Preparing and Pining for the Apocalypse

Looking for silver linings (figuratively speaking, though literally speaking silver and gold are good redoubts at the moment) and not finding any. The fascinating (and by fascinating I mean inducing the same kind of dread one gets when his doctor prefaces his diagnosis by enthusing on recent advances in treatment options) thing about the current economic crisis is its many aspects; I've spent the last hour trying to retrieve something I read yesterday about how Asian investors started migrating out of US securities a couple of months ahead of the present difficulties--but retracing my steps through the informational thicket I find it has grown unrecognizable and unmanageable, like some nightmare jungle growing by the second, vines coiling about my ankles and unwinding down from above. I had set out in search of the headwaters of our economic torrent, only to get lost and disoriented in the bush.

Seriously; gold, silver and maybe oil, which in my worst-case scenario stays around a hundred dollars a barrel due to demand abroad despite the US lapsing into recession/depression, leaving us with negative growth and rising commodity inflation. I fear this more than the "global depression" which is the consensus worst-case, the US coming apart while everybody else continues to grow, learning how to thrive without us. Of course I have no idea where all that prudently saved Asian money will go, either, once our financial system implodes.

Someone compared this all to an economic Vesuvius, bringing to mind an image of unsuspecting modern Americans captured forever in three dimensional snapshots, like those unfortunate Pompeians cast forever in ash as they cowered beneath the pyroclastic onslaught. As we remain mostly oblivious to our impending fate, many of us will be caught in various ignoble postures, sitting in traffic or in cubicles, laying in tanning beds, getting tattoos, en flagrante delicto solus before the computer screen, pouring potato chip crumbs directly from the bag into my maw watching financial chat on (er, um, financial, uh, excuse me I seem to have lost my train of thought...oh yeah--sorry, I was transfixed briefly by the graceful, cascading arc of Becky Quick's golden mane) television.

As for me, I'm going to spend the weekend with a tall stack of DVDs of the post-civilizational dystopia genre, re-reading all my catalogued and annotated back-issues of Modern Survivalist magazine, looking for tips the television personalities (uh, television, um, the uh, what was I saying? oh yeah, sorry, I was helpless in the vortex of those limpid, almond eyes for moment) cannot provide; in the meantime I'll be outfitting my Honda with a swiveling gun turret and a Kevlar reinforced twenty gallon auxiliary fuel tank.
Okay, maybe my long-cherished fantasy of marauding through the post-apocalyptic hellscape at the head of a band of cutthroat brigands isn't going to come about at long last. But I do think that things are going to change for us all, just a bit; and it needn't be all bad, in the long run at least, should it mean retiring finally our ironic empire of consumption and conquest.

Live Blogging the Apocalypse

The following blog entries were discovered after the arrest and detention of an obscure blogger of uncertain means who was responsible for a bizarre episode of violence triggered by a stress induced onset of hallucinatory mental illness.
It seems the aforementioned blogger grew increasingly agitated and fearful as the May 1, 2006 boycott in support of illegal alien amnesty unfolded. As the day progressed he descended further into madness. The following transcript provides a chilling document of one man's attempts to endure a "day without a Mexican." Let it stand as a warning to us all.


18:54

Not much time just wanted to let you know I'm still alive excuse the lack of punctuation must be quick conserve energy--electricity could go any minute no evidence yet of massive social upheaval--it's quiet, too, too quiet--wait a moment I think I heard something I've got to go. Courage, friends.

19:00

Still no sign and you know that's always a bad sign, used reciprocating saw (somehow managed to figure it out despite no illegal immigrant help) to carve an escape hatch in ceiling so we can escape directly to roof when the fit hits the shan, if you know what I mean, does anyone out there know Morse code? Will return later, if it's safe

20:01

trying to cook for myself with my soft pale white hands, bruised and blistered from doing my own yardwork (how do they survive this superhuman physical labor? are they even mortal?) can't figure out how to get the food from the cylindrical metal thing the Capable Ones call "can" am madly beating it against the floor, no use, I think I've injured myself will return later once I've stopped this bleeding

20:24

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20:30

scattered Microsoft yuppies appearing disoriented by hunger no doubt due to the closure of area's upscale restaurants are wandering outside it's only a matter of time before a leader emerges among and organizes them for an attack on the house must find higher ground easier to defend

20:45

Have vanquished the neighbors from their home didn’t want to do it but it was either them or us and this fifty two inch plasma tv is amazing blood everywhere oh my God the horror, yet I’ve never felt so alive

21:15

have figured out how to make the Capable Ones return when they see the altar I’ve created for them and the offerings we will make they will surely take pity on us and accept our sacrifices must go have finally cornered the cat he seems to understand what is happening

21:43

I realize now that to bring back the Capable Ones I must gather together their mysterious devices and place them at the altar; the enchanted hole making staff, or “shovel”; the grass leveler, the magic spinning weed-scepter, the roaring wind maker; our housekeeper Maria’s magic garment that she uses for the ritual of the dish reclamation and her mysterious carpet broom; atop the monument I have created I place the sustenance producing “can” and waving the pelt of our sacrificed cat over and over I repeat the incantation I heard the Capables using: si se puede, si se puede, si se puede

22:43

My God what have I become?

22:59

why have you forsaken us, oh you brave masters of nature's unruly overgrowth, oh you illuminati of the gastronomic? Why such harsh retribution? please return and banish the endless toil and pain we have beasts and virgins and treasure we offer you, yes, amnistia!