This is Fleur le Chaton, kitten extraordinaire. Her eyes look that way because she just finished reading the recent articles in Harper's Magazine, "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes From a Liberal Apocalypse," written by Bryant Urstadt about the Peak Oil movement, and "It's Not Easy Being Green: Are Weed-Killers Turning Frogs Into Hermaphrodites?" by William Souder. Forget about Israel and Hezbollah, global warming and the new ice age, Iraqi death squads, and whether or not early Anglo-Saxons were apartheid-style racists, because we all need to move, quickly, into "lifeboat" villages [self-sufficient "interim" communities established for the purposes of riding out the apocalypse that will happen after oil peaks, the economy crashes, suburbanites are cut off from their malls, industrial agriculture collapses, and wars break out over whatever resources are left, or so Fleur le Chaton tells me]. Whether or not medieval studies will have a role to play in the "lifeboats" is anyone's guess, but Fleur le Chaton is putting her money on positive psychology.
Monday, July 24, 2006
We Briefly Interrupt the Regularly Scheduled Mideast Conflict to Bring You Fleur le Chaton
This is Fleur le Chaton, kitten extraordinaire. Her eyes look that way because she just finished reading the recent articles in Harper's Magazine, "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes From a Liberal Apocalypse," written by Bryant Urstadt about the Peak Oil movement, and "It's Not Easy Being Green: Are Weed-Killers Turning Frogs Into Hermaphrodites?" by William Souder. Forget about Israel and Hezbollah, global warming and the new ice age, Iraqi death squads, and whether or not early Anglo-Saxons were apartheid-style racists, because we all need to move, quickly, into "lifeboat" villages [self-sufficient "interim" communities established for the purposes of riding out the apocalypse that will happen after oil peaks, the economy crashes, suburbanites are cut off from their malls, industrial agriculture collapses, and wars break out over whatever resources are left, or so Fleur le Chaton tells me]. Whether or not medieval studies will have a role to play in the "lifeboats" is anyone's guess, but Fleur le Chaton is putting her money on positive psychology.
May I suggest that such "lifeboat" villages float their way over to Bermuda? The sand is pink, the rich thin people who alight there to play golf wear pink, and the megamansions that dot the coasts are also pink.
ReplyDeleteAm I rubbing things in?
I am back, but not yet up to looking over my 100+ emails. Congrats, Eileen, on keeping things lively. I'm looking forward to savoring your posts when I have the leisure, and looking forward to more as I get ready to leave for NYC.
Did all of you get my postcard from the island? No? I'm always so late with those things, sending them from the US and pretending they originate in exotic elsewheres. I predict it will be delivered tomorrow. Right now Fleur le Chaton has hypnotized me to mail her some catnip.
Dear JJC--please send one gross of catnip--preferably the Thai variety--to me c/o Eileen Joy at the Nat'l. Atomic Resarch Lab. in Oak Ridge, TN. I'm running low. We don't have any pink sand here, but certain things *do* glow in the dark.
ReplyDeleteFleur le Chaton recently visited the vet for her first "real" check-up, and the vet, a male, called her "saucy," which led to an argument between myself and my friend Amy, Fleur le Chaton's ostensible "owner": would a straight man use the word "saucy"? I contend not, whereas Amy thinks the question is ridiculous. But seriously . . . straight men do *not* say "saucy," and if anyone has real problems with this check out the post, "Gay Essentialism," at The Valve:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/gay_essentialism/