Global Logistics for Carefree Consumption

It was produced in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, and on April 26 it began its journey towards its end-user, travelling 215 kilometres to CNE Express’s East China Sorting Facility in Pinghu. There, it underwent various sorting processes and re-scans until April 28, when it was trucked to Shanghai's Pudong Airport, a distance of 123 km. Overnight it was loaded on a plane. In the morning it began its 11,407 km air voyage to me, arriving at YYZ, via an intermediate airport, three days later. It travelled with methodical precision, like a moonshot, and today I can’t even remember what “it” was.

Inspired by Tussöy and a shipment routing summary received from CNE. Distances cited are derived from Google Maps. Image from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

Memory Tree

Eliza looks at our tree crowded with ornaments, many chipped and broken, and comments: “Some people curate their trees.”

     But how can I pitch the ornaments from my childhood? The ones Mom made with my kids? Nathan’s birds he drew on cardboard when he was four? The crumbling baked-dough fish? Every ornament my kids made at school and brought home to me so proudly? Or the hanging card inscribed by my mother-in-law: “Xmas 2001, love from Nanny & Grandpa”? She would die of a heart attack just after New Year’s.

     I tell Eliza: “It's not about art. It's about memories.”

Inspired by the season. Photo by Nancy.

Automatic Eggplant

He stands there naked with his new penis.

She takes it in her hands. It feels like newborn skin.

“Let me turn it on,” he says.

Blood flows beneath semi-translucent skin as it swells.

Pleasant vibrations and rhythmic pulses thrum along the shaft.

Body temperature, then cooler, then warmer.

It starts to glow, transitioning through the colour spectrum until it emits a glory light which gets so bright she has to put on her sunglasses.

“And it’s got integrated AI,” he says. “Shall we take it for a test drive?”

“Sure, why not?” she says and turns on her vagina.

Inspired by Bona fide. Illustration by Fred Ni.

Bona fide

The word boner came up over dinner with friends recently.
     It conjures up unique childhood, teenage and young adult memories. Grade 8 awkward slow dances to Stairway to Heaven. A variety of flasher encounters—men in cars with no pants, men streaking through parking lots and nude men in apartment windows. Countless TTC boners. Against arms, butts, close to the face while sitting on the old crowded streetcars.
    Maybe I’m depraved, repressed or suppressed, psychologically maladjusted, to find this hilariously entertaining. Or maybe it’s just the comfort laughter that women share of city life in the ’70s and ’80s.

Inspired by Keep it in Your Pants, Sailor. Photo of the Beury Building in North Philadelphia, PA by Dunning∿Kruger FX.

Tussöy

Mary just wanted it out of the house, but I thought it might fetch $80.00 online, except I’d first need to sew the seam that had popped, but after a year of putting that off, I was ready to give it away, because at least then I could make them come and get it as-is, except the first person was housebound, and the second had no car, so I offered to squeeze it down to a more luggable size, but then his kids got sick, and I ended up delivering it anyway.
     Just to get it out of the house.

Inspired by Keep it in Your Pants, Sailor. Photo by the author.

Keep it in your pants, sailor

I found a FedEx bag stolen by a porch pirate, ripped open then dumped under the viaduct by No Frills. UNIQLO. Leggings and a sweater.  As it wasn't an oversize cashmere sweater in a nice green, I'd locate the house and deliver it back. Enroute, I noticed a smell, not that plastic off-gassing, but an unearthly fermentation of dirty gotch and Stinking Bishop. Where on his person had Jack Rackham stashed this bag? Had this package met his and canoodled into a brief but unholy alliance, an olfactory abomination that sat somewhere between a rotting whale and post-November 5th democracy?

Inspired by Reality 24/7 and UNIQLO’s corporate policy regarding porch pirates. iPhone template by Ivan Effendi.

Reality 24/7

Unrestrained by the wise, abetted by toads 

The Day-One dictator will soon have the codes

He’ll knock allies, break treaties, he’ll trash global order

Impose big new tariffs and stiffen the border

At home, with his helpers (all in on the grift)

He’ll cut rich folks’ taxes and kill the green shift

He’ll cancel, dismantle, untether and wreck

Sometimes to score-settle, sometimes just for heck

He’ll name-call, dog-whistle, he’ll insult and brag

So the base will hold firm and believe him on MAG

And we’ll watch it non-stop, ’cause we be what we be:

Credulous suckers hooked on reality TV

Inspired by Tunnel Vision. Image by Ron Thompson, based on a photo by Oleksandr Delyk and the ubiquitous dumpster-fire meme, photographer unknown.