Friday, April 28, 2006

A better mus musculus trap


Filmmaker Pearl (Divan) Gluck's strategy: "This particular rabbi is known to have certain powers that keep mice away."

The wild breeding and release program conducted at my home over the last few of months has proven extremely successful. Despite my efforts to make the problem go away (i.e., ignore it), the situation is now exceeding even my highly-developed talents for optimism and denial (talents that always work best in tandem). In my spare time, I have found it necessary to do some research on the matter, with the hope that one day I will no longer associate the delicious scent of a cake baking on a sunday afternoon with the pungent aroma of broiled mouse feces. Frankly, it just confuses me.

According to the BBC, house mice originated in Asia but, like humans, have since spread throughout the world. Also like humans, they are considered to be one of the most widespread of terrestrial mammals. Their ranking in the extra-terrestrial/paranormal arena is as of yet undetermined, but stories of ghost- and were-mice have been circulated within the invalid, bookish, A/V, and shut-in communities for decades.

Although claimed by some to be nocturnal, mice will often venture out from under closet doors, appliances, and cupboards during daylight hours with astonishing bravado. While their diet is carb-heavy and generally limited to pasta, whole grains, breakfast cereals, and insects, they will gorge themselves on fattening nut butters and high-end pet foods, which are made readily available via live "traps." Some mice have even been reported to favor Atkins Advantage™ Bars, although I cannot corroborate this.

Mice are typically aggressive to each other. Noisy fighting between rival factions and individuals - e.g., rumbles, spats, tussles, and bitchy repartee - is common. These encounters are disturbing to human subjects but seem to occur at a quasi-supersonic level, undetectable only by test cats. Like human females, female mice have an aggression inhibiting hormone in their urine to prevent attack from other mice. This appears to explain why both species pee at an alarming frequency.

Similar to the Viet Cong and lonely American children, they have been known to build elaborate forts and tunnel systems, comprised of one chamber or a complex network with several exits and chambers. Some chambers have been found to contain bedding material, stolen pornographic literature, and snacks high in hydrogenated fats.

Recent studies have shown that common cannaboid substances obtained by researchers only for scientific use have a calming and slowing effect on mice, and also engender unorthodox food cravings (such as disco fries and Whoppers™). Drugged mice had depressed motor controls and cognitive function, and ancedotal evidence suggests that they had a greater tendency to explore tight, unfamiliar spaces and thus feel "trapped" once inside them, unable or unwilling to find their way out. When cannaboids were withdrawn from test subjects, the mice became extremely irritable and far peskier than the control group, manifesting what for scientists was the unholy amalgam of very cute and incredibly annoying - a status previously thought to be the sole province of tweens. These findings support the longstanding theory that cannabis sativa is both a gateway drug and a fucking brilliant way to catch mice.


As of now, Bloygevalt team member Alice has demonstrated no interest in traditional catly duties, preferring inert chicken niblets to a live catch.

For more information, see:
  • Behavioral effects of hashish in mice:
    social dominance, food dominance, and sexual behavior within a group of males

  • Cannabis interferes with nest-building behavior in mice


    Clearly mesmerized, a test subject views Fritz the Cat for the eighth consecutive time
  • Wednesday, April 19, 2006

    “Random thoughts”: An exercise in unconscious association


    Waiting room, Sigmund Freud’s House, Vienna

    Do dead people require an explanation? They’re a fact of life, especially these days. When was the last time you looked at graphic but tasteful photos of people who died in violent or unknown circumstances? I, for one, usually make an effort to avoid images of this sort, due to their general unpleasantness and tendency to engender other unsavory and morbid curiosities. It seems that my mind has a mind of its own, however, and I thus I make no apologies for its idiosyncrasies or involuntary hostilities. What’s the point?

    It’s Passover (still); called such because in the olden days God, in His/Her/Its infinite wisdom, sent to Egypt the Angel of Death, who allegedly passed over the houses of Hebrew slaves while slaughtering all the firstborn gentile males (cattle, men). Incidentally, this carnage was the culmination of nine other catastrophes that included but were not limited to massive outbreaks of boils and lice, and rivers of blood.

    In modern times, we Hebes, wanna-be-Hebes, Hebes-in-training, and curious onlookers are expected to keep these grisly and depressing images in mind while ritually consuming the required mouth-curdling "wine" and tasteless flatbread* of our ancestors in a yearly celebration of springtime, liberty, and the achievements of our glorious leaders. This practice simply confirms that, in the venerable words of my other God, “The goal of all life is death.” Or, in layman’s terms, Thanatos is the flip side of Eros.

    In other relevant news, Gilbert Gottfried has just been named World’s Unsexiest Man.

    Note that: 1) Gilbert Gottfried is Jewish; and 2) Gilbert Gottfried means, respectively, “bright promise” and “god peace,” in English and German. How do these facts relate to springtime ritual sacrifice, forgotten 19th century American poetry, or the Enlightenment philosophy of John Locke? More to the point, besides the Jewish thing and this post, what do Gilbert Gottfried and Sigmund Freud have in common? You make the call - I just write these things.


    *followed, of course, by a delicious brisket

    Tuesday, April 18, 2006

    The Dead: a friendly reminder

    Enjoy the beautiful spring days ahead: most people in the world don't get to anymore.



    Tsunami dead


    Pogrom dead


    Pearl Harbor dead


    Iraqi dead


    Mexican mummy museum exhibit


    American mummy museum exhibit


    Body Farm


    Rwanda


    Buchenwald


    Paris Catacombs


    Bog person, UK

    Thursday, April 06, 2006

    Spring: Putting the Spin Back in Spinster

    It's spring and even as the last of winter's snowflakes fall, I'm eagerly anticipating the annual blossoming of the cherry tree in front of my house. This is just one of the little things you live for when you're getting close to 37 and everyone you know is getting married, getting married again, having babies, or having more babies. Cherry blossoms, and going to bed early. And even if I can't sleep, my apartment always feels like the still, small center in a cyclone of frenetic vernal activity, which is, in fact, the massive amount of springtime humping taking place around me at all hours of the day and night. And so I get to thinking...

    Is it possible to enumerate what I love most about being on my own, without sounding like I've just choked off a bunch of sour grapes? Highly unlikely, but I believe that time is what's really at stake here. And who couldn't use more of it? Every single day I thank God for blessing my life with abundant time to:

    1. Develop more interest in having motivation to be better at my job
    2. Enjoy my priceless collection of retired Lladro figurines
    3. Consider the perennial (or is that perineal?) question, "what if I'm really gay and I don't know it?"

    I suppose there are additional ways I could make the most of my time alone on this earth, but nothing more occurs to me at the moment. Therefore, your comments and suggestions are welcome.



    Some pleasures are best savored alone.