manufactured crisis

The German people are not as a whole insurance-junkies, as H was trying to convince me--or rather that he was not a fanatic himself. The Germans are not a particularly legitious people, either, though I think that their almost complete lack of sleazy lawyer advertisements and claim-jumping television offers, make them seem to take the matter more seriously. There is a plethora of insurance to be had to safeguard every aspect of one's health, property and legacy, all narrowly and precisely defined. Sometimes I feel that this multiplicity of underwriters must have very hyper-active imaginations, turning every benign instance into a chain-reaction of events that lead to freak-accidents, the overturning of empires. I am sure that agents thought up the butterfly-effect or the creationists' argument about the jalopy spontaneously formed when a tornado sweeps over a junk-yard. Still, there's much sense to having the extra protection that hopefully one will never need. H took the matter seriously as we were talking about options and the extra coverage, and he got a bit annoyed with me for missing the point, which I often do. Insurance beyond the ilk of the proletariat does not give one license to be a jerk: I can't put our trash in the neighbour's dustbin and feel immune from any repercussions because we're insured. I can't incite a turf war at the flea market, because we're insured--although the policy specifies it can cover loses or damages sustained in a side-business operation. The policy also explicitly covers damages done to hotel rooms or other rental property. I was really hung up with the idea that H and I could trash a hotel room like rock-stars and get away with it.

give me a bouncy C

Though I read "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" in junior high, I still remember the fanfare and celebration that was made out of the 100th chapter. Most novels do not embrace that many chapters--even though most were qualified as little more than a couple of pages (a big deal was also made out of passages that were longer than the norm) and many just two paragraphs--sort of log a blog entry. This is my 100th posting. That's a milestone, of sorts. Many bloggers though have the bloody-mindedness, I think, to make it to one hundred chapters and far beyond, whether or not being prolific garners notice.

keening

Lately, H and I have been regularly patronizing the latest affiliate of a multi-national, multi-verse chain of home furnishing store that opened in a town close to home. We swept down on this local outlet for some quick and dirty shopping sprees. I just get a kick out of the whole store culture hanging off of it—the nomenclature and the mobbing and the hugeness of it all that makes one feel on a separate astral plane. I have heard that the founder of the company started with the cute names because of struggles with dyslexia and an inability to cope with numbers. When H and I next visit Sweden, I think we should speak a pidgin that’s entirely composed of the names home décor. Holmbo bestå vika kivsta ekarp Stockholm? Is it jibberish, sweded? I knew a waitress from there once who thought the Swedish Chef from the Muppetts was the funniest thing in creation. I wonder if it is at all intelligible. I wonder if my houseshoes, named Njuta, are in any way suggestive of houseshoes.

spice like us

It strikes me as strange that the drug Rapamycin was first isolated in the soil of Easter Island. This substance, touted annually as a potential fountain of youth that could extend life into extreme old age, was uncovered in a barren and remote place and not found in the leaves or bark of some exotic tree on the verge of being lost forever to deforestation or human encroachment. Instead, it is found on far-flung spot of tree-less land, long since depleted and with a collapsed ecosystem. It reminds me of the spice melange, which can only be found on the planet Arrakis called Dune. Apparently, the drug (also known be several different trademarked names) can extend life, however curtailing the immune system, by mimicking the benefits of what physicians call "caloric restriction"--that is, eatting just enough and not more, without actually eatting less. Maybe life just seems longer then, when one is always hungry. Maybe that's what brought about the destruction of the island's indigenous population--over-fed super-centarians.

bread and circuses

With the latest spate of celebrity culling, there is one outstanding example of the ways in which reality becomes perverted. The Michael Jackson circus far outshines in terms of discussion and descent into madness the losses of Ed McMahon, Karl Mauldin ("Don't leave home without it") or Farra Fawcett-Majors--the fact that she died from anal cancer, which is surely a sad and tragic thing, and the condition has not had news reports dedicated to it, is pretty significant. I thought it was some biographical-vandalism when I first saw it, but I guess now no one will be comfortable taking about anal cancer is mixed company. There is talk now that Michael Jackson is to be buried without his brain, freezing it so he can be reincarnated in a robot body as Captain Eo. I've unfortuneately bought into that whole speculation and wild rumour trap. Like with Elvis, the King of Rock, one wonders if the King of Pop (he was married to his daughter, by the way) is really dead. It was certainly a brillant career move, erasing all the debt he accumulated. Michael Jackson spread those very rumours about him buying the skeleton of the Elephant Man and sleeping in a hyberbolic chamber, but that wasn't the half of it. Seeing Jackson interviewed makes me think that he might have tried a stunt like that--faking his own death and disappearing with Elizabeth Taylor to the Island of Doctor Moreau. Remember those "Paul is dead" rumours in the early eighties about Paul McCartney? I think McCartney's friend and business partner Michael Jackson started them, too. What is it about eccentricity (maybe that's too general or mild of a term) that drives disbelief that they're gone, anti-fame?