Jesus, Satan and the Peacock Angel

Posted on August 28, 2007 by ubu507

Jesusatand The Peacock Angel

 

It all started when I had a little too much time on my hands and started leafing through one of the many books I have piled up around me (home and work, though in this case it was the latter). The book that caught my eye was Inside Secret Societies: What They Don’t Want You to Know by Michael Benson (an "encyclopedic listing of secret societies around the world and across history," good for browsing and not much else) and the entry that caught my eye was Peacock Angel, The Order of the. It described the order as a "devil-worshiping society" with ancient roots which still exists in the Middle East, where they’ve come to be known as the Yezidis. I’m a sucker for secret societies (where do I join up anyway?) and any ancient religion that has refused to knuckle under to the worldwide hegemony of that Jewish/Christian/Moslem hairy thunderer who seems so driven to have the playing field to himself.

Not surprisingly, the Inside Secret Societies entry was a little more sensational than the one I found on Wikipedia, which revealed a very contemporary angle. The Yazidi (everybody has a different spelling) are Kurds who live in present day Iraq, and maintain their ancient traditions by being extremely clannish and secretive. Although they are often accused of being Satan worshipers, their deity is Melek Ta’us, an archangel and intermediary between the creator and humanity. Interestingly enough, the Yazidi are among the biggest boosters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, believing it provides a safe buffer between them and those countrymen who consider them infidels, although this belief, as we shall see, proved to be as misguided as any other positive opinion of that utter debacle.

All this suggested, as so much else does, the need for further reading. A keyword search on my book distributor’s web page turned up two likely suspects, a scholarly anthropological study, and a book from Adventures Unlimited Press categorized as "Controversial Knowledge." The attentive RADIOFREEUBU reader will have little doubt as to which of these two I selected. I was already familiar with Mark Amaru Pinkham, the author of The Truth Behind the Christ Myth: The Redemption of the Peacock Angel from his previous work The Return of the Serpents of Wisdom, a volume which both informed and is quoted in my own indispensable yet unpublished novel Snakes in Caves.

Pinkham takes a much more, um, cosmic, view, seeing the Peacock Angel as an archetypical figure in world mythology, the offspring of the primal god and goddess, arriving to renew the world as the youth of a thousand summers, known by a thousand names. Unlike Benson, who presents his "Yezidis" as upholders of a 4,000 year old tradition which is possibly the original religion of the world, Pinkham sees the "Yezidhi" as syncretists, mixing the Mithraic, Gnostic and Sufi ideas around them to produce their own unique religion. Interestingly, Pinkham recounts the vision of the Yezidhi prophet Musafir, who while riding beheld an enormous tower which fell, threatening to destroy the world, only to be consoled by a shining youth who identified himself as Melek Taus and told him that after the tower falls there will be chaos, but the Yezidhi "will be unharmed and rule over the ruins."

Rather than the Christian devil, Pinkham describes the Yezidhi as worshiping a deity more like the Gnostic demiurge, the king of the world who, like the world itself, is neither inherently good nor evil but transcends those false dichotomies. As he says "…the Yezidhi worship Melek Taus, not Satan, and strive to cultivate only the good qualities of Melek Taus, while also seeing them in each other." There’s a persuasive Gnostic idea that the divine undergoes some kind of diminution by becoming immanent in time and matter, and the Yezidhi seem to believe the archangel Melek Taus started as pure, but began to absorb some of the seedier elements of the terrestrial world like pride, envy and greed as he became more and more a part of it.

And let’s face it, the whole idea makes sense – if the Christian god is all powerful and all benevolent, how can the world be so messed up? If he created man in his own image how can we be so full of crap?

As I read the Pinkham book a strange conviction came over me – maybe things have gotten reversed, and the figure so many people today invoke as Jesus is actually closer to Satan. Maybe when the son of god came to earth he didn’t redeem us as much as sully himself, in time embodying the egotism and materialism which is such a part of human nature. The religion that bears his name has certainly become corrupted – Christianity’s former ideals of love, otherworldliness and compassion have been replaced by materialism, hatred and pride, its practice devolved from peaceful words and charitable deeds to the demand of complete surrender of individuality and the subjugation of all who will not conform. Listening to any T.V. preacher will show that today’s believer does not expect their reward in heaven but right here on earth, preferably in the form of dollars.

We are constantly told what good and faithful Christians the members of the Bush regime are, and yet, far from exhibiting the attributes Jesus preached and embodied like meekness, charity, forgiveness, etc., their misrule can best be characterized as hateful, polarizing, corrupt, selfish and smug. Surely, as the current documentary No End in Sight vividly demonstrates, the actions of the Bush regime in unilaterally initiating and pursuing the disastrous Iraq invasion can only come under the category of hubris, insane and demonic. Individuals like Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are absolutely unable to admit that they could have made a single error and seem to believe that they are superior beings whose actions cannot be questioned by mere mortals, embodying what is the essential characteristic of Satan, his infernal pride. And couldn’t Bush, the embodiment of the religious right, who has so often misled the American public, easily be known by the Satanic epithet King of Lies?

Instead of Bush’s constant, semi-articulated view of today’s society as an endless war between absolute good (himself and his followers) and absolute evil (everyone else), maybe there’s another kind of dichotomy going on. Adam Gopnik articulated it beautifully in his New Yorker article on Philip K. Dick, "The vision of an unending struggle between a humanity longing for a fuller love it always senses but can’t quite see, and a deranged cult of violence eternally presenting itself as necessary and real – this thought today does not seem exactly crazy."

And as if to cap it all off, as I was in the middle of reading and thinking about these things an awful thing happened. On August 14th, four suicide bombers attacked a Kurdish Yazidi community in northwest Iraq, killing hundreds in one of the deadliest assaults of the American occupation. Evidently hating the Yazidi is the one thing Shi’ite and Sunni can agree on, putting Bush in the ironic position of being the only protector of people who he would no doubt consign to hell.  

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Obituary

Posted on August 21, 2007 by ubu507

Ziddlefat, John L

Ypsilanti, Michigan

Age 49, was called home by our precious Lord and Savior to be in his loving hands and pressed against his consoling breast Thursday, August 16, 2007, after a long, 16 year battle against a lightbulb he had accidentally ingested while looking for an onion. The Angels came to him and his spirit left this earthly world to be with God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary and his beloved uncle Mort. Born November 31, 1958, the son of Marva (Love) Salsbury Throckmorton Jones and Tony Ziddlefat, in Romulus, Michigan, John was the recipient of the almost perfect attendance award in his second grade Bible study class and from then on was educated in a number of secondary schools including our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Kiski Preparatory Academy, Mercersburg Military, and Colonel Pain’s Adjustive Corrective Institute For The Incorrigible Boy. From there he went on to great renown in several state institutions, including North West Central Thirteen Month Community College in Fargo, North Dakota. On October 31, 1993 he married Elsebeth Elizabeth Throckmorton-Jones in the waiting room of the Jackson State prison, their daughter Brandywine having been born in April of the preceding year. Most recently, John had been an itinerant salesman for the Ypsipanty and had been living in a tent in the backyard of his employer, mentor and great friend, Mark Maynard the well-known blog God and patriot King of Ypsilanti. Previously he’d been assisting widows and orphans with investment opportunities in the great state of Florida. Family and friends were what was most important to John, and he never passed up the chance to celebrate, often long into the night, birthdays, anniversaries, Saint’s days, national holidays or any other occasion that would afford him the opportunity to express his joy of living and to demonstrate his support for the domestic brewing and distilling industry. He loved to play euchre and dance on tables and he always gave other people a special feeling. He enjoyed having attractive teenagers near him and always had a smile and a hug for any woman within reach. John was wonderfully unpredictable, when he was around never knew if you get a joyful time and a lot of laughs, or an expensive cleaning bill and a visit from the police or SWAT team. His door to door salesmanship of the Ypsipanty brought him in contact with many grateful customers and a few misunderstandings about open windows. No one who met John face-to-face will soon forget him. He brought many people closer with God and encouraged prayer in quite a few more. For many years he was also a member of the Ypsilanti Moose Lodge. He will be greatly missed by his wife, current whereabouts unknown, and his daughter presently employed by the Déja Vu lounge of Ypsilanti not to mention Stinker, his pet skunk and Precious, the sheep to which he was so devoted. He is also survived by his stepfather Donald "Stick" Salisbury of Pentonville State Prison, his brother Sami "Hard" Ziddlefat, his nieces and nephews, illegitimate children, the cellmates he considered his family, and various relatives who prefer not to have their names in the paper. In lieu of flowers cash contributions should be sent to MarkMaynard.com. Envelopes will be available at the memorial service held at a Henrietta Fahrenheit Store in Ypsilanti’s Depotown Thursday August 23 at 3:30 p.m. Please sign the guestbook@MarkMaynard.com. 

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Waiting for (Heather)

Posted on August 18, 2007 by ubu507

If there had been any single person from my past that I hoped to see again, that person would’ve been Heather. I’d kept my eyes open for any sign of her for so long and through so many false alarms that when her return was actually imminent I had to blink a few times before I could actually take it in.

When she’d been around we’d spent our share of time together, and I’d certainly enjoyed it, but it was only after she’d been gone for a while that distance gave me enough perspective to find the real significance in those hours, a significance I’d never found anywhere else. I’d dwelt almost obsessively on that time, and the idea of adding even another minute to it made me more eager than I cared to admit.

Of course there were complications from the very beginning – Pam, the person Heather was going to stay with while she was in town, had decided a few months earlier that she never wanted to speak to me again, mostly because I’d rejected her drunken advances at a party. Our mutual friend Katie had told me Heather was visiting and had promised to bring her over, which was another complication in and of itself.

Katie and I had become close only after Heather had left, and neither of them knew the extent of my involvement of the other. Heather and I had been intimate in many ways, but ours had been an unconventional relationship – but then again unconventional relationships were the only kind Heather had. She’d always been a butterfly, flitting from person to person and situation to situation without ever settling anywhere. To use another metaphor, she was like a child, happy to play with whatever toy she came across, but equally happy to drop it in a dark corner when the next diversion arrived, only to pick it up with equanimity the next time she passed by. I’d tried not to take it personally.

On the other hand, the good thing about Heather was that she didn’t mind if others played with her toys. It wouldn’t bother her a bit to learn that Katie and I were engaged in a slowly developing affair, one that progressed only in the spaces between the frequent break-ups and equally frequent make-ups that headstrong Katie and her equally headstrong boyfriend were prone to. They’d been in make-up mode lately, so Heather wasn’t the only one I hadn’t seen in a while.

Unfortunately, Katie was the kind who cared if someone else played with her toys, even if she wasn’t using them, and once she’d established her powerful suzerainty over a man, she brooked no competition. I was afraid that if she figured out how anxious I was to see Heather she might not bring her over at all, or if she did, and Heather and I hit it off again, that things might get ugly.

I was also worried about someone else – me. Even if Heather hadn’t changed for the worse, I was pretty sure I had. Life had seemingly gone to a lot of trouble to dull the cocksure young blade I’d been, wiping the smirk off my face and showing me to my place somewhere near the bottom of the pile with great gusto. I’d begun to doubt that I was a leading man worthy of a star like Heather, and started to think that maybe I was more of a bit player, destined to be the comic foil for a tart tongued, sour faced supporting actress like Katie. Maybe Heather’s long awaited return wouldn’t light up my life at all, but only harshly illuminate its total mediocrity.

It was even possible that Heather might fail to live up to the exalted image I’d built up of her, and when I saw her side by side with Katie I’d realize that Katie was the one for me after all. Who knew, maybe during the impromptu party that always seemed to spring up around Heather a half remembered face would emerge from the crowd, steal the scene, and make me forget about both of them.

So there was that delicious certainty – that I’d see Heather again, but it was wrapped in so many layers of uncertainty that I could hardly savor it, and pressuring Katie to end the uncertainty was the only way to guarantee that the whole thing wouldn’t happen at all.

Anyway, that’s how I tied myself in knots waiting for Heather. 

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Cornell Woolrich’s Fright

Posted on August 17, 2007 by ubu507

Hard Case Crime has released Cornell Woolrich’s Fright, the title’s first publication in over fifty years. It’s not his best book, or even in the top ten, BUT it does have moments of that peculiar Woolrich magic. It’s set in 1915, and the historical novel, however recent, was not a good thing for Cornell, as it provides too much of a temptation to stop and explain about various things rather than just getting on with the plot. The basic premise, that a man believes he’s killed a woman and spends the rest of the book running and obsessing, is pretty creaky, but it does allow for many of his patented Poe-like explorations of the tormented mind on the edge of sanity. Not to get too psychological about it, but for all his rhapsodizing about female "angels" and the fairer sex, Woolrich is clearly terrified and guilt ridden about the physical act of sex itself, and seems to believe that delving just once into the pit of lust is enough to haunt and damn a man unto death. But it’s the prose that counts and Fright gives plenty of opportunity for him to strut his stuff (in some of the riper passages a little TOO much opportunity, alas). If Chandler, with his clipped, spare cadences and occasional bursts of poetry, was the Hemingway of noir, then Woolrich, with his undulating lyricism, is surely its Fitzgerald.

Here’s a few hot passages:

He saw her in the mirror, before he’s had time to turn. Then, having seen her there, her reflection seemed to hold him fast, like some hypnotic apparition, so that he was no longer able to turn. He kept looking at her that way, by indirection.

She peeled her cheek from the doorframe and came in a little further. A dainty, mincing step or two, like a dancer pointing a delicate toe before her, feeling her way in some delicate pas she is not yet sure she has mastered.

He hadn’t moved. He couldn’t.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

And now a new branch springs erect among the other branches, a branch that wasn’t there before. A branch without leaf, without sap, without bend. Black, and foundry-hard, and with a little round malignant mouth at the end, and its flowering will be death.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

"Spring three, one hundred," he said quietly above the glass-dimmed roar of the jazz band, worshiping her with his eyes there where she sat, lonely, lost, waiting to be claimed, across the room. A Madonna in an evening gown, his angel baffled with champagne. His hope of heaven, his religion… 

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Bumper Sticker

Posted on August 15, 2007 by ubu507
LIFE WITHOUT STUPID IS ART  
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For Your Consideration

Posted on August 14, 2007 by ubu507

Dear Book Enthusiast,

I beg your indulgence for the impersonal salutation. Unfortunately, due to the many changes occurring in a large number of bookstores lately, I never quite certain who’s sitting at the helm of any particular store. Even if you were sitting there today reading this, you might get fired tomorrow, or your store will go out of business or be closed by a corporate entity, you might even commit suicide or become a drug addict, but that’s the chance I’ll have to take. That being said, I realize that your time is valuable and the responsibilities vast, so I will quickly bring this letter to point.

In 2007 the Fallopian Press will be publishing In The Cold Dark Depths of Secret, a monumental block buster novel by Courtney J. Gafoor that’s sure to rock your world as well as interest an overwhelming number of your store’s patronizing readers. The Fallopian press plans a 60 million copy first printing, backed by an 11 figure extensive marketing campaign that includes radio satellite zeppelin and 42 city personal author tour, advertising, special bus station promotions, web marketing the book reader, Katrina evacuee websites, and author interview streaming video at Times Square and during in-flight movies on Allegheny Airlines. And more.

Gafoor’s new novel is a suspenseful, humorous exciting blockbuster mystery which suddenly skews generic convention to continually surprise readers with reversals of their assumptions and expectations. It’s the story of Charles Philip Ferringfold, a famous orchestra conductor, who dreams of fulfilling his boyhood vision of becoming a subway conductor, a career that was denied him when he mistook the word orchestra for the word subway. Powerful forces in the metropolitan opera however want to deny his dream because the latest Concerto by Middle Eastern composer Ali Ben Fazazaza is to include a secret message signaling the beginning of the terrorist attack, and Charles is the only one who can handle its staccato passages. Even when he does achieve his dream of the subway the terrorist menace follows him there, in the form of germ warfare concealed in a jar of a child’s Skippy peanut butter. His nemesis, a killing machine has been in deep cover as a gym teacher for many years, the very man who used to ridicule Charles for not being able to climb the ropes and encouraged his classmates to give him wedgies. Can Charles overcome the demons of his past, save the United States, and win the hand of harpist/brakewoman Christina de la Fontaineau? You can bet millions of readers will be salivating on the pages in order to find out!

Gafoor is the best-selling author of the four previous best-selling novel thriller blockbuster monuments, including The Great Baloney Dump Mystery, previously published by Warder Herzog books and optioned for movie rights by Cicely Tyson and Tanya Roberts. Gafoor has a great track record of producing books that hit the ground running on topics pertinent to the national discourse and worries of the average American and their pets.

Booklist reviewed one of Courtney Gafoor’s previous books as "in the English" and "readable." Library Journal praised another as "evidently the product of human intelligence." Mary Higgins Clark praised Courtney as "a very persistent and crafty woman determined to discover my home phone number." The Toledo Blade termed her villain as "along the lines of Charles Manson and Richard Speck." And, Publishers Weekly’s review stated "it’s like Dr. Seuss and Sidney Sheldon had a love child and fed it Drano from birth."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Courtney Gafoor is a practicing aroma therapist and novelist who has worked as a senior adviser for Mark Maynard, the notable blogger God and inventor of the extremely popular Ypsipanty. For professional work as well as her experiences with Mark provide the foundation for her passion: telling a simple story in a way that will enthrall and generate millions. Both Courtney and her husband Ross are graduates of the Central Tech Emerging Human Program and live in Ypsilanti’s Depot town. Like the hero of her book, Charles, Courtney enjoys conducting to old phonograph records, pushing people on the subway, walking, eating, drinking, sleeping and reading comic books, but only good ones.

To book an interview or request review copies, complementary coasters or to purchase a painted tie, please contact Ross Gafoor at Mark Maynard.com.

Thank you very much ever so for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,

James R. Scrimgeor editor/publisher/typesetter/publicist 

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Minnie Mouse and Mr. Bubble

Posted on August 11, 2007 by ubu507

As he lay in the bath he felt suddenly uncomfortable – there didn’t seem to be anything he could look at with real interest – the same faucet, the same knobs, the same tiles, everything carefully chosen to be in appearance and quality far above the generic level of a hotel, but yet, with time, they’d grown equally anonymous. If he’d been a pope or nobleman in the Italian Renaissance, he thought, there would have been a lot to contemplate, hand painted panels and exquisite carvings – the things that were now in museums from that time that hadn’t come from churches had, after all, been created to be private property, to be displayed and appreciated by individuals at home. But wouldn’t Botticelli’s magnificent Birth of Venus, painted on a wedding chest, become just another piece of furniture if seen every day?

But the reproduction of it he had next to his bed for years had never become part of the wallpaper, and had, in fact, seemed to always radiate a promise of beauty that had allowed him to get out of that bed when he might have found no other reason.

And, as his eyes fell on the plastic Minnie Mouse figure perched on the soap ledge or Mr. Bubble on the label of his bottle, they too seemed to have a spirit, a depth that transcended these single representations of them, the way the statue of god or saint did. For some reason their familiarity did not produce the same ennui the rest of the room did. Was it merely the fact that they were anthropomorphic characters, endlessly reproduced, the players in crude dramas that made them still interesting? Was it their ability to be manipulated, to enter into play by performing new actions in new ways, ways that the rest of the room couldn’t?

Or was their force even more occult than that – were they some kind of modern spirit, contemporary expressions of the same energies that were perceived as demigods or fairies in past times, the household daemons of the Greeks? Were they new manifestations for avatars from another dimension seeking to incarnate themselves in our own?

As usual, Mr. Bubble’s smile remained as inscrutable as Aphrodite’s… 

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Quote Bag:Blasts From the Past

Posted on August 10, 2007 by ubu507

When we first opened our store we thought it was necessary to make people aware of our name and who we were, so we advertised every month in a local publication. Since we didn’t have too many events to publicize back then, I’d stick in a quote about murder and mystery in the little ad, and, since I’m an inveterate quote recorder, there was no shortage of material. The ads actually built up a small following, but with more signings and less money spent on advertising, the quotes became quickly expendable.

The other day as I was cleaning out my desk I found a few index cards with quotes on them and figured they deserved to be resurrected:

 

I read inchoately, I read emotionally. I read for story, I read for milieu. I read because reading crime novels gave me both a tidy sense of resolution and a sense that the ramifications of violent events would go on forever.

– James Ellroy

 

Truth will come to light, murder cannot be hid long.

– William Shakespeare

 

What do most major writers have in common? A fascination with crime.

– Joyce Carol Oates

 

I find homicides quite stimulating.

– Ellery Queen

 

"That’s why mystery writers are, on the whole, such mild-mannered individuals," Peggy said smiling. "They don’t have to take an axe to the people they hate, they kill them with a pen. Or a word processor."

– Barbara Michaels

 

Murder was for the newspapers! For the dry, old court records, for history, for anything but not for her!

How could anybody to whom you’d given six ties (and hung over the counter for a long time choosing the designs) be a murderer.

– Mignon G. Eberhart

 

Steering her Toyota through the crowded local roads, puffing on a cigarette and listening to the radio, she could not have known that just three days before, her son had murdered a young prostitute in the backseat of the car she was now driving.

– Lisa Beth Pulitzer and Joan Swirsky

 

They really shouldn’t have stopped. After all they had a body in the trunk!

– Fred Rosen

 

When Patrolman Safina rushed up the back stairs at the station house to report to the Ninth Detective Squad that a dead body had been found in the trunk of a rented car, the immediate reaction was largely annoyance. "Another one?" somebody said.

– Dick Schaap

 

Again and again, Christa lifted the rock and slammed it into Colleen’s skull until the asphalt split the hard bone into two pieces. "Stop Christa! That’s enough!" Tadaryl called.

"No, I want to see brains."

– Patricia Springer

 

Each ant emerged from the skull bearing an infinitesimal portion of brain.

– Donald Westlake

 

"You’ve never really hurt anybody before yesterday, have you?" asked Deputy Thompson.

"Oh, yeah," Cindy replied casually. "I’ve hurt lots of people. I’ve stabbed people, I’ve shot people. I’ve tried to run people down, I’ve beaten people…"

"Ever kill anybody before?"

"No, and I’ve tried so many times."

– Joan Merriam

  

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Paul Leppin’s Severin’s Journey Into the Dark

Posted on August 8, 2007 by ubu507

I’m always telling my customers that one reason to read anthologies is that they are a great way to find new authors, and by gum, ain’t it the gospel truth. I’ve been reading the Dedalus Decadence series and have found, particularly in The Dedalus Book of German Decadence: Voices of the Abyss, a few cool authors that I wasn’t aware of and have been able to follow up on. There was an excerpt from one of Paul Leppin’s novels in there that made me want to read more, and I was pleased to discover that a groovy little publisher called Twisted Spoon Press have a couple of titles out by him with another to be reprinted soon. Leppin (1878-1945) was a German writer in Prague, the "uncrowned king of the Prague bohemians." The short story collection Others’ Paradise is an exquisite little string of jewels, but almost TOO brief and allusive (and hence elusive). It was his novel Sevrin’s Journey Into the Dark (1914) that really sent me. It’s a very decadent, wonderfully written, delicious piece of prose and I savored it like a Sacher-Masoch torte. It reminded me in many ways of a Munch painting.. Here’s a few of my favorite titbits:

More than ever he thirsted for a genuine life, one that bestowed flowers and terror and blew the daily round to pieces with its stormy jaws.

He wanted to ask her if it was possible to create an artificial life that was deceptively similar to the real one and could be mastered.

He looked into the shadows of the houses down below and saw his own form, wrapped in the riddles of death and love, restless in streets where thoughts of murder rose from the stony pavement and blinded his heart.

Through unrestrained dissonances, she had endowed the place with a strange and provocative beauty that suited her nature and that she did not want to live without.

Mylada understood his body. With the talented and clear-sighted depravity of her experienced youth she understood his essence and subjected herself to the caprices she discovered within it. She found the refuge of his desires and traced them to the roots of his nerves. She taught him the bizarre and licentious games of love, and their tenderness enthralled him. Her kisses were inventive and the happiness they prepared him for was a sinful and desperate diversion. Often, when she clung to his neck and a lascivious cloud veiled her eyes, he lost his memory of the present. The room where they tarried seemed unfamiliar and fantastic, and the lamp in front of his bed shone with a strange light. He saw the sparks under her eyelids dance and a golden wave extinguished the thoughts in his brain.

When, with cruelly trifling fingers, she undressed in front of him, he threw his destiny at her feet. He could no longer escape it, and it forced him to his knees. Sobbing, tantalized by an unearthly bliss, he touched his lips to her camisole. 

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From the desk of Jenny Laud Garuda, Candidate for City Council

Posted on August 7, 2007 by ubu507
 

Hello neighbor!

I am writing this missive in order to introduce myself and ask for your support in the upcoming election for city Council. My name is Jenny Laud Garuda and I would love to have a chance to be your next representative for this ward in our fair city of trees, leaves and bumblebees. As you can perhaps tell I love nature and if I receive your vote I will make sure to make nature my first constituent.

Many factors are at play in our city during this period of transition and uncertainty. The leaves are not yet changing and yet I, and many of those who appreciate things green feel that there is a need for change not only on the molecular level but also on the level of our city government. If I am elected I will ride a bicycle to every meeting and even to the annual junket in Las Vegas. I practice conservation in many ways – I have even been known to chew the same piece of gum for three or four days at a time. Perhaps this is the kind of city Councilwoman that you desire! I know that is true for my husband, even though he no longer resides in our state.

There are those in power in high places in our beautiful town who would like to chain saw all beauty and erect ugly and unnatural edifices of plastic in concrete. I am not one of those people even though I’m not in power but even if I were in power I would also not be one of those people, because and simply because I’m not that kind of a person. I’m a person who likes pretty things and nice things and does not like ugly things and bad things. If that’s the kind of person you would like to have a serving you as a paid representative in both our town and Las Vegas then I’m the kind of a person that a person like you should be voting for.

I’m not going to bore you with long details of my experience and prowess or give you a long list of accomplishments awards and honors that I have won, like my opponent, and not merely because I want to save paper and believe that what is in your heart is more important than what is on your resume, but because a first step must begin somewhere and I would like to begin to change the world in our city council. My friends know that I am an accomplished personality with a love for macramé and abiding respect for small animals and a slight obsession about marsupials. I’m the sort of individual who reads the words of our local blog god Mark Maynard religiously every day – and changes her ypsipanties almost as often! I am no fancy pants with a law degree or experience, but a person like any one of you, who has learned a lot in the simple pursuits of hanging out with society’s humble at liberty Plaza or at the library. You will know that the first thing I will do is to move to allow cute Guinea pigs like my own sweet Throckmorton to run free and happy in the library, police station, juvenile hall, hospital and other places that are, after all, supported by the tax dollars of the mommies and daddies of those same sweet guinea pigs.

I’m not one to beg or threaten, I’ve learned my lesson after the panhandling ordinance and several restraining orders, but I will say that those who do not choose to vote for me in today’s primary are putting a dagger into the heart of mother Earth herself, and basically performing the equivalent of jabbing out the eyeballs of a small, cute animal or cartoon icon such as SpongeBob Square pants with a sharpened pencil. But make no charges that can be proven against my opponent, but if one watches public access cable and the televised meetings of the city Council you will soon note that my said opponent is constantly holding such a sharpened pencil in his hands. A truly astute observer will also note the shocking condition of his cuticles and the amount of dirt he permits to accumulate under his fingernails. My hands, on the other hand seldom hold a sharpened pencil, and are always enlivened with a pleasant pastel or neon shade of nail polish.

Well, Oprah is about to make her appearance on my television so it is with great reluctance that I must bid you my future constituent a fond farewell and bid you to remember that one person’s vote can make all the difference but only if that vote is cast for me.

Thank you and take care God bless,

Your next Councilwoman,

Jenny Laud Garuda

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