This entry brought to you without hyphens and a distinct shortage of commas.

Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe is a book by Gene Wolfe in a continuing series of books by Gene Wolfe that I have been reading a lot of Gene Wolfe lately, haven’t I? I’m now reading a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe called The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories.

Free Live Free takes place in what was at the time of publication contemporary Chicago. Four down on their luck soldiers of fortune take up an advertisement on its offer, free living space. The soldiers of fortune include an extremely short and nearsighted unlicensed detective, a door to door joke salesman, a fat prostitute and Madame Serpentina. This book proceeds as a comedy of errors until the last ten pages or so when in typical Gene Wolfe fashion all the tumblers finally fall into place and a little door opens shedding bright light all over the place and making you squint your eyes a little bit because the light is so bright it hurts a little since you’ve been wandering around in the dark for so long that you forgot you were in the dark.

Ben Free’s house is condemned and the four tenants are enlisted to help defend it. They do a pretty good job for a couple of hours, but end up boot to backside and homeless. They sneak their way into a hotel and decide that the now disapparated Ben Free had dropped enough hints to indicate that he had some sort of treasure hidden in the house. The tenants bicker and bitch and eventually decide to go in together find the treasure and split it.

At this point the story intentionally frays into its component parts and you wonder what the hell happened to the plot. At one point all the threads come back together in an illusion of cohesion. Hilariously, all of the main characters and various supporting characters end up committed to Belmont Asylum when all they tried to do was go visit someone there. That part goes on for a while, but is so tongue in cheek and absurd that it doesn’t get old. Each person they run in to psychoanalyzes them and finds them irreparably insane even though they aren’t. Needless to say they end up taking over the asylum and then escape. Everything frays apart again and they each pursue their own particular heart’s desire. They get them, and find out that their heart’s are lacking.

I won’t spoil the ending.

Link of the day: For all my vegetarian friends and family: Vegetarian Beer List.

I spent two hours and fifteen minutes yesterday listening to Denny Larson talk about air pollution and how citizens can take action when the government won’t. I wasn’t expecting to spend two hours and fifteen minutes there, but the deferred payoff and Denny Larson’s love for hearing himself talk [and who wouldn't enjoy talking with 4 photographers and two reporters present] ensured that we were stuck there for two hours and fifteen minutes. My impression might be inaccurate though, because, after two hours and fifteen minutes, and no apparent end in sight, I left early.

The entire reason I showed up was to learn how to assemble home-made air pollution monitors, using five gallon buckets. Similar “bucket brigades” as they’re called exist elsewhere and have worked with some success. Although they aren’t very high-tech, they are rather expensive. Denny Larson mentioned, two hours into the meeting, after I asked him, that each bucket costs about $125 dollars to make, mostly because of the professional grade valves that are used. Ever since I started submitting pollution logs to OCA, they’ve been calling me about once a week asking me to help more. I agreed to do some bucket monitoring, but I can’t afford to drop $125 dollars for a bucket and pay the lab fees for the processing. Pollution logs will have to do.

I did hear, although no proof was offered, that the Ohio EPA and the Cuyahoga County Air people are getting paid for doing nothing, that they have no portable equipment, and that the monitoring stations are either far away from the pollution or not monitoring for the right things at the right time. I already knew that the Ohio EPA doesn’t work before 8 or after 5, so that polluting during off hours is basically given free rein. I also learned that one short-lived accident can pollute more than an entire year of normal production. And even though agencies in this area are being paid to monitor environmental impact, they aren’t doing their job and folks in Tremont and Slavic Village have to take matters into their own hands. If you’ve got an extra $125 laying around, that is.

The fact that it took two hours and some prompting to get to the actual meat of the process is what has me so grouchy this morning. Someone should have been monitoring the hot air being emitted from Denny Larson. He should have taken no more than an hour, including the assembly of the buckets.

Link of the day: Make a Paper Box in five minutes. Not two hours and fifteen minutes. If you’re crafty you can use interesting things printed on paper to make individualized boxes to hold the severed body parts of those dearest to you. Or not.

I submitted this to my old hometown’s newspaper, the economic development group, chamber of commerce [the online form is broken!] and library [provided email address does not exist], since I was able to accomplish virtually nothing online this weekend. I didn’t send it to the mayor’s office because they only supply a snail mail address and a phone number. No wonder everyone leaves town.

An Open Letter to Connersville, IN.

Dear old hometown,

I know that unsolicited advice is seldom appreciated, but while I was home for the Thanksgiving holiday I spent a good while trying to find a decent internet connection somewhere in town in order to do a bit of telecommuting. Failing that, I ultimately decided that unsolicited advice is better than no advice at all. I currently live in Cleveland, where I can check my email just about anywhere in less than two minutes. In Connersville it takes almost three-quarters of an hour. While Cleveland is several orders of magnitude larger than Connersville, it comes from a similar industrial and manufacturing background and is going through a similar process of redefinition. So I’m going to steal some plays that are currently working for Cleveland and scale them down to a small town level.

In my mind, the most effective bang for your buck will come through developing and enhancing the technology of the area. This can be done on an individual, business, municipal and even regional level. You’ve got broadband, now go wireless. The Fayette County Public Library would be the perfect place to set up a free WiFi network; and every town that wants to grow into the new tech economy should have at least one. In a perfect world an entire town would be wired, but a few places here and there is a good start. Free WiFi acts as a catalyst for networking and information sharing.

You’ve got a city website, but it is static and neglected and, frankly, about a decade behind the times. A Connersville wiki [funny name, I know] would allow the community to give detailed descriptions of the area in their own words, and multiple users could ensure that information about the area is updated quickly and efficiently. Check out the Wikipedia for an excellent application of this technology. Start your own weblogs about whatever you find interesting and talk to your children about this kind of online interaction, they probably already use free social networking and weblogging services like Blogger, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal and Upcoming.org.

A few more quick suggestions: The News-Examiner puts its content online—very good—now make it interactive: allow comments, free online classifieds like Craigslist, et cetera. Honestly, the News-Examiner website is already better than The Plain Dealer’s site in Cleveland. There should be a Connersville-specific bulletin board for events and activities and a computer club at the high school or formed locally that holds community training sessions and sets-up websites and wireless networks for local businesses.

What are the upshots of all this grassroots effort? There are far too many to list, but some of the most visible and important ones include increased communication among community members and a modern and tech-smart business image that will seem much more attractive to possible new economic development. IT companies or new media businesses that would be amenable to small town and exurban lifestyles aren’t going to look at Connersville unless the web presence is there. You’re situated to tap into markets in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and even Dayton. Distance isn’t really measured in miles so much as megabytes these days. That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll see you in cyberspace.

Yours Truly,
Adam Harvey
aharvey@organicmechanic.org

I posted this at Craigslist:

I was at the Tremont Laundromat, which incidentally, didn’t have raw sewage flooding out the front door today, and after I brought my clothes back to my apartment I found it. Yes, it. At first I thought I’d inherited a raggedy piece of pink dryer lint, but upon closer inspection I discovered that it was, in fact, your thong. Not just any thong, though. Your thong. This one is also, apparently, made of cheesecloth. The little bits of fabric that approximate covering are only distinguishable by being slightly wider than the actual thong, and a lesser shade of pink. Also, completely sheer.

Wearing see-through underwear [if one could be said to actually "wear" this item, and if a thong counts as "underwear"] is something of a conundrum. Roland Barthes’s essay Strip-tease may offer some insight into the paradoxical nature of covering that is, in fact, not covering; but I think it is rather obvious that this thong serves as little more than garnish for a carefully orchestrated rapprochement between various and sundry genitalia.

Stealing a page from Duchamp, I have taken to wearing your thong on my head, with the little triangle doohicky acting as a nose-guard. Thankfully this undergarment had been washed before I attempted this experiment. As a nose-warmer, the thong lacks a certain efficacy that I can only attribute to its screen-door like consistency.

Currently, your thong is pinned to my bulletin board, between a picture of my first dog and a political flyer from the Ward 13 Councilman.

In any case, Miss, if you would like me to facilitate the return of this sexually charged undergarment you may send me an email and I am sure that an agreement can be reached.

Where in Cleveland can I take my dead batteries for proper disposal?

25

There Are Doors is Gene Wolfe’s version of the ancient Indo-European legend of the Goddess/Queen of the Wood and the Horned King. Of all the various versions I’ve read of this story, Wolfe’s definitely has the most interesting and nuanced portrayal of the these figures. In this iteration the relationship between The Wood and The World is described in several different ways, as reflection, frequency, and perhaps most strongly as Sea and Land. Mr. Green [Horned King] is in search of Lara/Lora/Marcella/Tina [The Goddess] through both worlds. Once a person from The Wood has met a person from The World, doors take on a special significance and act as portals between the two areas. I’m used to reading about the Goddess as a cold-hearted and puissant woman who is mourning the loss of her lover, usually without explaining why is this way. Wolfe adds substance to her distant nature by making her the only immortal in either world, and by adding a twist that every man from The Wood who has sex dies immediately after, like drones in a bee colony. When the Queen seeks love she has to go to The World, but also has to leave her lover afterward. So her coldness is a way for her to protect herself from the pain, As she takes other lovers, each of the previous ones becomes a bit sardonically a cuckolded version of the Horned King. We find that she does indeed love all of her Kings, and ones that are persistent enough to pursue her and catch her are allowed to serve her. The service isn’t subservience, but an expression of love.

Gene Wolfe is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. His books move slowly and appear to jump around until suddenly the pieces fall into place and run smoothly and rapidly to a conclusion. His greatest strength seems to be his ability to lace a story with enough ambiguity that uncertainty never really leaves you until the last page, if then. Mr. Green is in and out of mental hospitals throughout the novel, so we’re not sure if the world through his eyes is true or not. The type of storytelling isn’t like Peace, but the doubt is ever present. I’m starting to round up anything I can find by him.

If anyone would like to come over and watch the Notre Dame game with me tomorrow [Saturday November 19], and/or go grab something to eat after the game, let me know. I’m looking to celebrate my 25th birthday [which is on Sunday] but I don’t have anyone to hang with. Aw, call the wahmbulance. Comment here or shoot me an email if you’re down with it.

Today I heard “walking around the house with nothing but the radio on” as a euphemism for nakedness. What are your favorite euphemisms?

A friend of mine asked me to look over a poetry manuscript last night and offer advice on the order and general strength and weakness of the poems. This person [who shall remain nameless, placeless and altogether anonymous until said person is famous for said person's poetry] is an excellent poet, and one to whom I have no little amount of respect. Thus, when I am asked to voice my opinions on this person’s poetry, it is a challenging and somewhat humbling endeavor. It is humbling because I feel honored that my self-tutored thoughts have some sort of mass with this person. In fact, most times when I am honored or feel honored, it is a humbling experience, because approbation is not something I ever feel worthy of.

In any case, the poetry was excellent, and I’m a bit jealously gleeful that I’ve had a chance to share in some secrets.

Link of the day: Jason Salavon

Somewhere,
along the distance between light and dark,
there are children playing pretend

at gravedigging. Tugged braids and
kicked shinbones startle laughter and
screams like cold glass rattling and
winter windchimes.

In those shadows
Why is not a question of reason
but a crisp casting of defiance.

There they are; liminal, insistent,
learning that fear is to be buried
until they have buried so much
fear they are neck deep in it.
Growing, then, becomes a need

to stay above fear, using it as fertilizer
stretch beyond it, strive
and all the while drive roots deeper
toward the riven rock until the trees

realize they have become moles and
now must pretend they are at play.
Now, digging blind, Now, shriven of all
but a thing called adultery.

v2.0

Somewhere,
along the distance between light and dark,
there are children playing pretend

at gravedigging. Tugged braids and
kicked shinbones startle laughter and
screams like cold glass rattling and
winter windchimes.

In those shadows
Why becomes a crisp casting of defiance;
a statement of instinct, not a
question of reason.

They are imaginary; liminal, insistent,
learning that fear is to be buried
until they have buried so much
fear they are neck deep in it.
Growing then, becomes a need

to stay above fear, to use it as fertilizer
stretch beyond it, strive
and all the while drive roots deeper
to bedrock until the trees

notice they have surrounded themselves
with dirt and must now pretend they are
playing as moles.

Now, digging blind. Now,
shriven of all
but a thing called adultery.

---

This turned out a hell of a lot darker than I anticipated. I was initially thinking about how children are truthspeakers until they learn enough nuances of language and get encultured enough to guard their tongues. A sort of Kids Say the Darnedest Things idea. That whole concept ended up as fear. The idea that adulthood is basically just a long drawn-out denial or con-game sticks around, thankfully. I think poets try to reclaim the honesty of childhood. Not childishness, but the seemingly inherent ability to call a horse a Pegasus and make it true, and to speak their mind without fear for repercussion. I’m trying to get to that point myself. Where I can write, drawing from the well of my experience, overcoming any worries that I have about friends or family changing their perceptions of me because of what appears.

As always this poem is a rough draft. But what I’m going to do now is keep every iteration of the poem in the post, so the last one will be the most recent version. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Peace by Gene Wolfe is a perverse fictional fictional memoir written from the point of view of a maybe senile maybe stroke victim named Alden Dennis Weer. Definitely an untrustworthy narrator. This book is really fucking disturbing. At no point are you sure where or when the actual narrator exists. Since it is a memoir, it is very possible that the entire book takes place during the aforementioned stroke as a sort of extended life-flashing-before-the-eyes montage. But there are hints that the memoir even continues after the death of the narrator. Basically the only things approximating substance that we ever get are hints. There are hints that Mr. Weer is a seriously evil man, a sociopathic mass-murderer, and more hints of rape and child molestation [Mr. Weer being the one molested, although he does pork a 16 year old who offers herself as a sort of bribe to him] as well. The upshot of the novel is that you really don’t ever know what the fuck is going on, apart from the fact that you know something is going on that Mr. Weer doesn’t want to talk about.

Apart from that the book is also filled with nostalgia and regret; taking place in the early 20th Centurty Midwest and going from kerosene to television. A regret for the loss of innocence that is likely mirrored in Weer’s own disturbing life. There are constant references to death, isolation, abnormality. It reads like a book an outsider artist might write, which is testament to the skill of Mr. Wolfe, since Weer who is writing the book is an outsider in his own hometown. It’s no wonder that this book is apparently one of Neil Gaiman’s favorites. I definitely recommend reading it. I’d appreciate having someone to talk to about it.

I was contacted the other day by a woman who wanted me to come by in the morning for a “no-strings attached sexual encounter.” I get many of these emails on a regular basis. So many women want to sleep with me that I have set up a system that looks for certain words in the content of the message and puts them into a hierarchy of folders. Most of them end up in the trash. Attachments are automatically stripped from the emails, scanned for viruses and placed in their own folder. Emails containing links end up in the trash, but all emails from redheads are flagged priority and sent to a special account that immediately sends a text message to my cell phone. With all the safeguards I have in place, it is rare for one of these emails to end up in my inbox.

That same day I briefly lost my keys. This was not a good thing. I looked in all the places I usually lose my keys, the pockets of coats, in my pants, under the couch, in the kitchen sink. I didn’t check the car because I can’t get in my apartment without my keys, and I was in my apartment. After I looked in the usual lost places I began to get paranoid. I tried thinking of all the places I would go if I were keys; the doors and locks I would open, vaults, diaries, empty buildings and closets. The keys weren’t there either, so I checked my coat and pants and couch and sink again. They weren’t there still. Where were they? In my car. There are only two things that can drive me to distraction, a woman requesting a “no-strings attached sexual encounter” and losing my keys. Is this really happening? The answer is always no.

I’ve been lucid dreaming poetry lately. This is unfortunate because when I try to wake up and hold on to the fully formed poem long enough to get it penned, it inevitably disappears. I had a really great one last night [at least, in my dream state it felt great, dream-consciousness is no judge of quality] and by the time I awoke I could only remember the word Guinness. The pen and paper is less than two feet from me, but the distance from sleep to waking is always just too long to remember.

I was always taught that voting was a sacred duty and that the ballots are necessarily secret. My parents would never tell me whom they voted for when I asked, and I got the impression that when I became enfranchised, I’d be expected to keep my trap shut too. The Welsh in me is going to prevent that; and since this election cycle has been a big joke for the most part, I can’t really blame the Plain Dealer for putting stories about teenage blogging and synchronized football baptisms on the front page, above the fold, the day before the election. You can’t do anything if there is no news. This election I’m much more excited about the issues on the ballot than the candidates. That said, here is how I’m planning on voting:

Mayor:
I’m voting for Frank Jackson, not because I’m particularly fond of anything he’s had to say at any time, ever, but because, as an incumbent Mayor, Jane Campbell has had an entire term in office to seal up her re-election, through a variety policy and leadership means. Her weakness as a candidate has already been aptly demonstrated by the lack of confidence most people I’ve met have had in her. I voted for Triozzi in the primary and probably would have gone with Lynch otherwise, I thought their ideas were a bit stronger and they seemed a lot less interested in bloviating and more interested in actual interaction. Jackson could very well be just as tiresome as the current mayor, but Cleveland needs change and until we get some leadership that incites it, I’m going to keep voting for change in the leadership.

Ward 13 Councilperson:
Well, I’m voting for Joe Cimperman. I’ve met Mr. Cimperman several times, almost been hit by his Saturn once [I wasn't paying attention] and most importantly, I have no idea who this Laurel person running against him is. The closest thing I’ve had to interaction with Laurel is picking up a dirty and wet piece of litter on the sidewalk in front of my apartment and seeing that it was a flyer from her. Plus, Joe has a condor.

Judge:
I’m not voting for anyone for judge. I understand the reasoning for voting for judges, but there is no way I can tell which judge is worthy of my vote because I never see them campaigning or hear anything about their campaigns. If you don’t give me anything to judge, you wanna-be judge, I’m not going to judge anything. I could vote for Lynn McLaughlin-Murray since she lives right down the street from me, but then, so does Rocco Whalen. NO VOTE FOR YOU, JUDGES.

Issues 1-7:
I’m voting yes to all of these, not because I’m one of those voters who is just going to go all yea or all nay, but because they all sound pretty reasonable based on my research. Also, my mom would strip the skin from the bottom of my feet if I voted against a developmental-disability levy.

Last month I replaced my old lightbulbs with energy efficient ones which put out the same amount of light that a standard 60 watt bulb puts out, but only uses 14 watts. I got my first electric bill since then and it is $4 cheaper, so the bulbs have already paid for their higher cost. I don’t use a lot of electricity since I’m in a 1BR apartment, but I heartily recommend getting your hands on some of these bad boys. More beer money!

A Case of Conscience by James Blish is, on the surface, a novel about a crisis of faith when a priest is confronted with a perfectly moral and ethical alien society that has no sense of faith, or doubt or even guile. But James Blish is one of the most intelligent science fiction authors I’ve ever read, so the novel is also much more than that. Blish was an atheist for most of his writing career, or as Greg Bear mentions in the introduction to the version I read, an “apparent agnostic”. Since he has written a Hugo-winning masterwork of religious science fiction, I’m leaning toward the agnosticism angle myself.

I’ve had little to no contact with the Society of Jesus, despite my lifetime immersed in Roman Catholicism. But from all I’ve heard and read, the Jesuits seem like my kind of Catholics, not afraid to wrestle with thorny problems of faith. Blish’s Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez is not exception in A Case of Conscience. The book opens with the padre working his way through a labyrinthine moral dilemma in Finnegan’s Wake, and we then find out he’s doing this in his spare time, since he is actually a xenobiologist on Lithia, an alien world 50 light years from Earth. So Fr. Ramon is a man who has no trouble reconciling science and faith, since he places faith as a higher order of magnitude in his world. The crisis of faith comes to him subtly. His role on this planet is to determine its viability for human colonization. The padre doesn’t do this through a purely scientific criterion. First and foremost he feels that it is necessary to determine the sentient alien species state of grace. They are called Snakes and their society has no deviants, no taboos, no restrictions of any kind, and runs like a precision instrument. As I mentioned before, their complete lack of philosophical and moral thoughts creeps Fr. Ramon out. When he finds out how the Lithians reproduce and raise their young, he falls close to the heresy of Manicheaism which is something along the lines of believing that Satan has creative power; or more broadly, in a dualistic universe. In my understanding, this is considered heresy because Satan is defined by absence and opposition, he refuses to be anything that God is, and therefore cannot be creative, he can only spin illusion, or somesuch. Needless to say, it is explained sufficiently in the book.

He comes back to Earth with a gift from the Lithians, one of their children. As Egtverchi grows up he becomes quite frightening, reminiscent of Ivan Karamazov, but even more nihilistic and dangerous. I think Blish intended this marooned being to be as close to Satan incarnate as he could get. The reader gets hit with a big old guilt-hammer here since we know that the only reason Egtvertchi thinks in the way he does, is because of the mistakes his caretakers made in raising him. I guess that makes his claims of ultimate free agency all the more frightening. Once a genetically predisposed rational materialist gets a bit of philosophy, look out! Not even the existentialists took their idea of freedom in such a selfish light.

I read this book in an evening, it is about 250 pages, and very interesting. Blish is a lot like C.S. Lewis, I think. A very intelligent man working his way through his own crisis of faith, his own case of conscience, for personal reasons. I get the sense that Blish was wrestling with these issues merely because they are always going to be there to be wrestled with and since he isn’t bound to either of the dual sides he picks, he can make each of them equally potent. He’d've made a good Jesuit.

A tangentially related link: a few thousand science fiction magazine covers.
If you’d like more science as your religion instead of religion as your science, I recommend James Blish’s Cities in Flight

Last night was an open mic poetry night at the Literary Café and over a dozen local poets showed up to do their thing. Many thanks should go to Steve Goldberg and Nick Traenkner for organizing it, and to Andy and Linda for hosting. R.A. Washington read, as did Steve Smith and Nick and Steve of course. Also reading were C. Allen Rearick, Everyman of Colorforms, Eric Alleman, Rebecca Calvetti, Kate Sopko, and Alexander Malina. If I missed anybody, I apologize. Hell, even I read a few. The crowd was pretty supportive of me and I know they liked at least two of the five poems I read. It was also very nice to see what other people are doing with words. A few people read longer poems, something I find it almost impossible to write, and one poet even had single sentence thoughts that sort of blended together into a long one. If there is another one, I’m pretty sure I’ll do it again. Being in close quarters with poets makes me want to write more.

I gave the folks there the opportunity to pick my last poem, since I split the other four between serious stuff and children’s poems. Here are the poems I read:

• Breaking Up is Hard To Do
• Dervish
• Haunted House [2nd version]
• Smober the Sock Goblin
• Cartography

And if you want to sift your way through all my poetry, including tons of shitty stuff. It’s all here. Also, you can watch me read Breaking Up is Hard to Do on the Lit’s site, here.

Just about every time I run into Steve Goldberg and Starbucks is mentioned, he starts talking about how they sell consistency instead of good coffee. There is a poem by Richard Brautigan that is particularly trenchant in this context:

Xerox Candy Bar

Ah,
you’re just a copy
of all the candy bars
I’ve ever eaten.

So I guess another variable can be thrown in with the quantity and quality argument that I had with myself a while ago. Quantity, Quality and now Consistency. I can see no problem with consistency if the quality is high, but consistency at the price of quality is a bit troubling. I’m pretty sure the root of this foolish consistency lies with the Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, or Samuel Colt and his revolvers, or perhaps even as late as Henry Ford’s assembly lines; and with the first manufactories . I’m not aiming at some sort of Luddite anti-Industrial Revolutionism here, although anymore I have to wonder if the price is worth it.

Instead I’m trying to say that we’ve become accustomed to consistency and comforted by it. We’d rather have the same burnt cup of coffee and the same department store layout each place we visit instead of taking the risk of being startled by changes in the quality of the product. I guess it is no surprise at the world-listlessness of many folks if you think of it in these terms. If you eat the same feed every day it is no surprise you start thinking like a cow.

Dear Friends and Family,

The time is fast approaching for my birthday and Christmas. If you are smart you are already ordering holiday gifts from Amazon. If you wait until after Thanksgiving, there is no guarantee you’ll get things in time. I have two wishlists. I keep my Tolkien obsession separate from the other stuff for organizational purposes. The links I’ve provided should organize my wishlists by priority. As always, you don’t have to order from here if you find it elsewhere.

My regular wishlist is here.
My Tolkien wishlist is here.
My MEC wishlist is here.

I would also like:

• Non-theme-based magnetic poetry.
• A full-size ironing board.
• A big bottle of Centrum.
• A six-month membership at a gym or a few appointments with a personal trainer.
• If you smoke, to stop smoking.

I will update this as my greed escalates with the impending holidays.

Alternatively, you could buy a poor folk something in my name from Oxfam.