Saturday, May 20, 2006 What to expect when you're psychotic
Here I am again, internet. I've had a hard time thinking up much to type lately: or, I can think of plenty of stuff, because more is going on in my life than there has been in a long time. I've got a backlog of anecdotes, even.
Something strange is happening, though: many of these anecdotes are turning into face-to-face conversation exclusives.
Here's one I haven't told many people yet:
When I was in Richmond awhile back, visiting my parents, I was riding in the back seat of their car with Tracy, and he and I were talking about my derby team's logo, a creepy-ass bird skull with the silhouette of jagged wings behind it. Why a bird, we wondered, then we started talking about creepy bird imagery like the nightmare birds in the Sandman. I mentioned the Deathbird in Harlan Ellison' Deathbird Stories.
My mom pipes up from the front seat that Harlan Ellison had a lot to do with the way I was raised. "Have you read Again, Dangerous Visions?" I had not. "Well, there's a story in there about some scientists and they find a way to test babies for intelligence. They go all around the world and collect the smartest ones. (In some of the poorest countries they can just buy them!) Then they take them out away from everybody and raise them without beliefs or religion. And they turned out to be able to do great things!"
So that, she went on to say, was why they told us never to belive in Santa Claus.
To me and to others who know my mother, that story has multiple punchlines already, but here are a few more. You may choose the one you like best.
They have only previously been published in my head.
1)Great, a seventies science fiction story about a creepy-ass future utopia. That is a great resource to use for nurturing your children. Tell me, my genius parents, how did that shit end, with the super babies in their Skinner boxes or Spahn ranches or whatever? Conga line, right?
2)It could've been worse. Those impressionable little pups who controlled my childhood could've gotten hold of The Boys from Brazil. posted by Frenz | 5/20/2006 05:21:00 PM
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