palinode's intrusion into civilized space

For a full sit-down dinner with several guests, would you rather be the one cooking or do you prefer to just show up and eat?

I've been away from Vox for months, and I'm pleased to be welcomed back by the easiest question I've ever had to answer. I would prefer to show up and eat. When food is involved, I view all human interaction as a pretext for getting at the food, eating the food, eating more of the food, and as a follow-up, eating the rest of the food. Even bad food, when made available at somebody else's house, will do just fine for me. I do like to cook, but I like to cook for two, or put in my share at a potluck.

If you're reincarnated, what do you think you'll come back as?
Submitted by Diana.

I'll come back as a fully-grown man in his early thirties with a well-tailored but slightly threadbare suit and expensive but scuffed brogues. One of my molars will be missing, and my primary signal of distress will be an absent but frantic probing of the missing molar with my tongue.  To my surprise, not to mention the consternation of my parents, I will also own a straight razor with visible traces of blood along the cruel length of the blade.

One day, I feel, my purpose will be revealed to me.  Some stranger will approach me in a crowd to pass me an envelope, and the letter/DVD/flash drive/handful of Polaroids will explain everything, at long last.  And then I will move confidently into action.

What are the 5 words that best describe your life right now?
Question submitted by mojito.

Right now there is only one word that describes my life. That word is juglandaceous, a little-used term meaning 'of or pertaining to the walnut family'. It's pronouced precisely as it looks. I'm living a totally juglandaceous life, my friends. And it's good.

The desktop image on my home computer is nothing. It's one of the identikit images offered with XP. I chose one and left it at that, partly out of laziness, partly out of a wish to reduce noise on my own system. Why make a poke at the registry when I don't have to? So I picked the black-and-white photo of the surface of the moon, eschewing the green hills and red desert dunes and the tree-lined corridor paved with autumn leaves. That's right, I eschewed the living shit out of those photos. I actually like the one of the moon - it's got a kind of lonely grace, even though I know that the Microsoft Bureau of Identikit Marketing sussed out my kind from the get-go, knowing that there's a subrace of sensitive twits out there who look at the moon and think Ah, lonely grace.

My work computer, though - that's where the desktop image party plays. I can't upload images onto Vox from my work computer, so I can only link to the image right now, but if you clink on the link and grab a gander at it, I'll hang out here til you get back. Don't worry, I got books, I got snacks, maybe some work to do.

http://www.slate.com/id/2146156/

See that? I'll be damned if that isn't the symbol of the Tristero, an ancient secret society at the dark centre of Thomas Pynchon's 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49. Like most of his books, it's a tale of intrigue, drugs, physics, conspiracies and an alternative postal system. The existence of the Tristero, a cabal of messengers with roots in Renaissance Italy and transplanted to Italy, is hinted at when the main character discovers weird discrepancies in a set of stamps. Eventually she discovers the Tristero, whose symbol is a stylized muted horn. Go look at the picture again.

Here's a story about me, that book, some vomit and the future. In 1992 I took a road trip to Calgary (about 800 km from home) with some friends to visit another friend and basically hang out in another city for a few days. To my great pleasure, I discovered a second-hand bookstore quite literally around the corner, a fairly tidy-looking place in a two-story brick building with apartments on the second floor. The building appeared to be tilting backward slightly, a trick of perspective that made your eyes hurt if you tried to figure it out.

The guy who ran the store was such an amalgam of stereotypes that he looked almost exactly like the Simpson's comic book store guy: goateed, ponytailed, overweight and slightly slovenly, with a T-shirt that didn't quite make it over his belly. He even wore a pair of baggy shorts and battered old Pumas. He had the same manner as the Simpsons character as well - a sort of icy formality with an edge of sarcasm. You could tell that he had once been friendly and polite, but months or years of bookstore customers had worn his good cheer down and exposed the misanthropy beneath.

I liked him immediately. We talked about Philip K. Dick while my friends stood outside and smoked. Eventually I bought a cheap trade copy of The Crying of Lot 49 and rejoined my friends. I don't remember what we did that evening, but I managed to read the entire novel in or two gulps by midnight.

At three am I woke up on my friend's couch, a film of ice on my forehead and a bowling ball in my stomach. My body had wisely woken me up and given me time to find a sink or a toilet to throw up in a civilized fashion. The room was littered with the sleeping bodies of my friends, and I had to pick my way through them with a fever scrambling my thoughts. To top it off, I couldn't remember where the bathroom was. But I was certain of one thing: The Tristero knew that I had read the book, they knew I knew of their existence, and they had poisoned me somehow.

Bastards.

After ten minutes of puking I was able to drink some water, and my fever seemed to drop back a little. I concluded that the Tristero, being part of a fiction and all, had probably not tried to kill me, although the annoying waiter earlier that day may have. We went home the next day.

A year later I moved to Calgary. I ended up living in a bachelor suite above the bookstore and befriending the manager. After a year or so, he left the store and I started running it. The manager guy and I became roommates. Now he's married to a woman who used to live across the hall from me in that building.

It's not really a small world. We just make it small.

Update: I'm home now. Here's the muted horn of the Tristero for you.

Emblem of the secret call

Play any instrument or speak any language, which do you choose?
Question submitted by cruftbox.vox.com.

Hah. This one's easy; I'd speak a language that sounded like an instrument. Speech like Johnny Marr on guitar. Or like rock-filled lutes thrown over a cliff into a crowd of Renaissance Fairegoers, there's a language I could pick up quickly. A dialect that sounded like John Coltrane playing "Summertime" into a soprano sax filled with custard would, I think, be the funniest goddamn dialect ever. And the messiest. You'd need a bib just to get the time of day from me.

How about a language expressed entirely in clothes? Informal chit-chat would be jeans and a Tshirt. A sales pitch would require a polyester jacket. Business jargon would be expressed in speedos, bowties and one of those joke arrows through the head. And my former boss, no matter what he was saying, would wear an asshat.

Unfortunately, in the Republic of Overupinhereia, none of these languages are possible. There's only one language, and it's called Language,which each One of Us is born knowing. Every word in Language has only one meaning. There's no ambiguity, except for the word Ambiguity, which no One quite knows the meaning of. I think. At Language Class we recite Word in Dictionary along with Teacher in alphabetical order. Sometimes, because there's only One of Everything in Overupinhereia, a Thing breaks or decays so much that it's no longer recognizable, and the Word is removed from Dictionary. Our family used to own Car until it broke down one day, and since Garage had burned down a few years before, Car suddenly became Useless Piece Of Shit. Teacher removed Car from Dictionary the next day with Clogged Bottle of White Out. We hope Dictionary burns or gets lost, because then there'll be no more crappy Language Class.

Soda? Cola? Pop? What do you say? Any other regional words that set you apart?
Question submitted by Gladys.

Well. Where I'm from, which is somewhere inside my head, in the republic of Overupinhereia, we don't use of any of those crazy terms. Instead we say soft drink, which we pronounce like this: sawwwwfhd dreeenkh. You have to let your head swing loose from your neck and and sort of slur it out, like you're drooling soft drink as you say it. And we only have one flavour of soft drink in Overupinhereia, which is Soft Drink flavour. Sometimes we have Soft Drink with Chip Bag, which we can buy at overinflated prices when we watch Movie. We always watch Movie at Movie House, which has Lineup pre-installed at the door so you can never just walk right in, and if by some miracle you get past Lineup to Automatic Ticket Vendor, it's always out of service, which means that you have to either get back in Lineup or try to wedge yourself between Pimple Squad and Resentful Mother. Which never works. Only to find that ticket prices have gone up again, from one Money to three Moneys. Why, when Movie is always the same? Plus concession never has Hot Dog, only Soft Drink and Chip Bag and Food Tub. And you know the seats you want are taken by Obese Guy and His Mullet Friend. Damn. I'm tired of going to see Movie. It's always Hitch.

Oddly enough, I probably know more about extreme and strange weather than anyone besides a meteorologist. During my time as an interviewer for a series of programs on disasters, I met with experts, witnesses, rescuers and survivors from all over the world. I've spent hours talking with survivors of Cyclone Tracy, discussed the finer points of the term "weather bomb," met a man who lost his entire family to Hurricane Juan. I spent a week in a small town in New Brunswick that lost most of its men in 1958 to a bizarre and unexpected storm that hit the Northumberland Strait, and another week in a town on the Mediterranean that flooded when the dam burst, the result of lousy engineering and heavy rains. I even interviewed a woman who'd lost her family to a tsunami in Newfoundland (not really weather, but damn!). Despite all this, I've gotten off pretty lightly with weather. Here are a couple of memorable weathery times in my life.

#1. The Microburst

A microburst is a sudden sinking of high cold air that hits the ground and produces short-lived but extreme winds. Along with lightning and good old clear air turbulence, they're one of the few weather phenomena that can grab an aircraft and swat it to the ground. They're short-lived but intense. Here's a handy diagram that looks a bit like an Art Deco moustache.

Micro1

Pity the poor suckers caught in the curl of that terrible swift moustache. This is a brief tale starring myself as one of those suckers, trapped in the rage of those stout whiskers.

Two-three weekends back, Saskatoon had its annual 2nd Avenue sidewalk sale, in which the bulk of the downtown stores distended themselves onto the street, throwing out long tables and racks packed with clothes, lightweight nylon tents, shoe stands and hattrees, you name it. DJ park themselves two to a block and blast out classic hits from the past twenty years while families pack the streets, eat ice cream and poke at the merchandise. The sales on offer are a little bit deceptive: 75% percent off a pair of factory reject slacks is not as much of a deal as you would think. The pants I tried on all had some strange defect or deformity, clenching horribly around my thighs while the ass or crotch gathered and drooped. Picks in stitches, twisted inseams, handsome shirts that inexplicably refused to fit across my chest (partly because my body is bigger and broader than I think; I was incredibly skinny well into my twenties, and I've never grown used to the adult body that grew over my old one) and all manner of odd sizes and rejected styles.

I went down to the sidewalk sale with my mother on a Friday. The weather had been difficult to predict all week, with hot weather suddenly undercut by cloud and rain. Hail threatened but never arrived. The wind had been picking up steadily all afternoon, going from a faint breeze to a series of gusts that knocked over cardboard signs and pushed against display tents. Clouds began to move over the sky, making the sun intermittent. The crowds became quieter as the light greyed out and the wind picked up an edge of cold. You could see people formulating exit strategies as they moved along the racks. The vendors wore looks of cheerful resignation on their faces as they saw the sales coming to a close for the day: sick of the crowds and keeping track of cheap damaged goods since nine in the morning. A few had already started to move some of their racks inside. The cold wind kept rising, pulling shirts from hangers and ruining hairstyles.

Me and my mother decided it was a good time to head back home before the storm hit. We had a good fifteen-minute walk ahead of us, and we didn't much feel like getting caught in the rain. We started out, keeping close to the side of the building in case the rain hit suddenly.

At the corner of 2nd and 21st we came out from the shelter of the buildings and stopped. The wind had turned weird: cold, dense and granular, like old crystallized syrup. Goosebumps raised up in defense. Then the burst hit, a sudden rush of cold wet air carrying plumes of sand and dust and trash. My skin and hair were coated instantly in a layer of damp dust. We ran back along the street into the rapidly thinning crowd. Nylon tents lifted up and flew down the street, vendors running after them. Displays collapsed, tables overturned, rejected shirts blew through the air. Isolated shouts and the skitter of metal along pavement. People ran out from shop doors, grabbed armfuls of goods and ran back inside.

We ran into a Tramps music store and watched the rest of it, the frantic activity as everyone tried to take down their displays and hustle them inside. The gusts kept coming, each one bringing another load of dirt and trash. Every so often someone would pass by the store, sprinting from or pushing into the wind, their hair, clothes and skin blasted down to a uniform beige. The streets emptied out in five minutes.

#2. My Own Private Funnel Cloud

Last summer, when I worked at a film production company whose offices were located cheaply close to the railyards, I would cut across railway property on my way to and from work. The section I always cut across was a long thin wedge of packed gravel and spiky grass between the road and the tracks. Hard black grasshoppers and tiny spring-legged beige bugs would leap away from my feet and up into the air as I walked through the grassy patches, surrounding me in a cloud of startled insect life.

On one afternoon the wind kept gusting as I walked along, kicking up clouds of dirt. I watched as one cloud curled up and spun itself around for a couple of revolutions. Instead of spinning apart and falling, though, this one seemed to contract and cohere, almost toppling over but righting itself like a top. Suddenly the dust cloud grew to about ten feet in height, straightened out and began to move along the ground, heading over the gravel, sucking more dust into itself as it came closer. It looked busy, as if it had somewhere to go and needed the dirt and debris to give itself a body. I stepped out of the way and watched as it passed, now twelve feet high, a perfect swivelling funnel. I stuck my boot into it to see if had any effect, and then my hand. Sand stung my palm. It kept going, drifted towards the tracks and ran into a wire fence. The cloud seemed to get stuck at the fence, moving along its length but unable to cross, until it exhausted itself, spiralling down into a snakelike shuffle in the grass.

It was cool.

This one is a good question. I like it. I really do. I'm even answering it a day after the fact. Because I like it? There's that. There's also this. What's this (you ask)? Because you can't see what this is. That's the tricky fellow I am. This is my desire to play, to prop language up against the world and see how tall I can build the structure before it all falls over. The structure is absurd and makes me laugh, the eventual fall is equally funny, and it all makes me giggle to myself in my sleep. Or maybe snicker. Shit, am I writing a post here or the script to Lady in the Water?

To answer the question What do you hope to accomplish over the next six months, I'm going to take the position of the economist in the joke about the physicist, the engineer and the economist who get stuck on an island with a can of soup and a rock:

A physicist, an engineer and an economist wash up on a desert island with a can of food. Each attempts to figure out how to get the can open. The physicist provides an explanation involving vectors, lines of force and the transfer of energy from a rock to the the lid of the can. The engineer suggests bracing the can against one rock and hitting it with another. The economist can barely contain his contempt and says, "Gentlemen, you're going about this all wrong. First," he says, "let us assume a can opener".

So I'll answer from that economist's perspective, but first we need to make two further assumptions:

1. The economist has been rescued from the island after months of devipration, in which time he's had the opportunity to grow a beard, get in touch with nature, and eat the physicist.
2. The economist is very stoned.

Okay. In order to envision what I hope to accomplish over the next six months, first we need a assume a very evil man with long moustaches, who is so suffused with evil that he spends his time doing nothing but twirling his moustaches and steepling his fingers. Next assume a mountain on which the evil man sits, crouched as if in mockery of the notion of the guru. Seek wisdom here, the man's eyes and posture seem to say, and you will receive only the fruits of excessive evil. Ringed around the tall mountain lies a great barren plain, dirty red earth that serves only armored insects and spiky scrub. The dragonfly, the aloe bush, agave and yellowjacket, they are its inhabitants. From the north comes a horse, which we must also assume, and a rider, who spurs the horse onward, sometimes at a breakneck pace, sometimes at a canter. The rider is heading for the mountain, heading for the evil man, heading for a confrontation with the evil man, anything to break his endless moustache twirling and finger steepling - those irritating signature tics of evil. The horse clops on the hard red earth, its foamy sweat drips from its flanks. Sweat falls from the brow of the rider and soaks into his collar. The rider's neck looks like scored leather. The clops of the horse's hooves echo across the plain. The evil man adds evil laughter to his repetoire.

Within six months I plan to be that evil man. I've sold the house, started growing my moustaches, and I've invested in a black cloak and cape. Wish me luck! Or kill me before I post again on a Friday afternoon.

What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com

My favourite drink, beyond yer standard pint of Smithwick's with a Guinness head (holy God that's the good beer). I have several. They range from the gothy to the girly, but all make me happy and drunk (ultimately).

Honourable mention goes to the whiskey sour, with its sour mash and sweet bartender's sugar. I would praise it more highly, but somewhere in the dark depths of 1996 I spent a night drinking whiskey sours and the early morning hours puking my guts out. I don't know what I did at that party, I can't quite remember who I talked to or what exactly I said, but I wasn't invited to the next party.

Third place goes to the undeniably girly Havana Cocktail. What's in it? Light rum, pineapple juice, and sumpin' else. I don't know why I opted to order one in the first place. And by the time I'd had my fifth straight, I didn't care.

Second place is my hard liquor alternative to the Smithwicks-and-Guiness, the tall gin-and-ginger. After a time I got a little tired of the standard gin and tonic, having realized that I was in very little danger of malaria here in Canada, so I banked on the sweet un-quinined alternative of ginger ale with my gin. Damn, was it fine. It feels like a put-on to drink it in winter, but it goes well with unforgiving heat and sweat on a cold glass.

Foist place goes to one of the first mixed drinks I ever tasted, probably as a child at some relative's wedding. The Bermudian Dark and Stormy is a mix of Gosling's Black Seal rum (the dark) and Barritt's Ginger Beer (the stormy). Everything that is good about the Bermudian side of my family is in this drink. I warn you, though: trying to reproduce the Dark and Stormy with non-Bermudian ingredients will result in a ho-hum mush of pop and booze, the kind of standard-issue mixed drink you can get at the bar at any old 35th wedding anniversary. I once made the mistake of ordering a Dark and Stomy at the Islamorada Fish Company in the Florida Keys. The bartender poured some Jones Soda ginger beer into a shot of Bacardi. And nobody fired him right away for screwing up a simple so very very badly. I think part of the reason I enjoy the drink so much is because of its rarity, its near-impossibility to get anywhere outside of Bermuda. The Goslings is possible where I live, but Barritt's ginger beer - forget it.

Also of note is the Rum Swizzle, another Bermudian concoction that my mother brings home every so often. It's black rum with fruit juices. We got whomped on it one afternoon in 1992.

Hey. Remember that Question of the Day when the Vox bunch asked us all what our emblematic Summer 2006 CD was? Remember? Yesterday? I didn't answer in time and now it's lost. I know I can still answer the question - hell, I can stand on my head naked and take a photo if I want, although that's likely not what you want - but it doesn't feel quite right if I don't click on the 'Answer' button.

What is wrong with me?

I'm just going to ignore my neurosis, which is more likely a genetic tic of compliance, and take a stab at the question. I really wanted to answer it last night, but I had something to do. And I had to watch Rock Star: Supernova. Holy God, what a crap show. Over the last five years I've made my peace with all the Idol shows and their imitators, learned to ignore the smarmy over-the-top presentation, the addled Paula Abdul comments and the general vapidity of the affair. But Rock Star - my God. You can put on the costume of a soft rock balladeer and get away with it, but pretending to 'rock out' and really 'bring it' for the approval of mannequins like Dave Navarro, please no. Plus if you can't fucking sing 'White Rabbit,' then don't. Just back away from the microphone. Of the sad faker's dozen who went onstage, only one struck me as a performer. He looked like a deformed weasel in a purple suit, but he was the only one who seemed to notice the audience (as opposed to the camera). And he was really good. The only other entertaining aspect was Tommy Lee's scripted drooling over the women.

Wait. There was a CD-related question here. Right: Summer 2006 isn't over yet. It isn't even my birthday yet (coming up on Sunday) and already department stores and Vox are moving into clearance mode. When the vernal equinox rotates into place and the trees are all about the bare ruined choirs, then I'll be able to say for sure which CD stamped itself onto my brain most indelibly. But I can make a few guesses.

When we moved on July 1st, I played Gnarls Barkley, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Art Brut repeatedly. Having Eddie Argos scream "I've seen her naked... TWICE!" is now my mantra for relocation. And nothing jolts your nerves into action like the controlled jet-engine explosion of 'Go Go Gadget Gospel'. It's true. And nothing makes you want to finish your cleaning fast like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah so you can sit down and draw up plans for hunting down the lead singer and slapping him for that nasal drone of his. And yet I like that album so much. What's wrong with me?