American Fez

News Roundup

I can't believe that Goldman Saks Fifth Avenue are overcharging their customers to clean up the BP oil spill that has devastated parts of rural Nebraska. If only I had saved all those Greek drachmas from my holiday in Macedonia I'd be able to pay for Rielle Hunter's breast milk supplements which would boost American productivity in the final quarter of NBA world cup in South Africa. But that's what happens when small pockets of the Conan insurgency are still fighting the jay incumbents in the foothills of the Afghan volcano eruption that has been bullying European aviation so much that many airline baggage handlers are too afraid to update their Facebook pages. Where is Lady Gaga when Toyota desperately need a reputable spokesperson?

Let the Chads Fall Where They May

The voting system called Proportional Representation has always interested me, mostly because the dominant political parties in both Britain and the United States set their (two) faces so strongly against its adoption. If power-grasping, incumbent carpetbaggers feel as though they have something significant to lose, then I can only assume that we poor citizen marks have something worthwhile to gain. So, speaking as someone who feels that the eeny-meeny-miney-moe method of electing presidents is superior to our current red and blue mosaic of representatives, I'd be perfectly willing to give PR a chance in 2012. After all, the result can't be any worse than it's been for the last two hundred years, so what does it matter anyway?

Sing-a-long Downbeats

We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine ....except for cousin Jeff who is homeless, drug-addicted, refuses help, and has become estranged from the rest of the family. We always knew he was a wrong 'un, ever since he killed his sister's pet hamster with a brick when he was eleven. You make your own bed, as they say.

Abandon Hope

Jean Paul Sartre, the James Mason of philosophy, famously remarked that "Hell is other people," prompting the predictable response that, as a matter of fact, most people think that Hell is actually reading all his books. Touché. Flippancy is far more appealing than existential misanthropy. Personally, although I agree with Sartre in principal, I've always felt that Hell can be more properly defined as the process of working with other these people, making the people themselves some sort of Purgatorial ante-chamber rather than the fiery pit itself. The nightmare imaginations of John the Apostle and Dante combined could not describe the limitless horror of the modern office cubicle and the slothful drones who dwell therein. The Slough of Despond is an oasis of light and good fellowship by comparison.

Volcanic Rage

The Gods are obviously extremely angry, probably about this so-called new wave of Icelandic pop. What has the world come to when Godless teenagers waste countless hours clicking their marijuana stained fingers to the music of Björk and Sigur Rós instead of sacrificing goats on snowy, fir-ringed mountaintop altars? No wonder European airspace has been invaded by huge clouds of drifting Thor farts. Where the Hell is Yma Sumac when you finally need the bloody woman?

An Ideal for Living

Some HDTV-ready woman appeared on my television screen this morning promoting her latest self-help book, The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections. An appealing read for neurotics easily persuaded that their personal dysfunction can benefit from playing a sort of pop-psychology version of Clue, where the crime under investigation is depression rather than murder: "It was Miss Cravings, in the Kitchen, with the Distorted Body Image." Obviously, a variety of genius is required to re-house such overly familiar material in this best-selling manner, and then discuss it on camera with a straight face. Alas, it is not the type of mind of which I can boast ownership.
Indeed, I recalled, as the interview progressed, that my own grandfather had always seemed to discover a great deal of happiness in his outhouse; an environment somewhat detached from the family home, but a "room" nonetheless. It was here that he composed his poems, mostly verse chronicles of his garden in season and the forms of fertilizer necessary to nourish his prize-winning vegetables. Another room wherein he found contentment and peace of mind was his salon, essentially an old-fashioned parlor converted into a comfortable chamber suitable for debates and exhibitions of wit, although mostly used for examination of the career of "overnight soft shoe shuffle sensation" Gloria Perkins - whose star faded as quickly as it rose - and spine-chilling stories of the mysterious Weaselman who supposedly lived in the woods nearby (now a luxurious, if half empty, condo development named 'Weasel Willows').
Of course, in these uncertain times of the sub-prime synapse, when most of us can barely afford a home with two rooms, never mind nine, it must be a terrible shock to obtain an expensive mind-mortgage on those Nine Rooms of Happiness only to have your elation suddenly repossessed by the brain-bank, or to find you're stuck with rats in the walls, dry rot, leaky windows and other disastrous structural faults. So perhaps I'd rethink the metaphor if I was the author. Perhaps the Nine Tents of Happiness? They're portable, relatively cheap, come in different shapes, sizes and colors, are easy to maintain, and are durable and fun.

IKEA in the Balkans

IKEA always reminds me of some Orwellian nightmare future where exhibitions of unconventionality are considered to be crimes; college kids are sent to the gulag for painting their bookshelves orange; bewildered men are tortured for not caring much about their kitchen counter tops; women are never seen again after whispering that this rug really doesn't go with that ottoman; slightly defective children gnaw upon the remains of cold Swedish meatballs in the dungeon area behind the loading zone. Shhhh: the yellow-shirted thought police are everywhere.