Fighting the Universal Spider Too

Chatter – chatter –  the card players are reformed alcoholics – first time I’ve been without a dog in thirty years – that situation requires counseling too – it is very stressful, is it not? Thirty years! That would have been 1980 which seems only a short time back – unlike say the period 1860 to 1890 which seems like a long long stretch  of time. After all what has changed in the last thirty years – we now have flat screen monitors, the Internet and mobile phones and don’t forget GPS for our cars. I feel that the most important technological advance of the twentieth century may just be quality wine in a box. The windows have become all steamed up – there are too many people in here chattering – there is no way to actually overhear any conversation – there is just too much competition – you can hear a word here and a word there – isolated words from a dozen different conversations – you can tell enough form this on and that one  to know that you don’t really want to strain yourself  eavesdropping.

I started by chasing the evidence and found that there was none – Clive Finlayson – The Humans Who Went Extinct, 2009 pvii

And the fog lifts
Everything is suspended
Times comes to a halt
The cop on the corner
      Yells, Stop!
      In the name
      Of love
Stop, love’s a thief
Ninety days of bread
      And water
Please don’t go
      I want you so
A dozen red roses
      Fog nurtured
      Frog serenaded
On a clear day you can
       See forever
Which I can’t

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel [God wants everybody to be wealthy] tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots – Hanna Rosin “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” – Atlantic (Dec 2009) p42

Factoid: $250b worth of commercial loans are going to roll over in the next few years – many landlords will be caught short, as well as their bankers – only a fraction of these loans are securitized.

The idea that there is a competitive “private sector” in America is appealing, but generally false. No one hates competition more than the managers of corporations – Luke Mitchell – Harper’s (Dec 2009) p4

Factoid: Deprived of the sun or other external navigational clues, people will walk in circles

After 21 years of research, billions of dollars of investment in public and private funds, and more than 13 years of commercialization, GM crops have done nothing to significantly increase yield. So much for the “feeding the world’s hungry” spin – Andrew Kimbell – The Huffington Post


I have moved to the right most position along the bench away from the late afternoon sun, but still it finds me. It is nibbling at my thighs. I get a little tacky sitting here in this long sleeve shirt. I desire  this brightness but am uncomfortable with its accompanying heat. San Francisco’s late winter heat spell has everyone’s mind on the weather. The mailmen are huffing and puffing. Fat people are ringing out their underpants.

Aska doesn’t think it right that I should be journalizing my encounters with her and Scott. “What if someone picks up a book and finds themselves in it,” she wants to know. I don’t think that they will mind even if they recognize themselves which I doubt they will be able to do anyway, I tell her. . Besides isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? There is a genre for that type of literature – I think is called a Roman Cliff or something like that.

I’m getting ready for my second half pint of Battle Row Porter, I have a fiver on the bar as David Bowie’s Major Tom plays and I can recognize the tune without clearly hearing a single distinct word from the lyrics. Alma Espranza Cunningham is to blame for that. It’s five o’clock and shadows are getting long. The cool night makes me glad that I wore this long sleeve shirt afterall.

She is standing beside me - middle age woman, maybe thirty, maybe more getting a glass of white wine. I had noticed her on several previous occasions - always with a white wine. She had just finished playacting an en garde with the chef using the tip of her umbrella (her epee). “Did you win”, I ask?

“No”

“I’ve seen you in here several times”

The shadows are getting longer and the sunlit areas are getting smaller and David Bowie plays on

The earth knows how to handle the great dead / Who lived the body out, and broke its laws – James Wright – Collected Poems, 1971

80% of men are judged by US women to less than normally attractive while only 40% of women are judged by US men to be less that average in attractiveness. Men I think are a lot more desperate.

Next mental disorder to make the American Psychiatric Association manual: PAEDD – Post Avatar Ecological Depression Disorder

To shut out society is transcendental