DOUBLE
Yes, yes, we know we are not posting with our customary gusto. We realize that the frequency and the amplitude of our emissions have not been tuned to the satisfaction of your greedy yearnings. We know that you have an itch that only we can scratch, and we have not been scratching it. We know that you look to us to fill the secret hole in your soul, and we have not been here enough, lately, for you. We at Mango Pudding Blues know.
We see you, our ragged minions, walking the streets in cities and towns all over the world, an inexplicable hunger gnawing at you. Insistently twitching within you. In Mexico. In New York City. In South Africa. In Romania. In Singapore and the Seychelles. We see you passing like ghosts, hungry, through the crowds, seeking the sensations that you will never find to replace what we have not been giving you. We see a quiet army of you, blinking nodes that blanket the globe, waiting for our words.
Well, we’ve been busy. We have a life to lead outside of Mango Pudding Blues, you know. We leave our fortress of solitude, dress in civilian clothes and walk among the unsuspecting people of Ottawa. We put snappy suits, shiny shoes, bright neckties over our superhero tights and work shoulder to shoulder with our fellow citizens, sweat on our brow and worker’s hymns in our heart.
Nevertheless, we are, as always, devoted to you. And you are devoted to us. And you will now, each one of you, step up your devotion. You will now, in spite of our irregular posting, in spite of our lack of constancy, in spite of our general unreliableness and the unevenness of our service to you, you will now perform your duty for us. The time has come, children, to recruit. The time has come to propagate the virus that we have so lovingly injected you with.
Write it in your daytimer. Put a note beside your alarm clock. Tattoo it on your bicep. Etch it in your soul. Next week you must double the readership of Mango Pudding Blues. Double. That means every one of you, in Vancouver and in Germany and in London, England and in Saudi Arabia and everywhere else, must harvest at least one new reader. Do it electronically, by e-mailing a link. Do it personally, with a phone call or a visit. Do it by writing the url of our site on a thousand origami swans and release them to the winds like the seeds of time. Slip Mango Pudding Bookmarks into the finest novels in your local library. Rent airplanes and write Mango Pudding Blues in the skies. Sing Mango Pudding Blues from parkbench soapboxes. Streak across a tennis court with our address on your bum.
Double the readers by the end of next week.
We’ll be watching.
Thank you.
Monday, February 03, 2003
ADVENTURES
I long for adventure. I crave thrills and recoil from drudgery. I want to live, to leap, to lunge, exhilarated, eyes watering with fear and triumph in equal measure. To burn in life’s sharp and vivid embrace. And so I eat wasabi peas.
