Book Recommendation: Life Expectancy

Koontz at his best. This one rivals Odd Thomas with it's wonderful combination of: story/plot, interesting protagonist(s) and antagonist(s), building and maintaining suspense, humor, and overall je ne sais quoi. I always enjoy his down-to-earth-yet-bizarre villains who coincidentally happenstance upon unique-unsung-heroes much more than any of his far-fetched supernatural-aliens, and this one cements my favoritism in place.

This one is worth purchasing in hardback and keeping for your grandkids to enjoy in the 2020's.

Keeper Alert: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005) directed by Shane Black (directorial debut, screenwriter); starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer: Snaprating=Keeper, PROBLEM theme (Character sub-theme). Downey is wonderful in this enthralling and hilarious 'unwitting-PI, murder-mystery-gone-awry', which has the look and feel of The Pink Panther meets Jackie Brown with an Elmore Leonardesque smell and taste.

Book Recommendation: Melancholy Baby

In this newest of the Sunny Randall series, the female Boston PI is further defined as rough and tough (and at-the-same-time emotionally-fragile). This quick-read develops the character while uniting her with Susan Silverman (from the Spencer series). Read Parker not for plots or characters but for fast, smooth, movement of action using mostly dialogue. Available in paperback for Parker fans, and at your library for all others.

November's 1 thru 10

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	Within meters of a turn out—empty at this hour—the V-Sat vibrates. It’s screen reads: Confirm ETA 225. I press the center button. The screen becomes yellow and begins counting backward. In exchange for my gray, I could experience all of Joe’s life. Definitely worth it, if measured in decades. Not so much, if I become just another Radimer. A tan, four-door, Mercedes TS1220 quietly enters the turnout. Electric power? Vibrating and flashing, the V-Sat reads: ETD 10, and counts backward. I press. It turns green and reads: Load. The driver’s door slides open. I get in. Oh. Wow.
	Before I have a chance to contemplate the smell of comfort—the door closes, harnesses envelop, the car begins to leave the turn out, and Lieutenant Ohura’s voice says: destination. Without thinking, I reply, “coffee.” WOooonderfully tired! Ohura says: select, and an in-dash screen—autumn trees blowing in the wind—becomes a moving photo-map with a list of coffee shops and café’s. I say, “the nearest.” Acceleration presses me gently into soft leather as the screen returns to red-orange trees...reminiscent of Busse Woods. Wonder what the dragon-master gained from my last mission? Chicago, 1982? “Search, Chicago, Nineteen-Eighty-Two,” I say.
	‘Everybody needs a little time away… I heard her say…’ “Stop.” The music cuts off. Joe is computer savvy, therefore, I am. All I need to do is refine the… Although still traveling, Ohura interrupts: fast-poured available. I read the menu (and, apparently, there are more screens if this list of thirty-six premiere coffees is insufficient). “Twelve, extra-large.” Seventeen-fifty - credit - confirm? “Twenty, with tip. Yes.” Thanks for the expensive Java, Lösch. Where was I? Thinking about music? The car slows, window lowers, a man gives me a cup and a thank-you-sir; as window and speed rise, the car re-enters traffic.
	As I clarify my new destination with Ohura, because Joe’s flat is equidistant from two turnouts, I drink my Vanilla Latte-chino. From among the horde of bicyclists, an amazing ass stands out—forcing me to look out the rear window as I pass, to see if her ventral is as pleasant as her dorsal view. drive setting: automatic - full-manual - or - combination manual-auto available - occupying driver-seat required by… “Handicap automatic,” cuts Ohura off. Must have shifted in my seat too much, or bumped the wheel; Lösch said to direct the override-setting each time I got in, but I forgot. Sooo tired.
	Standing in the hall outside Joe’s flat, I concentrate on the door-combination: 31-11-20-29. His own goddamn birthday? Who’s savvy? The pocket-door rolls open. A half-glance right as I u-turn into the bathroom completes a recon: pallet in the far corner, clothes on a broken rack, and a desk (actually two doors propped across four sawhorses). I sit. My pent-up-urine-burst is nearly orgasmic; defecation brings chills up my back and across my scalp. The pleasure of evacuation: another reason to consider Lösch's offer. Crumpled over the drainpipe for the sink, a crusty rag reminds me of something else I forgot: masturbation!
	On the pallet, holding an unfamiliar, flaccid penis in my right hand, I attempt envisioning Zuella. Why is first intimacy always difficult? Squinting at the skylights, I recognize that—besides a window over the tub the size of a cribbage board—these are this flat’s sole natural-light openings. Four-meter ceilings. Emergency-egress prohibitive. When Grimy Go-between and Piggyback Dad team-up to take back the Surinam’s Ish purchased… …climb metal scaffolding… …wiggle onto roof… …attain foothold on cloud-bulletin-board… …fall. I wake-up. If I decide to keep Joe’s life, I should keep my breakfast appointment. I have an hour and a good hard-on.
	I exercise my cow-milking muscles. On the pier, Zuella walks towards me completely naked. The rub of fingers over my ventral ridge creates a familiar tingle-tickle sensation. She smiles like Zuella used to. My pace increases. Her nipples are erect. I enter. focus. on. one. Nipple. In. My. Mouth. ON. MY. TONGUE. I continue pawing for many long seconds beyond ejaculation. Once the spasms subside, I get up and take a shower. Stupid to return where piggyback dad discovered it is not a small world—but if I want Joe’s life, I need to keep his friends and his routines.
	Shaving, I notice a tiny scar on the top edge of my lip. How did I get that? Yesterday, I asked a question without thinking—did I set myself up for a deception? Robert-not-Bob said, ‘breakfast tomorrow? Ten-thirtyish?’ I think my reply was, ‘Ten-thirty’—open to interpretation and non-committal. My memory is unclear. If I said, ‘see you then’—with no intention of returning at that time—I could be back on the pier at 1031. I hurry. Wearing dark slacks and a silky, teal-and-ivory, pull-over sweater-jacket with zippered inside pockets, I approach the, now busy, turnout. V-Sat time: 1008.
	Once inside the car, I ask Ohura to play some smooth music. Immediately, incredible ambient overlapping melodies ease into me. I smile, even though the day is becoming cloudy. I notice a MasterPark sign and say, “Query. Vehicle parking. Locations and ordinances.” A map of the city—with dozens of blue ‘P’ indicators and a list of topics—fills the screen. In minutes, I learn about EU-mandated, underground, park-fuel structures in metropolitan areas. From the turnout, I walk a half-block. The restaurant is nearly empty. Sliding into the booth, I smile at Holly who is listening to Robert-not-Bob talk football.
	Speaking into his orange juice glass—just like Lösch did last night—Robert-not-Bob says, “Did you hear, JoLo? Another one.” Holly finishes while he gulps, “This makes three, and still no sight of SDU. Guess this one wasn’t messy. Ray says not to touch the WC until they get here.” I shake my head, “Acronyms.” Holly shrugs, “Suicide… something-with-a-D …Unit? Anyway. Want the special? Still got some left.” I nod. She walk-skips away. We watch. “Maybe a system-glitch,” Robert-not-Bob says. “But probably, Souillé Déplacement Unité’s directive is: Wait, someone else will clean it; if not, displace multiple soiled’s and triple-bill.”

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Book Recommendation: The Best Science and Nature Writing, 2005

Mr Folger: This year the cover of your book contains the word best, and - after reading it - I'm certain it is as intentionally-erroneous as the US administration's weapons-of-mass-destruction. The editor you hired this year is not only what his namesake implies, but an incompetent dumbfuck too.

Several hundred magazine articles were published last year, your editor obviously chose to publish his friends and, then, only about topics he was interested in: religion, politics, drugs, psychiatry, and combinations on those themes.

Five articles - 20% of the book- are about drugs and food supplements that stupid Americans can't stop taking, and four articles - 16% of the book- is about psychiatry: Two, written by the same person: one about PTSD and how it has changed in the last half-century and another about personality tests and how they have changed over the last half-centry. Two others are about Rorschach’s ink blots—and amazingly PTSD, again.

Two articles, 8% of the book is about religion—yes, that’s right: My God Problem – And Theirs and Keeping the Faith in My Doubt. I had to keep looking at the cover to remind myself what book I was reading.

NASA and space exploration get three articles…all three are very similarly toned: ‘Bad, stupid, politicians should never have cut NASA’s budget’, which is compounded by another article about just bad, stupid, politicians (and the voters that put them in office).

I found three interesting articles: The Curious History of the First Pocket Calculator, about the first hand-held fully-mechanical calculator, which could add, subtract, multiply, and divide up to 15 digits made in the 1940’s; To Hell and Back, about a scuba explorer who cave dives for weeks at time, thousands of feet underground; and Who’s Life Would You Save?, a philosophical piece about morals and fairness.

Just hang out in the bookstore and read those 30 pages in the isle.

Keeper Alert: Jarhead

Jarhead (2005), directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999); starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx: Snaprating=Keeper, CHARACTER theme (Milieu secondary theme). The Vietnam war has Full Metal Jacket, WWII has Saving Private Ryan, now Desert-Shield and -Storm have this humorous-yet-poignant, exceptionally acted, directed, and edited masterpiece.

PP-BOATS are different than B.P.BOATS, but who cares.

Answer me this:           Who's to blame for mistaking myth for historical fact?  Are individuals accountable for their belief systems (each step of the way, not just ultimately) or are the propagators of ‘myth in nonfiction-sheep’s-clothing’ at fault?  And if these instructor-wolves are liable, where’s the beef?           These three questions—easily directed at religion/priests or classroom/teachers—came to the forefront of my brain today, after watching two recently released films containing a common thread, (both Cheaper-quality, reviews will be posted next month) so I decided to point my three questions at: films/directors.           The films were: Capote (which is plotted like* Girl with a Pearl Earring) and Good Night and Good Luck, (which is plotted like* The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich).           I discussed both with my film umpire:           “I wonder how Good Night and Good Luck will be used in decades to come?  Do you think teachers will show it in class when teaching about 1950s-era McCarthyism?” I asked.           “I think that’s certain to happen.  My high-school history teacher showed: A Man Called Horse, as part of Native American studies and Tora, Tora, Tora, when covering World War Two; I also recall watching Excaliber in English class.”           “Did your English teacher show King Arthur and Merlin to depict actual events?”           “Very funny…she showed it as an example of fantasy. Myth.”           “Then, neither you nor she took it out of context, that's encouraging...           ...but…a Hollywood war-movie?  Even though it may seem unbiased because it tries to be a movie that "tells it from both sides" it's still just a dramatic re-creation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and NOT historically accurate, except for the war footage, of course.           Also, I'm amazed anyone would think a movie about an Anglo trying to 'become a native'…wasn’t that the one with Richard Harris hanging by the chest?…I thought so…How does that have anything to do with teaching about Native American culture?”           “It’s a wrong-headed, highly-skewed perspective, you’re right.  But, I wasn’t so good in those classes—and partly because I’m still not so good at history, geography, and religious studies; once-in-a-while, I like a movie that teaches me something while it entertains.  I’ll bet there are plenty of people who think like I do,” she said.           So, I ranted: “Some films, by their very nature, are understood to be a story by everyone that watches them.  But when teachers show PP-BOATS to their students, there aren't any attached codicils: ‘What you are viewing is merely a story, or a depiction of a few people's ideas—namely those of the screenwriter, the director, and a producer or two.’  I'll bet even if the teacher told you it was a story…in a couple decades, your memory holds the film and forgets the disclaimer.”           “aaah…PP-BOATS?” She asked.           “Oh, sorry...I thought you knew my acronyms: period piece, based on a true story.”           “Was Capote a period piece based on a true story?”           “No. It’s actually a bio-pic, based on a true story…so: B.P.BOATS.  Confusing myth with fact in a bio-pic, like Capote, or Girl with a Pearl Earring, isn't as problematic as with a PP-BOATS.  Actually, it’s nothing compared with the mistake of teaching a PP-BOATS as if it were historically accurate!”           “I don’t know if I understand the distinction—and I’m positive I don’t understand why one’s OK to confuse with history, but the other isn’t.”           “I’ll use better examples.  Are you familiar with, The Birth of a Nation?  No? Well, it is a boringly-long, silent film, set in the years surrounding the US Civil War. Filmed in 1914, but depicting the 1860’s, thus ‘period piece’; and since the war actually occurred, it is ‘based on a true story’.           But, that’s where fact stops and fiction starts.  The director and screenwriter tell a story—which distills into flagrant racism—about why the ‘nation’ of the Klu Klux Klan needed to be ‘born’ to restore ‘white order and justice’ to the incompetent, negligent, and lazy newly-freed blacks in the southern states.”            “Are you saying such an obvious fiction, could be confused with actual history?”           “Yes.  And, it is.  Children are born and raised by stupid, evil, and viciously-hateful adults every day—who grow up to raise ignorant, vile, and insipidly degenerate children of their own.  And I’ll further answer your question with questions of my own: How could such an obvious fantasy as The Old Testament be confused with natural events?  How could the New Testament be considered a true-biography?  How can such a ridiculous fabrication as The Book of Mormon be considered depicting actual events?”           “But, have you ever read or heard about anyone who believes the version of history depicted in that KKK film?”           “Well...yes...In the mid-90s, I worked with a card-carrying hater who—while trying to convince me of the supremacy of the white race—ended up only making me sure of one thing: he actually believed the film revealed the ‘real truth’ behind a liberal, left-wing, non-confederate, cover-up!  This college-educated cracker from Arkansas spoke in earnest praise of this film’s message.”           “Right.  So, I understand how this KKK PP-BOATS film is misused, even today.  But, if I'm following you correctly, it's not so bad to re-write history if it's done in a bio-pic?”           “Correct.  Take the film: Girl with a Pearl Earring—even a huge misrepresentation about Johannes Vermeer’s paintings, or life, amounts to nothing more than you mistaking an artist for something he wasn’t.  In the film, his wife is a tyrant.  What if she was really a saint?  What if Vermeer was really a fanatical blithering idiot who not only couldn't mix his own paints, as this film depicts, but couldn't walk outside without a diaper?  The truth hardly matters at all.  It's only about one person: unimportant in respect to the big picture.”           “So.  OK.  Where are you going with all this?  What do you think about directors who take Oliver-Stoneish and Michael-Mooreish liberties with history?  That make films about Pocahontas falling in love when she was actually kidnapped, that recreate history in the minds of millions, effectively making “new-history?”           “Oh, I don’t much care either way.  They are—after all—just movies.  But I do so very much enjoy debating their value as if they were earth-shatteringly important.”           “I thought so.” * plotted like, does not always mean ‘similar to’: Capote (about the years he researched and wrote the book In Cold Blood) is plotted like, and similar to, Girl… (about the years Vermeer spent working on the titled painting).   But, although the plotting of Good… and The Downfall… are alike because each collect ‘snatches of time’ (from the years of Murrow’s news-team’s lives, and from Hitler’s last days in which his surviving-secretary shared a bunker with him) once these ‘snatches of time’ are combined, the differences are vast.  In Good... the journalistic endeavors to expose Senator McCarthy become canonized, while in The Downfall... Hitler’s fractured personality is not only it’s focal point, but it's rasion d'être.

To settle the Neosporin Debate (from last week)

I found the definitive definition in the dictionary Davecat shared with everyone. It reads:

create your dictionary entry

October's 21 thru 31

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	“You appear slightly flustered,” screen-face wheezes. “Why?” “It is surprise. I have not heard my own name since…before the gray.” As the heavy front door pivots open he indicates with a jiggle of chins for me to enter and says, “Aahhh. Well. I am Lösch.” As if he thinks that should be sufficient explanation. I enter. Through a dim entry hall and into a deep, comfortably lit, central room—I follow the smell of a wood-burning fire and the sound of his voice. “Food and drink in the kitchen behind you; even Surinam cherries.” He knows about my cherries?
	“Our meeting is not in-person,” Lösch’s disembodied body image—dressed in an unflattering wrap—says from a couch near the fire. “Hologram,” he coughs, exhales deeply, and points at a series of mod-art looking rectangles, mounted near the ceiling. “I wondered about the odds of you living in the same city as Joe Lorber,” I say. When finished laughing, which is all breath, he giggles, “I’m not even on the same continent as your husk. But I do enjoy your subtle sense of humor, Roble. Coincidence. That’s how you operate? How you choose?” “No such thing as coincidence,” I reply.
	“No?” he asks. “Then tell me how the decision was made to mistake Radamir’s husk for a pizza.” I stroll the room’s circumference. Floor-to-ceiling, the walls are covered with intricate honeycombs of woven material. A few area rugs in muted shades, which match the walls, cover the tile floor. “Earlier today, I saw an advertisement for a place named: Vuil Bemiddelaar; when he referred to himself as a go-between…,” I shrug and let my sentence trail off. “Two grimy go-between’s is coincidental.” “A clear message,” I say. “Punctuated by total hearing loss. Regained upon soot-suit’s—Radimer’s—arrival in the gray.”
	“Interesting interpretation. What are your thoughts on retaining the lifespan of your young-mister-lorber?” Sitting in an overstuffed armchair facing the fireplace, I say, “It would depend.” “On?” His voice whistles when it inflects at the end. “I’ll put it like this: Radimer. His gray—right now—is either the total void of the newly returned or it is an improved gray.” When Lösch’s hologram stands and walks until it disappears, his voice emanates from the wall he walked through. “I’ll answer your non-question-question with two questions. How many improvements have you made? And how many years ago did Roble die?”
	“Surprised that knowledge is not in your possession.” Returning into sight with a carafe and a plate, Lösch mumbles, “Humor me,” around a mouthful of chocolate cake. “Over twenty improvements in eight centuries.” “Who grants your requests?” His voice echoes out of the carafe. Raising my eyebrows and shoulders slightly, I say, “I only know Zuella is its mouthpiece.” “Tell me about her.” “Whenever I think of her—no matter what—I recall blinding sunlight, shining off her beautiful, long, yellow hair. We were kids together. Still kids when she became my wife. Never anything I wouldn’t do for her.”
	I consider my words—all the despicable things she asks of me. Is that why it uses her as a mouthpiece? “Aaah-anyway, I injured my hand and arm on a broken stake during the family harvest and returned home early. Because no hearth-fire smoke was visible and the shutters were closed, I left my mount in the orchard and found her with rounders. Using my ox-mallet, I bludgeoned the one with his back to the door and staved-in the other’s face as he got off her. She claimed they were mendicants. That they took her, after determining she was alone.
	“But the lack of table-disarray or injuries—on her, as well as on the bodies—indicated no struggle occurred, so I accused her. We fought. And, as she should have done to rapists, she attacked me. After she reopened my arm, I cubit-clubbed her. She bit through my foresleeve before losing consciousness. I drowned her in the Zaragoza, where I sank all three bodies.” “Ever bother you? Not knowing for sure?” Lösch asks. “Until I died, yes—I called it plague, burned the house, and became a shipman—but not after.” “Why?” “I realized she became a husk that morning.”
	As Lösch’s image nods (in an ‘I-understand’ manner) I stand and enter the kitchen where I fill plates with fruit, crackers, cheeses, butters, and meats from overstocked refrigerators and pantries. His voice, audible from the next room, asks, “Assuming a constant rate of improvements, describe your gray in ten-thousand years.” On a hassock, back towards the fireplace-embers, I reply, “All my senses, time, unlimited space...” “Presently?” He cuts me off. “Timeless. Limited to a pier. There is a beach and nearby tree line. Birds. No color yet. I hear, and have gravity; but no sense of touch, smell, or taste."
	“After mission accomplishment,” Lösch says. “If you have asked questions for every recovered sense—except the last—then, asking one specific question will stick you here. Of course, there’s something I’ll need, before I tell it to you.” “According to Zuella, a question is an escape lever that returns me to my gray. If I died in this husk, for example, I would be condemned to Joe Lorber’s gray: the void.” “Then why didn’t you return to your pier when you asked Robert if he was ready, after lunch today?” Absentmindedly fiddling with piggyback dad’s gadget, my skin crawls. Shit.
	“Ask two questions, you won’t go anywhere.” I consider returning to the pier for an interminable amount of time without new sex-memories, then decide to take the chance. “Where can I get a pistol without engaging the focus of the law—since I may soon be concerned about Joe’s future?” I listen to Lösch breathing and the fire pop. He points over his shoulder at a cabinet. Inside I find a loaded Heckler & Koch 9mm, which I pocket. “What happens if I ask another question before my next sense-recovery?” “Back to your wonderful pier, like Zuella said,” he replies.
	After outlining my mission to him—as I understand it so far—Lösch details how the police can track piggyback dad’s phone and gadgets. So, as I finish snacking, I melt them. Lösch gives me replacements, which he explains how to use. Leaving, I say, “see you when my mission is over, Lösch.” “Not if I see you first, Mister Coincidence,” he chuckles. His image winks out. In the crisp, pre-dawn light, with tulips bordering the walks—it still looks like a jailhouse—I head for a turn out. The gadget's—V-Sat's—screen blips green as I call the car.

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Neosporin

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without news porn, or news porn without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." - snapperhead barely misquoting Thomas Jefferson

digital rendering by veach st. glines, creative commons license 2005