Middle Ten List of Okay Things in the World

We all knew it had to happen eventually. I did the top ten greatest things in the world, and Anagea de Meghan (or Meghan de Anagea, I don't remember which one I'm on) did the bottom worst. What's left but the middle? And seeing as I can't rely on anyone else to catch onto this trend, I'm the one who will have to write this next post. So, without further ado (or adieu), may I present to you the Middle Ten List of Okay Things in the World:

#1 Newspapers - Newspapers are alright. They tell the news and stuff. You have to watch out which newspaper you get. I'm partial to electronic newspapers myself. They tend to be more liberal. Actual tangible newspapers tend to be more conservative because the publishers want to sell them. As far as tangible newspapers go, the Globe and Mail is pretty good, I guess. I'm only putting newspapers down because I have the Queen's University Journal right here next to me saying something about Clark Hall Pub being closed indefinitely. I guess without a newspaper I might never have known that, except Christina told me a long time ago. The Journal is slow, but I suppose other students might learn something from it, maybe.

#2 Mount Rushmore - Giant statue(s)--sounds okay. I've never been there myself. Oana has. Oana is a girl I'm kinda friends with through Christina. She cooks well, and would be somewhere near my top ten list of cool people because of that quality (and her propensity to cook food for complete strangers). Anyway, she says it was cool. I'm not too anxious to see Mount Rushmore, but it's one of those things I want to see eventually, if I have the time and money. The reason I put Mount Rushmore on this list is because I happen to be talking to Oana for the first time in months, and she has a cool picture of her picking Teddy Rosevelt's nose. That's probably cooler than the mountain itself. I seem to remember reading or hearing that Mount Rushmore was stolen from Native American reservation land. Oh well, it still looks kinda okay.

#3 Cats - I'm actually really sick of cats at the moment. I have to take care of two cats right now, and they hate each other. Onion is my dear, old, sweet, adorable cat that I've had for over a year now. SCUBA is the new, energetic, smart, loveable, pure-white cat that I recently got off the streets (actually, out of Katherine's house, but it's the same thing). SCUBA likes to tear Onion apart whenever they meet, and Onion doesn't help by taunting SCUBA whenever she's tethered (I kept her on a long leash so that both cats could get out of my room). I think that since they're both white, they want to see the colour of the other's blood on their paws. That makes sense. Anyone want a cat? Aus and Tara say she looks like a person. After they said that I stopped letting her sleep in my room at night. Cat hair is also probably the most annoying substance known to man. I have enough white cat hair on my navy blue sheets after just a few days to comb it into a pile and sculpt another cat with it. Onion herself has easily cloned herself seventy or eighty times since I got her. Lately I've noticed that Onion's and SCUBA's hairs have morphed together into a new super hybrid cat hair that floats around and attaches itself to all organic lifeforms and slowly reproduces to cover them with fur. The worst part is when these hairs attach themselves to the cats' poop and it looks like I have a box full of dead, white caterpillars. Despite all of this, cats are somewhat mediocre.

#4 Fans - I don't mean fanatic people who stalk other people because those people of the second party do something that those people of the first party would like to be able to do. I'm talking about ordinary, everyday, electric air-moving propellers. Believe it or not, Canada can be pretty hot during the summer. Luckily, I've got a bracket of nine computer server fans with over two thirds of a cafeteria tray fastened onto it to keep me cool. Why the cafeteria tray, you wonder? Good. Anyway, fans are alright when you need them. I might say they were pretty cool if I didn't feel bad for using electricity just to keep me only kinda cool.

#5 Fans - This time I do mean fanatic people who stalk other people because those people of the second party do something that those people of the first party would like to be able to do *gasp!* I have to thank you, fans, and I don't just mean my fans (because I don't have any--because I don't do anything anyone would like to be able to do--*GASP!*). I'd like to thank all of the fans of my favorites bands, writers and artists. Without you, they wouldn't have an incentive to perform, write and create, much less push the boundaries of music, literature and art. Of course, since the fan incentive is also the reason why all of the music, literature and art I hate exists (a list that far surpasses the things I like), I have a very good reason not to like you very much. Fortunately for you, fans, I like the things I like much more than I hate the things I hate, so you're still fifty percent good, which is also to say that you are fifty percent bad. You're okay.

#6 The Tree Of - This is a painting I did last Christmas for Rumana. It is supposed to accompany a story I wrote for her. She never took the painting, but seeing as we broke up, it doesn't matter anymore. The reason I write about the painting because it happened to be sitting on some book on my dresser on the opposite side of my room. The painting is of a tree with a snake climbing up it and a stupid parrot harassing it. There are also a young, depressed tit and an insane robin in the higher branches, as well as a happy hawk in the background. The story goes that the snake is hungry, but is picky about what he wants to eat. He feels that the personality that his potential pray exhibits will affect his digestion, so he looks for something happy to eat. In the end the parrot and the tit were only pretending to be stupid and depressed in order to trick the snake into the hawk's clutches (the robin - AKA Anagea de Meghan - was actually insane, and helped out without knowing). I like the story much more than the painting, though I do like the colors I used. I give my painting a wavering hand.

#7 Internet - The internet is okay. It's not good enough to capitalize the first letter. I think that's kinda stupid, really, since we don't capitalize the first letters in television, radio or print. I think the internet would be really great--one of the greatest things in the world--if it wasn't for the complete shit that people put on it. I mostly talking about advertisements, but my shitlist also includes false information (whether deliberate or otherwise), racist sites, sexist sites, religious sites and other sites for people who believe stupid things. I'm all for freedom of speech, I just don't like the fact that those people are able to use a great tool such as the internet to do their evil work. Just because your right to express your opinions is equal to my right to express mine doesn't mean your opinions are equal to mine. There are such things as bad opinions, peopleoids, and unfortunately the internet puts bad opinions on equal playing fields to good opinions. There are other reasons the internet really isn't so hot. One is that it really isn't free. Unless I want to go to a library or a café, I have to pay quite a bit each month to use the internet. High speed, wireless internet should be free for everyone in the world. I'm not an idiot, so I understand why it isn't, but it should at least be free for everyone in rich western countries and Japan. Again, I'm not an idiot, so I know why it isn't. Currently my internet is so shitty that I've had to tape my wireless adapter to a pole just to get a weak signal. Another thing that isn't so hot about the internet is how it's used. People, including newspapers, flock to it for answers without a second thought, and don't even bother to check their sources. ANOTHER cold thing about the internet is that it really takes the human element out of communication. I find it the greatest thing in the world that I can email people or chat online, but human contact (not to mention exercise and sunlight) is really essential to being a emotionally and psychologically developed human being. Yet the internet has enabled people to live for days and weeks on end in their rooms, chatting on MSN and surfing Facebook while an ever larger pile of dishes accumulates around their rolling, swivel chair that you have to tip-toe over every time you need to go to the bathroom, or hunt through every time you need a relatively clean fork. Even the telephone is better for you than electronic forms of communication. There are a lot of other reasons I dislike the internet, but I grow tired of writing and I have a good idea for # 10. Fortunately for the internet and all those people dependent on it there is porn. Internet, you could be better.

#8 Sports – I like the concept of sports, it's just the practice where I have some slight reservation. By slight reservation I mean I'm appalled. Okay. Sports. Cool. Get outside, run around with friends, exercise, sharpen your mind, great. However, as soon as they started to televise competitive sports the entire thing went down the toilet, which clogged and backed up, and then the contents got mopped up by a disgruntled immigrant janitor, thrown into a dumpster where it was picked up three days later by a hobo who carried it across town and died of cancer, after which he and all of his few possessions were cremated and thrown into the river where they mingled with the contents of toilets that didn't back up, were eaten by young salmon newly hatched upriver making their way to the ocean and who were subsequently caught the following year when they were themselves spawning, robbed of their precious eggs and thrown unceremoniously back into the river while the eggs were shipped to Russia in a refrigerated cargo freighter and then shipped back to the United States and finally sold for thirteen times the price of the domestic worth to a 150kg Green Bay fan who ate them on the day of the Super Bowl and shitted them out a week later at his office along with 5kg of cheese smothered cabbage, blood and pus, after which the whole process started all over again to be continued on and on until World War Three begins and there is a shortage of caviar.

Seriously though, I should not have to endure competitive sports. My country has a tradition of pulling young athletes out of grade schools, middle schools and high schools so that they can miss four hours of instruction—during which they would otherwise have been taught how to put a condom on and hence not be forced to marry at nineteen because their evil, inbred, redneck spawn is about to litter our world—just to play a football game two hours away. Nothing should interfere with education, period. Parents, stop using sports as a way of controlling your children. Let them run around, do drugs, have sex and have fun, because if they don't know they'll end up overdosing on everything later in life. Dads, stop watching televised sports and then masturbating to the dream that your son could score four touchdowns in one game. And stop turning sports into religions that have opposing sects and should be followed dogmatically.
The only sport I have been able to watch on television for as long as ten minutes is soccer. I know there are other interesting sports, but I'm not really familiar with them, and soccer players are really impressive. Anyone who can move and run with a ball with just his or her feet across a field faster than I can run is impressive. I actually love playing other sports as well, though I'm no longer as fit as I was as a kid. Nowadays I like to bike around, or else SCUBA dive if I get the chance, though I argue that most SCUBA diving is not actually a sport but a recreation—kinda like taking a hike. On that note, I'll argue that most hunting is not really a sport, more of a psychopathic need to kill. In fact, I think there is often no difference between a hunter and a murderer, except that the hunter has very few chances of knowing that what he (not usually she) is doing is wrong. I don't mind people who actually solely hunt for food—there's something primitive and almost romantic about that, and often they're very intelligent and resourceful. Anyway, with that I conclude my rant on sports with a thumbs up and a thumbs down.

#9 Profanity – I'm talking about swear words. I actually think the whole idea of profanity is a myth. There are no words that should be shunned and hated just because they mean one thing or another. You shouldn't gasp at me saying “fuck you” unless I'm angry and about to hurt you. Even then, your reaction shouldn't be to the words I used, but to the potentially violent anger I have. The same goes for shit, piss, bitch, cunt, whore, slut, skank, asshole, dick, nigger, wanker, chink, spic, fag, etc., etc. If you react badly to these words—that is, if you think negatively of me for writing them—then you are reacting to the wrong thing. The reason these words are swear words is because we use them in anger. These words are meant for being used in anger, because that's how they evolved in our everyday language. They are used while we are angry because they help express our anger so that we can calm down and so that other people know that we are angry. If you think badly of those words, or are offended by them, you should also think badly of stool, urine, female dog, vagina, prostitute, sex-enthusiast with multiple partners, sex enthusiast with multiple questionable partners, anus, penis, person of African descent, person who masturbates, person of Asian and especially Chinese descent, person of Latin American descent, and homosexual. The fact that you aren't offended tells me that you're either one of my parents or insanely stupid. And the fact that I can yell “schwartz!” at you in a blood-thirsty, violent rage without offending you one bit confirms my theory.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, we have people who use swear words way too much. It's no longer useful to have anger words if every other word that comes out of your mouth is either 'fuck,' 'shit,' or 'damn.' It's also not very helpful if you use swear words too much and make other people who use them properly look bad. Not using swear words too much makes you sound educated, and knowing that swear word aren't profane proves that you are educated. I'm also sick of swearing in music. Trust me, swearing in your songs no longer makes you look like you're edgy and nonconformist. Like all other words, only use swear words in your lyrics if it makes the song better. People, it's because of you that swearing is only whatever.

# 10 The United States of America – Contrary to popular belief, the US is not all that bad. However, contrary to the belief of most people in my country, the US isn't so great, either. I'd like to quote the angry comedian Lewis Black regarding the belief that the US is the greatest country in the history of the world. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what he said, and rather than listen through the three albums of his I have, I'll wing it: “If you were in an office, and every day a man came in and said, 'I'm the greatest fucker here, and you sniveling shits would die without me! Ha ha!' I can guarantee you that by the end of the week you would have killed him AND eaten him, just to try to obtain his power.” This is more or less how I feel about the United States. There's a point or two to be made that we are the most influential, richest and most powerful nation in history, but I think if we continue as we are now someday we will be eaten up by someone else. Here's a list of countries I'd much rather live in (more or less in preferential order):

1. Germany

2. Switzerland

3. Holland

4. France

5. Austria

6. England

7. Russia

8. Portugal

9. Denmark

10. Scotland

11. Ireland

12. Greece

13. Italy

14. Spain

15. Canada

16. Brazil

17. Sweden

18. Norway

19. Finland

20. Czech Republic

21. Turkey

22. Hungary

23. Poland

24. Ghana

The list goes on. Don't ask why Blogger decided to put spaces between each country. Notice I'm not really interested in Middle-Eastern, African, South American and Asian countries. I'd love to visit these continents, but for the most part I want to stick to countries whose political and social systems are somewhat sane—or are at least really pretty. Why in Satan's shit encrusted anus would I want to go to a country whose political and social systems are just as insane as ours? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the US. This is a list of okay things, after all. However, I'm a firm believer in being a citizen of the world, not of the country I happen to have been born in. No country has earned my respect yet, and I'm not about to kill or die for the US just because I live there. In fact, the only reason I will ever come back to the US after I'm on my own is to see my parents and my brother, because they have earned my respect, and possibly Meghan de Anagea, because I'll be married to her.

There are other people besides me who can tell you what's really wrong with the US, so I'll just stick to what I hate the most. The one thing I hate the most about the US is the car. I absolutely detest driving, and the fact that I have to drive whenever I want to buy food or entertain myself in Virginia is nauseating. Even in our cities, if I ever want to leave without spending a buttload of money I have to travel by car. There's a reason heart disease and cancer are rampaging through our country, and it's very simple. Every god damn one of us is exposed to automobiles on a near constant basis, and so we're either not getting enough exorcise, or we're breathing in harmful gasoline and exhaust fumes, or BOTH. There are actually warning labels on gas pumps that say that exposure to gasoline fumes causes cancer in rats. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! I'm at risk for cancer because you're all too fat and lazy to walk or ride your bike or take public transit. Actually, I'm at risk for cancer because the infrastructure of the US doesn't give anyone an opportunity to walk, ride your bike or take public transit. If I'm at a strip mall, I actually have to drive 100 meters to the next strip mall over because there are two highways and a fence blocking my way. If I'm jogging in Snow Hill, an upper-class white community, I'm at risk for being run over by some rich, mini-dicked rednecks in their new Dodge pickups because there are no sidewalks. I should not be at risk because people are too small-minded to give up their automobiles.
But there are some redeeming qualities to the US that prevent it from being completely in the shitter. I don't really care to relate what they are, so I'll let you decide for yourself. We're moving to Germany, Anagea de Meghan, and we can stalk Till Lindermann until we grow old. I can sense a lot of you wanting to shoot me right now. If you were a real patriot for the US, you'd tolerate my opinions, just as our secular forefathers would have. I'm disappointed with the people in the US, and if our forefathers were alive today they'd be disappointed, too.

Most of you have probably come to the conclusion that this is really a bottom worst list wherein I talk shit about things I hate but insist that I don't really hate them. Well, you're close. Good for you.

What a crock

Perhaps it's my foul mood, but, while sweet, this forward I recieved is a total crock of shit.

1. There are at least two people in this world you'd die for.
Given my high sense of self-preservation, I kinda doubt that. Maybe, but I doubt it.

2. At least fifteen people in this world love you.
Really? Again, yeah, right.

3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you.
Well, okay. I'll buy that, since I don't hate anyone and I don't want to be anyone else. I don't speak for everyone, but that's true enough for me I guess.

4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you.
Maybe. Perhaps not happiness, per se...

5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to bed.
Bullshit. That's all I have to say. Bullshit.

6. You mean the world to someone.
What, really? Nah, I don't think so, except maybe my mother haha.

7. You are special and unique.
Well, yes there is that. Hahaha!!

8. Someone you don't even know exists loves you.
How? I don't get it, unless the writers mean "Someone you don't know YET will love you" or "Someone you don't know loves the personality traits that you are." Or something. God I can't believe I'm even writing this...

9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.
Maybe, maybe. I can maybe buy that... nah.

10. When the world has turned its back on you, take another look.
No. That's when I go to the barn and be with creatures that actually love me.

11. Always remember the compliments you recieve and forget the rude remarks.
True enough. Screw people who say shit to you, they're dumbasses... unless you yourself are being a dumbass, in which case, cut it out.

Later there will be a bottom list of things to complement Andrew's list of top things. And you can bet romantic comedies, emos, English/English majors will be on there.

~musicalsparks

Today

Is Mick Jagger's birthday.

~musicalsparks

Top Ten Greatest Things in the World

While editing the Harry Potter post for the tenth time, I remembered something Anagea de Meghan said on the phone last night, and it inspired me to do a top ten list. Meghan de Anagea said, after I teasingly told her I was undressing her with my mind (or was I teasing?), “Close your eyes to my perfection.” So that is going to be the tenth best thing in the world, and it will start the following list of awesome things and explanations for why they're awesome:

#10. “Close your eyes to my perfection.” - That's a very good line. Don't make me explain it again.

#9. Rammstein/Till Lindermann – Rammstein is a really awesome band, and Till Lindermann's voice helps it be that way. I don't care what people say about how their tunes are simple (yes, I remember things people said four years ago about one of my favourite bands). The genius of the Beatles was not in complicated guitar solos and other musical stuff I don't understand. It was in the simplicity, inspiration and orchestration of their songs (stuff I do understand). Let's face it, the Beatles were very catchy, and catchy usually means pop. While I acknowledge that there are far better bands than Rammstein, I'd also like people to admit that they are very good at what they do. German is not an easy language for rock or metal, yet Rammstein utilizes elements of the German language in their songs to great effect. German is a very angry-sounding and powerful language, and Rammstein's songs are equally angry and powerful. Combine that with Till Lindermann's voice, and you have the makings for a forty-five minute power trip on one CD, with a catchy quality you can sing along to (if you know German). Rammstein in angry, death-metal, German pop at its finest.

#8. Coffee – I drink about two cups of strong, black coffee each day. This is down from my peak of five or six a day, and up from my old once or twice a week. Whether I need a pick-me-up in the morning, or I want to twitch nervously while I type top-ten lists, coffee is my caffeinated drink of choice. There are also many benefits to coffee—other than staying up all night to finish an essay. Drinking a lot of coffee helps you lose weight at an unhealthy rate, which is exactly what half the people in the world are obsessed about. Not only does it get your heart pumping, but it suppresses your appetite and makes you exercise (because you have to get up and pee every five minutes). In fact, as a tribute to how awesome coffee is, Aus just said “only number eight?” when I told him about this list on the phone, and we all know that you can't say “awesome” without saying “Aus” (unless you say it properly, and go “Awe-some”). So, to end this number quickly (because I haven't peed for ten minutes, and really need to go), I'm going to say that coffee is so Ausome that it is #2 as well as #8.

#7. SCUBA – Stands for Socialist Cuba. Actually, it stands to Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. My silk underoos are still wet from SCUBA diving today for the first time in a year! And I'm still wearing them! SCUBA is awesome. Even when you're just relearning old skills, and you go no deeper than ten feet, SCUBA is amazing. If I ever become a cyborg, I want to be a submersible.

#6. My left hand – If you're like me, you probably don't appreciate your left hand very much (if you're left-handed, you're not like me). You can't really do much with your left hand, and yet you take it for granted. Have you ever had something you really need to do once or twice a day, but your right hand is injured or missing? Guys, you know what I'm talking about. Anagea de Meghan inspired me to become ambidextrous in more than on facet of of life. Right now I have my mouse on the left, and later I might trying using chop sticks with my left hand. My ultimate goal is to learn how to play guitar left-handed, but seeing as I can't even play right-handed, I think I may stick to writing with my left hand.

#5. This pen right here in front of me – Speaking of inane objects... I'm sure you guys can tell I'm making something of a stretch here. Who'd think listing the ten greatest things in the world would be so difficult? Luckily I've got #2 covered already, so I only have three more to go.

#4. Meghan de Anagea – That brings me to the fourth greatest thing in the entire world. Again, I'm making kinda a stretch here because I'm lazy and don't want to think too hard. Also, I figure it's only right to put Anagea de Meghan on this list somewhere if her quote is also on this list, and since people are better than words, she gets to be #4. (Actually, I'm trying to get into her pants. Shhhh, don't say anything.)

#3. Ladies – How could I appreciate #6 and #4 without also appreciating ladies? My hat's off to you, ladies—you're hot. If only we could solve that whole communication thing. If only you would come onto my website and see that I really do appreciate you. But, alas, the only ladies who read this blog also happen to write in this blog, so I'm screwed in the most figurative, non-sexual sense of the word. But seriously, I do like the fact that women exist, because it really helps with that whole perpetuating the species thing.

#2. Coffee and top ten greatest things in the whole world lists – For coffee, see #8 above. For top ten greatest things in the whole world lists, well.... The way I see it, a list of the greatest things in the world is going to be a pretty good list, especially since it's better to know what are the greatest things in the world than it is not to know. In fact, it's probably better than everything else on the list, except one thing. That brings me to....

#1. Me – I have to put myself on here for several reasons. First and foremost, if I'm #1 on a top ten greatest things in the world list, then my chances of getting laid go up that much (sorry guys, this idea could only ever be used once, go try something else). Also, if I have to put myself on this list for much the same reason that I had to put #4 and #3. Frankly, I'm better than a list, because I wrote the list. Also, I'm better than the items on the list, because I put the items on that list. I'm better than myself. I love paradox. But seriously, is there anyone you know who is better than me? Really? I'd like to see you prove it! I've got a list of the top ten greatest things in the world, what have you got? There's no item zero, people! I rule. I'm going to watch House now.

WARNING: May Somehow Spoil 7th Harry Potter Book--Probably Won't

I finished the seventh and final Harry Potter book last night at Katherine's. In between tear-filled moments and half-hearted attempts to ruin the Smith family's collective mind by revealing crucial plot information, I couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of my thoughts. Throughout the entire book I would speculate as to where the story was going, who would die, and who would get married at the end. I am not, however, the type to actually spoil a plot—only the type to drive you into a rage as I pretend to spoil the plot—so don't expect to find anything factual in what I'm about to write. Come to think of it, don't expect to find anything factual in anything I say. Just stop reading.

What am I about to say? Well, in all of my speculating, I couldn't help but procure some rather absurd images in my mind's eye. This happened more and more towards the end of the book, after I had sneaked a peek at the title of the last chapter, which was called Nineteen Years Later. Now, this absolutely confirmed for me a theory I formulated while reading the fifth book for the second time. It was a simple and rather easy theory to guess in the first place, but now I knew. This theory was that J.K. Rowling, with what must be an immense collection of children stories, myths, and classic novels in her head, would not be able to resist writing an account of SOME characters that survived—and their children. Actually, it so confirmed my theory that I didn't need to look any further, and I happily read the entire book without taking anymore peeks at the ending.

This is off-topic, but that's okay, because you don't know where I'm going with this post anyway. I say that Rowling has an immense collection of stories in her head, because as I read all seven Harry Potters feverishly for the ten billionth time I began to see elements of other stories that I had read as a child, or else stories that I was able to cram in between reading Harry Potter books over and over again during my long, lonely, boring summers. I'm not just talking about the obvious stories that any English majors can spot; I'm talking about more obscure stories that you'd need a Classics major or someone who took German or someone who likes history to ferret out (granted, I'm sure there are many other fields she's drawn from, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with). I'm not a Classics major, but I've taken a few classes, as well as studied it on my own. I've also taken quite a bit of German (though I can hardly string two words together in that wonderful language), and I used to be really good in history. I remember spotting quite a few things in Rowling's storytelling that I was surprised an English children's author knew about (perhaps I'm just full of myself), as well as very commonly-known things that I think the books could have done without. I'm not complaining, I really did like the last book. In fact, whatever you say about Rowling's writing capabilities, I think her ability to put together elements from her vast repertoire of literature is rather impressive. It is something at which J.R.R. Tolkien was also very adept. That is why I call the seven Harry Potter books The Condensed Anthology of Western Literature (I just made that up). Just don't ask me what elements I've seen, because I have a poor memory and I don't feel like reading all seven books over again to tell you. Trust me, by the time I finished I would have forgotten already. They're there.

I told you that was off-topic. The real topic of this post is that last chapter. While I was reading the book, I imagined some very funny things that could happen in that chapter, and it is my greatest wish to divulge this unto you, my reader(s?). I hope this inspires him/her(/them?) to make up their own endings to the seventh book and send them my way. Ahem.

Nineteen and Three Quarters Years Later

A black car pulled up to the drop-off area just next to platforms nine and ten at King's Cross station in London. It was an electric Mini Cooper, yet a surprising number of people came out of it carrying large trunks and cages stuffed to the brim with disgruntled owls hooting and gasping for air. Among these people was Harry. As usual, his appearance at the station made quite a few people stare. He was wearing jet-black robes that matched his jet-black hair, and a deep scar could be seen on his forehead. He turned around and extended a robotic wand hand to help a tall, handsome, aging man out of the vehicle.

“Let's go! Let's go!” said an impatient boy behind Harry. Harry's eldest son, he was the spitting image of his grandfather. “I want to get a good compartment before Luno gets here!”

“Alright, alright, Tom!” said Harry. “Ready to go, Dad?”

The tall man nodded, and arm-in-arm they walked through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Suddenly they were on the bustling platform where the Hogwarts express, a scarlet, solar-powered hover-train, rested, waiting to depart. Behind Harry and his father came a young man with pink hair and a slender figure, holding hands with an eleven-year-old boy.

“Tom here seems to be having misgivings about becoming a Wizard,” said Ted Tonks.

“I want to become a witch, like Ted!” said Tom.

“You're not a Metamorphmagi like Ted,” said Harry, “so you can't change into the form of a girl.”

“That's not fair!” said Tom, crossing his arms.

Harry's father kneeled down next to Tom and put a hand on his shoulder. “If you get into my house and work hard enough,” he said, “you'll be able to produce polyjuice potion by the end of your third year, and then you can be any witch you like.”

“Really?” said Tom, with excitement and longing in his eyes.

“Now Tom,” piped a middle-aged woman, addressing Harry's father, “everyone knows that Tom here is going to be in my house. And we were able to produce polyjuice potion by second year.”

“No doubt Ravenclaw is full of very smart witches and wizards,” said Hermione Weasely, emerging onto the platform. Cho slid her arm around Harry's and smirked at Hermione.

“Now girls,” said Ron, appearing behind her, “there's no sense in putting house rivalry into our children before they even board the train.” A timid red-haired boy emerged behind Ron, carrying a gigantic ginger cat in a wicker cage. “Oh, Randall, why don't I take Crookshanks 3.0 and put him in Tom's compartment for you?” Ron took the cage from his son.

“I don't want to sit with that Tom,” said Randall. “He always makes fun of me.”

“Yeah, can't we sit away from Tom?” said Tom. “He keeps telling us we have to put an old, talking hat onto our heads in order to get sorted into houses. That's creepy.”

“Oh, the sorting hat,” said the aged Tom. “I remember setting that on fire on the Headmaster's head once.” All of the adults laughed while the children fidgeted.

"Speaking of the headmast," said Ron, "how is good old Neville doing?"

No one answered him.

The group made its way towards the hover train carrying the luggage. They were joined by a red-haired woman who put her arm around Harry's on the other side of Cho. “I had to lock Tammy in the car,” said Ginny. “She kept trying to sneak onto the train. My mother and father are looking after her,” she added, after receiving a scandalized look from Cho. Cho showed Ginny that she understood by smiling.

Just then a gigantic couple, twice as tall and three times as broad as a normal couple, came onto the platform with their average-sized son. Mr and Mrs Hagrid waved at Harry and his family as they helped their son onto the train.

“Boy, you'd think with those two as parents....” said Hermione, trailing off.

“You know perfectly well that they're only half-giants,” said Ron. “Their son must have gotten all human genes.”

“A know-it-all, as always,” said Hermione, rolling her eyes. Harry noticed his two best friends were standing rather far apart, and shrugged. The two were always edgy when Hermione was pregnant, and with their nineteenth kid on the way....

“Tom, Tom! You two get over here!” yelled Harry. “Give both your mothers a kiss before you leave!”

Both of the young Toms came running over to Harry, Cho and Ginny. The two mothers bent down to hug and kiss their sons. Harry let them shake his robotic hand; they love that.“I was wondering,” said old Tom, “whether I could have a word with the younger Tom before he leaves.”

“Okay, Dad,” said Harry, “but make sure it's quick, the train is leaving soon.”

Old Tom took the youngest Tom's hand and they walked a few paces away. Old Tom then turned around and pulled something from his pocket. Kneeleing down, he handed the youngest Tom a wand.

“I want you to have this,” said old Tom.

“Is that?” started the youngest Tom.

“Yes. That's the wand I used to cut your father's hand off.”

“Grandpa, what happened...”

“You'll find soon enough, Tom. The whole school knows the story.” Old Tom considered his grandson for a few moments. “Your father saved me from my former self.”

“You mean when you were Lord Voldemort?”

“Yes. Your father made me realize who I really am. He made me realize how terrible the crimes were that I committed. Most of all, he made me realize that I was his true father.”

“But James Potter...”

“Yes, James Potter was Harry's biological father, but he was not his true father. There are magical bonds between all people defining their relationships to one-another. The paternal bond is strongest between me and Harry. That is why Harry was able to guess my emotions, and how he showed me the true meaning of love.”

“Love?”

“Yes, boy, love. Love is the strongest magic there is, and it took your father's determination to make me realize that.”

“Tom? Tom!” Ginny yelled from across the platform. “The train is about to leave! You'd better go!”

Old Tom looked at his grandson and smiled. The youngest Tom hugged his grandfather and said, “Thank you, Grandpa! Thanks for the wand!”

“You're welcome. Just don't tell your father you have it. He thinks it's safely hidden away.”

Old Tom stood up and took his grandson's hand, leading him to the train. The youngest Tom boarded, and a few moments later his head emerged, grinning timidly. Old Tom waved and made his way back to his family. The train began to leave slowly. Just then a red-haired man and his son came running towards the train. The boy jumped on at the last minute before the train became too fast to run with, and the red-haired man approached Harry.

“Hi, George.... er.... Wait, which one are you?”

“I'm Clone George,” said the red-haired man, pointing at his ear. “We almost didn't make it. The Ford Angela decided halfway that it wanted to go to an auto show and watch the new hot models. Oil and engine fluid everywhere....”

“You two should have left that piece of junk in the forest,” said Hermione.

“Yeah, well,” said Clone George. “Wait, isn't that Tammy?”

Everyone looked to where Clone George was pointing. Tammy could be seen waving out of the last window before the Hogwarts express turned the corner and vanished.

“Tammy!” Yelled Cho and Ginny together, running down the platform.

“She'll be fine,” Ron said to Harry. “Any girl who can apparate at that age is ready for Hogwarts. And with Ginny and Cho's spliced genes mixed with yours, she'll be a great witch. She'll probably be more powerful than her grandfather Tom here.”

“Not as powerful as the youngest Tom,” said Harry. “He takes after his grandfather the most.”

Old Tom smiled at Harry, and Harry felt a wonderful sensation surge through the scar on his forehead. The Riddle family and their friends stood for a few moments in silent reflection before simultaneously turning around to head home. On the moon.

nada

*rolls eyes*

Dude - Simpsons movie comes out the 27th!
Haha - hence the Spider-Pig!

~musicalsparks

Probabilization

Given my current mental state (that of a sixteen-year-old), it would probably be unwise for me to ask Meghan de Anagea what is happening on the 27th. I know for a fact that I am not going back to Virginia until at least the 30th, so she can’t be excited about that. Actually, I probably don’t have to ask. I can probably go online and check for concerts in the Northern Virginia area that are taking place on the 27th, and lo and behold I will find exactly what is creaming Anagea de Meghan’s “pannies.”

Probably, but I’m not going to. Instead, I will impart on you my theory of probabilization, which I am making up just now in order to kill time while my potential professors write me nice, long, reassuring and heart-warming emails to the effect of I MUST HAVE YOU IN MY COURSE, ANDREW!

Probability is part of the theory of probabilization. That’s as much as I do know. Unfortunately for you, I don’t know a lot, so I’m going to have to tell you what I don’t know. Apparently probabilism is a doctrine in philosophy that probability is enough for belief and action (Answers.com, I love you. Marry me?). Consequentially, my theory of probabilization has to be related in some way or another to this philosophical doctrine. Luckily, as the first sentence in this paragraph will tell you, I have already succeeded in linking the theory of probabilization to probabilism. Simply put, the theory of probabilization and the doctrine of probabilism both necessarily share some connection with probability.

What is this probability anyway? My love tells me that in statistics it is “A number expressing the likelihood that a specific event will occur, expressed as the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to the number of possible occurrences.” I seem to remember failing statistics, so I’m going to trust Answers.com on this one. So in probabilism, the likelihood that something can, should, is able to, may or may not happen is enough for people to do and think stuff. Basically, the motive in probabilism for people to think or act is that something will happen, whatever it is. Thanks a lot, probabilism. Now I’m even less motivated.

My theory is going to blow that doctrine away. First off, let’s look at some other words. My web fiancé says “probably” means “[v]ery likely and without much doubt.” Okay, so here is my theory of probabilization. It is the theory that people who know OF statistical probability will probably make different decisions than people who don’t know of probability, even if the actual statistical probability of each situation is not known. In fact, I’d say this theory goes even if there is no known probability of the situation whatsoever, and the person making the decision has no objective reason to act one way or another. I’d say this theory would also explain why people who actually learn statistics will make different decisions in said situations than people who only know of statistics.

I think this theory probably falls under my general spiteful theory that everything everyone knows or does probably makes them biased. Wait, that’s not a theory, that’s fact. Probably. Damn you, identity. I think the spiteful part is probably that knowing that everything everyone does probably makes them biased probably makes me biased against them. Did I mention my current mental state? I probably need to stop playing computer games until six in the morning, waking up at 10, and playing computer games until noon. Sigh, probably.

How did the pig tracks get on the ceiling?

Ahem...

Spider pig,
Spider pig,
Does whatever a spider-pig does
Can he swing
From a web?
No he can't
He's a pig
Look oooouut
He is a spider-pig

Who can't wait till the 27th?! I know I can't!

~musicalsparks

Apologization...

Dearest Random Hatians,

I apologize for those last three ginormous posts. I made Katherine read my Prehistory short story (actually, I read it to her), and she insisted that I post it. However, since the Prehistory story is actually only the fourth in a series, I had to post the other two (the first one was posted many moons ago).

In other news, Katherine and I are joining forces to bring CFR Pirate Hunters to life--well, to print--well, to digital media. This is actually still tentative, since I don't know how much control I have over Katherine's will to power, and the school year is only weeks away!

In other other news... no... wait... I have nothing more to say!

Take care and nobi,

Andrew

Prehistory

Viewed from above, any vast forest looks like a field, but in the time of the dinosaurs they were much more. A pterodactyl soaring over the expanses would remark that patches of varying green dominate the landscape and that all other things in it—ribbons of blue, small mounds, big mounds, little specks, and so on—are inconsequential in comparison. But too look at a forest from the side, so that it stretches across the horizon, is a different story. From this view the trees present a ribbon of deep green resting on another ribbon of brown. From afar they are like a cliff—inert and sheer. Moving in a little closer will provide one with more detail. The green ribbon turns into a hedgerow, and the brown ribbon turns into a rough fence. Closer still and the treetops sway—cones of green dancing on brown columns. The tips move the most, and the sides—an ancient nonchalant dance that prevents the tree from snapping in the wind. Some leaves fail and flutter off, and some branches fall, but the trees stand strong and unyieldingly yielding. The trunks, too, show a special quality of life. They do not visibly move, though they are teeming with working intelligence. Not animal intelligence—tree intelligence—a sappy sort of smarts that trees share and improve upon as their rings number into the hundreds and thousands. The trunks comprise most of the tree, yet we do not think of a tree without its leaves. And, just as in all life forms, the extremities of trees are not the top and the bottom, the crown and the roots, but the inside and the outside. But really that's not the case at all. Every part of a tree is an extremity—from the woody trunk to the crumbling bark to the moist green leaves.
If the pterodactyl decided to stand on a tree, not only would he be afforded a closer view, but he would see what goes on inside the forest. Focusing on a branch, the pterodactyl could see ants marching on a branching pathway towards the center, carrying leaves to the queen. Focusing further away, the pterodactyl could see a heard of duckbills waddling down a path towards a central watering hole. The tree again: a single stem sticking out for a thick branch, breaking the linear flow. And so too in a forest, when rows of trees are interrupted by one that fell. The tree again: moss growing with little hairs reaching towards the sun. In the forest these are vines stretching through the trees whose roots are hidden under moss-like ferns. And that watering hole must be compared to a leaf-like cup. And yet these things are not really similar at all. They are completely different, in fact. And if the pterodactyl wasn't there, none of this would be observed in such a way. The stupid pterodactyl should be ashamed of itself. It is—the pterodactyl bows its head in shame as it prepares to fly. A small pterodactyl—with out-stretched wings it can still navigate a forest. A red pterodactyl—his scaly body and out-stretched wings give him the appearance of a flame licking the branches. A sad pterodactyl—it does not know what to do or where to go. The shame it feels burns deeply. He knows he cannot trust his feelings any longer, and he knows that he will.
The brontosaurus is up ahead; he will know what to do. The brontosaurus is a blue one, with a long neck that protrudes above the tree line when he stands on his hind legs. The massive trunk-like legs support a massive rock-like body and a trunk-like-again neck for eating leaves. The leaves are most luscious at the top, and the brontosaurus is suited perfectly for munching on them. He doesn't care if the pterodactyl perches on him; he is huge and the pterodactyl is tiny. The pterodactyl perches on him and whispers his problems into his ear. His problems are hard to word, so he whispers. The brontosaurus attentively listens to the problems, his active mouth chewing quietly so as to be able to hear. There are a lot of problems, but most importantly there is the shame. The pterodactyl still feels shameful, and the brontosaurus might be able to help. But, alas, no he cannot. The brontosaurus says that he has nothing to say, and he shakes his head. But shaking a head is a big thing to a brontosaurus, or at least to anything perching on the brontosaurus. His neck sways several meters in each direction, and the pterodactyl is thrown off. The brontosaurus doesn't notice, because the pterodactyl is so tiny, and he is huge. He begins to munch again on the luscious leaves and forgets his friend's shame for him.
The pterodactyl is distraught. It's one thing to forget your own shame, and quite another to forget a friend's. But what can he do? The brontosaurus is content munching his leaves and the pterodactyl is discontent as he makes like a tree. This is not hard to do, since he is on the ground, and already half paralyzed from shock of the fall. Making like a tree only requires being on the ground and becoming fully paralyzed. This is what he does, and the paralyzed posture soothes him a bit. He spreads his wings like branches, and holds his head up like a crown. He allows ants to march over him and look for leaves as the sun's rays warm him. But the ants find no leaves, and the sun gives him no energy. He is disappointing the ants, and he heats up from the sun and from shame. Making like a tree has lost its appeal, and it's about time that he stopped. But if he stops the tyrannosaurus rex will surely spot him. Tyrannosaurs spot things by their movement, and if the pterodactyl stops making like a tree then he must begin to move. He moves slowly, at first, and does not attract the tyrannosaurus. But they are both unaware of each other, and yet one's unawareness will inevitably make the other aware. The pterodactyl, unaware of anything but himself and his shame, proceeds to move more quickly, walking awkwardly across the forest floor. This awkward movement amplifies his quickness, because many limbs are required to move at once to move a pterodactyl—on the ground or in the air. The tyrannosaurus becomes aware, and moves his head over there towards where the pterodactyl's movement lays him bare. Bare and naked, as anyone would be under the wary eye of a tyrannosaurus, the scales on the back of the pterodactyl's neck begin to prick. But the pterodactyl does not feel this; all he feels is shame.
But not for long can a yellow tyrannosaurus—for that is his predominant scale-colour—remain unnoticed in a green forest. The pterodactyl sees him and flees, as quickly as possible—sees him and flies as fast as he can. The tyrannosaurus is no match for a pterodactyl's flight, but a forest is hard to maneuver for both animals, and the one constantly looking back is bound to be caught by the one looking forward—this, because the pterodactyl will eventually run into a tree. It eventually did, and the tyrannosaurus closed in and roared. The roar shook the tree with a resounding shudder. The pterodactyl was too paralyzed to move, but not too paralyzed to shudder, and he did, too. The tyrannosaurus, meters away, would soon get him. And when he had him he would eat him, just like that, because the pterodactyl was tiny and bite-sized. But the tyrannosaurus did not immediately eat him. Why not? From far away to a near-sighted dinosaur a pterodactyl with out-stretched wings looks larger than it actually is. Such a chase for such a tiny meal is disappointing, and the tyrannosaurus lost his appetite. He told the pterodactyl this and left. The pterodactyl had one more thing for which to be shameful—first the ants and now the tyrannosaur. He was just no good for food.
This made him hungry. Shame and hunger should not occupy the same mind at the same time. The pterodactyl knows this, but he was hungry anyway, and therefore more ashamed. To hide his shame he wants to satisfy his hunger, and to satisfy his hunger would bring him more shame, and yet less shame at the same time—one shame in one instance, and another in another, that is how things go for ashamed and hungry pterodactyls. Forgetting his fear, his only thought is food—and shame. He shamefully rises from the foot of the tree and ashamedly scans the forest for food. There is no food in the forest for a hungry ashamed pterodactyl; he must make his way to a clearing. But the sky is beginning to darken, and the clouds are beginning to fill, and the pterodactyl doesn't notice this, because the trees are in the way. The trees are in the way of the sky and of the clearing, and the pterodactyl cannot see where he is going. He cannot see the brontosaurus lumbering slowly away from the storm, and he cannot see the tyrannosaurus quietly sneaking after him, his appetite regained—it's no use for him, the tyrannosaurus, because brontosauruses are too big for them, tyrannosauruses; but the tyrannosaurus won't see this until he is closer. In the meantime, the pterodactyl is making his way towards where he thinks the clearing is. Luckily for him, lightening flashes some way off and illuminates the clearing—better than that: the lightening sparks a small, contained brush fire in the clearing, and the pterodactyl is afforded a beacon to follow.
The clearing at last—it's clear and bright with fire. Conveniently the fire is in the very center, and it illuminates the entire clearing with yellow, red and orange. The clearing is just large enough for such a tiny pterodactyl to circle with ease, and just small enough for him to see the other side from any other side. He scans and flies and flies and scans, training his eye to accommodate the low light flickering on the passing trees. Orange, orange, yellow, orange, red. Red! He sees a red fox—really orange, but red all the same! At least, it's not flickering firelight. The pterodactyl makes another turn around the field and prepares for the swoop. The fox is not paying attention; he is talking to a tortoise—something about annoying racing rabbits and jobs that need to be done: broken legs, families eaten, yadda, yadda, yadda. As if the pterodactyl really cares—he should be ashamed of himself for not caring. He is. His shame wins out over his hunger, and he decides to call the dive. But doing so requires a lot of movement in his outer extremities, and the sage and ever-watchful tortoise sees this and points it out to the fox. Foxes know that they're the favourite food of hungry pterodactyls, and even though the shameful pterodactyl is quite obviously pulling out of the dive, the fox is still afraid. The tortoise hides within his shell as the fox quickly bolts in the opposite direction towards his den—except his den is now just under the pterodactyl, who has since flown around the field twice, yelling something incoherent to the fox. The voice of a pterodactyl to a fox sends a chill down the spine, and the fox looses all control of his reason. He turns and bolts, running straight through the contained fire in the center of the field. Now his coat is aflame, and it's painful, and so he runs harder and closes his eyes. He runs straight into the forest, and catches it on fire, and dies.
The ferns on the edge of the forest were first to be consumed by the flame, for they had not been protected by the trees, and were dried out a bit by the sun every day. From the ferns the fire spread quickly up the vines, which are always thin enough to catch fire. The fire, fueled by the ferns and the vines, quickly heated up enough to catch the thinnest branches of the trees on fire—the dancing branches of the trees were the first to go. Acting the opposite of how fires generally do, this fire slowly consumed the trees from the outer most branches in, instead of consuming from within. This gave the trees the image of implosion in slow motion—the fire burning hotter in each tree as it meandered along the branching pathways towards the trunk, gathering more and more fuel—wood and ants. An acre of the forest is consumed in this fashion before the brontosaurus notices. He is too huge and too slow to make it out of the forest before the fire catches him, and he burns slowly in agony and crashes to the forest floor. The tyrannosaurus who was intent on consuming the brontosaurus no longer sees his meal for lack of movement on the dead brontosaurus' part. Now he sees the forest fire, but his eyesight is so bad that he thinks it's dinner, and he stalks towards the fire unawares. Aware too late, the tyrannosaurus is consumed by the flames. The trees are burning faster and faster, their ancient intelligence disintegrating ring by ring. The nonchalant dance of the branches is replaced by the malicious dance of the flames. Their outer extremities that moved, danced and swayed are gone, and their inner extremities burn in agony, though they do not move to show it at all. The entire forest now screams in a manner that only trees can scream—in a way that creatures feel more than they hear; and all creatures in the forest can feel this screaming. Eventually the entire horizon is aflame, and the pterodactyl flies away, his outer extremities moving frantically and furiously, his inner extremities burning with shame. The world doesn't have enough forests.

Tweedy Dee and Ruby

Two lovebirds sitting in a tree gazed wildly at each other; something was up. 'Wildly' is an inexpressive or ilexpressive word; one lovebird was wild—the other: tame. The wild lovebird’s expression was wild but sage. The other lovebird’s expression was that of one sitting in a cage: dull yes sharp and restless yet relaxed. How these qualities came to be—present in one lovebird at once—no one can ever know—except the other lovebird. The other lovebird had a wild look, as said, and crazed too, as is unsaid, yet as a saying once went:
Look on, ye warriors,
Not at the battle ahead,
But beyond that,
At your families instead,
And know this, then,
That if you see them again
You surely are not dead.
Poetic challenges as such are never clear, but it is clear what is meant: the lovebird from the wild looks crazed before battle. He knows not what may happen, but only what lies beyond. The lovebird from the cage does not recognize the battle—there is no struggle in cagedom, and cagedom is his life. Yet wisely he knows that something is up.
“What’s up?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, why should I? How could I know?”
“Ha! You really don’t know?”
“Nope.”
“Ha, ignorance is bliss.”
“And apathy is enlightenment.”
“You really don’t know?”
“Know? Why should I? How could I know?”
“It’s pointedly obvious.”
“Pointedly obvious?”
“It’s staring you right in the face!”
“Pointedly obvious?”
“It can’t get any pointier or more obvious.”
“Well then, I must know.”
“You don’t.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Oh, so you do know.”
“What are we going to do about this nest?”
“This nest? What do you mean?”
“This nest, it must be cleaned.”
“Cleaned? It is clean! How do you mean, clean?”
“I mean it must be cleaned.”
“Cleaned…”
“And fixed.”
“Fixed? Fixed! Oh, you’re right. Look at it!”
“There’s a twig missing here, and a twig missing there.”
“And some leaves and stems and that ribbon is loose.”
“What will we use to replace the ribbon?”
“I don’t know. I know!”
“What? What?”
“We’ll use cedar bark shavings. I’ll gnaw them myself.”
“Gnaw away. I’ll try to fix the ribbon in the meantime.”
“Do we even have time?”
“Time is always there—there’s just never enough.”
“Right, let’s get to work.”
“Pointedly obvious?”
“What?”
“How can something be pointedly obvious?”
“It can, it means it’s incredibly obvious.”
“But pointedly means obviously.”
“Right.”
“So it means obviously obvious.”
“Right.”
“Or pointedly pointed.”
“Right.”
“Or obviously pointed.”
“Right.”
“But if something is obviously pointed, or pointedly obvious, or obviously obvious, or pointedly pointed, then it is not necessarily obvious or pointed.”
“Explain.”
“Well obvious and pointed both mean apparent, right?”
“Right.”
“And obviously and pointedly both mean apparently, right?”
“Right.”
“So anything that is apparently some way might be some other way.”
“Right.”
“And something that is apparent is as it is.”
“Right.”
“So it’s almost a contradiction: apparently apparent, obviously obvious, pointedly pointed—they all mean something that is both as it is and not necessarily as it is.”
“Well, in that case, pointedly does not mean apparently.”
“No?”
“And obvious does not mean apparent.”
“Then what do they mean?”
“Pointedly means assuredly. Obvious means assured.”
“So something that is pointedly obvious is also assuredly assured.”
“Right.”
“No, that can’t be.”
“No?”
“No, that can’t be. Something that is assured is something that made certain. Assuredly means certainly, so assuredly assured means certainly made certain.”
“And why does that not work?”
“No, it does. I guess it does.”
“Yeah.”
“But it doesn’t seem to work.”
“No? Why not?”
“No. Because I figured out what pointedly means.”
“What does pointedly mean?”
“It means ‘coming to a conclusion.’”
“Does it?”
“Yes, I remember now.”
“Oh. What does obvious mean, then.”
“You were right about it meaning assured.”
“Yeah, certainly, assured, obvious.”
“Yeah, let’s get to work.”
“I’ll gnaw, you fix.”
“I’ve fixed it.”
“Fixed it? The ribbon?”
“Yes, but you gnaw.”
“But you fixed it.”
“Yes, I fixed it.”
“The ribbon is fixed, I don’t need to gnaw. The ribbon is fixed.”
“But we need the shavings.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, but we need them.”
“You’re right, shavings are always useful.”
“Yes, so gnaw away, I’ll look for twigs.”
“Do we need twigs?”
“I think so, yes.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. For the nest. The nest is in disrepair.”
“Oh, right, for the nest.”
The two lovebirds went at it—gnawing and biting and chewing and fixing the nest. The crazed look had slightly diminished in the wild lovebird, but the dull look is ever present in a lovebird from a cage. Cagedom, as said, does this to a bird; it breeds boredom from a cage—boredom that permeates the air outside of the cage, so that free birds feel caged when caged birds feel free. They are mutually exclusive yet completely inseparable qualities—cagedom and freedom—when a bird is ever caged. When a former caged bird is released, then he is free, but his freedom is subjective to the other birds, and they feel the cagedom. Not this particular wild lovebird, however.
“Why are we fixing this thing again?”
“Because it is in disrepair.”
“And why do we care?”
“Why shouldn’t we care?”
“It’s in disrepair because we do not care.”
“It is in disrepair, but that does not mean that we do not care.”
“I do not care.”
“I don’t care either.”
“Then why are we fixing this thing?”
“Because it is in disrepair.”
“But neither you nor I really care that it is in disrepair.”
“Others care.”
“Right, others do care.”
“But what do we care what others care?”
“We should care.”
“But others don’t care that we care.”
“Explain.”
“Others don’t care that we care that they care that this thing is in disrepair. Others only care that this thing is in disrepair.”
“What do we care what others care?”
“Exactly, what do we care what others care?”
“Right, exactly. Let’s do something else.”
“Yes, let’s. Eat. Food.”
“What food do we have?”
“Spray millet and cedar shavings.”
“Ha! You were right. Those cedar shavings will come into use.”
“So we can eat them?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I didn’t know that you could eat cedar shavings.”
“You can.”
“Can you?”
“Oh, I thought you were saying you can. Why did you make me shave them if you can’t?”
“I didn’t make you shave them so that we could eat them. I don’t think we can eat them. I made you shave them for something else.”
“What else is there that we can do with them?”
“We can replace the ribbon with them.”
“But I thought you fixed the ribbon.”
“I did.”
“Then?”
“It’s no good.”
“What’s no good?”
“The ribbon.”
“The ribbon?”
“Yes, the ribbon. I fixed it, but it came undone again.”
“Ah, so we will use the shavings.”
“But we’re going to eat.”
“No, we’re not going to eat. You just said yourself that you don’t know if you can eat the shavings.”
“Not the shavings. We won’t eat the shavings. But we will eat first.”
“Oh, right, yes, we should eat first.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“Oh, here comes Tweedy Dee.”
“Really?”
“Yes, here he comes, he’s flying quickly.”
“Hey, mates.”
“Yo.”
“Hey.”
“How are things.”
“Great, as always.”
“Well.”
“We were just about to eat.”
“Care to join?”
“Sure! That’d be great.”
“Great.”
“Well.”
“Well what?”
“Just well.”
“What were we talking about?”
“I don’t know, I just got here.”
“Not you. You, what were we talking about?”
“We were talking about ribbon.”
“Ribbon, right.”
“What about the ribbon?”
“The ribbon needs fixing.”
“Why does the ribbon need fixing?”
“We don’t know why, but it does.”
“Yes, that’s what we were talking about. We don’t know why we need to fix the ribbon. We only know why we fix the ribbon.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it needs to be fixed.”
“So you only know why you fix the ribbon, not why you need to fix the ribbon?”
“Right.”
“But if you don’t know why you need to fix the ribbon, then why do you fix the ribbon?”
“Because it needs to be fixed.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s.”
“It’s what?”
“It’s—it is.”
“It is it is?”
“No, no. I just find it funny that we shorten it is to it’s, but never use it’s alone as a sentence on its own.”
“That is funny.”
“That’s complicated.”
“That’s confusing.”
“What’s confusing?”
“That is confusing”
“That?”
“Yes, that, the word.”
“What word?”
“That?”
“You two are confusing.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s.”
The three lovebirds perched in silent sensory overload. The smell of the cedar, the taste of the millet, the ribbon, the twittering of other lovebirds, the feel of wind through the branches, and now the utter confusion—all six senses were overloaded at this point. There was naught to do but wait and wait.
They waited as the sun hit its highest extreme, sending its warmth down to the animals while the shadows disappeared. Except in the trees—no warmth reaches the trees since shadows never disappear in the trees. The trees did not gently sway in the wind, though the wind was quite gentle. Cedar trees are stiff and their branches are stout. They do not sway, but merely give way a bit. Their smell, that cedar smell, permeated the air, yet one does not smell it, that is, one does not take it in, since it is overwhelming in a cedar grove. The trees, the branches, the loose bits of bark gave way little in the breeze, and the entire forest looked as if it was vibrating.
This the three lovebirds noticed at once.
“The trees are vibrating.”
“Yeah, they are.”
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“The trees are vibrating, it must be windy.”
“I don’t feel a wind.”
“The trees are windbreakers.”
“The trees creak. Listen.”
“I don’t hear it; I have bad hearing.”
“Then feel it. The trees are creaking—feel the vibrations.”
“I feel it. I don’t like it. It makes me feel as if the tree is going to snap.”
“The tree isn’t going to snap. It would take gale-force winds to decimate this old growth forest.”
“We’re not in an old growth tree.”
“But all the trees around us are our tree-growth or older. Don’t worry so much.”
“I always worry. I have to worry.”
“Bah.”
“Bah.”
“Thanks, guys. You really help a lot.”
“We do what we can.”
“We can’t do much.”
“No, you’re right. You can’t.”
“It’s like what we were saying about pointedly obvious things.”
“But that conversation was never resolved.”
“Exactly, that conversation was never resolved. And neither will this one be resolved.”
“Thanks, you really know how to make a bird feel better about himself.”
“Well, you have to look at it logically.”
“You and your logic. Logic doesn’t take emotions into account.”
“Your logic doesn’t take emotions into account. My logic does, since it’s illogical to not take things into account that affect everything else that is taken into account.”
“Logic has ruined us all.”
“Nah, logic has saved us.”
“But….”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re going to quote that author you’ve been listening to. Don’t”
“Reading, not listening to.”
“Listen.”
“What?”
“Ruby’s back.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“There she is. She looks angry.”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“There she goes.”
“Ergo, I go. Cheers, mates.”
“Catch.”
“No, bye.”
The two original lovebirds were left to feel out their emotions logically.
“I told you it was pointedly obvious.”
“You call that pointedly obvious?”
“The ribbon needs fixing.”
“I told you.”
“If we don’t fix it, the jaanes will be angry.”
“Yeah, because they’ll come home to a nest blown away by the wind.”
“It’s resolved, then. We’ll fix it.”
“It’s never resolved, but we’ll fix it anyway.”
“I feel caged.”
“I do that to birds.”
“Not by you, by the jaanes.”
“My jaan makes me feel better.”
“You’re right, mine does too.”
“Good.”
“Well."

Buggy Delight

"Come! Come!"
"No! No!"
"Yes! Yes!"
The beetle and the bug were at it again: fighting, as they do, over nothing. They stood, poised timidly on the edge of a glass dish. Both were hungry, and both were afraid.
'Won't you come?' thought the beetle. "Won't you come?" he said.
'Yes I will,' thought the bug. "It's not safe," she said. 'A little longer.'
The bug sat down as if determined to stay. The dish was big enough for the two. The beetle sat down in dismay. Abjectly he began to clean his six legs, and then gave up, then began again. "Why won't you come?"
"Vahroom?"
"Why?" It was a legitimate question, but he would never get a straight answer.
"Why should I come?" the bug replied. 'If he doesn't move, I will have to. But I am afraid.'
'I am afraid,' thought the beetle, ‘to force her into this.’ "Are you afraid you might get hurt?"
"No, it's not that," 'But yes.'
"Then... what?"
"What?"
"That's what I said. What?"
"I just don't want to go, that's all. It's not safe, after all."
"But you said you were not afraid."
'How am I to get out of that? He'd better make a move.' Silence. The beetle sat and contemplated his legs and hers. The bug sat and merely contemplated. The beetle stirred one arm, one hand—but it went nowhere. The bug got up. "Come on!" she said.
"I was just about to say that!"
'Well, you didn't.' "No you weren't. Come on!"
"I was! I said it earlier." The beetle took the bug's hand and they made their way down the dish. Glass clarity turned into burnt brownness, and the smell of ginger made their heads spin. "Let's eat this!" He said, pointing towards their feet.
"Mmm, let's," 'but I want to go see that orange stuff!' They sat and began breaking off bits of crust—crumbs of crumbs. They fed it to each other, as couples are wont to do, and never tired of the act. ‘But I want to save some room for that orange goo, too!”
“I’m stuffed,” proclaimed the beetle as his belly growled. He could always eat more.
“So am I. Let’s just sit!” They sat just so: comfortably, but not at peace with their stomachs. It’s impossible to tell which is which, when two stomachs growl, and even harder to tell if one’s hungry or not. Soon the two fell into discontented contemplation, and the beetle looked at his hands. “What?”
“What?”
“What are you thinking?”
“My hands are cold. This plate is cold. We should not sit on it.” He wanted to stand, anyhow, in order to relieve his cramp.
“Five more minutes,” said the bug. ‘I actually want to go now.’
“No, let’s go now, if you could, please?”
“Okay, fine, have it your way.” ‘Yay!’ The two walked slowly towards the orange goo. It smelled like fruit and spice, and tasted just as nice. The beetle dug right in, ignoring his undecided stomach and all sense of self and manner. The bug elegantly glided a hand across the surface, and licked her fingers. ‘I wish I could do that!’ “What a slob you are!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, as he quickly licked his fingers. He stopped eating altogether, and eyed the pie instead.
‘Idiot,’ thought the bug, ‘He doesn’t have to stop eating completely.’ She took a hand and dipped it into the goo, pulling up the tiniest amount. “Here.” She offered it to him, and he hungrily accepted the morsel.
“Thank you,” the beetle said with his mouth full of goo. “What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?” ‘I want to eat; feed me!’
“I mean, would you like to do something else?”
“Hmm. What would you like?”
“I want to swim in the goo!”
“Go right ahead. I’m not stopping you!” ‘What an idiot he is!’
“Come with me!”
‘No, I’m fine right where I am.’ “Fine.” The bug offered her hand to the beetle, and rose on her own when the hint was not taken. The beetle grabbed her hand unexpectedly and ran. “Ow, you’re hurting me!”
“Oh,” said the beetle, letting go quickly. “I’m sorry!”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“What?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Who says I’m afraid.” ‘I dunno what I’m afraid of, but I am.”
“Nothing can happen in the goo. Come on! It will be fun.”
‘I am afraid, but I will go.’ “Fine.”
The beetle returned to the bug and took her hand, pulling gently but eagerly. She could not give way, but she had to give way—he was simply bigger and more persistent.
Hand in hand they approached the slushy goo with timid interest, pausing every once in a while, perking an antennae, twitching a third middle abdominal leg, and accepting the fact that there’s really nothing they could do if the housecat came by, and resolving to be more courageous despite it all. Then they would move forward and repeat the process once again, forgetting their acceptance and resolution in one fell swoop. A swoop not unlike that of a bird—that bird that just swooped and ate them both. That swoop was a perfect swoop, and it fell during the perfect moment of the beetle’s and the bug’s perfect lives.
The bird gathered speed and sped towards a tree. The picnic table was no place to be. The sun was low and soon the lights would go on—green lights and white—white porch lights attracting green fireflies, and little black specs all around.
Those black specs were the lady bugs—flying gracefully into the lights with a buk. Buk buk buk, the bird heard from his tree haven. Buk buk buk buk buk. The sound is delicious. Buk buk buk buk buk buk buk. There are millions of them flying into a single porch light. The bird cannot stand it. The beetle and bug were not enough. Ladybugs, ladybugs, ladybugs! Yum! Buk.
Swoop, fell the bird, his stomach pulling him towards the light. To dodge the draught would mean safety, but that does not matter. Dodge the draught and be hungry longer? Never! His heavy stomach would see him through it, and the beetle and bug would do their part.
Buk.
The bird was on the railing.
Buk.
Which one? Which one? Which one?
Buk.
A million to one—he needn’t be picky.
Buk.
He will just go for it, beak open wide.
Buk.
Into the swarm he dove, the light blinding but bearable.
Buk.
Zigging and zagging, the bird’s mouth was quickly full.
Buk.
Already the bird had had enough. Too many ladybugs can spoil a stomach, and there still was some pumpkin pie left out on the picnic table. The bird flitted in flight to the sweet pie, perching on the dish with long thin toes and ravenous eyes.
“Come, sweet, my candy delight, and hither shall we eat in darkening twilight,” croaked the crow—for that was what it was. It was the bird with black feathers and beak toes and talons and eyes—the bird that could eat beetles, bugs or pies. “Your gooy goo entices me.” The crow dug in, watched from affair by a man who had poisoned the pie in order to kill the ladybugs.

Junk

Seriously - that song kicks so much ass!

Anyway, about an hour ago, when I was turning the horses out, apparently our neighbors saw bears on the other end of our property! Fuck bears! Of course my dad decided the best course of action would be to try to get as close as possible to them to get a picture - luckily for him, they were gone by then.

Bears... evil... however, our neighbor said that bears will avoid horse herds at all costs. So now I can just hide in my horses' herd if I see a bear .

Screw bears...

~musicalsparks

Comment and Countercomment from a Really Old Post

From "Speaking of Herpes: Something that Really Sucks"

1 Comment - Show Original Post

Anonymous said...

Does there have to be a point to poetry? I don't know the answer to this question - I'm not being facetious, just trying to shock you a little bit into not being so derisive. Think about it. Whenever I immerse myself in Eliot I feel bewildered - yet he is my favourite poet. Yeates blathers on about lapis lazuli - but that man could turn a phrase like none other.

Hi Andrew. I am Anna Maxymiw. Use my first name when you refer to me in articles. Fascinatingly enough, you were my first flame review. I am excited in a way - if nobody is talking about you, be it bad or good or all the shit in between, then you are not worth talking about. You make me want to defend myself but more than that, talk to you.

I had a fabulous highschool career. My memories from that time were some of the best in my life - next to university, of course. Every year here at Queen's gets better and better with the people I continue to meet. And I do believe that university life greatly differs from life at home - you expand in ways that are only available to you when you live in a rickety house with five other girls and one bathroom, or when you are tucked away alone behind stacks of books.

Maybe I was just unlucky enough to be the first poem you read or the poem in the centerfold. Maybe you genuinely hate my writing - I can't blame you for that. Maybe you're sick of Queen's kids and the cookie-cutter brat category they often fall into - I especially don't blame you for that. We all have moments - weak, "grey" - whatever. I chose to document it. I chose to not go anonymous and to put my weak grey shit out there. I will not condemn you for the bad review - authors and writers who do that are bogus and angry and not well respected. I only wish you had posted a contact page somewhere on all of your various websites so I could have properly talked to you.

But maybe you can properly talk to me. anna_max@hotmail.com. I'm offering it to you because I crave feedback - in all forms. Dare to read other poems of mine and see if your mindset changes at all.

And for the record - you're dead on with at least one thing.

I don't like winter.

July 12, 2007 4:59 PM

Hi Anna,

I was very pleased and rather surprised to see your comment. I had no clue that people outside of me, my friend Meghan (musicalsparks) and occasionally my mom ever visited my website. I was doubly pleased and surprised by the forcefulness of your comment.

To answer your first question, no, I do not think there has to be a point to poetry. I think there are many reasons for writing poetry, which is why there are so many different, wonderful styles of poetry. I think that people write poems mostly because they want to (as you put it so succinctly) document parts of their lives and their thoughts. However, I also believe that more often than not a poet has one unique reason or another for writing a particular poem, and so s/he writes towards some sort of end that more or less unifies the poem into a piece of art. In fact, I believe that all poems outside of those written as sporadic bursts of random words and phrases are written with a point in mind. Hell, even with sporadic poems, the poet is at least trying to be random, so there's a point to the poem--even if that point is not revealed in the poem. I hope I'm not confusing you. I'm not a very clear writer.

I would like to apologize for sounding derisive (good word, by the way). This is actually a quality of mine that I find annoying; in an effort to sound funny or entertaining, I go overboard and can sound very mean when I'm not trying to be. My friends are a group comprised mostly of people who can tolerate this particular quality, or who see through it, or who are just as seemingly-mean-spirited-but-not-actually-so as I am (this group is a very small but quick-witted one). I may sound like a pretentious people-hater, but really I'm just socially awkward and uncouth.

I must also admit that I didn't really dislike your poem as much as my "bad review" may suggest. In fact, it wasn't your poem that annoyed me so much as the reeling memories it brought to surface. I think I was reminded of Eliot when I read your poem (I can't remember exactly, since this was few months ago, and my review never really marked me as something worth remembering). Your poem also reminded me of my very depressing (and often depressed) high school friends who ate words like "bleak," "grey" and "disordered" for breakfast then vomited them out all day when I was trying to concentrate on the concept of absolute nothingness. Actually, I must apologize again. In an effort to make my vomiting statement funny, I neglected to tell the truth. I only had one really depressing friend like that, and she didn't eat words like that every morning so much as take them in pill form whenever she had a mood-swing, or whatever metaphor you might prefer (she was bipolar). Really, I just have such a sunny disposition (truly I do) that I roll my eyes when other people use depressing words, which is partially why I asked whether there was a point to your poem—I just couldn't decide whether you were justified, in my eyes, in using those words.

Now, before I try to imagine the look of utter indignation on your face as you realize that my entire review was written out of a built-in psychological prejudice of mine, I would like to state the point that I hope readers (all four of them, if I include you) will have gotten out of said review. Simply put, I want them to ask themselves "why?" if they ever write a poem. And I don't just mean why they are writing the poem, but why are they using this or that particular word or phrase, or why are they using this style over another style? I actually don't take half of my poems seriously anymore, because I know that they were merely efforts to learn one style or another, or just to pass the time in economics class (my most prolific burst of poetry writing happened when I was still in economics and I needed a creative avenue to dull the pain of mesmerizing boredom). I realize that using some common words and phrases can be helpful, because there is a general understanding for what they mean, and the audience isn’t forced to think it over too much. After all, this response is littered with clichéd phrases like “in fact,” “after all,” “to answer your first question,” “said review,” etc. But if you read any of my ghastly poems (under the Random Hat literature section) you'll find that I have written comments at the bottom of the pages explaining why I was writing this or that poem, or using this or that word (sometimes you have to highlight the words with your cursor, because I purposely made them the same color as the background). Unfortunately publications like the Queen's Feminist Review don't give their artists space to do that, which is why I love the internet so much (though not quite so much as to capitalize the ‘i”).

Your comment reminded me of something very important about reviews that I had forgotten. A good reviewer doesn’t say whether a piece of art (a poem, a painting, a play, etc.) is good or bad, but gives arguments for and against the art, and lets the audience decide to commend or condemn it based on those arguments (I think I got this from questionablecontent.net). I am not a good reviewer. However, www.randomhat.com is not a website for literary criticism, but a half-hearted attempt to entertain people and make them laugh, and that is exactly what I was trying to do with my review. Unfortunately, most of my writing is geared towards the Meghan demographic and is perhaps lost to outsiders. Anyway, I’m sorry about that.

As a last apology, I would like to say sorry for not having a contact page. I used to have one, but it was accidentally deleted in a feverish attempt to rearrange and organize my html. At the bottom of both of my home pages should be a “mailto” link: andrew@randomhat.com. (I'll try to put one back, my internet connection permitting. There... it's up.)

Now, to take a (hopefully) unexpected turn, I’d absolutely love to read some more of your poems in order to challenge my mindset (the fact that you used that word has already helped). I will actually go as far as to ask you to write for randomhat.com. You wouldn’t get paid or anything, but you’d be allowed to say whatever you want and have full blog access (so long as when you write poems you occasionally tell our audience the whys of your writing). Let me know what you think. In the meantime, I’ll post your comment and my response in a… post… so that anyone who accidentally stumbles onto my website will have a better chance of reading the two.

Take care and nobi,

Andrew