The Riverview Cafe saves my life again

And the shadows fall and I think I am writing in pure darkness. Who can read anything I write when it is too pitch black in the world to read and when all of light is owned? I grow bitter about the precise ways fame fails to visit me. I imprudently complain about all the people not reading what I write to the very people who are reading what I write. I am faithless. I have worked all my life as an artist, and I have achieved only...

Art.

So I go to The Riverview Cafe on Thursday night. And everyone is a genius. Greatness nips at every singer songwriter's heels. How many people do my wife and I hear sing and play? Maybe twenty or thirty. None of them are remunerated, none long remembered, none lionized. No ones ship, or maybe I should say train, since they sing about them so much,  is ever coming in. Oh, all of them are gifted enough. All of them try hard enough. Everyone of them deserved something more. And why not. You may take this as a hard argument against God, or you may take it as the best way to love God, but

Everyone everywhere, through all of time, deserved something more.

Spare me the black tongues of realists. I'll have none of that cold acceptance that passes for pragmatic. "Life's not fair." is the devil's version of "Everyone deserved more." Let's start with that then: Everyone deserved more.

And so everyone playing at The Riverview Cafe deserved more. They deserved to be able to see, to walk again without pain, to be young again, to have someone hear their lovely voice and put them on a great stage and give them so much money they don't have to work in some grinding job. They deserve an old fashioned record contract, love, a fresh start, and more applause than such a modest audience as ours can produce. Sometimes, sitting there, I actually wish I could clap louder. But even though I swear they all deserve it, I don't believe that in those shining moments, on that unglamorous and raggedy stage, any one of them cares. I can't see them caring at all. Sometimes I even look for it, hear it whispering around, but every time I look I find that all of that deserving more dies dead on the stage. No one cares. For two songs a person, ten minutes maximum, no musician, no singer, cares that they deserve more. They have whatever there is to have. Their piece of art.

Oh how I like listening to them. Oh how my heart is restored.

Some of the performers are okay that night, some are completely wonderful. That's the way it goes. Maybe it's just that night, and those who are great will later be merely okay, and someone okay may, in three weeks time, play a song more lovely and touching than I would ever imagine hearing, for free, in such a humble place. And then too they may never play that song again.

Did you know that genius belongs to everyone? 

Genius belongs to everyone. That's what they sing to me, on Thursday night, Open Mike Night, at The Riverview Cafe, when they save my life.

Making my fortune

A lot of people don't know that you can make a million dollars at a library! A million dollars! All at your free and local library!

I am going to tell you how.

How to make a million dollars at a library:

You just work there, a really, really, really long time.

















 

More experiments with extreme cold

Oh boy, it's ten below zero this morning. And it's more than twenty below with the windchill factor. It's time for me to walk my 3.75 mile walk to the University. 

I get to conduct more experiments with extreme cold!

Happily, and unusually, I am not at all late. I have done my exercises. I have had my cappuccino. I showered and made sure my morning blog post is telling the truth mostly. I am ready and with a minute or two to spare. I just need to pull on my extra thick long underwear and my fleece oversocks. My corduroy pants go on.  My long sleeve shirt goes over my short sleeve shirt and a short sleeve shirt over that. It's pretty cold so I'll put on this thin long sleeve brown shirt over all of that too. Every little bit helps. Downstairs I put on my oversize thermal shirt, so that's five shirts if you're keeping score. I wrap my half cashmere scarf that I got in London around my neck. I put on my down jacket and my green balaclava that I am lately having a lot of fun pronouncing like the Greek pastry (baLAclava). My brown fleece hat goes over my baLAclava. I put on my insulated waterproof boots and then my red woolen glittens (cut off gloves with tops to make them convertible mittens), and I am all dressed.

I am very warm. And I am now ten minutes late, so out the door I go. 

Steam is immediately pouring off of me!

The air bites, but it's kind of a friendly bite. Everything acts funny in this kind of cold. The screen door's brake doesn't work and it closes hard behind me. Sound is different, both sharp and distant. The streets are mine alone. I am wreathed in a fog of my own making, my mouth a thick billow of steam. My eyes start pouring water down my cheeks. I wipe the tears off as fast as I can because they quickly act like acid, their trails burning bitter ice rivers over my stinging cheekbones.

Hey, I'm not warm anymore. But I'm not terribly cold either. It's all localized. My thighs are quite cold, and my cheeks. My tongue is cold, but pleasantly so. My hands in their glittens are cold, but easily warmed by putting them in my jacket pockets. I walk.

Constant minute adjustments are called for. I keep the balaclava away from my lips as it easily gets saturated by my breath, then grows full of ice. I take my hands out of my pockets and expose the bare fingers to let off a little heat. I press lightly on my cheekbones to warm them up. Weird joints and isolated parts of my body hurt for two steps and then don't hurt. My fourth left toe stings with cold. My right foot toes are merely chilly. Mostly I am warm to the touch. My back feels hot.

I cross the river and there is a boat down on the Mississippi. Strange, maybe it is breaking the ice for some reason. There is a kind of path of open water, steaming and freezing, but the wind is blowing hard on me on the bridge, hurting my exposed face too much, so I have to look away.

Last stretch. The wind keeps blowing my coat off my shoulders, but if I zippered it I would be too hot. My ankle hurts terribly for one second and then is perfectly fine. A bike passes me, good old Minnesota.

I get in my car. Just being out of the wind is enough for me to throw off my hats and jacket and be perfectly comfortable. I keep the window open so I don't steam and freeze the inside of the car. I am much more tired and hungry than I am after a more moderate temperature version of this walk. There is something demanding about such cold. One enters into a complex relationship with it and has to pay a lot of attention.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be about 10 degrees or even warmer by the time I walk. Alas, it's practically Summer already. I might want to start thinking about my garden...

Politics for Christians

I find Christianity to be strikingly straightforward on paper, so it's surprising that it's so tangled and bizarre when in action. As a helpful, non partisan outsider, I have put together this useful checklist:

For Christians who die and find themselves in Hell.

1. Did you believeth?

Okay, good, just checking.


2. Did you confess and ask forgiveness and repent and all that?

Right, right, excellent.


3. Did you generally at least vaguely try to be a sort of good person doing unto others and so on?

Okay, nice job, easy ones out of the way now.


4. Were you rich?

No, no, it's okay you weren't, eye of the needle and everything.


5. Were you a considerate library user, not fussing too much about paying your fines and not pulling tons of books off the shelves and leaving them scattered in the stacks?

Glad to hear it, thank you. No, this was not Scriptural, just a private theory.


6. Did you attend church or something churchlike at least occasionally?

Okay, fine, right, sure, so that's not it.


7. Did you vote Republican?

Aha!




 

Peaunts Movie

It is very rare that I go out to see a real live movie in a real live movie theater. I cannot bear the strangers sitting beside me, and I dread anyone taller than 3'11" sitting in front of me because I was born with a minor birth defect that prevents me from seeing through peoples' skulls. Furthermore it is a small torture to me any of the unreasonable sounds my random movie neighbors are inclined to make, like breathing, or smiling. But I live mere blocks from a beautiful, old style, art decoish single screen theater on a grand scale, showing discount, almost ready to come out on DVD movies. So sometimes I am overcome with an impatience to see a movie and my wife and I go, despite the difficulties involved.


And that is how we found ourselves at a Saturday afternoon showing of The Peanuts Movie.


Curiously The Peanuts Movie was everything I heard the new Star Wars movie was; a piece of homage fan fiction, updated, but as much as possible in the spirit and tradition of the source material. And when I say source material I mean the heyday stuff. While Schulz did not savage and mismanage his own creation like George Lucas did his, there is no doubt that the latter years, focusing an awful lot on Snoopy's brother Spike, in the desert, with a cactus, did not have the richness of the strips that were consistently brilliant in the sixties and seventies.


But first, let me say that the filmmakers here did something very clever. They showed a new modern cartoon short film featuring some kind of not cute squirrel creature with an acorn, that was so restless, and humorless, and desperate, that every shred of peacefulness in the Peanuts feature, when it finally came, was double the relief. At least I think that was the filmmakers clever intention. I can't figure out any other reason for it.


And let me also say that I was surprised to find that people still go to the movies despite the fact that one can view the entire history of cinema at one's leisure in one's own home on a large, high resolution screen. There is something sort of sweet and old fashioned about that. The theater, which is a large one, was very full, and my wife and I were nearly the only ones there without kids. During the only weak parts of The Peanuts Movie (some extended sequences with Snoopy pursuing the Red Baron) I looked around the audience and found it bobbing like a mosh pit at a 1990 grunge concert.


So I kind of loved the movie. But it did have a few minor drawbacks as well. The Charlie Brown main story particularly spoke to me. All my life I have publicly been most like Snoopy. I have wished I was most like Linus or even Schroeder. But watching Charlie Brown this time, well, suddenly it all came clear: Charlie Brown, c'est moi!


What I loved:


1. A mostly low key core traditional story retelling (Charlie Brown and the little red haired girl) with all the traditional characters in their most traditional settings (school, home, skating rink, neighborhood, parks).


2. Uses many of the old gags, but usually in fresh, natural, plot relevant ways (Peppermint Patty sleeping in school, Linus philosophizing advice with Charlie Brown, Snoopy's writing ambitions, Lucy working as a horrible Psychiatrist).


3. Includes many updates, jokes, and mild modernizations that were in the spirit of the original. Charlie brown choosing a shirt is an excellent gag along these lines. Sally cashing in on her brother's celebrity was charming, modern, self referential, and consistent. The kids use old style phones with cords, but there was curbside recycling in the neighborhood.


4. The voice work seemed more naturalistic and true to life than the old shows and was the better for it.



What I liked:


1. Computer animation that still captured the feel and prettiness of The Peanuts, albeit with a small loss of expressionism. The small touches of hand drawing were a sweet homage to the source material as well.



The few smaller problems:


1. The red baron sequences go on too long, and are too action heavy in the direction of what ruins every Pixar movie (that is, a 40 minute chase sequence). Fortunately, in this movie it's probably only 5 or 10 minutes too much of this, but if they dared to slow the pace on this movie just a smidgen more it would have been much the better for it. Also, this series of Red Baron vignettes feature a poodle named Fifi (think Fonzie's girlfriend Pinky Tuscadero). Never an original comic strip character, Fifi made me wistful for Snoopy's pursuit of Marcie as a French barmaid and the interconnection of fantasy and neighborhood reality that it brought with it (we get a small reference to this at the end).


2. While the settings are pretty and Twin Cities-ish (important to me!), I think the neighborhood skews more towards an idyllic suburb than to a city neighborhood, losing some of the particular charm of the original strip's semi urban setting.





And that is my Peanuts Movie review. Best animated kid movie of 2015, that I saw, I mean, out of the two that I did see. Four out of five stars, but I'm giving it officially five stars because of grading inflation, in an unethical attempt to improve its Internet average up towards what I think it should be, and out of a slight fit of pique that it wasn't nominated for an academy award.

Gluten free pretzels

Today I have decided to discuss the gluten free pretzels in the library break room.



Will you being doing this in a "call and response" format?

Why, yes, yes I will.

Why would you, who usually writes such an entertaining blog, write about a bag of gluten free pretzels in your library's break room?

Tough, tough question. But I don't shy away from tough questions around here.

You don't?

Not unless we're discussing gluten free pretzels.

So, fine, what's the deal with these gluten free pretzels?

Ah! I have a ten point list to discuss the mild curiosities of these pretzels.

Wait, don't you usually do blog essays in a "call and response" format or you use a list format, but never do you do both a "call and response" format and a list format?

Yes. It is a very special day here.

I'm ready for your list.


1. These pretzels, in a large, but by no means huge bag, have defied every historical measure of the break room free food table and have been here for six days. It's not that people aren't eating them either. People are eating them, the bag level goes down, but they seem to last forever!

2. Even though I have had no interest up until writing this post, people keep weighing in on their feelings about these pretzels to me, like it's the new Star Wars movie or something.

3. 75 percent of respondents dislike the pretzels and think they have a weird aftertaste. 25 percent think they are unusually good and don't normally like pretzels.

4. I have no interest in trying these pretzels, but it is unclear at this point whether I will have to for the sake of art.

5. The pretzels' slogan is "We are what you eat", and that phrase is trademarked.

6. The pretzels are made with palm oil which, in its environmentally degrading production guise, kills Sumatran tigers. The package could also say "Tiger killing pretzels" which they could also trademark because one can apparently trademark pretty much anything. We are what you trademark.TM

7. The package says there are 13 pretzel servings inside, but so far there have been 218 servings inside, making these the Hanukkah miracle of tiger killing pretzels.

8. I don't really have a ten point list of peculiarities about these pretzels, only eight, of which I suspect only two were truly peculiar.



Which two?

Items one and two, with seven being a repeat of one, and three being an addendum to two.

Have you tasted these pretzels?

No, but they are sitting right here if you want one, and you like to keep gluten free, and you hate tigers.

So, seriously, what was the point of all this about these pretzels?

Sometimes I just start with something and see where it goes and magic happens!

Has magic happened?

Not that I am aware of at this point.

Library crimes

Working at a library, as I do (I have mentioned it here in 80 percent of my 1100 blog posts, but I certainly don't expect you to remember everything), I encounter a wide array of patron responses to library transgressions, or, for fun, let's call them crimes. One person may be guilt ridden and horrified as they confess to and pay up a small overdue fine, whereas many others will blithely pay a notable fine off, calling it their "contribution to the library", as if their keeping a book past its time was an act of generosity and civic engagement on their part. Of course there are some who go even farther than that and take the fine to be a grave injustice visited upon them. I have had patrons return horribly savaged books, soaked, chewed, bloodied, either hoping no one will notice, or figuring we're extraordinarily creative with tape, and I have had patrons humbly approach me with a book with a loose binding they could in no way be responsible for and offer to pay for its replacement.

There are a lot of library crimes out there, and it can be hard to know how bad any given one is. So I have put together a little guide, a countdown list from the least grave to the most vile. If you cross a line or two on some of the early items on this list, don't sweat it much, but if those things at the bottom seem uncomfortably familiar, look to your soul. I cannot guarantee there is time or forgiveness enough for you to repent, but I suggest you try.


10.  Returning requested materials a bit late and uncomplainingly paying fees.

Barely a transgression at all, and note that this implies that returning non requested materials late and paying the fees is not even a misdemeanor (which does not mean that it is a contribution to the library!).



9. Dog eared pages, or small scale food stain on item that looks innocent and was cleaned off as well as possible.

Mea culpa.



8. Library process hobbyism.

If you don't work at a library you might be surprised this even exists. But any library will have a few of these people at any given time, and more of us have the tendency than you might think. This crime refers to the steady engagement with the processes of the library, requesting items, especially in more complicated ways like interlibrary loan, incessantly checking out and returning and renewing items at the limits of allowability, and constantly engaging with the staff to manage the whole circus, all, and this is the essential point, all without at least mostly using, listening to, watching, and reading the items that are checked out.
 


7. Returning a damaged item that may or may not need to be weeded from the system, anonymously.

Whether you are hoping this will go unnoticed or not, you are functionally, morally, acting as if you hope it will go unnoticed. The only proper way to return a modestly damaged book is to bring it directly to a staff member like me, which, because it is proper and decent and not a library crime at all, will cause me to do everything in my power to not charge you. We can do wonders with tape.



6. Returning a damaged item that is disgusting and/or obviously in ruined condition.

This is only a slight shade worse than item 7, mostly because it has an extra layer of being insulting.



5. Isolated theft of item because you just have to have it.

You can have it! Just bring it back. Then you can have it again!



4. Returning items on automated return machine in stacks, even though its computery voice says: "Please return items one at a time."

I know you're in a hurry and this is probably a special instance and it's really not that huge of a problem for us and you were distracted and I hate you and I hope you die. 

 

3. Chronic theft of items because of some weird hording obsession.

A somewhat rare, but regular problem, that wrecks havoc on libraries and our collections. This would be the worst on the list in terms of impact.



2. Intentional theft of material for resale.

I understand that once upon a time no book collector of any kind valued any ex-library book as collectible in any way. I'm going to go big here, and I apologize, but: Even if you buy a book directly from the library itself, if you value it (financially), sell it, or trade it at any value above a reading copy you should consider yourself in violation of  2. Intentional theft of material for resale. 



1. Underlining, highlighting, and/or writing in library materials.

You might as well just burn the library down, you monster. 

Dear Publishing house Intern

Dear Publishing house Intern:



I am guessing that you, in your role as an intern at a large publishing house, don't get a lot of manuscript submissions from authors. This is probably because you are not in a position to get any of those manuscripts published. But since my career in writing has almost entirely disabused me of the notion that I might get published, I figured I have nothing to lose in sending my query to you, the intern.

You might think this is an act of hopelessness, but I like to think of it as merely taking a different tack towards my unlikely, but not impossible, publishing. 

There you are, reading my pages, when some crusty old embittered, paid editor sees you and says "Aren't you supposed to be sorting the mail? What are you reading?"

"A letter." You would answer.

"You should read personal mail on your own time." The editor admonishes.

"Er, no, this is a submission that was sent to me."

"Let me see." The editor holds out his or her hand.

"I don't know if that would be right. This was sent to me. I'd have to check with (insert the name of the superior to the editor here)." You say as you resume reading.

The editor is stymied. "No, seriously." They say.

You make a non committal grunt.

"Is it any good?" They ask, because it is, after all, a publishing house.

Another non committal grunt.

"I'll share the finders credit with you." The editor breaks down, though this may take a bit longer in the real life scenario.

"It's not bad." You say. Because really, you'll see. It isn't.

"Come with me. We'll bring it to (insert the name of the superior to the editor here)."

Ignore the editor a bit, then murmur "Wait, let me finish this." If you can't cry on command, just chuckle in an embarrassing way that indicates it was entirely against your will. Then look up at the editor and ask, as if out of a dream "What was that?"

My book will be published. You will be hired as the Junior Editing Editorial Assistant to the Editing Assistant's Editor, which is not super glamorous to start with, but better than an intern, as you so well know. My book will make dozens, possibly hundreds of dollars for the Publishing House, and everyone will be slightly happier.

I'll admit it might not actually go like this, but still, you got some mail of your own, and I will have done about as well as usual.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I look forward to working with you.



F. Calypso

Dear Publisher: the hundredth letter

Dear Publisher:


This is my hundredth letter to you proposing that you publish my writing. Yes, I am aware that is a lot of letters. I am also aware that you might be thinking that it's about time I got the message that you and your publishing house are not interested in publishing my work. And fair enough. I accept that after 99 refusals you might genuinely not be interested in working with me. I accept that maybe you weren't just kidding or trying to soften me up for contract negotiations.

So, yes, fine, let us proceed from that point of view; you really and truly are not interested in publishing my essays.

But are they really all that bad? I mean, think back to everything you have ever read in your lifetime. A few hundred of those things, maybe even a thousand, were utterly brilliant. Another few thousand were hideous, maybe a fair share more than that, seeing as you're a publisher. That leaves something like five million novels, essays, poems, short stories, and product labels just floating around in the great stew between genius and garbage.

After almost three professional years of faultless and rigorous prose manufacturing I confess that I have had very close to no people tell me that my work is utterly brilliant, or that it is the work of a genius. No one has seriously taken up the banner of my manifestos. Popularity has skirted me. And, occasionally, now for instance, I am willing to accept this lack of writing on the wall, so to speak. Generally the best I get from the culture at large is a random comment like "I really enjoyed this one."  I have tried to balance this extreme mildness of enthusiasm by frequently mentioning that I am a genius. My essays freely refer to my genius and to the greatness and importance of my work. But then, should I not be entitled to an opinion about my work just because I'm the writer?

Thank you, but I wasn't really looking for an answer there.

My point is, for the sake of argument, let's drop me into that middle category of prose writers, the five million as I referred to it above. As much as you might like to publish only brilliant authors, you almost never have. You publish out of that great pot of five million. What else can you do? Brilliance is simply too rare. And because we, as people, like to believe we have some control over things, you probably give yourself tons of reasons for picking one slush pile item over another. I understand. But deep down you know it's all pretty random. There's no abiding reason for picking one minor talent over another. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I'm just saying that given that that's true, what's to stop you from choosing your next author by the color of their stationery, or the cut of their jib, or the city they're from? How about, for instance, you choose your next new author based on their personality?

I have a very winning personality.

I look forward to working with you.


Yours truly,



F. Calypso

The soda dream

Creating clerkmanifesto is exactly like running an experimental soda factory. Each day is an invented new flavor. I roam the world looking for exotic or unexpected ingredients: lavender flowers, turnips, grass clippings, passion fruit, green tea, maple syrup, espresso, crushed pecans, earth, honey, clay, coconut, smoke. I attempt to distill my strange flavors in my lab full of cauldrons and glass tubes, alembics, gleaming pumps and centrifuges. Things boil and trickle. A thin syrup slides down a worn brass chute into a crystal beaker. The smell is almost right. One drop of vanilla, an extract of red cabbage to make the soda a lovely pale blue. The drink is intensely carbonated into extra thick, stout glass bottles that are strong enough to handle the extreme fizziness. What is it today? Blue lavender grassy honey soda. Is it good? Well, you know, it's particular. Good is a strange word for it.


I wish sometimes these really were sodas, my twisting, absurd, cheeky essays made out of mint and coarse black tea, minerals and mandarin peel, but it doesn't matter. Close enough.

And I think, what if all the stores around here carried my beautiful, wrong sodas, and it's such a dream that I, futilely, make 144 bottles of every flavor every day. My wife, a few friends, my close people, a couple co-workers, some strangers who stumbled by all grab a bottle. Every couple of weeks someone leaves a note. "That chocolate smoke soda was interesting", the note might say, "I liked how it had no sweetness."

And after all that I have maybe 128 bottles left. I put them in the deep caves that wind back in my cellar, stopped only by the deep waters of the Mississippi River. 

The Mississippi River. I sure would like to bottle that one day. If only I knew its flavor. Peanuts? Tobacco? Oak gall?
 
I go down into those soda catacombs with my flashlight. The pale jewel colors of the sodas twinkle with a brilliant shy moment of glow through their thick glass containers as the beam of light sweeps across them. What was this old pale orange one? I can't remember. I pry off the top of it to the sound of a cheerful gassy hiss. I am expecting something oranges, or sweet peppers, but it has the taste of flowers, honey, roses, chamomile. It's soft and bitter with a hint of white pepper. I remember this one. There are 130 of these remaining, lined up perfectly on their deep shelf.

I suppose if it really was like this, and I was out buying endless cauldrons and vanilla beans, pumpkins, honey, spinach, pollen, and figs, canisters of CO2, I would have long ago given it over, broke or overwhelmed. But here at last is the triumph of the intangible. Here is the joy of my metaphoric world:

My space here really does go on forever, borderless, every bottle is pristine and fresh and perfect forever, and every conceivable ingredient in the great, mighty and endless universe, is free, everywhere, for the taking. All I need to do is notice that it's there.

Your computer fixed!

As a person who has long worked on and with computers I have faced an endless array of computer problems and malfunctions. Hating, as I do, contact with strangers, and also hating asking for help of any kind, and distrustful as well of professional computer repair people, I have done everything in my power to solve my own computer problems. This has made me into the sort of person who can take an old, malfunctioning calculator, add a few spare components found in a gutter somewhere, write a short bit of code, and turn that device into a fully functioning powerhouse of a laptop. But, fortunately, you don't need that advanced level of expertise to fix your own computer. The truth is that every computer problem has a simple solution. The trick is merely knowing what that solution is. Luckily, I know what that simple solution is and am going to tell you right here!

Simply scroll down to find your problem. I have listed all the common ones and all the obscure ones as well, followed by detailed solutions that are simple, work flawlessly, and are written in layman's terms.

1. Computer freezing and becoming unresponsive in any way:

This is a common one and has to do with the colored bits of sand sticking in your display. Simply grasp your screen by the edge and jiggle back and forth.

If this doesn't work your screen is dusty. With a very lightly dampened cloth gently wipe down the surface of your screen. Problem solved. Look at you, you're an expert!


2. Computer smoking, sizzling, and bursting in flames:

It is always alarming when this happens, but it looks far worse than it is. Turn off the computer (using an oven mitt if necessary), unplug it, dowse it in a bucket of water, towel dry it, plug it in, and turn it on again. If it catches fire again, don't panic. Simply repeat the steps until your computer operates without bursting into flame. It is a good idea to bring in a fan to disperse the toxic fumes caused by the burnt plastics, but it is not absolutely necessary.


3. Computer very slow to respond to input and to load pages:

Your computer has a virus. I know that sounds bad, but these are easy to clean out. There are tons of free virus cleaning software products out on the web. I am not going to recommend any in order to infuriate you, but I will assure you that even though all the free software you find will come with thousands of angry people telling you about how crappy it is, they are all just kidding.


4. Computer keeps crashing to desktop, or it simply shuts down spontaneously:

Luckily this is not a hardware problem. Have you installed, or allowed any programs to download onto your computer in the past five years? Any updates to programs, any new things plugged into your computer? It will have to do with a small bug in one of these programs. Simply modify the cache bios by refunctioning the back mod operator. You will find this by going to the operations modification menu, scrolling through each program (don't worry, there may be several hundred), and scanning every sub program ending in .epg. Once you've identified the bios directory of the problem operating file, merely update it by creating a system snapshot, deleting the subdirectory, and rewriting the program with the new parameters.

Then restart your computer. If it catches fire see the relevant entry above.



5. Computer cannot access any of the good pages on the Internet:

This is neither a software nor a hardware issue. It's actually an Internet issue. The Internet is so gigantic and ungainly, filled with hucksters and junk, that it's insanely difficult to navigate. At this point you need a reliable person to tell you where the good pages are on the Internet. You cannot find them by accident. And so in that spirit I will here provide links to two of the most wonderful and engaging sites on the Internet. (If these links don't work please see "My computer is being controlled by a Totalitarian Government" below).

     A. schulzwatterson.com

     In the late 1980's Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame swapped strips with Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame and they each drew and wrote 70 of each others' strips over a ten week period. The newspapers would not play along, finding it too confusing, and the project was scrapped. This site has archived the strips and placed them in context, but little publicity has been cast onto the very quiet project, creating a hidden Internet jewel for you and I.

     B. internettimemachineapedia.org

     This massive undertaking allows you to roll back the year as far as 500 BC to see a version of the Internet as it would have been at that time if, magically, there somehow was an Internet back then. It's silly, informative, unusual, and surprisingly thorough. Only about 60 various years from the project are (mostly) completed, but, like Wikipedia, it's an open source project that you can even personally contribute to if you want.


6. My computer is being controlled by a Totalitarian Government:

Overthrow said Government by leafleting your local cities with millions of incendiary copies of my blog post "Your computer fixed!" If this doesn't work, or takes too long a time, switch to reading books. At press time many libraries still exist.

Famed writer to donate one billion dollars

Step back notorious Computer Era philanthropists Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, there's a new benevolent doner whose generosity might soon dwarf your own. A famous Internet blogger has just pledged to donate his second billion dollars to easing global poverty. In a statement issued this morning the much followed blogger dared to refer to the affluence of the few in his selfless vow of generosity that is giving the poor of the world hope.

"Should I ever have the opportunity to live a ridiculously wealthy lifestyle, I am going to want to give back, but not in a way that affects the lifestyle to which I will quickly become accustomed." Beloved blogger Feldenstein Calypso's statement read. "The thought of people, especially children, not having enough to eat is a black mark on our modern, interconnected, and hopeful era. I can no longer stand by and do nothing. That is why, to celebrate my recent thousandth blog post, I am pledging the second billion dollars I earn to the creation of the Calypso Foundation for the Alleviation of Poverty. It won't exactly be a "Foundation", and you'll sort of just have to take my word for it, but I will be giving one billion dollars of my own prospective money to doing the right thing, and that's the essential point here. I sincerely hope that other prospective rich people will give back to a world that will, theoretically, one day make us rich."

The foundation, which analysts have speculated will filter off a large portion of the billion dollar donation to use for galas, self promotion, and the process of running the foundation, will be formed as soon as Mr. Calypso earns his second billion dollars.

After discussing the grave issues of global poverty Mr. Calypso ended on a light and hopeful note. "My second billion dollars belongs to the people of the world. That I vow to you. The third billion, however, is mine."

Mr. Calypso's current assets are estimated at roughly $11,000.

Horses!

Not a lot of people know this about me, but I really like horses. But only if they're really big ones. I have a very hard time resisting a big horse, especially if they're the kind you have to use a ladder to get up on, like the knights of old did with their massive chargers. The view is fantastic from up on one of those ponies, and I can't resist getting up on one whenever I can. Sure, that horse ride might be out at some stable somewhere, but you'd be surprised at the weird places the equestrian opportunity presents itself. And I rarely say no when it does. Whether it's out at the library I work at, cruising the Internet, talking to my co-workers, in the middle of driving my car around town, or even in the midst of a discussion with a friend, I will drop everything when I see one of these tall, tall horses, and I will scramble that long way up to take a seat in the mighty thoroughbred's saddle and to survey the world with a kingly eye. Why, everyone looks like ants down below!

I'll admit I sometimes start to feel bad about interrupting everything, causing havoc and discomfort just to get up on some giant horse. The world is not well made for towering horses of the kind I prefer. And let's face it, their copious manure goes everywhere and can get a bit offensive for those down below.  Yes, I'm thrilled to be up there on the horse, but sometimes I start to look around at everyone way down below, and I feel a little sick and disoriented. The heights are so dizzying. I think that maybe I'd better get down. Maybe I'd be better off, safer, more grounded if I came on off my horse. But it's so far up there it can be hard to even know how to get down. I wonder if someone please could help me down from my horse.

Maybe a ladder? Anyone? 

I wonder if they can even hear me down there. I wonder if they could even figure out how to help me if they knew. Sometimes I wonder if they're so blind they can't even see anything? People are such fools, gazing at the ground, lacking true creativity, wallowing the the mud and muck. Well, the fact is that I'm fine staying up here if I have to. 

I hardly need help from the likes of them.

A correction

Yesterday I reported here that, despite having roughly a million readers, clerkmanifesto, due to a common statistical peculiarity, is still capable of passing through dark periods lasting several days wherein virtually no one visits my blog. The first couple of times I ran the numbers on this my math was borne out, despite it being counter intuitive. It fundamentally explained how, as I called out to my readers in my blog post, despite there being a million of those readers, I received no answer. It all had to do with this strange and interesting counter intuitive statistical oddity.

However, certain pieces of information have since come to my attention that require me to correct my original statements.

First of all, the math system I used to analyze the data was unfortunately faulty. I used the "Let's pretend I used math" system to explain this quirk of the numbers. When I replaced the "Let's pretend I used math" system with formal division I found the following:

Figuring that a million regular readers means that each of them are visiting my blog roughly once a week, then, based on even distribution, one to two readers are thus going to my blog every single second. If their average visit is a mere three minutes, enough to read just a couple posts and get out of the blog fast, then, again based on even distribution, around 250 people are on my blog every single second of every single minute of every, well, you get the idea. From this point I played around with systems of uneven distribution and, while I can come up with some ridiculous explanations, I cannot come up with any reasonable system that can spread that many people around. It would be like dropping a thousand pennies into a mason jar and expecting there to be some empty space at the bottom.

So this correction raised an even more perplexing question. How can there be a significant constant presence of people here on this blog and yet, when I raise a fundamental question I hear not a single response? I spent hours searching for the answer to this on the Internet to no avail. Oddly enough, the true answer simply came to me, and when it did, it was obvious. 

When I am writing, I cannot hear you.

I apologize for my past errors.

Million readers

Anyone who watches light comedies produced in Hollywood these days will be quickly tipped off to the fact that there is a fortune to be made in blogging. Usually there's a couple with kids. One of them has a regular job testing rollercoasters, or listening to music, or owning an amazing restaurant, or something perfectly normal, while their partner keeps a blog, for kicks, at home because, what the hell, one fun job is plenty to support a family in comfortable style. But then, usually as a modest portion of the movie's plot, the other partner's blog is bought like it's a valuable company, or a vast advertising resource, or the blogger, happily toddling along with a few hundred thousand dedicated readers, suddenly writes something so good that the New York Times is interested, or Publishers, or TV, and then there are millions of readers because everyone out there is just ravenously reading blogs all the time. I mean, what else is there to do on the Internet?

But you may be surprised to find that the movies badly understate it. Blogging is an absolute goldmine. I'm not afraid to let the cat out of the bag. I hate cats being in bags. And the truth is that when it comes to blogs there is enough here for everyone. Really! Ask me how much I make for writing a high quality blog post like this one. Or ask me how much I made writing that hilarious post the other day about the Pope and the Atheist. No, really, go ahead and ask me. I will not hold back. Cards on the table. No harm no foul. So don't be shy, just go ahead and ask.

Anyone? It's really interesting. You're going to want to know, so speak right up. I'm ready for your question.

No one? Hello?

Hello?

Oh, I get it. Don't panic. There's an explanation.

So here's the thing: people can read a blog any time of the day, so, like, even if I regularly have, let's say, roughly a million regular readers, it's statistically inevitable the every once in awhile no one much is reading my blog. It seems odd to think there can be a million fervent readers and yet several days can roll by with pretty much no one reading my blog at all, but it's merely one of those funny statistical quirks, like the one about birthdays. You know the one about birthdays, don't you? If there are 23 people in a room there's a 50-50 chance that two of them have the same birthday. That is entirely true, believe it or not. And that seems far more counter intuitive than having a million regular readers but sometimes going several days without hardly anyone reading my blog. Don't you think? 

I said, don't you think? 

Hello?

Hello?

TL;DR

In the long, end of the year season, we here at clerkmanifesto, as usual, had several things to say about my life working at a great, wonky, busy, near urban public library. But although I am rigorous in my a-new-post-every-day discipline, just completing a clean sheet year of 365 posts, I reluctantly, painfully understand, or pretend to understand, that not everyone can strictly keep up with my daily missives, especially during such a busy, social season as we have just finished. And so I thought it would be nice of me to briefly sum up the last several weeks postings to quickly catch you up.

And here it is:

I have no New Year's Resolutions for myself, but I have plenty for other people.

Dear Publisher again

Dear Publisher again:



I am sorry to bother you like this, but I just wanted to make sure you didn't inadvertently, by accident, publish my writing. Probably in a moment of unwarranted optimism I sent along a parcel of my work, thinking, how bad could it be if you published my writing.

Oh my god it would be terribly bad indeed!

I do not want the blood of your mighty publishing empire on my hands. And though I know that you, a respectable publisher, would not under any circumstances intentionally publish my essays, I also understand that Americans are absolutely crazy for, in a wild lather over, the written word right now. It is an unprecedented cultural moment, and in your desperate haste to provide enough product for their insatiable reading lust, someone, maybe an assistant editor who was under an onslaught of pressure to find more publishable writing, simply rushed out whatever manuscript they could lay a hand on in the office. What if my stack of brilliant but unpopular ravings, with a big red scrawl (in your own hand!) on the cover, reading "For immediate incineration only!" got rerouted by virtue of its heft or its accurate typing?  As bookstores across the nation clamor for new volumes of just about anything, what if your bleary eyed printing staff rolled off 100,000 copies of all six volumes of my collected works off your presses?

You've got to stop this before it's too late! You'll be bankrupted!

I'm so sorry. Sometimes I have these spells, and I'm certain that all that matters is my genius. I get so excited about it. And though I try to keep all stamps hidden from myself just in the event of these situations, my enthusiasm tears down barriers and before you know it, decent, respectable, god fearing publishers like yourself are faced with my excitable ravings introducing my work like it's the second coming. Ravings completely blind to the economic disaster of publishing work that no one will buy!

 I wake up the next morning thinking "What have I done?"

In the past I have relied upon the good sense of publishers like you, but how long can my luck hold? I don't know how many employees your esteemed publishing house employs, buy you have got to alert every last one of them. Their jobs are at stake. Find my manuscript! Burn it. Soak the ashes in acid. Hire a hypnotist to erase your memories of any stray bits you may have read. Seal the doors of your warehouse and quarantine it for at least a week. This is unsaleable material. It will bankrupt you and leave you a broken pauper. Your dog will starve. Your collection of rare first editions will be repossessed and you will never have the glorious privilege of providing reading material to the general public ever again, which is a fun thing to do, even if their taste if a bit iffy.

I have done what I can do. The ball's in your court now.


Praying fervently,



F. Calypso, unpopular genius author

New developments in Catholicism

Pope Francis recently wrote that Atheists can go to heaven if they follow their consciences. I don't doubt that his heart is in the right place here. It's a kindly gesture. But I'm not sure this is a good idea. Think of that poor Atheist. There they are, late at night, driving drowsily along a dark and snowy country road and, bam, suddenly they're in Heaven. Angels are singing, puttis are flying happily about, top notch sushi bars are freely available. The Atheist is handed a perfect macchiato. The Atheist looks up to see The Lord God smiling beneficently over the vast paradise.

And the Atheist, right there, drops dead from the shock.

More theology

Something I said in idle conversation caused my Catholic co-worker to cry out in surprise and shock "Wait, you're not an Atheist are you?"

I obligingly explained my theology, which I'm pretty sure causes anyone to think I'm kidding and/or evading the question, even though I'm not. But that might be for the best.

Nevertheless I was struck by the vehemence of his question; one that suggested that anything I might believe in, regarding God, would be far more similar to his beliefs than my strictly not believing in any God.

This is alien to me. I consider every other person's theological beliefs to be equally foreign to my own. Whether Catholic, Atheist, Satanist, Taoist, Jewish, Agnostic, Animist, or Muslim, they are all opposite to what I believe. And they all come after what I believe. They are too late.

You see, in musing on my co-worker's reaction I suspected that some deep roots were involved. From the perspective of all my ancient, ancestral Judaism curling around in my blood, Catholicism is one of those newfangled cults, like Mormonism or Professional Football. And what my co-worker might think of as a shared core belief, with a naturally diverging evolution, is to me just people packing on bizarre new stuff. But, of course, I'm not religiously or theologically Jewish. My belief is far older than that. Indeed it's the oldest of all. And so Judaism to me is also a bunch of glommed on made up nonsense too, cultural detritus smeared on and obliterating my primordial truths. All religions are this to me, all theological belief, even the sensible, science-like Atheism. All of it is so terribly new, well after the fact, apocrypha, commentary, pointless extrapolation. This is because my religion is the religion of the rocks. It is of the first beliefs of the gasses in space, and it is made of the prayers of forming stars. My theology was assembled before time in the void of space and has come down to be whispered between 2,000 year old trees, between the earth, infinity, and the memory of our burning core. 

Here, close your eyes. Listen.

See, everyone knows my religion.