Anodyne Inc.

Dividends and distributions:

Dominion Citrus Income Fund (DOM.UN): 12,346 units x .01/unit = $123.46

Amerigo Resources Ltd. (ARG): 695 shares x .065/share = $45.18

Cash balance, $734.18

CJB is kayaking, hiking and editing art criticism up the coast, and offline for a few days.

- posted by cjb @ 8:47 PM

 

Washington/Oregon Road Trip, Day Three: At The Lynch Motel (previous installments available over at All The Little Live Things)

Wake up late. On the Discovery Channel, Shark Family Robinson are cage diving and tickling white sharks' bellies. The Incredible Talking Cats would be happy to watch shark TV all morning, but time's a'wastin and we've gotta go. Out into a high desert morning, the cliffs of the Columbia Gorge having disappeared some time in the night as we drove upriver, to be replaced by hot white light, dusty green aspen leaves, deserted bank parking lots that say, "Stephen Shore," in blinking neon capitals. Several circuits of the town's one-way streets later we park at The Road Restaurant (302 W. 2nd Street) and put away the Big American Breakfasts we've been waiting for all trip. Breakfast highlight: ropy old Tommy Lee Jones Lookalike in the booth opposite, heavily salting and peppering his fruit cup.

Up and down the highway. Tolagson photographs Mount Hood; the Dalles dam; the Walker Evans-style collapsing shacks beside the huge new riverfront motel. CJB, feeling like a cynical fraud in the face of his friend's genuine enthusiasm, mopes over the steering wheel and wonders why the whole landscape looks, at least to him, like someone else's photograph.

Across the mighty Columbia and down the Washington side of the river. A gorgeous day, deep blue of the river and gold of the surrounding hills. Little lakes scattered everywhere, full of swimmers and inflatable tubes. Parasailers and windsurfers out on the river. Dusty blue sky. North through White Salmon, a tiny hillside town with a good bookstore, even better coffee bar, and great ambience. We know the town's probably sleepy nine months of the year, but appreciate the experience regardless: genial chat with the friendly bookstore proprietor; innocuous flirtatious chat with the young cuties in the coffee bar; cool wind rising up off the river and bringing the fresh cinnamon smell of ponderosa pines down off the hills.

Off through the forest. Winding roads. Backtracking. Countless hours of breathtaking views of huge Mount Adams, followed by unnumbered forest roads that scatter every which way, none of which are on the map. Back and forth through the high country, around and around and around. Much animated discussion of the map's (numerous) failings, the driver's (perhaps irrational) navigational confidence, and the passenger's fraying patience.

A pleasant sit beside the White Salmon River, trail mix and bottled water, deep green water slowly flowing by. Then another three hours of up and down and around and around, followed by the Mount Adams and Mount Hood burgers at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, followed by peanut butter pie, its whipped topping easily as thick as the generous portion of filling inside the pie.

Into suburban Tacoma near dusk, where a lighted Goodwill beckons. CJB executes a screaming left turn across three lanes of traffic, then proceeds to vaccuum the paperback section even as the long-suffering staff proceed to close up by locking all the doors and escorting the rest of the public out.

Motel time. But the Seattle Seafair virtualy guarantees that there are no motel rooms available within a two hour drive of the city. Our heroes cruise fruitlessly up and down the I-5 corridor as time stretches on toward midnight, tempers fraying. They drive toward the coast. They drive inland. They drive around and around in circles, furious at smirking desk clerks and parking lots full of Ski-Doo towing RVs.

"If we were a couple, we would have broken up by now," says Tolagson.

"And one of us would have taken the bus home," CJB agrees.

In Fife, a neon sign beckons from the freeway: VACANCY.

"Forty-eight dollars," says the sweaty overweight ponytailed hippie seated in the brightly lit lobby beneath the framed color photographs of the Fife Police Department's drug detection dog. "Park around the side."

Where it's dark, and our heroes' feet crunch over the starry remnants of several months' worth of busted-out car and truck windows.

"Don't leave anything in the car," says anxious CJB.

Into the narrow motel stairway. Stained wine-red carpet. 50s abstract painting hanging on grimy pebbled wall. Funky odor.

Up the stairs and out onto an open balcony running the length of the building.

A view of the motel pool illuminated by moonlight: drained, and stacked with broken furniture heaped up like cordwood and covered in blackberry vines.

Cue Angelo Badalamenti music.

In room #1, a couple is havin' things, and clearly visible through the half-open door.

In room #2, Shirtless Dude is smacked-out on the bed, with the door wide open and his works abandoned on the floor.

The suddenly worried Canadians exchange glances.

Our room's door is locked. But the lights are on, the curtain's drawn, and, through a crack in the curtains, bath towels and bedding are visible, heaped up in a pile by the door.

"I think someone's in there," says CJB.

"I think that's shadows on the glass," says JT.

"What the fuck should I do?"

"--knock."

No response.

"Here goes," says CJB, and unlocks the door.

Disshevelled room. Bed torn apart. Bath linen and sheets on the floor. Thick tropical funk of semen and other assorted fluids hanging heavily in the air.

CJB takes a step into the room. Then another.

Shadow in the bathroom.

Huge fresh spray of blood running across the carpet beside the bed and up the wall.

"We're outta here," says CJB, voice an octave or two above normal.

"We're gone," agrees Tolagson.

"And you'd like your money back why?" asks the genial old pony-tailed hippie in the lobby.

"Let's start with the blood," says CJB, poised for full-on conflict.

"Oh my," says the not too terribly surprised-looking desk clerk. "Of course..."

Up and down I-5.

Into Motel 6 in Centralia at 2am!
- posted by cjb @ 7:03 PM

 
Anodyne Inc. (USD)

I'll be aggregating the USD portfolio's distributions every month or two, as they occur a little less frequently than the Canadian portfolio's.

Kansas City Life Insurance (KCLI): .27/share x 200 shares = $54.00 (14 August)
Seaspan Corporation (SSW): .44625/share x 740 shares = $330.23 (10 August)
Whole Foods Market (WFMI): .15/share x 100 shares = $15.00 (19 July)

Cash balance, $752.83

The USD portfolio has held up nicely against -- and in fact is slightly ahead of -- its benchmark index, the S&P 500. I won't post a detailed calculation here, but will report the (hopefully) good or bad news to shareholders on or around October 15th.
- posted by cjb @ 5:37 PM

 

Sky Mirror for Paterson, 2007
- posted by cjb @ 9:35 AM

 

Little wind piano, on its way in the mail
- posted by cjb @ 7:44 PM

 

The Fender Rhodes 88 key Suitcase Piano, Mr. Fagen's favorite
- posted by cjb @ 6:21 PM

 

Chronic liar, evader and mis-rememberer Alberto R. Gonzales keeps the deceptions up even on his way out the door:

"On Saturday night Mr. Gonzales was contacted by his press spokesman to ask how the department should respond to inquiries from reporters about rumors of his resignation, and he told the spokesman to deny the reports.

White House spokesmen also insisted on Sunday that they did not believe that Mr. Gonzales was planning to resign. Aides to senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said over the weekend that they had received no suggestion from the administration that Mr. Gonzales intended to resign.

As late as Sunday afternoon, Mr. Gonzales himself was denying through his spokesman that he was quitting. The spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said Sunday that he telephoned the attorney general about the reports of his imminent resignation 'and he said it wasn’t true — so I don’t know what more I can say.'"

(via the NYT)
- posted by cjb @ 4:32 PM

 
K. writes from the depths of specialty food retail hell:

"I just got yelled at by a man who bought oat groats that would not grow into grass for his cat. He wanted his $1.89 back. I pointed out that seeds without the outer husk will not grow. He told me that he was not an idiot and he knew that. I then asked him why he bought huskless groats if he already knew that they would not grow. He said, 'I refuse to rise to that. You're baiting me, trying to get a reaction. Well, I'm going to send the owner a bill for my time at $45.00/hour.' I said, 'Fine, you've been here for five minutes, that's about three seventy-five,' and walked away and started working with my back to him. Then I bought a calendar from a nun. It has all the saints' days."
- posted by cjb @ 4:17 PM

 
Live from London (well, almost live): Johnnie and the Dan
- posted by cjb @ 3:16 PM

 

Some Trees
By John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

(Image courtesy "Flash" Culley: CJB relaxing on the grass at Miskatonic U.)
- posted by cjb @ 10:19 AM

 

Demagogue (for P&D), 2007
- posted by cjb @ 9:37 PM

 

Yet another book launch in Pulpfiction's front room: Carellin Brooks' Wreck Beach (New Star), tonight from 7-9pm. Y'all come! Likely in attendance: nudists, friends of the store, cold beer.
- posted by cjb @ 3:18 PM

 

Clint Burnham draws my attention to Mark Wallace's photo of him -- Clint -- reading in Pulpfiction's living room, mid-May, 2007. Note the music stand, swiped overnight from the Anza Club down the road.
- posted by cjb @ 7:14 PM

 

The board game responsible, along with Monopoly, for moulding me into Mr. Hard-Core Value Investor: Copp-Clark's Stock Ticker, which I'd relentlessly badger friends and family into playing.

"The second strategy is more risky, but can also be immensely profitable. It involves buying stocks when they are near the bottom of the board and at risk of being worth nothing."
- posted by cjb @ 4:26 PM

 

A board game I only wish I owned.

"Buying and selling paintings is a very lucrative business, at least that's what Hollywood's led us to believe, and that's the premise of this game. Five different artists have produced a bunch of paintings, and it's the player's task to be both the buyer and the seller, hopefully making a profit in both roles. He does this by putting a painting from his hand up for auction each turn. He gets the money if some other player buys it, but must pay the bank if he buys it for himself. After each round, paintings are valued by the number of paintings of that type that were sold. The broker with the most cash after four rounds is the winner."
- posted by cjb @ 4:24 PM

 

ACT (Aesthetically Claimed Thing): Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1980). World's best Dungeons & Dragons module, and a great favorite of dru and I.

"Many monsters made their first appearances in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, including the aurumvorax, froghemoth, and vegepygmy. Additionally, this module features robots and mighty powered weapons such as blaster rifles and laser pistols. This module also contains a fabulous suit of powered armor that allows characters to achieve almost god-like feats (characters have an 18(00) strength while wearing it). Many a Dungeon Master was dismayed to find players with characters wielding these genre-crossing arms, with some of the more conservative DMs (in terms of gameplay) banning them outright outside the confines of the module. Because of these special entities, the module is liberally illustrated to help aid players in understanding their mysterious encounters.

The players will discover that this 'dungeon' consists of part of a downed spacecraft, supposedly its inhabitants having succumbed to some sort of disease and died off. Many of the ship's robots are still functioning, however, and the players must either avoid or defeat them (a few are benign, however, and may be ignored). Wandering police robots and an overzealous weightlifting instructor are just two of the automatons that must be dealt with. One of the module's most curious encounters is a medical robot trying in vain to find a cure for the disease which has already killed off the ship's crew."
- posted by cjb @ 4:05 PM

 









Various simulation games I either played or owned c. 1977-82. Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival and Afrika Corps are older games from the early 1970s that I discovered on the windowledge of Brian Herrin's Grade 4 Caulfeild Elementary classroom. The other games are SPI titles from the early 1980s, two of which came as inserts in my subscription copies of Ares magazine. Most of these titles didn't really lend themselves to solo play, and the few friends I did have weren't about to spend hours rolling dice and shuffling tiny cardboard counters around on the flimsy paper or cardstock maps. Simulation gaming was thus, for me, an early introduction to the assuming-you're-going-to-have-a-better-time-than-you're-actually-having phenomena that plagues me to this day. By 1984 or so I had a massive collection of games, easily 50 or more, including obscure and virtually unplayable titles like The Plot to Assassinate Hitler and After The Holocaust ("Keynesian macroeconomics after the nukes fall"), whose cardboard counters were carefully stacked in pastel-colored styrofoam egg cartons precariously perched on my bedroom's bookshelves. Common sense only took over in the mid-1980s, as my interests shifted toward hiking, comic book collecting, and prog-rock record accumulating.
- posted by cjb @ 2:54 PM

 

SPI Games' BattleFleet Mars (1977), via BoardGameGeek.com.

"Simulation of interplanetary conflict in the Solar system during the late 21st century. Earth is dependent on extra-terrestrial resources, the procurement of which is managed, executed, and controlled by privately-owned conglomerates.

The game concerns an attempt by disenchanted employees of the corporation living in space and on Mars to seize the means of production to gain autonomy."

Basic economics, cultural studies, and political theory couched in a tasty science-fiction coating! I loved this game as a kid, laboriously spreading its huge folding maps and hundreds of fiddly cardboard counters across my sloping drafting desk in the den.

BFM wasn't really meant to be played solo, but I grimly toiled through the game's various scenarios, conscious that my invested time felt more like library research than "recreation." Occasionally Charley the cat would hop up onto the desk for a glimpse out the den window, upsetting weeks of work by knocking countless Miners, Catapaults and Transports out of orbit.
- posted by cjb @ 10:34 AM

 

Tonight's YouTube: Duke Ellington's C Jam Blues (1942)
- posted by cjb @ 9:20 PM

 
"If You're Ever Invited to Give a Reading at Pulpfiction Books, You Should Go"

Seattle novelist Matt Ruff arrives in Vancouver and finds the locals (& imported tropical produce) friendly:

"Finally, my trip report wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention mangosteens. The mangosteen is an exotic fruit that I've been wanting to try ever since William Poundstone praised it in his book The Ultimate: The Great Armchair Debates Settled Once and for All. Up until last year mangosteens were barred from importation into the U.S. because of fears the shipments would harbor Asian fruit flies. Recently the government began allowing small quantities to be imported from Puerto Rico, but almost all of these mangosteens go directly to gourmet shops in New York City, where they command caviar prices.

In Vancouver, mangosteens are $5 a pound. Chris Brayshaw drew me a map to a store that sold them, and then, when it turned out this is not a fruit you can peel with your bare hands, provided me with a knife, a countertop, and a supply of paper towels.

The mangosteen is the size of a plum, and most of its volume consists of a thick, inedible, and very bitter red rind that will stain like beets if you're not careful. At the center is a cluster of white fruit sections that looks a lot like a peeled head of garlic. The taste is hard to describe, in part because the ripeness varies from section to section and this affects the sweetness, but 'mango with a hint of kiwi' puts you sort of in the ballpark. After years of anticipation, the actual eating experience was a bit of a letdown -- it's not the most delicious fruit I've ever eaten, although it's in the running for most high-maintenance fruit -- but just being able to cross it off my list was a nice bonus to an already great mini-vacation. Many thanks to Pulpfiction Books for making my life a little more full."
- posted by cjb @ 11:27 AM

 
On the deck: Messiaen's Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (1941), via PKD and K.

"According to the composer, the Quartet was intended not to be a commentary on the Apocalypse, nor to refer to his own captivity, but to be a kind of musical extension of the Biblical account, and of the concept of the end of Time as the end of past and future and the beginning of eternity. For Messiaen there was also a musical sense to the angel's announcement. His development of a varied and flexible rhythmic system, based in part on ancient Hindu rhythms, came to fruition in the Quartet, where more or less literally Messiaen put an end to the equally measured 'time' of western classical music."
- posted by cjb @ 11:07 AM

 
Rafted sunlight through cloud, swish of traffic floating in through the open door, Copland's Concerto For Clarinet and String Orchestra (1947-8) on the deck, smoky Russian Caravan tea close at hand. A slow close to a long, frantic day, full of mail preparation, pocket book shelving, September reading list fufillment.
- posted by cjb @ 6:51 PM

 

Why The Keytar's The Star Again

"In every genre from jazz-fusion to hair metal, the keytar – the keyboard-with-a-handle, worn suspended, guitar-like, from a shoulder-strap – once reigned supreme, sported by countless ticklers of plastic ivory, including Herbie Hancock, Devo, Pet Shop Boys, Asia, Steely Dan and Jean Michel Jarre. . . ."
- posted by cjb @ 11:46 AM

 

Recent reading:

Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys
Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down
- posted by cjb @ 9:37 AM

 
Anodyne Inc.

Distributions partially offsetting additional Market Carnage:

Parkland Income Fund (PKI.UN): 3510 units x .0967/unit = $339.42

TerraVest Income Fund (TI.UN): 1109 units x .08333/unit = $92.41

Cash balance, $565.54

- posted by cjb @ 5:07 PM

 

Courtesy Brad Phillips. S'truth!
- posted by cjb @ 7:18 PM

 
Inscription in the front of a paperback copy of Wyndham's Chrysalids:

"June 21/98

Dear Sam,

Your Dad and I had a conversation about this author once.

Seems we both read this Book in Grade 8 and then read lots of his other books.

Maybe you would like to keep this book in your new room in Kelowna and save it for your Grade 8 year.

When I look at how fast you and Susan and Martha make time fly for us grownups, I know you'll be able to read this book in no time at all.

Don't forget your old Toronto family, Sweetie. When we write letters, we will be watching the mail every day for an answer.

Love Always,

Shelley"
- posted by cjb @ 4:22 PM

 

Sunshine through slanting blinds, cool air through the sliding balcony door. Gorgeous gold light. The dusty blue sky that says fall. Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 26 in E flat major, opus 81a, the slow glide of spaced-out notes, the andante's hurrying runs that evoke the MGM Studio Orchestra in blinking neon caps.
- posted by cjb @ 9:16 AM

 
CJB Vs. Modern Forest Management (via long-suffering and outrageously patient JT)

"CJB tries his hand at a virtual forest management test (a little screen with a forest that you plant and then harvest). "Harvest Now?" the screen asks. "No," says CJB again and again, eventually growing an enormous jungle, losing millions of virtual dollars and dragging his virtual logging community into financial ruin. On the way out there are tiny little Weyerhaeuser pamphlets available, printed on earthy brown paper and filled with delicate zen ink drawings of birds, trees and chainsaws."
- posted by cjb @ 7:49 PM

 
Anodyne Inc. Vs. Relentless Market Carnage

First off, a distribution missed while tooling around the Pacific Northwest with Jamie and the cats:

Dominion Citrus Income Fund (DOM.UN): 12,346 units x .01/unit = $123.46 (31 July)

Cash balance, $133.71

Out of curiosity, I spent twenty minutes with the stats, wondering how the portfolio's recent performance would compare with the TSE 300's. I've read numerous books and academic studies that suggest that a low P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio portfolio will actually perform better in bear markets than in times of market euphoria, and I thought I'd anecdotally test my "book learning."

TSE 300 index, 25 October 2006 - 10 August 2007: 9.11% gain

Anodyne Inc. 25 October 2006 - 10 August 2007: 22.18% gain

Relative result: 13.07% A small improvement in performance, despite the Market Carnage.

Interesting.

The concept of Market Carnage is worth thinking through. Let's say I bought a piece of recreational property -- an unimproved lot in Gold Bridge, say -- for $10,000 on January 1st. Then today I call a realtor and learn that the most anyone will offer me for the lot is $7400. Have I lost money? Only if I have to sell today. Otherwise, the realtor's offer is mine to take or leave. And unless I'm impelled to sell, I have many years of vacations to look forward to, endless days of reading and solitaire in a tent with the Incredible Talking Cats and various loved ones, with vicious horseflies buzzing around outside and showers rattling off the roof. (Not to mention the property's slow appreciation over the full duration of my holding period -- thirty or forty years minimum, or the old Buffetesque "forever"). I've always liked watching things grow.

Why would I sell my property today? Maybe because a computer told me to. Maybe because my margin loans were being called, because my holdings, at least on paper, had fallen in value. Or maybe because I was leveraged up the ass. But as an individual, I have the opportunity of declining all the bells and whistles of modern finance. I can simply focus on growing a portfolio of solid businesses with (largely) predictable operating results, without any regard to program trading, buying on margin, leveraging my equity, trading derivatives or risk, or other kinds of foolishness designed to goose short term performance at the expense of individual control.

- posted by cjb @ 6:54 PM

 
Hopefully Soon-To-Be-Bankrupt Australian Bookstore Chain Demands Pay-For-Play

Well-regarded Australian literary publisher reasonably responds: "I have to say that my initial response on reading your letter as to how you propose to 'manage' your business in the future was one of voluble hilarity, I literally burst out laughing aloud. My second response was to note the unmitigated arrogance of your communication, I could not actually believe I was reading an official letter from Angus & Robertson on an Angus & Robertson letterhead."

(via Michael Y.)
- posted by cjb @ 11:41 AM

 
The Cheese Does The Fancy Steps

Everything that's good about the series, compressed into two and a half minutes. For my pal K., proud owner of Season One on DVD.
- posted by cjb @ 9:08 PM

 

Spook Addendum

(To be inserted, a la Dr. No, between the third and fourth paragraphs on page 283 of William Gibson's excellent Spook Country. For Rodney and Bill, with much respect and affection).

She must have mistranscribed the address, for the one she'd written down deposited her nowhere near Clark, but on Main Street, north of Broadway. A mixed-use neighborhood. A bookstore, bistro, mailbox rentals. Sewing machine repair. A sagging porn theatre. The grey concrete shell of a new residential tower rising on one corner.

She opened the PowerBook on the passenger seat and paged down a useless list of locked wireless networks, Vancouver evidently less trusting than L.A.

Out of the car. She strolled south up Main, past a vacant unit on the corner, an art supply store, mailbox rentals, comic books, the bistro's smoked glass windows. Then in, on a whim, at the bookstore. Grey industrial carpet and racks of new releases mixed with texts on Soviet architecture, photoconceptualism, the Strugatsky brothers, Stanislaw Lem. Old Bowie on the stereo. Two bald, prematurely middle-aged men loudly arguing at the till.

Now they stopped as she approached.

"Can I help you?"

"Do you have a phone book I could borrow?"

"Sure," said the skinnier of the two, and heaved it up onto the counter.

She took her phone out of her purse and began to thumb through the listings.

"You looking for a business?" asked the skinny man.

"No, an artist. Bobby Chombo."

"Bobby," said the man. She studied him more closely. Late thirties. Mostly bald. Bright blue eyes behind small clear lenses. A round, earnest face. "We showed him, once."

"'We'?"

"Want to see the gallery?" Without waiting for an answer he walked abruptly into a side room, returning seconds later with a key, and past her out into the street. Confused, she followed him out onto the sidewalk and down a few doors to a set of stairs leading up to the building's second floor.

"CSA showed one of Robert's earliest locative pieces," said the bald man, preceding her up the stairs.

Down a dark hall to a locked door. He fumbled with the key, finally opened it. Behind the door, a tiny exhibition space with a tiger-striped hardwood floor and white walls. Small black and white photographs hanging there.

"These aren't Bobby's," she said.

"I haven't seen Bobby in more than two years," he said. "Just installed his work and took off. Didn't even make the opening. I told Sarah--"

"Do you know where he is, now?"

"Sure," he said. "Still the same place. That rat trap off Clark."

"You wouldn't have the address, would you?"

"Sure," he said, and wrote it down with a pen.
- posted by cjb @ 6:24 PM

 
Just a reminder that Pulpfiction will be hosting a free reading and signing by Seattle novelist Matt Ruff (Bad Monkeys; Fool on the Hill; Set This House in Order; Sewer, Gas & Electric) next Thursday, August 16th, at 7pm sharp.

Mr. Ruff's appearance marks the first time I've ever hassled a non-Vancouverite into appearing in the front room, and everyone's attendance and participation is warmly invited. Hint, hint.
- posted by cjb @ 8:52 PM

 
Inside Room 101

"Some detainees held by the C.I.A. claimed that their cells were bombarded with deafening sound twenty-fours hours a day for weeks, and even months. One detainee, Binyam Mohamed, who is now in Guantánamo, told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, that speakers blared music into his cell while he was handcuffed. Detainees recalled the sound as ranging from ghoulish laughter, 'like the soundtrack from a horror film,' to ear-splitting rap anthems. Stafford Smith said that his client found the psychological torture more intolerable than the physical abuse that he said he had been previously subjected to in Morocco, where, he said, local intelligence agents had sliced him with a razor blade. 'The C.I.A. worked people day and night for months,' Stafford Smith quoted Binyam Mohamed as saying. 'Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and doors, screaming their heads off.'

Professor Kassem said his Yemeni client, Kazimi, had told him that, during his incarceration in the Dark Prison, he attempted suicide three times, by ramming his head into the walls. 'He did it until he lost consciousness,' Kassem said. 'Then they stitched him back up. So he did it again. The next time, he woke up, he was chained, and they’d given him tranquillizers. He asked to go to the bathroom, and then he did it again.' This last time, Kazimi was given more tranquillizers, and chained in a more confining manner."
- posted by cjb @ 7:55 PM

 

The Incredible Talking Cats watch the Discovery Channel's Shark Week in a Dalles motel room by the banks of the mighty Columbia. Foremost on Rose T. Cat's worried mind: can sharks swim up rivers? Yes, says resident shark expert Jamie T., but not up hydroelectric dam spillways.
- posted by cjb @ 6:28 PM

 
Waste My Time, Please

LOST GAL [buying books]: These were my second choice.

CJB: Oh...? What were you looking for?

LOST GAL: It doesn't matter. You don't have it.

CJB: No, really. What were you looking for?

LOST GAL: Light In August.

CJB [visualizing big stack of Vintage trade paperbacks in the overstock room]: I can go pull one out of the back for you!

LOST GAL [as if to toddler, or dog]: No...you you don't have it.

CJB: Really! It's no problem!

LOST GAL [oblivious]: I was also looking for One Hundred Years of Solitude.

CJB [recalling copy he shelved less than an hour ago]: In pocket paper...in classics.

LOST GAL [that voice again]: No, you don't have it.

CJB: Aaaarrrrrgh!
- posted by cjb @ 5:42 PM