Looking – WHARVED

Quackery

Edification via popular happenstance (due to improper ventilation) would not be my goal for this symposium, since occurrences related to HVAC quackery deserve their own symposia just to unpack the harm done by feckless contractors for decades in the name of frugality. “But At What Cost?” would likely be the working title before a more effective one comes along.

I’m really looking to discuss the aerodynamics of flat vs. concave disks when shot out of of a giant sloth’s rectum (damn near killed ’em). Older studies have been conducted with various megafauna from the glamorous Pleistocene Epoch, but not a single one of them exemplifies the untethered wildness of apex mammals more than Megatherium (particularly when cloned specifically to shoot laserdisc-sized projectiles from their dang bungholes).

Our work in this field is second to none, as our data will no doubt show you… some other time.

Phourit Gharl

Triumphance rarely conquers the spirit of the wide-ranging pituitary-minded poltergeist wrangler in his heartiest of times (from the Belgian Riviera to the Spanish beer mines the proletariat sent their kids to one fine Summer evening only to find that mines aren’t as fun as they’re cracked up to be); I’ve lately found myself drawn toward the lively canary fields from my youth, where the kids and elderly alike would frolic in ways suitable to their particular stations. I would perform amateur somersaults and insist on becoming a gold-medal gymnast, knowing full well that I’d most likely have to settle for silver and a life of abject mediocrity (though producing a silver medal in and of itself is quite impressive from a layman’s standpoint).

Nevertheless, the frolicking continued into the wee hours of the afternoon, both the youths and elders needing to be put down for naps by their respective caretakers. At such a bizarre turn of events–otherwise considered contrived–the caretakers had a brief period all to themselves while their wards recharged their batteries. Seeing as how I was never awake under these circumstances, I have no idea as to what my au pair would have been doing at the time of my napping. However, I do have several theories batting around in my head (not unlike the 1927 Yankees’ unfair offensive firepower). I won’t bore you with the sheer volume of my ruminations, as those would only emphasize my madness. I will, however, provide a few of the “greatest hits”, as it were.

But not today. That’s for a different time. For you see, in the time it took me to describe my aversion to pointing out the minute details of my meandering mind, the youths and elders have already awoken from their sun-drenched siestas, relegating their caretakers to once again looking out for soiled diapers, skinned knees and broken hips.

Parlor

Perusing the parlor of the Parisian Peruvian consulate wouldn’t be so difficult, were it not for the giant window-washing syndicate purporting to require seven hours a day, every day, to free the egalitarian edifice from smudges and insect remnants that would otherwise mar the immaculate façade and strip its dignity away through a slight uptick in entropic rate that would, over the course of two to three generations (depending on who you speak to on the topic) detereriorate that aesthetic je ne sais quoi, anywhere from 14 to 17% per decade on average. Extrapolating from there, we’re looking at complete disavowal of the skin-deep school of architectural and biological beauty that allowed our “modern civilization” to “flourish” under the spell of charming artifice.

So good luck ever getting into that parlor, and don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

Appetite for the Absurd

Heralded as the Jonestown Network alternative to Stem, the Fruitful Terrier Sitter Extraordinaire, Pango Pango Junction packs quite the wallop when it comes to pure, unadulterated edutainment at a reasonable price. Parked at the intersection of broad leaf swelling and matriarchal patronage, I defy anybody to come away without some kind of interesting new trivia in their noggin by the end of each episode.

Before I agreed to subject myself to the bizarre ritual that is test-viewing a public television program for the determination of proper demographic distribution, I thought “oh jeez, here goes another several hours of my life that I’m never getting back. And right on the heels of finishing up my kite-flying apprenticeship at Old American [for Profit] University, too.”

But, being the good sport that I am, I didn’t even balk at the dubious honor. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that the show’s producer and I had a bit of a fling a few holiday seasons ago, and that we still flirt pretty heartily with each other. I’m a real sucker for shallow intimacy, especially if it’s spread out over the course of several years, where I can put the person/people out of mind for a while and reconnect with that polarizing animal magnetism as though we’re on a sinking ship/divebombing plane/bucking bronco… I guess it would be tough to get two of us on one of those beasts at the same time, but you get my drift.

You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this topic. Not to wax depressing, but living alone has afforded me the time to step back and reflect upon the foundation of relationships at their very essence of innate human fragility. I’ve come to develop the inconvenient understanding that I was never meant to settle down with any one person, and the fairy tale love affair might as well go the way of the dinosaurs–at least, as far as I’m concerned. Damn, now I’ve gone and gotten myself all glum again! What the hell?!

But anyway, I promised Gwen I’d do her a favor by giving my unvarnished opinion on the latest project, so I borrowed her official showbiz flash drive and gave the first few episodes a spin. Yes, plural episodes. Just shooting a pilot clearly wouldn’t have been enough doing to properly showcase their dean’s list-caliber aptitude for creative enterprises. One could chalk it up to insurmountable confidence or simply an arrogance that never got flushed out of the system by regular beatings/embarrassments, but I reserve such judgments for the critics of the world.

Well, this review got a bit out of hand. Suffice it to say that I recommend Pango Pango Junction to anyone looking to spend some time on a contemporary spin of the “one-size-fits-all daytime head-scratcher” subgenre. Or simply anyone with a healthy enough appetite for the absurd.

Until we meet again, gentle reader–

Sardonicus Q. Jellyknife, Esq.

Squandered

No frills; we must tend
to the squandered beef on I-94.
Its recent turn to uselessness
in the eye of the discerning omnivore
stands in line behind a factory’s
striking rendition of a human,
chimney stacks puffing away.

No more bandying Comanche warriors
duking it out for second-class status;
Uncle Sam saw to their dissolution
while whispering “you just be good, now.”

Every part of the steer in use
would be the ideal situation here,
though idealism took a flying leap
off George Washington’s nose
when the stone masons weren’t looking.

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