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A Bloomsday Special Feature: Freudian Duranalysis

Arcadia: Election Day

So my buddy and I get all dolled up and head to s euro-fetish club where we walk around moody brooding, and William Burroughs is there, of course, and some old lady playing a boardgame with her ego, and everyone is dancing while sitting and the rest is totally forgettable. Grace Jones yells at us. I...
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A Bloomsday Special Feature: Freudian Duranalysis

Arcadia -- Goodbye is Forever

So my buddy and I get all dolled up and go to this surrealistic alchemically-themed amusement park with screwy clocks and calendars and we ride this rollercoaster funhouse thing until we jump off it and land in this satiny bed together and suddenly, I'm tethered to a spinning clock while a MASSIVE PENDULUM swings...
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In my professional capacity, I beg for justice and mercy for the poor as my father did before me before he died of a liquor-soaked, broken heart. I believe I accomplish much for the least among us in our society with meager resources, a quick wit and a reputation that precedes me. If I were to distill what I do even further, I would say...
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A TRIBAL OBSERVATION

I observed something at a Tribe game this week. I was five rows back from the home team dug-out with a remarkable sightline to the plate. It was a game they would win, by the way, despite a horrifying inning with Kobayashi, but that has little to do with this story.
This story has to do with something I saw in the...
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The Murder of Absolutely

I murder the word, absolutely
With all of its venom inside
For those who use the word loosely
Seem arrogant, haughty and snide.

I murder the word, absolutely
And banish your use from mankind.
By hiding behind you so smoothly
Your users concoct a false mind.

I murder the word, absolutely
To remind the deceivers what's true
For all of them...
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I enter the magistrate's office, prostrate as usual. I have been here many times before, sometimes for legal reasons, sometimes for personal ones. Last week I borrowed her computer to print out journal entries. I have stood before her in court on ministerial matters that involved no discussion of the fact that I am married to her daughter. I have felled branches in her backyard....
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THERE WILL BE MESSIAEN
On the Centennial of the Birth of Olivier Messiaen

"Quatour Pour la Fin du Temps" was written by Messiaen on pencil and paper provided to him by his Nazi prison guards while prisoner of war in Gorlitz in 1940. It was first performed on January 15, 1941 for an audience of guards and 5000 prisoners.

The work consists of eight movements,...
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Raised a Catholic, I have been taught to split the concept of God into thirds -- Father, Son, Holy Ghost. I have often suspected some smoke and mirrors on this point, as if this trinitarian notion was specifically designed to mislead us, divert our attentions, confuse us into submission. I recall the lion tamer in Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, who reveals...
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Rust Belt Epiphany

The pacifists from Pittsburg came into town one day
To stop the bloodshed overseas in their own peaceful way.

They organized a protest to speak their mind on war
on carnage, orphans, amputees and blood and guts and gore.

They set upon the capitol with all its frauds inside
And chanted chants and prayed their prayers that they had memorized.

"Let's burn...
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Strange But True Story #2

(The Day I Dialed 911)


In college (American University, DC, 1987-91) I waited tables at a delicatessen on Wisconsin Avenue. I was well liked by the owners and had regular customers and lived a block away, which meant I'd often open the place for breakfast.

One afternoon, detectives from the DC police came in, flashing a mug shot of a...
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