Extra Evil - A Routine Break in Routine
Extra Evil - A Routine Break in Routine
Today’s Fortune: Everything depends on the next six seconds.
Newsreel
Iceland exploded.
Congress froze.
CPAC might not be in Colorado next year.
The Foreign Affairs Committee boycotted a few amendments.
Unanimity divided EU leaders.
NASA beamed a cat video from space, daring dog owners to retaliate.
Today's Mood
War Journal
With Erasure hitting screens as American Fiction, Percival Everett’s god-tier riff on a pigeonholed author breaking out is now his most visible work. The best version of art imitating life. That happens more than you’d think: I write about Earth spiraling into madness, and you’ve seen the newsreel. We’d be way better off if I had less output.
He Sees You is doing well, but my body’s not a fan.
Hopefully I never have another prank idea after September. The results are nice. Planning is fun. The process is a frozen 4 AM trek around an island with more idle officers than public restrooms. Maybe skates and Jet Grind Radio cosplay would add some spice.
A quality soundtrack helps. My earbuds just died, so I’ll work on beatboxing.
If you’re into a holiday, I hope it’s phenomenal. I can’t knock the hustle. Be nicer, and juice the economy, but seriously be nicer is brilliant. And the time off from teaching may be all that’s keeping me alive. That and attention. Thanks for the attention.
I’m having a full-tilt power metal relapse. Putting restraint into a catapult and launching it over the horizon speaks to me. It’s not too far off from my kitchen sink approach to punchlines.
If I’m less acidic over the next few letters, it’s songs about dragons on loop in my brain. Probably the better half of my personality.
The Present
I gave New York greeting cards.
My recap may be funnier than Big Bad Beetleborgs’ entire run.
Wiz Khalifa is the Jannetty of weed.
Everything Abridged should already be in your hand.
The Past
I still enjoy this riff on Christmas fever.
The Future
The next New Yorker bit should hit early January.
Right. Third book. I should do that.
Not Brought to You By
Is all attention good? No. When a question leads, the answer’s always no. Putting attention first makes you Vince Russo. Don’t be Vince Russo.
My parodies have an edge, but I try to respect sanity’s borders. PETA speeds through them, with both birds in the air and off the wheel. Provocation isn’t a side effect, or even the point. It’s their North Star.
Leading to this crash:
Charmers, over at PETA.
Once again, with the author’s POV this still sucks. Say you absolutely believe (that’s American for “know”) that Go-Gurt causes autism. Would a cutesy non-pun on a dead fitness campaign be your messenger?
Or, let’s take the cynical (likely) stance that the writer doesn’t believe Land O’ Lakes invented autism. That PETA’s setting off firecrackers in a crowded theater. “All attention is good” only applies to undiscovered brands and concepts. For everyone else, ill will is just ill will. Anyone over 12 can define PETA, milk, and autism. And guess that you’re not asking for a good reason.
The eighth worst part? For ads, shapes in cereal are deader than Kissinger. But now I’m mocking the Unabomber’s handwriting.
Creativity: D
Persuasion: F
Sanity: F-
One Sentence Reviews
Tanith - Voyage: Scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. (4/5)
X-Men (‘92 Cartoon): Scratches an itch I was born with. (4.5/5)
Open Question
Signing off
Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter drowning in coal. Share to start a barbecue.
-DD
Today's Mood makes me happy. Today's Ad depletes my hope.
The X-Men cartoon from 1992 is superb. Last year I watched the entire series with my kids. Highly recommend the Spider-Man cartoon from that same era as well -- the art, writing, source material, etc. is cut from the same cloth.
Pretty stoked to see American Fiction. I got Erasure for Christmas sometime during the 2020s but obviously haven't read it yet. Need to remedy that, like much of my life.