2.20.2012

Crumbs, Disguised as Courses

As a Moment of Truth approaches with this Vermont position-in-awaiting (I've really done my best for this one), there is only jetsam to report, with each unit of flotsam having floated off into the night like so much flotsam in the night.

Some puzzling components, that I'll update as the day progresses:


* Desmond and Ivor have continued to listen to Christmas music, like it's just sort of always there. (This, I suppose, is what happens when you give youngsters Christmas music for Christmas.) Neither Molly nor I have any problem with this, especially because some of it is drawn from the inestimable stockpile of Motown's holiday-greetings performances (both originals and renditions). But then I got to thinking of something that's rather awful. The Jackson 5ive have a number of holiday songs on the collection--among the more irritating of the bunch, it is certain--and then I realized,Wait a second! The whole Jackson family were effing Jehovah's Witnesses!

Don't even try to tell me that that's not the most thoughtlessly sinister thing to do: to get ALL (or most, at least) of your kids, NONE of whom are permitted (by religious order of YOUR OWN imposition) to celebrate any holiday (for any occasion), and have them perform a damn song about the mystery, magic, and mythology of what is arguably the most child-centered holiday of the lot.
Damn, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson! That is cold.


* Typing (not speaking) of cruelty, I'll provide another story. But this one begins with a lengthy expository digression.

In my pre-teen days. I didn't watch much television (aside from the Weather Channel), but my still-supple memory retained everything that I encountered. I'd occasionally catch the Comedy Channel, back before Ha! network began and subsequently merged with them to form Comedy Central. I enjoyed it the most that some of their programming was not even slightly funny. A lot of it was old, too--they'd broadcast spots from something called the Laff-Off from 1979 like it was new (featuring a then-obscure Jerry Seinfeld), shows by Carol Leifer (Leifer Madness), Rachel Sweet (The Sweet Life), and Rosie O'Donnell (Stand-up Spotlight).

Anyway, they had this newsything (I forget the name) that was co-hosted by (a then-obscure) Jon Stewart. (Really, I'd look it up, but Wikipedia is so frequently incorrect that it would be appropriate to accuse them of attempting to re-define reality.) In any case, I distinctly remember a segment in which the FDA testing of an aphrodisiac was underway. I never heard of it again in this context, but its name was Wellbutrin (with the accent on the first styllable rather than the second). Even though the drug resurfaced as an antidepressant, that's neither here nor there. What's fascinating is where they tested it.

In space! With astronauts! It was only then that I realized the pinnacle of human cruelty--giving an aphrodisiac to a person in a spacesuit. Oh my god. Just imagine being that person. You wouldn't even remember why you were suffering. And that's far, far removed from anti-depressing.



* Whenever I have an MRI (Magnetic Resource Imaging) test to assess the structural (but not artistic, thank goodness) integrity of my nervous system, they shut me in a tube, and I have to hear loud, graceless machine noises at relatively unpredictable intervals. This is standard. An aspect of this that I find especially weird, aside from being ordered not to swallow for 10 minutes at a time (which SUCKS),  is that the proctor/administrator/technician offers to play music as I lie there in that tiny tube. I always ask for Billy Joel, so that I can imagine the MRI machine noises as being either an auditioning musician or somebody in the backing band losing his or her composure. It's very satisfying.

1 comment:

  1. i had an MRI 3 weeks ago and i enjoyed it very much.. although in my relaxed semi sleep state, my legs kept sliding around and the technician asked 2x - "see if you can stop that"

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