As the poet wrote, "with a whimper"

It's T. S. Eliot week here, apparently, what with the naming of cats and the shipping of the hollow men (and Emily) off to States. But so it went. Last night was the final official meeting, and there were no teary-eyed bon voyages on the deck, no valedictory speeches to the multitudes, no gold watches. Just a question, "So this is it then?" and a few murmured Thank Gods, and that was that.

It's lonely at the chez.

Anyhow, having gotten rid of these sprouts, I watched a little TV and then began attacking S&S again. Great Googly-Moogly! I had to read every word five times, including the thes and the ands. The problem with this material is that it's sort of meant to flow over you like an air current, and the reason you fly is because the air pushes down on the wings, not because it pushes up from under as you'd expect. Or maybe you're supposed to swim in it, and the knowledge you accrue is the wetness that remains when you step out of the water, an accumulation of random drops that adds up, somehow, to not being dry. No wonder no one wanted to hear a lecture about it, if I expected them to read it first. The affect on their brains would be similar to mad cow, only faster acting. Still, I expect if you find the right metaphoric, narrative medium to present the concepts, it won't be so bad. Think Disney, my lad. Except I have a hard time believing that Disney is lacking in the referential. Some reading I've done about the Baud posits the idea that pretty much everything he says in S&S is disproven, although that implies that the Baud in fact proved something in the first place, which is a dubious proposition at best—he more like circles around ideas rather than offering logical proofs. Whatever. It's easy to see why this material informs The Matrix, since that gets "covered" right off the bat in the third paragraph and you don't have to read any further to go off and make a really good movie and two really lousy sequels. If reality is truly the collection of selected ambient meaning-free building blocks, all you need is a spiffy black rain coat and you've got a hit on your hands.

Still, none of this deterred me from discovering the alternate reality of a certain blog now prominently displayed on the right. Since I had to dig it up myself, rather than having it pointed out to me, I draw a tad of nasty pleasure over finding it in, well, the matrix. Give me ten minutes and an Internet connection, and I guarantee I'll get you the meaning of the universe, a good cup of coffee, and the middle name of the character played by Bob Denver on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

It's a gift.