Monday, December 25, 2006

Worst Christmas Gift Ever - From Me to You!!!

According to Douglas Adams, the third worst poetry in the known Universe was written by the Vogons, a peculiarly nasty race with a penchant for exploding planets to make way for ultimately unnecessary hyperspace bypasses. Here's a sample, reprinted without any permission, but with what we like to think of as the posthumous chuckling of the author:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
To hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles
For otherwise, I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon -
See if I don't.

The punctuation and line breaks may be a little off - the Editor was, of course, typing from memory. I hate poetry, but the work of a master can always stick in my mind.

The point, however, is that my Xmas gift to all of you, Christian, Jew or atheist, black or white or greenish from eating too much plum pudding, is the first and only worst poetry in the known Universe. Mr. Adams did mention that the worst poetry was found on Earth, but he never gave us a sample. I'm simply fulfilling his dream, and going where no one literate has ever gone, should ever go, or will forgive me for going.

I give you - Leonardo.

The first taste - call it an amuse bouche:

I would like to dream tonight
of a wizard taking flight,
feeling happiness and health,
sharing wisdom, love, and wealth.

Wouldn't we all? This is truly the spirit of the holidays. A wizard taking flight? YES!!!!!

I see your intent

my hope is spent
deep lament

yet I agreed
to hold my seed
so I proceed

let my heart bleed

nobody comprehends
the depths to which my love extends

I am to believe your distaste for me
for who am I to disagree
you have given your decree

in the name of being true
I will hold my love for you
until I see my magick through

I have no words. For anyone familiar with the Editor, this will explain the depth of my emotion.

Now, this next one - if there are any other rabid Adams fans in the house, they will surely recall that the second worst poetry in the Universe was written by the Azgoths of Kria, exemplified by the "Ode to a Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning". Please keep the felicity of that title in mind as you read - well, all I have to say is, I'm wishing y'all a Merry F'ing Christmas right this minute, because you may not live long enough for me to get another chance. Good luck. I love you all - may the Editor's strength go with you.

Ode to Acetylcholine

Acetate and choline are combined to make you up.
AChE reseparates you, then choline gets taken up.

Autonomic ganglia, skeletal muscle: nicotinic.
Cortex, limbic system, parasympathetic: muscarinic.

You help me to learn new things,
and get REM sleep - the dreams it brings!

Botulinum toxin shuts me down by blocking you.
Venom from black widows tires me out, releasing you.

Nicotine's excitatory.
Muscarine's inhibitory.
Curare is nicotinic.
Atropine is muscarinic.

(The first two are the shockers,
while the last two are the blockers.)

Organophosphates interfere with your deactivation -
except in mammals, because we have specialized protection.

Nerve gas is more brutal, killing all the soldiers in the base -
like organophosphates, stops Acetyl Choline Esterase.

If you can still have a happy New Year after reading the above, then please do so with my blessing.

Best of the Season from The Editor, the Zombies, and my bottle of Scotch.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Posts, posts, everywhere, but not a drop to drink

So, I've been informed by an Anonymous reader that it is past time for a post. And who am I to argue with the demands of my public (which is, of course, vast and capable of great feats of literary discernment?) - therefore, friends, Romans and countrymen, prepare thyselves for a post. And what scintillating subject, you ask, will the Editor choose this fine morning? I hear a cry of "zombies" in the back of the audience. This is a distinct possibility. Or could it be vast quantities of hard liquor, or perhaps something even more sinister, baffling and ultimately enigmatic?

Actually, the zombie lab has changed locations once again, and although this may provide fodder for a subsequent posting, for the moment, we will explore the seedy underbelly of the internet. In five, four, three, two . . .

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Life is analogous to the pigs quarter - 25

If the above title means anything to you, please, please let me in on the joke. It's the title of of a Craigslist posting (women for men), and continues thusly:

Everything looked good when I was little, did it to you? Then I grew up I thought there were all of these things wrong with me but whereinfact the outside world is truly a lude and bottomless practice range targeting the soul and the heart, unless you have tough friends that have ended up being your one and onlys and to whom you dedicate your pathetic crusade for amorality or something. ok. riddle over! Do you agree? I'm 5'10, 150, of Italian and German heritage, still working out at UCSB for my BA with plans to to an MA in Social Work.

Yes. I agree completely. How could one disagree with something so entirely clear and eloquent? Speaking of eloquent, here we have Exhibit B, a woman who describes herself as not only eloquent, but classy into the bargain:
I'd say that the whole ensemble screams class and taste, wouldn't you? It screams it almost as loud as the men reading the post scream while they're running away, or watching their penises permanently disappear. So granted, the Editor is not feeling the eloquence and class this evening, either. But what the hey. I waded through an entire CL personals section, to bring you the best of the best of today's available, hot-to-trot singles. These are the people, people, who have not yet figured out that life is but a lude and bottomless practice range. Get it? It makes total sense. Go stick your head in a bucket of cold, hard reason and come back and read it again.

Then, we have one of the typical "sugar daddy" postings, this time in men for women, which is set apart only by its air of peculiar desperation:

This is something you may not have considered before. Why not meet a man who is concerned about helping you with some of your bills and making your life easier and nicer and making you feel wanted, desired and important. You have much to gain by such a relationship with me and nothing to lose. You are certainly not a bad person for doing this. Rather a savvy lady who is tired of boyfriends with no extra money to help you when you need it. I'm the opposite of that.

Is he the opposite of a savvy lady? I'll buy that. Is he the opposite of a boyfriend with no extra money? That sounds okay . . . until you remember that the "nothing to lose" encompasses only a modicum of self-respect, and any kind of life plan that doesn't involve being a prostitute. Details, details.

Here is a woman who insists upon "no gropping":

That won't be a very hard rule to follow, I mean, would you grop that? Not grok, remember, which involves some kind of philosophical statement about the nature of human relationships, or something. This is gropping, and it's serious business. But frankly, I'd rather grop a dingo.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

True Love

That David was a hypochondriac was painfully obvious to all who knew him; he thought of himself as delicate. Not effeminate, per se, but fragile, pallid and easily injured. There was a coarseness, he felt, about those who could tolerate life without undue bother. Their ability to have a stomach-ache without an ulcer, parasite or cancer unsettled him.

Over the course of his adult life (dating from legal majority, ten years) he had been afflicted with tapeworms, liver flukes, pinworms and other varieties of nematode and flatworm too numerous to mention; mouth cancer, colon cancer, and a tumor in his neck; heart palpitations, flutters, skips and jumps. He had warts, psoriasis, alopecia; his prostate enlarged and shrank again on a bi-weekly basis. Heart attacks and strokes followed one after the other like machine-gun fire, particularly during holidays. He sprained his penis and discovered a rectal blockage almost simultaneously: it was the happiest day of his life, barring only that on which he contracted Ebola for the second time. AIDS and Hep A through C had become a lingering worry, but mononucleosis, arteriosclerosis and muscular dystrophy were just background noise to the litany of migraines, walking pneumonia, eye infections, ingrown hairs, gingivitis, labyrinthitis and kidney stones.

One of the greatest disappointments he had ever had to swallow was that he was forever denied yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, menstrual cramps and ovarian cancer; but he consoled himself with hemorrhoids, and the little-known fact that men can have breast cancer too.

Most people joke that they’ve put their doctor’s children through college. David really did. The month that he had diabetes (both Type I and Type II) and Lou Gehrig’s disease all at once paid for an entire semester abroad, and no quantity of blood tests could convince him that he would live to see the next hockey season (which, aside from his health, was his only real passion).

He lived in Portland, Oregon, and in fine weather would walk alongside the river looking at the cherry blossoms (watery eyes, sneezing fits) and the old men walking their dogs (hives and sinus congestion). He would peer at passersby through his tinted spectacles (not sunglasses – they make one vulnerable to conjunctivitis), and admire their seeming health.

And, the glasses blocked both UVA and UVB, which was, as he loved to tell others in the park, critical – because he had, at all costs, to avoid corneal abrasion. And he had a condition which prevented his pupils from fully contracting. Even if they did not take much pleasure from these encounters, he did. Thus the karmic balance of the city was maintained, and on the whole he spent his life fairly easily.

At the end of summer, when the air began to chill and the wind whistled through the narrow little tree-lined streets, David retired indoors to brood. He frequently had no one to talk to, and did not drink or do anything particularly suited to his age. To the great surprise of anyone close enough to him to care, he was actually, medically, and without doubt a sufferer from very acute and sometimes debilitating asthma, and was restricted to a set number of activities. A social life was made difficult, therefore.

But he had a parakeet, and he taught it little phrases. It learned to whistle Dixie, because he truly loved the movie Gone With the Wind, and would watch it with his bird perched on his arm; and it could greet the UPS delivery man and the newspaper boy by name. They liked the bird more than the man, and were distressed by his thin stooping shoulders and look of faint puzzlement, which hung about him like a fine mist. He greeted them cheerfully, however, and as soon as they had learned not to ask him, ever, how he was doing, all went swimmingly.

Owen, the parakeet, was always a happy little fellow, and truly loved David more than any of his family had ever done. It was, no doubt, partially due to the fact that the little bird could not understand any of his conversation; but it was unconditional loyalty, something most people cannot boast. David and Owen lived together in the greatest of harmony, and would whistle out the window in unison at the blue jays that congregated in the tree at the corner of the apartment building. Both of them took great joy in the impotent scolding of the jays, as they realized they were being mocked by that funny mismatched pair of birds that lived in the window across the way. It was the cause of great hilarity.

They shared meals, both pecking at bits of fruit, as the sun went down over the river. It was not a life of misery, by any means, and online medical dictionaries could cheer any hour that began to drag more than was bearable.

And, with that and with the hockey season, the winter passed away.

When the cherry blossoms came out again, David carefully wound a scarf about his throat and prepared to venture down to the bank of the river. He would not stay away long, for Owen would be lonely without him. Nevertheless, he looked forward to the fresh breeze, and a rare sunny day in spring. The glint on the water was, if eye-strain-inducingly bright, at least a pleasure after months of grey; David strolled down a little path through the park, almost humming with the sight of it.

He had not spoken to anyone besides delivery men for at least six weeks, and looked about him for someone with whom to exchange a few words. Surprisingly, on such a fine day, there was hardly anyone enjoying the weather outside. David could find no one who looked promising, and began to deflate. He had so looked forward to speaking with someone besides Owen, who, with all his manifold virtues, had a limited vocabulary. But nothing presented itself, and David wandered back home, with that faint feeling of discontent more common to forgotten theatre tickets, the end of good books, and too many hours spent sitting at a coffeeshop.

He had never felt this way before, that something was missing. How could it be? There was his never-failing ability to diagnose; there were Canadians, who despite his patriotism were really just better at hockey; there were movies and magazines, websites and newspapers, and always, at the end of the day, there was Owen, chirping just for him. He shrugged the feeling off, picked up some things at the grocery store, and went home in time for a rerun of a particularly good episode of the Simpsons.

The two of them spent an unusually peaceful evening. David was tired from his walk, and felt a headache, appendicitis, and a recurrence of his Addison’s disease coming on. He wanted nothing more than to rest and nibble some carrot sticks, and felt much better by the time he was ready for bed.

As usual, he carefully folded back the covers and brushed off his feet, before wriggling beneath the sheets with a sigh of contentment. Owen hopped sideways until he was as near to David as he could be on his little swing, where he slept with one eye cocked, and his feathers ruffled cosily. David turned his head towards him, and closed both of his eyes. They slept, listening to the distant sound of the river, and dreamed of Vivien Leigh.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Chewing, Gnawing, Slavering Undead Beasts - It's a Party, and You're All Invited

So, our friend Mary of Maron Studio (check out their new website, FYI, if you haven't already), has brought me on board as a general zombie consultant on a project they're working on. Now, they've asked me to provide a general overview of the different sorts of biting, gnawing, chewing, and other forms of mastication indulged in by the recently living, currently undead dead in a variety of film (and real!) settings. Feeling that this is a topic of general utility, I have decided to communicate this information through the blog, rather than in a private email to Mary.

Also, that gives me something to post, and I know they've been rather thin of late.

So, zombies eating flesh. Typically, there are two types of zombies represented in film (a subject which Mary and I have already covered in general outline): those that are infected with some sort of super-aggression virus (a la 28 Days Later) and those that are spawned by some process outside of the realm of normal science (most of the rest of the canon, for example Night of the Living Dead, the original Dawn of the Dead, etc). Now, as I know I've said before, these latter type are the real, actual zombies which inhabit my lab (and numerous unfortunate jungle villages, usually near the Equator), whereas the former are a recent invention of Hollywood. As one might expect, in the new, fast zombie representations, the chewing and biting is likewise done quickly, and with dispatch. The zombies run up and begin immediately pulling parts off, fighting one another over severed limbs and bits of tendon, and generally behaving like ill-mannered children with a plate of cookies.

In the original (and accurate) zombie films, the zombies move more slowly. They are clumsy; their flesh is slowly rotting, and their muscles are losing their tone and are under less precise control. The biting and gnawing, although motivated by a very definite and pressing need for fresh human blood, is hampered by an inability to move as gracefully as a living human might be capable of doing.

To recap, even the slowest and most decomposed of undead shambling horror will be hungry at the beginning of the feast, even if clumsy and unable to eat as quickly as it might like. However, just like with any meal, at the end one is less hungry, more sated, and will savor a few more bites in an almost offhand and lackadaisical fashion. In short, after a zombie has had its fill, it will still sit with what is left of its supper, perhaps picking the meat off a hand or foot, or thoughtfully chewing a bone as a digestif. The type of biting, to summarize, is determined by how much the zombie has had to eat.

It is also hypothesized (and this is, of course, one of my current research topics) that the desire to create more zombies causes the eagerness to eat found in a zombie when it takes a new victim. However, this makes far more sense in the context of some sort of pathogen, which would bring on symptoms that could further the spread of the disease. Given that it is still unknown what causes the dead to rise from their graves, spreading terror wherever they go, this hypothesis is at best worthy of further consideration in an off hour. Basically, for the purpose of a good and accurate film, zombies eat quickly when they haven't fed for a while, and slowly when they've had their equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner. Zombies also seem to be more ravenous when they are newly created/newly undead.

Anyone interested in helping to find scientific answers to any of these questions, you are more than welcome to swing by the lab. I suggest that you finish any paperwork relating to the distribution of your personal effects, and bring a can of cranberry sauce and some pearl onions.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Loose Women of Low Character

Well, the Editor has had a pleasant lazy Sunday so far (although such a statement will probably cause a meteor to strike my house, or a plague of locusts - so knock on wood for me) and has occupied some of this time in putting together a proposed piece of artwork/promotional material for the LWOLC show. Now, I know that Tifanie and I, at least, cringe unbearably when presented with the words "postcard mailing" . . . but it might be fun to send something to friends and associates, to let them know when the show's going up.

This is just a preliminary mock-up - I don't know if anyone will like the idea, but tell me what you think! It just seemed like fun.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Back to School

The Editor has recently returned to the academic world, in the (hopefully not completely futile) attempt to become further edjimicated (sp?). I guess that's why I need skool, I'm not sure if my spelling's quite up to par. At least I've not yet sunk to the levels of illiteracy pioneered by Howie.

Anyhoo. I apologize most profusely for the lack of posts recently. Work and classes have commandeered almost all of the Editorial energy of late. However, I did find the time to finish my contribution to a theatrical work suggested to me by Tifanie and others, and if any of the participants happen to read this, I am no longer holding up the process! Back to zombies and arson! And not a moment too soon.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Monday, January 09, 2006

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Unless It's a Crappy Snapshot

For those of you who may have been wasting away with the longing to see the Editor's face and person, here's a recent snapshot:
I'd had a pretty good day. I think my hair looks nice in that one, actually.

And so's you can get a feel for how the Editor spends those long and work-filled days, here's a picture of one of my coworkers (since I know Tifanie misses them, and would love to see how they're doing).

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy Fucking New Year!

Hope all of you were as drunk as the Editor. Or possibly not. In any case, Happy New Year from all the zombies here at home.