Didn't you already do a blog post called "The Jane Goodall of the squirrels"?
Hey! Who's asking the questions around here?
I guess you are. Fire away.
Do all the squirrels know you and treat you as one of the family?
Only in the sense that sometimes I have noticed squirrels running away from other squirrels.
What have you learned living with the squirrels?
Well, I don't, you know, live with them. I visit them occasionally for five or ten minutes.
What have you learned living with the squirrels?
Nothing?
What have you learned living with the squirrels?
I have learned that not only do squirrels have distinctive appearances, but they also have discernible personalities. Like, one might want nothing to do with me. One might be so absorbed in eating they don't care. And one might be positively curious about me, which is super flattering and I am always tempted to offer my blog address to that squirrel and suggest they pop in and look around here at clerkmanifesto for pictures of themselves.
Hey, this is my blog too!
Cool.
Cool.
Super cool.
Dy-no-mite.
You said it!
Brothers for life!
Closer than brothers, same person!
Totally.
Completely.
How about a bunch of squirrel pictures?
I'll see if I can find any in focus. Pay attention to how different they look!
It is not super obvious to me, but then I am not The Jane Goodall of the Squirrels. You are!
Thank you.
The mysterious flower spy has been terrorizing the (formerly) quiet neighborhoods of the Twin Cities for months now. What's he up to? Why flowers? Is he a harbinger of the end of civilization? Finally we sit down for a frank, one-on-one discussion with the notorious flower spy. This is quite a coup for Clerkmanifesto, the blog that has been carefully reporting on the activities of the flower spy since the story first broke.
Have you been following the coverage of your endeavors around the Internet, on Social Media, in the Newspapers, and on the TV?
Well, I read your blog. I don't believe anyone else has mentioned me in any way.
You read my blog! Oh my god! Tell me more!
Uh. I guess mostly I look at the pictures of flowers.
Oh. You mean the ones you took?
The writing part is nice too.
You think so?
Very nice. Maybe a little confusing sometimes, but yes, I like it.
My cheeks are all pink. Can you see how pink my cheeks are?
Yes, they're very pink.
So why flowers, and, quite frankly, what kind of devilry are you up to?
Um, I don't know if there's any devilry, but the flowers are really pretty. And I wanted to show you what they looked like up a bit closer.
Oh, we were thinking it was something more nefarious, maybe Antifa or something. You're not collecting secret information or anything?
I sort of am.
Ohhhhhhhh. Tell us more. Tell us all the secret information!
No, I mean, there's just a lot of pretty things that are happening close up in flowers with all the colors and light and secret flower parts, and one wouldn't see those normally even as one looks at a flower and admires it at a regular distance. So it's fun to take real close up pictures and sort of, I don't know, reveal it all.
So is this why the newspaper and Social Media hasn't mentioned you and you are pretty much completely unknown everywhere in the whole world?
I guess? I don't know why they would mention me.
Because you're the flower spy! You make the neighborhoods quake with fear. Squirrels run for the trees as you pass. Blackbirds flush into the air!
If you say so. I just thought it would be nice to take some pictures. I kind of think squirrels run for the trees when anyone passes.
Hmm. Let me think for a second here. Hmmmmmm.... okay... You've convinced me. But now I feel sad. Do you think this is why all my flower spy posts have been kind of unpopular?
People really seemed to like the pictures.
!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry.
So you're definitely not Antifa?
Oh no, I'm totally antifa, just, it's only with a small "a".
A small "a"?
always.
So the flower pictures are all to fight Fascism?
Exactly.
Did you bring one of your incendiary, extremely dangerous pictures of flowers to fight Fascism with?
Um, yes?
Recently Bob Dylan posted a new interview on his website. This is rare
enough that the St. Paul daily paper, The Pioneer Press, put news of it on its front page.
Minnesota, after decades of stand-offishness, has finally accepted
Dylan as its proud own, like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Charles Schultz, two other artistic legends who fled Minnesota for other places.
"Bob Dylan Posts Rare Interview on his Website" was the title of the article, or
something like that. Even I consider that questionable as front page
news, but a new Bob Dylan interview is indeed rare. And don't think I
didn't let Bob know it.
"You know, it's one thing when you aren't doing any interviews." I said
to Bob over cocktails. "But it's kind of cold that you won't do an
interview on my blog when you're happy to do one on your own, already
sufficiently popular, website!"
"Oh man." Bob complained.
"The guilt and shame hurts?"
"No, what do they put in this drink? It's making me so weird." Bob said.
"Too much green chartreuse, I think." I replied. "Super pretty though with the absinthe and dry ice."
"Absinthe!" Dylan exclaimed startled. "Are you sure it's not driving me mad?"
"No, no, bunch of myths about absinthe."
"Go ahead. Do yourself an interview. Ten questions." Bob said, magnanimously.
"Wait, let me get out my post-it notes."
Ten Questions with Bob Dylan
Me: What are your favorite blog posts on clerkmanifesto?
Bob: Uh, I like the ones mostly about library policy and procedures, I guess.
Me: Really, what about the ones with you in it?
Bob: The only ones I don't like are the ones with me in it.
Me: But they're really good. They're funny. Plus no one believes they're real anyway.
Bob: Why wouldn't someone believe they're real?
Me: For someone as crusty and knowing as yourself you can suddenly get so disarmingly innocent.
Bob: Bah!
Me: How many questions have we used up so far?
Bob: I think with that one you're at, like, 8 or 9.
Me: Let me check my notes. It's three! It's only three. And you're at one. So it's three to one.
Bob: Okay, my turn. What's your favorite liqueur?
Me: St. Germaine.
Bob: Bartenders ketchup.
Me: I like ketchup. Ketchup is amazing.
Bob: You go.
Me: What do you think of Messi, the greatest soccer player of all time?
Bob: I think you get these fixations. And then you think everyone should have them.
Me: No. He's really that good. Besides, what about you?
Bob: What about me what?
Me: Three more discs coming out of you singing songs from the Great American Songbook, or whatever.
Bob: These are classics. Some of the greatest songs ever written!
Me: They're fine, but around the time I was born, which is a long time
ago already, you had single-handedly begun the process of ripping open
the soft belly of the Great American Songbook, gutting it, and reinventing what a
person can do with a song.
Bob: Really, I did that?
Me: They gave you a Nobel Prize for it.
Bob: Oh yeah, that. (In a smaller voice) I was too busy to go get it. (Bob starts giggling).
I gently teased the remains of his cocktail away from him as he giggled
some more. Then I drank it myself. Then I started giggling a bit too. It took a while for us to resume.
Bob: I think that was ten questions. Five each?
Me: Close enough.
These are dark and evil times, full of bitter problems, and most of us suspect that the end is coming soon.
But it has always been just so because this describes all of the times of mankind.
I am generally up for a political scrap, and I am also keen to discuss just what we, or they, (you know, them), should do, about all of our problems. I am ready to rage righteously against racism, disastrous class inequalities, national hypocrisy, religious fanaticism, and the corruptions of Capitalism. But sometimes when I am confronted by passionate misguided people, or even when I am confronted by passionate guided people, I'd rather chat about cheese, or weather, or books, or how pretty it is in Rome. Sometimes I don't want to look into the eyes of inequality, strategize against venal politicians, and sometimes I just don't want to take part in all those seemingly useless arguments and discussions that tend to run away with us all. I know you feel the same way sometimes too. I have seen it in your eyes when I was telling you about how we're killing all the tigers, or maybe about how all the corporations are bleeding us out like the Matrix AI did with all their farmed humans.
Luckily I have come up with an infallible system of political evasion. My system, which I call "The rope a dope" will not only kill any political tirade, but it also takes the moral high ground. It quickly exhausts any political discussion before anyone can get revved up, but it leaves one's moral and political reputation intact. One can avoid uncomfortable and depressing political discussions, like maybe about world hunger, while remaining the enlightened, caring paragon one is, at least somewhere, probably, deep down inside.
Here's how it works:
A colleague, friend, or family member approaches you with a politically impassioned, possibly do-gooding statement. Or maybe they're just angry or slightly stupid. The beauty here is that it doesn't matter either way. If you want to discuss it, don't let me stop you, but if you don't want to get all involved, and you want to follow my precepts, you will need to heed these three imperatives.
1. Never disagree.
2. Always agree, but do so vaguely, tepidly, and even glancingly.
3. Most importantly, move on and just keep moving on.
And the third here is key. Keep that stone rolling. As befits the name of this technique (The rope a dope), no one can lay a hand on you if you're no longer there. Keep moving the subject matter just out of reach. Eventually your conversational partner will become exhausted, and you will be freed.
You need an example. Here:
Them: I just find the whole Trump thing so offensive!
You: Mmm hmm. But until we look at global warming squarely we have nowhere to go.
Them: But people are so stupid!
You: First we must tackle the rising inequity of wealth.
Them: Er, but the rich control the media and set the discourse...
You: You understand clearly, but most of all I worry about the Panda.
Them: Which panda?
You: A lot of problems would be solved if we were registered to vote automatically when we turn 18.
Them: Have you read anything good lately?
And with that you've made it through to safety. Plus, even though you were avoiding it, you solved a lot of problems in the world anyway.
"But won't people eventually catch on to what I'm doing?" You wonder.
I love writing blog posts that can help people!
The third in our Presidential Candidate interviews:
MSM: As a Presidential Candidate you are generally expected to weigh in on the abortion issue whether you will be able to do anything about it or not. What is your opinion on the legal status of abortion?
F. Calypso: Once upon a time there were some old, beautiful trees that were going to be cut down to make way for a building. So a group of people climbed into the trees and lived there to try and protect them. Then other people started wearing shirts that read "Against hippies in trees". And I thought I would really like a shirt that said "Against people who are against hippies in trees".
MSM: I'm not sure I understand.
F. Calypso: I am passionately, unequivocally, fanatically against people who are pro life.
MSM: And why is that?
F. Calypso: Not a single one of them is telling the truth.
MSM: You have been on the record as saying that you were told by God to run for President?
F. Calypso: Well, yes, that is so. I was told by a god to run for President wherein it was prophesized that I would lose, acquiring zero votes.
MSM: God told you to run for President wherein you would receive no votes?
F. Calypso: Yes, amazing, isn't it?
MSM: Um.
F. Calypso: Do you think I will get any votes?
MSM: That's really not the subject of this...
F. Calypso: It's a simple question. Will I get any votes for President?
MSM: Okay. No. I don't think you'll get any votes.
F. Calypso: So you agree that this god has prophesized the future! That's a god worth listening to.
MSM: If I predicted it would be sunny today, and it turns out it's sunny, that doesn't make me a prophet.
F. Calypso: Did you, in fact, yesterday predict it would be sunny today?
MSM: As a curious matter of fact, yes, yesterday I did say that I understood it was supposed to be sunny today.
F. Calypso: Wow!
MSM: No, that's my...
F. Calypso: I am enmeshed in a thrilling web of prophecies! Tell me what to do next!
MSM: No! That's not, I'm not God.
F. Calypso: Well of course not. No one is God.
MSM: I'm glad we...
F. Calypso: You're obviously a god though. What do I do next? Do you have any lotto tips?
MSM: I'm not a god! Look, what if I voted for you? Wouldn't that make the prophecy false and call your campaign into question?
F. Calypso: It would have actually had to have happened, which it hasn't, oh god of... something.
MSM: Fine, I'm voting for you. Just wait and see.
F. Calypso: Yeah, that's how all these interviews seem to end up.
MSM: What made you decide to run for President?
F. Calypso: I felt that my needs as a voter weren't being met by the current crop of candidates.
MSM: What needs are those?
F. Calypso: I'm very close to needing a new pair of boots, for instance.
MSM: Ha ha ha, but seriously.
F. Calypso: I need some new pants too?
MSM: Yes, but are there needs of National Significance you were hoping to see addressed?
F. Calypso: We are the world, as the song says.
MSM: I don't think that's what the song is about.
F. Calypso: Look, it hardly seems likely I could be elected President of
America on some sort of communal Communist "What's best for us as a
group" approach.
MSM: So you're campaigning for yourself as your constituency?
F. Calypso: I refuse to pander. I'm the real deal. I call them as I see them.
MSM: How do you see them?
F. Calypso: Hmm?
MSM: You said that you call them as you see them. How do you see them?
F. Calypso: I dunno. You show me and I'll call them.
MSM: Okay. Fair enough. What is your position on ISIS?
F. Calypso: (Singing)
I was thinkin’ about turquoise, I was thinkin’ about gold
I was thinkin’ about diamonds and the world’s biggest necklace
As we rode through the canyons, through the devilish cold
I was thinkin’ about Isis, how she thought I was so reckless
MSM: Er, excuse me. Is that supposed to be a Bob Dylan imitation?
F. Calypso: I like to think of it more as an homage, or sort of like The Bob Dylan Experience.
MSM: What does that have to do with the Islamic State?
F. Calypso: I dunno.
MSM: What would you do about ISIS and the threat they pose?
F. Calypso: Well, my neighborhood is more of an Agnostic sort of neighborhood.
We don't have a lot of religious fanatics. We have much more serious
problems that I don't see being brought up.
MSM: Such as?
F. Calypso: Icy sidewalks.
MSM: Icy sidewalks?
F. Calypso: I have yet to see any interviewer ask a candidate what they would do about icy sidewalks, killer of the elderly.
MSM: Mea Culpa. What would you do as President about the problem of icy sidewalks?
F. Calypso: I would walk more carefully.
MSM: You have my vote.
F. Calypso: Yeah. These interviews always seem to end that way.
