In the velvet

This reflection restored all his self possession. -- Stendhal

What I enjoy about Zoo, despite the fact that James Patterson is an old school hack of the sort to which I do not stoop, is precisely the fact that it is stupid entertainment none of us need take seriously. I want to follow it and have seen only the second episode, alas, mainly to be blamed on apathy, running the gamut of negativity, the rage to strike back juxtaposed against every transfer now a risk of focused poise. I really do hate Debra Horne, Riverside's cut rate shamble ass enforcer, and I would not necessarily stop hating her or Trudy Richardson if I ever get the fuck away from the Presbyterian modal before it is too late. I do not know how far I'd go mentally over the injustices perpetrated on me, as imaginary infliction of violence is one thing, and what I lived on the razor edge of the badlands off North Broad Street is another. Brandon Phillips was a coward, which is, in essence, why I'm still alive. He was also stupid, as, in the time he was taking to subdue me, the exterminator may have gained access to my unit, and Brandon would have gotten caught, in the act. Debra Horne, in her intimidation tactics, perpetuates the cruelty of her race, which I only knew by default, in Home of the Merciful Savior, although, to my memory, there were not many African Americans who worked the wards in Shriners where mio padre had me butchered, latter day. 

Poise is important to Europeans. The French make it a raison d'etre, but it runs the gamut of Western Europe with the exception of my ethnic group, the Romans. I am 45 pages in to Cormac's other notorious book, Blood Meridian, and realized I could care less. McCarthy is a master tactician who runs hula hoops around James Patterson's commercial emphasis, and yet it is Patterson's revenge fantasy which consoles me. All I have to do is touch foreheads with the king of beasts, and the lion king would turn my enemies into viable cadavers for honeycombs, but of course, that is play acting. Actual retribution has a price, and leaves its mark, ever to be done effectively as a form of argument, this is a fine thread in the needle's eye, the main thesis of Cormac's argument. It isn't his skill I reject necessarily, but I still balk, at what, precisely, I think, is the lack of the toll on his protagonists, even when they take their punishment, they move from point A to Z unchanged. This is not how it scores itself on personal experience.

What I am trying to get at in the controversy over Shakespeare's genius does not relate to factual accuracy. Just as I'm not quite a Jamesian, I am certainly no expert on the English Renaissance, though Kermode and Jerry lifted fascinating curtains. If William served as a shield for the provocateur of a man who was an Earl and had the inside skinny on Elizabeth's insecurities, then that shield being so successful cannot be discredited, and must be seen as an essential component of the times, regardless of which camp has the evidence on its side, but there was controversy surrounding attribution of Alexandre Dumas' authorship, namely in the name of race baiting. If we use Dumas' characterizations of royalty as a model, there is no reason a man named Shakespar could not have created R2, R3, H4 and 5. The lack of a personal library after his death is not evidence that he did not have access to Hollinshed. And getting lost in trying to prove this theory over that one is a problem of tunnel vision, a cautionary tale in its own right about levels of investment.

Disaster, but the moths are tenacious

I set the phone alarm and heard it buzzing, but I sat up at six and took a pass on The Cafe and the computer programmers and working class brawn, missed Patterson Inc because I did not wait and when I stood at the bar the pain was unbearable, all from standard summer humidity, and I spent little over an hour slipping but miraculously not landing on the tile in my own waste, and in desperation drove under the shower head, in this horrible power chair, and neither CBS nor anyone else airs "The Silence of the Cicadas" as a free viewing, and I mope, still cleaning up in the bathroom, not knowing where to turn. Surrender?

Can you contemplate what moving to Inglis House entails at my age? What they will force upon me? I've dealt with the brutality of institutional regimes since I was five years old, and now I have to go back? I would not survive the constraints the system would force upon me, whether or not my dead mother's voice insists I'd enjoy "concerts". In small groups I'm fine. Concerts? Human animals flocking together for song or sports leads to altercations.

Driving under the shower worked, in small increments. I need a live in companion, but not here, and have to decide whether I fight the exterminator in the morning or try the pity violin. Libertarian philosophy presupposes the actual ability to resist, but what the hell am I going to do if Presbyterian Homes seeks state authorization to put me away? Sure, I give my notice, but then access to the power grid goes primal, and an accessible bathroom becomes a four star hotel. I haven't given up on Liberty on the Rocks. I like them, for the sheer incongruity of the group. The brawn mingling with the yuppies, the soft with the hard, but finding friends to give me a hug and support outside of the merciless autocracy destroying us all? That takes doing, evidently.

la vendetta del vecchio temporizzatore!

Finally! Network comes up with a dramatic series I desire to follow, crock of malarkey back draft echo of Day of the Animals it may be! I have no chastisement to offer Bryan Fuller about the subversive artistry of his Hannibal. I enjoyed it, and the show's contractual problems are unfortunate, but armchair anarchists do not need to view, on a daily basis, the tightly controlled frissons out of the multi-millions bankrolled on the notorious anti-hero of Thomas Harris. Hannibal's mindset is analogous to Google's efficiency model: the surgeon psychiatrist kills for the ephemeral pleasures of culinary aesthetics, and the murderers whose language Lecter understands, these kill for quests on the dark side of Slade's challenge to us that violence has its own beauty in the hands of the artist. Real urban crime simply ripples into a diffusion of responsibility, and I would have attempted to save Sutherland's life. I did act, in North Philadelphia, despite the constant violence which created my controversial posts-- not that I haven't been paralyzed by fear-- but I would have forced the commuters on that car to jump the suspect.

Whoever is writing The Zoo scripts, I have a season cliff hanger to suggest: have two, three pods of orca wipe out California. Give Jerry Brown a cameo and let him stick his head in the jaws of a Seaworld whale we wonderful humans hold captive for our entertainment, and on a mild note to CBS: if your line producers hurt one kitty, then I'm coming to New York and I'll kick your damn asses, kabeesh?