The End (but not really)

Please note: this blog will shortly be relocating to the site from whence it came: discontent. If you're interested in keeping up with our laconic editorial musings, drop by now and then. Do let us know if you need any issues of discontent--or any kind of content. The zine's email address is logomachia at hotmail dot com. Cheers.

UPDATE: As you'll see, my break from blogging didn't last. I've finally pieced my 2 blogs together--tacking together the "writer's block" blog from June 2002 to July 2003 with the present "Cabinet of Prof. Kitty" which I started in October 2004. It turned out that physical print, in the form of my zine discontent, was actually the one to go, not this blog. Written by Prof. Kitty, 4/5/09.

Gilliam-ing

"When are you going to release my film, 'Brazil'?"
It's been Terry Gilliam week at our house. First we got the Criterion Collection edition of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, featuring commentary by Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, and Dr. Thompson himself (he does not speak extemporaneously but is interviewed/goaded by an officious-sounding Criterion executive). Then we impetuously purchased Lost in La Mancha, the documentary of Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to film Don Quixote. Orson Welles failed too, so Gilliam is in good company. My conclusions from watching these are (1) Terry Gilliam has a demonic little laugh that I must imitate, often. (2) I am glad that "The Man Who Killed Quixote" (or whatever it was called) never made it through production because it looks...annoying. I suspect I enjoyed the story behind the movie's failure much more than I would have liked the movie itself. There are only so many slo-mo fat giants and dirty bald men in tatters and shackles and elderly protagonists with funny noses that I will accept. Time for pistachio ice cream.

Medical notes

Observation from the medical community:

If a single virus caused all the deaths, all the birth defects, and all the health care costs that tobacco does, governments all over the planet would move to find the virus, then find a vaccination or a cure. But tobacco is an important cash crop. Through huge campaign contributions and other outlays of money, the tobacco industry influences our government. Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death in America, yet our government subsidizes its cultivation.
Klag, Michael J., et al. Johns Hopkins Family Health Book. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1999. 79.

--

Found poem in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Even as the end approaches,
heart failure is characterized
by wide excursion
between good and bad days,
often preserving hope for another good day
until the last.
Uncertainty regarding time
and mode of death exceeds that
for other terminal illnesses.
Even our predictions of imminent death
are patches of fog, from which
survivors can emerge unexpectedly.
Each patient travels a unique journey,
on which many share remarkable determination
to prevail.
As we embolden our patients
to understand and influence their course,
as we appreciate their individual preferences
for quality and length of life,
we will guide each other
through the changing management
of advanced heart failure.

JAMA, Feb 6, 2002--Vol 287, No. 5, p. 639--last paragraph in "Medical Management of Advanced Heart Failure," by Anju Nohria et al.