The End Specialist. Drew Magary

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СКАЧАТЬ party we should go to this weekend. It’s just decision after decision after decision, from trivial crap to really important things. By the end of the day, I’m mush. I don’t even eat dinner because I don’t want to choose what to have. I have cereal and call it a day. And now there’s this. Big, huge decision alert. Every question I ask myself about it begets a dozen more. It’s giving me a migraine right now, and I haven’t even done anything.”

      “It has to be better than the alternative, though.”

      “Does it? I don’t know.”

      “Well, you already say you’re old. How does growing old feel so far?”

      She sighed. “It sucks.”

      “Well, now I feel somewhat better about my decision.”

      We changed the subject. Polly handed me a plate of cold roast beef and corn on the cob. We talked, and I ate and, for the first time, Katy’s death moved to the back of my consciousness, if only for a moment. This is bereavement: the slow, eventual reassertion of your own meaningless preoccupations. As I ate, the look in Polly’s eyes made it clear she was still thinking about the cure. She had tried for so long to stem the tide, to avoid being overwhelmed by it all. But now here I was: the tsunami at her doorstep.

      Date Modified: 7/17/2019, 5:09PM

      DC Apparently Stands For

       “Don’t Come”

      I have a friend in DC who emailed me this in response to reports about the expanded security perimeters to accommodate protesters in Midtown:

      Dude, the security bullshit you have to deal with up there is nothing compared to what’s going on down here. The entirety of Northwest DC below M Street has been cordoned off since that girl was beaten to death for her DieStrong bracelet and the riots in Germany started. You can’t drive anywhere downtown. I’m talking about miles the hell away from the White House. And when you come up out of Metro, there are National Guard members with loaded rifles, their fingers ready on the trigger, ready to pull you aside if you look like a threat. They increased the restricted airspace above the town by nearly twentyfold. If you come down on a shuttle from Boston to National, you practically have to go through Ohio. It’s insane.

      Downtown DC around the Wizards’ arena is essentially a pedestrian thoroughfare now. I have no issue with this, since people in DC can’t drive for shit, except that Metro stops can be goddamn light years away from each other. That scene you described at Penn Station? That’s every Metro station, except here the station escalators never work, so you have to haul ass up four thousand stairs before you get to emerge above ground. And the buses aren’t running. All the protesters have been forced to demonstrate on the other side of the Potomac, along the bike trail in Arlington. I saw a bunch of them trying to swim across the Potomac to get to the Mall, only to have cops pick them up in a riverboat and haul their sorry asses out of the water. One of them almost drowned in the rip currents.

      I have a friend who works on the Hill who says the Supreme Court judges will be moved to an undisclosed location to argue the California case. Lots of bomb threats.

      Fucking crazy, man. Fucking crazy.

      —MK

      Date Modified: 7/18/2019, 11:07AM

      A Blonde Everywhere I Turn

      I was walking down Third Avenue today when I spotted a woman across the street with a remarkable body and blonde hair that broke just past her shoulder blades. I turned electric. I saw a gap in traffic and sprinted across the avenue. A cab rounding from Forty-third blithely took the corner and nearly plowed into me. I kept my focus on the blonde as the driver honked at me three hundred times in the space of four seconds. She didn’t turn her head and kept bouncing down Third, with me trailing behind her and trying to figure out a plan in my head before quickening my pace to identify her. I kept thirty yards behind, dodging dog walkers, tourists, and the meandering hordes of the unemployed. I took out my phone and queued up the number for the police without hitting Send, so I would have it at the ready. I took her picture so I could post it to my feed if need be. If this blonde was the blonde, I’d call the police and alert them to her presence, then follow her until they arrived to detain her.

      I made the decision to pass. I sprint-walked closer and closer, until I was side-by-side, then I feigned interest in the window of a Hot & Crusty on the other side of her, and caught a quick glimpse on her face. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t even close.

      This sort of wild-goose chase has now taken up firm residence in my daily routine. Spy blonde. Suspect blonde. Chase blonde. Realize I’ve misidentified blonde. Think of my friend bursting into flames sixteen days ago while I remained outside, like a dumb dog that no one bothered to train. Doomed to follow every pointless distraction that crosses my path.

      Date Modified: 7/19/2019, 9:34PM

      The Worst Since Kent State

      From the Washington Post website:

      DEVELOPING: FOUR DEAD IN CONCORD CURE PROTEST

       By Luke Spiller and Candace English

      CONCORD, NH (AP)—Four pro-cure demonstrators were shot dead today by National Guardsmen in the New Hampshire state capital of Concord after a massive protest turned into the most violent cure-related conflict since two students were shot dead in a Berlin riot three weeks ago.

      After a widespread report was released yesterday accusing the United States military of offering the so-called cure for death to its own soldiers in exchange for extended pension benefits, protesters here in the Granite State marched on the Capitol. Many were incensed.

      “They were trying to force their way inside the building. They wanted to take it over,” says lawyer Jim Watley, who works in the Capitol. “I don’t know what they would have done if they had gotten in, but that was their aim.”

      A small group of National Guardsmen aimed with protecting the Capitol tried to keep protesters at bay with shields and threats of tear gas. But witnesses say a crazed protestor threw a lit Molotov cocktail at the guardsmen, which prompted two of them to open fire into the crowd, causing protesters to flee in mass panic. Four people are now confirmed dead. An unspecified number of people were injured, including Jackie Frost of Nashua, NH, who was shot in the leg.

      “They were supposed to use rubber bullets!” she cried. “No one else was armed! Why didn’t they use rubber bullets?”

      The number of people killed in today’s incident is equal to that of the number killed in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

      Further details forthcoming.

      I looked outside my window just now and saw a man running down the median of the avenue, screaming his head off as cars threatened to sideswipe him from both directions. He wasn’t saying anything. He was just unleashing the most primal noise he could possibly make. He was holding up a sign that said GIVE IT TO US NOW.

      On the TV right now, they’re showing protesters lined up against the barricades in DC. They look like a mob of shoppers waiting to get into a department store at 7:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. The President is due to speak at 8:00 p.m.

      Date Modified: 8/14/2019, 3:20PM

      “One Infinite Generation”

      Here’s СКАЧАТЬ