-Wet matchboxes don't burn up by themselves-

My expansive study of Cape May, NJ history isn't expansive enough here, and there are so many other sources that are more worthy. And I don't entirely trust the below average student not to cite this page in their next term paper. Think I'm kidding? It has happened before.

doppler radar midwest segment
Originally uploaded by benedict monk.

Two observations from the study are worth mentioning. First, the hotels. Stroll about their lobbies or gift alcoves, and you'll see a history of class-struggle, embezzlement, and fire. Fire most of all, I think, since construction ledgers indicate blocks of sulphur as a major building material, and butane as a varnish. Seriously, they might as well have made balustrades out of matchsticks, judging by the number of fires each and every building has endured since Queen Victoria.

Second, the renewed speculation about the shore-killing storm destined to annihilate the place. The last big storm ripped through a century ago, they say, so we are overdue. Without consulting my almanac - since the gulf stream certainly hasn't - I'll go out on a sunken pier and suggest that this speculation is founded in guilty empathy.

Specifically, the kind of guilty empathy you get from watching too many loops of the weather channel's latest meterological snuff film.

-Alpha-males, chatterboxes, and catch-and-release fishermen-

Let's hear it for those taproom names with built-in excuses. The Library. Church. The Office. "Don't wait up, honey.. I'm working late at "The Office."

He lives alone, and so does she, but there the similarity ends.
They spoke at great length about marriage, but they were joking.

And now, even as the fake married couple hurls darts against another fake married couple - more fake, as it turns out, since neither fake single jests at marriage outside this connubial game of darts - this designated driver mulls over coming projects at work, future bills, necessary purchases made and later found half-price and twice-quality elsewhere.

Because these thoughts are the antithesis of fun, intended to crash against his sobriety and his luckless realization of a sober social ineptitude. Without spirits, he lacks confidence. Without confidence, he cannot get himself a wife, real or fake, for three months or two hours.

-Fetal Food-

Your mother ate a particular food while you were in her belly. Now, whether you know it or not, it's your favorite.

What's yours?

-A stone's throw away-

It was my intent to post the results of a snarky experiment, comparing "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" (Steven Soderbergh) with "Sex, Lies, and the Truth." (Focus on the Family) This intent was motivated by the titles alone; at the beginning of this week, I hadn't viewed either, and only knew of each film as VHS boxes checked out and returned by two very different groups of people.

Someone should watch both, I decided, and did so. Now that I have, I've cut the project's funding.

It might have been fun to lash the latter video's naivete, but I couldn't help but feel cruel setting a 30 minute abstinence video against an award-winning film written and shot by a young but unmistakably talented director. If Focus on the Family is to be faulted, it would be for usurping the name. And that usurpation was the reason for the experiment, wasn't it?

Surely, there are some thrills to be gained from 'Truth,' which seem to compare lust to assault by carneys. Like the scene with the unwed mother who tells her weepy tale over the nervous laughter of her friends. One could even excoriate the interviewed athletes, or the former family ties cast member who hosted, but I don't believe that would make the exercise worthwhile.

Mort Stahl criticizes media commentators for "using spitballs when they should be throwing rocks," which I take to be an argument against the feckless satire practiced by self-aggrandizing 'personalities.' If such persons spoke out against authority for the betterment of the masses, they have no need of covert, ego-feeding bullying. So I'll spare them the wet paper while I gather stones.

-No Question-

So you have to answer any question they ask? Tittered another coworker.
-Within reason. We try to lead them to a source that answers the question, rather than tell the first thought that comes into our heads.-

This was followed by a flurry of questions. I think they were testing me. Or making fun of me.

1. What is Baobab?
-A kind of tree. (thank you, Kipling) I mean, I’ll look it up when I get a chance.-

2. Is there such a thing as an Allicroc?
-Excuse me?-
Can Alligators and Crocodiles mate?
-I don’t think – I’ll check on that.-

3. What is Rooibos, and how is it pronounced?
-(This must be derived from the same box of tea that prompted the Baobab question.) Okay, I’m writing this down.-

4. What is a miniature lop?
-A lop?-
You know, a bunny rabbit.
-(Sometimes I wish I could refuse to answer questions.) Anything else?-

5. What is the plural of mouse?
*Record skip. Crickets. Tumbleweed.*
I mean, the kind you use for a computer, not the rodent.
-I’ll get back to you.-

Five questions scrawled on a napkin. A quintet of Coworkers who probably don't much care whether I answer them or not.

I'll take up the gauntlet.

1. It is a tree found mainly in Africa and India, so wide around that the trunk diameter is surpassed only by the sequoia. Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.

2. No. Do I really have to explain? Okay. They are two different biological species, and with two different “reproductively isolated systems of breeding populations.” Dictionary of Genetics, Sixth Edition.

3. Rooibos (“Roi-bois”) literally means "Red Bush." An African word of Dutch extraction, it refers to an evergreen shrub used to make tea. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition.

4. Lop’ - Short for lop-eared, wish she'd said so in the beginning. I think the pygmy rabbit qualifies, yes? Walker’s Mammals of the World, Sixth Edition.

5. Mice or mouses; either is acceptable. Wikipedia.