As it turns out, fortunes are being made reviewing consumer products on-line, and with that in mind I have launched a site ( The Sanitarium) which I hope will dominate the Hand Sanitizer Review landscape and make my family obscene amounts of money.
This is my first review:
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Welcome to The Sanitarium!
How do you think you’re going to die?
Terrorism?
Sex accident?
Wasting disease?
Climate catastrophe?
The truth is it’s possible you might die from any one, or any combination, of the threats listed above, but according to science we are most likely to perish from some super bacteria that will come like a thief in the night and kill all of us who had not been properly eliminating infectious agents from our hands.
It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that not only is choosing the right hand sanitizer a matter of national security, but it’s also a matter of life or death.
Choose carefully, my friends!
Sanzer Hand Gel
Wow!
The first thing I noticed about this hand sanitizer was just how amazing the ad is! It’s almost as if Sanzer isn’t promoting good hygiene at all, but is instead offering serial killers some great and fresh tips on how to dismember and store victim parts. It really makes you wonder what it would feel like to chop off somebody’s fingers and put them on display, you know? No matter, regardless of intent, Sanzer sure knows how to get your attention, but still, I had to find out, is the product as good as the ad?
Experiment:
Remove the raccoon that is trapped in the garbage bin in the alley with my bare hands, apply Sanzer hand gel, and then wait 48 hours to see if I get sick.
Notes:
- Sanzer Hand Gel really stings when it comes in contact with any open wounds.
- Sanzer Hand Gel does not remove the choking stench of raccoon and blood from your hands, clothes, hair, memory or glasses.
- Sanzer is flammable, and if squirted while holding a lit barbecue ignitor directly in front of it, will work as a kind of flame thrower. Unfortunately, fire is of little use in deterring raccoons, so Sanzer’s effectiveness as a weapon is not universal. ( This product may not meet your Apocalypse Bunker Hand Sanitizer needs)
- Fourty-eight hours after the application of Sanzer Hand Gel, my hands and arms were still swollen and oozy, but my fever was under control and the violent and dark thoughts had begun to subside, thus earning the product a solid 7 out of 10.
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Dear Bitter Writer:
I think that having the capacity to feel a broad array of emotions is a big component of being a great, great writer, like you are, and with that in mind I was wondering what the first book that made you cry was?
Igor
Igor:
This one is very easy.
The first book that made me cry was Horton Hears a Who!
Completely fucking terrifying.
Dr. Seuss was one messed-up guy, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he turned out to some sort of unknown serial killer. He’s like a Stephen King for children. You should fear him.
Anyway, I was probably about four when this book was first read to me, and I immediately understood that our world was no different than the speck of dust Horton was holding. Our lives– even those of Mommy and Daddy– were incredibly precarious and vulnerable, subject to forces we know nothing about and couldn’t even begin to imagine. At any second, all we knew and loved could just vanish into an unknowable abyss. I did not sleep for two weeks after the babysitter (Summer) read this stupid book to me, and ever since, I’ve been cursed by a deeply penetrating existential terror, one that continues to govern my days.
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Dear Bitter Writer:
You’re such an interesting and charismatic person, I was wondering if you’d share with us any literary pilgrimages you might have gone on?
Oscar winning actress Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer:
Ha, so great to hear from you!
As far as your question goes, I’ve never been on a, “this is the cafeteria where Kafka ate,” or, “ this is the dungeon where Dr. Seuss used to torture his victims,” kind of pilgrimage. Instead, I think of each day as a literary pilgrimage. I go out with the conscious intent of finding a moment of beauty in the world, of discovering something holy, and then I try to recreate it using words. And so each day is a journey, a pilgrimage toward something sacred that must be worshipped.
PS: Have you been getting my postcards? I have not heard back and was wondering if I was given the wrong super-yacht address for you?
PPS: I think you’re something sacred that must be worshipped!
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Dear Bitter Writer:
I just want to say how much I LOVED your brilliant book A VAN FULL OF GIRLS.
It is, and I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, the work of a true genius. Obviously, writing just pours out of you, but if for some reason you couldn’t be a genius writer, what do you think you’d do for work?
Taylor
Taylor:
Thank you for the kind, extremely perceptive words!
It’s hard to imagine a life where I’m not a writer, but if I were forced to live one by some alien over-lord or something, I think I would probably be a model. I think I could bring a lot to that job.
I had major, very complicated surgery, and for two weeks after the operation– first thing in the morning– the attending nurse would always ask me if I knew where I was. It was a simple question, one that I found a little bit insulting even, but the truth was that I just wasn’t sure.
I mean, I knew who I was, that I’d had heart surgery and was in hospital, but I wasn’t clear on what hospital, or where this hospital was located. Some days I thought I was in Montreal, other days Ottawa, sometimes when I heard the rhythms of an African tongue, I believed I was in Cape Town. Depending on the accents, language and ethnicity of those around me, I imagined I was in India, Australia or China, occasionally, even in Toronto, the city in which all of this was unfolding.
Each day was like waking into a dream, a realm where things were still being shaped. The people moving about in my field of vision were distant from me. It was like they existed in another dimension, and communication was mysterious, even impenetrable, as if something fundamentally untranslatable existed between us. I was, I guess, still disconnected from the conscious, living world and through fogs of trauma and medication, remained a spectator to the existent.
I communicated with very few people during this time, but I did send texts to my wife Rachelle. These are some of the ones I sent to her during the early stages of my recovery:
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Very thirsty. Want popsicle but they won’t let me have popsicle. The nurses are all very mean! Don’t understand. Please bring popsicle. CHERRY.
Why are you not here with popsicles? Very lonely. Very lonely for popsicle.
I love you.
Did I miss the spring?
Why are we in Africa? Were we visiting Douglas?
Oh. Not in Africa. Nurse said that, but thought she was lying.
Am scared when the machines beep. They are sounding an alarm to say that something in my body is broken or on fire.
I miss your blue, blue eyes.
My nurse is an assassin. Cruel eyes and self-loathing. Might be a serial killer. Am terrified when brings me my pills. Must kill her patients and then gets drunk at night, feeling powerful.
I want to be in a lake. Dog just about to jump in from the dock.
What’s going on in Game of Thrones? Has everybody been raped and killed or do some survive?
Food here not made with love. Sort of thing you give jailed enemy.
Do I have jailed enemies now?
Would like to have several jailed enemies. That would be AWESOME.
Brian and Laura should be thrown in tower.
Never heard a word from them. They only care about volleyball and renting house for Pan-Am games.
Is Hunstman spider fastest land creature? Can’t remember.
I want to sit on a sloped field of green with you and our son Jones, drinking lemonade on a checkered blanket, the world around us.
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This elegantly airbrushed van will serve as my mobile tattoo center.
Visiting densely populated urban regions like high schools and drunken college parties, as well as sparsely inhabited small towns where there’s nothing to do, Inklings will appear to make tattoo dreams come true! Whenever you get the notion you want a tattoo, you just call us at 1-800-INK-LING, and we will speed recklessly toward you! We will be readily identifiable and branded, like the ice cream truck that came before us, but the music that we’ll always have blasting out of our speakers: Slayer.
It will be equally appealing to teens and their Midlife afflicted parents.
Ideally, I would like Inklings to become a TV show, as I want to expand beyond the confines of the GTA and explore this great nation of ours all the while providing adequate tattoo artistry and a penetrating look at the culture, landscape and psyche of the people that inhabit it. Think of Rex Murphy’s Cross Country Checkup married to Kat Von D’s LA Ink. This hygienic, mobile service will provide rapid tattooing at an affordable price in an atmosphere that playfully recalls some of your favourite serial killers.
It’s a brilliant idea. Fund me.
(Proposal pending the receipt of my valid driver’s license)
Backers:
7
Amount pledged of $50,000 goal:
$95
Days to go:
2
Incentives:
For those who donate $50 or more, an owl tattoo on the forearm.
For those who donate $750 or more, an intimidating owl chest plate.
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It’s hard for me to imagine a creature more physically dissimilar from a human than a lobster– an entity that inhabits the same planet as the rest of us but lives on the cold, dark floor of oceans. If we could imbue it with a human intelligence, could it possibly conceive of the terrestrial civilization above that actually farms and manages lobster communities and then eats them as delicacies? My guess is that no, the lobster is not thinking this, and so I assume that whatever my instinct is about what lies beyond the field of my imagination, the actuality is going to be so much stranger and greater that there’s absolutely no point in trying to codify it into a religion.
I have a friend who is a Charismatic Christian, and knowing that my wife was out of town one weekend, he invited me over for dinner with his men’s group. I did not know what a men’s group was. I imagined a bunch of guys who liked fantasy football, crossbows and the free market, and with that in mind went over expecting to eat a huge steak.
When I arrived there were about six other men sitting in the living room, as if waiting for me, as if they’d been waiting for me for their entire lives. There was something unusual about these men, an aspect of aggressive contentment that was entirely humourless and disquieting.
One man seemed to make a special project of me. He handed me a piece of paper upon which were what he considered to be numeric proofs of the immaculate nature of the Bible. After looking at it for a minute or two, and commenting on the interesting connections it made, I joked, “If the Bible were perfect, surely it would contain a few photos of Raquel Welch, don’t you think?”
I was being charming.
Men’s Group charming, I thought.
He gave me a long, hard look and then nodded to the other men, who over the course of the next fifteen minutes filtered out to the front porch to have cigars. Thickly built, the man was probably 20 years older than I was and gave me a look that suggested he’d seen my type before. We talked for a good half hour before he announced, “You know, when I was younger I was a sex addict.”
I nodded respectfully.
“There seem to be very few old sex addicts,” I couldn’t help but add.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Not funny Ha-Ha, funny the other way, I guess.”
He snorted, “When I met a woman do you know what I saw?”
“No,” I said.
“Genitals. That’s what I saw. Just genitals.”
He spat out the word “genitals” in the same way a serial killer in a movie starring Morgan Freeman might. “But it was the Lord Jesus Christ who saved me from this sinful bearing!” And then he shouted something and raised his fist into the air.
“Come with me, son, I want you to see something.”
He led me out to the front porch where the rest of the men were, and for the first time in my life I saw people speaking in tongues, or at the very least, pretending to speak in tongues. With their arms up, aspiring for heaven, the men were shouting and crying. As a holy babble poured forth from their mouths, they twisted and spun, undulating, as if no longer owner’s of their own bodies. Ferdinand, the Congolese guy who had been addicted to heroin and cocaine, was so stricken by the Lord that he collapsed and fell into the Weber barbeque. I rushed over to him, and upon revival asked him what he had seen during his hallowed transport but he did not know what to say. His wide, innocent face just looked back at me, “ All was good,” he said, “all was glory.”
“But what happened when you collapsed into the barbeque?” I pressed.
“The Lord spoke his miracle into me.”
I looked at the men on the porch. Although in a state of ecstatic transference, they still managed to hold their cigars and glasses of whiskey. Each one was recovering from some life seizing passion, be it drugs, alcohol or an addiction to sex, and it was clear that they’d replaced one obsession with another. It was fantasy football, only with the Pentecostal Church replacing the NFL.
As I crouched near Ferdinand with what was likely a look of wonder on my face, they asked if they could pray for me, the black sheep. I was a little bit anxious about what this meant, but said yes and inched into their prayer circle clutching my scotch like it was a holy talisman. They all put a hand on me and lifted the other toward the skies, and then they really put their hearts into it. The man who had taken me on as a special project reached out to touch me, and when he did, he shuddered away as if suffering an electrical shock.
But he was strong, and reached out to touch me again. It pained him to do so, I could see it in his face, but he persisted, Satan was not going to beat him. Powerful, unguarded commands from his heart issued forth, and then he proclaimed that he saw a serpent wrapped around me, a serpent coiling tighter and tighter. The other men were shrieking and howling. “You must come to the Lord, the serpent is winding itself into you, I see it,” my exorcist proclaimed in a voice that seemed to come from a TV set. I nodded my head and looked at him, “No,” I said, “you don’t see a serpent. You’re lying. I think the serpent is wrapped around you.” And I looked at him like I was goddamn Clint Eastwood. And then Ferdinand, whom I think has peace-making instincts, distracted everybody by being struck by the Lord again, shouting, “The Lord has seized the Serpent, it departs!” before collapsing once again into the Weber.
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