Van Dusen Speaks

The Four Days of Actuary Exams: A Memoir in Four Parts by Josh Dunfrey

Summers of Wheat, Springs of Barley by Andrei Kgyhktzn, edited and with an addendum, Autumns of Maze, by Andrei Kgyhktzn Jr.

Unsaid Things Already Left Unsaid by Katherine Towles

Torture is not Punishment and Other Things my Mother Taught Me by Hon. Antonin Scalia

I Hope there are Fig Newtons in Heaven by Earl Woodruff

May I Carry the Wind Over the Bridge by Brinton McLean

The Road to Spartansburg Does Not Have a Sign: a Memoir of Frustration by Carl Atwater

Breakfast of “Stan”pions by Stan Montgomery

Pigeons Can’t Hurt People by Sheila Walsh, as told to her by the late Tom Walsh

Please Call Someone: I’m Trapped Without Food or Water by Andy Rooney

Flowers of Rebekah: a Partial Memoir by Rebecca Goode

You Can Call me Al by Nelson Hezgobah Jazniri Al Shibakta Komahnki

My Words, Your Shelf, Noone Has to Know by Ken Carroll

I’m Not Naming Names, but Some People Need to Chill by Alex Haley

Confessions of a Street Surveyor by Chuck Mayberry

A Tree Has Roots in the Ground by Margaret Shulson

The Road to War and Other Dating Mishaps by Gen. Tommy Franks

I Thought You Were Supposed to Lick It: A Life of Failed Addiction by Josh Klinsky

My Slow Motion Life in Rewind: The Dubbed Version by Robert Wiley

Searching for Hytnskovitch by Ilan Udovidima

Say I am struck by lightning and mysteriously wake up in the fall of 2008, a whole four months into the future. Once I have discovered what year it is, I must now adjust to new technologies, values and ways of living. After finding my old apartment and murdering its current occupant, I will probably need something to do, if anything to avoid dealing with the realities of living in the future. Should I read an interview of my future self in Men’s Vogue or turn on the TV and see what new shows are available at the time.

Of the new network shows that made it out of the upfronts last week, many of them deal with very similar issues: the everyman grappling with the struggles of a new and strange world he has found himself in. Everyman wakes up in the past. Everyman wakes up in the future. Everyman wakes up as a secret agent. Everyman wakes up to find the same living room they used on Roseanne. If anything, this strengthens my belief that, however aimless my life is, if it were only cast into another dimension, it would be something worth putting on television

Mentalist, CBS

Simon Baker plays Patrick Jane, who is not your ordinary detective whose wife and child were killed by a serial killer still on the loose. Firstly, most detectives don’t have the ability to unbutton themselves through sheer inertia. Secondly, he’s the kind who solves crimes by observing people. Rather than go through the government red tape involved with actually creating this job in the police department, for the purposes of the show they decided to call it a “mentalist”. I would watch this show and give it a fair chance, were it not for my annoying mentalist roommate, who would probably stand behind the couch pretending he has something better to do, pointing out all the inaccuracies in how mentalists solve crimes.

Kath and Kim, NBC

Molly Shannon heads this Australian import about a 40 something divorcee whose 20 something recently divorced daughter moves in with her. Together they will hilariously struggle through the pitfalls of love, womanhood and competing with the inevitable sitcom their ex husbands have together. The role of the daughter is played by Selma Blair, a versatile performer who can play anything from a 12 year old actress in the role of a 35 year old, or a 35 year old actress who looks 12. The show already proved itself in Australia, so unless they really screw it up, or find out all the scripts are in Aborigine, it should have some success here. What they probably haven’t realized is that the concept of middle aged female divorce is by itself hilarious to Australians, regardless of the quality of the slapstick or dialogue. In fact, I am writing this sentence in an Australian cafe that has good wifi, and people all around me are cracking up. I guess every culture is different.

Life on Mars, NBC

A cop intent on solving his girlfriend’s disappearance suddenly wakes up in 1972. At first he must adjust to the life of a cop in the early 70’s, when there were no roads or telephones. But despite his new situation, he never abandons his search for the missing love of his life. Except it’s 1972, so his girlfriend hasn’t disappeared yet. This can make things complicated, so he has no choice but to “make her disappear” as he soon realizes that you can never really solve someone’s disappearance until you murder them. And then he can use the 70’s to track his future self down. This show already has versions in England and Australia, which means there are now six different cops traveling across three different time warps solving the disappearance of three different women. My math is a little fuzzy, but I think that’s enough for a NY Times travel section trend piece.

Project Gary, CBS

While this show does not involve multiple identities or time travel, it does involve the transporting of Jay Mohr’s civilian body onto a television show. Much like the character he plays, it is very possible that in real life Jay Mohr is your average unfunny divorced guy with two “sons” that suspiciously look like Charlie Sheen. This would not be a problem if a portion of Jay Mohr’s real life wasn’t in front of cameras that feed boxes that are trying to entertain me. As this is not the case, my life and Jay Mohr’s life come into direct conflict. Critics of the show are already calling it “a poor man’s Two and a Half Men”, which would seem catty, were it not for the fact that bootleg DVDs of this show are sold at Marshall’s with “Two and a Half Men” on the cover. Goes best with pig feet.

Do Not Disturb, FOX

A workplace comedy about Jerry O’Connell and other people running a hotel. But it’s not just any hotel: it’s a funny hotel. Which means funny things happen, like a sassy black maid walking in on a honeymooning couple, or two guests inadvertently getting the same room. This should be interesting to anyone who was a fan of Fawlty Towers, that is if they weren’t 94 and British. But there are still people you could market the show to, namely dementia patients who believe they are 94 year old Englishmen who hate good comedy and whose HMO won’t let them have cable. Under long tail theories of economics, that is enough of a demographic to keep the show alive for 8 minutes.

The Ex List, CBS

A woman played by a nameless television actress goes to see a psychic right before her wedding, only to be told that she has already met her soul mate, and it is not the man she is marrying. Thus begins her quest to track down every man she has met to find out if he is the one. Presumably there is a system wherein she draws blood during a casual lunch with an ex boyfriend, and takes it back to the soul mate institute for testing. As far as soul mate finding dilemmas go, having already met your soul mate is better than most people can hope for. She should find solace in that, be happy that at least the guy she is marrying has a cleft chin, and surrender herself to a lifetime of passionless sex. Because if it’s Friday at 9 and I’m at home watching a drama on CBS, I’d rather it be passionless sex than the never ending search for one’s soul mate. And if they need to insert some plot, the premise could be “ninjas having passionless sex”.

Crusoe, NBC

A television adaptation of the classic Daniel Defoe novel about a man in search of his long lost love who get stranded on a desert island and wishes, among other things, that he had not selected the Electric Light Orchestra box set as the album he would bring with him to a desert island. While on the island, he discovers new ways to survive and befriends a native cannibal tribe prisoner who has “grown too old for this shit”. They bond over their common situation and mutual disdain for cannibalism. I’m not sure where they will shoot the series but if you see a naked, bearded man on the beach gnawing human flesh, that’s someone else.

Eleventh Hour, CBS

A new procedural about a group of government scientists who investigate people who use science for evil. Not to harp on any details, but anyone who conducts evil uses science for it. Rarely do you find an aspiring evil maker who decides to just sit back and let his own will power and rationality change weather patterns or train an army of robots. Nevertheless, this show appears to miss out on a crucial aspect of all federally employed evil scientist investigators: that they don’t have what it takes to survive in the evil science private sector.

My Own Worst Enemy, NBC

A new drama about two men, a “boring” efficiency expert and an international spy, who inhabit the same body, which they share with Christian Slater. The web site for this show describes it as “an exploration of the duality of man”. What a godless, secular philistine like myself will never understand is that the problem of duality is not reconciling the spiritual with the material, but reconciling the spy and suburbanite that are both controlling your movements. The networks should watch this production carefully, in case the two personalities watch his performance in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and band together to kill Christian Slater.

by Nick Reilly

We’ve been in this Whole Foods line for about 20 minutes now, and as the people in front of us are starting to move, it looks like I am fresh out of jokes related to how long this line is. But do not worry, uhh Nicole (you look like a Nicole), just because I no longer have jokes to bridge what is currently the one thing we have in common does not mean I will not have sex with you. Quite the opposite, in fact. As surprising as it sounds, having sex with strange attractive women I harass in line at grocery stores is the whole point of telling these jokes. I just hope there wasn’t any misunderstanding.

I know what you’re thinking: “Oh great. Here’s another guy who’s gonna bark one liners at me while we wait in this line, and then afterwards he’s not going to want to have sex with me”. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m not someone who will just humor a stranger for close to a half an hour and not expect sex in return. That’s just not the way I was raised. I was taught at a very young age that it is rude to withhold sex from somebody, even after bombarding them with lame jokes that all have a singular premise. I operate on a simple jokes then sex formula. I guess I’m just old fashioned like that.

I don’t know what kind of guys you used to stand next to in supermarket lines before me, but it sounds like they were the kind that would chat you up with some jokes about a common topic, get your phone number, get to know you and then maybe build towards a physical connection. Well I am here to assure you that those days are over. These jokes exist solely to bring about sex between us, and anything else would be a departure from what I have silently promised to use them for. As I am sure you are able to tell from their sharp insights and biting wit, these are sex procurement jokes: the cream of the crop. The kind of jokes that, when they run out, should indicate that now we can begin the sex, as was my original intention. If this were a “just passing the time” or a “trying to get your number” situation, I would have used the unfunny ones. But I didn’t, did I ?

There are a few simple but indispensable aspects of a good joke. A joke should have a true premise. A joke should address a present tension in the situation. And lastly, it should always be assumed that the jokes teller wishes very much to fuck his audience. These aspects are present in the scene we find ourselves in today. It is true that the line is long, something I believe I’ve covered. The longness of the line brings about a tension, as we now have complete strangers and their groceries at proximity for an extended period of time. Ditto on the me covering that with my jokes. And also, as you no doubt understand, the telling of these jokes should in no way give you the idea that I do not wish to fuck you.

I just hope my intentions are made clear before it is too late.

Finding temporary work while you wait out the recession.

- PET CARE: I am leaving town for a couple of weeks and need someone to watch the house and take care of my two lovely cats. You must be able to feed them, change their litter box and generally just be there for love and affection. You must also remember that no matter how much care you give, you are not their mother, I am, and I will always be their mother, so you’re just going to have to deal with your childlessness issues somewhere else, because there’s no room for that trash in my house. Pay is minimal, but drink all the mood altering teas you want.

- COWBOYS, BALLERINAS AND INVENTORS NEEDED: Staffing agency is now accepting resumes. Perfect for anyone that actually does the thing they said they would do when they were six years old, and find themselves looking for work. We supply companies that need that type of work fast. The agency will keep 10% of your dreams.

- TRAVEL ASSISTANT: Some shit went down and I need to leave the country. Need help with passports, wire transfers, hole digging and suicide staging. There is little to no pay but this is a unique opportunity to build a valuable contact and get your feet wet in an emerging field. Unless you do your job well, in which case, all the best !!!

- PUBLICIST: Evil industrialist intent on releasing a deadly nerve gas needs someone with experience in media relations and getting a client’s message out, mainly the “I am not trying to release a deadly nerve gas” message.

- DOCUMENT SPECIALIST: Looking for someone who is organized and reliable to care for, support and in general provide a nourishing environment for some documents. You will be working in a fast paced environment, one where on occasion we say things to the documents we don’t mean. Your job will be to comfort the documents and remind them that they are special and important.

- ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: Are you a self motivator ? Team Player ? Creative Thinker ? Do you have 5 or more years experience in the advertising industry and bring with you a solid client base? Then you should be hiring me, ha ha. No, seriously, hire me. I could really use the work.

- CASHIER: Local bowling alley seeks a cashier named “Ron” to fill open weekend shift and already existing bowling alley employee shirt with “Ron” written on it. All unemployed Rons out there, please respond before I have to sell this shirt to another hipster kid.

- P/T ACTORS NEEDED: Film being shot on location downtown. Specifically, we are looking for extras that will be stabbed by Willem Dafoe as he steals your car. The film itself is a romantic comedy that neither has a carjacking scene in it nor Willem Dafoe. Please send head shots and recent immunizations. Must provide car and knife.

- SPANISH TRANSLATOR: I have something in Spanish here that I need translated into the original Spanish. Need to make sure it was in Spanish all along.

- PHOTOSHOP GURU: Need a Photoshop guru to team up with a Quark guru, an SQL guru and a HTML guru, to be supervised by a management guru who answers to an older guru. Guru clothes will be provided. Please send resume and a copy of your guru certification.

- BLOGGER: Have you had a myriad of adventures and experiences that you write about on a personalized website ? Well now you can do the same thing, but for me. I want your life. Everything that has ever happened to you has now happened to me.

- ANALYST: There’s alot of stuff out there, and some of it needs to be analyzed. I’m not gonna go into specifics or anything, but the analyzing part is where you would come in. Basically, you would show up in the morning, and when I say go, you would start analyzing, and then after that hopefully something good would happen.

- EGG DONORS NEEDED: Am three eggs away from a 5 egg omelette and need someone who went shopping recently to donate some of their extra eggs. While you’re here, maybe you and me can down some of these hormone pills.

- TEMPORARY HOUSEHOLD WORK: I am in the middle of pooping and just realized the toilet paper is in the other bathroom. Don’t want to waddle over with my pants around my ankles and track poo on the floor again. Must have a Bachelor’s degree in English or a related field.

- HELP WANTED NOW!!!: We’re in the middle of a production of St. George and the Dragon, and our rear half of the dragon has chicken pox. Need someone to slip under the felt, like now. Taking actors of all ages and experience levels, provided they look six years old.

- MAIL CLERK: for a freelance horse inseminator. We’ll see who has the worst job on the planet now.

- TV JOBS AVAILABLE: Channel 13 has an exciting new opportunity for the lucky someone who wants to work on “Bill Moyers Journal”. We need someone who can keep Mr. Moyers motivated by tossing him raw fish every time he does a good job.

- TRADER: Hedge Fund manager seeking a temporary trader. Specifically, I have whiskey and fur and am looking to acquire millet and gunpowder.

- WORK FOR FREE RENT: All you willing to live rent free in a beautiful duplex apartment in exchange for doing housework in your underwear once a month ? Really ? That’s sad. You should look into your self esteem issues/career plans.

- MAKE $1000 A WEEK FROM HOME: Fill out some of our marketing surveys and you could make up to $1000 a week working from home. I mean, I’m sure one day you will. It wouldn’t be nice of me to get your hopes down, especially not after you filled out my marketing surveys.

- ATTORNEY: Fancy downtown law firm seeks a sarcastic and unreasonably attractive fellow lawyer to explore love and other mishaps against the backdrop of high powered litigation.

- PROOFREADER: Need someone to proofread a book I wrote about a guy who says “Ay Caramba” alot. Worried the exclamation points are all facing the wrong direction.

- LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Need an experienced landscape architect to design a maze of hedges in my front yard. Am sick of finding my way back to the house every time I drop acid.

- P/T PUBLISHING WORK: Populist despot needs to burn a stack of encyclopedias before the imprisoned intellectuals get a chance to rescue them. Need someone to take Q-T.

- BRAND STRATEGIST: Have a hot iron and a bunch of cows but am sick of doing things the same way over and over again. Need an outside the box thinker to come up with some new branding strategies.

- SAT TUTOR: Need someone to help my possessed demon child prepare for the SATs. Must have demonstrated standardized test skills and a low aversion to projectile vomiting.

- DRIVER: CDL licensed truck driver needed to return a truck load of apple butter I ordered off the internet. Changed my mind, want mince meat instead.

- SOFTWARE DEVELOPER: A family of possums are living in my computer and I need someone who can develop a software that will delete them. Is there a new version of PossumOut for Windows ?

- NANNY: Child care specialist needed to babysit my five year old son. Must be able to work weekends and have emotionless sex/domestic disputes with your boyfriend in front of him. The boy wants to be a writer someday and frankly I don’t have the time.

- CIVIL ENGINEER: And am trying to build a city in the clouds and they say it can’t be done, and you know what, they’re right. Looking to hire a civil engineer to remind me of that. Pay will be on a per reminder basis.

- ARTIST: Looking for a Renaissance style portrait artist to do a Jesus portrait of me. The sooner the better, as I am already nailed to the crucifix and am starting to feel lightheaded.

- DOGWALKER: I have a racist labrador and need an equally racist person to walk it for 10 hours a week. Please reply only if you are full of hatred. The dog can smell the smallest traces of tolerance or open mindedness.

- BUILDING SECURITY: Downtown office building needs someone to work evening door security. Duties will involve sitting on your ass and reminding people about the weather. Must have ass and/or knowledge of weather patterns.

- FLIER DISTRIBUTION: Local Manicurist needs someone to hand out coupon fliers on street corner. Must have a degree from a four year college and provide own hangnail costume.

- BARISTA: Chain coffeeshop needs a barista to start immediately. This a well paying job that has excellent benefits which are, depending on the branch, either health insurance or a Tori Amos CD.

- From the side effects of mixing nacho cheese with hamster food.

- Splitting a gas mane on your stove to get your money back from Rent-a-Center.

- Face down in a buffet platter of peas on a Carnival Cruise.

- Wearing nothing but an authentic Arizona Diamonbacks jersey.

- Shot by a Macy’s security guard trying to steal a large tin of fancy popcorn.

- Quoting Redd Foxx’s standup routine during a mugging.

- Gunned down by a misinformed rap entourage outside Air America Radio’s studios.

- During the taping of the blooper reel of a “Bum Fights” video collection.

- While cleaning your electric tie rack in the shower.

- During a stampede for tickets to an Ugly Kid Joe reunion concert.

- In a bar fight with the judge of Tuesday Trivia Night.

- Not reading the Sarah Lawrence Students for Peace online updates enough to see when the hunger strike ended.

- Filming a Wayans Brothers parody of “Grizzly Man”.

- On a motel bed with the Bible passage written in your blood on the wall above you misquoted.

- Deciding you can get by on the Cliff Notes for “Safe Plants to Eat in the Wild.”

- Undergoing septic shock after trying to give yourself an “Insert Mouth” tattoo.

- Alcohol poisoning from the open bar of an autism benefit you snuck into.

- Killed by an overly cautious, newly sober former child actor.

- Stupidly placing “start prison riot” first on your list of “50 things to do before I die”.

- Shot by overzealous police while Al Sharpton and Bruce Springsteen are on vacation.

- Having your heat stroke collapse go unnoticed as it is during a Civil War reenactment.

- Trying to survive a plane crash in the Andes with only the Romanian gymnastics team.

- Run over because you decided to set up a roadside memorial at the exact spot of the accident.

- From an otherwise unnamed disease whose only famous sufferer is the guy who played Mr. Belvedere.

- Choking on the plastic fruit in your life coach’s waiting room.

- Opting to participate in the final stage of “Deer Hunter” fantasy camp.

- Finding out the deadly consequences of not microwaving your DiGiorno on the plastic disk.

- Shot by a lone gunman trying to impress Jenifer Garner.

- Being unable to drain a deadly blood clot because the medical leeches at Colonial Williamsburg were fake.

- Working at the one bank that forces its employees to die for their cause.

- Strangled while trying to assemble a dreamcatcher.

- While proposing on the uninsured riverboat casino where you first met.

- After the audience suggests that your improv partners kick you in the throat.

- While dating an inexperienced somnophiliac.

- During the unpaid training session for your new drug mule gig.

- Trying to impress a girl who hates guys with peanut allergies.

- Braving a lightning storm to work on your freestyle walking.

- After the extra in your kidnapping video accidentally drops his machete.

- Gastrointestinal hernia in the bathroom of a Medieval Times.

- After realizing that Drakkar Noir doubles as a snake pheromone.

- Crushed by a vending machine while trying to pry loose a single serve shaving cream bottle.

- Sacrificed by your own father because he didn’t understand God’s subtlety.

- Impaled on a fence trying to break into a professional Indoor Soccer game.

- Not enough oxygen for you and your 12 closest friends in rented bachelor party flight simulator.

- 800 pound gorilla attack during the safari portion of the “Giants of Telecommunications” conference.

- Plastic overgrown fingernail stabbing at a “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” exhibit in Virginia Beach.

- Erased from existence because you went back in time and couldn’t get your parents to fuck eachother.

- Deadly aikido move from hero clerk in a botched wine store robbery.

- Friday night ramen noodle explosion in the ping pong room of a Berkeley Engineering School dormitory.

- Having this list be the last thing you complete.

It is not a moment that happens for everyone, but when it does, it is like a sheet has been lifted up from over your eyes. It is like the blinders are off and for once you can see all around you. It is what happens when you take stock of your life, what you own, protect and care about, and ask yourself: Do I need any of this ? Does any of this make my life easier, happier or more complete ? What do I really need ? I guess all it would take to live is a small cabin, a bed to sleep in, a fireplace, some land to grow my own food and hunt in and clothes for staying warm. And a refrigerator, in case I don’t finish the food I hunted and want to save it for later. Then again, it’s alot easier to just plop farm fresh leftovers in the microwave, so I would need one of those. And a nearby Thai restaurant that delivers, in case I get a craving for coconut shrimp, and there are no shrimp to hunt on my land, nor are there coconuts. Also, I would need a phone to call the Thai place, and a lamp to read the menu with, and while I have a lamp, I may as well bring some books with me. I may also need a television, with cable, in case one of my friends calls me on my new phone to ask if I saw Lost that week. I mean, there’s no need to alienate my friends just because I have a new lease on life.

But really, why must I think I need anything more than the bare necessities: a roof, some clothes, a way to procure food, a phone, ethnic menus and cable. I think I could be really happy in that life: just me, some books, On Demand cable and the sounds of nature to soothe me. Although, I should probably get a Bose Sounds of Nature machine, in case I want sounds of different kinds of nature. And while I have the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue open, I may as well get one of those electric rock fountains, because they’re really cool. And I’m sure at that point, they’ll start to give me half off on my next item, which would be the perfect opportunity to get one of those portable ab toners. And then, in my fire heated lamp lit woodland home, with the cable box on mute, I can wolf down some reheated pad thai, stroke my near perfect abs, listen to an ocean breeze on my wave radio, watch my rock fountain, and ponder the beautiful simplicity of it all. And then I can retreat to a warm bath, assuming of course that a bathtub and running hot water come with the cabin. Whirlpool jets too, of course, because I got this cramp in my back and the jets really help with that.

Come to think of it, I may not even need a house or running water. I could just get a van, move somewhere warm and a get gym membership for showering and stuff. Provided it was a gym where I could bring my own items, like my exfoliating lavender body wash and my four layered Egyptian towels, which are more absorbent than the gym towels. I could even keep a bucket in the van, provided I could hire someone to clean it regularly. I mean really, who needs a bathroom ? All they do is give evening guests a place to go reexamine the decisions they’ve made. It would, of course, have to be a European van. The other makes are just a little too pedestrian. And since I’m spending so much time in an automobile, I should join one of those audio book subscription clubs. Who knows, maybe, on top of eschewing the material constraints of life, I’ll learn Italian for Businessmen. What would be better than knowing that it’s just you, your van, your renewable audiobook membership, the lady who cleans your chamberpot, your prescription toiletries, imported towels, eggshell foam upholstery along the floor of the van, and, of course, the wide open road of life.

I don’t know what it is, there’s just something refreshing about examining your life and all the possessions that weigh it down and asking yourself, is it worth it ? Do I need the car, the CDs, the clothes, this pair of Moleskin loafers, which should probably be replaced because of the black smudge on the sole ? I feel like a great weight has been lifted off of me, that as of now, after I find an XM radio receiver that I can bring in the pool, I no longer have use for these trivial things. For once, my spirit has washed itself of the detritus of material bloodlust and been born anew. Life is about living and surviving, about remembering the moments that truly count, which come to think of it would make a 16 inch lens color digital camera quite useful. You can keep your plasma screens, fancy cars and shiny suits, because I have something more: clarity. I also have those liqui-gel foot inserts, and I swear to God it’s like I’m not even wearing shoes.

The universe, inasmuch as it exists, is divided into three things: space, stuff and time. Space is the template of all things, the receptacle into which stuff goes. As anything that is not space is stuff, space is more properly defined as the absence of stuff. It is possible that both space and stuff are infinite. It is also possible that they are not. Sure, anything is possible if you just put your mind to it, but now you’re changing the subject. The third thing, time, is the thing that occurs and is filled as stuff is occupying and inhabiting space. The existence of time is utterly dependent on, and oftentimes reduced by, this interaction between space and stuff. No one is quite sure whether time is infinite, in all likelihood stuff will refrain from occupying space if time dwindles in supply. Those who make a habit of moving stuff around space, or driving to Swedish warehouses in New Jersey in search of more stuff, seem to be certain that either space or time have no end.

Space is in itself a tricky thing. Some would argue that there is no space, there is only stuff, and that the entirety of space is merely the entirety of all the stuff. But it can just as well be argued that there is no stuff, there are only the contours of different pockets of space. It is also possible that at no time has anyone bothered to make either of these arguments, and that stuff and space have existed harmoniously without the slightest thought. Regardless of whether you believe it exists, we can all agree that space is ignored and unappreciated, yet never complains. This type of treatment since the beginning of time has an effect on space, which explains why, if it exists, it lets any old stuff stick itself inside it. We can also all agree that if space does exist, you and I are occupying a part of it, and something else isn’t, but might want to. The fact that 200 pounds of stuff moving over a very small amount of space can translate into 25 years is evidence of this delicate balance of stuff, possible space (albeit very small, the toilet is barely 6 feet from my laptop), time, failure and money.

Stuff, on the other hand, is never cast into doubt, except for that one time in the previous paragraph. The Greeks were very aware of the existence of stuff. They ate it, wore it, drank it and would later fall asleep on it. If one of them would wake up without any stuff on, they would all have a big laugh. I would tell you more, but it’s pretty gross. There are three kinds of stuff: living stuff, non living stuff, and stuff that is taking a year off. Living stuff is stuff that, in some cases consciously, has functions beyond taking up space. Living stuff also has the ability to regenerate other stuff of roughly the same dimensions in order to ruin movies and family retreats. There are of course a few exceptions to the above, such as living stuff that writes about the differences between space and stuff. This stuff will generate something called bullshit, which while not a stuff, still has the ability to occupy time and space. Non living stuff is everything else, including stuff that was once living, and has now left all its stuff to a Norwich Terrier. Bear in mind that this a theoretical, rather than a physical, cataloguing of stuff. I do not know the demarcations of stuff, whether there are things that are simply too small or too large to be called “stuff”. I am inclined to say that there are none. Stuff, for these purposes, is everything that goes into space. I am sure that there is stuff too small to be measured with atoms, but that can still carry 10 Ecuadoreans to a job site.

Time is the non salient thing by which stuff can measure its relationship to space, and say, “just a few minutes ago, stuff was going on over there, where the fuck were you ?”. Time is crucial to most stuff, which is why so much stuff is microwaveable. Without time, we are unable to explain how stuff does anything at all, let alone travel across space. Some fear that time will soon end, bringing with it the end of space and stuff, an event known to theorists as Last Call With Carson Daly. Despite time’s overall importance to everything, there are many disputes about whether or not it exists in the sense that stuff does, or whether it is merely something that is contingent on stuff existing, i.e. there exists time because there are events. Some say that time is in flux. Others say time is flux. Time’s agent says that it is “flux meets Four Weddings and a Funeral“. Part of the reason as to why time is not a stuff is that it can not be altered, manipulated, or traveled across. People are always trying to move across time, usually to cash in on an invention, alter the course of history or see what their mother’s breasts looked like as a teenager. People covet time almost as much as they covet stuff: the expense of time usually accompanies any sense of regret. But time is never “wasted” provided it accompanied an event with the presence of stuff within space, which it always does. So just keep doing what you are doing, because there’s alot more time around than you think. Just not for you.

So as you can see, space, stuff and time are pretty important. I suggest anyone reading this keeps a steady supply of these things in their homes. You should also probably keep an emergency stock in your car and basement, in case there is a tornado. People are always talking about these things, and will continue to do so, and aren’t going to stop just because, after 12 years of postgraduate work, their Kia’s been repossessed and their child is eating cat food. There are alot of songs written about time, but not so many about space or stuff. Hmmm. That’s another thing to think about…

- Refraining from breathing whenever I work with industrial strength paint.

- Adding snack time to my schedule so I can realize what a healthy snack fruit can be.

- Installing a cardio theater remote control system in my arm chair.

- Branding myself with an arrow that points to my chi.

- Actually participating in, rather than watching from afar, Sacred Heart Academy’s JV field hockey practice.

- Lowering my initial cholesterol intake through a “time release kielbasa”.

- Only eating tuna melts in smoothie form.

- No longer ordering nautilus equipment for the free styrofoam.

- Bringing a bottle of Purell to all my glory hole visits.

- Placing a filter between my mouth and a Costco bag of peanut M&M’s.

- No longer diving into barrels of green ooze that read “Acme” on the side.

- Not just limiting myself to walks that are to remember.

- Going from a hunter to a hunted for the exercise

- Only smoking when both my hands are occupied.

- Finding a way to eat Extreme Doritos without skydiving.

- Using tequila instead of grain alcohol in my pancake recipe.

- No longer using a family of raccoons to scratch hard to reach places.

- Buying a book of riddles, seeing which ones are worth climbing a mountain to solve.

- Adding asparagus as a prop in my community theater adaptation of “9 1/2 Weeks”.

- Using cosmetics to achieve meth face instead of doing it the hard way.

- Becoming a method actor, auditioning for the role of a smoothie addict.

- Calling back the vitamin saleswoman I met on “Elimidate”.

- Running in 5Ks, even for types of cancer I don’t want to see cured.

- No longer lying motionless when I apologize after sex.

- Pouring Michelob Ultra over my bullet wounds instead of whiskey.

- Not just eating Cream of Wheat on mornings I’m feeling racist.

- Starting a line of beef based cracker substitutes.

- Reward myself by removing an article of clothing with every glass of pomegranate.

- Adding The Complete Lectures of Richard Feynman to my workout mix.

- Keeping a bottle of Lite Ranch Dressing in my breast pocket at all times.

- Asking the Car Talk guys if I’m eating enough fiber, ’cause those guys are funny.

- Each day selecting only one person to be the person I will share needles with.

- Not making a free mousepad the deciding factor in choosing a healthcare provider.

- No longer taking estrogen pills to try and get sensitive before a date.

- Starting a jazzercise program in my prison yard, burning calories while recovering from stab wounds.

- Finding a way to associate Cinnabon with a traumatic childhood experience.

- Actually chasing after women on the subway instead of resorting to Missed Connections.

- Only throwing myself in front of cement trucks whose owners are willing to settle.

- Keeping the polyp on my liver well moisturized.

- Buying a Nordic Track, then returning 1995’s call to say I’m not giving it back.

- Coming up with a way that I can like my women like I like my yerba mate.

- Turning my tapeworm’s room into an office to see if he’ll move out.

- Finding a way to let Frank get me out of my wet clothes after an ice fishing accident without it looking gay.

- Joining whichever race riots cover the most ground.

- Making sure not to kiss hookers when they have mono.

- Keeping a bag of hummus in my pocket as “road fuel”.

- Only letting dogs in the park that are on a leash lick my scabs while I’m sleeping.

- Eating enough boxes of Special K to get some of Sela Ward’s underwear.

- Learning how to appreciate the cleverness of the name “Wok ‘N Roll” without eating the food.

Picking up your favorite alumni magazine to see what everyone is up to.

Greetings Class of 2005!! I recently had the chance to catch up with some of you to see how everyone was doing.

Things seem to be shaping up quite nicely for Steve Simonds, who after three months of traveling with the Nicaraguan Marxist Revolutionary Front, has joined the Nicaraguan Calvinist Revolutionary Front, which he “didn’t even know existed”.

Todd Dubois has left the trappings of the big city for a small house on an island off the coast of Maine where he will work on his novel. He writes “My girlfriend and I love it out here. It’s peaceful, isolated, and the former owner practically gave us the house. There were a lot of colorful people on the mainland who told us the house used to be a …”. Todd was unable to finish his email. I hope everything is alright.

Shelly Page-Richmond announced that both her parents have split from their second spouses, and looks forward to going by the name Shelly Page-Miller-Richmond-Platz.

Despite the fact that he is now working on the mortgage arbitrage desk at Paradigm Capital, Kyle Shellinger is quick to point out that he has not forgotten his Humanities roots, and writes “I still think of Mr. Wiedin’s Postcolonialist Teleology lectures whenever I am trying to avoid an orgasm.”

Paula Fredericks is in her second year of Teach for America and states that she gets “really turned on after making a difference in these kid’s lives”.

Will Kirkpatrick has just completed his Master’s in Public International Health and will move on towards a Master’s in Private International Health. When he is done, he plans to have the two degrees fight each other, and charge admission so that he can pay his rent.

Ben Crystal and Lisa Diamond are happy to announce the birth of their second child, Douglas, and the discovery of their first child, Modest Mouse North American Tour Lost & Found Item #675.

Lamar T. Johnson writes that he “misses college, as never again will I make up 3% of anything.”

After traveling through Russia on the Trans Siberian railroad, Ellen Girardi is considering doing it again, seeing as she left her camera on the train.

Jason Thomas has two interviews with temp agencies lined up this month, and is apprehensive about wearing a suit, as he “doesn’t want to come off as desperate”.

Elaine Lowenthal has begun interning at the Cook County Women’s Shelter, running their weekly poetry slam. She writes: “the experience is rewarding, but every time they go off meter, I just sort of lose it.”

After three months of survival training with the Forestry Service, John Gilbride is ready to move back in his girlfriend, because, I mean, am I right fellas ?

Rather than continue his education, George Ross has set up shop as a freelance Sanskrit interpreter, arguing that “just because it’s a dead language doesn’t mean people can all of a sudden speak it.”

Jane Coletti has just discovered that she is adopted, a whole three years after taking creative writing 301, for which she describes the news as “totally useless”.

Jeff Beiers chimes in to say how much he is loving life after school, and that if anyone needs a place to crash in the Bay Area, “join the club”.

If you ever find yourself having watched the Darjeeling Limited, especially in front of other people, it is best to blame it on ignorance. If you are lucky, the film was snuck into your home in one of those foldable red movie rental envelopes everyone is talking about, one where the title was in letters too small to read. If there had been a big poster of the movie outside of the room were I was going to watch it, I think I would have done something else with my day. Not that, in this instance, I would have necessarily needed something better to do with my day. I think an evening spent doing nothing, not even converting protein into energy, would have been a worthy substitute. I could just sit there, breathe through a machine, devoid of any thought. It would be exactly like a coma, except when you are in a coma you are unaware that things are better off than when you were watching this movie.

The Darjeeling Limited starts as more movies should, with Bill Murray sitting in the back of a taxi as it speeds through a crowded Indian city. He is in a hurry to catch a train, a train that he eventually just misses as it is pulling away from the turnstile. As he runs down the track, a younger and faster Adrian Brody passes him and manages to board the last car. The whole thing was rather unfortunate. I felt like there was a better movie that almost got made, one where Bill Murray catches the train. Maybe in this other movie they have jokes, and things will happen, and other things will be explained. I want to meet the alternate reality Sam that saw that movie, and ask him how things are. Maybe he could send me a post card.

Adrian Brody plays Peter Whitman, who has boarded the train to meet his brothers Jack (Jason Schwartzman) and Francis (Owen Wilson) to embark on a spiritual journey through the Indian landscape, or at least to find the speaker that all that solemn rock music is coming from. Spiritual journeys are one of India’s fastest growing industries: anyone who went to college knows a guy who went to India for 6 months to find himself, just long enough to put together a slide show but not long enough for you to manage to fingerbang his girlfriend. The three brothers are gathered together to try and meet up with their estranged mother at her spiritual retreat after just having buried their father who, despite being dead, seems more interesting a character than anyone who breathes air in the universe of this film.

If salary were reflective of value to the project, then the prop supervisor would be the highest paid staffer on the film. Props are an integral part of the movie’s plot: Wilson and Brody argue over who is the rightful heir to their father’s belt, a bag of cashews is for some reason made worthy of a close up, and characters will apply vintage sunglasses to their faces whenever meaningful dialogue is unavailable. This is all part of a new movement in film known as “just trust me”, where a possibly overrated writer/director spends 25 million dollars of a studio’s money at a novelty thrift store, takes the ensuing items and a camera to a foreign country he’s always wanted to go to, and tries to make a movie. If this trend catches on, I plan on dropping whatever is presently going on in my life and filming myself play with a slinky in a village in Botswana for two hours.

The performances of Wilson, Brody and Schwartzman are three variations of a bad improv exercise where the actors take turn staring ironically into space until one of them says something. Each actor added his own personal touch to this mundane exercise. While Brody seemed all too happy that he could get paid for a role like this, Wilson behaved as though noone told him there was a camera nearby. Schwatrzman took it the most seriously, seeing as at this point this is his livelihood.

After getting settled in, Owen Wilson goes over the itinerary of their trip, which he has planned with the help of an assistant, in the quirky faux militaristic demeanor commonly associated with Wes Anderson’s work in the same way that tissue loss is commonly associated with the work of a tapeworm. But just in case you thought you were going to waste an hour and a half of your day devoid of quirk, the characters have planned just enough of it. They get into all sorts of quirky mishaps: buying a poisonous snake, drinking strange teas, spraying each other with mace. They even manage to be quirky while shaving. At one point the train conductor, meant to represent the audience, tires of their antics and throws them off the train. Wes Anderson throws out another opportunity for a better film, one where the three brothers have drowned and a train full of Indian pilgrims stare out a window for 32 hours, and decides to continue without the train.

My only hope is that there is an oligarchical nation somewhere out there where quirk is punishable by death, but noone will tell Wes Anderson about it, and lo and behold he will decide to make a movie there. That is how great nations are built, from an idea born of a struggle.

As the three brothers are dragging their belongings through the countryside, they come across a group of boys drowning in a river. Despite their heroic efforts, they are unable to save the life of one of the boys, at which point my 20 month old nephew, who has consensual access to a set of boobs to distract him from this swill, giggles. His laughter could have meant one of the following: 1. I do not understand humor and will just laugh randomly; 2. I was thinking about something funny that happened earlier, like when I swung a metal rod at my uncle’s legs and he couldn’t do anything about it; 3. I am full of a demon’s bloodlust and find the death of Indian children funny or 4. I find Wes Anderson’s attempt to guilt the audience into liking his movie through the death of a small Indian child laughable. As the brothers bury the child, they flash back to their own father’s funeral, one that predictably ends with the appropriation of a vintage automobile.

A few more non-sensical phrases later, the brothers reach their mother’s treat. They do some stuff there, reach some sort of closure, and then climb a hill to get a view of some rock or some such. The notion being that picturesque views in the middle of South Asia can replace the usual dialogue and exogesis that most of the time are needed to solve a family crisis. But then again I wasn’t raised by annoying hipsters that speak in tongues, so I have no idea. Yet that is how movie ends, with a random sequence of actions that have little to no narrative value. Except at the beginning of the movie, there was still a whole movie left, a whole 90 minutes for the things that happened before to make sense. Once the movie ended, there was only my own life for that movie to make sense in, as it unfortunately did.

I’m sure Wes Anderson is a nice boy from a good family and has only the best intentions. Who wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to take someone else’s money to buy knick knacks and run around the Indian desert filming your buddies recite lines off of fortune cookies written by post dada dyslexics. I don’t think he is a bad person. Many more people have done many worse things, and I wish them no harm. I just wish there was a way, maybe through government grants, that we could give him all his toys and let him and his man-child friends trapse around the world, but later there wouldn’t be some poster advertising the documentation of his exploits. Because then I might do something stupid like give him the benefit of the doubt.