The Animal Celebration

There is a dog eatin' a piece of cake.
There is a cat lickin' an abalone steak.
Horse found a fruit medley for him to take,
and a nice cheese omelette is there for snake.

Come all, and be witnesses and partake
in this animal celebration for heaven's sake!
It's Sara's birthday, 22 years, I think, give or take!
But listen to the animals, they caution this mistake:
Don't eat too much, or you'll get a stomach ache!

Size Matters

I seem to be noticing size – specifically differences in it – a lot lately. So and so is getting fatter. This person is getting shorter. A tall person's height is permanently felt and the difference between him and a shorter person has this powerful significance, like all of a star's mass blasting outwards from a supernova.

It's to the point where I'm noticing this rift between others and myself in the most tangible fashion, like how two magnetic objects tremble when next to each other. But this trembling speaks to some larger idea within me, which ends up producing my own trembling (which I hope isn't visible).

Though this is not to say this happens to me and only me; obviously, physical presence makes a difference: you expect certain personalities from certain kinds of builds, shapes, and sizes. But what I mean to say is that these tremblings occur not just because I stand six-foot-two and I'm dating a girl at five-foot-five. The tremblings instead usually arise from something that stands out, attracting me towards a new direction I hadn't seen before for one reason or another.

It's hard to go into specifics when so many people will read this and immediately know what I'm talking about. But what I can say is that these differences aren't obvious: the height difference doesn't mean that I'm a giant pillar of stability or that the shorter person is looking up to me or is an underdog of sorts. That would be stereotypical and, well, boring and not worth writing about at all.

Furthermore, it speaks to how different this year is for me. I'm a senior. 21 years old. Practically an adult. I noticed how foreign my face looks to me. Anyone on Facebook can attest to that change, but it's especially scary when you fear maturity, because with maturity comes aging, responsibility, bill payments, and dying. Sarah Vowell once recalled realizing that, while for the first time in her life preparing the family Thanksgiving meal, that that was it – she was going to die.

And it does feel like I'm on the precipice of some major dip in my optimism. Things are changing. Friends have graduated or just left school, the exes I loved but were rejected by now all have boyfriends, and somehow, I have a girlfriend. I feel like I'm living a memory from twenty years in the future. It doesn't help that I look at people and wonder how stupid we'll think we dressed back at the turn of the millenium.

But I've experienced change before. What's really striking, though, is the feeling I get from things. The school is under heavy construction. Everything will be gone in a few years, and it'll all be replaced by eerie doppelganger buildings, instead. Turn around, and a building with the same exact design from the same exact architect's catalogue will be right there, staring at you with its big, round glass eyes staring blankly at you. It wants to frighten you, as if you've landed on a movie set, but you just feel emptiness, like nothing's changed, nothing is changing, and nothing will ever change. And you might ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"

Rare, then, is it to actually feel something within your gut tell you that things are changing, and that things are different now, and will forever be different in the future. Though while everything is changing for me, this change is really something that has happened to countless people before in every time period, in every country, in every town, in every home, and it is happening to countless people, and forever will it happen – though in a slightly different manner to each of us – for the rest of time.

How weird it is, then, to physically feel a change that isn't changing, to feel myself be forced into one direction while others reposition themselves in the universe. To truly feel that someone is becoming bigger, not just physically but in his or her relation to me personally. To feel weak in the stomach, like I'm yearning for something to be different, when I have no control over it at all. Yeah, size does matter.

Twitter Novels

About a month ago, Richmond's alt-weekly, Style Weekly, asked readers to submit novels that were the length of a Twitter message – 140 characters or less – and published three of them in last week's issue, which can be read online here. My first story (which was published) was this:

His sweaty palms slid his last token into the machine and he pulled the lever. On the 2nd reel, he blanched. By the 3rd, he bled.

Here are the ones that didn't make the cut:

"Mom," shouted Timmy, "there's a ghost in my closet!" His mother opened the door and narrowed her eyes. "You're adopted."

"Let's go on an adventure," beamed the teen. "But we live in the West End and have no money," the other said. They silently wept.

"We hope LA doesn't change you, Conan," they all said. What they all secretly hoped, though, is that LA would change Andy Richter.

Man wants promotion, makes dubious claim to boss and invites him to his home for dinner. In covering up his lie, hilarity ensues.

He pressed return. "My God... I've done it! I've done it! I've made Twitter useful!"

Each candy wrapper has the chance for Charlie to win a tour of the chocolate factory. He unwraps it. It reads, "Sorry, try again."

And, after writing these, I summed up writing a Twitter novel thusly: The key to writing a Twitter novel: crush your character's dreams before they can even arise.

What I wrote after I finished part one of Gogol's Dead Souls

First and foremost: is this translation right for you? I read somewhere that Garnett is comparable to eating a healthy salad while Pevear and Volokhonsky are akin to a spicy dish. And that's exactly what you'll get here: more subtle humor in a very tidy package.

At any rate, Dead Souls is different from most anything most immediately because Gogol uses it as an opportunity to teach the reader how to look beyond the text and between the lines to discover why things are in the book and how they relate to the story - he compares one man's living room accents to the man himself, for example. For long stretches, he maintains a healthy dialogue that is never boring, condescending, or excessive.

It's also through this method that Gogol pushes the reader to realize that good characters can't be merely honorable and without blemishes, because such people are boring and, furthermore, nonexistent. The story's "hero," Chichikov, is hardly introduced at the beginning and is therefore easily comparable to a sleazy businessman with some clever plot to become rich and famous. It's not until the final chapter of Book One (the only one that Gogol truly finished) that we really get any background on him, which is when we learn how he got to his desperate situation and we realize that, while he is truly a "bad guy," his motives aren't entirely selfish, that he is desperately trying to build an estate to bequeath to his future progeny. And it's this kind of mixture that Gogol spreads across the town of N.: characters that probably don't exist in real life, but highlight some positive and negative aspects of contemporary Russian society.

And that leads to the last important aspect of Dead Souls: Gogol's sometimes-strained love for Russia. These characters show problems in Russian society, but he explains that most of these are universal (at least amongst the Russian person). Gogol's main argument is against the ever-present theme of contemporary Russian literature: the battle between East and West Europe. In short, we see the influence of an outsider (Chichikov) and that of the countries themselves, especially the infiltration of French culture in Russia's aristocracy.

But what is most remarkable is how Gogol pushes the reader to realize all these things while maintaining the levity and complexity of his short stories (though nowhere near as outlandish as "The Nose"). It's a bit sad that Gogol destroyed much of what he had composed for Book Two, but what is there is undoubtedly a classic.

Transformers: The Hypermasculine World of Michael Bay

Do not see the new "Transformers" film. Even if you're a fan. Even on the surface, the movie trods along for over two hours as the good robots (Autobots) try to keep the bad robots (Decepticons) from blowing up the sun to gain its energy or something like that. There are so many characters that are so forgettable, so extraneous, that you forget entire sections of the movie by the time the credits roll. I will give Michael Bay this, though: there wasn't a scene that I felt had no place in the film and things ended very quickly once the evil sun explosion plot was resolved.

But what is most immediate and most striking about the film is its total disregard for both female intelligence and other races. There is only one positive character for each, and both are either reduced to a single line or a parade of action movie standards. The black soldier even dons a do-rag when the army makes a mostly useless stand in Egypt. Why Egypt? I can only assume that Michael Bay enjoys his conspiracy theories, as evidenced by the college "nerds" (only one qualifies as a nerd, the others are certifiably nuts) who, on the first day of classes, are running a conspiracy website about the Transformers and by the fact that the machine used to blow up the sun is buried underneath a pyramid. Yes, the Egyptians literally built on top of a giant metallic weapon.

The stupidity doesn't end there. Bay detractors typically point out that he loves his explosions, and the film is no exception. Everything explodes, shoots off fireworks, and flashes past the camera, which is constantly moving. Need to make a car moving at 25 miles per hour look like it's going fast? Shake it! Are your main characters in love? Swirl around them! Unfortunately, when this happens, Bay keeps the camera moving around and around, sending me into an experience topping the worst roller coaster. Bay also think that a fight scene can consisted of a bunch of brain metal twisting around the shot he got when he threw a camera into the air.

The weirdest part about the camera work is the obviously spliced footage from low-quality cameras and shots that could probably come from army promotional material. It's as if Bay said, "Well, hey, I'd like to have a shot of somebody skydiving. I also wanna see some airplanes and tanks!" It also bothered me that they had shots of faces close to computer screens that reflected a different color than what they displayed.

Speaking of color, let's return to the obvious racism in the film. There are two twin robots that transform into Chevy smart cars (red and lime green) who play no real role in the plot beyond a distraction for the giant robot made of 20-some vehicles (and even then, that's only the red one). But when in robot form, they have bug eyes, long ears, and – and this is the worst part – one gold tooth each. They talk like they are right out of the ghetto, bizzatch, and boy, aren't they a wild and crazy bunch! Only good for goofing around and providing a cheap laugh, like this gem: when Shia LeBeouf asks them if they can translate the ancient robot language, the red one comments that he "don't do much readin'." Oh yeah, he's named Mudflap, too. Stay classy, Michael.

Females fair little better. The first woman we meet, Shia's mother, is a slave to her emotions, though there wasn't much of a brain to override in the first place. She's reduced to a babbling child when, as Shia moves out for college, she finds his baby shoes. At college, she buys pot brownies because they were sold as "100% green" (haha, silly environmentalists) and eats it in defiance of her "restrictive" husband. After dropping him off, they vacation in Paris, where the dad drinks a Budweiser and mom gets the escargot, which, of course, is disgusting. Other countries, by the way, are completely ignored. France is demolished, no other country could possibly help the US army fight the Decepticons, and all Egyptians are either goat farmers or evil midgets with an affinity for family members and friends. Haha, he's short and angry!

Anyway, back to the women, who are just as stereotyped as the Arabs and the blacks and the girly Presidential advisor (more on him in a second). If you must watch, notice how every single female (except the soldier who relays an IMPORTANT PIECE OF DATA for about two seconds!) is supermodel material and have no actual lines. Leo, the "hot but crazy roommate," even has set up a system where he'll have sex with 55 girls before the year's out.

Shia's girlfriend fairs little better as she clearly symbolizes the hottest girl that Bay could possibly think of. She's a mechanic, but stunningly hot, unlike all those other female mechanics. She wears short shorts, a low-cut shirt, and her hair down. She's got power, but she's also a mother (as evidenced by the Decepticon "pet"), and is willing to relinquish that power when a strong man is around. She tries to break up with him, but Shia's persistance keeps her tethered to him! When the pair are running, Shia is of course pulling her by the arm in every single scene. What she really wants, though, is for him to tell her that he loves her. Oh women, always trying to goad men into commitment!

Speaking of women, guess which man is portrayed as womanly? You guessed it, it's the aide to the President (Bay had the balls to mention Obama!), who is SHORTSIGHTED enough to PULL OUT OF THE CONFLICT which would ultimately lead to the sun blowing up or whatever the Decepticons were trying to do. Hoho, subtlety! I award thee a plaque, Michael Bay! He drives the point further home when he places the aide (for some reason) on an army plane over Egypt as they attempt to place Optimus Prime on the ground. When called to action, the aide doesn't know how to use the parachute and desperately seeks the help of the army general. Rather than assigning a man to parachute with him, the general tricks the aide into opening his chute on the plane. Hoho, silly aide! Even worse for him is that he is in a FOREIGN PLACE where all his smart-aleck knowledge can't help him because he can't communicate with these Arabs!

I also have one final question, beyond all the racism, misogyny, and ball jokes aside ("Hey, let's have the camera focus on two wrecking balls – HEH, GET IT? BALLS! – for five seconds!"): if Starscream emitted an EMP that wrecked the army's radio signals, then how do the robots still function?

Sarsaparilla Alphabet #11

K - KHAKIS

I used to abhor jeans. They're stiff, itchy, and blue. Who the hell wears blue pants? Instead, I preferred the khaki jeans family whenever the weather called for them. Sure, it's not as bad as a jean shorts phase, but it was weird all the same. I didn't come around to them until one or two years ago, mostly because I had gained the Freshman Negative Fifteen and a lot of the clothes I had brought with me to college no longer fit. Somehow, the pair of jeans that I had brought "just in case" were suddenly an option.

What was worse was coming home to a closet packed with shirts that were a size too large. Some of them hadn't even been worn; there were others that I wish I could put in that same category. At some point, I had seriously considered wearing a red Hawaiian shirt with a neon teal floral pattern. Another shirt stated that, now that the room was in complete disorder, I had done my job. Wow Kohl's, your selection of shirts really speak to the kind of person I am!

To my credit, I didn't start growing until 10th grade and I didn't care what I looked like for at least another year. Sure, I was a huge dork, but I didn't really care. I went to the information technology center at my high school at my high school, went home, and spent the rest of the day trying to dissociate myself from there. A lot of people consider high school to be the playground for real-life social functionality. For me, it was 8 hours of Chinese water torture. The therapy for that, apparently, is a healthy dose of video games.

To say I'm ashamed of my teenage years is to say eating a pufferfish might upset your tummy. At one point, I figured that I had read all of the books that were worth reading, after I spent my middle school years devouring the formulaic Redwall series and every Calvin and Hobbes collection the library had. The light at the end of the tunnel didn't show until I somehow ran across Kurt Vonnegut and began to branch out musically past They Might Be Giants.

What happened – especially around sophomore year of college – felt like a fog was being lifted, like I was actually able to realize what I was doing and what that meant to myself and others. In that sense, my life resembles that of a robot who learns how to express emotions despite not having them programmed into its hardware. It was almost as if my life were a movie, but instead of acting, I was watching. In terms of Myers-Briggs personality types, it was as if I was a pure Feeler, governed completely by my heart.

The worst example of this was when I played football with a few of my neighbors and I'd run back to my house in the middle of the game to quench my thirst – quite literally – with a Sprite. No, not water, because Sprite tastes good. Oddly enough, being hot and sweaty ruins it. Anyway, when I had finished chugging the thing, I'd wander back out and finish playing rather poorly. At least there were grass stains on my khakis.

Sarsaparilla Alphabet #10

J - JAR

He was just in the middle of eating. No one should be taken away while they're eating. Nor should they be placed into a glass container. But this is the situation that the caterpillar found himself in.

There are some parasites that find their ways inside caterpillars, usually by laying their eggs inside the thing's head. Once the young are able to, they seize control of the caterpillar's head and turn it into a cute, little zombie. While human zombies are inexplicably drawn to brains, the caterpillar zombie is drawn to the top of a plant, where it can be seen in plain sight. This, of course, provides a wonderfully easy dinner for a bird, which is where the parasite find itself next. Feeding off the bird, it eventually reaches maturity around the same time that it finds itself outside of the bird. This, however, was not as horrible as what our caterpillar was experiencing.

He found that he wasn't alone. There was a stick, too. Oh, and some leaves from a nearby oak tree. He didn't really like oak leaves. He preferred maple.

And then, the sun disappeared from the sky, yet it was still oddly bright where the caterpillar was. It sounded as if God was replacing a lightbulb. The caterpillar was then thrust upward like a rocket and he smacked against the hard sides of his new home. Out of fatigued eyes he saw a great, blurred figure. "If this is God, I wish He weren't so hard to see," thought the squishy thing. He hadn't decided whether he liked God or not. He didn't know whether he liked his new home or his new friends, either.

Then came a muffled shout, and the world shook and was slammed down. Things were quiet, but it was an unstill quiet, where the caterpillar was granted a second to become absolutely terrified. And then the great Thing blocking the sun bent with a great WHUMP. The three amigos were thrown around by it, and again by another. The sun once again shined down, but only bleakly. This was rectified when another series of WHUMPs ensued. And then, they heard the voice of God.

"See, he's got everything a bug needs... food, air, light, and a stick... y'know, for... fun. Do caterpillars eat sticks? I know they eat leaves, but maybe he'd like a stick, too."

And then they moved to a dusty room. Unlike his home, this one was dark, the air was choking, and it was dry. Very dry. Apparently the caterpillar, the stick, and the leaves (which weren't all that tasty) had to condense the dusty, dry air themselves.

And so things went like this for a few days. The caterpillar even managed to climb up the stick before it slipped and he fell to the floor. He contemplated inventing caterpillar origami. But the biggest problem for him was not how to create interesting shapes out of leaves, but surviving. He was hungry and thirsty, but God never showed up. He'd come into the same room, but he never acknowledged the jar, nevermind what was inside of it. On the one occassion that he did, he wondered aloud when the caterpillar would change into a butterfly. He dreamed of the miracle of life that would occur in his room, nay, in HIS jar! He would be capable of seeing the stuff of elementary school science textbooks in real life, and then, one day, he would let the butterfly go and its wonderous colors would shimmer in the sunlight as it flitted across the sky.

The next day, he discovered that his caterpillar had died. What he didn't discover, however, was that this particular species of caterpillar never turned into butterflies.

Sell: A Novel

EXPOSITION: We see our main character – a financial analyst on a cable television show that is designed to both inform and entertain – provide the latest information about the stock market. The economy has begun to nosedive after a series of poor long-term decisions by money-hungry executives have left multiple companies in multiple industries destitute. [Keller?] then gives his predictions for the market's future and whether or not his viewers should buy or sell stock. Keller professes his belief that a major corporation will be an oddity in this bear market by returning record profits over the next quarter. He repeats himself.

BACKGROUND: Keller never thought he'd be a financial analyst. We discover that he instead wanted to be an evolutionary biologist, largely in herpetology. We also see where his dreams began to take a back seat, where Plan A becomes Plan B, C, D.

ACTION/DEVELOPMENT: Keller deals with coworkers at his first job. When the opportunity presents itself, he seizes it, which also leads to the dismissal of the other members of his team, which worked on lobbying the government for studying human encroachment on amphibian habitats. As a result of this incident, Keller becomes the CEO of the research center. As required by his new position, Keller must interact with the higher-ups in the industry. He follows trends and looks for opportunities to obtain greater funds. He becomes skilled at persuading his representatives in Congress that herpetology research is more than funding the construction of a multi-million dollar bridge to a town inhabited by 50. His success leads executives at a cable finance network to hire him as an analyst on financial trends.

CONFLICT: We return to Keller's prediction. He was wrong. Thousands lose money as stock for the company sells now for $2 each. Media investigations, questioning, interviews ensue. People are angry, some on the Internet calling for Keller's head. A satirist uses the scandal to fill an easy ten minutes of programming. Keller is eventually compelled to confront him on the fake news show.

CRISIS: Keller is put in his place by the comedian. He goes home and reflects on his past, his dreams, his hopes for the earth: humanity, the plants and animals on it, and the well-being of the planet itself. Keller looks to where he could have gone wrong: a Wikipedia page shows that the company for which he advocated viewers to buy stock from has been accused of ignoring state laws that forbid construction on wetlands. This has even lead Fish and Wildlife Services to place a specific species of frog on the critically endangered species list; few exist outside of zoos.

RESOLUTION: Suicide? A change of heart? A public apology on air? A return to his ways because they earn him a gratuitous amount of money?

Lines that made me tingle.

I apologize for not writing recently; my time has been completely absorbed by classes and the newspaper. Thankfully, though, Meris convinced me to transfer to Prose Writing and it's been truly electrifying. Our first essay is due tomorrow and mine is more or less complete. I won't post the story in its entirety, but here are two lines that made me glow inside with satisfaction as I wrote them:

We wore the masks of our younger selves. We were the king and queen of the playground and upon our jungle gym throne, we could look across our dominion.

~

When I saw her again, she told me about the tape that we had found in the gymnasium. "Just some marching band songs. Nothing special." She smiled.

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."