Metamorphosism

There was the idea for solar-powered slotcar freeways, and the idea for something else, I forget what. Here is another idea for the world that I have been carrying around since I was a kid. I can’t figure out how to get rich from it, though, so I’m putting it up for grabs here:

Reciprocal development aid. By this, I mean not only would rich countries send aid workers to poor countries to drill wells, or vaccinate, or work on industrial development programs. Poor countries would also send teachers to rich countries to train people how to undevelop, and live with … Continue Reading

I can’t read anything lately. Fiction sucks, blog posts* suck, self-help sucks, self-help blog posts suck most of all. Poetry is still okay, and maybe essays, haven’t read any of the latter lately. Soon, maybe, I’ll look for an essay on “How to get a Christmas tree out of your house without getting needles on everything or the kittens escaping.”

I have been stumbling across the occasional self-help blog post, and it is this scourge I’d like to address here. I missed the Web 2.0 make money with your blog memo, but there seem to be tons of people who didn’t, … Continue Reading

It is the weekend. Alpha and I are having a glass of wine (each) and playing the Game of Life with Gamma, and joking about each other’s playing styles, (e.g. Alpha buys every sort of insurance available and ends up with a higher income and lives in a nice house*, while Mig buys no insurance, lives in a trailer and is An Artist, and Gamma is a police officer AND the banker, and gets $5000 every time someone spins a 10 (speeding ticket), which Alpha does with statistically-improbable regularity, while Mig never does) and theorizing about what that says about … Continue Reading

Fireworks are yapping away outside, impatient boys. In a couple hours I’ll climb the hill by my inlaws’ house and shoot off a few. Fireworks, I mean. May 2009 be a good year for all of us, with lots of peace and love and sex, and good health and jobs, and stronger unions, both labor and civil, and a serious leftward swing of the political pendulum, and funny jokes, and solar-powered flying cars, and grocery rockets.

What does 2009 look like for you? What do you wish for? What are your resolutions?

Prologue

Tiny Tim: [Crawls into tight hiding spot] [To himself] I should be safe in here.

Act I

Scene I

Mrs. Cratchit: [Driving cleaning lady to her next gig] Sheesh, what’s that awful smell?

Cleaning lady: Factory? The car?

Mrs. Cratchit: It smells like burning. It gets worse every time we go around a corner.

Scenes II, III, IV

(yadda, yadda, yadda)

Act II

Scene I

Bob Cratchit: [We are outside the bathroom, he is inside.] Ow.

Scene II

Bob Cratchit: [Same location] Ow, my head. [Sound effects: Retroperistalsis]

Scene III

Bob Cratchit: [We are now inside the bathroom with Mr. Cratchit] [Sighs] [Sound effects: gurgling intestines] Ow, yet fascinating.

Scene IV

Mrs. Cratchit: [Street scene] How … Continue Reading

The cat yacked in our bedroom at 2.30 am. It was just a kitten, but due to an inherent acoustic law of the feline digestive tract, sounded like some huge animal. I figured since it was only 2.30 I would be able to fall back to sleep afterwards, and who doesn’t like to fall back to sleep? I got up and stepped on something furry. REEEEER! Sorry, pal. Felt like a tail. Got some heavyweight paper towels from the kitchen downstairs, followed by optimistic cats. Turned on bedroom light to wipe it up. Just a little puddle with something festive … Continue Reading

As previously mentioned a couple days ago, I need recordings of you reading your shopping list/shopping receipt for a composition I am working on.

The composition is for theremin, voice (spoken and soprano) and cash register.

I need voice recordings of people reading, say, the last ten or so things they have purchased, with or without prices. I.e., “milk, $2. oranges, $3″ or “automobile, €20,000″. Or whatever. “Shirt, stereo, earrings, kitten.”

Please mail to metamorphosist@gmail.com.

Thanks in advance.

As luck would have it, the thaumatologist is diagnosed with viral pneumonia for the holidays, necessitating a change in plans at every level of magnification.

On the plus side, the thaumatologist’s parents just got two new sofas, so the thaumatologist can flop on new furniture for the next four weeks.

On the minus side, the thaumatologist and the thaumatologist’s sister had to listen to their father, who has an out-of-order lumbar disc, try to organize their mother and their grandfather to move the sofas: 1.5 old sofas out, 0.5 old sofas upstairs to the thaumatologist’s room, 2 new sofas in, until he … Continue Reading

I need your voice again, for another one of those compositions.

I promise to do a better job with the voice track this time.

Please mail me a recording (metamorphosist@gmail.com) of you reading your shopping list, okay? In your native language. The last time you went shopping. Groceries, or hardware, or seasonal holiday gift items, or whatever. It can be as long or as short as you want.

Thanks in advance!

Deadline, let’s say deadline sometime in January, okay?

(We did algedonics yesterday)

The acarologist has probably a pound of the little sonsabitches in his hypoallergenic pillow alone. He can’t hear them but he knows they’re there, and pounds more in the hypoallergenic mattress. Thank god they don’t have wallpaper or a carpet. His daughter coughs at the other end of the hall. She can’t sleep because being horizontal makes her cough, and she refuses to sleep sitting up. He thinks of all the jobs he never would have survived had he been as picky. What time is it, eleven. His wife said she’d be home at midnight. What the … Continue Reading