Weekend Roundup

So I'm assuming everyone survived the Potterdammerung and is safely and breathlessly ensconced in his or her Favorite Reading Spot with The Deathly Hallows.

I'm not.

Oh, nothing against the Harry Potter series--I've read the books, I've seen the movies, I like them well enough--but I'm not a particularly big fan. I'm not a big Trekkie, either, nor am I a Star Wars fanatic. Just. Not. My. Thing. Exactly.

Now, if there was a Cryptonomicon sub-cult (and it hadn't been a one-shot deal), man, I'd be going to conventions in my finest Enoch Root costume, building model Enigma machines, and fiddling around with Van Eck phreaking till my brain exploded!

But that ain't a-gonna happen, so I'm settling for being all a-twitter about the August release of Spook Country by William Gibson (see today's Washington Post review).

Nothing exciting to report. I went to a couple of Super-Secret Support Group meetings, I got the oil in my car changed, I hung out at 4th Street Cafe with cool and interesting people until way too late both Friday and Saturday nights, I talked briefly (very briefly--that's all we manage these days) with the Parental Units, I made quick trips to Target and Wal-Mart for various items to put in my Bug-out Bag/Survival Kit, slept too much, ate too much, enjoyed the moderately cooler weather, scratched the cat at regular intervals (no, that is NOT an euphemism for anything nasty), watched Thunder Road on Turner Classic Movies (a personal fave and a film just begging for a high-speed remake), and was pretty much a reclusive slug for the rest of the weekend.

Incidentally, today is the 73th anniversary of the death of John Dillinger. who, as the John Dillinger Died For You Society remind us, was not the criminal many think, but should instead be remembered as a "prominent economic reformer whose unorthodox banking methods enabled the U.S. Justice Department to overcome state's-rights opposition to Federal anti-crime laws. He gave his life that a little-known and poorly-regarded division of that Department might be transformed into today's awesome Federal Bureau of Investigation," thus enabling J. Edgar Hoover to purchase that frilly little number he'd had his eye on for some time.


Brief Explanation: Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

The John Dillinger Died For You Society, run by a pseudonymous "Dr. Horace Naismith" (allegedly a Playboy editor by day and a maniac only by night), accepts as its savior John Dillinger, the gunman who robbed 23 banks and three police stations before he was shot dead by FBI agents in 1934. JDDFYS members place memorial wreaths and floral bouquets at the Biograph Theater, where Dillinger was gunned down, every year on the anniversary of his death, June 22. Their major spiritual teaching comes from Mr. Dillinger, whom they call St. John the Martyr, and consists of the words, "Lie down on the floor and keep calm," (St. John said this often to nervous and agitated bank officials before looting their tills). Every member ordained by Dr. Naismith gets a membership card making him or her an Assistant Treasurer, entitled to collect tithes from any new disciple naive enough to remain a disciple and not become an Assistant Treasurer, too, by writing to Dr. Naismith for a card.

--Religion For the Hell of It