Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Like my brownhouse:
   if faith has any function
Friday, October 11 2013
To waterproof the rooflike object that I intend to put high in a White Pine tree (and which will contain a number of electronics), today I busted into a brand new gallon of asphalt cement. I'd managed to use the last gallon over the course of the preceding ten and a half years for things like waterproofing wood and fixing the roof, and so recently I'd bought the second gallon of my homeowner lifetime. The last cup or so of the old bucket had lasted years as I'd gradually scraped out a quarter spoonful at a time and daubed it sparingly on whatever needed waterproofing. Today, though, the asphalt went on like split pea soup and I could use it profligately.

This evening Gretchen and I met up with Nancy and Deborah down at Ray and Nancy's place and the four of us drove into Uptown Kingston to partake in this year's O+ Festival, the fundraiser to provide health care to starving artists. (It's doubtful there will be a need for such a festival once Obamacare kicks in, but it's too fun not to do, so it will probably make adjustments and find other ways to support starving artists.) Our first destination was a bar called "The Anchor," near the intersection of Broadway and Albany Avenue. Gretchen and I had been there in the past (back when it was known as "the Basement") on one or two occasions. It's been totally redesigned since then, and its clientele seems to be significantly more hipsterish (and also whiter) than I remember it being in the past. We'd come to see Michæl Truckpile's band, the Fasads, in which he is both a drummer and a vocalist. We know Mr. Truckpile mostly as the referee for Brawl, and also socially (he's married to Brawl celebrity Jacinta), though we'd never seen his band perform. They're a high-energy bass-heavy pop-punk outfit. Truckpile is fucking insane behind the drum kit and there was a good big-guys-crowded-together thing from the stage, though I generally like my music to be a bit more ernest. Still, it was a lot of fun. There was even a hoola hoop girl with illuminated equipment adding to the spectacle.
After the show, we helped Truckpile carry his pile of drum equipment to his car. And then we went to Keegan Ales (another O+ venue) to see a melodic pop act called Richard Barone. The acoustics in Keegan Ales were terrible and it all sounded like buzzy mush to me, though Gretchen thought it sounded like Oasis and she liked it. I went outside with KMOCA Michæl and one of his friends and we watched a huge mural slowly being painted with tiny brushes on Keegan Ale's brick wall. We weren't too happy with the beers we were drinking; my Hurricane Kitty had an unexpected unpleasant malty quality and Michæl's friend thought his Old Capital tasted "yeasty." "Like going down on a Yonkers whore?" I asked.
After the show, five of us (our group now included KMOCA Michæl but not Michæl Truckpile) went off in search of french fries. We checked all the restaurants of Uptown, but they were all either closed or did not offer french friees. So in the end we found ourselves ordering several different deep-fried potato products at Dietz's Diner (which was quite a walk from where we'd parked the car). We talked about many things over our fries (and I also had a veggie burger), but I made mistake of mentioning, in my story about Eleanor's recent mauling, that after seeing Eleanor covered with injuries back behind my computer, I'd eaten my bowl of pasta before doing anything about it. Suddenly everyone at the table, particularly Gretchen, reacted as if they'd just discovered that I was Jeffrey Dahmer. True: I'd failed to explain that I'd had low blood sugar and had ascertained that Eleanor wasn't in critical condition, but still, these people (especially Gretchen) know me, and they know I love Eleanor, so why wouldn't they just have faith that whatever I did in reaction to seeing Eleanor's injuries was appropriate? If faith has any function in our society, that would include assuming that someone of known integrity would continue acting as if they have that integrity. It's the risk of incidents like this that make me discount socializing as a fun thing to do. I tend to be shocking in the things I say, and my friends should be familiar with my style by this point. [REDACTED]


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