked tissues she leaves on the night-stand have to be from some unrequited love story in those romance novels she keeps buying. I swear those things keep soaring in price. This rib-knit collared shirt won’t increase in price on you. It will be $21.95 forever.

What a perfect gift to show your wife how much you care about this team. We suggest wearing the shirts while making love. This would provide you both the opportunity to look like champions as you experience the thrills of human pleasure.

Order now! These ultra-soft products will only be available for a limited time. Once we capitalize on the impulsive purchases from niche markets, we will eventually send the leftovers to Nairobi where they will be used as pillowcases for the severely impoverished. Don’t let all your effort this season be wasted like that. Don’t allow the child workers who knit these clothes to take five minute lunch naps on them. Furthermore, don’t make this comfortable cotton shirt serve as a horrifying symbol for the cycle of inescapable misery that is their lives.

The Peculiar Arab Chronicles: Anne Frank Made Me Do This! by Nour Ali Youssef

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

I had an entirely wrong idea about Anne Frank, dictated to me by my old, bored history teacher who had a twisted sense of humor. He marched into class one day and said with an air of authority that the Holocaust wasn’t in our curriculum, but that he’d be willing to answer any annoying questions about it. In response to my question about Anne, he said: “Anne was a little Nazi child, who kept a diary and wrote ‘Please, don’t read this’ on it, but they published it anyway. She’s rolling in her grave, I tell you!”

After actually reading her diary, “the little Nazi child” (I should really stop calling her that), came to me in a dream. At first I was startled, what is a Jew roaming around an Arab’s mind for?

She told me to stop making insensitive jokes about her, disown my holocaust-denying friends (they’re plentiful on this side of the planet) and write a diary. She also said I was zeer aantrekkelijke (Dutch for very attractive).

Since I’m laziness personified, I decided to use my diary entries as this week’s column. Enjoy.

- - -

Salam Alykum Abdul-Jabar,

(I needed an appropriate ethnic male name. Arab women like to gossip, trusting a female diary would be most unwise)

Guess what, brother? By some shit stroke of luck a water pipe in the neighborhood got “clogged.” The fact that there are objects (which aren’t supposed to be there), objects which are big enough to clog the pipes, worries me deeply.

But it is a third world country, so I suppose this experience has long been overdue.

I’ve been ignoring nature’s call all day, but I had some curry shit for lunch, bad idea. Toilet paper is a poor, poor substitute for water. It was a traumatic experience for both the toilet and me. I don’t see how my butt cheeks will ever be able to share a pair of underwear together again.

I even had to wash my face via water-filled coffee mug. Resentment swelled in me later, when I watched Neutrogena’s commercials with a model who probably has never seen a zit up close, splashing precious water all over the place just to wash her silly face.

Respectfully, without any display of affection,
Nour.

- - -

Salam Alykum Abdul-Jabar,

Every time a family member lays eyes on me, they ask me for something. What the hell do they have to drink so much fucking tea for? Do they think they’re English? They drink it before, after, and during every meal.

Every time I make someone a cup of tea, I die a little inside.

I have developed a strategy for revenge. I am messing with their sugar (adding and decreasing as I please), using different tea flavors and, depending on my mood, I may or may not spit in their cups. It brings me great joy.

Never ask me to make tea, I mean it,
Nour.

- - -

Salam Alykum Abdul-Jabaar,

For some silly reason today I felt the need for some human interaction. The first human in sight was Mom. Naturally, in order to talk to her, I had to pay the Arab tax of conversation, which is a cup of fucking tea. “Before we sit down, how about you make us a cup of tea?” Grrr.

Anyway, I asked her if she ever heard of Anne Frank. “Oh, yes, yes, I know all about him.”

HIM?

Ah, the day Arabs admit to not knowing someone is the day they stop drinking tea. (Never going to happen.)

Their refusal to say, “I don’t know” is exactly why an Arab will always, always get lost in a new town. Because the only thing passersby love more than being stopped for a question, is giving wrong directions. They would actually fight with each other to decide which of them would have the great honor of misleading the newcomer. One time, a man told us where he would like to go.

If given the chance, they’ll offer to guide you there themselves, they’ll either kidnap you and bury you in a shallow grave, or drive all over town, forget you were tailing them and drive home, taking you with them.

Rightfully-suppressed care,
Nour.

- - -

Salam Alykum Abdul-Jabar,

I’m going to learn how to drive.

I don’t want to die young.

Scared,
Nour.

- - -

Salam Alykum Abdul-Jabar,

In case my previous letter didn’t worry you enough, this one should. Here’s how my second driving class with my sister went:

I should note that I still haven’t gotten over the feeling that I’m in the wrong seat… the driver’s seat.

ME: “I don’t see the point of this, I’ll either be stuck in traffic, in which case I’ll be in a still car in a still queue of cars, or I’ll be speeding and undoubtedly crashing on the highway, either way no driving knowledge required!”

I receive my third blow on the head for breaking the no-talking deal I have been coerced into.

At this point, my palms are so sweaty that I can barely hold on to the steering wheel. My pores seemed to have conspired against me. Did you know that your ass can sweat? Well, mine can. Unlike my skin however, my throat and tongue are so dry, they’re like… er… the weather?

My sister is going over the basics again, she’s mad at me, something about not listening to her. I would listen if her lips moved slower, or if she could speak louder than my thoughts. My thoughts keep drifting to the big trucks waiting for me on the highway. The drivers seem to like to try out every lane on the road, which would be perfectly okay if they weren’t already occupied with cars.

She finally snatched me out of my thoughts and yelled, “Stop stepping on the goddamn petals!”

She read my facial expression and realized that I misheard “pedals” for “petals.” Before she knew it, I was already scanning the car for flowers.

She went on scolding me for being a brat, and then the cunning witch turned on the radio to Arabic music because she knows I’d rather listen to her than it.

The only thing I did right was keeping my eyes on my mirrors, but she disagrees. According to her, my eyes darted from one mirror to the next without ever glancing ahead, but what does she know?

After much persistence, nagging and yelling, I saw a sparkle in her eyes, or were those tears? Or was she just about to burst in rage? I decided not to find out, gave up and turned the car on.

Legitimate wishes,
Nour.

- - -

Hey you Abdul-Jabar,

What a shit day! I lost my McSweeney’s article three fucking times and had to rewrite three fucking times. I stare there staring at my computer, clutching my head grieving the loss of my work, calming down, then remembering it and starting all over again.

I also forgot to buy white chocolate. I thought keeping a diary would enhance my memory, since I’d be writing all the notable things down, thereby saving room for things like buying chocolate. You’re useless, I hate you.

I’m so sorry, I take it all back.

Grudgingly, yet peacefully,
Nour

P.S: The author was PMSing at the time.

Ben Greenman’s Graphs About Charts and Charts About Graphs: Graph #21 by Ben Greenman

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:59:00 -0800

Prop Bets for Super Bowl XLVI Television Commercials by Wes Marfield

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

1. Whitney promos (+/- 15.5)
Under (+ 130)
Over (- 200)

2. Your mom’s favorite commercial
E*TRADE (- 800)
Geico (- 200)
Bud Light (+ 300)
GoDaddy.com (+ 1500)

3. Your dad’s favorite commercial
E*TRADE (+ 800)
Geico (+ 150)
Bud Light (- 400)
GoDaddy.com (Sunday night, talking to your mom) (+ 1000)
GoDaddy.com (Monday morning, talking to co-workers) (- 1000)

4. Spokesperson(s) for Indiana Tourism
Larry Bird (- 750)
Ron Swanson (- 150)
Bob Knight (+ 600)
Peyton Manning (+ 2500)

5. First mention of space exploration
NASA (+ 200)
Newt Gingrich 2012 (- 1200)
5-hour ENERGY (- 690)

6. First product endorsed by Betty White
Snickers (- 200)
Ron Paul 2012 (- 450)
5-hour ENERGY (+ 75)

7. First product endorsed by Tim Tebow
Jockey (- 200)
Rick Santorum 2012 (- 600)
5-hour ENERGY (Decaf) (+ 950)

8. First product endorsed by Mitt Romney
Giorgio Armani (- 800)
Mitt Romney 2012 (+ 130)
MADDs (Mormons Against Drinking Dietary Supplements) (- 400)

9. New flavor of Doritos
Hellacious Hummus (+ 700)
KFC Original Recipe (- 50)
5-hour ENERGY (- 500)

10. First reference to an ’80s movie
Honda – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (- 800)
Herman Cain for Newt Gingrich 2012 – Can’t Buy Me Love (- 200)
5-hour ENERGY – After Hours (+ 150)

11. Placement of first 5-hour ENERGY advertisement
First Quarter (- 600)
Second Quarter (- 150)
Third Quarter (- 100)
Fourth Quarter (- 75)
Logo is tattooed on Chris Collinsworth’s forehead during pregame (- 400)

12. Cause being championed while Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” plays in the background
Animal cruelty (- 400)
Rick Perry 2012 (- 130)
Occupy Movement (+ 200)

13. Newest Revlon spokesperson
Kim Kardashian (- 200)
Kourtney Kardashian (- 100)
Khloé Kardashian (+ 300)
Bruce Jenner (- 50)

14. Dr. Pepper Ten slogan
“Not for Women” (- 800)
“Have a Pair” (+ 100)
“Get Testy” (+ 400)
“Sack ‘Em Up” (- 200)

15. What will power the new Chevy Silverado?
Unleaded Fuel (- 200)
Ethanol (- 30)
Gas/Electric Hybrid (+ 200)
Electricity (+ 3000)
5-hour ENERGY (- 100)

Bitchslap: A Column About Women and Fighting: Column 32: Fuck the Dude Up by Susan Schorn

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

“Urgent: Murder and assaults in area north of campus,” read the subject line of an email I found waiting for me when I returned to the office after the holidays.

Early on New Year’s morning, a woman was murdered in her home a few blocks north of the university where I work. Two other women had been attacked in the same neighborhood shortly before and after the killing. Police had no suspects; only a composite drawing provided by the victim of the first attack.

Esme Barrera, the murder victim, had innumerable friends, including one of the students at my karate school. She loved music. She taught special-needs children. She was 29-years-old and she’ll never get any older.

The police released almost no information about the crime, so no one knew, for example, whether the attacker had broken into Esme’s house or been invited in. No one knew for sure if the three attacks were related. No one knew how Esme had died; if a weapon was used; if she fought back. The lack of knowledge added to the uncertainty. Police insisted that the neighborhood where Esme died was “safe,” yet urged residents not to go out alone after dark. People were advised to “be aware of their surroundings,” a useless idiom that implies you should count the stripes in the wallpaper and keep a watchful eye on the mailbox.

In an effort to do something that might actually be useful, friends of Esme printed and circulated hundreds of flyers bearing the composite drawing of the suspect. The bland penciled face stared out from telephone poles and bulletin boards all over town, especially near the area of the attacks.

Now it appears we may finally know who that face belonged to. James Loren Brown, a 25-year-old ex-serviceman who lived blocks away from Esme, evidently committed suicide in his apartment within a week of her murder. When his death was reported to the police, they noticed that his photo resembled the composite drawing. In fact, one of the flyers about the murder had been left on the door of Brown’s apartment.

While Brown has not been definitively linked to Esme’s death, he has been linked, through DNA evidence, to the third of the three attacks that happened that night. What’s more, he has been linked to four additional attacks on women in other parts of Austin last year: One on July 1, two on July 8, and one on September 11. All of those attacks, like the New Year’s assaults, took place in the early morning. In all of them, women were pushed or pulled to the ground. And Brown is also suspected in several cases of indecent exposure that occurred in Esme’s neighborhood.

So at least five assaults have now been definitely linked to Brown; one other assault and Esme’s murder seem very likely to fall at his feet as well, plus multiple cases of indecent exposure, and god knows how many other crimes.

In other words, while Esme’s murder seemed to come out of the blue, there was a very long string of escalating violence trailing behind James Loren Brown.

This is one of the most frustrating things about violent crime against women—the fact that the perpetrators often spend years honing their skills before anyone takes definitive steps to stop them. And by then, it’s too late for someone like Esme.

There is plenty of blame to go around for this; understaffed police departments are a big part of the problem. The massive backlog of rape kits and other DNA evidence in our overwhelmed crime labs is another.

And then there are the laws themselves—you know, those laws that you and I follow all the time; the ones we’re taught it would be wrong to break? The laws upon which our entire social order depends, and which we all have a moral obligation to uphold, so that society doesn’t descend into anarchy?

It turns out those laws do very little, in practical terms, to protect women who obey them. It’s not a flaw, exactly; they’re set up that way, to protect the accused, which I admit is an important thing to do. But the end result is that if a violent attacker wants to hurt a random target (which most of the time means a man targeting a woman), the law not only can’t prevent him from doing so, it can’t even do much in the aftermath to catch and punish him, or stop him from doing the exact same thing again.

Well, maybe the law can; all I’m able to say for certain is that, in almost every such case I’ve observed, the law hasn’t done much. There are obvious logistical challenges in locating an attacker who had no previous ties with his victim. But the legal obstacles are just as challenging.

“Officers do not have the authority to arrest suspects for certain non-felonious crimes that occur outside of the presence of the officer,” the Austin Police Department told me a couple of years ago, when I asked them why the man who assaulted a colleague of mine (in broad daylight, on a busy street, sending her to the hospital) had not been arrested. The same man went on to assault a student walking on the same block the next day. Apparently, because the police didn’t actually witness the first attack, they were powerless to prevent the second (and believe me, given the nature of the first assault, the second one was inevitable).

I’m usually a law-abiding person. I don’t advocate retributive violence or acts of vengeance, even though I’m all too susceptible to their appeal. I’ve taught self defense to lots of women, and I’ve spent a great deal of time pondering how I myself would react if I were assaulted. “Protect yourself and get away,” has always been my mantra; fight if you have to, as much as you have to, so that you can get to safety. This strategy assumes that, once you’re safe, someone with more authority and muscle than you will deal with your attacker.

Except most of the time, they don’t.

Or can’t, or won’t; does it matter? Look at the appalling chain of assaults that preceded Esme Barerra’s death, and tell me this strategy works.

So I find, in the weeks since Esme died, that my beliefs about how I should respond to a violent assault are shifting. More and more lately, I think women shouldn’t waste time worrying about whether or how to fight back. Instead I incline toward the view that if you’re attacked, you should just go ahead and fuck the dude up.

Seriously: Gouge his eyes. Jam the heel of your palm up under his jaw and break it. Rake your fingernails across his face. After all, if there aren’t any cops witnessing the encounter, neither one of you is going to jail, right? So what have you got to lose if you fuck the dude up?

It’s not that I want to see the attacker suffer, necessarily. It’s just that I don’t have much faith that law enforcement will find him later, or that the legal system is going to keep him from hurting someone else even if they do find him. If, on the other hand, I injure him, the odds of both things happening improve.

Here’s why: Injuries get noticed. They’re clues that something out of the ordinary has happened. Injuries are hard to hide and they have to be explained. (Trust me; I’ve had to explain lots of them.)

Rapists and murderers don’t live in caves. Most of them have jobs, cars, landlords, obligations. They live alongside people whom they don’t try to rape or murder. They need to keep those people ignorant of their crimes if they don’t want to go to jail.

If a man shows up at work with curious scratch marks on his face, his co-workers might notice, and think, “Wow, that dude got fucked up.” They might not call the cops, but they’ll remember. They could put two and two together if they saw a crime report or a flyer with a composite photo. If a patient comes into the emergency room with a gouged eye or a broken kneecap, the doctors might not call the police, but they’ll have a record of the visit. Someone could do something with that—a detective could come looking for it, or the office staff might remember it when they see a story about an assault on the evening news. “Remember that guy who was in here the other night?” the nurse might ask secretary. “That dude whose eye was all fucked up?”

You can’t say for sure what people will do with evidence, but if you’re being assaulted, you can at least do something to make sure evidence of the crime exists. Injuries are evidence, and if you can leave tangible evidence of the crime on the criminal’s own body, you make it that much harder for him to keep the secret of his violence hidden.

So I’m backing off a bit, these days, from the ethic of least harm. I’m considering that maybe my social obligations don’t always run in the direction of minimal force. If we lived in a perfect world, it would make sense to calibrate our defenses solely for our own immediate safety. We could trust other, more qualified people and organizations to handle the follow-up. But in the world we do live in, you have to face the fact that your attacker, if he assaults you randomly, probably isn’t just your attacker. He was probably someone else’s attacker before you and, unless a cop happens to be watching you get assaulted, he’ll almost certainly be someone else’s attacker after you. He’s an invisible man, moving from one dot on the crime map to the next, leaving no trail.

Unless someone does something to make him visible. And one of the things we can do to make his violence stand out is to mark him. Scratch him. Dislocate his nose. Smash his instep. Hell, you’re already fighting for your life; you might as well fuck the dude up.

I’ve written before about research showing that fighting back, hard and immediately, gives a woman her best chance of surviving an assault. My own limited experience with fighting has tended to agree with the research. Now I’m starting to believe that a fast, committed, devastating response might also give other women their best chance of avoiding future assaults from the same assailant.

I keep looking for a downside to this theory, and I don’t see it. If I fuck the dude up, I’m more likely to survive. If I fuck the dude up, other women are marginally less likely to be his victims in the future. It’s a win-win.

I’m sure I’m oversimplifying, but can anyone give me a good reason—not a legal one; a good one—to think any differently?

I’m not judging other women’s choices here. Some women might not choose to fight back hard and viciously. Some might not be able to; some might not want to. It just so happens that I am willing and able, and I suspect a lot of other women are too. Most of us will never be in the position of fighting off an unknown attacker. It’s still a statistically rare occurrence. But I think we can make it rarer still if we fuck the dude up.

List: Words That Could Conceivably Be Used to Describe Both The Super Bowl and a Superb Owl by Michael Ward

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:53:35 -0800

[Originally published February 3, 2011.]

- - -

Unpredictable
Head-turning
Majestic
Fast-paced
Expensive
Bone-crunching
Spirited
A hoot

What My Pets Say About Me by Jeff Alberts

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0800

It’s been said that the longer people have their pets, the more they become like their owners (and vice versa). As a long-term pet owner and animal lover, I find this to be absolutely true. For example, my cat is feisty and mean sometimes, but can be the sweetest thing when I least expect it. My other cat is made out of love, and rolls over for belly rubs. My third cat loves to be outside and wild, but never fails to come back at night. My fourth cat just wants to curl up into a ball and cry all the time. My fifth cat likes to have a glass of wine (or few!) when he gets home from work. My sixth cat reads the first four chapters of The Once & Future King and then loses interest; every year. My seventh cat has some really good ideas about how to fix the economy, but can’t get the math to work out. My eighth cat bought a leather jacket, but can’t get the nerve to wear it in public. My ninth cat keeps calling you and hanging up. My tenth cat has a newspaper subscription; only the weekend edition, which he usually just ends up dropping it on the floor and taking a nap on it. My eleventh cat keeps staring and staring at an application for commercial truck driving school. My twelfth cat knows all the words to Boy Meets Girl’s 1988 hit “Waiting For A Star To Fall.” My thirteenth cat voted for Nader in 2000 to make a point about the two-party system. My fourteenth cat scratches the corners of the couch, despite being firmly told “no.” My fifteenth cat will drop everything and watch Rudy or Remember The Titans whenever they come on TV, and end up in tears; he doesn’t even like football. My sixteenth cat lies and lies. My seventeenth cat keeps anonymously commenting “looks stupid" on YouTube videos of cute babies. My eighteenth cat is having trouble finishing his thesis, This Room Or That Room? Feline Indecision In The 21st Century. My nineteenth cat still says “all intensive purposes.” My twentieth cat doesn’t like to pass on rumors, but will share “unsubstantiated facts” with a little booze in him. My twenty-first cat has every intention of calling his mother tomorrow. My twenty-second cat loves to be cleaned by tongue. My twenty-third cat has a lot of apocalyptic anxiety, and turns it all into weird, dark, experimental video art featuring a puppet he made from his own hair that he calls “The Forever Mange.” My twenty-fourth cat thinks, okay, Glee is cheesy and commercial, but it’s got a lot of heart and introduced Journey to a whole new generation. My twenty-fifth cat knows there’s something moving in that box! Did you hear it! That scratching! Again! My twenty-sixth cat sleeps 20 hours a day. My twenty-seventh cat isn’t high, he’s just, like, thinking real hard about plums, man. My twenty-eighth cat loves to bat around toys… and ideas. My twenty-ninth cat wrote complete, detailed outlines for Star Wars prequels that are so much truer to the spirit of the original trilogy than the ones George Lucas made. My thirtieth cat eats off the plates of dinner guests. My thirty-first cat takes the name “Words With Friends” too literally, and over shares in chat. My thirty-second cat hasn’t seen a dentist in six years. My thirty-third cat just had a birthday; he doesn’t want anyone to make a fuss about it. My thirty-fourth cat’s had some work done, but you can’t tell. And my thirty-fifth cat is drunk with power.

As for my iguana? Dude is just chill.

It’s All Greek to Me: A Column on Sororities in the South : The MRS Degree by M.M. Locker

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0800

My mom said I was starting out on the right foot during college orientation by leaning over my seat in the auditorium during our ALCOHOL EDU presentation and introducing myself to a tall, bearded boy. I’m not necessarily the best at just throwing myself out there, and I never have been, but I’d heard about this guy from a friend and thought, Fuck, it’s Ole Miss, how much could any of this matter?

But as college presented its truer self, it started to matter very much how I managed with the opposite sex, and I got good at it. Well. Decent. If it were a pass/fail part of life, I’d pass. My very first weekend in Oxford I met a blond fellow freshman who instantly liked me because of how entirely different I was from him. He isn’t a trust fund kid, but he sure gave off the impression. Instead he is a bank account boy, had some business during high school. And more importantly to me, the kid is frat as all get out. He isn’t my type or whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, but he’s nice and he calls me and got mad when I didn’t ask him to our sorority formal, but to this day we’ve only gone to dinner once. And when we did he ordered for me. I was not a fan of that.

When I pledged my sorority, this guy made a big deal out of it. Yeah, girl, Sorority H, that’s right where you belong. I was okay with this. He made me realize I was going to have a hard time with frat stars, and that I should probably put my tail between my legs and head back to the hipster kind of guys I’ve always been used to. He hadn’t yet told me that he’d never met a girl like me, no girl who yells “what the (expletive)” when she wants to know what the fuck’s up. That was really his example of my uniqueness. I wasn’t flattered by the distinction. I didn’t want to know that that’s why we hung out.

But beyond the culturally shocked blondness of that boy in his button-ups, I’ve still been pleasantly surprised with the guys I’ve met at Ole Miss and the standards I’ve maintained since meeting them. We here in Oxford joke about the MRS degree, which is no degree at all, just an engagement ring before graduation to your pre-med, pre-pharmacy, pre-law, pre-business beau. The joke is prevalent. We love the joke, we tease each other with it when relationships get serious, but it’s not a joke for most of us. We’re competing to be the top of the class in the MRS department. For me, though, with nothing near a hint of a boyfriend, it’s just easier to be friends with males at this age—easier than dating them, as well as being easier than making female friends.

Guys break the ice with questions like, “Do you like grunge?” (yes, this happened to my roommate at a party), while girls break it with “Oh my gosh… what brand is your headband?” Since my headbands are usually from Walmart, I’d rather talk about Dave Grohl. College guys don’t judge what you drink on Saturday nights or the fact that maybe you drink on Sundays too; they usually just laugh or don’t notice, which is the way the whole world should be.

In wanting to just be friends with guys, I’ve found a means of meeting the best of them. Just kidding, there’s loads of shitheads. But the simplicity of accepting that I’m not among the most beautiful on the most beautiful campus in the country has helped me appreciate what does set me apart from others at Ole Miss. I don’t dig the guys that most girls do.

First of all, I don’t exactly give a shit about their Greek affiliations, or even if they pledge allegiance to one at all. GDI (yes, that does stand for Goddamn Independent) boys are the same to me as fraternity boys, except without the prospect of a formal each semester in New Orleans. But I like GDIs, if that can be considered anything but the largest of generalizations. I’ve always had a thing for the hip kind of guy who’s read what I have or wears Ray-Ban black framed reading glasses. Hipster boys. Someone who thinks the same things about music and art as I do. Most sorostitutes (yes, people do say that), though not all, are friendly to the hip, but are largely uninterested.

Second, I don’t think the “hot” guys here are hot. I usually dig big old cuddly things, not jackhammer-carved ab-lounging bros. In high school I was all about some long lanky boys in skinny jeans and flannel shirts, but after dumping the only person I ever really dated, I realized lanky and indie isn’t really as great a category as I thought. I like big, masculine guys. A man’s man, if you will. I hope you are taking notes!! But the girls of my ever-beautiful little world think that, in terms of the physical, I have bad taste because I don’t go for baseball or football players. Maybe this preference for the bigger and more comfortable will evolve. Maybe! Hopefully, say my friends who like athletes, for my sake.

I started college with the absolute intent of maintaining my hip qualities while still participating in a sorority. I wanted one of the downtown indie bookstore boys to sweep me off my feet with a quote from TS Eliot or some shit. Or may I’d knock one of them dead with my linguistic skills and hair. I wanted my heart to turn obscure cartwheels to the tune of Bon Iver’s first album. I wanted love to hit me hard, for potential husbands to show themselves immediately and declare themselves such with all creative displays of GDI affection.

But at some point I meet a guy, a guy in a fraternity actually, a person who doesn’t seem like a fraternity boy or anything worth a stereotype, and it’s not my heart that starts fluttering, it’s my brain matter. At some point it’s no longer that I imagine romance and incredibly obvious displays of affection—candlelit dinners or mixtapes. Instead, it’s just a look and then one date that reveals that yes, this one could take care of me in some small way and would be compatible with my idiosyncrasies, this one, here, this one makes sense, who gives my brain the pitter-patter of a preteen heart.

A boy at a bookstore might be trendy and well-versed in Hart Crane, but I’m trendy and have my own copy of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Why not look for a complement to what I desire, not something desirous in itself? Yeah. Maturity. Figuring myself and someone else into the idea of a long-run success story without warrant—an MRS degree in its own right, of commitment to a new set of ideals.

Somebody told me it seemed like I should do something fulfilling instead of remaining in a sorority at Ole Miss. I don’t seem the type. Well, as I’m learning, there are other ways to be fulfilled than through pretention and fine taste in literature. I’m figuring this out more and more each day in this strange and strangely wonderful little place, through not only the relationships I make, but also those I choose not to make. With guys at Ole Miss, there’s a major system of classification, whether within the Greek system or outside of it. But meeting and dating such different people is one of the things that has helped me understand what’s great about this world. People are people. Big guys that I like, baseball players that my floormates desire, entirely the same. I don’t really remember what I came to college expecting in terms of relationships, except that it was complex and romantic. Now I know I just want it to make sense. That’s the best I can hope for, surrounded by the obsessive ideal of MRS degrees. Cheesy but heartfelt sentiment.

A meaningful way to say boys boys boys boys boys.