I'm wondering: has there ever been an animal that could be rewarded with music for solving a puzzle?

I


t was just another day at 129 Observatory Avenue. Zachary drove his Racecar like a maniac and digested a bowl or seven of ramen belonging to Matthew Hart or myself. Several people fixed themselves Manhattans, but that wasn't enough, so three $2.99 six packs of Williamsville Beer were purchased at the JPA Fastmart. As usual the television blared nonstop as several of Monster Boy's twisted videotapes were viewed. The lovely Sarah Kleiner came to visit Deya but avoided contact with anyone else in our crazy and at times humiliating household.

Oh, and I gave extensive bicycle repair lessons to Matthew Hart. It's just another one of those skills I picked up at Oberlin when I should have been learning how to program in Scheme.

I can't help thinking that babies are just larval humans.

And the whole time Peggy rubbed her distended abdomen. I had to look away. While the various couples are fairly nauseating to observe, I find the whole business of reproduction especially appalling. Today on the Corner I saw a father with a very young baby and I almost lost interest in the pizza I was eating. I can't help thinking that babies are just larval humans.

A


t Plan 9 I bought a new CD, the 1997 Dinosaur Junior release entitled Hand it Over (and those links weren't easy to come by). On this album it seems as though J. Mascis has completely turned into Neil Young II. This isn't a bad thing. He's become the punk rock Neil Young from Rust Never Sleeps that I so admired in 1988 as I burrowed my way up through the classics. It's fair to add, however, that Mascis is pulling out all the stops in an effort to keep his credentials as experimental. One song, "I'm Insane," is completely overwhelmed by a ludicrous flute that loudly plays over the vocals and guitar. For some reason this works just fine. Music is an extremely flexible medium and sometimes you just have to break the rules and be crazy.

Do our bloated cerebrums have a defect that requires continual noise?

This leads to a flash of thinking that I had today about music. What is music? Why do we like it? And why so profoundly? Why is it so important that I'll forgo food and booze to budget money so that it may be acquired? What about the animals? Where is their need for music? What do they do without it? Do our bloated cerebrums have a defect that requires continual noise? And here's another question: what sort of world was it before the era of recorded music? It must have been a strangely tranquil and emotionally bleak period. Having skill as a musician would have served a much more important function in that era than it does today.

I


  tried to take a pre-work nap but my gut was acting up from that pizza I'd eaten. I also couldn't convince myself I'd actually cleansed myself of some disgusting dog shit I'd stepped in. You see, there's an unknown dog that's been making use of the front yard.

So I came downstairs and watched one of Monster Boy's videotapes, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with the others. I wasn't even going to mention that videotape, but the campy narrated moralizing at the end was funny enough to make the movie memorable. The violence helped a little, but the sex was kind of dumb.

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