Professor Schwan's Gastrofantasmapromenautomaton

In small-town USA, a new wind stirs. Signs have appeared all around this simple village; portents of an approaching phenomenon. Wheatpasted on barns and five-and-dimes are announcements of an inbound traveler, one Professor Schwan, and his "AMAZING!" "STUPENDOUS!" "MUST-BE-SEEN-TO-BE-BELIEVED (AND MAYBE NOT EVEN THEN)!!!" mystery: the Gastrofantasmapromenautomaton.

Rumors flow and excitement builds throughout the shire until one day, lumbering down the main thoroughfare, is the Professor himself. He manages to cut a handsome figure in his slightly disheveled, lace-trimmed three piece suit, bow tie, and velvet top hat. He kicks up dirt with a showy canter. Behind him is a massive mechanical beast: an ornate, mysterious trolley like the luxury rail cars of old. Pipes and vents of every description belch odors both pungent and delicious. Brass and woodwork is splayed in the organic swirls of pastry decorations.

As curious onlookers approach, the silver-haired Professor barks his call to one and all. To the residents of this fine hamlet he offers all of the wonders the eyes, nose, and stomach can behold: the Gastrofantasmapromenautomaton! In this horseless locomotive, he waxes, is more than just the kitchen of the future, more than just the finest victuals ever devoured, more than the speed of the space age and the power of the atomic age. At the core of the Gastrofantasmapromenautomaton is the greatest culinary motherbrain ever assembled of circuits and vacuum tubes ...

One by one the townspeople are led aboard the trolley. Inside they bear witness to the Professor's claims: it is a mechanized masterpiece of which Mr. Wonka would be proud. Machines of alien appearance chop and cook and mash and peel and boil and bake foodstuffs of every description. In automated symphony and before their very eyes, metal hands knead dough, roll a crust, assemble cherry filling, and bake a pie to Rockwellian golden-brown. A dozen other down-home staples are similarly and artfully prepared, all at the Professor's theatric pull of oversized levers. With each new meal the onlookers' eyes and stomachs grow. With every forkful, they are further convinced of the Professor's magic.

But one resident remains dubious. Ethel, the unofficial matriarch, has mastered her culinary craft through the toil of her eighty-some years. Her biscuits are known in three counties. Her sweet potato pie is blue ribbon. She naturally finds such automation preposterous, and wears her distaste in a suspicious squint.

The Professor politely accepts the praise of his happily stuffed guests and focuses his attention on his lone unsatisfied customer. To her, he admits that the machine's motherbrain, the Deep Blue of deep fry, is a parlor trick.

"You see, my dear", confides the Professor, "these recipes are the real magic. I have traveled to every corner of this fine land, and visited a great many towns such as yours. In each town, I've met a remarkable woman such as yourself -- proud, skilled, a master of her craft. And each woman, in realizing the twilight of her life, was eager to share with me her greatest accomplishment -- her secret family recipe."

"Now, I knew I hadn't the skill to recreate their delicacies myself, so I used the skills I do have to build the Gastrofantasmapromenautomaton to make them for me. So really, that was Mrs. Kelley's cherry pie you had. And Mrs. Lundgren's pot roast. And what about Mrs. Albert's corn casserole? Delicious, don't you think? And though Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Lundgren and Mrs. Albert are no longer with us, bless their souls, fine people in towns just like yours can still enjoy their master works, for ever and ever. All thanks to their generous hearts and my wondrous machine."

With a twist of his mustache, the Professor leans in to whisper.

"So, my dear Ethel, tell me about this sweet potato pie I've heard so much about?"

Yahweh Phones In the Plagues

• Laundry turns pink.


• IFC French Film Showcase.


• "That bitch" gives your buddy Mike "goddamn crabs".


• Yard particularly squirrelly.


• Bartender down at Minky's won't let you get up to take a piss until you've agreed that, yes, it's possible that a sheep could have ADD.


• Mosquito bite itches in spite of fingernail "X".


• Some asshole on rooftop patio drops cigarette into your mojito.


• Just one locust, except trapped between your bedroom window and screen for like, ever.


• Sunset.


• That sitcom pilot that you thought showed promise? Promptly canceled.

Decisions.

Drunk #1: "What'll it be? Sleep or White Castle Crave Case?"

Drunk #2: "Dude, I don't have anything to do for SEVEN DAYS."

just to clarify

"When I saw my beautiful new home I almost began to cry.

(Tears of joy, of course, not tears of sadness)"

in the making

It was Friday night, and he didn't have any real responsibilities, yet Steve found himself wishing Ben would stick to the schedule. It felt kind of unappreciative, somehow, to fuss over time that was free time; like winning a lifetime supply of cookies and demanding milk. This, of course, was silly: most of Steve's time was free and most of the time he drank beer.

Like Steve, Ben didn't have a job. Unlike Steve, Ben was the Gretzky of the bubble hockey world. After getting trounced in a best-of-eleven-dammit the week previous, Steve had demanded a rematch. Ben had graciously accepted.

"Eight o'clock next Friday, you silly little bitch!"

While there were no clocks at The Cherry Bar, it was surely later than eight o'clock. Steve had already commiserated with two cans of PBR: Ben was at least twenty six minutes late.

Steve felt guilty for caring what time it was, given his copious amounts of it. During the day, he suffocated under the weight of time. He found himself engaging in whatever mindless activity ushered time to pass most quickly, racing toward whichever non-event would next distract him. He relaced his Addidas. He reorganized his CDs. He felt disturbed by the march of minutes and seconds, which blasted him with constant and punctuated recurrence. He promised to himself to not think of units of time for at least the next six hours.

By now the band was setting up, and the guy in the ponytail made that a real and present threat. He wore a leather vest almost indistinguishable from the tan, shaved chest he borrowed from that overcompensating guy in the Bowflex commercial. He professionally ignored the two established women idolizing him from the foot of the stage. They loved it. He nearly cudgeled the skankier one with a monitor. She conceivably orgasmed. But for as much as this mating ritual amused any onlookers, one figured at this pace they'd be two verses into "Gimme Three Steps" by the end of beer four. Steve started taking smaller sips.

The bartender (and single T-shirt owner) offered one of those "need anything?" glances. It came off cold but well practiced. Steve made a gesture he'd seen on a celebrity blackjack show that he thought meant "no thanks" but, thirty seconds later, discovered meant "hit me". This did not have the time-accelerating effect that he for a moment anticipated.

Steve wondered if bubble hockey could be considered a hobby. Two pretty girls twirled away at the machine now. They had managed to seduce a third out of her quarters. They giggled a lot and spun their wingers into diminutive nausea. The trio had already been noisy and lovely when Steve arrived, probably driven to false haste by the feeling of freedom that comes at that Friday happy hour. Steve promised to himself to start referring to it as a "happy event".

The redhead giggled the most. To her, every sloppy slapshot was amusing. She at one point accidentally scored on her own goal, an event which elicited such a cascade of laughter so as to distract a sour regular from his Pride fight. The burly partron threw his fifty pound beard over his shoulder (an effort which would account for his neck), and a dirty look followed. A flick of beer froth splorted onto the hockey bubble. Steve considered wiping it off with his shirt, but quickly remembered the situation of his laundry.

It was a chivalrous thought, at least.