-Here's Mrs. Mel, to show you how to start the saw.-

If it's all about the commercials for some people, I would recommend that one 30-second Superbowl spot be given, gratis, to one of those small businesses herethereto limited by cost to local access television. It might be a restaurant, or a place that sells pool cleaning supplies. As long as the wooden-faced owner appears in the commercial, and the last shot is a map with an interstate, it qualifies.

Sometimes they have only the outdoor shot of the building. Voice-overs so bland and lacking in energy, you would swear a defeated rival is reading the script. Others are full of life and bad jokes. "Help!" stage screams the owner's spouse from behind a two-dimensional cutout resembling aquarius. "Drowning in Debt?" ask the announcer. "Uh-huh." replies the spouse, stepping out of character and looking right at the camera. "Kimberly Camp's Debt Consolidation service can help!" booms the announcer, and a life preserver inscribed (you guessed it) "Kimberly Camp's Debt Consolidation" is thrown by a stage hand at the spouse, who steps back in character in time to catch the pressed styrofoam. "Thanks, Kimberly Camp!"

I imagine the director yelling cut, and leaning into the director of photography.

"I've had a vision. Why not surround the spouse with cardboard shark fins? We've got to convey more danger! A month from now, I want everybody on highway 12 to think: Debt is Jaws, Kimberly Camp is Sheriff Brody!"

Why not slip a low-tech, no frills commercial in with all of those multi-million dollar, glitzy ads? Consider it a populist tribute.

-Can we have your liver, then?-

Anyone awake and listening to NPR's morning edition at 8 a.m. was in for a real treat.
The Barnes Foundation art collection is in trouble. Broke. Might even have to move to Philadelphia.
Judge Ott says no to the move, but suggests that the foundation sell off some of the collection, perhaps some of the 200 works not on display.
Barnes CEO Kimberly Camp says that in the museum world, selling any art except for the purpose of buying more art - in this case, to meet operating costs - "is just not done."

Then she said something really funny.

"..It's not illegal, it's just unethical. It's not illegal to sell organs. It's just unethical."

Er, what?

After a pause, the news reader comes back in to assure us that it actually is illegal to sell organs. But what else is going on at 8:00 a.m.? Cappuccino makers are shrieking all over the nation, hair dryers are going, cars are backfiring, and so on, and so forth. I think, statistically speaking, that somewhere out there a psychotic in a cocktail dress - along with her fallen ex-med student paramour - heard Kimberly Camp, but missed the retraction.

"Fantastic!" she chirps. "We can handle unethical." They high five, he falls over. She kicks him over to the naked mattress, under the naked light bulb, and steps into her heels. There's nothing else in the room but potato chip dust. She hits the streets in search of a Library Scientist with saleable organs. After all, in her mind, there's no jail time. The voices on the radio told her so.

-Reading From a Script-

A few months ago, there was a post about a man who called himself Joe.

Since that time, he has also introduced himself as Alan/Allen, but the Modus Operandi is the same. Somehow, he has managed to support his greeting habit.
Here's how it works:

JOE approaches pedestrian. Smiles. Then he asks two questions, followed by an introduction and a handshake.
1) Do you go to Pitt?
2) What are you studying?
3) Nice to meet you. My name is Joe [shake]

Just for fun, I've made sure that the three or four (or five?) times he's done this groundhog's day thing with me has garnered him five different false answers. It doesn't matter, because I find it hard to believe that he actually listens to the few answers he receives.

Tuesday night Joe came up in conversation with a friend. I found myself musing about his motivation. Next time we met, he would answer one of my questions.

Unfortunately, I would get my chance the very next day. On a street corner, as the wind rushed my face and filled my bleary eyes with tears, I heard the familiar opening.

"Do you go to Pitt?"

"You've asked me that several times now. What do you get out of that?" Probably not the most tactful way to find out, but I hadn't been expecting it. The blurred humanoid shape backpedaled and lifted his hands, palms out, thumbs a few inches apart. "No need to be rude," he recited.

My eyes are clearing.
"No, seriously. I just want to know why you do this."

"No need to be rude," he repeated in the same intonation as before. And moved on.

1) Do you go to Pitt?
2) What are you studying?
3) Nice to meet you. My name is Joe [shake]
4) No need to be rude!

So there's a fourth line. How far does his repertoire go, I wonder?

No, I don't wonder anymore. Call me crazy, but if I see him again anytime soon, I'm not going to have to fight the urge to knock that robot down and force the rest of the script out of him.

Not very hard, anyway.

-Direction-

Some Landmarks

Ben Franklin Bridge
King of Prussia Mall
Fort Snelling (St. Paul, MN)
City Hall
Monument Avenue (Richmond, VA)
Edgar Allen Poe Museum (Richmond, VA)
The Gateway Arch
Rockefeller Center

Landmarks We Actually Used While Giving Directions

Adult World
Hooters
Mickey's Diner (St. Paul, MN)
Third Street Diner (Richmond, VA)
Tela Ropa (Hemp Sales; Pittsburgh, PA)
Old Barn with Dutch Hex Symbol (Reading, PA)
Christian Admiral (Hotel; Cape May, NJ)
King of Prussia Mall (Has a Hooters Restaurant)

-Waft-

SMELL PIECE Use a name card without a name. Put an address and a smell instead. SMELL PIECE Send smell signals by wind. 1963 Summer 'Grapefruit' Yoko Ono

I can't!

I can't smell. I lost the ability some time ago, and I'm not entirely sure how. The best theory so far accuses a Jesuit mad scientist and his bunsen-heated chemicals. The details are murky, but somehow he managed to sweet talk the school board into housing his lab in exchange for occasional alchemical instruction.

[Lab Manual Excerpt]
Step One: Boil liquid in beakers.
Step Two: Beakers shatter.
Step Three: Charge beakers to students at inflated prices.
Step Four: Profit.

Contractually, he dispensed advice.
"Waft. Don't sniff."

Wafting means to place the nose near, but not above the surface of the glass, and then make a curious "come hither" gesture to the friendly efreet materializing above you. This signal tells the immortal creature, who speaks no English, that you are willing to barter your sense of smell in exchange for three wishes.

Sadly, it also means that you will never be able to complete all of Grapefruit's performance art pieces.

-Scoville-

KingMob will be happy to know that his beloved Sriracha is the first result in this image search for "Hot Sauce."

But Sriracha is moderation, in spice and marketing. The Hot Sauce industry has a lovely tendency to go for broke on the product names, and for enabling their clientele's masochist fantasies.

1 Million Scoville Pepper Extract This concoction, for example, blinds us with a scientific name and 1 million scoville worth of pepper extract. Stronger than mace, essentially poison to the uninitiated.

Pure Poison Hot Sauce Pure Posion, to the initiated.

Blair's 6am Reserve Collector's 2.5oz. This "masterpiece" is $50.78 an ounce.

Kick Yo Ass Hot Sauce 5oz. Hot sauce vendors depend heavily on ass humor.

Satan's Blood Extract Devil Humor is also important.

Submission Hot Sauce What this brand lacks in name, it makes up for in image. 'Ouch' is right.

So Sue Me Hot Sauce I think this sauce best depicts what makes a body sweat in contemporary society.

The Source 7.1 Million Scoville Extract Do not eat straight from jar, the creators advise. The Source will kill your stupid ass.

I bought a bottle of Iguana...

Iguana Radioactive Atomic Pepper Sauce!

-Under Cover Letter-

Benedict Monk
Address: You know it! (wink)

H: (999) 999-9999
C: (999) 999-9999

January 22, 2004

Attn: FBI Headquarters

Your career fair booth immediately caught my eye. Me? I was the guy with the pompadour and the yellow and black tie. I'm sure your all-seeing, never-sleeping eye immediately caught me. All of you showed yourselves to be professionals at the top of your game, practically stunning me with that first penetrating question, where you asked both my name and field of study at the same time.

Almost stunned, but not quite. You see, I'm passionate about this government agency's commitment to voyeurism and interrogation. I'd be willing to spy my little heart out, freelance, if need be. But I'd be a good fit with your organization because I am a people person at heart, well acquainted with team sneaking.

For the past four years I have worked undercover in libraries, schools, media outlets, and major businesses connected to my temp agency. I was a reading specialist in a public library system one day, and a data-entry drone the next. True, there was some difficulty explaining the double-digit number of W-2 forms to the IRS, but I did what I imagined any one of your agents would do in that situation: file electronically, and explain to any representatives who called that I was the victim of identity theft.

That was a rewarding experience in many ways, but the second and third positions are more appropriate for your purposes: concurrent appointments to a Business School Library (circulation) and a Law Library (reference), both at a well-known and, um, special University within Fort Benning. Throughout this period, I have won the trust of the inner circle of collection development teams; archivists, genealogists, technical servicemen and women, liaisons, assassins, directors and outreach coordinators. Assuming a variety of roles and multiple clever disguises, I have learned their customs, their tongue, their religion, and also their policies for electronic and print materials.

Past employers have noted my unflappable temperament and ability to enable calm and compromise in conflict situations. These communication skills were further honed in my roles as a carnival roustabout, as that guy who swivels the STOP/SLOW sign at highway construction sites, and as treasurer for the Greater Appalachian Cult of Mary, three years running.

Past projects have given me a wealth of organizational expertise. A certified copyeditor and proofreader, I am accustomed to detail work, and the diligence such work requires. I am also no stranger to phone work, interviews, team-teaching, or unarmed paintball.

You will discover that I am versatile and energetic - ready to face the unexpected.

Thank you for considering my application. I hope to hear from you, if only in the form of an assignment that self-destructs after I read it.

Best wishes,

Benedict Monk

encl: resume

-Guilt-

Scrape, Scrape.
The cat is shuffling her rump along the floor.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Scrape.
"Stop! I know exactly what you're doing!"

When the landlord called a few minutes later on an unrelated matter, I very nearly apologized before he had finished saying hello.

-Sarcast-

Someone used the term "sarcast," as a noun to mean "a sarcastic person" in the weekend edition of the New York Times. The dictionary confirms this usage; a sarcast is "an adept at sarcasm."

I believe I was adept at sarcasm at a very young age.

Many, many years ago, not long after I had begun to read, my favorite reading material was a number of Children's bibles; illustrated, tastefully edited, and complete with the ribbon for marking place. To this day, the thrill of handling the beautiful blue cover, with its lingering indentations from small fingers fading, fading and vanished is as clear as the day I first opened my eyes.

Which I can remember with incredible clarity.

Soon enough, this young reader would get his hands on a children's book of Greek Mythology, and decide that Polytheism held a definite advantage over Monotheism. But at the time, he was as much a Christian believer as could be, and embraced the faith with considerable, if adolescent zeal.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
That's easy, I would say. A priest.
No kids for you, huh?
No, I want kids.
You can't have a wife if you're a priest. No wife, no kids
PAUSE. ENTER THE CHILD SARCAST.
I'll get married, have kids, kill the wife, and become a priest.

The most amazing thing about it was that I knew I was being sarcastic, imitated sarcasm around me, and delivered it in the most tactless way possible - and yet, could not articulate and defend my sarcasm in the uproar of "Kids say the darndest things!" laughter that followed.

I wasn't serious. I was kidding.
Right, we believe you. *Smirk*

They still don't. Because they are sarcasts who lack "sarcdar."

-Have All the Luck-

Some guys approached the reference desk on Friday seeking information for an upcoming custody battle.
They are twice married, twice divorced, and twice have made children. They belong to one of the groups on this list.

We perused a few sources, I don't recall which. All the while, these two men spew a litany of anti-wife and anti-women complaints.

"Women'll turn on you."
"Always get a pre-nup, guy."

Both stop immediately to check out the nearby circulation assistant, a woman barely half their age.

"Damn shame there's a rock on her finger."

They have learned nothing.

-Stimuli-

I managed to piss off a friend and be thoroughly unprofessional at work at the same time.

We'd been reviewing my resume, and had just taken off on a tangent, talking specifically about Big Fish, then more generally about Tim Burton's work, then specifically about Edward Scissorhands. Remember the bully? It's Anthony Michael Hall.

After confirming this with the internet movie database, we mused about the turn he'd taken from playing nerds to playing abusive boyfriends. And since his filmography lay before us on the workstation, and we were already in resume-scrutiny mode, I began to "question" her as if she were Anthony Michael Hall and I a prospective employer.

The clincher came when I asked about the gaps in his work history. Dropping the interviewer persona, I stated that it was a top priority to uncover what Anthony Michael Hall was doing in those years for which IMDB cannot account.

"That's what you're going to do today, at work?"
Her tone should have been a warning sign.
"What better way to use the company resources?"
The oblivious guy replied, and because he was fatigued, began to laugh.

This is the kind of hysterical laugh that, once set off, needs very little in the way of external stimuli to maintain itself. After the first stimulus fades away, the look on her face is stimulus #2. The screen with Anthony Michael Hall's filmography is stimulus #3. The laughter itself is stimulus #4.

By now I've given up trying to curtail the laughter, trying instead to stifle it enough to avoid embarrassing myself at work.

Trying to stifle it enough to avoid embarrassing myself at work is stimulus #5.

It finally fades, and I'm left feeling spent. So much so that the research put into Anthony Michael Hall's missing years is lackluster, at best. Unless the grant money is approved all I can be sure of is that he did not spend 2003 in rehab.
Trust me.

-Brisk Walk-

A young couple is crossing the street with me in a cold twilight. The girl has a thin coat, no gloves, and no hat. She's making low hhuh-hhuh-hhuh shivering noises. A thoroughly soused trio of lightly-dressed college girls leave the corner bar and cross back the way we came. All of them are talking at once, all loud, but one's voice rises above the rest.

"I'm not even cold!"

To my left I hear the first girl whisper: "Sshut-up, you drunk bitch."

And no one laughed louder in the gloom. It was that kind of night.

-How and when to serve-


What niche market might Twinings be tapping into with Lady Grey that they were missing with Earl Grey?

Lady Grey	Earl Grey
Character	Character
A sumptuous blend of oriental teas, orange and lemon peel, flavored with a hint of Bergamot.	The classic blend of fine teas delicately scented with the mediterranean citrus fruit of bergamot.
How and when to serve	How and when to serve
Serve black or with a little milk. A classic, yet delicate tea, perfect for the afternoon or early evening.	Black or with very little milk, but never lemon which detracts from the Bergamot. Some have it for breakfast, most in the afternoon, and some in the evening.

Both are considered "light" in strength, something more aggressive teetotalers can counter by oversteeping, or.. or by adding kosher salt for texture, remaking the formerly wussie tea into a brisk, sumptuous blend of brine and Bergamot.

Bergamot is going on my list of baby names.

-Wash, Part 2-

Fun fact: the television in the 24-hour laundry was tuned to TNT, which was showing "The Mangler." It's an adaptation of a Steven King short story about a possessed, factory-sized steam press in a small New England town.

As I was leaving, the clerk who let me out said:
"I've seen that movie before. Kinda weird, isn't it?"

Yeah, I thought, but not in a laundry.

-Wash-


35 minutes until the clothes move into the dryer. Time enough to explain my movie choice, provided the guy wearing the military fatigues and eyeing my clothes since 4:00 A.M. doesn't make a move on them.

My fascination for this movie is rooted deep in my childhood. As long as I can remember, my mother has been a deeply conservative woman with a very rare cinematic talent. Put on any movie, any movie at all. If it isn't her choice, she'll be in another part of the house, out of earshot and sight.

Out of sight, right up to the moment anything happens on screen that would strengthen a rating. At that particular moment, she's there. Just wandering through, on some unrelated "don't-mind-me" errand.

"You just notice the crudity of the scene when I'm here." She always interjects at this point.

A good response; everyone will simply have to accept my word, that of my brother and everyone else who has experienced this phenomenon - that it is very real.

Enter Judas Kiss, ironically her choice. Lured by the major actors, she sat my father and I down to watch it one night. She possessed no more knowledge of the movie's plot than the rest of us.

No sooner had the initial credits faded than we were treated to a very racy scene involving two space vixens. It's only a few seconds long, after which the camera pans back to reveal that this action takes place within the confines of the television a security guard is watching.

My mother made some horrified sound of disappointment, so upset was she to be betrayed by Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. I couldn't hear it because my father and I were laughing, guffawing, at the situation.

Here mom tries to further damage my credibility. "You laughed, but you didn't take your eyes off the screen."

I've always liked science fiction, Mom. I thought you knew that.

The rest of the movie is entertaining, certainly, thanks mainly to the banter between Rickman and Thompson, who disguise their English-ness with Big Easy talk. Much later I would learn the film's true appeal, which is as far from Mom as possible.

It's a dating tool. First to check out the person's sense of humor with the banter, and their patience-to-mores ratio with the opening tease.

I've used it three times now, and I promise not to use it again. But to my credit, Judas Kiss unmasked three different people I'm better off without.

-Afterword-

Consider this piece of Raymond Carver's, from the short story "Little Things":

But he would not let go. He felt the baby slipping out of his hands and pulled back very hard. In this manner the issue was decided.

Getting the last word matters. Take this contribution from Lemmy of Motorhead, in the recently released 'Straight Whiskey' by Erik Quisling and Austin Williams:

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1990, I made sure I was within walking distance of the Rainbow. And, luckily, it's downhill going home! Long may it rave.

Long may it rave... I wonder if that would fit on the next cover letter.

"...Thank you for considering my application. (Enclosed: Resume)
Long may it rave,

Benedict"

In journalism my specialty was headlines and leads; I'm ashamed to say my endings never impressed unless they called for a Miller's chop. And really, how often can one get away with that?

This is the end of a piece I've been working on.

"Do you really care what they think?"
"Of course not," I snapped. "why, what have they been saying?"

-Our Cinematic Selves-

It's never easy to choose one favorite film. Even naming several different pictures, classifying them into genres regarded as acceptably cool.. is difficult for many of us.
Why? Why?!

Because it says so much about us as individuals. [Christian Finnegan's Contribution]
Or in small groups, too. [Earlier Entry]

So now I want to know your movies.

-Sacagawea is Tarnished-

A few months ago I wrote a piece on two sacagawea coins.

Now that I've read The Best American Essays of 2003, Ben Metcalf's 'Wooden Dollar' essay has me wanting to revisit the topic briefly. Not out of a sense of my own historical inaccuracy, mind you. Any high school student writing a paper with my meager research in hand deserves their fate.

As you can see in that September post, it was the allure for the coins that interested me; the reasons why people didn't want to spend them lightly. I'm every bit as guilty of romanticizing them, too.

Metcalf's study is a compelling argument against the very minting of the coinage in the first place, fueled in large part by the journals of Meriweather Lewis, and to a lesser extent the anthropological knowledge on the Lemi-Shoshones - All pointing to a very unflattering portrait of the great maiden.

(The best he can say about her is that she was less of a burden to the expedition than her husband/owner Touissant Charbonneau.)

What I particularly enjoy about Metcalf's essay is the use of alternative inscriptions. He initiates the device by giving us the true inscription in capital letters and spaced like so:
L I B E R T Y.

Over the course of the essay, he derides and demolishes the idealistic portrait of Sacagawea, finding her ideal to be non-representative of the country. Time and time again he gives the same treatment to far grittier words describe Sacagewea and her little family, and us:

T E E N M O T H E R
E N A B L E R
B U R D E N
D R A I N O N R E S O U R C E S
V I C T I M O F A B U S E
F E D E R A L E M P L O Y E E
U N F I T P A R E N T
F O S T E R C H I L D
P R I S O N G U A R D
N A S C A R

It might be time to read the copy of 'Undaunted Courage' that my relatives keep trying to push onto me.

-Called Off-

A hearty jog in the wee hours of yesterday morning gave me an idea: an episodic marathon.

A true marathon, of course, is an uninterrupted 26+ mile race. It takes people a long time to train for it, a long time to run it, and a fair amount of time afterward to recover.

The most ground I've ever covered in one race just exceeds ten miles, so we can forget about true marathons in the near future.

Could it be broken up into smaller units, and still be exercise? I should think so. The episodic marathon would actually be healthier than a true marathon, which wrecks havoc with nearly every system in the body.

Besides, this would involve bathroom breaks.

At this time, I estimate that I could do a mile at a stretch, once every hour, for a day and two hours. Perhaps this is too soon to try it, but my atonal circadian rhythms being what they are, there's no time like the present.

So, when I see the revolving digital clock/thermometer in the bank parking lot reading 8 degrees, I know the marathon is called off.

More time to train, I suppose. Perhaps a sponsor will come forward, as in "They shoot horses, don't they?"

-Return December-

The following is a letter sent to an old friend from college, one week before Christmas. It isn't truncated; I commonly begin less formal letters as if I were answering a question in the middle of a conversation.

Gosh, so much has happened.
In true Pittsburghese: Yinz is a Librarian, an’ ‘at.
Officially a librarian. And I have a cat. I’m a single guy living with a cat, Sappho, can you believe it? Some kind of male spinster, I am.

Truly, I hope married life continues to agree with you. Me, I’ll have to deal with the stigma reserved for those thin, single men who follow the arts rather than sports, chatting and smiling on a regular basis, and falling just shy of fabulous with creative interior decorations.

I am referring, of course, to the male librarian, a creature often confused with our brothers on the far end of the Kinsey scale. I’ll speak of those misconceptions later, for now professional development is the order of the day.

Politics, politics, politics, politics, politics, politics,

As an unregistered green/libertarian, I have long shied away from leadership roles, for fear that it could taint my oh-so-pure soul, and also cut into my ability to complain about the ruling class.

(the latter, I am convinced, is the Democratic party strategy. Ever get the feeling that they actually enjoy being out of power, for the purpose of ribbing office holders from the moral high ground? I’ve always thought so.)

In any case, I have decided to be disenfranchised no longer. In preparation, leadership classes. Calisthenics. Practice ordering the cat around.

And soon enough,
When I was ready,
I made my move.

I became the head of the local ALA chapter.

Oh, the power! The glory of it all! Everyone knew me, and soon, they knew me and my loyal minions to be the harbingers of a new age in Library Science, an age characterized by activity and creativity, PAX Libris, the era of good bookish feelings.

Sigh. It was wonderful. I only hope they will do so well without my command.

So now I seek your counsel. Should a happenin’ library cat like myself work at VCU if such a job comes up? Is it safe for me to return to Richmond without an armed guard? Can one really get hepatitis from green onions?

No easy answers, lady Sappho, not even with a library of resources to choose from.

Much love to you and yours,

Benedict

-Hazardous Books-

How dangerous are almanacs, anyway?

-Good Breeding-

My cousin is expecting. It is only proper that I come up with some names for the child and overcome the dearth of imaginative, non-Teutonic family nomenclature.

My Personal Favorite:
Ephedra - Is there a better way to commemorate a product that will be banned before the delivery date, but stockpiled throughout the child's adolescence? I can't think one.

Jane, but only if the baby is a boy.
Robert, but only if the baby is a girl.
Sandy for either sex.

Cruz - in honor of the lieutenant governor of California. Alternate spellings are acceptable, particularly those with strategic umlauts.

Rinpoche - Supposedly translates as 'precious jewel' in Tibetan. The baby would share this title temporarily with Steven Segal, but hey, how often does that name come up these days?

Trixie - I have my reasons.

Feel free to chime in. I know Ephedra is hard to beat, but I welcome other opinions.

-Multiple Choice-

She's puttering around in the kitchen making drinks, scolding cats, relating a story that stops and starts so often because of the cats and spirits that you've lost track of its meaning.

Unlike her, you do not multi-task well, and she's just given you an important job. You are to select three, possibly four films from a box of movies on your lap.

At this early stage of the relationship, wrong answers could stunt the development of whatever you two have planned for each other.

After all, the brief glimpse of her bookshelves revealed a startling number of titles your shelves contain; some of the same classics, some recent works of fiction.
A few biographies, but not the frivolous celebrity-preening exercises.

And a Tarot deck.

You don't have time to let it all sink in. Three, possibly four movies, of which she'll select the one you two will watch from the couch you've never before used, but already associate with feelings of comfort.

Provided you choose correctly.

Her collection is admirable - you remove what you hope is a safe choice in 'Best in Show,' a less safe choice in 'Memento,' a "gushiness gauge" with 'Amelie.'

She chooses 'Best in Show.' Damn.