Today, please adjust the settings in your mind, as follows:
4:00 PM: Yearly Self-Diagnostic. Run defrag program. Check for viruses. Finish organizing and prioritizing memories of 2003 events.
5:17 PM: Finish Kith and Kin Telephonic Check-In program.
7:22 PM: Register 2004 New Year Resolutions with CPU.
8:42 PM: Determine whether Body Unit intends to drink. If blood-alcohol levels = unmanagable, then capitulate keys to Sober Mind Obligated to Protect Other Body Units.
9:06 PM: Kiss Long-Term Companion Unit, listen to L-TCU’s last thoughts and resolutions.
10:34 PM: If 2003 New Year Resolution = Program Not Executed in 2003, Then 2003 New Year Resolution = 2004 New Year Resolution. Don’t worry. Other Body Units and CPUS will probably forget, particularly OBU (Quite Inebriated) types.
11:22 PM: Exchange 2004 New Year Resolutions with OBUs and L-TCU.
11:46 PM: Obtain champagne.
11:50 PM: Last-minute Kith and Kin Telephonic Check-Ins.
11:54 PM: Find L-TCU or L-TCU (Potential).
11:56 PM: If L-TCU (Current) or L-TCU (Potential) Does Not = Hand (Champagne), then obtain champagne. L-TCU (Not Champagne) = L-TCU (Champagne).
12:00 AM: If one second before Turn of the Year Announcer = Mouth (“One”), then when Turn of the Year Announcer = Mouth (Null) or Turn of the Year Announcer = Mouth (“Happy New Year”), Your Mouth (“Happy New Year”). Kiss with L-TCU optional, though with obvious advantages for both CPUs.
General Program Notes: If L-TCU = Unavailable, don’t worry. This is the result of Propaganda (New Year’s) running in several OPU’s CPUs. Propaganda (New Year’s) was a virus authored long ago by some bored fifteen year old punk. Disregard all conversational facets pertaining to this and be sure that CPU = Happy, if L-TCU = Unavailable. See General L-TCU Maxim for more information (i.e., CPU = Not Happy continues L-TCU=Unavailable condition, CPU=Happy, and CPU=Confident and Listening, improves likelihood of L-TCU=Available condition, though timing of new variable impossible to predict).
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (