Sarsaparilla Alphabet #9

I - ICELAND

There is a saying mostly used by smug nerds about Iceland. It goes thusly: "Iceland is green and Greenland is icy! I am such a clever motherfucker to come up with that all by myself!" Okay, so the last part was made up, but that's what they're all thinking. But what is obvious is that most of these social degenerates have never actually been to Iceland, while I have, and I can report that Iceland is actually a gigantic ice fortress that is home to all sorts of unique wildlife, social customs, and 114-foot tall, natural ice sculptures depicting the end of civilization. Also, the ice is green.

To most outsiders, the music of Björk and Sigur Rós symbolize what Iceland is, and I am here to tell that, in fact, THESE ARE SIMPLY PROPAGANDA DESIGNED TO LURE YOU INTO ICELANDIC FIRE FIELDS. The covers of both artists' latest albums actually provide clues to reality. Björk's magical suit is actually the armor of the Icelandic imperial guard. With Sigur Rós (translation: sugar rows, a street name for cocaine), it shows a group of people, naked, running across a street. They are actually crossing the vast fire rivers to go vote for the ruling party.

Fig. 1: An Icelandic Imperial Army Uniform

Now, you may be wondering, "How in the world can Iceland be both a gigantic ICE FORTRESS and also strewn with FIRE PITS AND RIVERS?" And as you ask this question, I reply that you in fact have answered it yourself! Iceland is in fact NOT OF THIS WORLD, but instead in a parallel dimension, accessible by actually traveling to what the Earth defines as "Iceland."

I know that you have many questions left, such as "Why is the ice green," "How long has the real Iceland existed," "Who are you," and "What are you doing with my baby?" Trust me, all will be answered in due time, though I need your child for an experiment involving anteaters and a gigantic electromagnet. I apologize in advance, however, for Iceland is not what you would typically consider as one of the Areas of My Expertise (har har).

Sarsaparilla Alphabet #8

H - HELIUM

Psssssssssshoomp.

"Here ya go, kid. A big, red balloon." Justin smiled. Giving away balloons was his favorite part of being a balloon vendor, especially red ones, which turned everything on the other side of the sun the color of sweet cherries.

"Red?" asked the kid. "But... I want blue, Mister J." Mister J was what Justin wanted all of his regular customers to call him. It made him feel like he could be a role model for them while maintaining a certain degree of coolness.

He handed the kid a blue balloon, which shone purple on his face as the sun set. Justin closed up his balloon cart and wheeled it to his car.

Justin has always liked balloons as a kid, ever since he asked for a butterfly at his fourth birthday party and got a net filled with a hundred of the little things seemingly suspended in the air until their eventual capture. However, when he swung the balloon net, it only caught one, small, red butterfly among the many. It had shriveled up long ago, but Justin had tried to replicate it ever since. He was getting close, but when he swung his nets, they would sometimes catch five or ten or two or none at all. He did, however, create a host of other wonderful balloon inventions, such as a frying pan with a pancake that you could flip into the air, a full-size Great White Shark, and the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," all of which were made with (mostly) red balloons.

The obsession with the color red was probably a personal preference thing. Some people tend to buy clothes of one color, others paint their home's walls another, and some people only make balloon animals with the color red.

The next day, Justin arrived at the park and a sneer shot across his face. It was her, that blue balloon bending bitch, Catherine (They were both aware that it would've been a lot more poetic had her name started with a "B." But seriously, what's a good "B" name, anyway? Beth is short for Elizabeth and Bethany and Belinda are just kind of witchy. Catherine's parents certainly weren't expecting that.)

"Ah, I'm glad that you're here," she cackled. "You can have a front row seat to the unveiling of the greatest balloon sculpture ever created!"

Justin's face sagged. "Do what now?" To be honest, he was curious, but he was also nervous, as he hadn't created anything new to provide a witty enough retort to her – the "Sgt. Pepper" collection was entered into last year's nationwide competition. He had won third place.

At noon, Catherine threw up a loudspeaker in front of her face and her voice crackled across the park. "So you've seen the hundreds of squirrels around the park? Well, have you seen one that's 200-feet tall and can breathe fire?" And so, parkgoers came to see her giant, blue, fire-breathing balloon squirrel. Justin was there, too, off to the side. He was smiling.

Catherine screamed. "Let's fire this baby up!" She pressed a single blue button on a remote control and the giant, rubbery squirrel shot a 50-foot-long flame from its mouth. Catherine laughed triumphantly as the crowd ooh-ed and ah-ed, that is, until simple science made its presence known. The latex melted away and the animal quickly deflated into a depressing lump over the mouth of the flamethrower.

An astute man exclaimed, "It's gonna blow!" and the crowd panicked and fled the park. Justin grabbed Catherine and ran her behind one of the brick restrooms before the flamethrower melted itself and ignited its fuel. It resembled a small bomb as the entire park resembled a war-torn city in Palestine as the dust cleared. The two balloon artists emerged unscathed from behind the ripped restroom. Justin's cart had be blown next to them and everything that was inside had been ripped out.

"Hey, what's this?"
Justin sighed. "Another broken dream." He kicked the broken door off of the cart.
"No, I mean, this net-thing. Isn't this what that old guy Tantione made, that butterfly net?"
"Yeah, it's what made me get into balloons in the first place. I never got to figure it out, and now I never will."
"Here, lemme stick some of my blue butterflies onto it. Since red light has a long wavelength, amongst colors, anyway, the net won't work the way that you want it to. You have to balance it out, man. Just because you like red doesn't mean that you exclusively use it."

Catherine finished adding on some of her butterflies to the net. He took it in his hand, and swung at the swarm of red and blue bugs in the air. He smiled. He had caught a blue one.

Sarsaparilla Alphabet #7

G - GOD

In searching for what to write, I was distracted by looking up interesting animals in response to the trailer for the upcoming film "Earth." As the Space Traveler (aka Unk, aka Malachi Constant) says in Kurt Vonnegut's "The Sirens of Titan," "I was the victim of a series of accidents, as are we all," and that is why (I believe) everything is here as it is today. It's kind of amazing that I'm here, right now, able to type this out on a USB-connected keyboard (as my laptop's fried due to some water), which transmits – as a series of electrical pulses translated to mean one letter or a space or whatnot – to the computer, which inputs it into this textbox, which is here due to HTML, which is a handy shortcut for Firefox to read the page's information and display it visually. When I click "publish post," all of this is sent across the country to a server, where it can be accessed by any other computer in the world. Amazing.

Anyway, that same series of electronic signals landed me on the Wikipedia page for the Rhynchosaur, an extinct little reptile that kind of looks like a naked mole rat. The article says that it disappeared from the earth at the end of Carnian period (somewhere near the middle of the Triasic – when the first dinosaurs were coming into existence) possibly because their food source had gone extinct at some earlier point. At least we still have their cousins today – crocodiles and birds.

I just turned on Cut Copy's "In Ghost Colours" (which I think I'll claim as 2008's best album when I write my feature for the newspaper) as I wrote that. If you haven't picked it up, I wholly suggest it. I bring this up because... it's really good. How can we have good music? Why are some sounds good and some bad? Why is it that what one person considers a good song could be regarded as garbage by another? Why do pop songs all start to sound the same once a new, successful pattern has been established (boy bands, vaguely dancey songs about being dancefloor sluts, the millions of bands trying to recreate the Beatles)?

Well, besides having an easy shot at a spot on MTV and lots of money, it's all about patterns and finding the best ones that manipulate emotions or build the best bridges. I'm talking about fractal geometry. Think of a tree or a river, branching off into different directions and sometimes forking. The reason that they aren't perfect, exponentially growing forks is that they are the victims of a series of accidents, as we all are. Fractal geometry (which I encourage everybody to read up on) applies to bubble formation, cancer cell growth, broccoli, mountains, a microwaved CD, and so much more. I mean, modern movies and video games rely on this technology to create realistic worlds for the individual to escape into.

So how does this all relate to God or gods or a flying spaghetti monster or the all-powerful Atheismo? Either that bastard has been the tried and true method for everything and has left it for us to figure out as some sort of signature or specific marking or, through a series of accidents, nature has stumbled on something that works and has, thus far, gotten us to the point of humanity as it is today – space exploration, morning routines that no other animal could dream of doing (flossing? come on.), different modes of governing ourselves (and the resulting political and military fallout associated with that), the Internet, and so, so much more.

I've already joked to a friend tonight that my view of birth and death and the future is a bit robotic and stale, so I'll get that joke out of the way. BEEP BOOP. GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS, MR. ROBINSON. I WOULD LIKE TO PROCREATE AND PROLONG THE SPECIES WITH YOUR DAUGHTER BY INFUSING MY SPERM INTO HER FALLOPIAN TUBES, THEREBY ACCESSING HER EGG AND THEREFORE CREATING A FETUS, WHICH IS COMPRISED OF ALLELES FROM BOTH MINE AND YOUR DAUGHTER'S DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID STRUCTURES. I BELIEVE THAT, AS I AM STILL ALIVE AND HAVE NO MAJOR DISEASES AND HAVE REACHED THIS POINT OF INTERACTION, I AM QUALIFIED TO MATE WITH YOUR DAUGHTER DUE TO MY SUCCESSFUL GENES THAT HAVE SURVIVED THE TRIALS OF REMOVAL FROM THE GENE POOL. BOOP.

It all just makes sense to me and that's what so marvelous about life and all of the extras that come along with the package. Allow me to close with another line from "The Sirens of Titan:"

"The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody."