New Feature!

In what may become a continuing feature in this forum, I feel compelled to note that there is one highly underappreciated type of writing out there: the movie description on the TV Guide channel (or alternately, the guide function on a DVR). Tonight's winner: HBO's description of The Highlander, which may be one of the best movies ever made, although I know at least one of my regular readers will disagree.

This film has everything: swords, Christopher Lambert, highly quotable moments ("He's in league with Lucifer!"), a bad mid-eighties easy-listening soundtrack, and Things That Are Scottish, not to mention a villain who looks like a goth/punk pro-wrestler who eats arsenic on the weekends.

This is how my DVR guide describes the film: "A New Yorker beheads a swordsman in a parking lot, continuing a battle of immortals."

There's something about the way it completely misses the point, while simultaneously perfectly capturing the film's essence, that makes it so great.

John and Megan

I don't know John and Megan. I just happened upon their blog a moment ago.


But the fact that they only seem able to create one facial expression each somehow struck me as funny, that's all.

Oh, No They Didn't . . .

As some of my gentle readers may know, I'm doing my English honors thesis on romance novels. Yes, I am, stop laughing, please.

Specifically, I'm studying how representations of masculinity in the Harlequin Presents series of romance novels have undergone a paradigm change since the seminal studies in the genre, in the early 1980s. See? Academia is awesome, because you can say very little in very many words. Gotta love it. (This project, fyi, accounts for my odd Shelfari picks, if anyone wondered.)

But. The point is, this pursuit leads me to spend a fair amount of time on Harlequin's website, looking at writing guidelines and press info and sales statistics and new releases. And, today, looking at . . . the most . . . okay, imagine the worst possible combination of masculine/feminine pop culture, like, say, a Cosmopolitan magazine written by Carrot Top, or something, and then . . . oh God, it's too horrible to contemplate. I give you:


Ladies and gentlemen, please place a paper bag over your head, as it will make the coming Apocalypse slightly less disturbing.

Cake or death? Only it's not a joke.

Just today, I discovered a sect of Christianity previously unknown to me - the Christadelphians. Wikipedia, the ultimate repository of all knowledge and wisdom (until I find a real copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, at least) informs me that there are only about 50,000 of these folks in the world, spread throughout 120 different countries. There are also break-off sects of Christadelphians, which may only have 50 members. Other Christians consider them insane.

On the other hand, the Christadelphians consider the Jehovah's Witnesses to be insane, and so the moral seems to be: no matter how fucked up you are, there's someone even more batshit crazy than you. Unless you're the Jehovah's Witnesses, of course - that's the bottom of the barrel.

Be that as it may, the Christadelphians take pride in their literal interpretation of much of the Bible. They espouse the idea of a second coming and a general resurrection of the faithful; as a result they draw a sharp contrast between what they call the Kingdom of Men and the Kingdom of God.

Eddie Izzard has a particularly good routine on the Anglican Church, in which he comments that were that institution to have an Inquisition, it would be a little wimpy - something along the lines of "Cake or death?" The Christadelphians apparently also believe in cake or death, only they represent it thus:
The intro I've just provided aside, this may be one of the most compelling images ever created. Please note the contrast between the flaming skull levitating above a lava flow, on the one hand, and the giant hummingbird, on the other. Giant hummingbirds or flaming skulls? The choice is yours.

Success!

I forgot to mention that there is a follow-up to the bureaucratic battle which was waged between the Editor and the dark forces of Mandatory Alcohol Education. Although no spears were finally used in the confrontation, the Editor did receive a moderately courteous email waiving the requirement.

Such are the anemic victories of this modern age . . .

The Meaning of Art - Solved at Last!!!

Going back to the honorable roots of this most honorable blog (I think I'm turning Japanese, or at least my adjectives are, can anyone help with this?) this post has no plot, points of interest, purpose, or anything else that does or does not begin with the letter p. Unless you include pointlessness.

To continue: the Editor has always been a staunch believer that art is independent of the observer, unlike particles that obey the laws of quantum mechanics. (This will not be a discussion of how art differs from quarks, but it's a point worth noting nonetheless.) In other words, a painting is good whether or not it is seen, a piece of music is good whether or not it is heard (although it is ideally more frequently heard when it's good), and a book, or piece of writing, is good even if no one but the writer ever knows it exists. Beauty, in short, is neither in the bloodshot eye of the potentially illiterate, moonshine-swilling scum of this world, nor in the jaundiced eye of the poncy, pompous, pretentious and ultra-pc ambiguously sexualized artistes of this world. So why the desire to post writing on the ultimate public forum (except the surface of the moon - if I were a corporation, I'd have an enormous billboard up there so fucking fast) - the internet? Not, of course, that I am implying that my writing is good. Nor am I implying that it's bad. That's not the issue. The issue is, no matter what the grammatical or philosophical quality of the writing, why post it?

See, if I had real confidence in my own ability, it ought to be just the same to me, typing into a word document hour after hour. It shouldn't matter whether or not it's accessible to anyone else, because its quality is unrelated to the reader or lack thereof. So my posting of this dubiously worthwhile material is completely illogical. It's a combination of either a) the assumption that somewhere out there there's a person who will just love my style, or b) the desperate, hoping praying longing for some person out there to just love my style. The first implies that I'm a narcissist. The second suggests that I'm an idiot.

Both are true in differing degrees. But looking at this from a non-Editor-centric position, everyone has this same dilemma. How much to believe in yourself, versus how much to beg for attention, is the most difficult dichotomy of expression. It's hard to go through day after day hoping that someday someone will give a rat's ass; at the same time, if you care, you're negating any natural pride in your own objective worth.

I think that this is somewhat true for everyone who embarks on an artistic endeavor. Of course, this is just the sort of drivel that I deplore when I hear it, but bear with me. Everyone creates for a reason, and it's somewhere between an inability not to and a need to show that you've got something in you that can be put out in a form not entirely incomprehensible to the world at large. I guess it's the fact that the Mona Lisa would be great even if it were buried in the center of the earth, much like the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand on the Planet of the Apes - but the fact that enshrining it in the Louvre is what has made it great, to the world at large, really gets me. Get me? Probably not, since this is drivel.

Let's try again. Did Leonardo daVinci plan for his painting to be gawked at and admired by millions of people? No, probably not. Would it provide him with validation to know that this is so? Possibly, since most artists are insecure. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that in order to create art in its purest form, the critic can't critique, or even see, the art. The creation of true art then depends on an artist who is so supremely egotistical that no one else's opinion could possibly matter, and an artist in the possession of such self-confidence wouldn't need to show their art to anyone. There would be no urge to seek an audience, because it would be a pure impulse to create, with no ulterior motives.

If anyone has read this far, go have a cocktail and send me the bill. You people are better than a fucking shrink, in a multitude of ways: 1) unlike a shrink, your brain does not obey the laws of quantum mechanics on a macro level, i.e. your emotions exist in either a positive or negative state but not both, even when you are not observed; 2) you are not a shrink, which makes anything better.

Bite Me, or I'll Bite You

This evening, in the zombie lounge, we took a few moments to step over to another blogger's space: The Ladies Lounge (UNCUT). The site features both lust and graphics by Tim StClaire.

In other, completely unrelated news, the Editor is suffering from a bout of the annual zombie flu, which manifests itself in sniffling, coughing, sneezing, cold toes, and an intense and almost uncontrollable desire to masticate the living flesh of others.

That last symptom, in all honesty, might simply be boredom, as I haven't been out of the house in a few days except to check the mail, and TV and the internet are starting to get a little old. I understand that the writers have some good reasons to strike, and all my sympathies and all that, but if I watch one more bad romantic comedy from ten years ago I'm going to actually kill and eat someone, no joke. I can't even fucking drink, which would usually be the answer when cooped up in the house with nothing to do. Drinking, more's the pity, has been shown to lower the immune system's resistance to zombie flu, whereas it in fact raises resistance to actual zombies: the alcohol numbs the pain of the gnawing.

Giving Thanks

You know what the Editor is fucking thankful for? That this miserable, flea-bitten son of a bitch of a motherfucking goat-balling holiday is finally over.

Happy Thanksgiving - I hope any of my gentle readers who see this had a lovely time. The zombies were likewise well pleased with the day; they dined on undead turkey, which is pretty difficult to get at this time of year, I can tell you. The stores always sell out by the week before.

The Editor, on the other hand, had good food but somewhat lacking company.

Once Again, It's Time For . . .

The Best of Blogspot!

Yes, folks, the Editor is once again ready to tackle the best - and worst - of Blogspot. We've had some real winners in the past, but the world has turned, the universe has expanded, and the butterfly, flapping its delicate little wings in the South Pacific, has caused an unstoppable hurricane of horrendous linguistic travesty. In other words, there are new blogs to be seen, and new bloggers to be honored with the dubious distinction of inclusion here - or possibly fed to the zombies.

As a worthy starting point, let us consider A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS purports to be:

"A journey into the world of The Occult - the hidden dimensions of the modern world including Myth, Magic, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Extra-terrestrial intelligences, UFO's, Divination, Healing, Astrology, Spirituality, the Mystic Arts - plus Current Affairs & of course 'The Conspiracy Theories'."

Features include word jumbles, Motley Crue and Kiss videos, and other paranormal phenomena. We also learn, from A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS, that you're never too old to write haiku. Actually, the Editor begs to differ - unless you're old enough to have the facial hair typical of a kung fu master (reference: the villain from Master of the Flying Guillotine), you're not old enough to write haiku.

Now, I would really like to be able to make fun of this fellow; and granted, his grammar leaves something to be desired. His site provides links to galleries of amusing images and other useless internet crap, and I expected to be bored, yet simultaneously annoyed. However, I must admit that most of his links are actually pretty fucking funny, or at least not laughable for the wrong reasons.

This next is, aside from its breakthrough feature, a fairly normal Bible-thumping blog. But on this site, and I'm not kidding, it's a miracle - is a "video that demonstrates the only way to salvation." Who would have thought that this guy would find Jesus, and simultaneously find THE ONLY way to salvation, and then - against all odds - film it so that we can all partake? I think I may be converted. Hallelujah.

The last blog of the evening, simply because the Editorial bed is calling me with sweet, sweet songs that promise delightful oblivion and possibly even zombie dreams, is WHEN WE WERE YOUNG. If, gentle reader, you choose to follow the link, please note that Roxy, the proprietress of the site, has demonstrated her desire to be Roxy forever, and has included this in her url. The blog is a showcase for some of the best of modern prose:

okeyy
hello! wassup all my fans out there! how i miss u soo much..
i noe u miss me too! yah0000000000! ok! last tuesday i had a terrible day.. noe why?? COz firstly i went out wif my horrendous, disastrous and all the Big words i can tink of rite nw..secondly, whenever i went out wif that particular frend, i tend to be persuaded to spent MONEYY.. oh dear!
i seriously need to save up!
after that, we went to a movie named RATATOULLE.. GUESS WAD? its a NICE show..
funny and hilarious! oh yah! someone[a stranger sitting next to me on my left] keep on farting and burping all along..! damn! it was a MUSIC to my ears.. im being SARCASTIC HERE..ok.

Although I am always the Editor, and this excerpt in particular begs and pleads for some Editorial attention in the truest sense of the word . . . I do not know where to begin. Perhaps her words should simply stand alone, without the mediation of an editor or an Editor of any kind.

I will leave you with something totally unrelated, a product description from the Bed Bath & Beyond catalog I got in the mail. It advertises a product called the Mangroomer, a "do-it-yourself electric back shaver." Its unique feature is that it is "fully extendable and adjustable to reach all areas of your back." This may be the most depressing object I've ever seen, except that the alternative would seem to be a nation of men actually asking someone else to shave their backs - as a lady friend of the Editor was once asked to do by a boyfriend. Apparently, that experience ranked on the trauma scale somewhere between "eaten by rabid elephants" and "sexually molested by the Easter Bunny."

Thog! Take Form to Cave Three and Carve Signature in Triplicate

Why, the Editor's rhetorical question of the day begins - why, I ask, do bureaucracies spend such inordinate amounts of time plotting nefariously - nefariously, I say! - to make the lives of anyone with whom they come in contact unbearably horrid?

This is a rhetorical question because it's probably been asked since the dawn of time, or at least from the dawning of bureaucracies; the Editor is forced, against my Editorial better nature, to believe that time and bureaucracy dawned simultaneously, simply because human nature is as black as tar. Or, people are just stupid. Take your pick.

Cavemen probably had paper-pushers, even though they didn't have paper; at least, I don't believe so, but as I regularly use my anthropology class as happy naptime, anyone who knows for sure please feel free to correct me. But the fact is, it's just a certain kind of person, and has absolutely nothing to do with the cultural or technological support available. For example: Thog is getting ready to hunt a mammoth. He picks up his spear, grunts, and starts to head out of the cave.

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

"But Borg," replies Thog, "I checked it very carefully before planning to hunt. I've been making spears my whole life."

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

Thog is now somewhat frustrated. "Borg," he begins as patiently as possible, "I am on the Spear Committee. The rest of the Spear Committee is already out hunting. I know that the spear is properly made, and if I don't hunt today, my children will starve."

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

And so on. In a perfect world, this little morality tale would end with the doubtfully tied spear haft protruding from Borg's neck, and perhaps, for that reason alone, we can all nostalgically harken back to an idyllic hominid past. No such option is available to me, as I hear that the bureaucracy in prison is far more torturous even than that existing at the university.

Then again, it's probably worth it, as the alternative is a mandatory online First Year Alcohol Education Course. I know it doesn't sound that bad, but they don't teach you how to make your own beer - I already asked.

Beer.

There's no particular reason for this post. The Editor has a great lack of inspiration today - perhaps it was drained by the immense volume of library research on which I embarked earlier this afternoon, in a quest for a topic for the Honors thesis soon to be spewed forth by the Editor's alter ego, the Bedraggled Student Creature.

(Just in case any one of my gentle readers has doubts as to what a Bedraggled Student Creature is, it is that unfortunate species of wildlife, seen most often in University food courts, eating Panda Express while reading feminist theory. After it has consumed its orange-glazed prey, it typically lurks in a courtyard, chainsmoking and emitting little despairing squeaky sounds, while wishing it had gotten up early enough to take a shower and change into a shirt that doesn't have coffee stains on it. Its natural habitat is a couch, surrounded by pizza boxes and fantasy novels.)

In any case, once I came home from the library, the B.S.C. was shed, like a snakeskin, in favor of the Editorial personality - and the Editor, all things being equal, craves beer.

Let this be a paean, a song of glory, an epic cry to the gods, in the praise of beer. Beer is cold, and bitter; it foams and froths, overflowing with bounty. In its wake, the liver does a little dance of joy, the heart expands, the brain finds random and not entirely interesting conversation with strangers more tolerable than usual, and that moron at the bar who always talks about his pointless computer game programming business becomes less likely to make blood flow from your ears.

Beer is good, beer is pleasing. All hail beer.

English Handbook for Everybody

The Editor has a raging hangover. What do I do when I'm faced with a general malaise of this magnitude? I do what everyone should do under these circumstances - I turn to a book that truly holds, unlike other books that merely claim to do so (such as the Bible, the Koran, the Encyclopedia Britannica), all knowledge and wisdom necessary for life.

I refer, of course, to the English Handbook for Everybody, a small plastic-bound volume purchased for a dollar or two by the Editorial mom in Chinatown many years ago. This book has gotten me through some dark days, with its relevant and appropriate phrases, in both English and Chinese - at any moment, opening to a random page provides what purports to be a generally useful phrase, but which really has more utility as a Zen exercise in considering what drugs the translators might have been taking while writing the book.

I pity any Chinese immigrant who tries to get through a day in America using only these phrases.

An example: under the general heading "I'm So Mad At . . ." (every section has a heading, organizing useful phrases into categories) appear the following.

Our leader is more devious than your leader.
Auck, don't hit me! I'm an innocent bystander!
Snort! I didn't do anything wrong!
Cad! Cur! Beast!

In the section headed "A Shy Little Kitten," (???????) we find these gems.

Behave yourself, or I'll shoot.
Have a little wine, punk.
Losing her eyelash caused her to blush for shame.

I'm thinking there might be a slight cultural barrier, here. To continue, under "Do It, Now" we learn how to say these generally applicable things in English.

Fly me to Cuba. I hijack the plane.
Hi, thief! Would you stop that music for me?
Give me that rocket and boat, and I'll give you a sucker.

The very next section is called "Oh, No No, . . ."

No. Can't you see that rocket is almost falling down?
Stop it, Appollo!
You must go to the moon. It's your duty.
Make love not war.

Needless to say, all strange spelling/bizarre punctuation choices/generally incomprehensible verbiage can be attributed to the book's editor, and not to the Editor. I could never write anything this imaginative.

In the interests of science, and in honor of the fact that the Editor is now a full-time student once again, I will leave you with a list of all sentences and phrases under the section heading, "Oh, Young Friends!", since that section seems to be generally focused on the collegiate lifestyle.

Jesus freak
McGovern used to be a clergyman.
Hmm, I'm stoned.
Look, he's high.
Right on, Packers!
to smoke marijuana (dope, grass, pot)
freaky jocks
TV crazy
Do you know when the next exam is?
Oh, Mr. Student.
poli-sci major
math major
majorette getting mugged
mugger (no-good boy)
He looks gay.
purse
high-heeled shoes
Peace, baby!
to seek an alternative life styles
You guys are sexists.
Male chauvinist.
women's libbers
It's a B.Y.O.B. (= Bring you own booze) party.
cohabitation dorm

Good night for now, gentle readers. Or, to quote the Book - Farewell, my angel.

No Fucking Zombies

The Editor had a most disappointing experience today, as the title of the post may have already made clear.

Allow me to elaborate. This morning, during hours generally reserved for blissful Editorial unconsciousness, I arose from my zombie lair and dragged my almost immobile carcass, hissing and growling all the way, to the local cemetery. Why, you may ask? Well, the Editor maintains some forms of (somewhat) gainful employment, as a writer, in fact - believe it or not. If my only contact with myself were this somewhat lackadaisical forum, I would myself not believe such information about myself.

Be that as it may. To the cemetery I went, thinking that at least, should the guided tour on which I was embarking prove dull, I could at least spend the time fruitfully, perhaps digging up some freshly buried remains, or playing ninepins with skulls and little tibia bones. To my great, aforementioned, disappointment, not only was the tour dull but no such macabre entertainment had been provided. Au contraire, most of the tour group seemed content to gawk at a variety of Freemason emblems etched into little slabs of rock, meanwhile oohing and aahing over the tombstone of that stupid chick Domino whose life was melodramatized in the stinking, putrid film of the same name.

I beg my gentle readers' pardons, as the experience has driven me into the arms of liquor and run-on sentences - which vice is the more pernicious, I leave it to your wisdom to discern.

Again, be that as it may. The final word on the cemetery tour: no zombies. None, not one. I mean, I maintain a zombie colony, it's true, and you'd think I'd have enough. But there can never be enough zombies, and there were no rotting hands, thrusting through the turf to grab middle aged women by the ankles. No screaming, no eating of flesh. Just the history of the board of directors, punctuated by coy asides about former groundskeepers. Heady stuff, I tell you.

My one regret is that I failed to plant some of my own zombies in the ground the night before - a few leg gnawings would have enlivened the event immensely. Next time, I suppose - although the next time I go to one of those things I'll bring a hip flask, too, just in case.

All right: it's almost April

This is the time of year when Aprille showers supposedly come one's way, or some shit. Not in Southern California, of course, but perhaps there is somewhere else on God's green earth which is not in fact Arrakis, Dune, desert planet . . . cue Kyle MacLachlan looking really intense while communicating with a giant worm in a somewhat suspiciously homoerotic yet bestialic (is this a word?) yet . . . oh god, who cares. It's a giant fucking worm. And it pops out of the sand (got to be uncomfortable with all those crevices, anyone who's ever tried to have sex on a beach like in all those movies where they're doing it in the surf will understand the Editor's point here) and then opens its segments . . . all I'm saying (and Dune is one of my favorite, favorite movies, David Lynch is some sort of deity, don't get me wrong) is that it's a little much.

Sidetrack officially over. April. Yes. It is undeniably spring, which means that the Editor feels a little remorseful for having only reinstated the year as of last week. What did the adoring public do during those cold, nonexistent months? Hopefully they soothed their sorrows with copious quantities of macerated, distilled and otherwise tastified mixtures of ethanol. That is of course how the Editor has spent the otherwise useless time.

Speaking of which, the Editor has consumed a fair amount of inexpensive grape-based ethanol this evening, so don't expect no sparkling wit or nuthin. In fact, the Editor's zombie-infested bedchamber awaits; I would merely like to state, since I promised such in the previous post, that I love everyone everywhere. The world is a good and happy place. The Editor is drunk.

2007: Probationally reinstated

All right. There has been no zombie holocaust, and there is no cure for the flu; pie has not even appeared on the horizon, although the Editor did at one point attempt to make a pie and was thwarted by the fact that I can't seem to buy fruit without having it magically go bad. However, in spite of the conditions originally set for 2007 having not yet been fulfilled, the year may continue, for now.

Why, you ask? Because the Editor's cold, dry, blackened heart has suddenly been touched by the essential nitwittery of humanity. No, this is not a joke. One movie, one FX broadcast (still on, if anyone's in front of their television) has changed my life: restored my faith in the tenderness of a father-son relationship, spelled out the dangers of humanity's blindness, and given me a whopping good giggle.

Honestly, if people can still soldier on, blithely making movies like The Day After Tomorrow, and even taking it seriously . . . if, in short, there are people in the world stupid enough to a) believe that this film is a prescient exploration of scientific fact, b) shed a solitary tear for the precociously impertinent teenagers marooned in wolf-ridden (?) New York, or c) pay to see such a film in the theater; if these people exist, then the Editor's life has meaning. Of course, I don't think that's what the makers of the movie in question had in mind. They probably intended the touching warmth, without the uncontrollable laughter. At least they succeeded at something.

And after all, they may have begun an Ice Age in the fictional world of the film; but they ended an Ice Age in the Editor's heart. More warm, fuzzy posts will be coming up soon, when topics may include how much the Editor loves animals, the way that multiracial children make me smile, and the essential decency of all the peoples of the world.

Also, please watch for Hell freezing over in the near future. Happy 2007!

Due to a concatenation of circumstances, 2007 has been cancelled

I'm sorry to be compelled to make the announcement here, but 2007 has been cancelled. The Editor's nasty flu, a complete lack of pie, and the deceptively zombie-friendly weather (and simultaneously absent zombie holocaust) have led the Editor to declare 2007 a complete wash.

However, anyone wishing to reinstate 2007 as a year in good standing may send the Editor a pie, cure the flu, or kill a whole bunch of people and reanimate them, giving them a strong desire to eat the living flesh of others.

Thanks,
The Editor

The love poem of a creepy old man

To continue the theme of bad poetry, here is a poetical offering written to a good friend of the Editor's by a former professor of hers, with whom she had a short relationship recently. This was his tribute to her beauty and charm, reprinted with her kind permission:

The name carries far
Beyond any claim,
No gravity to contain
This daybreak,
Or beauty each breath taken gives back.
The light on your skin,
An astral kiss in the dark histories
Of what might have been,
The place where exhausted worlds dream
Of going.
And that vanishing point, too,
Concealed like a weapon or gift,
Where life and little death happen
To the chosen who bring you there,
Where pleasure and pain merge
Like true believers,
Reckless in knowing.
Your heartbeat behind manic drumbeats
And electric strings
This awkward body cannot keep time to.
Your soul hidden by constellations I want to see
But dying stars I may already inhabit.
Your light forever trapped in the time and space
I have become.

There's not a lot to be said about this, except that the author of this poem teaches writing classes. Let's hope his students don't pay very much attention to his lectures. My friend is offering a prize for anyone who can make any sense of this poem, other than the thinly veiled reference to orgasm in the middle.

FYI, Tifanie, I don't think there's a single woman in the world who would want to be described as having abundant thighs. That's got to be a turn-off. Thanks for the excellent comment, let the bad poetry continue unabated!

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.

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 . . .

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.