Extra Evil - Is Grunge Back Yet

Today’s Fortune: You might not be the nominee.

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Newsreel

Google argued that it’s only a monopoly in this timeline.

Kevin McCarthy formed a committee to search Biden’s old tweets.

Nature became a fifth column in Libya.

McConnell and Feinstein announced a live debate series.

Only one Adams appointee was arrested this week.

The Webb telescope found sci-fi’s setting for the next decade.

Today's Mood

War Journal

Do golden and dark ages overlap? Because the current manga highs are high, and the lows are subterranean. Maybe I’m just paying more attention—comics keep me literate when deadlines team up like Smough and Ornstein. Only Dark Souls was much, much nicer about it.

The new semester’s on! I don’t write much about teaching (nonfiction, anyway), because I like the gig. Riffing on a decent job is both unwise and boring. Workplace humor needs venom dripping from the page to thrive. If your draft has less rage than Office Space, start over.

The library, however, is open season. Specifically NotButler Library, via my second job at NotColumbia.

NotButler Library’s my favorite workspace, despite a commute that does psychic damage. And poison damage on weekends. Weekdays too, if the rats are feeling themselves. But I digress. NotButler lets me tap my grad school productivity. The period after distraction by Everclear, but before distraction by medical decline.

But who cares about work? Thanks to alumni dorkier than me, it has one of the city’s best comic collections. If things fall apart, it’s the first building I’ll rob. Followed by the vault under the dean’s office, but that’s another newsletter.

NotButler samples the full human experience. Some students float through the stacks, glowing with energy, amused to learn campus libraries even exist. Legacies, mostly. Others have eyes dull with death. Organic Chemistry has already won: they only walk like the living.

The local culture might need fine-tuning. I hope I’m not around when they revolt and start putting adjuncts through windows. But now that I’ve got another column, odds are I’ll be right there for the Defenestration of Manhattan. And morally obliged to support it.

Watching them robs me of entire genres of jokes. How can I riff on those lazy kids while watching them roll boulders uphill? Boulders I assigned? One week, I thought Catch-22 would lighten other courses’ slave labor. Then I physically held Catch-22. It’s around the size that blocks bullets in movies.

Oops.

NotButler’s cafe irks me, which might sound odd. But NotColumbia tuition is around five times human life’s market value. And they charge for coffee. Dirt coffee. It’s not a crime, in the same sense it’s legal to own flamethrowers or short-sell stocks. But it should get the same side-eye.

Warning: Inane.

My medical drama’s based on a hip defect, from birth. It’s what made learning to break a personal miracle, and last year…difficult. This year, a doctor found the solution. The simple, stupid, very stupid solution.

Join the Twerk Team.

I’m trapped in a glute version of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Hidden deadlifts passed on through generations of backup dancers, from Kim to Megan. My routine has a standard bro’s push, pull, and leg days. Long-term health may require ass day. While other grandpas enjoy drunk golf and park yoga, I’ll be stuck doing Shakira choreo.

And that’s fine. I’m just glad I can flip again.

The Present

People will forgive me for this eventually.

No, seriously, SVU had a Gamergate episode.

McGruff’s marijuana song is still stuck in my head.

In a crossover feature, Amran and I do battle.

Rember that time I Abridged Everything?

The Past

Alright, it’s been a month, read this story damn it.

The Future

Next week’s column seems sane-ish.

I’ve got two feature ideas, we’ll see if either floats.

I’ll do some kind of birthday post. Same month as

Michael Estrin

and

Amran Gowani

, so the astrology lunatics win.

One Sentence Reviews

Sifu: I’m addicted again. (5/5)

Survivor: I get it, but I don’t. (2/5)

Akibaranger: My tokusatsu powerlevel’s still too low to judge this. (Pending)

Devin Townsend - Epiclouder: Looks like I missed this back when I was going insane. (4/5)

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: One of my favorite entries since that farmer and the guy in the helmet argued. (4.5/5)

DreamPeace: I’m defiling the intent by using it to stay up instead of go to sleep, but it’s still good ambient music. (3.5/5)

Open Question

Signing off

Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter that fights in the street. Share it to spam fireballs.

-DD