haiku 11 Sep 2018

To cherish good friends

Call in and hand out favors

In equal measure

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

another union, gone

Forty-eight years after one of its members actually got paid to do the job, the American Domestic Rice Cooker’s Union (ADRCU) finally disbanded. Founded in 1895 by a group of house-maids from San Francisco, the Union had seen its number drop dramatically since the introduction of low-cost, automated devices. “We just can’t compete with computerized, electric rice cookers that do the job perfectly, every time,” said Yolanda T. Ching, a spokesperson for the ADRCU. “That, and a drastic reduction in the number of people wealthy enough to hire cooks and maids, sounded the death-knell for our lovely group.”

Former members are slated to receive training as taxi drivers, foundry workers, and call-center operators, jobs that the Union’s leadership thinks will soon return to the United States. Also at risk of extinction are labor organizations representing American retail workers, cotton pickers, and coal shovelers.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

encylopediamericanifesto entry - phaltweary II

   Persons suffering from phaltweariness tend to make calls, whoops, war-whoops, cat-calls, hoots, whistles, hollers, brays, and shouts loudly and often. Making loud noises with the speaking organ saves lives – absent a car's horn, uttering a piercing blast of blood-curdling gibberish is a proper way for a cyclist to signal to a nearby motor-vehicle operator that he is about to be cut off mercilessly. As to the general appearance of a peedubser (phaltweariness sufferer):

  His sun-dazzled eyes will dance with a light of their own, especially at night; his phaltburnt lips will be cracked and fissured; his dry tongue will grate across the roof of his mouth; and from his throat will issue forth a cry so foul, so loathsome, as to make the even the most wicked human among us tremble with abject loathing.

  The peedubzer will sound a signature call regardless of audience, circumstance, or location – although she war-whoops to signal lane changes and close calls alike, by yelling she loosens briefly the fetters upon her soul, her vitality radiant and pure, with every joyous breath celebrating life's fleeting tumble.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp