It has been a busy day not far from Lake Oswego. Rising betimes and reading good news about Hurrican Flossie, I felt emboldened to I tackle the rest of our paper, which said, among other piffling things, that when a replica Viking ship sailed, or possibly was towed, into Dublin harbor yesterday the Danish culture minister Brian Mikkelsen chose the opportunity to issue an apology for the Viking invasion of Ireland. I can only conclude it's high time someone apologized for the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, the South Sea Bubble, the War of Jenkins' Ear, widespread low back pain, allergies, root beer. Committees need to be formed and the whole subject looked into. If someone comes to you now or next week and says, "Would you be on the Library Committee this year," you can in good conscience respond, "I'm afraid I'm already committed to Apologies."
Back to the SAAB dealer this morn. SAAB as you know trumpets its connection with planes, but apparently they should go one stage further and say that, like the space shuttle, their o rings also fail. (Would that be the title of one of Hemingway's lost stories? BTW I saw an excellent novel title while I put in time at Powells beside the SAAB dealer, "Happiness Sold Separately.") Yes, one of our beasts needs o rings and a c.v. joint boot. Since neither part is particularly expensive, I said, "Go ahead." Ha! One part lurks on the east coast, the other on the west. So I said, "Order them." Ha! The new rule is that you have to pay in advance for parts that you order. What financial genius thought that one up? First it was, "It's too expensive to keep parts on hand, let's have them all shipped, one at a time, from warehouses and pass the shipping costs on to the customer." Now it's, "Let's see if they'll pay for the parts in advance." Next it'll be, "Let's have them pay several thousand dollars extra at the time of purchase for parts that are bound to go wrong some time during the life of the car." The last car to go into this particular dealer I yanked back when they wanted three hundred dollars for a small hose and five hundred dollars for a pair of brakes. It's now booked into an independent shop that is much less geographically convenient, but cheaper.
Later in the day the SweDish car guy in L.A., the one who is selling us yet another car, faxed the registration of the Wolvo to my vife's office. He also agreed to meet my vife and my daughTer at the airport with the car...at ten at night so that said vife and daughter can hie themselves from Burbank to Occidental Bollege. We are now not an exclusively SAAB family, but we do have a fairly big stake in the Swedish economy. I'm expecting some sort of Order of the Golden Kronor in the mail pretty soon. I have paid in advance.
Menwhile, an off-list prod caused me to re-vist the idea of the armor-plated Mercedes. You remember that? The original (and still best) idea for how my daughter should get around L.A. Well it's still for sale, but all references to bullet-proofing have been removed from the description, which now only casually mentions, "Half inch thick glass." http://luxeauto.com/inventory_detail.cfm?InvId=441 Since our portfolio is rather car-heavy at present, I'm reluctant to purchase the vehicle myself, but I have come up with an idea, viz applying for a grant to do time-based art. What to call the proposal? "An experiential investigation of vehicular traces."
"We are entering an era wherein everyone's carbon footprint is becoming as issue. To raise consciousness about this, we propose to take a vehicle with an enormous and very heavy carbon footprint, also other kinds of footprint, and drive it on an irregular basis, chiefly when we are feeling in need of inspiration for other projects. Thus the footprint will also become a mental kick in the pants. We are working in the tradition of Nigel Wimpler's Large Carpet Role, Carburetor Repair Project and Hensteeth4U, but we are most closely associated with Stan Stellarbarger. [I invite you to see how much of this I'm making up http://www.pica.org/tba/] We believe we can achieve the goals of this significant groundbreaking initiative for about seven thousand dollars, plus insurance. Please forward the money ASAP."
Yours,the Fairly Warm Chauffeurs (who have appeared at the Beaverton Biennial and hope to do so again in the near future).
My painter friend suggested we include the line, "..... and its effect on the socio-economic structure of the Nez Pierce indians in their struggle to bring back the Salmon to their native habitat."
And "we stand by our product ,but are ever ready to move quickly as the need becomes apparent."
Seems like a plan absolutely in keeping with today's financial news and the world generally. Also Literature.
David Ritchie, dodging artfully inPortland, Oregon
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