'tis better to give than to receive
and oh, the things I receive.

Today's comic courtesy of B. - danke schoen, darling. File under League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

bullets, blue sky

- Disgruntled cyclist exacts revenge

- There's a new Israeli movie I want to see

- Big Fish is still in a local theater, as is My Architect

- It's above 50 degrees!
- I'll be in the garden

Dear M: thought of you today.

Sims: The Game

          A popular computer game explained by a child



In some ways it's Life       Real Life

       in some ways Yes       in some ways No



You design the people       they can be

       outgoing       nice       playful       active       neat

       but you can't make them be everything

       if they are neat       they will clean up after themselves

       (Charisma is when they talk to themselves

              in front of a mirror)



Adults never get older       & old people can do

       anything young people can do

Adults don't have to have jobs       they can cheat:

       push the rose bud & money appears



       Job objects       like pizza ovens       earn you money

              or you can be       an extra in a movie       a soldier

              a doctor       an astronaut       a human guinea pig



Children get older slowly       every day they get a report card

       children can live in the house without adults

       (a family is anyone who lives in the house with you)



Everyone gets skill points:

       for chess       painting       playing the piano

       gardening       cooking       swimming       mechanics

       (when you get points a circle above your head

              fills up with blue)



& there are goals:       not to run out of money       not to die

       & to buy more stuff for the house

       (like a pool table       or an Easy Double Sleeper Bed)



Adults can get married       but it's hard       to get married

       You tell them to propose but they can't       make the decision

       on an empty stomach       or they've just eaten

              & are too tired



To have a Baby       click Yes or No       & a baby carriage

       rolls up



Everyone has to       eat       sleep go to the bathroom       etc.

       if they live alone       & don't have friends

       they get depressed       & begin waving their arms



If you give them Free Will       you don't have to

       keep track of them

       but it's strange what they'll do:

       once a player fell asleep under the stairs standing up



       & sometimes they go into a bedroom       that isn't theirs

       & sleep in the wrong bed       then you have to tell them:

       Wake up! That is not your bed!



If they are mad they stomp on each other       or put each other

       in wrestling holds       but no one gets hurt



There are different ways to die:

       you can drown in the pool if you swim laps for 24 hours

              (the Disaster Family all drowned in the pool

              except the little girl       who kept going

              to school after they died       she was perfect)



       & the stove       or fireplace       or grill

       can set the house on fire:

              once there was a fire in the kitchen

              eight people rushed in

              yelling Fire! Fire!       & blocked the door

              so the firemen couldn't get through

              (after that everyone had to study cooking

              now there are less accidents)



If you have Free Will       you can starve or drown yourself

       then you wander around as a ghost

       until another player agrees       to resurrect you



In some ways it's Life       Real Life

       in some ways Yes       in some ways No



 -- Elizabeth Spires

I didn't want to hurt you but you're pretty when you cry

from the library

Kieran gives good filler; I write between fits of the Runny Black Death (virus name: W32.HLLD.Gaobot.gen).

Southeast, please take back your thunderstorm. Why am I here and not in Montreal?

SAN FRANCISCO

This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard
Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is
unknown.

By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes

It was lonely.

fifty-seven.


Argument

Days that cannot bring you near
or will not,
Distance trying to appear
something more than obstinate,
argue argue argue with me
endlessly
neither proving you less wanted nor less dear.

Distance: Remember all that land
beneath the plane;
that coastline
of dim beaches deep in sand
stretching indistinguishably
all the way,
all the way to where my reasons end?

Days: And think
of all those cluttered instruments,
one to a fact,
canceling each other's experience;
how they were
like some hideous calendar
"Compliments of Never & Forever, Inc."

The intimidating sound
of these voices
we must separately find
can and shall be vanquished:
Days and Distance disarrayed again
and gone
both for good and from the gentle battleground.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

It's when you're alone, locked up tight as slow poison in a convenient pill, the semis schooling like hammerheads, the rain heavy, heavy; even with the ac on you can't breathe; maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the proximity of all those people who don't know you exist – unless they're calling you names, to them you're five minutes of fury and then you're forgotten, and you'll never know that either – one of them could kill you like you killed that doe, (blackeyed sloetoed and dead dead) dead, so that even today, three months later, your heart skips every time a rabbit scurries along the sidewalk or a streetlight goes out or the cd misses a beat, every time you’re icecold, and you won't sleep for hours: not that you could anyway, the drive is endless, it's hours of street, hours, and this is when you can tell the roads aren't open like they used to be, they're empty now; a difference you couldn't explain and can't help but feel.

(tanis c. clark)

Sound for the way down: Ani D, Educated Guess

by down I mean north and by west I meant you
so.

Do you remember? the fast car and drive it and they have given a you message, Bill astride counter intoning smoke and cheap wine in grinning summer doorway?

Nobody has respect for the cat
Asleep, and I am hopelessly
Inadequate in this poem

said Jack mid-poem and neither do I, did he, Poor Bill who revelled in the title. Fool King of the Street Storefront, he thought. Monsignor of the books and the young hopeful readers of the old hopeful dead, blessing wine and cigarettes and music in the name of the Holy Trinity: Dean, Brando and Presley. Openmouthed amen.

Out into the water goes my favorite surfer Marxist.

O Mao, poet Mao,
Not Boss Mao,
Here in America
Wine is laughed at
& poetry a joke
--Death's a grim reminder
to everybody already dead
crashing in cars all around here-
Here men & women dryly scowl
At poets' sad attempts
To make our lot
Lesser-

(Jack, "Running Through")

The joke is on you so the drink is on me.