BookArmor returns…
Posted on July 7, 2008
And here it is now, the moment you have not been waiting for. BookArmor returns.
While the home-made replacement was fine, it lacked the clout with the search engines to deliver site visitors (my lifeblood, people, my lifeblood).
And so, BookArmor returns, renewed, refreshed, recalcitrant…
Today I saw a man, a hulk, at the gym, and on the back of his black t-shirt it said:
"Tonight we dine in hell"
I considered the likelihood of this as I worked my legs on the leg machines. It’s at times like this, I thought, that I wish I carried a marker pen and a few spare white t-shirts. I could knock up a riposte, then go and stand next to the hulk, announcing, from the back of my shirt…
"You will be dining alone, jackass"
or "What shall I wear, handsome?"
I am sure that BookArmor readers can think of something else, maybe not better, or worse, just different…
(The photo I used for the banner is of the underside of a road bridge in Totnes, Devon, England, taken in 2007)
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Bug Day
Posted on July 1, 2008
Bug Day
Thank you to those who commented on the previous post. It is heartening to receive comments. Thanks, as ever, to those who did not take time to leave abusive comments, I appreciate your non-participation (and hope for more non-participation from you in the future). Ok. That takes care of addressing two of my constitutencies, or, both halves of my constituency. As you will. (Or even, and here comes a new word (according to a Google search) - nonstituency, a body of people who participate via inaction - perhaps).
There is a flavour to some days, just as there is a flavour to some (or most) ice creams. Strawberry, pistachio, vanilla… That is not to say that a day is equivalent to an ice cream. That would be ridiculous. For example, you can lick an ice cream, but can you lick a day? Not unless you have a time-shaped tongue…
I will now be deluged by messages from people with time-shaped tongues…
Anyway, the flavour of today was extremely unpleasant - BUG FLAVOUR!(There is also a song by The Fall, Bug Day… this would be perfect listening while reading the rest of this…)
Permit me, please, permit me. Let me finish, by God, damn you people, let the man speak.
Today, I bought some groceries (not realising they would turn out to be… GROSS-ERIES!) from the supermarket. I walked home. Not that it is essential to know I walked home, but the next action takes place in My Kitchen. And in My Kitchen, I started to prepare to make pasta. Only, when I looked in the saucepan, and looked at the pasta, there was something there - something TOTALLY UNEXPECTED- and this was BUGS!
Yes. There were bugs.
I found hundreds more bugs in the uncooked pasta on the side. I drowned the bugs. The bugs were drowned (passive, like the voice in this sentence…) I cut open Pasta Bag number 2 and there were hundreds more bugs. They all started crawling, trying to escape. Again, the bugs were drowned.
I now had a kitchen sink full of dead bugs. And no pasta. And chicken that was cooked. And an appetite that had disappeared. Stupidly, I put pesto on the chicken, little green pieces of pesto, there in the bowl, reminding me of the bugs downstairs…
Bad.
So, I went to the supermarket and waited half an hour and then complained. I left the bugs at home. I complained about the bugs and about how long I had to wait to complain about the bugs. The woman was not interested in either of my complaints. The woman was not interested in withdrawing the pasta from the shelves (forthwith). The woman was not interested in giving me a refund. The woman was not interested in anything! I wanted aliens to land, or an armed robbery to commence - just to see, just to know, if there was anything that might interest this woman.
For my own part, I found bugs in my pasta interesting. And disgusting. (The woman was not even disgusted, well, except with me, perhaps. Somehow, by mentioning bugs so often, I was tainted in the process. As if this situation was happening to me for a reason - like I was dirty or something. I felt like saying, "I am not dirty, if that’s what you think…" Only, then the woman would be convinced I was dirty. So I kept quiet…)
She asked to see the bugs.
I went home and put the bugs and the pasta into a plastic container. And I brought the empty plastic packets, as proof.
I went back to the supermarket, walking through the streets with a plastic container full of bugs and pasta. A first!
In the supermarket, I placed the plastic container full of bugs and pasta on the counter.
"Tengo que ella quiere ver…"
I waited another half hour. The woman came, I shook the container, she observed the dead bugs.
It was made clear to me that there could never ever be a cash refund. But I was given permission to exchange my bugged pasta for goods of equivalent monetary value. After careful consideration, I selected three yogurt drinks. I felt so happy, taking the yogurt drinks from the refrigerator, yogurt drinks that signalled the imminent end of this nightmare…
I left the plastic container of bugs and pasta on the counter. I thought it would be what, a hoot? (Yes, a hoot), if one of the cashiers ran out into the street, yelling about how I had forget my bugs and pasta… "Senor! Olvidas tu pasta y insectos…" And I could turn and say, "Si, es un regalo…" and walk away, at last salvaging something, anything, with the successful delivery of this punchline.
Hell, I might even feel a little sauve after.
And then I came home, and I was not a little suave. I was absolutely sauve-free, devoid of elan, all out of debonair… And I was wet (from rain), and miserable (from rain, from life). The thing is, these bugs, and the hour or more of resolving the situation, and the consequent dimunition of my appetite, they coloured the day. It was like a William S. Burroughs hallucination (or revelation of reality - you decide), where suddenly the machine is working free of the illusions and the fictions that frame our experience of it, so you look at the product and see what they are truly happy to serve up to the consumer, and what the consumer is truly happy to receive - a bag of insects.
Amen.
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Text - Who the idiot?
Posted on June 1, 2008
I saw this Guatemalan guy who stood out last night, stood outside a tienda, drinking down a litro of Gallo in the street. The thing was, his face had this expression of glorying in his own stupidity. Far from being ashamed, I saw a life-affirming philosophy flowing out of his stupidity and laziness, and thought his speech, rendered in English, might go something like this:
Who the idiot?
"Who, me? I lazy, and I stupid, but I am drinking litro of Gallo and you not, so who the idiot? I sit at home, watching TV, and things go wrong, the wheels fall off my uncle’s car, but nobody ask me for any help, why would they? I lazy, I no good. And so I relax, and I do nothing, so who the idiot? In the day, if I need money, I sell sock in the market. Is easy, no sizes like boxers, no XL, no L, no M, no… no… no other sizes. Only one size sock and I have it. They have feet, I have sock, I make money, is easy, so who the idiot? I can’t write, I can’t read, I can’t do math, but I am drinking Gallo and I am watching TV, so I am feeling like a king. Nobody bother me, is nothing I can do. Only relax. So I party, and I relax. We all relax. And I feel like a genius, for everything so easy for me, to be lazy, to be stupid, is a gift. From God. Because God made lazy people and God made stupid people, and I am that way. So shout at me is like, is like saying God made a mistake, so tell me, if you so stupid think God make mistake, who the idiot?"
Jason Kennedy 2008