Where the bodies are buried

Okay, okay, I'll tell you. But to figure it out, detectives, you'll have to answer my RIDDLES!

Yes, that's right. From a young age, I delighted in solving complex riddles, word problems, and logic puzzles. They were, in fact, my only sources of joy. A frail, sickly boy, I was mocked by the other children at school and then mocked again at home by my bitter widower of a father. Each day was a journey through pains, new and old. But I knew that once I locked myself in my room, I could escape into the mental labyrinth of a well crafted riddle. It was within such a riddle that, at the age of sixteen, my young brain exploded. I began to see the riddles in everything. Each roll of patterned wallpaper, every intricate interlocking body of a car, even the tense social systems of an individual human -- all of them are riddles, waiting to be solved.

I realized that the man who could use these riddles of life and build his own master riddle on top of them would be unto a god. And so I began. Years of preparation. Notebooks filled with precise measurements and interconnections and personal details. A list of ideal victims. And, finally, the perfect riddle solvers: you, detectives.

That's right. Welcome to my Game.

You will find all my materials, along with the bodies, if you can solve three devious, but ultimately quite simple, riddles. Unfortunately for you, if you don't solve them within the next two hours, all evidence of my crimes will be detonated by timed explosives.

So, let us begin. Riddle Number One!

"There is a shed behind my house. It took three years to build.
If you go there in your cars, you'll find all the people I killed."

Oh, the looks on your faces! How I adore that expression of complete terror in the face of a massive ball of logic that must be untwined like a...

Where are you going, Detective Trepa? Where are you going?

Where was he going? He must have been intimidated! He looked as if he were about to vomit, I think! And I haven't even told you the other two riddles yet! What a nancy boy, eh, Detective Polk? Looks like it's all on you to find the answers before your reward is, shall we say, detonated. Ha!

Riddle Number Two!

"Riddle one was tons of fun, but here comes number two:
If you've solved the first riddle then you've already solved the case."

Oh, yes! I can't tell you how good it feels to finally say these riddles out loud and see their acidic effects on a man's psyche. I have been waiting three years, nay, my entire life, to speak those words. They came to me all in a flash, can you believe it? Such genius?

You are remarkably quiet, Detective Polk, but I see a smile pushing up the corners of your mouth. Have you gone mad so quickly? Has the seeming impossibility of my riddles driven you insane?

But you are a bright man, detective. That's why I chose you. You and Trepa. Though it appears I underestimated him severely. I assure you that each of these riddles has an answer, if you only apply your mind.

Thus, the Third and Final Riddle!

"Perhaps you answered one and two, but number three's a doozy,
Flipsy-doodle flapper flooper ropsa-popsa schmoozy."

Oh. Oh, no.

I was just hearing that for the first time not in my head and ... oh, now I'm really thinking about the previous two also.

Oh, wow. Just ... dammit. I really should have said them before so I knew what they sounded like, eh?

Detective Trepa, hi, I was just wondering if we could start over...

They found them already? Ah. Well.

Shit.

I think you left something

To: Phillip
From: Wendy
Subject: I think you left something

Phillip,

Thank you for coming over and getting your things while I was out. It's best for both of us that we don't see each other right now.

I appreciate that you left your copy of my apartment key on the counter like I asked. But I think you left something of yours. I remember how much you rely on your monthly planner, so it surprises me that you would forget it. And you'll really need it if you're going on that "HOT DATE WITH RIDICULOUSLY HOT MODEL (HOT BOOBS!)" tonight, like it said on the page that you left it open to and wanted me to read.

I am going to drop your copy of my key off at the front desk at your office. I want your planner out of my kitchen and the key back on the counter by the time I get back from work tonight.


To: Phillip
From: Wendy
Subject: I think you left something again

Phillip,

The planner was gone and the key was returned, as I asked. But I think you may have left something behind again. Maybe a pile of "Magnum" condoms and a small bottle of KY Warming Liquid, still in the box, with a Post-It attached to the box that reads, "For sex tonite with Cassandra, the model"?

You're probably realizing right now, "Oh, so THAT's where my condoms, lubrication, and Post-It reminder note went. How embarrassing."

If you'd like to retrieve your items, you can find them at the bottom of one of my building's trash cans out on the street. But I suggest you go to the drug store and buy new stuff because, unless you had some surgery, those condoms aren't going to fit you.

Oh, and just so you know for sure: we are done, Phillip.


To: Phillip
From: Wendy
Subject: What a surprise

What a mix-up! Phillip, you seem to have left something else at my apartment: the prostitute you hired.

Or, maybe she's a model after all? Or an actress? I'm not sure. But it was truly delightful to walk into my own apartment last night, expecting all of this bullshit to be over, and discover a large-breasted, scantily-clad woman napping on my sofa! She was surprised to see me, or so she pretended, and why not? When your boyfriend takes you to his ex-girlfriend's apartment to drop off the extra copy of the key he made for no other reason than to be able to get into that apartment whenever he likes even though the relationship has ended and such entrance is actually trespassing and probably even harassment that he could go to jail for and then he just LEAVES you to catch a few winks there on her sofa that she now feels like throwing away ... well, that would be a little startling for just about anyone.

But it would be ESPECIALLY startling if you didn't speak English very well and, besides, had a thick Russian accent and you were desperately trying to remember the details of what your "boyfriend" had told you to say to his ex-girlfriend when she came home. Specifically, in this case, that he has proposed to you and you want nothing more in the world than to wed this "vondaful" and "bootiful" man but that you know that his ex-girlfriend is really "the wan for heem."

I bet you're really kicking yourself now! "How clumsy of me to leave my Russian fiancee at my ex-girlfriend's apartment that I just illegally entered!" Boy, oh, boy.

I imagine your sweetheart has found you and told you how she feels. That Cassandra really is something. But if you'd like to get your cubic zirconia back, because I sure as hell am not keeping it, you can find it floating somewhere in the New York City sewage system.

Oh, and you'll want to throw away any other copies of my key that you may have made because they will not work. Also, just so you know, if I find that you have come into my apartment again, I will have you arrested.


To: Phillip
From: Wendy
Subject: Congratulations

I know it's been a few months since we've spoken, but I just read the wedding announcements in the paper and wanted to send my congratulations, as well as my apologies for calling your fiancee a prostitute and flushing your engagement ring down the toilet. I wish you two the best.

As for what's going on with me, I am seeing someone new. He isn't as attractive as you, but he's a much better person. And he has GIANT PECTORAL MUSCLES.

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.


"A house?" Melissa said.

The boy nodded, then stared at the ground, looking ashamed.

"Where?" Melissa asked, feeling her anger slip away. She didn't know why the boy was suddenly telling her this, or what exactly he was telling her, but it sounded like a secret.

In answer to her question, the boy pointed vaguely behind him, toward the other side of the waterfall. Melissa looked up, but the trees were too thick to let her see between. And, for all she knew, the boy might have been pointing a mile in that direction, so she couldn't have seen the house anyway.

If the house even existed, she thought.

"It's in the woods?" she asked. That sounded like fairy tale stuff.

The boy nodded again. Melissa's anger began to return, building up in her arms and forehead and inside her chest. Why wouldn't the boy just talk? Obviously, he could talk. But he seemed to be scared of saying anything -- or of saying anything to her.

Melissa wasn't sure why, but she wanted to know about the house that was so interesting it actually made this silent boy speak. But she needed to leave soon if she was going to do what she had planned to do. And she was going to do it. She most definitely was.

So she had to make the boy tell her. Now.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me where the house is."

The boy started to point again. But he stopped when Melissa rolled her head back and opened her mouth and let out a sound of total frustration: "Ahhhhhhhh!" Then she clenched her fists, looked straight at him, and said, "Go with me."

And she walked away, back toward her abandoned bike. Twigs crunched and snapped beneath her quick steps. She pushed aside a low-hanging branch and let it snap back with a crash of leaves. A thread of spiderweb stuck to her face. She smeared it onto her hand and wiped it on the seat of her jeans.

Melissa had no idea if the boy was following her. She didn't want to look back to check, either -- that would be weak. She was going to retrieve her bike and leave, whether the boy was with her or not.

Her bike was just where she had left it, lying beside the trail. The handlebars and front wheel were turned at a sharp angle away from the body of the bike, like a fractured bone. At the ends of the handlebars, where new, shiny, pink and white ribbons had once dangled like pom-poms, there were now just dirty stumps. Shortly after her mother had given her the bike, Melissa had sheared the ribbons off with scissors.

Over the past month, Melissa had been turning the stupid girly bike -- a moving present -- into her own creation. She had taken whatever paints she could find in her closet and in the garage and slathered and splattered them across the frame of the bike, turning it into a black-and-green-and-yellow-and-brown-and-white-and-pink mess -- exactly how she liked it. Whenever she got off the bike, she pushed it away from her, almost throwing it. That way, she could toughen it up.

In fact, the only time Melissa had ever been delicate with her bike was when she changed the original lettering on the side, where it had once read, "Girl Explorer."

With a careful line and swoop of black paint, she had turned it into, "Girl Exploder."

Unpopular anthologies

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Yes/No/Maybe: Fuck-ups

Away We Go. The other people watching this in the theater with me seemed to enjoy it a lot more than I did. And they had good reasons. There are a lot of genuinely funny moments throughout this movie, and the acting is almost uniformly tip-top. But most of the movie just felt fake to me. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are a long-term, unmarried couple stuck in a kind of early-life limbo, wondering what they're going to do next, and, more importantly, if they are or are not "fuck-ups." That is actually a genuinely interesting dramatic question -- it has a lot of resonance for any adult who wants or wanted to achieve Something but hasn't, or who has achieved Something and is wondering what the hell to do next.

Unfortunately, the movie never even tries to answer the question in a serious way.

[SPOILERTOWN, CALIFORNIA. POPULATION: THIS REVIEW]

The people that John and Maya's characters meet on their whimsical cross-cross-cross-country journey are three sets of grotesque, barely-even-pitiable caricatures and then some more interesting people who don't seem to inhabit a convincing reality. All these people are just set dressing, meant to drive home what is obvious from almost the get-go, which is that John and Maya's characters are not fuck-ups. They are smart, decent, funny, in-love people who don't know what they're doing yet. Which is fine. But the fact that that's never really in doubt is what makes this movie seem so empty, despite how good the acting is and how beautiful the locations and cinematography are.

Food, Inc. If you've read Fast Food Nation and/or The Omnivore's Dilemma, a lot of this information will be familiar to you. But it's good to be visually reminded of how awful and disgusting the practices of the big food companies are and how we basically just don't do anything about it because we like cheap chicken and don't have to see things getting killed or environmentally catastrophied. This is an entertaining and well structured argument against how we currently allow ourselves to be fed.

The Will to Whatevs by Eugene Mirman. Generally, I am not a fan of humor books. They often get pretty tiring pretty quickly, no matter how talented and funny the author(s). So props to Eugene Mirman for writing a humor book that I actually read almost all of and LOL'ed to throughout. One joke involving an absurd number of exclamation points had me in awe. If you're not familiar with Mr. Mirman (the landlord on Flight of the Conchords), you should get at least somewhat familiar. He's very funny.

Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors. My assessment of this album has changed somewhat. Songs that initially seemed perplexing have now started to take on structure in my mind through repeated listening. My brain likes order and is beginning to see the order, strange though it may be, in these ultimately pretty damn catchy songs. Album of the year? I have no idea. But it's pretty cool.

Not Having Links Open New Windows on Your Browser. I just realized that 1. I've been doing that pretty consistently for this feature and that 2. it might be kind of annoying. So I'll stop. But don't forget where you came from!

Ideal rejection letters

Hi, Lucas. Thanks for letting us take a look at your piece, "Retarded Mutant Ninja Turtles." It was right for us. It really was. It's just that we think it's so good that you shouldn't bother publishing with us. I mean, a rink-a-dink outfit like us? Please. This is New Yorker quality material. In fact, I know the humor editor there and I've taken the liberty of forwarding your piece to him. I'm positive he'll love it and want to publish it in the magazine!

Best,

Samuel

***

Wow, Lucas. Wow. Very, very funny and smart. We'd love to publish this, it's just that we don't want to embarrass any of our other writers. It's that good. Next time, try sending us something a little less gut-bustingly amazing!

Best,

Oscar

***

Hello. I'm the humor editor at the New Yorker. My friend Samuel forwarded me your piece, "Retarded Mutant Ninja Turtles." I read it, loved it, and wanted to publish it in the magazine!

However, our lawyers advised us against it. You see, a significant portion of our readership is of advanced age. When they read this, they would be in serious danger from having a laughing fit so severe that it triggered a heart attack or stroke. The New Yorker might be considered liable for the deaths and damages that resulted. As such, we have come to regard your piece as so hilarious that it is possibly fatal, and therefore unpublishable.

My advice would be to dumb it down a great deal.

Regards,

Richard

***

Mr. Klauss,

We at Blogger have removed a post entitled "Retarded Mutant Ninja Turtles" from your blog. This is a rare action on our part, but we have received numerous reports of guffaw-induced fatalities as a result of the previously mentioned post. Others have reported that they experienced relatively minor difficulties from reading the post, but only because they were able to stop reading about halfway through. As such, your post has been officially certified as a threat by the Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, your previous posts are subject to review for their threat levels, and you are prohibited from posting on this or any other publishing platform until further notice.

It seems, Mr. Klauss, that you are just too goddamned funny.

Sincerely,

Peter

Baldor love Master

Baldor leave? Baldor leave now? But Baldor not want to leave! Baldor love Master!

Master raise Baldor from small Baldor. Now big Baldor! Master give food and clothes on Baldor. Master teach Baldor how say word. And how run. And how kill animal.

Not Baldor fault Master cat die. Baldor kill wild animal. Not cat. Cat scratch Baldor leg. So Baldor think Master cat sad or angry. Baldor pick Master cat up and give big hug. Master cat no angry after. Just close eyes. Tired.

Ow, Master! Ow! No hit Baldor! Baldor know cat dead now. But not Baldor fault. Baldor no kill pet. Or daughter.

Ow, ow, ow, Master! Fire hurt Baldor! Why hurt Baldor? Baldor no fault Master daughter die too. Master daughter sad for Master cat. She cry and cry. So Baldor pick Master daughter up and give big, big hug. Master daughter no cry after. But sad too much. Died from sad. Sorry, Master. Baldor tried...

Owwww! Master! Sword hurt Baldor! Baldor bleed! Baldor hurt! Why Master hurt Baldor?

No! No no no, that not Baldor fault either! Misses Master sad from Master daughter dead. So Baldor pick Misses Master up...

OW! Ow! Ow! Ow! Master! Gun hurt Baldor bad! Baldor not understand! Master no love Baldor?

But Baldor love Master. Baldor take care Master now family dead. Baldor cook food. Baldor clean castle. Baldor dress Master. Baldor set table. Baldor wear dress and go to town with Master. Baldor sleep in bed with Master.

OWWWWWW. Master. Ow. Three bullets, Master. Hurt more. Hurt bad. Baldor die soon.

Master cry. No cry, Master. Baldor love Master. Baldor hug Master. Baldor hug Master with all heart. All better now. All better now. Master.

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.

Searching

"Why'd you do that?!" Melissa yelled.

Still, the boy answered her only with silence -- and a stare that could set a tree on fire.

Melissa wasn't having it. She had gone after the orange ball even though it was the boy's fault that the two of them had crashed in the first place. She had wasted valuable time to find that ball because it was different and better and didn't deserve to float away or get buried under the mud.

And she didn't deserve to get the silent treatment from some boy she'd never met and didn't want to be friends with anyway.

"Fine," she said, trying to match the intensity of the boy's gaze. Then, just as she thought she maybe saw the boy start to look down or look away, she stomped over to the edge of the pond. Right there in front of her were four white golf balls, halfway stuck in the gooey underwater mud. Seeing them just sitting there, while the boy was just standing there, infuriated her again. She thrust her hands into the water, grabbed two in each fist, and tossed them behind her.

"That's all you have to do!" she said, not looking back at him, disgusted with him. The boy was so slow and scared that he couldn't even stick his hands in the shallow part of the pond.

Melissa squinted at the water, trying to see even a sliver of orange through the murky water. The ball had sunk somewhere in the middle, right where the water was darkest and deepest, though even there, Melissa thought, it wasn't that dark or that deep.

Melissa heard the crinkling of the plastic bags behind her, and she turned and saw the boy putting the balls she'd saved into the bags. When she looked at him, he froze for a second. Then he just dropped the balls into the bag and looked ashamed.

What a weird kid, Melissa thought. She couldn't believe she had thought that he might make a good friend. He was just going to sit there and mope while his golf balls sat in the pond. Why couldn't he just reach into the water and save them? Sure there were a few water-skater bugs zipping around on the surface of the pond, and maybe even a crawdad or two hiding down there, but those weren't scary. They couldn't even hurt you.

She'd show him.

Melissa yanked her sneakers off her feet, rolled her socks off and stuffed them inside the sneakers, and folded the legs of her jeans up so they stopped at the middle of her calves. Then she stepped into the warm water of the pond in her bare feet. The mud squished between her toes. It felt great.

The white golf balls were easy to find in the brown and green of the pond. Each time she saw one, she grabbed it and flipped it up toward the boy. In just a few minutes, she had retrieved a couple dozen of them. She couldn't see anymore of them, but she still hadn't found her orange ball. She waded farther into the middle of the pond. She felt herself tensing up. What if there was a snake that she couldn't see?

No, she told herself, that's dumb. She started moving the bottom of her foot along the bottom of the pond, trying to find the ball by touch, but she felt only smooth mud and a couple of rocks.

She looked up and saw that the boy was pointing. He was pointing toward the pond, just a little farther out than she was. She squinted her eyes and thought, "He just wants his ball back." Still, she followed the tip of his finger and she shuffled sideways, sliding her foot as she moved. After a couple of seconds, she felt a round, ripply, golf-ball-sized shape with her big toe. She dipped her hand into the water, grabbed the ball, and brought it up. It was the bright orange ball.

She was done. There may have been a few more golf balls hiding in the mud somewhere, but she didn't care. She'd proven how easy it would have been for the boy to help himself. How she didn't deserve that look from him. And now she was leaving. She had places to go.

Melissa stomped off as much water from her legs as she could. Then she put her socks and shoes back on and rolled her pant legs back down. She strode over to the boy and held the orange ball up between them.

"This is mine now," she said.

She had thought the boy might stare lasers at her again or even say something for once just to argue, but he just nodded, as if that was what he had been thinking the whole time.

"Well, okay then," she said. "I have to go."

The boy looked down at his two bags, slumped against the trunk of a pine tree. Part of Melissa wanted to know just what in the heck this boy was doing in the middle of the woods with two plastic bags full of golf balls, but most of her didn't care enough. She had to go.

"Bye," she said, and she started walking off through the woods to find her bike.

The boy spoke. Melissa stopped, unsure if she had really heard it. She certainly hadn't heard what he'd said, if he'd said anything. She was angry with herself for staying when she had just said she was leaving, and she was angry with the boy for not speaking loudly enough and for making her stop.

"What?" she said, her feelings coming through loud and clear in her voice.

The boy turned to her, but he looked to the side of her, as if he had lost that powerful stare from earlier. Then, in a tiny, quiet voice, he said, "I know a house."

The Magna Carta Institute

M'Lord/M'Lady,

Last Fall, millions of Americans were promised a change. They were promised a strong departure from the ways of the past, and a bold American future to work toward and be proud of.

Is it any surprise that we're still waiting?

I'm writing to you today about the Magna Carta Institute. Since 1987, we have been America's leading nonprofit "think tank" devoted to the promulgation of feudal values for American families and feudal ideas for American government. Our experts, scholars, and fellows are some of the brightest minds in the country, working to bring about a truly daring and truly American future based on the principles and practices of feudalism.

Some people seem to think that feudalism is a thing of the past. Not at all! Feudalism is about tomorrow! This "New American Feudalism" is sweeping the nation and catching the attention of lawmakers because it addresses the concerns that Americans have today, in the only way that makes sense: by converting our national governmental structure to one in which a class of nobility directs the lives of the workers and is answerable only to a warrior king or other kind of executive figure.

Still not convinced? Let's talk about real policy and real action, not just ideas. For example, you probably agree with most Americans when they say we need health care reform ... yesterday. Well, feudalism provided health care yesterday, and New American Feudalism can provide health care today. Our senior fellows, led by Chief Scholar Brian Tharring (Ph.D., College of the Dakotas), have demonstrated how lords and vassals, empowered by a New American Feudalism, will provide basic health care free of charge to their laborers and serfs. Not only that, but lords will be obliged to provide public housing, food stipends, rations of ale, religious instruction, and a harvest festival.

"Great news for the lowly classes," you say, "but what about me? I'm a lord!" Not so fast there, champ! Not everyone can be a lord under the New American Feudalism, but many Americans will, and the Magna Carta Institute will surely help engender the grants of privilege and rule bestowed by the Warrior King of the U.S.A. Wouldn't you like to be on that list? Wouldn't you like your eldest son to inherit your title and possessions in accordance with the principle of primogeniture?

Surely, the rise of New American Feudalism is inevitable. Though they do their best to ignore us, even the mainstream media has to acknowledge that we exist and that feudalism is back in a big way:

"The Magna Carta Institute will hold a free luncheon..." - The New York Times

Won't you consider a gift of $25, $50, or even $100 today? Your donation will earn you a Document of Title (easily frame-able), reserving your place in the new socio-political order. More importantly, you will hasten a true change in America -- a restoration of traditional values and traditional government unseen since the 13th Century.

It's an idea whose time has come. And gone.

But now it's back again.

Join us.

Sincerely,

Stan Westings, President and King of the Magna Carta Institute

Yes/No/Maybe: The crazed plinking of instruments

Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear. It still seems strange to me that these guys are fairly popular. I mean, I know "Two Weeks" is a pop dream, and they are highly talented musicians and whatever, but generally their "sound" is pretty weird, right? Am I the only one who thinks they sound like a ghost band? That is to say, a band made up of ghosts? Anyway, this album has some great songs on it and some other songs on it that are probably great but are better than my musical taste, which, as we know, corresponds roughly to that of a less-sophisticated-than-he-thinks-he-is 13-year-old.

Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors. When they deign to put a rhythmic hand clap in the background, or something like that, I can get along pretty well with these people. Other times, I get a little lost in the whirling voices and the crazed plinking of instruments. If the magical cyclone that rolled into town from over the hills and didn't destroy anything but simply rearranged things to make them more fun and whimsical also played pop music while it did so, this would be that music.

Lush Life by Richard Price. In a very basic sense, this is a novel about a murder that happens one night on the Lower East Side and the police investigation into the murder. But it's a crime novel in the sense that The Wire was a crime show, which is to say, kind of but not really. It's suspenseful, yes, but more because you're fascinated by the people involved and the strikingly true-to-life way the story is told than by whodunit. A Lucas Membrane Notable Book.

This hilarious dinosaur video [via Videogum]:

"Quick cooked in Dragon Fire"

A commercial by Jim Henson:



[Via We Love You So]

Yes, of course

[Via Buzzfeed]

I am not afraid of my electric toothbrush

The high, whining, buzzing noise it makes does not unnerve me. The tickling I feel in the nerve endings inside my teeth is completely natural and not at all unsettling. The way its rapid vibrations make the bones in my arm shiver does not make me feel deeply uncomfortable. I do not feel as though the device could explode inside my mouth at any moment, killing me or at the very least disfiguring me for life.

I did not waste my money.

I am not afraid.

Feel how shiny those teeth are.

Advice from the world's most frequently misquoted man

"Don't ever allow yourself to be quoted; you'll only be misquoted. Did you get that correctly? Read it back to me. Okay, that's right. Thank you very much. Really. I sincerely appreciate someone taking the time to quote me correctly, considering how often I've been misquoted. Oh, before you go, make sure you haven't included what I said after the original quote as part of the quote. Thanks again."

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.

A Problem

Golf balls don't float.

Melissa remembered this as she stood on the bank of the stream, looking for the bright orange ball that she thought had floated this way.

Melissa knew that she sometimes saw what she wanted to see. It wasn't her eyes that were the problem. Her eyes worked perfectly -- she never missed a single tiny letter on the chart at the doctor's office.

In fact, she didn't think of her problem as a problem at all. Because sometimes real life is boring. And if she saw something differently and that made it not boring, then that was a good thing. It was a good thing to want real life to be more exciting.

Her mom, she knew, did not agree that it was a good thing.

But so what? Mom wasn't exciting anymore. Ever since they had moved away from Dad -- and, actually, now that Melissa thought about it, even before that -- Mom had become quiet. All the time. And she pretty much never smiled.

It didn't matter, though. Melissa had her bike. And these woods, which were even huger and hillier and more fun than the woods behind their old neighborhood.

And somewhere around here, there was a bright orange golf ball. She knew she hadn't imagined that. She wasn't crazy.

Melissa bit her bottom lip, rolling it inside her mouth with her top teeth. She did this a lot when she was thinking.

Golf balls are heavy. When a golfer hits the ball into the water, it drops to the bottom of the lake, and the golfer gets angry. Melissa knew that because when they still lived with her dad, he would often play a golfing video game in the living room.

Golf balls sink.

Melissa knew where the orange ball must be. Probably.

She walked along the edge of the water, back toward the bend in the stream, right where she had seen it turn the corner and "float" away. The water gargled quietly as it flowed past her. A gray squirrel stood up on its hind legs, stared at her, and then quickly climbed a nearby tree. A twig snapped under her shoe.

The stream was shallow and clear. Melissa had no difficulty spotting the orange ball, which sat at the bottom of the stream, stuck between a black stone and a dark green seaweed-looking plant. The top of the ball stuck out of the water, and the stream broke around it. A water bug skimmed by, pausing near the ball as if he were trying to understand just what the heck it was.

Melissa reached into the stream, grabbed the ball, rubbed the water off on her t-shirt, and held it tight in her fist. She got it.

Now maybe that kid wouldn't be so angry at her. She had gotten his best ball back for him.

Melissa tromped back to the waterfall. Coming over a small rise, she saw the boy standing at the edge of the pond that formed at the bottom of the falls. His hands were on his hips and his head hung down, just a little. His two plastic bags, each half-empty, sat in lumps beside him.

"Hey," she said, calling out as she got closer.

But he didn't turn around.

"Hey," she said, "I got your ball back for you."

Still, he did not turn around.

"Hey!" she yelled, even though she was even closer now. "I got your ball!"

Finally, he turned. The boy did not look happy to see her. In fact, he looked angry to see her, but she had expected that. He would change his mind when he saw that she had saved his best ball.

She tried to smile big as she walked up to him, but it felt weird and fake, so she just let her face be her regular face. He was just staring at her, his hands still on his hips. She held her hand out, and the orange ball rolled around in her open palm.

"I got this back for you," she said.

In one motion, the boy grabbed the ball and whipped it into the murky pond. It made a little plunk as it hit the water, and then it sank to the bottom.

I keep a clean kitchen

I keep a clean kitchen.

I don't abide grease stains, ketchup stains, mustard stains, tiny salt piles, errant peppers, tiny sugar piles, orange juice rings, olive oil glops, curdled polenta chunks, cheese shavings, cheese crumblies, stray gizzards, noodles on the run, eggplant slices on the go, semi-sweet chocolate chips hidin' out, pork fat bits just lyin' around, broken-ass toothpicks, wadded-up paper towels, discarded juicebox straw wrappers, glasses half-full of god-knows-what, glasses half-empty of god-knows-what, used earwax candles, art projects made of bird seed, remote controls, bullets, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, yellowed paperback copies of Arthur C. Clarke novels, the Bible, the Koran, a chestnut-brown wig you found in the gutter, an article about creatine cut from Men's Health magazine, your brother's manga collection, a novelty license plate from Myrtle Beach with the name LEIF, a Woodrow Wilson campaign button from the 1916 presidential election, a tommy gun, an echidna, a deer tick, a crampon, a silky bag of whatever-the-fuck-you-please, and MOST DEFINITELY NOT the seat of your dirty-ass blue jeans plopped right down on my beautiful and spotless marbletop counter, ya pissant little boy.

I raised you better than that.

I think the title of the song is a reference to how long it will be stuck in your head

The video's pretty cool, too.

Racism in the future

Will probably be a lot like racism now. Except with jetpacks.

The 3rd Annual No Pressure Summer Film Series

To: No Pressure Summer Film Series Email List

Hey everybody!

It's been a while since we last saw each other, hasn't it? Almost a whole year, we guess. Wow! How's your 2009 been so far? Haha. Time really does just fly.

Well, don't worry -- we might just see you soon! Because the No Pressure Summer Film Series at Terman Park is BACK! So maybe you can make it out to one or two of the films this season? It should be a really good time! No pressure, though.

Friday, June 19th - E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

We're starting things off with a classic! Everyone loves E.T. and it's perfect for the whole family. Plus, we'll have FREE Reese's Pieces to hand out! Pretty cool, right? We'd love to see you there, but if you already have plans or whatever, it's not a big deal. Really, this is kind of short notice, so our bad on that one. Hope you can make it next time!

Friday, June 26th - The Dark Knight

Last summer's biggest blockbuster (and one of the biggest grossing films ever), The Dark Knight should be simply amazing to watch on the big screen under the stars. Some of the content is probably not appropriate for younger kids, though, so if you can't get a babysitter, then don't worry about it -- just stay home that night and watch this on DVD once they've gone to bed. Really, it's not a problem. There will be a bunch more opportunities to come see us.

Friday, July 3rd - National Treasure

Starring Nicholas Cage, this fun thriller has been a perennial favorite at the No Pressure Summer Film Series. Did you get a chance to come out and see it the past couple of years? If you didn't, ask somebody who did -- we had a really good time. Of course, this year, we're showing this right as July 4th weekend is starting, so you probably already have vacation plans or family plans or something. We were thinking about just having this be an off-week for the film series, but then we decided against it. We don't know. We still might cancel. But if you can make it out, let us know. If we hear from enough people who can definitely show up, then we'll do this for sure. It's a lot of fun. Let us know.

Friday, July 10th - Slumdog Millionaire

If you haven't come out to see a movie by this point, you really owe us. LOL! Just kidding. Really, we were just kidding. This film series is all about seeing great movies under stars with friends and family if you want to or don't have any pressing matters elsewhere. We don't want anybody to feel like they have to come, you know? Trust us, we'll be just fine if you don't show up to see this wonderful, life-affirming Academy Award winner for Best Picture. We'll be serving Indian candy.

Friday, July 17th - The Wizard of Oz

Not many people showed up to see this movie last year, and we're still kind of scratching our heads on that one. We mean, this is an undeniably great and classic movie -- one that people don't just get the opportunity to come out to a beautiful park and watch with a bunch of good, cultured people under an enchanting night sky all the time. Or ever. So, why wouldn't you come? We know you're really busy, but come on, who isn't? We understand if you have, like, a wedding to go to, but if not, then you should really come see this with us. There aren't that many chances left. The summer's almost over at this point.

Friday, July 24th - Sex and the City: The Movie

All the single (or married) ladies! Bring your gal pals (or drag your boyfriend/husband) along (hahaha) and please please please watch this insanely fun movie with us out here in Terman Park. We were just thinking last night about how depressing it would be to have no one show up and be stuck watching this movie by ourselves out here, thinking about what everybody else is doing that night, wondering why we continue to do this when it seems like nobody cares nearly as much as we do. We'd probably eat all the delicious cupcakes we're going to order for this one!

Friday, July 31st - Transformers or something

We don't know. Why don't you pick the movie? Just email us and let us know if there's a film you can think of that would get you and some friends and maybe like a dozen or so other people out on a Friday night. We've racked our brains on this one for the past three years and have had shall we say mixed success. Maybe we can turn this into a contest somehow. People like contests. You like contests, right? YOU LIKE CONTESTS, RIGHT?

Friday, August 7th - A Really Fucking Depressing and Alienating Movie

By this point, we'll be in the mood to wallow in our sorrow and misanthropy. We guaran-fucking-tee it. So how about a little David Lynch? Or Lars von Trier? Or that Gus Van Sant movie about Columbine? Oh, that's not the kind of movie you'd like to watch under the stars? Well, apparently, you don't like to watch anything under the stars, so what's it to you? We will be distributing razor blades at this screening. If you can't make it, WE COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND.



So there it is! The exciting lineup for this year's No Pressure Summer Film Series. We put a lot of work into this. And we'd really love to see you. It's been too long.

Word cloud of a man who's fallen into a bottomless pit

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for the previous installment.

The Bright Orange Ball

Melissa's handlebar struck the boy right in the sternum. A sound like "Oof" escaped from his throat. He fell backward, still clutching the small, bulging plastic bags he held in each hand. His eyes were wide open as he looked toward the sky.

Melissa saw all this as she, too, fell. Though the collision and fall lasted only a few seconds, she felt as if the whole world had slowed down and she was watching it from a place a few inches above herself. She watched her handlebar hit the boy, which then caused her front wheel to turn sharply. But her body was still hurtling forward, trying to cross the waterfall.

A clump of smooth river rocks sat in a tight ring directly in front of her. Melissa saw the rocks as she toppled over, along with her bike. She closed her eyes and bit her lip and expected pain.

Her elbow landed first, hitting one of the smaller rocks. The pain was sharp like a knife and Melissa cried out. Then the rest of her landed and it didn't hurt as much, though her entire backside was instantly soaked by the rushing waters.

Melissa sprang up almost instantly, shocked back into herself by the cold water. The pain in her elbow buzzed through her whole arm and even into her chest. She felt like her arm might fall off. But she didn't see any blood, and the cold water actually felt pretty good in this heat. So she swallowed big and rubbed her eyes and stepped over to help the stupid boy who had gotten in her way.

What she saw stopped her immediately. Dozens of bright white eggs were floating out of the boy's plastic bags and drifting down the waterfall. They knocked against each other and bounced off the river rocks and suddenly dropped down tiny crevasses. Melissa had the notion that they looked like small white ducklings chasing each other down the river. But they weren't ducklings, of course. In fact, Melissa realized, they weren't even eggs -- one of them was neon orange.

They were golf balls. The boy had had two plastic bags full of golf balls. And now they were all escaping.

Oh, well, Melissa thought. When they were eggs, they were interesting. When they were ducklings, they were cool. But who cared about golf balls?

The boy finally pushed himself up. Water dripped off the back of his head, t-shirt, and shorts as he stood up. There was a little blood on his knee. He looked down into his bags, which had been almost entirely emptied of golf balls and partially filled with river water. Then he looked downriver, watching the balls bob up and down in the water and crash into each other and float past each other. For a second, he, too, seemed entranced, even though he knew right away what those little white eggs really were.

Then he turned to Melissa, and she finally got a good look at him. His hair was black and cut very short. His skin was medium brown, with a lighter streak that ran across the bridge of his nose. And his eyes, bright and alert, were shining with tears.

Suddenly the boy scowled and thrust his chin out at her as if he were throwing a punch. He swung one of the bags and it hit the water, splashing Melissa's feet. Then he stomped away without a word.

"Hey!" Melissa said. But the boy didn't turn around.

"Hey!" Melissa said again. But the boy still didn't look at her. He stepped out of the water and squatted to grab a couple of golf balls.

"HEY!" Melissa yelled. "It wasn't my fault!" The boy stopped for half a second, but kept walking along the bank of the waterfall, stopping to pick up balls along the way.

Melissa was shocked and angry. How could he splash her and ignore her and be angry at her when it wasn't even her fault? He was the one who had gotten in her way. He was the one who just stood there when he saw her riding across the waterfall. He was the one who decided to walk around the woods with bags full of stupid golf balls.

I'm going home, Melissa decided. The first kid she had met in a whole month of living here and he had to be like that. Exactly like all those other idiots back in her old neighborhood -- always being mean to her for no reason at all. That was why they'd moved. Part of it, anyway. And now it was starting all over again.

Whatever. It didn't matter. It was all stupid. And Mom was probably expecting her at home anyway.

Melissa picked up her bike, shook it to knock some of the water off, and started walking it back where she came from. The pain in her elbow had dulled down. It was more like a hum than a buzz now. She had gotten away with no scratches. She pushed her bike up the dirt trail.

Just for a second, though, she looked back. She caught the boy looking at her over his shoulder. He was farther away now, but the expression on his face seemed softer. Sadder.

But he turned his head quickly and kept walking away. Melissa saw where he was going -- a small pond at the end of the waterfall, where the water finally calmed down again. There, a few dozen golf balls floated in a clump, caught in the slow, circular current of the pond. Most of the escaped balls must have ended up there and would be easy to grab. For a second, Melissa felt glad for the boy, that he hadn't lost all his golf balls. She tried to swallow that feeling.

Before she could, though, she saw the neon orange ball. It had swirled into the pond with the rest of the white balls, but some other current must have gripped it, for now it was careening out of the pond and back into the main flow of the stream. The boy didn't seem to have noticed. He was still just walking along the bank of the waterfall. Melissa thought about yelling to him, but he'd probably just ignore her again. Or not understand what she was saying.

Melissa had never seen a golf ball that color. It was cool. It was different. It shouldn't just be left to go drifting away.

Melissa watched it round a bend in the stream. It curled along the edge of the bank, floating onward. And then it was out of sight.

But it wasn't lost yet.

Melissa left her bike on the trail and ran after the bright orange ball.

Do what you love to do

People will respond.

[Via Videogum]

The dream journal of a guy who fell into a bottomless pit

6.7.2009 -- Had the dream again where I'm not falling.

6.8.2009 -- Same dream.

6.9.2009 -- Same dream.

6.10.2009 -- Had a dream where I wasn't falling or slowly dying of thirst and hunger.

6.11.2009 -- Had a dream where I wasn't going insane and dying and falling.

6.12.2009 -- Had a dream where I was God.

6.13.2009 -- Had a dream where I wasn't God.

6.14.2009 -- God does not dream.

Yes/No/Maybe: The accesible aspects

Up. You have 1. already seen this movie, or 2. already know that it's really, really good. Well, let me tell you something just so you don't have to rely only on your own opinion or on the opinion of people who aren't me: it's really, really good. One of my fave Pixars? It doesn't beat out Wall-E or Finding Nemo for me, but honestly it comes close. The final shot is fantastic.

Manners by Passion Pit. For some reason, I wasn't really expecting much from this album. In fact, I don't even really remember why I got it in the first place. But, hey, thanks to you, random chain of events and synapse firing! I like this album a lot! It's kinda like Go! Team plus the accessible aspects of TV on the Radio plus that '80's dancy sound that all the musicians are doing these days. Sound confusing? That's just because I'm not good at describing things. It's quite good. It's dance-in-your-office-chair (-and-not-even-feel-that-weird-when-your-coworker-discovers-you) good. It's in heavy rotation in these ears.

"Do It For You" by Ballas Hough Band (a.k.a. BHB). An anonymous friend recommended this song to me with the caveat that it was "8th grade pop." I secretly and shamefully considered that a point in its favor. Little did I know that, in a way, the description was almost literal -- the lyrics do, in fact, sound as if they were written by a lovestruck middle schooler. But who gives a crap about words? Nobody, and certainly not me. Words are dinosaurs. Electronic sounds and images of people's private parts are the future. This song does not contain images of private parts, but it does contain electronic noises that will stick in your brain like gum to your hair when that jackass behind you in social studies smooshes it in there to get a laugh from Crystal Sothersby.

Arrested Development, seasons 1 and 2. So, I definitely love 30 Rock. On a joke for joke basis (measured in LOLs per minute), it competes with Arrested Development. And that's saying a thing! But, on a structural level, 30 Rock looks almost amateur compared to how well almost every element of an Arrested Development episode works together. It's astonishing sometimes, but most of the time it's just hilarious. I'm glad I went back and watched these episodes again.

Steve Martin as the Great Flydini.

Will Forte's theme song for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. "Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, and every third week we'll do a show on a Wednesday!"

Late night karaoke. "I Want It That Way." "This Is How We Do It." "Since U Been Gone." Yeah. That's right.

Skinnydipping

First of all, it’s not a gay thing. I knew somebody would say that and rag on me for it, and I figured it would probably be Warren and I was right. Actually, I was kind of glad that it was Warren. Not just because I proved myself right, but because Warren’s basically a decent guy but he always goes for the easiest jokes and so if he says it then everybody else pretty much stays away from it because you don’t want to associate yourself with a Warren joke.

Still, though, I knew the guys would think it was weird, even if they wouldn’t outright say it was gay. But skinnydipping is not weird. It is fun. It is crazy. It is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing as much as possible of before summer’s over and we all have to split up.

“Right now?” Trevor said, wiping lake water off his face and squinting at me like he was looking for an excuse to de-friend me, just a week after graduation. Or, that’s maybe just how it felt.

“I mean, no,” I said, kind of hesitating because I didn’t want the moment to slip away if this was my only chance at it. Then I realized that it’s way easier and more fun to skinny dip if it’s night and everybody’s drunk. “It’s more fun when you’re drunk. And it’s dark out.”

“Yeah,” Trevor said, pulling his wet bathing suit away from his junk. Then he ran off the edge of the dock and squealed as he did a cannonball. Warren followed him, squealing the same way. The other guys had already started talking about other stuff.

I told myself that it didn’t matter. That I should just forget about it and wait for another opportunity, especially since there would be a lot more—pool parties and beach trips and lake trips and whatever. It’s our last summer.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head. That night, after the lake, we went to Taco Bell and then Quentin’s house and I didn’t make a joke the whole time or even really say that much, not that anybody noticed or cared, which just made me more irritable and introspective or whatever. It was stupid.

We were walking through Quentin’s neighborhood at like one A.M. pretty buzzed and smoking either cigarettes (Trevor, Warren, and Jake) or Swisher Sweets (Me, Ike, Mason, and Quentin) and there was a quiet moment and I had made some good jokes when we first walked out onto the street so I was feeling pretty good and chummy. So anyway I was like, “Seriously, none of you guys has ever gone skinny dipping before?”

I thought Warren or Trevor might bust my nuts and maybe they were planning to but Ike just said, “Naw.” And Jake said he had tried to get Nina to and her friends to do it with him once but they were too shy. Then Trevor pointed out how we’re not really friends with any girls, or any girls that we could convince to do that with us, anyway.

“There don’t have to be girls,” I said.

Right when I said that, everybody stopped talking and laughing, and there was no other sound in the neighborhood that late at night, and so what I said sounded like the loudest fucking thing anyone had ever heard. I think everybody took a pretty deep drag after that, but I’m not sure because I was so focused on taking my own drag.

Then Mason came to my motherfucking rescue. “We could pool-hop naked.”

Everybody kinda chuckled at that. And then they started to think about what it would be like to actually do it, and they laughed. Quentin went off on this thing about how his neighbor Mrs. Waxley would come after us trying to get us to stay and come inside and do stuff to her, which sounds kinda bad and not funny now that I think about it, but it was funny when he did it.

Then Warren was like, “So, are we doin’ it?”

There was a big pause that I wanted to pop like a balloon but I knew that I couldn’t and I was too anxious anyway because I knew that there was a pretty good chance that Warren had just killed the idea by asking if we should do it.

“Naw,” Quentin finally said. “Not tonight.”

Yeah, Warren had killed it. The fuck.

We walked the neighborhood and did some ring-and-runs and punched each other and a couple of us (me and Ike) even switched over to cigarettes after our Swishers were done. I didn’t even ask Warren if I could bum one. I just took it.

Anyway, we had a good night. It was a fucking fun night and actually a fun whole day but I couldn’t believe how close we’d come to actually doing it and then backing off. And I know these guys—they’re my best friends—and they are going to be lazy about it. They probably won’t even think about it. They probably aren’t even thinking about all this shit the same way I am. Mason, maybe. But it just bothers me so much how this is our last summer together—the seven of us—and we’re just kind of doing the same shit we’ve always done. Which is fine. That’s the shit I love to do with these guys. But I don’t think they understand that it’s only going to be like this for a few more months and then our whole lives are going to change. We’re going to college. Shit changes in college. People stop being friends with each other. Or they just aren’t in the same neighborhood at the same time at the same level of drunkenness and happiness and wanting to do stupid shit like jumping in a lake naked together just because it’s fun.

It’s a lot of fun. I wish somebody could back me up on that.

I think I’m going to have to forget about it for a while. Wait a few weeks. Maybe somebody else will bring it up, after all. Or maybe we can get some girls to hang out. Maybe Hannah and Casey and them. Whatever. Nobody’s going anywhere yet. We’ve still got the whole summer ahead of us.

The invisible man posts an album of his photobombs

Just four good friends ... and one invisible pair of butt cheeks. Nailed ya, suckers!

Merry Christmas, guys. In the spirit of the season, I got you this MASSIVE PHOTOBOMB! Man, I am making the craziest face behind that dude in the blue track jacket! Trust me!

I call this masterpiece Le Photobomb Du Jour. Oh man, I got these kids gooooood! (I am pretending that I'm licking that girl's purse.)

Last Halloween, I went as myself ... a professional PHOTOBOMBER! Great posing with you, ladies! Too bad you STILL have no idea that I'm doing an insane face right in the middle of your "fun" group picture. Nailed! (I went to that club with you guys afterward, too. Just for a second, though. It was reeeeeally lame. Hit me up if you guys want to hang at some actually fun places.)


They seemed like good people. Not one of my better photobombs, admittedly. (I'm just giving bunny ears to the two people on the right. That's all I could muster up. Why am I posting this? I don't know. It's just nice, I guess.)


I'm pretty lonely. There are a lot of things I haven't done with my life.


I've never been married, of course. Or even part of a wedding. I hung out at this one, just to get the feel for it. I'm posing with the groomsmen here, smiling. They seemed like nice guys.


I once photobombed myself by photoshopping myself making a crazy face into a self-portrait that I had previously taken. For a while, I thought that was the apex, the piece de resistance of the whole idea and practice of photobombing.

Now it seems kinda pathetic.


But this is what I do. People think that being invisible is what I do, but it's not. Invisible is what I am. There's a difference. Invisibility is what I was given; arranging hilarious photobomb situations by using my innate talents is what I create. It is what I put into this world to make it more fun, more joyous. It's not just for me -- it's for everybody.

By the way, guys, don't look now, but there's a full moon behind you (a.k.a. my invisible ass).