“If you encounter Jack Bauer, his mission will always supersede yours, so offer to drop what you’re doing and help him.  If he doesn’t want you there, that’s fine. You’re less likely to die when he’s not around.”

I think it’s well-documented that my vote in the upcoming presidential election will go to William Shatner.  Over on Twitter, @WilliamShatner brought up the notion that he should have his own meme, similar to the Chuck Norris jokes meme.  Users are responding.  Here are some of the best:

• William Shatner doesn’t overact; it’s the rest of the world that’s phoning it in.
• William Shatner doesn’t have an oversized ego. He has a bigger identity than yours.
• William Shatner knows singing to music is just a fad.

Oh, my stars and garters.  This could be the greatest meme ever.  Follow @WilliamShatner on Twitter.

Sarah Manguso

O! Sugar Shaman!
Mourns as agha,
sang, “Ah, amours…”
Ragas so human,
ragas so human.

Ragas, so human.

That triple repetition at the end, Kromer, was where you won my heart forever.

• The list of people I’m following on Twitter has swelled from 15 to 34 in the last couple weeks.  Twitter is infinitely more satisfying now.  If you’re reading this, and you’re on Twitter, and I ain’t following you, let me know.  Perhaps you interest me.
• This is kind of amazing.  You cannot help but feel absolutely terrible for the guy.  You cannot help but feel absolutely terrible for anyone who’s going to have to return the stuff they hauled away.  You cannot help but wonder how anyone came up with it.
• Spent most of yesterday moving furniture. We now have the corner cabinets that Ladybug’s grandfather made.  And some other crap.
• I’m headed back to the classroom!  Well, for a day.  I’m subbing for a colleague’s poetry workshop next week.  I have missed being around poetry students.  Badly.  I realized it once more when I was writing a recommendation for a student and I read over his creative sample.
• I’m currently badgering Tom McHenry to make me into a cyborg.

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Both the Oasis and the Auden cover essentially the same topic, albeit in different terms and different media. Auden essentially acknowledges the impossibility that we matter in any reasonable cosmic scheme, but at the end of his poem, he outlives the stars and comes to appreciate the universe changed. Oasis rejects the natural order of things and achieves immortality for their daring.

Run these through the filter of my last few days, and you come up with one irresistible conclusion: being alive in the moment is the only immortality one needs. You can look at the world, littered with the walking dead, and conclude that you’ve bested it forever by enjoying it now.

***

Of course, the possibility exists that when Auden looked at the stars, knowing”That, for all they care, I can go to hell,” he was simply prophesying the inevitable existence of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton. Yes, devoid of them, we might all come to appreciate the world. But it would take a while. It would take a while indeed.

The owners of a one-time Clayton gas station built in the 1960’s plan to open a recently-discovered “Mystery Room” they believe has been sealed for nearly fifty years…

Lee said he discovered the room a few months back while doing some plumbing work near the back of the building. At the time, he noticed an extra set of water lines that lead into the walls of the room.

“Who knows, we may find Jimmy Hoffa or Blackbeard’s gold,” he said.

It opens April 4, but prior to that time, they’re asking Johnston County kids to write essays about what could be inside.  link

I feel bad for you son.

I do not feel bad for you son.

• I did not know This American Life was a television show.
• I have no idea why I would be on This American Life. Update: I found out. I must be in the background of some old footage. My pal, the brilliant Charlie Todd, had been featured on the radio version of the show some time ago in a segment about Improv Everywhere. It makes perfect sense that his story would be on the inaugural episode of a TAL tv show. I must be in the background of some old footage. If you do not yet know about Improv Everywhere, it’s brilliant. I really want a copy of this show now! Congratulations to Charlie.
• This will not bode well for my federal witness protection program identity.

If you happened to tape or TiVo this program, I would love to see it.

Emma Bolden has good news today. I don’t know if I should reveal it, so I’ll just say that Emma Bolden has good news today, and I’m super-psyched for her.

I’m also super-psyched for the aforementioned friend, who also got some good news recently and needs to get used to the idea that he’s doing things that are going to set some people’s hair on fire. In a good way.

And finally, I got some good news this week: I got the author to sign a copy of this:

You can buy a copy from Paypal for only $6.00 plus shipping.

Heat Vision and Jack! Forgot how good this is!

Lookwell! Greatest pilot ever!

**record scratch sound indicating things have gone horribly awry, a la every commercial on the UPN** Maryland basketball? As in, the University of Maryland has a billboard for their basketball teams on I-40, just outside Greensboro, not far from their hated rivals Dook and my own beloved University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? As in, between those great basketball schools (plus NC State) and Wake Forest, another ACC rival? Am I seeing this right?

Hey, Maryland, I know that your women won a big game and are now in the Final Four, but so are Dook and UNC. So you don’t really have gloating rights there. And your men didn’t do so well this year, so it’s not a strategically-place f-u to North Carolina basketball in general. So, what’s the deal?

Then it occurs to me that perhaps, like UNC-P (Pembroke State University to you hard-core old-schoolers), Maryland is trying to recruit students by placing an ad for its basketball team in the middle of ACC country, where North Carolina basketball teams are a religion. I really do liken it to placing an ad for Columbia in the Charleston local paper during the Civil War.

Is anyone going to buy this? Are there disaffected youth in Gibsonville thinking, “Hey, you know, I was going to go get the Personal Touch at UNC-P, but these Maryland fellows, they have chutzpah! I should go there! What a fantastic way to express my individuality. I’ll go tell the whole gang at Dairy Queen”? Or are they assuming that since everyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line drives to High Point to buy their furniture, placing a Maryland ad in North Carolina would be a good way to entice them to buy season tickets?

Well, this one, I might believe. Imagine you’re from Rockville or Silver Spring and you just want a hand-crafted ottoman. You’re in your SUV hauling ass at 75, and you see billboard after billboard with shit you don’t want. “Gun show… nah… Swiffer… I have one of those… Dockside Dolls… damn, it’s closed for renovation… Gentleman’s Car Wash… too lowbrow… Maryland basketball… maybe… ‘We need to have a conversation. –God’… I’m not buying that… McDonald’s next exit… not organic…. fuck it, I’ll buy the Maryland basketball tickets.”

Still, I would love to know what the thought process was. Even Pedro doesn’t have signs in this section of the country. (He also lacks political experience.)

By the way, if this guy tries to give me his personal touch, I’m screaming “rape.”

So I searched on that term to see how high I rank– a paltry tenth!– and I followed one of the other links when I saw this:

WTF?

Seriously, how can you not follow a link that promises you that? I did, and here’s the whole message:

My dear God. I had to click the link, which took me to this guy’s blog, which is also a work of art! The past month has gems like the prank on a USC basketball player, a slam at T.O. (we know how I feel about T.O.), and the conspiracy to let 30-something nerds take over EA Games’ soundtracks. Sure, none of that measures up to the Danny Ferry thing, but I’m a fan.

Also, some commenters apparently think I know the bard of Durham. But if you do, I have the e-mail addresses of about thirty 15-year-olds who would like to get to know him. They luv him. Luuuuv him.

Don’t get all excited, 15-year-old girls. I didn’t take that photo. I stole it from flickr.com. But maybe if you Google hard enough, you can find pictures of his b00bies!

Seriously, I have no sense of style.

I do have this wonderful dream that one day I will get out of bed and I will dress myself and I will look even remotely like I know what I am doing. This does not seem likely, though.

http://www.pimpmynutcracker.com/

I show this to you now in full knowledge that when we get home, Ladybug will want to dress Kirk and Boomer up like this.

While we were in Denver, we went to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. It was Halloween, so lots of people were dressed up. Two of the women on the tour with us were dressed, one as Beeker. Best Halloween costume ever.

They make you wear hairnets. Heh.