The Fourth Of Eight Insects Known To Midwestern Children

4. P.O.W. FIREFLY (s.o.s.ius helplus)

Natural Habitat: Glass jars with cheesecloth coverings, home-made boxes of wood and screen.

Life Span: Overnight, unless rescued or freed (odds of the latter happening: 1 in 97,684).

Common Behavior: At first, the P.O.W. Firefly will flit about its cell nervously blinking S.O.S. signals to its wilderness friends. After a few hours, it will lose hope, lie in the corner, and die.

The light used by P.O.W. Firefly to send signals to home base is the same that gets it caught in the first place. It leads a futile and useless existence; its only discernable purpose is to further the war between humanity and the world.* The war was prolonged for two millennia because of preachers and priests spouting a terrible misinterpretaion of life - namely that the earth is a stopping ground, unimportant, and here to play victim to our victimizer.

Natural Enemies: Children’s hands, hopelessness, jars and boxes without breathable holes, ennui.


*Humanity is prone to a mistaken belief that it is separate, more soulful, and more holy than the world that birthed it. Unless, of course, the world was birthed by God speaking, in which case humanity and the world would be the same, phrases in an undecipherable alphabet made of sounds that humanity cannot imagine.

The Third Of Eight Insects Known To Midwestern Children

ETHIOPIAN FLY (povertius inescapabilicus)

The Ethiopian Fly has made its way into the minds of midwestern children through the advent of television, a box of false light that shapes itself into moving pictures erstwhile unavailable.*

Natural Habitat (other than the box of false light): Extreme poverty. The Ethiopian Fly can be found clutching onto the faces of children crying from hunger and disease.**

*The formulaic pictures appearing on this box were largely unfamiliar to both imaginations and the natural rises, climaxes, and denouments of existence prior to its inception. It is a well known fact that personal experience is more meaningful than the cheap fascimile created by the box of false light. However, exceptions may be made for the Save the Children infomercials, which introduced a generation of midwestern Americans to unforseen poverty and nations without the infamous box of false light.

** American children will not understand why the children, whose bellies are so round, are hungry.

The Second Of Eight Insects Known To Midwestern Children

GHOST LOCUST(curiositica escapis)

It speaks but is not seen. Only its shell may be found above ground, because the invisible Ghost Locust huddles underground in complex tunnels. Some breeds, especially those found in Carbondale, Illinois, have devised intricate funnel systems to transport rainwater from the sky into an impressive hollow that is used as a scaled-down Olympic sized pool. Here the males perform Herculean amounts of laps in order to be fed fire ants by their females. We know this only because Kikipa, an intern who can communicate with birds, spoke with a bird who can communicate with worms, and worms see all.

This Houdiniesque creature flees its own husk in fear of children's hands like a lizard prematurely fleeing its own tail. They hate to be seen but love to sing. Especially at all times.

Natural Enemies: Children, sunlight, mine explosions.

The First Of Eight Insects Well Known To Midwestern Children

ATTIC MOTH (collectica nostalgius)

Audio Clip from Helmut Von Krausberg’s little known documentary A Storage Story: The Attics of Covington, Indiana:

The attic moth is one of the few insects that shuns metamorphosis. At birth, it is fully formed. Notice its wings as it struggles out of the egg. They are transparent – but this will not last long. Like reflecting pools fraught with memory, these incredible wings replicate and store flawless visual images. Now watch - as the moth approaches a previously stored locale, its wings will detail the area as it was last seen.

Natural Enemies: Sunlight, moth balls, zealous housewives.

Best Overheard Work Conversation. Ever.

-Hog's heads. Where do I get them?
-Grant Park Packing. I believe it’s on Grand Avenue.
-Will they give me just the mandible?
-No. They’ll give you the whole head.
-Is this somewhere near Greektown?
-Grant Park is, um, well, it’s not far from Greektown.
-I heard they got them from some slaughterhouse near Greektown.

(Speaker 2 breaks to locate phone number. He returns.)

-And disarticulating the mandible from the head is actually quite a procedure.
-Which is why he just wants the mandible. Perhaps he can pay them for that.
-I doubt it.
-I can remember the students using the heads for hockey pucks.
-Yes. It was gross.
-And there was a concern about them being dumped in the trash.
-Yes. Disposal is a problem.
-Just like the human heads, they’ve got to be cremated.
-Yes. And depending on how many they want, they’re very heavy.
-They were large. They were like boar’s heads.

Midnight Mess Around

This goes out to all those backyard jams.

This goes out to all those empty bottles afterwards.

Q: Why Are You Glad You'll Soon Be Teaching English?

A: Because I won't have to read sentences like this anymore:

Emission bands of LEDs have been selected to match the absorption spectra of the intended photosensitizers. Specifically, two directions were pursued: using endogenous porphyrins and proto-porphyrins produced by oral microorganisms, and application (as a toothplace or mouthrinse) an exogenous chromophone (Methylene Blue).

Oh, BTW, this is extremely confidential information. Don't tell.

Waiting Music For St. Nicolas of Myra's* Cell Phone

*Patron Saint of Boot Blacks

Okay, Sarah, Here's Your 1st Assignment

Remember The Telephone Game? It's also called Whisper Down the Lane, Chinese Whispers, The Deaf Telephone, and in France, Arabian Telephone. You know, where kids pass on a message to each other in a circle and flub it up so at the end (hopefully) there's no sensible statement left.

I want you to create one of these with no less than 15 fictional players. Be as silly, profound, lunatic, beautiful, or crackpipe as you like. Make me either laugh or give me that stasis signifying absolute art that Stephen Dedalus talks about in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by the end statement.

I expect it posted below as a comment by noon Friday.

Q: What Happens When You Die?

A: You will become vaguely disturbed and irritated at the way people remember you. You will wish to correct all their imperceptive blunders, but unfortunately your friends were never gifted with the sixth sense (i.e., they will detect your fortissimo corrections less than the people of Troy detected the innards of the Trojan Horse). Their mutilations of your memory will be there to stay.

Quote Of The Day Posted Solely For Edward's Viewing Habits, From The Aforementioned Book

". . .but as Mark Twain wrote, common sense is a curious name for something so rare."

Favorite Quotes Of The Day, From Peter Turchi's Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer

1 Perception Is a Distortion Formula
2 "Beyond that, dialogue in fiction is purposeful in a way actual speech more often is not."
3 Perhaps, being lost, one should get loster. (Saul Bellow)

"Each Time Gaudier, With Longer Feathers"

was the end of a poem recited to me by a shifty-eyed Myopic Books browser. Would that I could remember the beginning! A creature sprouted antlers, grass, feathers, died and rebirthed itself - "each time gaudier, with longer feathers." Was it Wallace Stevens? An original? I may never know.

Pact That Must Be Kept

If you're my friend and you don't hear me mention anything about completing my 3 song homepackaged EP that is to be distributed in a limited edition of 10 at the end of September, pester me about it and make sure that it gets done. I'm horrible with deadlines and my laziness streak needs to END!

If Ever You Can't Sleep, Try Freud Or This Fellow

If They Could Be Anything,

they'd be a lamprey eel, because nothing is better than being an anagram of Earl, yelp 'em.

Free Beer To Anyone Who Can Make Up A Good Story From This Sketchy Photo

I Know You Want To See Where The Fish Washed Ashore

I Know You Share My Enthusiasm For Biology

I Know You Want To See A Stinky Dead Catfish

Responses To A Question By Ms. Koechling About Hometown Awkwardness

Q: Why do you feel awkward?  I mean, I understand because I feel totally weird being home myself, but I'm just curious.
A: Everyone's information comes from a box of channels.
A: Cars feel like unwieldy carriages built upon unsteady balloons that could, at any time and without notice, slide straight off the road.
A: Driving home at 2 a.m. in a cloud of fog on these unwieldy carriages makes me believe that an alien will come sweeping down and steal me away, especially when a blinking red circle appeared out of nowhere in my rearview mirror.
A: No one knows how to play Questions.
A: My sense of space expands until I feel I will no longer be able to leave this rural quagmire, that it will suck me under and I won't be able to find my way home.

A Vehwy Sehwious Expehwiment

concerning internet personals has begun. Findings will be analyzed with meticulous attention and expounded upon by next week.

A New Color

Conversation Between Aunt Cathy & An Autistic Girl:

Aunt: Are you getting ready for school? Do you have a new pencil?
Girl: Yes.
Aunt: What color is it?
Girl: Zoo.

Besotted By Pharmaceuticals? Try Trepanation!

What is it, you ask? Why, it's drilling a hole in your skull for the purpose of increasing consciousness! Skim these amazing accounts & gory photos!

Trepanation can restore the full brain pulsation of infancy. . .

Also, "in 1965, after years of experimentation with LSD, cannabis, and other drugs, Dr. Huges realized that the way to enlightenment was by boring a hole in his skull."

Somebody come over with a drill, quick! I'm convinced.

My First Positive Response to the Question Have You Ever Been In A Helicopter?*

A: Yes! I have!
Q: For what reason?
A: A ride at Silver Dollar City.
Q: How old were you?
A: Four.
Q: Do helicopters consistently remind you of Silver Dollar City?
A: No, but salt crackers remind me of Who's The Boss.
Q: Does anything consistently remind you of Silver Dollar City?
A: No.
Q: Why do crackers remind you of Who's The Boss?
A: Because of my Grandmother's house.

*thanks to Wolf & Ed for the initial question

Rural Collage

caterpillar rust spots auto body railroad ties hunger weeds
tv screens fireflies stunted conversation $1 beer
house cats hitters mundane questions all lead to



basement hiding or a lone country drive

The Crash Of The Internal Compass

This afternoon, a bird NASAed into the living room window.

Failed Connections

was the name of tonight's cover band
at a central Illinois watering hole &

these days I feel out of place
in my hometown

One Use For A White Orchid

Ed Holiday (pictured left, in his natural habitat) says his favorite drink is a glass of bourbon with a white orchid floating atop. He hopes the new drink gains enough notoriety to take on his name.

In Pennsylvania,

a 5 minute drive will take you from the town of Desire to the town of Panic.

Something About Biking In The Morning Rain,

swimming at 3 a.m. in Lake Michigan & hearing a down-&-out man sing "Molly Malone" & admit that he knocked a guy's eye out makes me believe that a part of me has escaped the system.

What My Free Personal Internet Horoscope Told Me, Although I Certainly Haven't Noticed A Negative Cosmic Beam:

What’s more, as you have been subjected to a burst of negative radiation in the course of the last month, your professional capabilities were also diminished and you are no longer in full possession of your skills. At this moment you could easily lose any CHANCE of MONEY, SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT.

This unlucky, negative, cosmic beam, which has victimized and weakened you, has diminished all your potential for fortune, romance and financial gain.

However, when these rewarding events present themselves, you must be completely receptive and available if you want to successfully enter into a new and wonderful existence in your near future. . .

You must understand, Brianne, that the problems that can suddenly appear and darken your existence, can only worsen, and you will have neither the power, nor the energy, to confront them. . .

Unwarranted Feelings About The Word. . .

hubby.

Every hubby that crosses my mind is pattern balding, white-haired, full-bearded, grey t-shirt clad with the sleeves rolled up on the shoulders, formidable bellied, sprouting an outie, holding a beer cozy.