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Excerpt G.A.S. Page 148
Reference: IG Farben
Image: Popaganda IG Farben, 1943

“Right,” Joan said. She shouted from the foot of the pyramid: “Who’s going to head this new department, Harry? The chairman off Shell?” Joan’s voice was not miked, but Gant heard her, and repeated her words in his response: “Ms. Joan Fine, who doesn’t trust me - good for her - has just asked a very important question. She wants to know who’s going to be in charge of this new department I’m proposing. I’ll state it cearly for the record, and if you find out later that I’ve lied i encourage you all to phone Washington and sic a congressional subcommittee on me: Gant Industries’ environmental and social policy will not be set Shell Petroleum, or by the friendly bur somewhat partisan folks at Union Carbide, DeBeers Mineral, or I.G. Farben GmbH&Co. “As I see it, there are only two people with sufficient credibility to serve as my new conscience.

Robert Redford, unfortunately, is no longer with us.

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 283
Reference: Alien
Image: Filmstill out of Alien, a science fiction / horror film directed by Ridley Scott, 1979

Frankie’s feet barely touched the floor between the TV room and the Toilet. He slammed the bathroom door shut behind him and shot the deadbolt. The door, installed by the villa’s previous owners and intended to slow down police, was made of inch-thick steel plate, with reinforced hinges.

“That’ll hold it,” Frankie said, patting the deadbolt.
“That’ll hold it.”
“That might not hold it”, Frankie thought.

Through the door he could hear the Nostromos computer, Mother, announcing that the option to override self-destruct would expire in T-minus one minute, which only added to his sense of urgency. He scanned the bathroom for potential weapons but found none, not even a rubber plunger. A special stand inside the medicine cabinet had once held an Uzi, but all firearms had been removed from the villa by the D.E.A.; the rusted safety razor that remained didn’t bear consideration.

“Twenty-nine,” said Mother…
“Twenty-eight… twenty-seven… twenty-six…”

The window, thought Frankie. If he’d been a kilo of cocaine or a baby alligator he could have flushed his way out of here, but he wasn’t, so that left the window. He stepped to it, thumbed the latch, and pushed up on the sash. The window, painted shut years before, didn’t budge. “Twenty seconds, “said Mother, and Frankie heard a tentative scratching on the outside of the bathroom door. Scratching, and something else. …music of some kind, a classical score that didn’t quite blend with the sirens and alarms of the movie soundtrack. Frankie didn’t waste time trying to place the tune; he yanked the shower curtain rod loose and used it to bash out the window glass.

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 282
Reference: Alien
Image: Sigourney Weaver. Filmstill out of Alien, a science fiction / horror film directed by Ridley Scott, 1979

“Hey Sal,” said Frankie, leaning against the door frame. “Sal, what time is it now?” No answer. On TV, Sigourney Weaver started to round a corner, spied a menacing shape, and shrank back against a bulkhead in terror… “Sal?” The strobe lighting effect coming from the television made it hard to focus, but by shading his eyes Frankie could make out the long gray loveseat at the other end of the room, and Salvatore’s armchair next to it. He thought he could see Salvatore’s right arm as well, still clutching a Heineken can, but what was funny was, Salvatore’s other arm - the one with the watch-seemed to be missing, along with Sal’s legs, torso, and head. “Hmm,” Frankie thought. And then he thought: Loveseat? “There’s no loveseat in here,” he said, aloud, whereupon the loveseat rolled over, popping up a dorsal fin. Frankie and Sigourney broke and ran at the same time. But while the monster in the movie crouched down to take a look at the dropped cat-carrier, Meisterbrau followed the real meal. Clawing it’s way across the carpet, the shark inadvertently tromped on the television remote control, pumping the volume up to maximum.

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 281
Reference: Alien
Image: Filmstill out of Alien, a science fiction / horror film directed by Ridley Scott, 1979

“Ash, can you hear me?… ASH!” In the mess hall aboard the doomed space tug Nostromo - Sigourney Weaver pounded her fist on a table. Ian Holm, playing the severed head of an android, opened his eyes and spat up white fluid.
“Yes, I can hear you.”
“What was your special order?”
“You read it. I thought it was clear.”
“What was it?”
“Bring back lifeform, priority one. All other priorities rescinded.”
Frankie Lonzo kicked the pile of empty beer cans at the foot of his chair.
“What time is it, Sal?” he asked.
Salvatore belched. Heineken. “Sun’s down,” he replied.
“What time is it, though? What hour?”
“How do we kill it, Ash?
Theres got to be a way of killing it.
How? How do we do it?”
Seven… thirty-two.”
Salvatore squinted at the Timex Philharmonic on his wrist.
“Seven thirty-two, Frankie,”
“So nine o’clock this morning plus eleven hours and ten minutes equals…
equals eight o’clock P.M. and ten minutes.” Frankie smiled.
“Almost done, then. Son of a bitch is floundering by now.”

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 83
Reference: Revlon Air Purifier
Image: A typical air purifier ad

Neighboring skyscraper construction and the loss of direct sunlight turned the greenhouse into a brownhouse in the mid-1940s, which it remained unttil Joan bought the building in 2018. She’d cleared out the refuse, put in spectrum lighting and some reclining chairs, and planted flowers. It was in this small Eden that she and Kite rook their frequent cigarette breaks. The dozen long-stemmed roses that Harry had sent were outtnumbered by hundreds of live tulips, daffodils, gladioli, forget-me-nots, lupins, etc.; likewise Kite’s and Joan’s smoke was overpowered by the many mingled scents. A Revlon air purifier detected the presence of contaminants began to work doubletime.

“Is horse theft still a capital crime?” Kite asked, curious. “Florida’s the only state that still executes for anything. But I doubt theft has been decriminalized, even in Nevada.” “I see,” Kite said, and once again changed the subject. “I applied for another job this morning.” “As a jockey?”

Associative Entry R2 Star Wars
Reference: R2 Star Wars
Image: R2 a fictional character in the Star Wars universe

Tagged: Don’t Worry

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 166
Reference: Gingerbread House
Image: Gingerbread House. Originally coming from Hänsel and Gretel a Grimm Brothers Fairy Tale

“Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked. “This is it,” replied Joan. “I’ve been watching the street signs.” “Hmm.” John Hoover’s house was… different. “Easy to spot,” remarked the Jitney driver, as he took Joan’s money. He didn’t ask if they wanted him to wait; no sooner had they alighted than the cab pulled away with a squeal of tires, choosing the quickest route our of the neighborhood. “Hansel and Gretel,” said Joan. “A gingerbread house,” Kite agreed. She stepped up to the front gate and grasped an upright of the white picket fence that surrounded Hoover’s property, expecting the coarse grain of whitewashed wood; both fence and gate were actually molded plastic. “Do you hear any birds singing, Joan? Any gulls?” “No. Not since we left the beach. You think he decorated this place himself? ” “It might explain why the neighbors left.”

John Hoover’s lawn was green, but of a shade arid texture nature. A multicolored gravel walk led from the gate to a house that did indeed look as if it were made of frosted gingerbread. Mocha weatherproof siding had been iced with lilac window trim and shutters, darker lavender door frame and stoop, and a pink sugar-glaze roof. The front door was a glossy chocolate rectangle, the bright chimney a cherry; and just inside the picket fence, a red-and-white candy cane post supported a vanilla cream mailbox, on which the name JOHN E. HOOVER was spelled out in a cursive script that might have been squeezed from a tube. The only thing was a set of gingerbread children for the lawn, but who knew, maybe already been eaten. “Well,” said Kite, pushing open the gate, “let’s ring the bell.” Joan followed her in; she bent to examine the grass and discovered that it was Astro-Turf, which made sense. “Hey Kite ” she began, then broke off, because a Hound had appeared around the corner of the house. The Hound was Mechanical, not Electric. A V-6 gasoline engine growled in its cast-iron chassis, and a plume of exhaust jetted from beneath the steel brush that served it for a tail. The Hound’s hazard-light eyes flashed amber as it padded towards them, but what riveted Joan’s attention was the chrome bear trap mounted where the teeth would go on a regular watchdog. “Hey Kite,” she repeated, and Kite, finger poised over the doorbell, said: “I see it.”

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 36
Reference: Dick Clark
Image: Richard Wagstaff aka Dick Clark is an American television personality and businessman. He is best known for hosting long-running television shows such as American Bandstand, five versions of the Pyramid game show, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Doo ho!” “Launch the helicopter wing. Norma, start transmitting. It’s showtime.” Aft of the sail, where the missile deck would have located on an ICBM sub, openings appeared in the Yabba-Dabba-Doo’s green and pink hull, and a swarm of model helicopters rose into the air. Each about equal in size and mass to a winged hunting dog, the choppers were computerremote-controlled and painted in a variety of cheery Day-Glo Colours. Most mounted high-definition television cameras for use in the upcoming broadcast, but one group of four shared a special cargo borne aloft on a network of quick-release cables: a gigantic meringue pie, ten feet in diameter. Once the remote helicopter was airborne, another, larger whirlybird was raised to the launch deck. Christened a Flying Zodiac by its Morris Kazenstein, this chopper was just big enough to carty one unfortunately displaced indigenous orphan. As Twenty-Nine Words lifted off, Marshall Ali appeared on the Yabba-Dabba-Doo’s observation bridge atop the sail, shouting guttural phrases of encouragement: “Bruce Lee! Chuck Norris! Sonny Bono!”

Meanwhile, Norma Eckland had raised a telescoping transmitter dish and interfaced the Yabba-Dabba-Doo with the North American Satellite Computer Net, bypassing a dozen security barriers to the plug on the Turner Soap Opera Network. Con Edison’s main billing computer was told to institute an immediate power shut-off for lack of payment at Broadcasting’s New York studios; automatic switching facilities at television companies across the continent were instructed to accept an alternate transmission; and just to be obnoxious, every pizza parlor on island of Manhattan received a faxed order for a double-anchovy pie to be delivered to Harry Ganr’s office at the Phoenix. Morning devotees of Dog Eat Dog - having tuned to learn Donna would seduce Chad to keep him from telling what he knew about Tama, or simply toss him into one of the batch tanks at her aunt’s nerve gas factory - saw a burst of static, then a computer-graphic rendering of the Dufresne pirate logo, a hybrid cross between an ecology symbol and an Amish hex sign. A synthetic brass band played the theme from Global Village Bandstand while the ageless voice of Dick Clark gave the intro: “And now, live from Planet Earth, it’s time for another daring daylight raid by that champion of unspolied nture, your pirate and mine, PHILO DUFRESNE. . .” Canned cheers, the roar of the crowd at the 2017 Super Bowl when Brenda Bamford scored the winning touchdown for the New York Jets.

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 29
Reference: Beavers & Hamsters
Image: Hamster in a fancy cage with colored tubes

As he wrote that morning (using a ballpoint pen, his low-tech-response to the trauma of word processing), he could hear the skitter of’ tiny rodent feet above and around him. The decks of the submarine were riddled with a network of shatterproof plastic tunnels, warren to several hundred or so blue hamsters,an exotic breed that would have sold for ninety-five dollars or more apiece in the New York Pets-R-Us. Philo’ didn’t keep them for their resale value; he just liked the way they looked, liked especially the life and energy they radiated as they scampered from one end of the sub to the other. With ten bobcat cubs also in residence, the Yabba-Dabba-Doo was a truly kinetic vessel. Hunched over his writlng desk, Philo with his size and his shock of beard might have passed as a middle-aged Santa checking his famous List, but only in a revisionist version of that myth. Whether he was truly the darkest-skinned survivor of the ‘04 Pandemic was a matter for debate, but he was without question the darkest-skinned child ever raised by the Amish. A Pennsylvania Dutch farmer named Gunther Lapp found the squalling infant - a changeling the color of good earth, with green eyes like a landscape after rain -abandoned in a wheat field.

Gunther, a man of great heart with an unqualified love of children, especially orphans, grew instantly attached to the strange baby, though the local bishop was somewhat taken aback by his petition for adoption. “Philo” was the name pinned to the blanket in which Philo had come wrapped; “Dufresne” was the last name of the only other black person Gunther had ever met, a government census taker who’d passed through the the village in 1970. Young Philo and the Amish community were an imperfect match at best. After Gunther Lapp’s death in 1994, Philo, who was eighteen that year, visited Philadelphia and was physically and technologically seduced by a computer science major at the University of Pennsylvania. Many back at home were quietly relieved to learn he would not be returning. After all, who but the devil would leave an African-American baby in a Mennonite wheat field? He’d drifted into environmental activism in the early Oughts, drawn by a genuine concern for the planet but also-he tried always to be honest about this point-by an antisocial streak that badly needed an outlet. Gunther Lapp had raised Philo to be a pacifist.

Excerpt G.A.S. Page 39
Reference: Arctic Hare
Image: Arctic Hares (Lepus arcticus). Largely adapted to polar and mountainous habitats

He had stopped to wave at the cameras when a hatch slammed open and hyperactive ship’s steward, raced on deck wielding a flare gun. “All right,” Beardsley screamed, drawing a shaky bead, “freeze it right there, you tree-hugger!” “Relax,” Twenty-Nine Words said, plucking something from beneath his bear skin.With a snap of the wrist he flicked what looked likea snowball at Beardsley; even m super slow-motion It was hard to follow the snowball’s mid-air metamorphosis, but when Beardsley looked down at him he saw that an Artic Bunny had landed on his chest. A stuffed Arctic Bunny, with sharp toenails that had been dipped in liquid euphoria. “Aw, hey.” A sensual warmth spread across Beardsley’s chest, up into his arms and down his legs into his toes. Abruptly in love with the whole, world, penguins especially, he tossed his flare gun overboard and crouched down in the whipped cream, smoothing great armfuls of it into his hair. “‘Aw, wow.” He looked up at Twenty-Nine Words and smiled. “You know, kid, you’re beautiful, that’s what you are.”