Hark! The Infernal Orgies!

Methinks it pictures life.

Good evening, whenever you are, and welcome to a SECRET SOCIETY.

I have three monologues for you: one from Ahab, one from Starbuck, and one from Stubb. Plus you get to hear my neighbor playing the trumpet, if your ears are good.

It’s all in the SECRET ROOM at the top of the stairs, where chapters 37-39 of the famous whale-murder non-mystery called MOBY DICK.

From chapter 38, Starbuck’s lament. “Forward” here refers to the front part of the ship (the “bow”), where the crew of the Pequod are celebrating joining their captain’s madness and, instead of hunting a bunch of whales, instead only hunting the ONE whale that Captain Ahab happens to hate. “Aft” of course, means the back of the ship (the “boat back,” where Ahab’s quarters are, hovering above the “dead water” that gurgles behind the ship in its wake. Do you think the term DEAD WATER is portends a super happy voyage full of fun sailing and easy blubber hunting? We’ll find out.

I shall be brief again today, as David Rees are handing in a DELIVERABLE pertaining to our new secret project later this evening. But I do have some public notices as well.

FIRST, I will be live streaming SIMCITY 2013 again next week. You can come zone out with me as I zone residential, commercial, and industrial districts in the city known as CURSED HILL on THURSDAY, 6/26, at 9AM.

SET A REMINDER RIGHT HERE if you’re interested.

SECOND, I am sending love to all the furious and scared trans people/parents of trans kids in Tennessee and the 25 other states where SCOTUS just ruled to deny their equal rights and full humanity.

Another reason I’m glad to be headed to Maine in a week! I wish they would build more houses so more people could join us.

The above comes from the Maine Public media instagram account. Maine law still protects trans youth and also has a law that shields Maine health care providers from lawsuits from red states and other outside legal fuckery.

But states rights aren’t what they used to be (or ever were.) Obviously this is one of 10,000 facets of the shit diamond Trump’s thralls and toadies are forcing us to stare at, dazzling our eyes and overwhelming our senses with their dumb, gleeful scapegoating and cruelty-on-purpose.

I don’t have any easy answers or links to click on that will make it better. But please do take care of one another. Remind each other you’re not alone, either thought a note, or a phone call, or a massive national day protest. Oh and vote. Which brings me to…

THIRD, don’t rank Cuomo.

johnhodgman

A post shared by @johnhodgman

If you’re in New York City, you have MANY good choices in the Democratic Mayoral primary. And you can pick FIVE of them. And not a single one of them has to be Andrew Cuomo!

That’s the glory of ranked choice voting: you can vote your most preferred candidate with the confidence that you will not “spoil” the election or waste your vote.

Because with RCV, if your top candidate doesn’t reach a certain threshold of support, your vote then flows down to your chosen SECOND place candidate. And then your third, and so on. You can really express both your conscience and your realpolitik calculations on a single ballot.

SO PLEASE VOTE FOR WHOMEVER YOU WANT.

But also please consider NOT ranking Andrew Cuomo and thus rewarding his bottomless hunger for power, his well documented personal and political abusive thuggery, and his longstanding personal contempt for New York City, a PLACE HE HAS NOT LIVED SINCE 1990, with even your fifth choice.

Dude: you’ve dominated this state for a long time. Please leave us alone.

OK, please ascend the stairs if you would like to receive THE MYSTERIES…

The rest of this message is secret.