-The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Project-

If a tree falls in a forest when no one is around, can someone passing by later fashion some of the thicker branches into aeolian wind chimes? Let's find out.

-The Crayon Company gets it. Why don't you?-

I still hear people using the term "Flesh-color" to describe pink objects. I haven't heard anyone use the term "Prussian Blue" in place of midnight blue, so what's the problem?

Crayola substituted the adjectives for that very dark blue color crayon in 1958. Four years later, their "flesh" crayon became "peach."

Good for you, Crayola. You were in step with the Civil Rights Movement. Don't get overconfident, though. You're still responsible for these colors:

tickle me pink
mauvelous
fuzzy wuzzy brown
brink pink
macaroni and cheese
inch worm

Someday soon you may be in a department store, it doesn't matter which one. You may hear a salesrep shout over the instrumental Christmas music:
"Hey! Are we all out of those tickle me pink colored stockings? I got a brink pink lady here and she don't look so good in macaroni and cheese!"

-Last Hurdle-

Area code 7-1-8 is calling my references. Won't be long now.

-Three More Days-

If I succeed in this interview, my family and friends will reach me by dialing 7-1-8.

-Shiver-

Odd.
I just noticed an ad for the movie 'The Grudge' with its overplayed clip of the ghostboy making cat noises. That's not scary, I thought, and for no reason at all remembered a jello shot from March of 2001.
That was scary.

-Dramatic Finish-

Tough Crowd's final episode ends with Colin Quinn rambling on as his guests and the audience file out. Alone with the exception of the camara operator, Colin finally 'acknowledges' that everyone has walked out on him. "Shut up" he says to nobody, and you can scarcely hear him.

I thought this was an odd decision. I would have prefered a final shot of Colin and four of his buddies clustered around a smoking iron barrel, shifting their feet and going back and forth the way they did in the studio. For me, implied poverty is better than implied abandonment.

-The Greatest Minority-

Tired, poor huddled masses of weepy democrats commiserate in the basement, saying words like "shock," "disbelief" and "Canada" always in reference to themselves, even though they have come together with likeminded people who campaigned with them specifically to share their shock, disbelief and relocation strategies. They're so close to each other. In sevens and eights on the couches, the carpet, the cold tile floor. All alone in their own minds.

Since the floor is reclining room only, the only available space for a host like myself is the window's alcove. Up there, my body is bent double in a way that won't be comfortable for long.

For now it is acceptable; a cold window seat, but effective for independent observation. From this vantage I wonder how much longer I should let my ward mope. After all, we won within our own borders, won our battleground state. Is it our fault we aren't Ohio?

I know, I know. I should give them this time to grieve, scream and even screw, if that's what it takes. But I can't let them go completely to pieces, there is so much left to do, so many ideologically driven dragons to slay.

They're still gnashing their teeth and I'm still fretting when the cellar doors fly open to accommodate a psychotic in a cocktail dress. She doesn't say anything, just grins that 20 watt smile we've come to fear, and plants a measured kick into the testicles of the nearest pamphleteer.

Peaceable liberals all, they scurry back as one, except for the chair of the local
toastmasters. "Dearie-" She goes down under a right cross. I'm looking for a place to land, but it's too late.

"Listen up, Left behinds! You let them run away with this election when you let them co-op god, and fear. That's why I'm here to bring both of them back. I will be your god, and you will fear me. It follows that they will, too."

-Alone in the Booth-

When I entered the polling place, a woman in a blue powersuit with maize hair used her hip to block an older man wearing a bow tie. "First time voter?" Her voice is so unctious, and she doesn't wait for my answer. She unfolds a larger than life depiction of the ballot that appears in the booth. "For example, if you want to vote straight-ticket Republican, you pull this lever." I wait. She smiles, and gives no other instructions.

"And if I want to split the ticket.."
"If you want to vote for individual candidates, simply push the buttons by each of their names, which causes them to light up." She pantomimes pushing buttons down the list of Republican candidates. "Just make sure you press this "cast ballot" button after you've made your final selections.

As voter intimidation goes, this is laughably bad, and strangely disappointing. How much more fun would it have been, had I told her who I was voting for, and as a result, the woman in the blue power suit with the maize hair shrieks, claps her hands to her temples, and leaps out of her own skin to reveal a body of gun-metal gray and sardonyx.

-That’s My Mailbox, Punk Kids-

Halloween is a favorite Holiday of mine, and I’ve come a long way from those formative years when the selection of the costume predicated on the costume wearer’s carrying a war-like prop. My family will tell you that my best year was my seven-year old’s portrayal of an original superhero, Super Cheetah. Some pictures may still be in circulation.

Since that time I’ve had periods where I ignore the holiday, or dress for parties with the selection of the costume predicated on the costume wearer carrying a prop that doubles as a drinking vessel. In some ways, I have not changed.

These days, I enjoy communing with the spirit world on Halloween. And before you start, understand that I’m not referring to that showy, faux-gypsy approach to the supernatural, nor the telemarketer-like séance. Ever wonder why the spirits they summon are always so angry? Obviously the séance is similar to a phone call at dinnertime.

No, I prefer to let my mind drift in a darkened room, which is much more like people watching from a netherpark bench. Proper drifting, like people watching, isn’t instantaneous. All those petty tasks and distractions will get in the way at first, but the longer you wait, the stronger those fleeting images and sounds register on the senses. Eventually, the calm descends enough to attenuate the mental radar for some of those things that escape a busy brain’s attention.

Among them, the sounds of punk kids clobbering my mailbox with a blunt object.