Toilets & Terror

At the outset, I should apologize for the blurry picture, but these are the toilet seat pants I saw while I was in Paris. The guy was moving, and I was as well, so this is the best photo I could manage. I still don't understand the fashion statement involved with toilet seats painted on the backside of a pair of jeans. If only I could come up with such things and actually have them sell.

There is a real nice quote from Camus, "terror does not create a climate conducive of thinking." (p. 259) This is from some of his last work for Combat (featured in the book "Camus at Combat"). Here I think enough people have lashed out and flogged this horse often enough that if it isn't dead, it must surely be close, though with a constant python-esque refrain of "I'm not dead yet." To write of the absurd is to write of our times, and so much has been parodied, that there is little left to do. It does make me wonder though, is it really possible to attack the current times from a new direction, so commentary is fresh and perhaps a bit less referential than the mundane. What shoehorns people into their actions? Every so often something seizes on the vast malaise of men, and everyone runs about seizing the day (by drinking way too much and skipping work) to escape their quiet desperation. The change people are after is a change in outlook, because politics will remain the same with only a slightly different seasoning. We have had too many years of the parties at each other's throats and this incivility is what needs to change, as it carries over elsewhere too. It is impossible to put forward the proverbial good family front when the neighbors hear the fighting. [This needs some major editing, but I don't think I am up for it tonight.]