Crusher, While Misanthropic, Finds the Objects of His Ire Endlessly Fascinating

When not calling down the fires of heaven on people, Crusher finds them endlessly fascinating. Exhibit No. 37: Crusher has a second-career student in one of his classes. She's a quiet, middle-aged woman given to wearing the same kind of pantsuits--seemingly always a lime sherbet color--a librarian in Grand Prairie, Texas, might find "professional," who sits in the front row, chunky feet primly crossed under her desk, assiduously taking notes on a steno pad.

Except today. She was today a quiet, middle-aged woman sitting in the front row, chunky feet crossed primly under her desk, assiduously taking notes on a steno pad, while wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, and a fitted bandana with Harley Davidson emblazoned across the front.

Flann O'Brien: Not As Good As A Squirrel, But Still Pretty Damn Good

'Is it life?' he answered. 'I would rather be without it,' he said, 'for there is queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.'

The Third Policeman

Why Crusher Loves Squirrels

When Crusher lived in Denver, he was most happy one morning to read that the mayor's car had been destroyed by a kamikzae squirrel. See, this self-sacrificing fantastic bastard (the squirrel, not then-mayor Wellington Webb, who is merely a bastard) had gotten inside the car while it was deep in the bowels of a parking garage. And then gnawed through a key wire in the car's electrical system, causing some kind of mega-explosion that blew out everything. And Crusher saw that it was very good. Sure, the squirrel also blew itself up, but an entire expensive car went along with it.

Turns out that this squirrel is only one soldier in a very large, very powerful squirrel army. And Crusher sees that it is very good.

Squirrels: Nature's Anarchists.

And occasionally also drunken little fuckers:

Thinking About Sorrentino This Morning

He wrote these formally brilliant and harshly compassionate novels (along with much else Crusher hasn't read yet).

Chapters that could stand alone as pieces of flash fiction (decades before the form came into vogue).

Yet which cumulatively constituted these rich, complex, subtle portraits of people in the grip of their longings, their failures, their disappointments, their loves.

His characters tend to fuck themselves and one another up.

Love tends to be polluted by anger and pain.

People don't understand much, communicate less.

No one gets off easy in these stories.

No one's innocent and yet he writes about everyone tenderly, with clear-eyed forgiveness.

Not at all sentimental.

But deeply loving.

He shows, over and over again, what we need forgivenness for and how much we need that forgiveness.

Here's a good introduction.

Crusher Clings To Hopes For A Better World

Go Virus Go!

In reply to Crusher's earlier post, the ever-lovely Ms. Cup asks:

"Is it Misanthropic Monday already? I guess I need to turn my calendar page."

Yes, and that's how Crusher's day started. It got worse from there. In fact, Crusher cannot work on the novel tonight, because if Crusher did, the novel would come to a sudden and definitive conclusion:

"And G-d decided everyone is a stupid fuckhead. So G-d killed them."

Crusher doesn't care that until this point, G-d is not even a character in the novel.

Instead, Crusher is going to watch a certain movie and cheer for the virus.

How About If We Just Kill 2/3 of SUV Drivers Instead?

"Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be gone by the middle of the century."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6986980.stm

Fuck the human fucking race. We're just not worth it.

On the other hand, lots of seals smiled while reading the morning papers.

Still, fuck us.