ON THE RODENT

This morning, as Neqa’el bounded across our windowsill during the pre-dawn interlude when we allow our shades and panes to be lifted to the air prior to the glaring solar intrusion of the morn, we were delighted to hear her make a series of rumbling, predatory throat trills as she stared sharply at the potential prey bounding from branch to branch on the other side of the screen. It was a rodent – not the ubiquitous ratus urbanus, but a stranger creature altogether: the common squirrel. What made Neqa’el’s show of bravado all the more adorable was the fact that, millennia ago, the ancestors of these bushy-tailed scavengers could have brutally savaged any creature alive today.

The previous Ice Age is known to many mammalogists as the Age of Mammals, or, more formally, the Age of Massive Versions of the Mammals We Have Today. Everybody knows about mammoths, woolly rhinoceri, flying sloths, and whaleruses (eight times larger than today’s walruses), but one of the best-kept secrets of the bones of the past is the sciurus sacremerdus, or the “Holy Shit Squirrel,” as it is known to those in the field. A mature specimen, with tail, was longer than many of today’s most indulgent yachts (see photo), and all the other beasts quaked in fear of its gnashing Nosferatu-like front teeth. The main channels of science have hidden skeletons of this species from most of the world’s museums to avoid being sued for abject terror.

For you see, the sciurus sacremerdus was not an acornivore, like today’s smaller, sleeker models. It was alpha beast of its ecosystem (which was roughly the entire temperate world), the top of the food chain, the carnivorous king of beasts that would gnaw the head off any animal that it managed to scoop up into its pointy little clutches. These behemoths would often bury huge piles of dead animals for the winter, giving rise to the modern myth of “elephant graveyards.” The earth would shake as they bounded from gigantic prehistoric tree to gigantic prehistoric tree in search of live flesh.

Their uncontested dominance of the natural world was not to last, however. As mankind began developing the necessary intelligence to realize that these juggernauts couldn’t chase them if they hid inside tiny caves, the squirrel generations began rapidly to shrink in order to fit inside these caverns and terrorize those dwelling within. However, in one of those cosmic ironies that occur so often they might as well not be called be called ironies since everyone expects them by now, the formerly subservient feline populations began growing long teeth at this time, and these growing cat species soon wreaked havoc on the shrinking rodent species, until their sizes were reversed to their current states. Modern squirrels, mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, and bunnies all emerged from this weakened stock.

So consider all of those Mutt and Jerry cartoons with the cat chasing the mouse as evolutionary revenge for several thousand years’ worth of rodential domination. But be warned – evolution is cyclical, and the rodents might well rise again – in which case building the better mousetrap won’t only be a novel pastime, but the key to the survival of mankind.

PET FOOD NATION

Much has been written about the recent pet food recall, in which Chinese manufacturers added melamine (a lethal combination of cyanide, human fingernails, slag, and Wild Irish Rose) to dog and cat feed destined for American markets. We’re incredibly fortunate that our beloved kitty Neqa’el did not run afoul of this deadly chow, but the question remains: how did such a thing come to pass, and on such a wide scale?

It’s no secret that China has evolved into a kind of quasi-capitalistic Wild Wild East over the past few years. Under the secret leadership of Dr. Jonathan “Fu” Manchu, a half-British Ivy League graduate who is the occult force behind much of the nation’s perverse liberalization, China has embraced increasingly strange initiatives in its attempts to cut costs and inundate the world with its products.

Chinese culture has long celebrated quantity above all else. By maintaining the world’s oldest civilization, it has a greater number of years under its belt than anything the West can offer. Likewise, with the highest population in the world, there is no doubt that this nation puts great confidence in numbers. But far more sinister than either of these facts is Manchu’s covert plan to ensure that every piece of merchandise bought, sold, or consumed on the planet earth is a product of China.

It is not economic power that Manchu seeks in pursuing this insanely ambitious goal; rather, it is merely the pride of having the most impressive figures. If China can put more pet food on the market than any other nation in the world, it will be pleased; but only when China’s pet-food column has all the digits, and the rest of the world’s columns total zero, will Manchu be truly happy.

Of course, being a finite nation, China has only a finite number of resources, and so is forced to be creative. The age-old pet food mines of Szechuan can only yield so much kibble per year. The sad result of this inevitability is that Chinese pet food manufacturers are including more foreign additives, such as melamine, into the mix in order to pad the results. This is good news for Chinese accountants, but bad news for pets.

Luckily, signs are surfacing that Manchu is temporarily pulling back on his plans in a signal of appeasement towards dog and cat lovers the world over. In addition to slowing its pet food output, and hiring inspectors to insure that only the pure, uncut product of the mines will be distributed across international borders, two giant skyscrapers – one shaped like a cat, one like a dog – can be expected to appear in the Beijing skyline within a matter of weeks. It remains to be seen whether this is a sign of rapprochement, or merely another manipulative gesture designed to put us off the scent, as it were.

IN NO WAY INTENDED TO BE ALLEGORICAL

We have been hesitant to write at too great a length about one of the tinier denizens of our home, as we are deeply wary of falling into the practice of personal feline reportage known colloquially as “catblogging” – particularly on Fridays. However, our little Neqa’el has been so adorable recently that we simply couldn’t allow her behavior to pass without comment.

As many of you no doubt recall, Neqa’el has been veritably mummified as a result of injuries sustained during the ill-fated Sexy Robot Experiment of March 2007. Now that her bones are beginning to knit (extremely quickly, might we add!), she is walking around the apartment some, and we no longer have to bring her tiny bedpans filled with litter.

Yesterday evening, however, she topped even the sight of her little Michelin-Man body hobbling comically in chase of a loose-floating feather from one of our collection of African blow darts. Hers is a feisty spirit, as you can imagine, and even an injury that would have long since killed most normal cats doesn’t prevent her from following her charming little whims.

Well, due to a set of circumstances that I won’t go too deeply into, it transpired that a white dove broke loose in our apartment and started flying around the room. (Neqa’el normally wouldn’t stand for our keeping birds, but this was an isolated incident involving a particular project and it was made very clear to her that it would not be a regular occurrence.) Needless to say she tried to chase the thing, which in itself was nearly enough to hideously maim one with cuteness.

But the end of the story is its most precious part. The bird alit on the sofa at one point, and Neqa’el, on dainty paws and incredibly slow-moving, was able to sneak up near it without its notice. Her bandages were coming a bit unraveled from all the horseplay, such that after a brief tussle a stray end of the wrapping became tightly wrapped around the poor bird’s neck. The bird attempted to fly, but Neqa’el’s weight was such that it only lifted her about an inch off the ground, its wings working furiously, before its neck snapped, causing them both to fall to the ground. Oh, the look on Neqa’el’s face was most priceless!

We regret that we’re unable to provide photos of this adorable occurrence, as displaying Nequa’el’s distinguishing characteristics to the world will make our own identity that much more identifiable, and our cabal would skin us alive and then force us to eat our own skin while we bled there, skinless. This pains us, because we have the most adorable photos of Neqa’el as a kitten peering out from within a grinning human skull, and no one will be able to look at them.

STARDUST (natch) MEMORIES

We have returned to the Eastern Seaboard, several days older and wiser than when we left. The trip home was a disaster, and we were so depressed by all the acid snow we discovered upon our return that we couldn’t bring ourselves to address our legion of admirers yesterday. Of course, much of the morning was also spent with Neqa’el at the vet – the less said about the attempted robot mating the better. Suffice to say, Neqa’el will resemble one of her mummified forebears for the next month or year or so.

Of course, the lacerating question on the lips of the teeming dozens has surely been: what about the Stardust? Has the mystery of the diminishing nugget, as so exhaustively chronicled on this page last week, been solved to the satisfaction of posterity? The answer lies in rubble. Literally, the answer both is and is contained within rubble. Just look at this:


(Click on each photo to reveal its full beauty.) That is the approach to demolished hotel/casino across the no-doubt-soon-to-be-renamed “Stardust Boulevard.” Here is a closer view of the construction site:


(Note the misspelling of the word “Eschaton.”) Now peep through the break in the fence with us, won’t you?


Check out those twisted sheets of gold near the front of the pile. We would have taken a closer look, but the sign clearly said “No Loitering.” We went around the corner and viewed the wreckage through a fence-hole directly fronting the Strip.


That fallen white box-like structure is the Tomb of Sammy Davis, Jr. The bastards were in such a hurry to blow the place up that they didn’t even bother to disinter his one-eyed corpse.


Look at the famous Stardust sign. So empty! So artistically framed by the talented amateur photographer! Here is a closer shot. The very sky has darkened with sadness:


O, sweet Stardust of yore! Your post-deco de-luxe mysteries remain unpenetrated by the gentle hands of an Apocryphist! It will never be known whether the legendary Vegas Nugget remains deep within thy sub-sub-sub-basement! We would have taken a closer look, but it was daytime, and the fence was high, and we think we saw an angry dog inside. Sleep well, resort of cosmic sparkle! Sleep through an eternity of stylish, drunken peace! You revolve upon the $500K Chip of the Divine now. Sleep!

THERE IS NO PUN OR CLEVER REFERENCE TO AIR TRAVEL THAT HAS NOT BEEN USED A MILLION TIMES BEFORE

This afternoon we set foot on an airplane that is flying to Las Vegas. Unless this flight or the return one gets lost in the Arkansas Triangle, we will be back at our keyboard on Monday morning, sharing uploaded photos of ambiguous sights experienced around the perimeters of the Greater Cabal Convetion (GreCabCon for short).

As excited as we are, we cannot help but feel some misgivings about leaving town. In particular, we are not pleased about having to leave Neqa’el behind for so long, especially after her confidential-cryogenic-report-induced vomiting spell this past weekend. There are so many things around the apartment to sicken a cat when gnawed on, and we don’t trust her self-restraint in a situation during which we are not around to snap our fingers ineffectually at her when she strays too close to forbidden secrets.

It has been difficult to procure someone to feed Nequa’el and scoop out her litterbox during our absence. The landlady? Like, no way. It’s bad enough that she paces the hallway complaining about the smell of our incense and chemicals when we’re in the midst of a truly invigorating bout of research – one can only imagine what she would think of our Cabinet of Medical Curiosities or our Mayan stone altar (which was a bitch to get up the stairs, believe you me). We could have asked Gregoire, our agoraphobic cabal member who has opted to teleconference GreCabCon rather than expose himself to sunlight, but, well, he’s agoraphobic. And we briefly considered hiring an intern, but we have had poor luck in the past w/r/t interns and spontaneous combustion.

No, only one option remained: to hire a robot caretaker. The expense is regrettable, certainly, but Neqa’el is surely worth the pursestrain. In addition to which, we have been able to take advantage of the rental to conduct some robot experiments we’ve been meaning to get to for some time. Some time back we built a simplistic android capable of conducting the human business of lying around the house and watching television with uncanny verisimilitude. For the purposes of tending to Neqa’el we have procured the services of an attractive female robot, whose charms our layabout model cannot help but be receptive to. If our webcam manages not to break down like it does every damn time we try to use it, perhaps we will have some enlightening results to share with you next week…

Well, the time has come to finish packing. It’s never easy to pack for GreCabCon, because one never knows what to wear. The whole point of a secret society is not to be noticed, but then how do you recognize each other when you need to have a meeting? Anyway, wish us luck. We’ll try not to gamble too much – it’s never wise to tempt fate.

MORE OBLIGATORY PERSONAL POSTING

It’s always so difficult to muster the will to uncover compelling evidence of conspiracy, paranoia, and ignorance first thing on a Monday morning. The Saturday night cabal meeting is usually so exhausting, often stretching until the Sunday dawn forces us back into our darkened warrens – and with Daylight Savings Time so early this year no one remembered that we were losing an hour, which led to frayed tempers and accusations of bribing Congress into passing the Energy Policy Act of 2005 as a complex ploy because SOMEBODY knew that far in advance that they’d have a heavy brunch date on Sunday March 11, 2007. (In confidence, we can predict that certain cabal members will end up kicked out on their freshly brainwashed asses any day now.)

But that wasn’t the only adversity we faced this weekend. Our cat (who is NOT our familiar, thank you very much, and who for the purposes of this blog we will refer to as “Neqa’el”), swallowed something foreign and was puking up all over the house. We had to take her to the underground vet, who gave her some gingko root, monohydrodopamite, and medicinal marijuana before suggesting that we figure out what exactly what it was she ingested. Upon arriving at home, we discovered that she had been gnawing on the corners of some lab reports we had recently received from the National Cooling Chamber in Los Aburres, Nevada regarding the postmortem cryogenic preservation of the Skatebirds; we believe the cryogenic chemicals from the papers might have been the root cause of her ill. Bad Neqa’el!

Anyhow, rest assured: fresh revelations will appear on this hallowed page tomorrow. On Thursday evening, however, we are leaving town to attend a Greater Cabal Convention in Las Vegas, which will keep us occupied until Sunday. The taking of photographs and videographic images is not permitted at the event, but we will provide you with whatever meager scraps of reportage and hearsay we can safely convey without risk of having our souls stolen from us in dark, blood-drenched rituals performed by nefarious rivals.