The Alphabet (the alphabet) Of Nations!!
6/25/2008
i.
I'm at "Wrigley Field" *, watching a game, and between innings a man who has swaddled himself tightly in grey blankets is thrown from the uppermost part of the upper deck (~the roof over the upper deck ticketholders' heads) onto center field.
He survives the drop but is arrested immediately. His arrest is broadcast on the jumbotron; when the cops ask why he did it, he responds, "I wanted to do something good for my country." He is an illegal immigrant; it's not clear which country he means. Outside the ballpark, people are protesting that the war with China, which is about to begin, isn't starting fast enough.
Next door, the roof framework of the New York State Pavilion's Tent of Tomorrow has fallen off half of the columns. Some Eloi-like hipsters tell me nonchalantly that this is because global warming-caused changes to the atmospheric chemistry have accelerated the rusting. In contrast to this intelligent analysis of its decline, they also seem to think that the roof is a giant bicycle wheel left behind by a prehistoric giant.
As I watch, the "wheel" slides off the last few columns. To my horror, an enormous tripod rises from the ground and begins to blip like a 300-ton, unmistakably evil Sputnik.
"The bodysnatchers!" scream the hipsters as they run away. "It's summoning them! They're going to eat us!"
I shake the nearest leg of the tripod until it hits a resonance and falls over, but it's almost definitely too late.
*actually Comiskey/Cellular, and in the location of Shea
At this point, 4:40 AM, my cell phone goes off, waking me up. It's a text message from my computer, telling me I've received an e-mail from the University of Hawaii. I roll out of bed and check my e-mail: I've received an unbelievably generous scholarship. I am pretty sure this is real life and, after calling Nick with the good news, return to bed much happier.
ii.
I'm in a bunk bed in my bedroom, and Mom is telling me I need to redecorate my room (wallpaper or paint, it doesn't matter; I just need to get rid of the starfield I painted onto it in high school). She says she's tried to find Shoreland wallpaper (i.e. with a room-sized mural of the outside of the Shoreland) but they don't make it. I am surprised that she is surprised by this.
Anyway, it's not going to happen immediately, because I'm going on a road trip to Vancouver with Dad, Pat & Poppa.
When we arrive, it turns out Vancouver is actually Toronto. The CN Tower is like 100x bigger in person than it looks in photos, and Dad says if you took all the CAUTION signs inside telling you not to lean on the windows and bound them together, the resulting book would weigh almost exactly a metric ton.
M--- Sh--- texts to tell me D--- Ch---'s hockey team is playing a qualifying match for the Olympics in Vancouver today, so I convince my relatives that we should go watch it. First we stop in a sort of hole in the wall diner, where there's a Walsh person at like every table, but none of them return my waves and "hi"s.
The ice arena is packed. D---'s team wears Romania's colors and has a mascot that looks like the Aquabats villain Weedy the Broccoli bee* crossed with a robot. Despite the Olympics being involved and no fights having broken out, Dad is really bored after the first period, so we leave.
I go outside to try and take some photos for citynoise but my camera is shot to hell.
*he's also a character on Yo Gabba Gabba but they changed his name there and I forget what it is
i.
I'm at "Wrigley Field" *, watching a game, and between innings a man who has swaddled himself tightly in grey blankets is thrown from the uppermost part of the upper deck (~the roof over the upper deck ticketholders' heads) onto center field.
He survives the drop but is arrested immediately. His arrest is broadcast on the jumbotron; when the cops ask why he did it, he responds, "I wanted to do something good for my country." He is an illegal immigrant; it's not clear which country he means. Outside the ballpark, people are protesting that the war with China, which is about to begin, isn't starting fast enough.
Next door, the roof framework of the New York State Pavilion's Tent of Tomorrow has fallen off half of the columns. Some Eloi-like hipsters tell me nonchalantly that this is because global warming-caused changes to the atmospheric chemistry have accelerated the rusting. In contrast to this intelligent analysis of its decline, they also seem to think that the roof is a giant bicycle wheel left behind by a prehistoric giant.
As I watch, the "wheel" slides off the last few columns. To my horror, an enormous tripod rises from the ground and begins to blip like a 300-ton, unmistakably evil Sputnik.
"The bodysnatchers!" scream the hipsters as they run away. "It's summoning them! They're going to eat us!"
I shake the nearest leg of the tripod until it hits a resonance and falls over, but it's almost definitely too late.
*actually Comiskey/Cellular, and in the location of Shea
At this point, 4:40 AM, my cell phone goes off, waking me up. It's a text message from my computer, telling me I've received an e-mail from the University of Hawaii. I roll out of bed and check my e-mail: I've received an unbelievably generous scholarship. I am pretty sure this is real life and, after calling Nick with the good news, return to bed much happier.
ii.
I'm in a bunk bed in my bedroom, and Mom is telling me I need to redecorate my room (wallpaper or paint, it doesn't matter; I just need to get rid of the starfield I painted onto it in high school). She says she's tried to find Shoreland wallpaper (i.e. with a room-sized mural of the outside of the Shoreland) but they don't make it. I am surprised that she is surprised by this.
Anyway, it's not going to happen immediately, because I'm going on a road trip to Vancouver with Dad, Pat & Poppa.
When we arrive, it turns out Vancouver is actually Toronto. The CN Tower is like 100x bigger in person than it looks in photos, and Dad says if you took all the CAUTION signs inside telling you not to lean on the windows and bound them together, the resulting book would weigh almost exactly a metric ton.
M--- Sh--- texts to tell me D--- Ch---'s hockey team is playing a qualifying match for the Olympics in Vancouver today, so I convince my relatives that we should go watch it. First we stop in a sort of hole in the wall diner, where there's a Walsh person at like every table, but none of them return my waves and "hi"s.
The ice arena is packed. D---'s team wears Romania's colors and has a mascot that looks like the Aquabats villain Weedy the Broccoli bee* crossed with a robot. Despite the Olympics being involved and no fights having broken out, Dad is really bored after the first period, so we leave.
I go outside to try and take some photos for citynoise but my camera is shot to hell.
*he's also a character on Yo Gabba Gabba but they changed his name there and I forget what it is
Labels: aliens, baseball, Canada, Chicago, citynoise, disaster, hipsters, hockey, New York, Olympics, Shoreland, Walsh, war, World's Fair
posted by Kat at 12:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home