by Mykle Hansen
One fine cocktail I found myself surrounded by a trio of young, attractive female college students — my favorite kinds of people, really — and was asked about my background. Upon my reply, I was informed that they were all Armenian too. The three of them were the first Armenians I ever met, and in my haste to impress them and create a bond, I unfortunately forgot that all my Armenian knowledge was drunken fabrication. I stumbled through an interrogation. What city in Armenia? Ludou. Where is that? In the south. Do you play Kratsky Tolny? I love to when the weather is fair. Do you know where a good dolma can be had? No, I have never had a dolma like my dear dead grandmother’s. (Much commiseration here.) So, are you spatni or strashny?
Eh?
You know, are you red or blue? It’s okay, they said. We aren’t political. Just curious.
I launched into an oration concerning the international brotherhood of humankind and the need to erase borders and heal broken scars. They applauded my sentiments, and then asked again, this time most intently: Spatni or Strashny?
I said I was half-and-half. My mother was spatni, my father strashny. They paled. One of them turned and stormed away. Another one said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I don’t mean to embarrass you.” But after that they looked at me like I was a troll, and the conversation returned to safe topics, and then petered out completely.
Metrophobia
Everybody knows you can’t just go out walking around. There’s places in Northeast where they’ll just come running out of their houses with guns, looking for meat. Anyway, there’s a huge speed trap out that way — the cops there are real rednecks. Downtown you have to watch out for feral cats. There’s packs of them, some have rabies. Don’t — DO NOT — flash your headlights at someone who hasn’t turned them on! I read on the Internet that there’s a new gang thing — the city is full of gangs and drugs, especially in the Northeast — where they drive around with the headlights off & carjack the first car that flashes at them. Carjackings are up this year ... but God knows it’s not safe to just walk around. I just hope we can keep all that stuff out of this neighborhood. Yesterday a big Oldsmobile parked right in front of my neighbor Mabel’s house — they didn’t look like anybody she’d know — I just didn’t know what to do! I was about to call 911, but then I remembered that I had heard the police will only answer one 911 call per telephone per month, because the crime problem is so dramatic, and I thought “What if they go away when the police arrive, but then come back afterwards? And what if the police want to come in, and they decide I look suspicious, and they search my apartment and find my stash? Or they just decide to plant something on me?” So I went down to the basement with the mobile phone — I hoped to God they didn’t have a one of those scanners! — and I listened, and I waited. The phone has emergency buttons programmed on it, red buttons, so I can dial 911 with only one press instead of three, or else I can call Animal Control, Poison Control or my sister in Medford, instantly. I was down there for a couple of hours, just listening for trouble and watching all of the horrible little bugs we have down there. Honestly — little silverfish, spiders, they get in through the cracks. I never imagined there were so many. I finally got down on hands & knees with a brick and started crushing them, one after the other, until I was pretty sure I got them all.
When I went back upstairs the Oldsmobile had snuck away. But then I noticed there was some sort of flyer stuck through the mail slot, and then I remembered: they haven’t caught the Unabomber yet, have they?
Letter to the Manufacturers of
Alley Katz Katz Food
Dear sirs: I would like to thank and congratulate you on the quality of your cat repellent, Alley Katz Katz Food, which I’ve been using for the last few months to keep these meowing pests out of my home. Never have I seen animals so transfixed, held firmly at bay by an invisible feline wall of distaste. I am writing also to inquire whether you market a slug and snail food, preferably in the same cheese and liver flavor that you claim Katz Krave, or else in a configuration that might analogously nauseate slithering pests. (I imagine you employ experts in this area.) (Lettuce and salt peanuts, perhaps?)
Finally, I would also inquire whether you could recommend a company that manufactures edible food for cats, in case I suffer a change of heart.
Yrs, E. Tarantula, fellow cat hater.
Sirs: in inconspicuous lettering on the back of my box of Alley Katz Katz Food, you warn that a temporary period of appetite loss is normal when attempting to feed your products to Katz. How long does this period last, in the normal case? I opened a bag of your Liver ’N Onion flavored product two weeks ago, and have been unable to stomach either of these foods in their unprocessed form ever since. My cats, meanwhile, have begun to eat their own litter and beg from passing children. Also: you warn that if this condition persists for over a month, some other cause (malnutrition?) may be suspected and a veterinarian ought to be consulted. Call me premature: I have spoken with my regular vet, Frida, who has suggested that I investigate the meat over meat by-products ratio of your Katz Food. Apparently when this ratio approaches zero, so does one’s cat.
Please advise, E. Tarantula, vegetarian adept
Sirs: a spot of confusion surrounding your product, to wit: on the front of your package you picture, seated on an ersatz fence, a furry creature of feline build, healthy in appearance and cat-like in all outward aspects, but apparently able to metabolize Alley Katz Katz Food for nutritional value. I suspect the confusion here is that this creature is a “Katz,” perhaps some bizarre Australian offshoot from the evolutionary tree of the common housecat, with entirely foreign dietary needs, and what I suspected as mere post-literacy on the part of your writing staff was actually a subtle but important distinction overlooked by the stock clerks at my local market. I should be relieved to know if this is true, and out of curiosity and ignorance, what other toxins is this creature able to absorb, and could one cohabit with humans? I’ve considered procuring a goat to clear out the blown waste that collects in my yard. Perhaps a Katz would be less obtrusive, and also able to dispose of this mistakenly purchased bag of Alley Katz Katz Food (tofu double liver flavor), which my garbagemen refuse to collect for fear of being fined.
Inquisitively yours, E. Tarantula.
Dear Alley Katz Katz Food Kreators: Your Krispy Kroutons of Krunchy Katzfood Kause my Katz to Kough up Krust! Klearly I am Koncerned! If you Kontinue to Klaim that Katz, or any Kreatures, Krave this Krud you Kall Katfood, you risk being Kalled in by the Kops and the ASPKA on Kharges of Kruelty!
no Kidding! E.T.
Dear Sirs: ever since I tried to feed your food to my cat Splotch, she has denied me affection, companionship, and even the smallest of courtesies. Normally carefree and energetic, she now paces absently from room to room, or merely gazes out the window, her eyes betraying not the slightest awareness of her surroundings. Sometimes in the night she cries out in long, baleful meows as if recoiling from a memory too terrible for her little kitty brain to encompass.
For how many weeks is this behavior considered normal?
I Saw This Movie
I saw this movie where the plot was: everything catches on fire and starts to explode. Then it continues to explode, in a series of increasingly huge explosions, until eventually mountains are exploding, and then the earth explodes and then the sun explodes. It had George Clooney and Gwyneth Paltrow in it. I hear they’re already working on a sequel. Speaking of sequels, there’s this one I saw the trailer for called Twisterconda, where this gigantic computer-generated anaconda starts threatening the inhabitants of this 20-story condominium out on the prairie in North Dakota, and then this gigantic computer-generated twister tornado comes speeding towards the same building, and then the twister and the anaconda sort of duke it out in a big final fight scene. It’s got Leonardo DiCaprio and Pierce Brosnan and Gwyneth Paltrow, it ought to be pretty good. I also saw a trailer for this movie called The Odd Couple, and I guess it’s based on some old TV show where there’s this space st
ation orbiting the earth that gets infiltrated by hideous space-anacondas and these two guys who live in the space station have to save the earth, and there’s a hull breach, and some laser gunfights, and also I guess there’s this subplot that they really hate each other. It’s got George Clooney and Bruce Willis in it, and one of the space anacondas is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. I’m looking forward to that one. I also read in Entertainment Preview that there’s some movie coming up that’s got Bruce Willis, Gwyneth Paltrow, Willie Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, Jack Nicholson and Cher in it. That ought to be pretty good. It’s about some disease that makes people bleed out of their anuses and die really disgustingly. I think it’s called Fasciitis: Final Conflict but I’m not sure how that’s pronounced, “fasciitis.” And there’s this Arnold Schwartzenegger movie I heard is almost done, where Arnold Schwartzenegger plays the President of the United States, and these alien monsters who disguise themselves as Arabs sneak into the White House and take everybody hostage, and start running the country, and I guess they do a bad job or something because then the President, who’s trapped in the Oval Office, has to escape and sneak around in all the secret passageways that only the President knows about, and kill all of the Arab space aliens, only they attach this deadly energy bomb to the United States Constitution, and the President has to disarm the bomb before it blows up the Constitution and the whole country reverts to a loose affiliation of nation-states, and then gets annexed by this other planet of the Arab space aliens who are apparently all Communists. It seems kind of stupid but I’ll probably go see it.
Two Eggs
I would like two eggs. I wold like the eggs to be identical in every way, genetically that is, I mean to say that I would like two eggs laid by the same hen, simultaneously if that is possible or else one right after the other. They ought also to be weighed and measured for any deformity, and a suitable stress-test should be devised in order to screen out weakness that might later affect the meal. Several two-egg candidate pairs should be assembled just in case something bad happens.
I would like the first egg scrambled, via ultrasound if possible. If there is no suitable ultrasonic egg scrambling apparatus, you may use twelve turns with a sterilized wooden spoon, heating the egg over a PH-neutral panlike cooking surface that is perfectly flat. Please take care to avoid excessive lumps.
The second of my eggs should be buried in a pot of earth, PH-neutral earth, for a period of three days and three nights, the third of those nights coinciding with the full moon. Then, at midnight on the third night, I would like you to stand nude in a cemetery with tar smeared across your bare torso, holding the potted egg aloft, and I would like you to chant “Imalla Assaka Loba Doba Egg Foontella!” and then unearth the egg and prepare it in the usual fashion, as outlined above.
Of course I would like sausages with my eggs. The Aeronautical Meat Sciences Board publishes a set of detailed specifications of various sizes and textures of sausage. The sausage I am hoping for is described in AMSB Document 01-3382-Sausage-J, and you can order that document for a small fee from the address printed on the back of this card. Once you have obtained the document, and attended an orientation and been certified in an official training session, you will be able to offer your other guests delicious AMSB 01-3382-Sausage-Js, and I think this will do a lot for your business. It may improve the clientele. The AMSB document specifies a list of acceptable meats, including pork shank, smoked carp, textured jerboa protein, Michigan Mock Steak, turkey-pork shoulder, and various others. I’ll let you surprise me. I would like two and one-half of these sausages, roasted over hot coals. I’m sure you know what I mean when I say “hot coals,” don’t you?
A breakfast such as I am specifying would be useless without home-fried potatoes. Because my own home is far away across the ocean, I think it will be acceptable if you fry the potatoes in the home of my Aunt. I have been staying with her this week. She lives only a mile from here, and her kitchen, though small, is quaint and PH-neutral. Her name is Edna. She will demand to know all about you, of course, especially your romantic life. Edna is a very lonely old woman. But you must tell her nothing. She will want to assist you in the home-frying of the potatoes, but don’t let her. She is not a professional, like you. I have laid aside four potatoes for home-frying, they are in a sealed cryogenic container in a briefcase wrapped in plastic in the cold-storage freezer in the sub-basement of Aunt Edna’s house. It’s very dark down there, and there are a lot of things to bump into. You can locate the cold-storage freezer by its telltale sickly buzz-hum. There’s no light inside the freezer either, but the briefcase is to the left, wrapped in plastic. I have no idea what those other things are in there, and I certainly don’t want them introduced into my potatoes. Simply boil the potatoes for fourteen minutes or until they become softer than a soft apple but not quite as soft as a hard pear, then chop them in whatever manner you prefer — I’m not picky — before home-frying them on a PH-neutral cooking surface oiled with walnut oil and heated to 260 degrees Celsius. When they are done home-frying, season them and rush them hither.
Toast is futile. It would take too long to describe what I really want, and I’m getting hungry, so let’s just forget about the toast. Just bring me 300 milliliters of boiling water, thirty grams of raw coffee beans, a Bunsen burner, a piece of silk, a machete and six inches of string while I’m waiting. And a cloth napkin, please. Thank you.
Poor Ivan Is In Love
Our poor friend Ivan has fallen in most unfortunate and inadvisable love — with a girl, no less. We saw him today, beside the Bottle-Cap Factory that graces our industrial skyline. We wore the tweed coat and chambray trousers that are the unofficial uniform of our Group. But Ivan, he arrived draped in a long white clinical jacket, toying with a dilapidated stethoscope as if unsure of its function.
“She’s interested in Medicine,” he confessed, and blew his nose on a crumpled paper shoe of the hospital variety. “I’ve been reading on the subject myself, just browsing really, but it astounds me what can be accomplished in our age with ... you know, sick people.”
“Ivan,” we chided in our firm but affectionate tone, “we are meeting tomorrow at the Library to analyze One Hundred Years of Solitude. May one presume one’s attendance?”
Ivan weighed the brass and rubber stethoscope in his left hand, the tissue shoe in his right, perhaps deciding which would make the more impressive bouquet. Inside the factory, able and responsible bottle-capiers hammered and twisted at their work.
Poor Ivan!
Poor, foolish Ivan. We saw him again today, outside the gates that encircle the manicured grounds of the Advertising Building, button on the epaulet of out industrial skyline. We wore the deep blue necktie that is the secret identifier of the members of our Group. But Ivan, deluded boy (clever though he may be in the nobler disciplines), wore a paint-spattered T-shirt and comfortable jeans. He quite reeked of turpentine, and his hands and arms were streaked in orange and cobalt.
“She’s fond of art,” he apologized.
“Multifaceted, your Juliet.”
“I must apologize that I missed last night’s discussion. I’m afraid I was absorbed in my experiments with texture. At any rate, how did it go?”
“Go? Where would it have gone? Did you expect me to talk to myself for two hours? In the Library?”
He examined his shoe. “Sorry,” he sighed.
“And your intaglio,” we probed, “how did it ‘go’?”
“Quite smoothly, I’m afraid.” He paused, clearly dejected. “But concurrently, I’m finding the process itself, the experience of the failure to paint, it’s enticing. I’ve already failed several portraits, though when faced with certain beauty, the oil and brush simply ... reaffirm a certain ... exquisite ...” At this his eyes achieved an abstract-expressionistic quality. We took notice of a number, possibly a telephone number, smeared on the length on his left arm.
“Well,” we commented, “the visual arts certainly have their place in our industria
l skyline, when executed by the visualists themselves. But please, Ivan, members of our Group are scheduled to meet tomorrow morning at the University to recruit new members. Without you we should be deluged.”
Ivan knelt and studied the texture of the sidewalk with semi-professional interest. Inside the great gray Advertising Building, persuasive new arguments bubbled in their flasks, awaiting mass release.
“I’ll be there, of course,” he said, and started away.
“And Ivan?”
“Hm?”
“Tomorrow evening at the Library, the membership will discuss Paradise Lost.”
We met that morning at the wide steps of the University, erudite spire jutting from the belly of our industrial skyline. I wore the long tan mackintosh and gray fedora that is the official uniform of our Group, when it’s raining. Ivan brought a duck, in a wire and wooden cage. I pointedly ignored this duck.
Ivan collected signatures while I addressed the throng:
“JOIN THE GREAT BOOKS DISCUSSION GROUP!”
“DISCUSS ... GREAT BOOKS!”
“MEET INTELLECTUALS!”
