contents and discontents

Picture of the Day
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Saturday
May 24, 2003


I guess they call them tent caterpillars because their cottony nests built between branches somewhat resemble tents.
The first time I encountered them was in a cemetery in Ithaca, New York on a sunny afternoon tripping on LSD.
It couldn't have been much more cliched--frying undergrads mooning over their mortality while watching insects writhe.
Back to now: stayed up all night making palm leaves whistle, drinkin' beer, and pissin'. If the sun rose, we didn't see it--
it was hidden behind a pall of grey, but the birds sang anyway. After a quick nap in the lighthouse, I joined Jesse for coffee
under this tree, which looked like Christmas in hell, thousands of insecticided caterpillars dangling as if hanged. Spartacus
and war criminals came to mind, and Guinness tells me the largest mass hanging was committed by the Nazis for revenge,
50 Greek resistance fighters strangled by the weight of their own bodies in Athens on July 22, 1944. That showed them.
On the train ride back from California earlier this week, a woman pointed out the large number of dead trees: "I've been
riding the route for years and never saw anything like it." Despite the fallacious worldview presented in car commercials
and cheery human interest stories masquerading as news, the world is quickly turning to shit, as Dr. Nihilist so aptly explains.

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