Clamor

The extent to which this causes a clamor, that's the extent to which this matters to me.

And you. The extent to which this causes a clamor within you, that's the extent to which this matters to you.

This causes a clamor. And all that matters is the extent to which. Seriously.

Clamor, it has a spectrum along which it exists. And this, this thing that causes a clamor, it sits somewhere along that spectrum. It could be on this side or that side. It could be a Greater Clamor or a Lesser Clamor, all depending on how it feels to you, and the position from which you are observing this. And me.

I'm observing this, too.

We can triangulate—you, me, and the place where this sits on the clamor spectrum.

And the, oh how this will really, truly matter. Oh how this will finally have some sort number or some sort of letter or some sort of charted way (maybe a line or a bar on a graph) of being quantified in terms of how much it matters.

Really.

Truly.

Before we blog, though, we must triangulate. And understand clamor.

***

Click here to listen to the WTO protests in Seattle. This field recording was made by Christopher DeLaurenti.

Sicker

As I said, I was sick all weekend and couldn't blog.

Couldn't blog.

(Wouldn't blog? Hmmm...maybe. I do requests.)

But couldn't blog.

Could sleep, though. Slept well. And lots. With the cat.

(I have a cat.)

Slept well and long with the cat. But fevered. Lots of dreams. Dreamt about, like, being a teacher and scoring tests. Dreamt about, like, being someone watching the actor/comedian Kevin Nealon, and then being Kevin Nealon watching, like, Kevin Nealon, and then just being Kevin Nealon.

Dreamt about, like, being crushed under the weight of dirt poured out of the back of a dirt-hauling truck. Being a flower, and being crushed under the weight of dirt poured out of the back of a dirt-hauling truck. Yeah.

But, also, the cat was there. Curled up against the fever-burning body. The sweating, shirtless, fever-burning body. (Don't fucking judge me...it was hot, so I was fucking shirtless! So fucking what?)

And so. (Sorry.) And so.

So I woke up after dreams and sweating. Cat curled against me. I woke up. He woke up. I stirred. He got up and stretched. I stretched and moved. He jumped down and ran off.

I woke up. Looked down. Cat gone. Sweat on chest. Cat hair on chest.

I woke up and had a manly, '70s-manly head of chest hair made of cat sheddings. In a big spot centered on my chest.

Getting sick made a man of me, baby.

(Baby.)

So. Yeah. Sick. Staring at self in mirror. With manly chest of faux chest hair. Of cat chest hair. Couldn't blog. Who could? Who would?

Really?

***

From comments, a recipe to cure sickness from Dr. John Synco (M.D. or possibly Witch Doctor or something):

"Half water, half hydrogen peroxide then gargle. Don't swallow. Never mind. Whiskey. Float cube of ice in Jameson or Elijah Craig. Gargle. Swallow. Repeat."

Did my damnedest, brother. Think the cloves got me.

Sick

Been sick and unable to post. Please enjoy some work by the Royal Art Lodge and come back tomorrow for something else.

Apple

Matthew Simmons continues his interview with The Man Who Couldn't Blog:

So, any dietary restrictions?

I am, for the most part, omnivorous. I do have one edible item I prohibit. I don't even want them in my home.

It's the apple. I refuse on moral and patriotic grounds to eat apples.

Sure, you are probably saying, "Isn't the apple the most patriotic of all fruits?" Because that's what you are taught to believe. In schools. "As American as apple pie," is a thing people will say to you, for example. This is a terrible, un-American lie.

I'm not the first to point out that Johnny Appleseed, who went around the country scattering the seeds of an invasive species, was essentially an early bio-terrorist. But people seem to stop their analysis of the history of this man there. What about digging deeper?

I have.

Did you know the apple has its roots in Kazakhstan. Appleseed was around in the late 18th and early 19th century. When he was born, Kazakhstan was still a khanate. It, at that point, was on its way out, though. The Russian empire was approaching. It had to plan for its future somewhere else.

So, Appleseed scatters apples everywhere. People eat apples. People enjoy apples. People decide that the apple is, symbolically speaking, "American."

But it's not. It's from Kazakhstan.

You know what else is from Kazakhstan? The settlers who came to the new world and called themselves the Chapman family. The boy John Chapman. Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman.

I happen to believe that the apple was introduced to this country as a way of "familiarizing" us with the traditional fare of Kazakhstan. It's a political tool. A socializing tool.

The Kazakhs are coming. Are already here. They are taking over on the sly. Johnny Appleseed was the opening gambit in the building of a North American outpost of the Kazakhstani empire. Seriously.

That's an interesting theory. Are you crazy?

Some people seem to think so. But I have genealogy charts at home that I think prove all of this definitively.

There's more, too. The adage "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," is a part of this conspiracy. Medical school is a training ground for sleeper cells, for agents of the conspiracy. (I also refuse to go see doctors.) They push the pro-apple, pro-United States of Kazakhstan agenda.

This is what I believe. Researching all this information has taken its toll on me. I have no time for a social life. Not time for exercise. No time for blogging.

***

If you are from The Elegant Variation, hello.

Please enjoy some Brainiac.

Prince

Another question from Matthew Simmons, interviews editor for Hobart, answered by The Man Who Couldn't Blog:

What's your favorite Bonnie "Prince" Billy song?

Even though I really like "No More Workhorse Blues" and the accompanying Harmony Korine video, I think my favorite is his version of a song that I think was written by Aram Stith called "Hearts."

You can hear him mention the William Saroyan book My Name Is Aram. I read that book after I listened to this song. I also went out and started reading poems by Aram Saroyan.

I like songs that send me off on a treasure hunt.

I also remember going to school dances, and watching my ex-girlfriends dancing with new boyfriends. In the song, Oldham sings: "and as we learn in this world that we've found/hearts are breaking all around." I remember being in large rooms, rooms with low lights, rooms with people slow dancing, rooms where you can see peoples eyes and teeth when the light hits them just right, rooms with streamers and a punch bowl, being in large rooms where I feel a little like the ventricles of my heart are stitched poorly, and there's someone dancing with someone else, and they are turning, and the thread that has stitched together the ventricles of my heart is wrapped around a shoe of the couple that turns around, and it pulls the stitching out. I remember that.

I like it when a room feels bad for me and decides to dissipate some of that bad feeling by spreading it around on all the other people in the room with me. That's a nice thing for a room to do.

***

This is me. Please buy the issue.

***

Shya Scanlon is not my literary rival.