Hell Labs: Ironic Punishments Division

I do apologize for dropping off the face of the earth, but I've just feeling too sick to write. For the past few months I have been whipsawing between nausea and voracity. The cruelest part of the whole situation is that it's like being carsick, in that reading makes it so much worse, which is a special kind of hell for a librarian. This stage should have ended weeks ago, and I do feel a slight lifting.

I try to eat my way out of nausea, and when I do it affords me a small window of relief before the queasiness settles back in. And when I eat it's not pretty, it's in a gulping, gasping, urgent manner that reminds me of the mess hall scene in Alien. John Hurt seemingly recovered, ravenous and strangely jovial for someone who had recently had a pulsing leathery horseshoe crab like alien affixed to his face, joins the crew for a meal in the mess hall. He repeatedly declares how hungry he is and attacks the food. Before he can greedily down more than a few bites, he begins to cough and convulse until the alien bursts from his chest in a spectacular plume of gore.

I read that the director, Ridley Scott, decided to do a little method experiment and not let the rest of the cast in on what was going to take place in the scene, so their ghastly reactions of shock and horror were completely genuine. Come to think of it, this whole scene is more of an apt metaphor for pregnancy than I would care to dwell on right now.

Back to hosting my own little adorable parasite...

The Daily Coyote

I so hope that this is not going to end in "The Yearling" style heartbreak, but I'm adoring the photos for now:

http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/

A cousin was telling me how when he lived in Jackson Hole he saw a coyote slink up in broad daylight and snatch and carry off a 15 pound pug that had been sunning itself on his neighbor's porch. And not to be its bride, I'm afraid - no trace of the pug was every found. His neighbors had just moved from New York City and found out the hard way that a pug, defenseless in every way, is not the best choice of pet in Wyoming.

Pot, Kettle

Dateline: front of the library, 8:45 AM.
A seedy looking couple waiting for the doors to the library to open so they could begin their morning toilette bickered. The woman, clutching her breakfast Colt 45, began to upbraid her companion. She pointed her finger at him and declared, “You need to shape up and start getting your shit together!”

I believe those in the field of psychology would call this a classic case of projection.

Big News

I deeply apologize for falling off the face of the earth. I have been working on a creative project of a different sort lately and it has completely kicked my ass. If things go well, we'll be expecting the little pitter pat of feet in June. More details soon, I promise.

Earthquake Country

A colleague from San Jose sent us pictures of the mess the latest earthquake out there caused. Life in earthquake country... When I was in library school, I visited a friend in San Francisco for spring break. He was a first year medical student, and he gave me a tour of his classrooms and laboratory. There was one lab that had all of its shelves lined with glass jars of fetuses in all the stages of development, from their unrecognizably alien beginnings all the way to babies so far along they must have been full term stillborns.

The fetuses were perfectly preserved. They had an eerie air of peacefulness, and looked as if they were each floating silently in an artificial, transparent womb. I stared at them so long with such morbid yet clinical fascination that I had almost had to be dragged away. Years later my friend told me that these jars had not been secured properly, and during an earthquake they had all crashed to the floor, their contents exploding into a heaping stew of glass shards, fetuses and preservation liquid. Bad day for the custodial staff.

My friend also introduced me to his dissection cadaver, a woman who had died of systemic scleroderma, a horrific autoimmune disease that sounds like some sort of gypsy curse. Basically, your body’s production of collagen goes haywire, slowly petrifying your skin and your organs until you die from suffocation and organ failure. It is a prolonged, agonizing death, and it has been the stuff of my nightmares ever since.

From The Onion

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

Panelists discuss ways to care for the nation's paranoid schizophrenics, such as hiding cameras in their homes or audio transmitters in their ears.

"We have to give them practical advice, too, like tell them which bus drivers hate them, which manholes are covering up underground government prisons, which statues don't love them anymore..."

All the Porn that's Fit to Print

Hello, I need a publisher’s contact information. For a magazine.

No problem. What is the name of the magazine?

It’s a…uh…an adult magazine. Is that O.K.?

“Go ahead,” I replied using the weary, flat affect of one who’s heard it all, a tone I’ve been really cultivating lately.

Mandate. One word, I think.

I turned to Ulrich’s, the venerable, authoritative reference source of bibliographic and publisher information for periodicals. I wasn’t sure if Ulrich’s indexed smut, but I was quite curious to find out, since I really wasn’t eager to see what a Google search would turn up.

“I found two, one published by the United Church of Canada and the other by Mandate Publications LTD. I have a hunch it’s the latter.”

I had to say that I like the authoritative quality of that title, and the humorous pun for which that genre of magazine is often known. I saw that Ulrich’s categorized Mandate under the subject heading “Men’s Interest.” I wondered what other publications had that subject heading. The journals ranged from fashion and lifestyle, like Vogue Homme and Cigar Aficiando, to erotica to the hardcore, to the deviant - some really sick shit. Oh, I had my fun browsing the list of titles the rest of the afternoon.

Skin Mag titles:

The Straightforward: Big Butt, Boobs, Mega Boobs, Big & Black

The colloquial: Juggs – I like how the double g’s give the visual of two pendulous knockers

Fetish: Dominantly Yours, Foot Worship, Women in Power

Decade specific: 40 and Over! Once you mature out of that, there’s 50 and Over!

Act specific: Pussy Grazer, which I think sounds lackadaisical, for the dilettante, not the true enthusiast. If I were the publisher I would definitely choose a title that conveyed something more forceful, like Carpet Ripper.

Illegal: Family Heat - just as the name implies - gross

Bizarre: Girls and Corpses – nymphos posed next to moldering corpses. Necrophilia with a sense of humor. Fangoria meets Oui. Marriage of Thanatos and Eros.
Disturbingly Self Explanatory: Zoo. The only other language edition that exists is in, of all things, Afrikaanse. What the hell goes on in the veldt?

Uncomfortable porn memory:

A former neighbor of mine was a strange loner who lived in a house with his shut in mother. He dressed just like his idol, latter day Elvis, complete with side burns, white jumpsuit, and large, gold metal sunglasses. One time we met on the sidewalk and I stopped to say hello. My dog Sid was a rambunctious puppy then and wrapped his leash around his ankles. It startled my neighbor and caused him to drop his grocery bag. Around 10 hardcore skin mags skidded out onto the sidewalk. We both looked down, our eyes locking with the dead eyed come hither stares of the cover girls. Boy, that was awkward. I apologized, extricated Sid and left.

The President of the Animal Kingdom

"I didn't RTFA, so I'm just guessing gangs of wild goats ate the homeless. Once goats get the taste for human flesh, they'll never go back to tin cans again. This is problematic."

Goats destroy homeless habitat. I hope these goats famously indiscriminate digestive systems can handle all of the hypodermic needles.


Billy, Spoon and I pass by an overgrown hillside on our morning walk each day. The other morning the hill was covered with goats. The dogs were dumbstruck and stood frozen, staring in disbelief. We stood and watched the goats for awhile as they placidly and efficiently denuded the hillside. It was mesmerizing. The goats finished up the hillside in a few days but now every time we walk past the hill they smell the air and look for them.

I adore goats. I worked at the stables at my beloved summer camp all through college and graduate school. Every summer horses would arrive from several different stables from around the state and it would be 3 days of hell while they sorted out their pecking order. Once the hierarchy was established, the situation in the paddock was much more tranquil, although there were always a few who bore such enmity and bad blood for each other that we had to keep separated from each other permanently. This was especially crucial on trail rides or in the riding ring, when the horses wouldn’t let the fact that there were campers riding on them stop them from settling scores. One time when I was a camper on a trail ride I got my foot viciously kicked by my horse’s bitter enemy while it was trying to aim at my horse’s flank. A horse’s naturally sharp hooves are reinforced by steel shoes and I had to hobble around on crutches for a week. To prevent this sort of camper collateral damage we respected the horse’s enmity and were very careful about how the horses lined up.

This summer we quickly tired of tending to all of the bite marks and kick wounds. We mentioned the problem to the man who delivered the feed and he recommended that we get a goat to pacify the horses. He claimed that there was something about the distraction of having a goat around that would really cut down on the quarrelling. I was dubious, but I thought it would be fun to have a goat around, so we obtained one from a neighboring farmer and released it into the paddock. Sure enough, the next morning I saw the horses all gathered around it in a circle, watching it like it was the big game on television. The fighting ceased.

The goat was friendly and delightful. She soon began to put on airs, though, and decided she was too good to associate with the horses. She moved herself on up from the paddock to the tack room, which had a big ceiling fan and was where the humans hung out in between classes. She preferred the choicest spot directly under the fan, and if any of us where occupying it she would lower her head and butt us away before comfortably settling down. She began to accompany us on trail rides, trotting next to the lead horse, her head held high haughtily high. She was quite a personality.

Brian Fellows and the devil goat.

Caturday

A woman called on Saturday and wanted to know if she could bring her cat to the library.

"Is this a" clearing my throat "service animal?"

"Nah. It's just that my cat gets lonely if I leave it at home for too long."

"I'm sorry, only service animals are permitted in the building."

Lolcats.

Daemon Dog

One of the most delightful and wondrous literary creations of late are the daemons in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. In the somewhat parallel world where the books take place, humans have a visible animal spirit called a daemon accompanying them at all times. The daemons speak and serve as both conscience and beloved companion. Children’s daemons shape shift until puberty, then their form becomes fixed, usually in some animal reflective of the person’s station and temperament. A typical daemon for a soldier would be a large guard dog, for example, and for a university don, an owl or a raven. If a person is separated from his or her daemon the resulting physical and mental agony is so great he or she usually dies.

The other day a tall man I recognized as a habitué of drag queen row came in to check out some books. Even though he was not in drag and was in complete nondescript civilian mode I see him all the time on my daily bike commute to the library preening on the streets like a peacock so I knew exactly who he was. As 6’5 African American man who dresses in clothes that would put the cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to shame, he tends to stand out. I was sure it was him because he had his tiny pet Chihuahua in tow. The dog danced about and circled his owner’s feet the whole time, somehow anticipating all of his owner’s moves. It was miraculous the way it would avoiding getting crushed by the man’s swiftly moving feet. Philip Pullman couldn’t have imagined a more fitting daemon for the man.

Tranny Tuesday

A brood of drag queens dressed to the nines in marabous and high heels, chiffon negligees and diaphanous nightgowns spilling out of a bar to smoke on the sidewalk. The sidewalk glowed with them. They raised their champagne and martini glasses to me as a biked by. At 8:45 on a Tuesday morning, an unexpected benediction. It felt like grace.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Billy has been recuperating from kidney issues resulting from the heat prostration he suffered in Texas. To his embarrassment, sometimes he cannot make it through the entire night without a trip to the yard, and will apologetically scratch the door for me to take him out in the middle of the night. The other night I awoke to a thud as he jumped from the bed and ran to the door. I staggered out of bed to take him out. I was barefoot and in just a long t-shirt, commando, like Porky Pig, but with a little more modesty since the t-shirt stretched to just above my knees. It was 4:30 AM and the street was deserted. Still half asleep and shivering, I was enjoying the stillness when a rusted out beater came roaring up the street. The driver was driving in the reckless manner of someone with nothing to lose, like a complete psychopath or someone on a 3 day meth binge searching for some victim upon whom to inflict unspeakable mayhem and depravity.

I grabbed Billy and pressed myself against the side of the house. As if the driver had spied me, he pulled into a driveway up the street and whipped around. Although I was hidden in the shadows on the side of the long corridor that leads up to the house, it was like one of those helpless “you’re the quarry” dreams where your supernatural pursuer can see you through walls and find you no matter where you run or hide. He then skidded to a stop right in front of the house. I was in disbelief that this was happening, frozen by the horrible dreamlike quality of the situation, feeling all the more vulnerable because of my attire. A hulking man jumped out of the car and ran straight for me. I remained cowering in the shadows of the corridor, clutching Billy. He came right up to me, handed me the paper and ran back to his car. It was the newspaper delivery man, and he was completely unruffled, acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world to run into a half dressed customer pressed up against the side of the house in the dark and gripping a Jack Russell terrier at 4:30 in the morning.

A really scary dream sequence.

I almost always enjoy a good skull fuckin’ by Mulholland Drive, but I will never, ever forgive him for that scare.

Sparkle Plenty

While I was poking around for Big Love Youtube clips of my new favorite character, Rhonda, I stumbled across some of little Daveigh Chase’ earlier work in Donnie Darko.

Sparkle Motion!

Sparkle Motion’s little dance routine pretty much sums up everything that was wrong (and yet so right) about the 80s.

Which then led me to the Donnie Darko scene that contains one of the greatest lines in cinematic history:

“I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.”

More Youtube favorites:

French New Wave

Whiling away time in the POW camp.
Di Di Mau!

Ralph Wiggum, the most lovable of retards.

And more.

James Gandolfini honing his Tony Soprano in True Romance.

The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.

Ever since I watched the movie Mildred Pierce, I’ve always had a soft spot for fledgling femme fatales. Even though they’re on their way to being conniving, hard as nails and utterly ruthless adults, there is something adorable and vulnerable about them at this age, like a panther cub with clumsy, too big paws. Veda Pierce, as scheming, spoiled, grasping, and murderous as she may be, is just such a great damn character, so much more interesting than her long suffering martyr of a mother.

Rhonda Vollmer from Big Love looks and dresses like a heroine from one of those syrupy Janette Oke movies on the Hallmark channel, but within her beats the heart of Veda Pierce (with a little Bad Seed Rhoda thrown in. Rhonda is a sheltered teenager on fundamentalist polygamist compound, but she knows there’s a bigger world out there, one she desperately wants to be part of. Her fine pored beauty and exquisite singing voice have attracted the attention of the compound’s creepy patriarch and self proclaimed prophet, Roman. Even though he’s well into his 70s and she is no more than fifteen, he has chosen her to be his next 40th or so wife. It’s hard to pity the child bride too much - although she is repulsed by his reptilian advances, she clearly enjoys the power that being the patriarch’s favorite confers. She exploits it to get what she wants and, smug in her untouchability, delights in tormenting Roman’s malevolent son. It’s wonderful to see Roman’s son, a truly evil monster, so unnerved by a mere child.

She is be scheming and manipulative and steals what she wants, whether it’s a friend’s iPod or Hardrock Café jacket. After she escapes the compound, she soon snows some women involved in an organization for refugees of polygamist and becomes their poster child, using the organization to launch her singing career. Her peers, the daughter and friend of one of the women, see right through her, but Rhonda blackmails one of them into silence by threatening to expose her lesbian crush on her best friend. Whether the girl really does have lesbian feelings or not is unclear, but Rhonda is intuitive enough to know this accusation will destroy her. Sometimes she is less subtle. Like a nasty little brat, she runs up and kicks the shins of an officious judge who does not award her first place in a singing contest. (But who hasn’t wanted to do that before? While the judge was doubled over in pain, I hate to admit I was doubled over in laughter). But there is something touching and heartbreakingly vulnerable about her as well. She demonstrates how laughably naïve about the world outside the compound when she tries to impress some girls her own age from the suburbs by showing off her $25.00 in food stamps. But the desperate way her face falls when she is being forced back to the repressive compound and Roman’s brittle old arms is heartbreaking. Such is the complexity of her character that you can empathize and understand why she is the way she is. I just have to admire (from a safe distance) a survivor who gets what she wants.

Enjoy Rhonda's lovely rendition of Donna Fargo's Luckiest Girl in the World on Youtube.

Mickey Mouse Cons

A patron presented the manager of circulations and fines with what looked like a legal bankruptcy document discharging the costs of some books he had never returned. Although the document had a judge’s signature on it, the document looked doctored, like several different pieces had been laid out on a single page and then photocopied together to make it appear as if they part of the same letter. No matter how official the document appeared, I was immediately dubious because library fines, like parking tickets, taxes and child support, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings.
The patron had probably spent all day putting together this con. And all of this effort for what? $45.00 worth of fines.

A colleague on one of the other floors said that he used to walk around and see people spend all day on little penny ante scams, like painstakingly altering subway tickets from $2.00 to $12.00 (to try to sell them to witless tourists, I assume). The thrill of grifting must be its own reward, because it certainly wasn’t a very remunerative way to make a living.

It reminds me of the Simpsons’ episode where Bart is trapped in the janitorial closet and sees Principal Skinner and Mrs. Crabapple making out. To distract himself from the horror he is witnessing, he memorizes the planets of the solar system. He ends up acing the test the next day. He explains smugly to his father, “Heh, so when I took the test, the answers were stuck in my brain. It was like a whole different kind of cheating.”

Jive Talking Turkeys

I can't return my seriously overdue books because...

For religious reasons, I have taken a vow of silence and cannot leave my apartment. (via email)

My landlord will have all of the locks changed if I leave my apartment.

I can’t leave my house! The last time I did the power company demolished my back bedroom with a bulldozer.

I loaned them to a friend and my friend's house was condemned by the city because the house fell off its foundation. I don’t care if they are expensive interlibrary loan books. Are you saying you want me to break the law and endanger my life to retrieve your precious books?? Do you?
(There was a note in her record that she had used tried to use this excuse two years before with a different batch of books.)

Hi! It appears you are writing an obituary...

I apologize for the lack of postings. I’ve been at another family funeral, and have been preoccupied with all of the attendant obligations. Besides being a co-executor of the estate, I had to write yet another obituary, a duty at which I’ve become a reluctant old hand. It’s all made me weary.
E thought that the Microsoft should configure the coy little paperclip avatar/help agent “Clippy” to say, “Hi! It appears you are writing an obituary…”

I had a colleague at an old job who was the personification of Clippy. He had the same air of eagerness and irritating, fatuous good cheer. He even shared a remarkable physical resemblance – he had Clippy’s bulbous eyes and beetly eyebrows. Inevitably whenever I was wrangling with the copy machine he would materialize and offer to help with the same grating, intrusiveness. “Well, hey there! Is that machine being a stinker again?” I’m usually not such an ingrate about any sincere offer of assistance, no matter how unwelcome, so I would always feel deeply petty and ashamed as well as incompetent around machinery.

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity Jig

I’ve returned to the city and it is good to be back. I missed the colorful scenery on my way to and from work, like that of a trannie prostitute preening and applying lipstick in a parked car's sideview mirror, her hips cocked saucily, or the groups of men loitering with casual menace on street corners. Perhaps I'm completely depraved but who cares? In any case, I'm not going to let it concern me that the sight of a matted haired, exposure burned street person in a lotus position rocking back and forth on the sidewalk screaming at the pigeons gave my spirit a nice little lift this morning.

I read some interview with Sam Peckinpah in which he was asked about the extreme, nihilistic violence of his films, what dark, profound statement he was trying to make about the state of current society. He replied dismissively, "Eh - I just like shoot-'em-ups." I find that lack of introspection refreshing.

I even have to admire grudgingly the psychopathic, cop torturing Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs. He doesn't know why he likes torturing cops, and he couldn't care less. He just does, and that's enough for him.

Listen kid, I'm not gonna bullshit you, all right? I don't give a good fuck what you know, or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It's amusing, to me, to torture a cop. You can say anything you want, 'cause I've heard it all before. All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you ain't gonna get.

We need a jar of RU-486 at the desk

Not because I have eugenics fantasies, but because clinical trials "the abortion pill" show promise that it dramatically relieves psychotic episodes. Many people suffering from the worst kind of psychotic delusions have haywire high levels of cortisol, and it appears that RU-486 blocks brain cortisol receptors.

In any case, there would be a lot less of these reference emails that fill my inbox:

HELP ME. I am dying & the charge is murder ONE.
I am at the present am in serious/critical condition due to all-night and/or morning attacks of roach pesticides. Last night I had conscious attrophy and I have shortness of breath. I moved in the ghetto neighborhood known for its' drugs and prostitution. I acquired congestive heart failure shortly after moving in and have been under attack, all along. They have submitted edited video and audio of me reacting to extreme harrassment and to my own personal views on issues of concern. My past has been distorted and I have been kicked out of many places, bogusly. My life was ruined by former enemies, who have followed me here and smeared and slandered me. The Irish yellow bastards are behind what is and has been going on using other creatures who accept blood money.

One of my colleagues told me that she now assumes every patron is mentally ill unless proven otherwise.

A collegue called me out to the reference desk to deliver a basic email instruction handout I had created. The man began to ask me about email and then went into a long story about how he sent an email to the president of Costa Rica outlining his plan for peace, and how the president then appropriated his plan and used it to broker a peace between the United States and Nicaragua and is taking all the credit. Although his delusion seemed harmless, he kept looming over me as he backed me into a corner. He was built like a longshoreman and was beginning to get worked up, so I finally said, "I must go now" and ran like a rabbit for the security of the staff only area.

Reference Desk Soup

A weathered, tweaked out woman slapped her copy card down on the desk and demanded a refund for the remaining balance of $.40 because she was “leaving this town forever.”
The librarian told her that she would have to fill out a form for the copy machine vendor before we would issue her a cash refund.

"I don’t have time for that!" she hollered. "You damn people, fucking my life up in every way!" She stalked off, listing a little to the right.

A woman asked for some scotch tape, which she used to remove the lint off of her velvet jacket. “Do you want to hear a little story about loss?” she asked as she angrily affixed and yanked the tape off her jacket. “I just lost 80 years of my family's pictures. She said that it was safe to leave them at the shelter and then she put them out on the curb! This is the same woman who entered in my social security card wrong 4 days in a row, and then acts like she's never seen me before."

“Oooh - sorry to hear that.”

"I mean, I don't appear crazy, do I?"

“Of course not, ma’am.” I replied, figuring a little white lie never hurt anyone.

Two ragged men, the type my grandmother would call hobos, came up to the desk and asked me for books about shipwrecks.

“Any particular shipwrecks, like the Titanic or Andrea Doria, or just shipwrecks in general?”

“Just shipwrecks!” Seeing the little excited boys within these men tugged at my heart.

A man cut through a long line of people and interrupted me and the patron I was trying to help. “I can’t find my book! It’s supposed to be on the shelf and I can’t find it!” I told him to get to the end of the line. He reluctantly did so, oblivious of the glares of collective hate from the others in line. The whole time in line he kept trying to butt in and grab my attention. He huffed and drummed his fingers against his thighs and continued to do other maddening things until his turn came round at last.

“What book are you looking for?” I asked.

"I don't know, it's on my card!"

The book? What does everybody else know that I don't? : social skills help for adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) : a reader-friendly guide.