Alexandra Kuznetsova

Vignettes #46

I have been meeting my pal Gerhard every week at the pub for more than 2 decades now. Over the years the one thing that went through any changes was the pub we would visit.

For the last 5-6 years we have been going to a pub whose owner is Helmut, a very nice guy. A year ago he decided to sell his pub to a brewery and in turn have himself employed as the manager, i.e. going from self-employed to employed. On the side he had been studying mathematics at the university, but after 1-2 years he dropped out of that.

We had thought that he was happy with the new arrangement and didn't think anything, when we noticed that he had been absent for the last few weeks and had other waiters replacing him.

But now we were informed that Helmut has quit his job altogether and the 2 replacement waiters, a girl and a young man, have taken over management of the pub.

Surprised, we asked what Helmut was doing now.

We were informed that he has started training to become a gravedigger...

Toma Barkova

Indeterminacy 94

Some years ago on May 30, Mary Fleming noticed a strange amanita
growing near her house in Upper Nyack. She picked the plant,
volva and all, and put it to dry in the sun on top of her station
wagon. A little later before driving into town she took the
mushroom off the car and put it up on an outside window sill,
also in the sun. When she did this, she may have been thinking,
consciously or unconsciously, of putting the mushroom out of the
reach of her cats. She had, at the time, nine of them. At any
rate, when she returned home after having run an errand in Nyack,
two Siamese cats, Poom Poom, a mother, and One Yen, her kitten,
were busy eating the amanita. Three other cats, not Siamese,
were standing nearby interested in what was going on. Only about
a third of the amanita remained uneaten. Six hours later, the
Siamese became ill. They vomited and had diarrhea. Instead of
walking, they staggered around. They suffered peristalsis.
Eventually they were quite unconscious. They couldn’t move at
all. When Mary Fleming took them to the doctor, they were “like
two fur boards.” They were given injections of atropine. They
recovered completely. Twelve days later there was a
thunderstorm. One Yen, the kitten, died in the driveway. Autopsy
showed that the cause of death was heart attack. The mother, Poom
Poom, still lives but has never had another litter. ¶ That’s one
story. Another version is quite different. It wasn’t a cat that
died in the driveway, but a dog. What happened was that five days
before the thunderstorm, Mary Fleming went to Trinidad where her
husband was collecting snakes. She stayed there for a month.
Back home in July she found that three of the cats that had
recovered from the mushroom poisoning were sick. This means —
since One Yen was already dead — that at least two of the
ordinary cats not only observed the Siamese eating the amanita
but themselves partook. 2 − 1 + 2 = 3. The three cats who were
sick in July were taken to the doctor who said they had
enteritis. He was able to cure them. The cause of One Yen’s death
is unknown. Perhaps it was the atropine. Since Mary Fleming was
in Trinidad there was no autopsy. One thing is certain: Poom Poom
is sterile.

- John Cage

Radha Mitchell

Miniatures #11

I'm always irritated when I hear someone saying that they are trying "to find myself" as in: "I ended the relationship, because I need more time to find myself". I imagine split personalities running down the street in search of their other halves.

The accurate reply should be: "Go look into the mirror."

Who's That Girl?

New stuff

Chloe Bello

ph: Cathleen Wolf

The Movies I Watched in September

At the Earth's Core (1976) 4
Atomic Train (1999) (TV) 4
Australia (2008) 6
Auto Focus (2002) 6
Bee Movie (2007) 6
Birthday Girl (2001) 5
Buffalo '66 (1998) 7
Circle of Iron (1978) 4
Code Name: Wolverine (1996) (TV) 4
Coma (1978) 6
Confidential Agent (1945) 6

Corps à corps (2003) 6
Day of the Woman (1978) 5
De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005) 5
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) 6
Eva, la Venere selvaggia (1968) 2
Hae anseon (2002) 5
I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) 7
Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996) 6
La ciociara (1960) 6
La domenica della buona gente (1953) 6
La fleur du mal (2003) 6
La fortuna di essere donna (1956) 5
Le petit lieutenant (2005) 6
Les étrangers (1969) 6
Maigret tend un piège (1958) 6
Man on Wire (2008) 6
Mindhunters (2004) 5
Nightmare (1956) 6
Salome (1953) 5
State of Grace (1990) 7
Suicide Kings (1997) 6
Tabloid (2001) 6
Taking Woodstock (2009) 6
The Alphabet Murders (1965) 6
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) 6
The Girl in Black Stockings (1957) 5
The Right Stuff (1983) 6
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 8

Tod aus der Tiefe (2009) (TV) 5
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) 4
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965) 5
Woo (1998) 4