The "Mallier Kier's" moment of fame.

Yes, that was my car that you saw on the news, with the back window smashed and shards of very expensive glass covering the back seat.

And yes, that was me, surveying the scene in my pink polka-dotted pajamas, looking confused.

'nuff said.

A 953-word review of "A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine."

The November issue of Paste arrived in our mailbox yesterday, and as I carried it into the house, the title of an article caught my eye: "A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine." Now, as far as titles go, this one would suck--if it weren't for the fact that it has most readers immediately wondering what one could possibly have to say about a Guns n' Roses song in an article that long. Falling prey to this curiosity myself, I flipped to the article and found that the previous title is actually only a subtitle/alternate. The full title of the article is "How a bunch of long-haired, strung-out guys in leather pants taught me about humankind's struggle to make sense of existence in a meaning-starved corner of the postmodern here and now, or: A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine."

The lure of this title, in its wordy glory, becomes a bit more complex once you've read the entire thing. It is clear that the article has a more specific audience than originally assumed. Allow me to point out a few key words: "or," "humankind's struggle," "existence," "postmodern." These signify that the author fancies himself not only a music critic, but a scholar in the field of cultural studies. He makes us aware that not only will he be analyzing a kitchy eighties song, but he will be doing so with intellectual panache, bringing together tidbits of history, philosophy, and literature. Obviously, this article is intended for people like himself who have united once-split loyalties to "high" and popular culture under the banner of postmodern pastiche.

Most of the time, I'm one of those people. As a student of literature, I also believe that I'm a student of culture, in all of its complexity. As a postmodern, I see no problem with analyzing a pop song as a literary work, because I think it IS a literary work. So, it seems that I'd really appreciate this article, and I do. But I don't LIKE it. I thought I did, at first, but the author lost me before I even finished the first page. Now I'm trying to identify why.

The purpose of the article is to trace the mounting tension between the opposing forces of bubble-gum pop and cultural uncertainty/disorder within the song. The author employs an analysis of lyrics and melody to argue that the song's feel-good romantic narrative is intentionally disrupted by a dark nihilism that threatens to become the dominant narrative of the song. By the song's close, however, the two narratives continue to exist side-by-side, forming a pastiche that comments on the dual nature of late capitalism: we embrace uncertainty and unbridled hope at the same moment. To make this argument, the author forms a pastiche of his own, juxtaposing his analysis with lines from Yeats' "Second Coming", Ezra Pound's "The Return," John Betjeman's "Slough," and Paul Simon lyrics.

Ok, so here's why I don't like this.

1. The author's need to identify himself as a postmodern is too self-conscious, and, in my opinion, hackneyed. Postmodernism (in its philosophical and literary forms) can be traced back to the late 1940s, making it sixty years old. But somehow, it's still treated as if it were a hip new phenomenon. I thought Christians were mainly guilty of this, but it appears that others (who should know better) are as well. Maybe this sounds smarmy, but seriously, pastiche is not a new idea. Neither is using literary form to comment on the message of a piece. SO MANY writers have done it now that it shouldn't really be attempted with a straight face anymore. This author seems a little too proud of himself for approprating a played-out literary mode.

2. Similarly, the author is obviously anxious to identify himself as one of the cool kids. First, he makes it clear that he did not like Guns n' Roses at the height of their fame. He likes them now that they've become kitchy and nostalgic (another pomo staple). Next, he takes pains to place himself within a subcultural elite: he understands diverse cononical literary works (Twain, Pound, Thomas, and especially Yeats), he knows "good" popular and obscure music, and he has a "cynical Marxist friend" (a prerequisite for belonging to the cultural studies elite). In short, the author seems so eager to prove himself to his readers that I almost felt sorry for him as I encountered posture after textual posture.

3. His prose is often over-indulgent. For example: "The whole imprecatory riot crescendos in an epic complaint that demands an answer it knows it will never get." Riiiight.

4. There's a big hole in his gaudy postmodern guise: his failure to be egalitarian. Only four women are mentioned in the entire article. Three of them are literary constructions: Becky Thatcher, "Sweet Child," and Little Suzy. The only female writer/artist mentioned is Cyndi Lauper, and then only to describe bracelets. The writers, philosophers, and musicians of importance to the author are dudes. This would be almost understandable (after all, we still live in a male-dominated culture) if he did not defend Axl Rose's mysogynist impulse when no defense is needed. Even if the woman in "Sweet Child" is objectified less violently or lewdly than in other Guns n' Roses songs, she's still being objectified and condescended to. The author's argument did not necessitate a defense of Axl's ideas about women; therefore, he should have left that part out and made himself more credible.

OK, so it's not easy to write 2,305 words about a Guns n' Roses song. But if you're going to do it, at least be a bit more aware of what you're getting yourself into.

Here's what the future holds for 36 lucky freshmen.

Instead of grading the intimidating stack of papers sitting on my desk, I'm thinking about the classes I'm going to teach next semester, particularly the readings I'm going to assign in those classes. This has distracted me all evening, so I feel the need to write about it.

First, here's why I'm thinking about my future classes instead of those I'm currently teaching. Unfortunately for me, I don't happen to be one of those (usually) contented individuals who "live in the present." Most days, from my point of view, the present sucks. But, lest I sound too pessimistic, it is also true that I generally count on the future to bail me out--even though the bailing out hardly ever happens when the future becomes the dreaded present, thus beginning the vicious cycle again. So, I'm thinking about the spring semester because it still exists in the future and is therefore infinitely more interesting and promising than the present. Four months from now I'll be writing a similar blog about fall '07.

So here's what I'm thinking about assigning.

Because I teach "Imaginative Literature and Critical Writing," an introductory literature course, I'm required to include the major literary genres: poetry, drama, and fiction. However, I do get to pick the subject matter for my classes, which means I can torture my students with the stuff that I love. Last time I taught this course, I decided to be gutsy and join the course cluster entitled "Oppression, Resistance, and Protest." I made my students read literature about how few rights individuals around the globe--particularly in America--actually have. Included were classics such as Miller's The Crucible and Steinbeck's The Pearl, but I also decided to take a few risks with Kushner's Angels in America and Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. The class turned out to be...interesting, especially since there were quite a few conservative political science majors in the class (dudes in love with their own voices, of course). I don't regret using that topic, but I think I'm going to be a bit more subtle this time.

But not too subtle: a bit of controversy and discomfort can be a good thing in the literature classroom. I think I'm going to start with a brief unit of creative non-fiction, which will definitely include David Sedaris (right now I'm thinking "i like guys" or "me talk pretty one day"), Annie Dillard (probably from An American Childhood), and a healthy dose of modernist expatriate memoirs. Then I may force them to explore the line between fiction and non-fiction with Capote's In Cold Blood. Of course, there will also be fiction by a handful of my favorite writers (John Updike, Flannery O'Connor, and Rosario Ferre, to name only a few). As for poetry, I think I'm going to take a leap and make them read some Eliot (maybe Prufrock? One of the Four Quartets?) but also some of the Victorians he hated, such as Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market?) and Robert Browning. Oh, and a few contemporary poets who pepper the generalist anthologies, for good measure. (Not to downplay the contemporary: I really do like some of it.) Finally, I think I'm going to bring back Angels in America because it's hilarious and forces them to see the world from a very different perspective (and it's set in the '80s, so I get to do my "I love the eighties" lecture). But I'm also thinking about adding Wit and A Doll's House, or maybe something by Tennessee Williams, since I'm preoccupied by Southern literature right now.

Anyway, this is the first time I've thought about the spring, so the list will definitely morph into something else by the time January comes. But brainstorming my future syllabus is SO MUCH better than grading papers that are currently cluttering up my present. And because the pile isn't exactly dwindling (I've been doing any number of unpleasant tasks to avoid it), you'll probably see another blog about future possibilities--in the classroom and out--posted here soon.

Everything's better in October. Even Pittsburgh.

Well, OK. Not everything. It's midterm in college land, which means the students are stressed and unhappy, which in turn means that my job kinda sucks right now. But a lot of things are better in this, my favorite month. The morning view from the 10th Street Bridge, in particular.

Three mornings a week I walk from the Southside to Duquesne, which means I have to cross the 10th Street Bridge, climb an intimidating set of steps, and cross the Boulevard of the Allies. The steps often make me curse DU's lofty location, but the bridge affords a notable view of downtown, the Southside, Oakland, and of course, the Mon. Because I cross the bridge so often, however, I began to ignore the view--until Monday, when the morning sunshine met the fog, producing spectacular results (that language would render ordinary, so I won't even try to describe them). I will, however, mention that I was reminded again, for the first time in a while, how oddly appealing Pittsburgh can be.

Fall glory unfolded again (in a distinctly Pittsburgh way) over the weekend when Mike and I hiked around the Southside slopes. It doesn't get any more Pittsburgh than the slopes, where sets of stairs are considered streets, old row houses are built into the hillside, and the downtown skyline can be viewed from the woods. We took the "church" route, which begins on 21st Street and winds around to Monastery and Pius streets, and shamelessly craned our necks over fences to check out houses we loved and their enviable views. The tree leaves were beginning to change, the air was crisp, and I experienced a rare moment of satisfaction with myself and the world. It was short-lived: while walking over a bridge, I looked down and noticed that the sidewalk was made of metal grating that provided a dizzying view of the 100-foot drop beneath. Immediately I imagined a snap of rusted metal and my body plummeting into the ravine below, where it would smash, pumpkin-like, into an unrecognizable mush of flesh. Ah, what a pleasant day.

Recently I've criticised myself for becoming one of those Pittsburghers who never leaves their neighborhood. But the Southside has basically everything I want and need: a movie theater, cheap European fashion (H & M), a grocery store, bookstores, a library, Crazy Mocha (a must!), and plenty of bars and restaurants. Oh, and enviable October vistas. So why should I leave?

"This neighborhood is not a ghetto! We are not going to let them make it one!"

Or so a neighbor exclaimed to Mike after last night's incident.

Here's how it went down: I was awakened at about 3 am by the sound of shattering glass. My first thought was that our bedroom window, only inches from the sidewalk, had been broken by a baseball bat and that Mike and I would soon be bludgeoned to death by a thief--after he (or she) discovered that there's nothing of value to be found here. But as wakefulness quickly claimed me, I became aware that nothing quite that serious was happening. My next thought was that someone was breaking car windows, but when Mike peered outside, there was no one in sight. At that very moment, I heard yet another explosion of glass and discovered that the college kids across the street, drunk on a Friday night, were gathering just about everything breakable inside their apartment and hurling it onto the street--and sidewalk and cars--below.

Someone called the cops, who made the kids at least make a show of cleaning up the mess (even though they were way too drunk to hold a broom). Mike ventured out to see if our cars were still intact, and they were. While he was outside, he asked the cop what had happened. "They had a party, and now they're cleaning up," came the curt reply. But what kind of party involves throwing all of your fragile belonging out the window? Have I grown so old that I no longer understand what the hip kids do at parties these days?

Maybe this is my vanity talking, but I prefer to think that the kids across the street are spoiled rich dicks who've never had to think for themselves--only about themselves. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Today, our neighbors expressed their disgust and anger at the lack of neighborliness the college kids have revealed on a regular basis. It seems that this isn't the first incident they've created: a few months ago they were partying loudly on a weeknight and the cops were called. One of the kids was so uncooperative that they had to load his ass into the paddy wagon and take him down to the station. Now, the adult residents of the 1700 block of Jane Street want to get them evicted.

I'm just as angry at the assholes as everyone else: I've got better things to do than clean a bunch of broken shit off my sidewalk, and I'd rather not have to buy new tires. But their anger runs deeper than that. My neighbor got at the heart of the issue when she declared that we must keep our neighborhood from becoming a ghetto. Because when you live in the city, it seems like "the ghetto," with its stereotypical barred and boarded windows, curbside trash, and graffiti, is constantly encroaching.

But this neighborhood has resisted decline. When I moved here from South Oakland two years ago, the surprising peace and quiet of our block, as well as its tidiness and friendliness, was like a gift. I had always thought of the Southside as a loud, active part of the city, but this particular neighborhood seemed to have a small town ambiance due to its largely middle-aged and elderly residents who had lived here for most of their lives. Because of their long-term commitment, our neighborhood remained virtually crime-free and relatively clean.

Then, a house was sold to a landlord type who converted it into apartments that were promptly rented by unruly male Duquesne students. They're the type (not uncommon at Duquesne) who dye their hair, go tanning, pass a football awkwardly in the middle of the street, listen to weird European Coldplay remixes, and wear white button-down shirts with designer jeans on a daily basis: an uncultured, frat-boy variety of the metrosexual that seems to have become more and more prevalent. Their presence in the neighborhood has been aggravating, because they don't seem to understand the unspoken rules of the place; instead, they're acting like they live on, say, Dawson St.

What's so ironic about the situation is that these kids are most likely from upper-middle class suburban families who would shudder at most urban neighborhoods and probably blame the lower classes and minorities for ruining previously gentrified areas. Now, their kids--raised to carry the torch of American priviledge--are the ones being accused of turning our neighborhood into a ghetto. Maybe it's because they've been brought up with the idea that all urban neighborhoods are ghettos anyway, so why bother to exercise personal responsibility there? The city can absorb their days of youthful excess, and by the time they move back to the suburbs, they will have learned how to take care of themselves and their stuff, leaving the neighborhood to the next generation of selfish, sloppy kids.

OK, I admit it: I'm indulging in a rant. To be honest, they haven't made our neighborhood a "ghetto" yet. But after living in Oakland, I know the fear of college students is a reasonable one. It is likely that as more houses are sold to absentee landlords, more irresponsible college kids will move in and trash the neighborhood, lowering property value. I clearly don't care about property value, but I do care about personal responsibility and maintaining a clean, safe neighborhood. And, as of right now, there's still a bunch of broken glass and pottery all over our street. So, I'm going to do something I've never done before (and never thought I'd ever do): I'm going to call the cops. Hopefully they'll bring the paddy wagon back--as a dramatic flourish.

The Skinny

Yes, I wear skinny jeans. No, I do not aspire to be like Nicole Richie, who is regularly seen looking skinny in her skinny jeans. I wear them, instead, for two reasons: One, I like fashion, and they are fashionable; and two, I've become skinny again, and I like to think I can pull them off.

In his latest film, Scoop (which I thought was moderately funny but also somewhat forced), Woody Allen, who restored himself to the big screen and reprises his role as himself, says "My anxiety is like aerobics." This quote aptly describes my own weight loss recently: I've worried and obsessed away four pounds and counting since the beginning of the fall semester three weeks ago. Take note, dieters: you can throw away your weight loss books. Simply become a comp 101 instructor, and you'll lose weight even while eating all the fatty foods you can find. Add a bit of chronic depression to the mix, and you're set.

I accidentally discovered this diet a few years ago when I entered grad school and my neuroticism reached new heights as my weight dropped to new lows. For a while, I didn't notice the weight loss, probably because the all-encompassing anxiety was a bit distracting. When I finally realized that all of my clothes were too big--and why--I was forced to accept the terrible irony that I will only look fabulous when I'm most miserable.

Last summer I got married and finished school, and in the face of newfound marital bliss and so few demands on my time, excess neuroticism faded for a while. And because I wasn't miserable, I stopped looking fabulous. Ten extra pounds snuck onto my frame, and I was so contented at the time that I didn't even care--I continued visiting Michael's Pizza Bar on $.50 pizza night and hoovering as much as I could.

Then, in April, I went to Florida, and something ruined my view of the idyllic beach that stretched before me: the sight of my gigantic, pasty, dimpled ass spilling out of my bathing suit in the bright sunshine. Oh, the horror, the horror. At first I doubted that it could even be mine; it seemed so alien, extraterrestrial even. I poked it a few times to make sure Mike's idea of a joke wasn't to attach a prosthetic ass while I slept. But it was definitely, horrifyingly mine.

Exercize happened, and the ass dwindled. Then, teaching happened, along with its accompanying stress and self-doubt, and now I'm back to the skinniness of misery.

And so, I wear skinny jeans. My fear of tapered pants (which began in the mid-nineties after I had seen pictures of myself in pegged jeans) has subsided, at least while I'm neurotic and miserable enough to stay skinny. Or until they go out of style.

No hairdresser, no glory

I want to sucker-punch the person (probably a man) who originated the phrase, "A woman's hair is her glory." Why this violent reaction to a Victorian quote that could be safely classified as quaint? Because while nobody says it anymore, it's perfectly obvious that most people still believe women should have glorious hair. And in order to have glorious hair, a woman must find a trustworthy hairdresser--a nearly impossible task if you're unwilling to spend more for a haircut than for a new pair of shoes.

If you were looking at the Mallia family album right now, you would notice that my hair changes a lot over the course of twenty or so years. You would also notice that none of the many hairstyles I adopted were ever glorious, although certain individuals may classify the mullet I had in kindergarten and again (accidentally) in eighth grade as such. There was no glory in my overprocessed spiral perm during the early nineties, or in the stringy faux-raven pseudo-goth 'do in the mid-nineties, or in the purple pixie cut from my early college days. And there's certainly no glory in the overgrown bob I've settled for now.

And yet, I continue to quest for glorious hair. Meaning, I quest for a trustworthy hairdresser, even though finding one seems more impossible than ever. Recently, my hair barely recovered from two disasterous visits to Phillip Pelusi. I went to a decent hairdresser in Oakland for a while, but her dislike of everything and everyone (which she verbalized in a continuous rant as she angrily chopped off my hair), although amusing at times, made me paranoid, because I knew she disliked me too. Not because there was anything to dislike about me in particular--I did nothing but nod in agreement during her rants--but because it was just her way.

I've thought about giving up on glorious hair and just letting it grow until I look like a hippie. But I dislike hippies, and I'm already accused of being one often enough due to the vegetarianism, pacifism, and ecological concern. For the sake of my own dignity, I need to do whatever I can to distance myself from these people, so in addition to disdaining communes and having an alergic fit every time I catch a whiff of patchouli, I will continue to have my hair "styled" by incompetent hairdressers who promise glory, but fail to free my hair from its decidedly unglorious genetic bonds.

Frank's Eulogy

All the glory when He took our place,
But He took my shoulders, and He shook my face
and He takes and He takes and He takes

Sufjan Stevens
from "Casimir Pulaski Day"

Last fall I began thinking about death. Pretty often, actually. To the point where I truly believed that I would--not could--die at any moment. When I came to this realization around mid-December, I noticed that I had been surrounding myself with death: Bright Eyes' I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Arcade Fire's Funeral, and Death Cab for Cutie's Plans--all overtly interested in death--had been in my cd player constantly. I'd been preparing for my Master's exam by reading the seventy-five or so works of literature that my professors had decided were "great," and coincidentally, most of them were about death, too. When I walked around my neighborhood, I often felt that some freak disaster was about to befall me: a seemingly innocent passerby would turn out to be mentally ill and push me off the Tenth Street Bridge; the driver of a tractor trailer passing me on Carson Street would suddenly lose consciousness, drive onto the sidewalk, and crush me beneath the trailer's bulk. At night, having survived another seemingly perilous day, I would lie in bed and tell God that I wasn't ready, that he would have to pick someone else this time, even while I knew that a person can't really tell God anything.

Well, he didn't pick me. But I wasn't off the hook. At 10:30 on an evening in late January, I had almost fallen alseep on the couch when my mom called and told me, in a terrible voice, that my father had died. He had massive heart attack, fell over, and turned blue, leaving her behind to figure out what to do next. And me, to try to quietly reinterpret my life.

A few days later, at the funeral, I read a eulogy for my father. I was told later that it had been perfect, recounting truths about his life, inciting laughter and tears, heartache and hope. But ever since I delivered it, I've been completely speechless about my father's death. Language, as Derrida liked to claim, has proved inadequate as a vehicle of self-expression. And so, my reinterpretation of life is largely inarticulate. I've been listening instead of speaking for what feels like the first time, and in my silence, I've come up with a better eulogy for my father. It's a collection of writings about death, fatherhood, and the blank terror that has gripped my consciousness during the last eight months. And it comes closest to telling the truth about the world as I see it now.

Sufjan Stevens, "Casimir Pulaski Day" (from Illinoise)
Li-Young Lee, "Mnemonic" (from Rose)
T.S. Eliot, "The Burial of the Dead" (from The Waste Land)
Anne Lamott, "O Noraht, Noraht" (from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
Death Cab for Cutie, "What Sarah Said" (from Plans)
Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #4 (Seven Kettles)" (from Funeral)
U2, "Wake Up Dead Man" (from Pop)
Bright Eyes, "Poison Oak" (from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)

Gnarls Barkley says it best...

Here's my first blog. It's about being crazy, and in it I quote the Gnarls Barkley song by the same name. Hopefully this is of interest to you.

The more I find out about the fundamental chaos that underlies the universe, the more I need to convince myself that it has nothing to do with me, that I am not, in fact, crazy. This is a difficult thing to do when everywhere I go, I am confronted by other individuals who seem pretty crazy to me. Or are they?

Take, for instance, the man I saw jogging at Charlotte Beach last week. It was my mom's birthday, and since I'm generally a thoughtless and ungrateful daughter, I decided to drive up to Rochester to celebrate with her. (You may wonder why my mom would want to celebrate her birthday with a daughter like that. I'm wondering the same thing, actually.) On the morning of her birthday, the temperature fell below ninety for the first time in a week, and we decided to take a walk along the pier. As the wind picked up, tossing polluted waves onto our feet and blowing our hair into our lipstick, a man jogged past us. He was middle-aged, of average height and weight, and was wearing a typical middle-aged man workout outfit: shorts a little too short, t-shirt a little too tight, and socks pulled up a little too high. I would have forgotten him immedietly and would by no means be describing him right now if, in the next moment, he hadn't transformed himself into a public spectacle. Ten feet in front of us, he stopped jogging, arranged himself into a fighting stance, and began doing what I can only presume to be his best Bruce Lee impersonation: lunging forward, he karate-chopped frantically for several seconds, then began kicking and punching the air in front of him as if it had offended him gravely. Then, satisfied with the ass-kicking he had given nothingness, he jogged on serenely. A few moments later, perhaps to prepare for the air's return attack, he dropped to the ground, propped his feet atop a short concrete wall, and began doing rapid push-ups.

As we cut a wide swath around him, I did the only thing that can be expected of a bystander at that moment: I laughed loudly, and now that I think back on it, almost delightedly. Because, if I'm going to be honest, I must admit that public displays of eccentricity do delight me, even if they're seemingly inconsequential to others. For instance, I saw a woman wearing teal gaucho pants trip and fall on her face on a streetcorner in Beaver Falls, PA, and I had a similar reaction. (Mostly because she was wearing those hideous gaucho pants. The combination of the pants and the falling was too much for me.)

After a lengthy set of push-ups, the man's face had turned an unnatural shade of red. My mom stopped laughing and expressed her worry that he might have a heart attack if he didn't give up his silly grudge against air resistance. She wished that he would stop running/doing pushups/karate-chopping. Because I'm not nearly as nice as her, and because I had already abstracted the man from any sort of reality I associated myself with (with includes mortality, apparently), I wanted him to keep going, mostly so I could keep laughing. I got my wish: he ran the length of the boardwalk, tore off his t-shirt in a frenzy, and began the routine all over again. By this time, most of the people at the park at that moment had noticed him and were staring in wide-eyed confusion. One older man, sitting quietly at a picnic table, his rotund figure refreshingly fitness-free, stared with an intensity that comes only from seeing someone a little too much like you--your age, your socio-economic group--losing their damn mind.

Mom and I left the park before the second round of aerobic kung-fu had been completed, and as we drove away, she forgot the man and thought about more pleasant things, like the delicious food she would consume that night at her birthday dinner. I continued thinking about the man who was so willing to exhibit his fitness mania to all who wished--or didn't wish--to see. I replayed the scene over and over in my mind, as if it were one of those irresistable disaster clips on ifilm, and chuckled contentedly to myself. Then, because it had been such a delightful scene to me, I decided it would be wrong of me not to share it with my husband. So I called him, and described the scene in great detail. That week, I related the story to every friend I hung out with. They all laughed, asked "Who does that?" just as I wanted them to, and agreed that the man was clearly crazy.

The hilarity died when I began analyzing my compulsion to tell everyone I knew about the fitness freak. I mean, it was a funny story, definitely, but funny enough to announce to a group of near-strangers at a friend's family picninc? I don't think so. In fact, those near-strangers may have found my obsession with craziness a little bit crazy. I realized, then, that my interest in the fitness freak was merely a sad, passive-aggressive attempt to assert my own sanity in a chaotic, crazy world. And in doing so, I threw myself headlong into the choas.

Or maybe it's just me. But does it matter whether the chaos approaches from within or without? When I look either way, it's there, in plain sight. Maybe I found that man in the park so funny because his mania was familiar to me: he was wearing my id on his shirtsleeve. I think Gnarls Barkley says it best:

Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably