Cartoon by Mr. Fish 

Is There a Hole I Can Get Sick In?

Recently, the wags responsible for the Weekly Review (a news summary I read on my radio show) included an item on the infamous note Bush wrote at a U.N. meeting. The note, in case you've forgotten, appeared to be asking Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice whether or not it was OK for the Leader of the Free World to take a potty break.

Some controversy was generated by the somewhat flippant tone taken by the Weekly Review in their summary. An angry letter writer (is there any creature more wretched?) took issue with the author of the Review for his seeming disrespect for the man who needs to be coached before attempting to appear spontaneous.

Anyway, I thought some of the responses to the angry letter writer were amusing and informative. Here's a selection:

TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: William C. Wahl

Re: The minor debate over the relevance or importance of Bush's "I gotta pee, Condi." letter. I think it's perfectly valid commentary... can't he just put his hand up and asked to be excused? This event shows Bush's weakness of leadership. I can't imagine any other modern political leader passing such a note at a diplomatic meeting or whatever...

TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Warren Becker

We learn a bit more......

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2005/week37/index.html

Bush asking Condi for permission to relieve himself?(That's what the caption said.) Take it as stolen evidence that he really can't think for himself. (And then, how many other world leaders would need two conditional declarations within the first four words about something so definitive, still need a question mark at the end of the sentence, and then have to ask again?)

TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Heather Preston

As Elizabeth Garner pointed out in her clarification, the President's state of mind is excruciatingly important to both the country and the world. Perhaps it should not matter, but with that much power concentrated in the chief executive of one government, it does. Hence, the President's level of dependence on his close associates is also important to all of us. The subject of the "BATHroombreak" note and the use of the question mark are both a bit odd. Is he asking permission to go from Sec'y Rice?

As a side note, there are very few publicly-available samples of verifiable George W. Bush handwriting, as The Baltimore Chronicle pointed out in a 2003 article, "Will the Real George W. Bush Please Write In?" The "BATHroombreak" note is one. The use of mixed capitals and lowercase letters without apparent reference to emphasis (I think I MAY NEED A BATHroom break?) is an ominous sign in itself, if handwriting analysis can be credited with any validity: "If a person uses both capital and small letters indiscriminately, they have no idea what is important in life and what is not important in life. They have no sense of priorities. They have no idea why they cannot function in society. They don't think they are being unreasonable, even though their financial and personal life is likely to be in chaos, and they may be getting into trouble with authorities." [from the "Actual Examples" section of the website of graphologist Maureen Burns] This description may be a bit of an overstatement when applied to President Bush, but the handwriting in this note has marked differences from handwriting found in GW Bush's gubernatorial papers. By all accounts, the president is feeling a great deal of pressure as indictments and investigations of close associates and important supporters mount on all sides, while stories of a return to alcohol use, temperamental outbursts, excessive scatology and references to "the will of God"accumulate. There is no question that the office puts huge pressure on any president - what is of concern immediately is how this particular president is handling it. This administration has been so careful in controlling information and access that the American people are left looking hard for any unscripted, uncontrolled moments as clues to what is actually going on with their president. In that context, paying attention to the"BATHroom break" note is neither low nor illogical.

TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Ben Sayre

Elizabeth Garner's second pass at justifying her claim that Bush's bathroom note to Rice is beneath mention because meaningless, well, it was better than her first shot, but she's still got a thin reed there. She asks what the note shows, what it could mean?

A) Bush has quite a random sense of capitalization as an expressive linguistic tool

B) He is so dependent on his advisors that he actually ASKS Rice if he has to go to the bathroom, "I think I MAY NEED A BATHroom break?" This goes a bit beyond having Rice digest the morning news and regurgitate it for him, and it is quite portentous for a guy who has to make decisions that affect many other lives.

Ms. Garner's also gotta get hip to the fact that a news item's inclusion in the Weekly (as I perceive the process) is a combination of import and on irony/humor. What is more ironic than Bush sitting in on a session of the most inclusive assembly on the planet and still playing the part of the wayward student passing half-literate notes in class? "This CLASs is SO BORing, I thINK I may need TO pooh?"

In related developments, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has reached 2000. I think they may need a break, too.

(Sunday's New York Times Magazine featured a chilling story on what the war has done to at least one soldier. And here is a list of the dead.)

And just in case you thought the White House wasn't taking things seriously, lawyers there have demanded that The Onion stop using the Presidential Seal on its website. At least someone in there has their priorities straight.

Music Picks of the Week

Hello. Yeah, it's been awhile. I'm not sure why; I guess I really just wanted to talk to you. I was thinking--maybe later on?--we could get together for a while. It's been such a long time, and I really do miss your--ah, fuck it.

Damian Marley: "Welcome to Jamrock"
Reggae is one of those genres whose songs I enjoy but have a hard time distinguishing from one another. It seems like once the era of Wailer and Marley passed, reggae became content with endless dancehall loops of the same tracks with new vocal content (not unlike the stream of hip-hop mixtapes coming out of Brooklyn on a daily basis). Perversely enough, Damian is the last son of the Bobster himself, but if this is the end of the line as far as authentic reggae-spawn goes, I'm sort of sad to see it come, even if the last reggae album I actually paid money for was a replacement copy of Bob's Legend. This song is the sound of the 21st century being sucked into a black hole (you can actually hear this on the track) while the citizens of Jamaica let down their dreads, pop a cold rum, and watch the last sunset. Out on the streets, they call it murder.

Lil' Kim: "Shut Up, Bitch!"
If the apocalypse is truly at hand, I'd place money on Lil' Kim stabbing Tina Turner in the throat and taking over Thunderdome. I have no idea at the moment whether Kim is in or out of jail, but if she can keep spewing out stuff like this, she should be fine no matter what the view out her window is. This scathing number sounds like a cross between Michael Jackson's "Leave Me Alone" and Timex Social Club's "Rumours," only with bigger tits. Like the unacknowledged son Charles Foster Kane might have had with his Xanadu maid, this song is everything you ain't and absofuckinfunny.

OK Go: "Do What You Want"
Unlike the recent stream of pretentious guitar-wielding pretty boys before them, OK Go has at least two things going for them. One, their faded punk attitude has a positive message ("Follow your dream!") and two, the ringing endorsement of whoever's playing the cowbell in the background. They could be the Mississippi Queen's dirty stepchildren. You know what I mean.

Steve Goodman: "Talk Backwards"
As a lad, I know I snapped at least one phonograph needle while desperately seeking the subliminal truth behind the satanic tracks of Led Zep and Styx, among others. My scalp always tingles in the presence of such masked messages, but this dude does them one better by actually singing backwards. The chills you might get hearing Robert Plant's wobbly pledge to his "sweet Satan" is nothing compared to the thrill of romance implicit in Goodman's "Uoy elovi." Plus you won't have to risk breaking your dad's record player.

Snooks Eaglin: "A Thousand Miles from Home"
If I could dedicate only two songs to the displaced people of N'awlins, this would be the first one. Few performers can get anything past Fats Domino, but Eaglin takes the Fat Man's piano-banging lyrics and turns them into the lonely dirge of a wasted life. Were it not for the fact that there are still tens of thousands of refugees who may never see their home again, Snooks might sound like the loneliest man in the world. Our shame is that he's not.

Kermit Ruffins with the Rebirth Brass Band: "Make Way for the Rebirth"
This is all the explanation you should need (should you need an explanation, that is) of why New Orleans can not be allowed to rot away. This music practically rebuilds its own city.

Before the War

I found an impressive deal on The Complete New Yorker a few days ago. Every issue on DVD-ROM. Every issue. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface yet, but here's a good poem from the March 31, 2003 issue.

(Please ignore any unintentional copyright violations. I'm finding it so much easier to make regular blog entries if I let someone else actually write them for me. Bad blogger! Bad!)

Before the War

Seeing his mother coming home
he kneels behind a parked car,
one hand over his mouth to still
his breathing. She passes, climbs
the stairs, and again the street is his.
We're in an American city, Toledo,
sometime in the last century, though
it could be Buffalo or Flint,
the places are the same except
for the names. At eight or nine,
even at eleven, kids are the same,
without an identity, without a soul,
things with bad teeth and bad clothes.
We could give them names, we could
name the mother Gertrude, and give her
a small office job typing bills of lading
eight hours a day, five and a half
days a week. We could give her
dreams of marriage to the boss
who's already married, but we
don't because she loathes him.
It's her son, Sol, she loves,
the one still hiding with one knee
down on the concrete drawing
the day's last heat. He's got feelings.
Young as he is he can feel heat,
cold, pain, just as a dog would
and like a dog he'll answer
to his name. Go ahead, call him,
"Hey, Solly, Solly boy, come here!"
He doesn't bark, he doesn't sit,
he doesn't beg or extend one paw
in a gesture of submission.
He accepts his whole name, even
as a kid he stands and faces us,
just as eleven years from now
he'll stand and face his death
flaming toward him on a bridge-
head at Remagen while Gertrude
goes on typing mechanically
into the falling winter night.

--Philip Levine

Freaks & Geeks (Part II)

As a prelude to reading Margaret Atwood's essay on violent pornography (which doesn't seem to be available online--fascists!), I asked my argumentative writing class to define what pornography means to them. As with my previous post, all the following comments are being posted here exactly as they were submitted to me.

Pornography is . . .

Showing or describing sexual activity.

Showing or describing nudity and/or sexual encounters. [sits next to previous student]

The reckless abandonment of moral character of humanity in exposing provocatively the human body. Arousing feelings within the common man that can further produce inappropriate behavior.

Printed or visual material containing explicit description or display of sexual organs or activities. Intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.

Anything naked, either a picture, sexual video, or strippers.

The viewing of sexually explicit material.

Photography of nude persons being sexual.

Adults using sexual acts in front of a camera to make money.

The act of portraying a man or a woman in a way that is lude & crude!

Sexual, obscene, nude entertainment. Provocative entertainment in order to satisfy one's fantasies.

Pictures or motion pictures or anything showing a naked body.

When areas are revealed that are generally covered by a person's underwear.

For the record, the 4th edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary defines pornography as "sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal."

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to define "hard-core" pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . " (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184,197)

Freaks and Geeks (Part I)

As an exercise in audience awareness for my class on critical thinking, I have students write out a draft of their credo--statements that represent their interests, values, and beliefs. In 10-15 minutes, they are asked to make a list of statements beginning with the words "I believe" or "I do not believe."

The following is a sample of some of the statements. (All credos are submitted anonymously by freshmen-level students and are presented here as I received them.)

I believe that there is a God and that he is aware of me and my life.
I believe that family is the most important thing in people’s lives.
I believe men & women are inherently greedy and selfish.
I believe going to the moon and other planets is a waste of our government’s money.
I do not believe that reading fantasy novels makes me a weird little geek that is plotting to kill everyone.
I do not believe that celebrities should be treated like gods.
I believe that killing other people just to get some money out of it is wrong. (Statement is then used as subject for short unsolicited essay.)
I do not believe sex offenders should ever get out of jail.
I believe that Friends is the greatest TV series ever.
I believe all women should take a class in self-defense.
I believe the world is going to have a huge war.
I believe that all women should dress modestly.
I believe faith in a supreme being is essential to one’s happiness.
I believe that R-rated movies are bad.
I believe everyone needs a pet.
I believe the way a man treats his mother is the way he’ll treat you.
I do not believe we should have to pay to use or drive through national parks.
I believe cops have too much power.
Of course, I believe in Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ.
I believe in leprechauns.
I believe that vegans are slowly killing themselves.
I believe that dogs under a foot tall should not be considered dogs.
I believe drinking, smoking, drug use, and pre-marital sex are all horrible things.
I believe the word “mature” should be replaced by the word “boring.”
I do not believe that people should play with the power of creation.
I believe in Jesus Christ, but I do not believe in the Virgin birth. It’s just not scientifically possible.
I do not believe there is such a thing as a good dad.
I believe Tom Welling (aka Clark Kent on Smallville) is HOT.
I believe you should always sing loud in your car.
I believe Socrates wasn’t that intelligent.
I believe that atheists are squashing freedom of religion for everyone else.
I believe 80’s music is the best (Bon Jovi in particular).
I believe in the four standard works. (Reference to the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants of the LDS Church)
I believe that computer technology is going way too far, too fast, and one day we’ll just make the world blow up from thinking too much about it.
I believe speed limits are the stupidest things, and the enforcers of them are even more stupid.
I believe that the kid in the back of the room talks too much about dumb and pointless things.
I believe this is boring.

Lazy Links

I've seen a bunch of interesting stuff on the net in the last few days, so rather than come up with a semi-coherent mini-essay about one or two of them, I'm just going to put them all up so you can decide what to do with them.

Morton Mintz, of The Nation, offers 10 questions for the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask of Harriet ("Cool!") Miers. (I'll have more to say about her later.)

Have you ever had a really lousy literature professor who managed to cobble together great reading lists for her classes? That's how I was initially introduced to Harold Pinter. The class I took from said professor was completely miserable, and managed to turn me off of Pinter for several years afterward. Only when the bad taste of the class was rinsed away (about three weeks into an even more miserable class on film theory taught by a similarly miserable professor in my PhD program) did I manage to reconsider Pinter's work. Just in time, too, it seems, for he is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

In other book award news, one of my favorite writers, a completely mad, prolific bloke named William Vollmann (who, among other accomplishments, has written a 7-volume history of violence) is on the short list for the National Book Award.

China's version of the Gemini Program seems to be well underway, and the folks back on the ground seem pretty enthused about the whole we're-now-a-spacefaring-nation thing. I say good luck to them. If NASA is indeed intent on reaching the moon again, the best thing that could happen would be to have a threatening Communist nation trying to do the exact same thing. Although such shameless competition might put off the development of StarFleet for another decade or two, at least we'll have an active program again (provided, of course, that NASA stops acting like a bunch of pussies).

There are some hopeful signs. NASA has begun to address just how and why we'll be returning to the moon, and how long we might be staying. We could've done this 20 years ago if Nixon had had any balls.

Speaking of space, turns out the latest addition to the solar system has a little buddy. And since there's a growing campaign to name this new planet Xena, I'll bet you can guess which name has been thrown around for the newly discovered moon.

(One of) my Australian reader(s) [heh], Bruce, has posted some pretty awesome pictures of the Mt. Pleasant radio observatory in Tasmania. This observatory, among other things, has been used to help track the space shuttle and, back in '75, the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The antennas look massive.

And finally, from what looks to be my new favorite blog, a list of Doctor Doom's top 10 euphemisms for sex.

I'm gearing up for a big new entry based on another old family photo. Get yer hankies ready. Maybe by then I'll have remembered how to transition between my paragraphs.

What Is It About Eureka?

I've always felt that the corner of the world where I come from--the real Northern California--is some strange nexus for freaks and geeks of all stripes. Not just because I was born there, or because it's a hotbed of marijuana agriculture, but because things seem to happen there that don't or can't happen anywhere else.

Of course, you could probably say that about any corner of the world, but certainly there can be few other places on the globe where you can find such a rich combination of redwood rainforests, hidden coastal nooks, Sasquatch sightings, Native American tribes, and violent prisons.

Seems like I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. You're all probably familiar with films like Return of the Jedi and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (surely one of the most redundant titles in movie history), both of which were filmed in the area. But lately there has been a real growth spurt in popular culture products set in the area where most of my mother's family lives.

Eureka, California, in particular, seems to be a healthy breeding ground for creative endeavours. Take a look at this press release for a proposed television series:

SCI FI Channel has given a green light for production of 13 hours of a new original series, Eureka, a drama about a seemingly ordinary town whose residents lead extraordinary lives. The order includes a two-hour pilot for the series, which will star Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Greg Germann, Joe Morton, Debrah Farentino, Maury Chaykin, Matt Frewer and Jordan Hinson, the network announced.

Eureka is set in a picturesque Pacific Northwest town that is shrouded in secrecy, a community of scientific geniuses assembled by the government to conduct top-secret research, where anything can happen. And does.

The series is executive-produced by Andrew Cosby (Haunted) and co-executive-produced by Jamie Paglia; production is slated to begin in January 2006 in Vancouver, Canada, for a summer 2006 premiere. Peter O'Fallon directed the pilot. In it, federal marshal Jack Carter (Ferguson) wrecks his car in the town of Eureka while transporting a teenage fugitive. Stranded, Carter quickly discovers that Eureka is not all it appears when a child vanishes in the catastrophic aftermath of an accident caused by a creation of one of the town's eccentric residents. Instinctively, he inserts himself into the investigation, working alongside the town's sheriff (Maury Chaykin) and an agent from the Department of Defense (Richardson-Whitfield). As the case unfolds, Carter is let in on one of the country's best-kept government secrets: Eureka is a haven created for the world's greatest minds to live, work and create. But, unknown to most, mystery, conspiracy and long-simmering secrets lurk just beneath the surface of this seemingly idyllic town.

Ooooh, pretty spooky, huh? Maybe the creepiest aspect of this show is its misguided attempt at giving the guy who played Max Headroom a regular series.

But this is not the only sign that Eureka has become the new Taos. Check out this essay from Josh Emmons, who not only grew up in Eureka, but has now written his debut novel about it.

I feel a sense of estranged pride in seeing the town where my grandmother lived for many years make good. (My most vivid memory of her old house there--a beautiful Gold Rush/Victorian-era-style construct--is of puking on her back porch after eating a lone peanut I found sitting at the bottom of a green glass bowl on a bookcase in her sitting room. Like many others, I learned on that day never to eat stray food found in the home of one's grandmother. But I digress.)

But for general spookiness and inexplicable human behaviour, Eureka has nothing on Crescent City, a smaller town about 85 miles up the Redwood Highway. Any head worth his stash knows that CC is where the real shit goes down, even if you disregard the shenanigans at Pelican Bay, what some wags have deemed America's most violent prison.

More on that later, perhaps.

Big Bird Charts My Dreamworld 

The Prophecy of Big Bird's Skeleton

There is perhaps nothing so tedious as listening to someone tell you the content of their dreams, in the expectation that you, the hapless audience member, will immediately relate to and comprehend the meaning and symbolism behind every subconscious detail.

Having said that, I have to tell you about this really weird dream I had last night.

I was in a large nameless department store, one I've visited several times before in previous dreams (Yes, it's sadly true. In my dreams, I go shopping. So much for symbolism.). On this particular visit, I was desperately seeking Muppet action figures. (Seriously, do you know how hard it is to find these things? I don't mean the minor characters like Janice or Beauregard--you can find those at hefty discounts at any Kay-Bee outlet store. I mean the really choice players like Statler, Waldorf, Dr. Teeth, Bunsen Honeydew, Gonzo, Fozzie, and Piggy. Where are you, oh plastic mirrors of my troubled youth?)

Fortunately, my dream came to fruition. In the halls of this grossly large store (sort of like a geek's version of CostCo, jammed to its uninsulated rafters with comic books, action figures, and porn magazines), I came across a gorgeously detailed Big Bird figure (not technically a Muppet, I know, but fuck you, it's my dream) which I quickly clutched to my subconscious chest. As I was preparing to make off with my dreamy prize, I glanced down the shelves and noticed an even more enticing prize: the deluxe limited Big Bird Skeleton variant!

This disturbing figure was basically an anatomical recreation of the Bird's skeletal frame, encased in a snap-together shell of Big Bird's outer half, sort of like those anatomy mannequins you see in biology labs.

I'm not sure what Freud would make of all this. I can tell you that I had spent part of the previous day (in what passes for the Real World) unboxing my rather voluminous collection of action figures, Star Trek spaceships, and other plastic wonders. As unwieldy as this collection of mine is, it can never compare to the stuff I come across in the geeky CostCo of my disturbingly shallow dreams.

Anyway, the only reason I've remembered this dream in such detail (usually they dissolve like cotton candy in a rainstorm after waking; well, at least the non-violent ones do), and the primary reason for spinning its content into an entry for Chazzbot, was the report in the news this morning of the death of Jerry Juhl, the head writer for much of the Muppet canon, including The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and most of the Muppet movies.

I'm not claiming any prophetic significance to my dream (at least not this one), and I'm not sure that Juhl ever wrote for Sesame Street anyway, but in light of the great influence the Muppets have had on my development, my dream seems, at least today, like a silent impact on the dark side of my mind. (My dreams, I should point out, are often musically accompanied by distorted variations of Pink Floyd albums.)

The other dream I had last night, just to let you know, involved George W. Bush dressed like Emperor Palpatine and making this statement to the media: "I shall not relinquish power!" Not that Bush is capable of framing his statements so eloquently--the word "relinquish," after all, has three syllables!--but the final image of the dream was of a large military convoy decamping from the White House and entering the wilderness of the American continent. Stay tuned, dreamers.

Hurricane Relief for Louisiana Students

I read this letter at Poetry Daily. I'm reprinting the full text. Help out if you can.

LETTER FROM BRET LOTT:

September 10, 2005

To the Community of Writers, Readers, Teachers, Students, Editors and Anyone Else Within the Sound of This Email-

Bret Lott here, editor of The Southern Review on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I am writing to you and to everyone you can forward this email to with an opportunityto help victims of the hurricane. Forgive this rather long email, but it is important to the welfare of many hurricane evacuees in our area -please read this all the way through.

No doubt you know the sorrow and hardship that has been visited on residents of our state because of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding caused by the breach of the levee in New Orleans. No doubt you know as well of the thousands of displaced persons who have lost everything because of the evacuation of that city.

As a result of so many New Orleans area universities and colleges closing down for who knows how long, LSU has taken on almost 2800 new students who were displaced by losing their homes and their schools; in addition, many students who were already enrolled at LSU have also suffered great losses. These students have experienced hardships that few of us will ever know: they have lost their homes, their personal belongings, their books, their food - everything, including, for many,the college or university at which they were enrolled. To help meet their needs - and these are IMMEDIATE and GENUINE needs - the LSU Foundation has set up Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

Strangely and beautifully and sadly enough, the latest issue of The Southern Review - mailed to subscribers just week before last, right as the hurricane was making way for the Gulf Coast - has turned out to be a very special issue for the artwork on the cover and that featured inside. The artist, Billy Solitario, lives near GULFPORT (and I trust you have seen the pictures of the devastation there); as of this writing, we have not been able to contact him. The paintings themselves are of the Gulf Coast - one of them is even titled "Spiral Cloud over Levee," another one titled "Storm Over the Mississippi"; still others in the portfolio are of barrier islands on the Gulf Coast - places that don't even exist anymore. The artwork was selected about a year ago, and the synchronicity of this is a little too much to think about - the issue, which went out just two weeks ago, celebrates a coastland that is, suddenly, gone. Also, and again the synchronicity of this is too much to behold, the lead poems in this issue are by Peter Cooley, poet at now-closed Tulane University; we have heard that he is safe in Houston at the time of this writing.

Here is where the community of folks to whom this email is addressed can help (and please read the following instructions CAREFULLY as they are being written this way so as to allow all of us to help each other legally!).

1 - YOU SEND THE SOUTHERN REVIEW A CHECK FOR $8 (EIGHT DOLLARS) MADE OUT TO "LSU FOUNDATION," AND WRITE ON THE MEMO LINE "HURRICANE STUDENT RELIEF FUND." MAIL THAT CHECK TO:

THE SOUTHERN REVIEW
OLD PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
LSU
BATON ROUGE LA 70803

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS WHEN SENDING THE CHECK.

2 - I SEND YOU A FREE COPY OF THIS ISSUE OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW.

Please note that these two actions - your donation, our sending you a free copy - are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE (does anyone out there recognize yet the legal hoops I am having to jump through in order simply to help students in dire need of help? Sheesh!). Please note as well that it just so happens that the cover price for an issue of The Southern Review is $8 (eight dollars), BUT YOU ARE FREE TO DONATE AS MUCH AS YOU WISH.

Order as many as you want - use them as gifts with the good knowledge that because of your generosity help is going to students in need; use them in your classes as a means to help your students rally to the aid of their comrades here at LSU; give them to anyone and everyone you know. And please forward this email to as many people as you know so that they might also be able to contribute to a worthy fund, and to enjoy the issue itself.

But finally, please note that NOT A SINGLE PENNY WILL COME EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE COFFERS OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW; THIS IS SOLELY AN EFFORT TO GET MONEY TO STUDENTS IN NEED AND TO CELEBRATE THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW THE BEAUTY OF A COAST THAT HAS LARGELY BEEN LOST.

I know that to many out there this may sound like some sort of mercenary effort to advertise our journal and somehow to make money through the loss of others. Indeed, we will in fact be losing money in all this.

But you have my word - Bret Lott - that we will in no way profit from these mutually exclusive actions.

I know the outpouring will be a great one, and please know that we here at The Southern Review are prepared to handle the deluge of good will you are already sending our way. Thank you for reading all the way through this email, and thank you as well for what you have already done for the hurricane relief efforts.

Sincerely, and with thanks to all -

Bret Lott
Editor and Director
The Southern Review

Something Familiar About This Place. . . 

Some of Those Things You Have to Feel to Be True

I've been congratulating myself on my new-found sense of adulthood: post-35, living in a real house, becoming a faculty member rather than an adjunct. Adulthood is one step closer to death, as someone once said, and I've not been in any real hurry to reach it, but after the end of both Star Trek and Star Wars in the last year, it just seemed easier to abandon all those youthful accoutrements that brought me so much joy.

Then I saw some of the screenshots from the Episode III DVD. HOLY GOD!!

Among the deleted scenes on the forthcoming DVD is one scene/storyline I was aching to see in the film, but was inexplicably left out (apparently to persuade me that I needed to buy the DVD--Damn you, Lucas!): Yoda's arrival on Dagobah.

It probably goes without saying that we won't get any real explanation in these deleted scenes about just how and why the Green One goes about choosing Dagobah as the place where he will sit around breeding lizards in the Magic Tree until Annie Jr. shows up, but I'm sure someone in Lucas' trained army of hacks is working on the back-story novelization as we speak.

Anyway, just seeing the screenshot of Yoda's escape pod/pimp ride approaching the familiar green shades of Dagobah was enough to get me all nostalgic and Christmas-morning like. There's something sadly noble about self-exile that I need to look into.

Also among the deleted scenes on the DVD will be a scene showing the "formation" of the Rebel Alliance, with Mon Mothma, Jimmy ("Save Our Franchise") Smits, and one of those floppy-wristed fish people ("It's a trap!"). I haven't seen any screenshots of that scene yet.

Oh, and there's another scene of Fruit-Stripe Jedi Shaak Ti being executed by the wheezy General Greivous. It's gratifying to know that most of the Jedis who were stuffed into the background of Episodes I and II finally get some individual screen time in III as they get whacked. So much for Jedi stardom. I guess it takes a layout in Playboy to reach true Jedi fame.

In other geeky developments:

Nicky Cage has named his newborn son after everyone's favorite Kryptonian. I'm hoping he has at least one more son whom Cage will constantly berate for not living up to his older brother's example and who will grow to hate his brother with a consuming passion that causes him to rend his hair and seek the kinds of pleasures only a multi-billionaire can afford. Or that he names him after Aquaman.

There's some kind of misguided web campaign going on to have Pat Boone admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yes, Pat Boone, the hack who, with the blessing of his white-owned record label, shamelessly bleached the soul and passion from every R&B record he could find and made rock and roll safe for racists. I'm looking forward to his upcoming reality show in which he's thrown into the middle of Soultown USA with nothing but his leather wristbands and a box full of his shitty records. Crawl your way to Cleveland, fuckwad!

On a lighter note, the teaser trailer for Passion of the Clerks has been posted. Sure to be the Social Event of the Season, or at least a refreshing rinse to get the taste of Jersey Girl out of our minds. Love you, Kevin!

Finally, thanks to the guy who found Chazzbot using the search terms "women inflate." You make Chazzbot strong!

Geek out.

Whatever Happened to the C___ Family?

(from left to right)

W. Martin

After a brief stint teaching creative writing, W.'s poetry began appearing regularly in prestigious publications. By his late 20's, W. had published three collections of his work, winning several literary prizes and garnering respectable criticism. His true breakthrough, however, came with the publication of his novel, The Oaths of the Body, which told in excruciatingly sharp detail the story of a family beset by alcoholism and physical violence. W. also adapted his novel into a screenplay. The resulting film, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange, won several Academy Awards for acting and direction. W. currently lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

C. Thomas, Sr.

A radar technician for the U.S. Air Force, C. was instrumental in the development of the radar shield, a means of detecting and nullifying high-velocity missiles launched from enemy locations. C.'s innovations brought him to the attention of NASA, where he supervised the installation and refinement of instrumentation for the Dawn Treader, the first manned spacecraft to land on Mars. After the success of the 1985-6 Mars landing, C. retired from the Air Force and settled in Coral Gables, Florida. He spends most of his time at sea in his sloop, the Beatrice.

S. Westin

Frustrated at the restrictions of a military life, S. divorced C. in 1976 and moved to San Francisco where she began work as an editorial assistant for a Bay Area fashion magazine. Finding the world of publishing stimulating, S. began contributing regular columns and articles to a variety of local publications. Her work was noticed by several publications in New York, where S. moved in the mid-1980's. She eventually rose to the position of assistant editor at Redbook magazine. During her tenure there, she began experiencing bouts of depression and exhaustion. She took her own life in 1994.

C. Thomas, Jr.

After graduating high school in 1985, C. briefly enrolled at a local college where he was heavily influenced by a class in 1960's literature. Deciding that he wanted to experience "life on the road," C. dropped out of school and became licensed to drive tractor trailers. C. seemed to enjoy his time on the nation's highways, but rarely kept in contact with friends or family. Much of his travels were undocumented, leading to his termination from several hauling companies. Eventually, C. was unable to find continued employment and began experimenting with alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs. After failing to complete a series of wildly incomprehensible manuscripts, C. spent 18 months wandering the mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest. Shortly thereafter, in 2001, C. was killed in a highway accident.

Frisky (family dog, not pictured)

During a family road trip in Seattle in 1973, Frisky jumped from the back of the family camper onto an interstate highway. Managing to dodge traffic, Frisky eventually found shelter beneath the porch of an itinerant family's trailer. Frisky was soon adopted into the daily life of the family's youngest son, Stephen, and eventually died on the day of Stephen's marriage, 22 years later.