WhimsyLand

What do Ray DiPalma, Maxine Chernoff, G. C.Waldrep, Timothy Liu, Jenny Boully, Joshua Corey, Seth Abramson, Cathy Park Hong, Bob Hicok and I all have in common? We're contributors to the upcoming issue of Verse, along with dozens of other fine writers. It's a killer issue and available from Verse. A yearly subscription of three issues for $18 available here.

So Die Cloud and I are trading travel stories via email and wondering how long we've got before you have to board planes naked.  No carry-on, laptop, no lunchbag, no iPod, nothing with pockets.  Just a plane full of people sitting around in their underwear.  Which wouldn't bother me much, actually, I always read on airplanes.  In 30 years of flying, a lot of it foreign travel, I've read a boxcar full of trashy novels.  That's basically why I've read every murder mystery ever written.  Anyway, our idea is to get the contract for on-board sales.  For $35, you get a nice leather toiletry holder, what my Dad used to call a Dopp Kit and what they always call a "sponge bag" in English murder mysteries.  There will be a men's version in black and a woman's version in burgundy, and inside the kit you get tiny containers of shampoo, toothpaste, deoderant, a comb, toothbrush and Federally-approved nail clippers.  It will all be vetted by TSA and be wrapped in an official government band, not unlike those that housekeeping wraps around the toilet seat when they're finished with the bathroom.  The airline attendants will roll the cart down the aisle and make the sales (the airlines get a cut, of course).  And that's just the start.  We'll sell disposable Tyvek travel suits, bunny rabbit slippers, and adult coloring books, too.  Hey, this could be big.

One thing for sure, the Administration will start blathering about how this just proves that we should give up our Constitutional liberties in favor of unfettered intrusion.  This will be echoed by all the usual conservative outlets.  Here's the Washington Times:  "Can we all agree now on the necessity of uncompromised terrorist surveillance programs?"  BTW, does anybody actually buy The Times or get delivery?  I always thought this rag was just a Moonie excuse for right-wing inanity.  I suppose Reb or Deborah would know.

My buddy Alejandro is coming from Spain next week.  I still haven't figured out what fun stuff we can do, but Junie's flying in too, so we'll think of something.  The tail end of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival will still be running, which is always a good show.  Walking Pearl Street Mall is always good for an afternoon, and it's only an hour to Estes Park.  Maybe catch a poetry reading at The Laughing Goat.   Being a Boulder County kinda guy, it's pitiful how little I know about Denver (which is all of 40 miles away).  They must have museums and zoos and stuff, right? 

I received a comical phishing email today with the official logo of the Internal Revenue Service on it.  I followed the link to another official-looking webpage where I was supposed to enter my SSN and credit card details to "receive my refund".  I mean how lame is that?  Who refunds to a credit card?  I tracked the ISP down to someplace in Ukraine.  Those former Soviet bloc countries seem to specialize in this kind of thing. 

I heard on NPR this morning that there's a new angel character on Sesame Street.  Kyle used to love that show.  When we lived in Belgium, I'd read the Sesame Street books to him and do all the voices:  Big Bird, Oscar, Elmo, Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster.  I did a particularly good Grover.  Kyle has turned out to be an first-class mimic, too.  Must run in the family.  Sesame Street is dubbed in lots of countries (in Germany, we watched Sesamstrasse) and locally produced in others.  It's called Galli Galli Sim Sim in India and Zhima Jie in China.  My favorite show name is France's 1, rue Sesame, which sounds like some kind of steamy soap opera.

You all have a nice weekend.