Survival Planning, Part 23: to tell or not to tell?

I think a lot of us preppers are secret preppers. In our runs to Costco and the grocery stores, we may hold back on the amount we buy, partly because we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves and be on the receiving end of stares and smirking from people who aren’t aware of the danger because of the messages they get from our government and the media. In addition, we are afraid that if our our neighbors who aren’t aware of the danger and aren’t prepping because they don’t think there is a real danger, know that we are prepping, they will converge on our houses when they can’t find food and water in the stores, and the government is missing in action, ala New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. I think that these are real and understandable fears.  

One thing we could do is to not hide from other shoppers that we are prepping. When they stare and roll their eyes to each other, just hand them a little piece of paper with this printed on it, or words to this effect: Yes, I am preparing for an imminent influenza pandemic. The world has a severe pandemic happens about once every century or so. The last severe one was in the US in 1918–1919, when it is estimated that about 100 million people in the world died. The scientists and public health officials are warning that another pandemic is around the corner, that it will probably be the bird flu, and are pleading for us to get ready, despite the fact that we don’t see that news on the TV. When the public finally finds out that the pandemic has started, via the coverage on CNN 24/7, the stores in the shelves will be stripped bare in a few hours. Imagine Katrina in every city. We will see total chaos, martial law, no food, water or proper shelter, no room in the hospitals.

porn spoof titles inspired by the works of Robert Bresson

Les affaires pubiques
Les anuses de peché
Les dames du baisé de bologne
Diary of a Cunt Rapist
A Man Ass-raped
Dick-socket
Anal Trial of Joan of Arc
Au hasard balls-licker
Poo-chette
Une femme douche
Foreskins of a Dreamer
Launcelot du sack
Le dildo probablement
L'hard-on

profile #12

The Life of the Imagination

Wallace was always dating somebody. "There were a lot of relationships," Amy says. He dated in his imaginative life too: When I visited him, one wall was taped with a giant Alanis Morissette poster. "The Alanis Morissette obsession followed the Melanie Griffith obsession — a six-year obsession," he said. "It was preceded by something that I will tell you I got teased a lot for, which was a terrible Margaret Thatcher obsession. All through college: posters of Margaret Thatcher, and ruminations on Margaret Thatcher. Having her really enjoy something I said, leaning forward and covering my hand with hers."

"The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace"

Rolling Stone
October 30, 2008

The Parts of the Body

THE BEGGAR WOMAN OF NAPLES

When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman at the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some coins before climbing into my carriage. One day, surprised at never being thanked, I looked at the beggar woman. Now, as I looked at her, I saw that what I had taken for a beggar woman was a wooden case painted green which contained some red earth and a few half-rotten bananas....

Max Jacob

notorious egg collector #6

His haul contained eggs from Britain's rarest nesting birds including the golden eagle, little tern, osprey, black-necked grebe, avocet, black-tailed godwit, stone curlew, chough, peregrine falcon and red-throated diver.

Skegness magistrates heard that Pearson was "simply a working man with an overwhelming fascination for eggs".

But jailing him, District Judge Richard Blake said he had been responsible for a "carefully organised, evil campaign against wildlife".

He added: "The message must go out that the perverted activity of people like you, who seize eggs to satisfy their lust for them, will not be tolerated".

Almost 600 of the eggs could not be identified by experts. But Pearson pleaded guilty to possessing 653 Schedule One eggs - the rarest and most protected under the Act - and possessing a further 6,477 eggs. After the case Pc Nigel Lound, Lincolnshire police's wildlife officer, said he hoped the sentence would serve as a deterrent to others.

He said: "We didn't really know what to expect when we got into the house, but we really hit the jackpot. The bedroom was chock-a-block with eggs".

The Telegraph (UK)

April 1, 2008

The Choice of Nationality

If you are a person of dual nationality,

please make the choice of nationality!

Evelyn Waugh in the Paris Review

  

Interviewer: Have you found any professional criticism of your work illuminating or helpful? Edmund Wilson, for example?

Waugh: Is he American?

Interviewer: Yes.

Waugh: I don't think what they have to say is of much interest, do you?

Intriguing Facial Hair: four from the 1800s

via Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century

FIXATION

It's not that hard to climb up
on a cross and have nails driven
into your hands and feet.
Of course it would hurt, but
if your mind were strong enough
you wouldn't notice. You
would notice how much farther
you can see up here, how
there's even a breeze
that cools your leaking blood.
The hills with olive groves fold in
to other hills with roads and huts,
flocks of sheep on a distant rise.

Ron Padgett

Thank you ve-ry much!

Then, with Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings, one of the great American adventure pictures, Grant became a top romantic leading man—with two women fighting over him—Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth, whose name in the film was Judy. From 1939 on, comic impersonators of Cary Grant always did him by saying, “Ju-dy, Ju-dy, Ju-dy.” Sometime in the early ’60s, I asked Grant about that “Judy” quote and he said, “I don’t know where that comes from! I nev-ah said that in a pictcha!” Soon after, I happened to see Only Angels again, and it jumped out at me: He does call her “Ju-dy” on more than three occasions in the movie. So I phoned Cary and told him where I thought the “Judy” quote came from. “You might be riight!” he exclaimed. “Of course, that makes sense.” He was laughing. “You solved it! Thank you ve-ry much!”

Peter Bogdanovich in The New York Observer, November 25, 2008

bibliographic description

Zshan Artur Rembo. (Jean Arthur Rimbaud). 

by Locker, Malka.

Publisher Information:

Farlag "Yidisher Kemfer" New York 1950 

Duodecimo, pale blue cloth, frontispiece illustration, 219 pp.

In Yiddish

rejected names for this blog

grisly

wigging in

between situations

pseudo-areopagite

, or the young sky pilots' first air voyage

prisoner in a chinese laundry

blague

glob (taken)

button box

islands in oatmeal

psychosexual

negative capability (taken, boring)

bloodburst

see you in the cafeteria

Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition

word, n. and int.

13. In extended use.

B. int. slang (orig. U.S., in the language of rap and hip-hop). Also word up. Expressing affirmation, agreement, or admiration: ‘That's the truth!’ ‘There's no denying it!’ ‘For sure!’

1981 J. SPICER et al. Money (Dollar Bill Y'all) (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 301 Word.., that's a good record, man. 1986 ‘CAMEO’ (title of record) Word up! 1993 B. CROSS It's not about Salary 251 Tommy Boy signed it, and here's the House of Pain, word up. 2002 N. MCDONELL Twelve liii. 133 ‘Yo b, we gonna smoke some mad bowls tonight,’ Timmy says to Mark Rothko. ‘Word, word,’ Mark Rothko agrees sagely.