Witnessing...

total insanity. I'm heading into work the other day, and there's some woman screaming at traffic. She's literally jumping up and down, shouting at the passing cars, and waving some sort of pamphlet or booklet (what's the difference, anyway?). Religious nut? I don't think so. Aforesaid pamphlet/booklet was red, white and blue, and actually looked like the French flag (I think). Perhaps she was a pro-Bonapartean.

Now here's the weird part. She wasn't like a street person or bag lady or anything. At least, I don't think she was. She looked semi-normal, at least for central Pennsylvania -- medium height, middle age, reg'lar clothes 'n' stuff. Plus, she was standing next to a relatively new, fairly clean Honda Odyssey (see, that's why I bought a Toyota) with the door open, the motor running, and, yes, ELVIS hisself hunka-hunkaing through one of his gawd-awful early 70s show stoppers complete with the Memphis horns and the TCBs and James Burton and spandex and capes and fringey things, and she had it turned up to about, oh, 8 and a half. I may disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to drown yourself out with "Burning Love."

A few blocks away, right on the sidewalk, there's some dude sitting in a lawn chair every day at lunch time with some sign that says "Human Being" like he's some installation at some avant garde art exhibition or somethin'. Feh. That's trite and obvious and staged and phony and packaged and tired. It's been done. Give me real spontaneous, irrational, inexplicable insanity any day.