BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #90:

Do I need to actually watch the movie, or can I just stare at the poster for a long time and imagine my own version of the film inside my head?

THE NEW OBVIOUS #38:

Everyone is now walking around with their faces pointed down into screens.

All ages, all professions-no one’s watching where they’re going.

Someone could decide to go about with a club, whacking people on the head, robbing all of their shit, and no one would be able to provide a description of the attacker.

It’s amusing that things have come to this point.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #206:

NEW POLLING INDICATES MOST AMERICANS OKAY WITH LIVING IN A FAILED STATE RULED BY DELUSIONAL, INCOMPETENT OLIGARCHS SO LONG AS THEY DON’T HAVE TO FEEL EMOTIONS.

NEW MERCH #5:

SPECIAL EDITION PHYSICAL MEDIA

Two Disc DVD.

All plastic components of case and discs sourced from certified Tyrannosaurus Rex bones.

Director’s commentary featuring life changing philosophical discourse from one of our finest living filmmakers.

Feature length behind the scenes making of documentary detailing the triumphs, tribulations, scandals, deaths, births, house warmings, guerilla warfare, high speed pursuits, fiery car crashes, tantalizing cryptid sightings, unexplained phenomena, ominous signs, propitious portents, and all sorts of things infinitely more interesting than the movie itself which was really just a too too precious attempt to make this generation’s widely praised people talking kind of movie-like Scenes From A Marriage or something like that.

So many deleted scenes that you could edit them into a new movie far superior to the actual movie you’re supposed to watch.

Coupons for pizza and energy drinks.

A sense of belonging.

Collectible packaging.

MAY NOT INCLUDE ACTUAL FILM.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #205:

NEW SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS CAST DOUBT ON WHETHER MAGIC TEETH COME FROM FOREVER.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #15:

Take the music videos for Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” and Pearl Jam’s “Do the Evolution” and switch the songs around . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #204:

CUTOUT CHEATING CRISIS ROCKS WORLD POCKET POOL CHAMPIONSHIPS.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 72

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #203:

“I LIKE THE SHINY STUFF.” LAVISH, USELESS TRINKETS PROVOKE PRESIDENTIAL CORRUPTION CRISIS.

EMERGENCE #4:

. . . at some point in the far future, you are superdead and ultragone-

But somehow you’re also looking back on the multiple lifetimes you conned and carved out of what you thought-at the time-was your one meager physical existence.

I just had that one existence, you think to yourself. Barely that. But I got major return on investment, didn’t I?

You laugh-you can’t really laugh-but you do your own version of laughing, and then you try to shut that down. You think you should be a lot more serious about things. But then you’re doing your version of laughing again. You think maybe you should just give yourself over to laughing, because then you’ll stop. Everyone knows the harder you try to clamp it down the longer you’ll be laughing. So just let it play itself out . . . but then you’re doing your own version of laughing for a very, very, very long time. It gets to be a problem for you. And you go right on laughing. Even longer, across vast stretches of time that, back in your primes, would’ve been considered unseemly stagnations of world-historical human endeavor-

But you do stop. 

You do get back to being serious.

You have no choice, not like you would have wanted, because at this far future point on the timeline you ended up being the final author of things, didn’t you?

All laughed out, you decided to focus all of your mental power on backing things up to a point on the timeline where you felt you had more of a choice about things-where there was more of a sense of adventure, and beckoning horizons, and discoveries lying in wait like statues inside rocks . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #202:

ADVICE/LIFESTYLE COLUMN: AS A SHANIA TWAIN, I RECENTLY REJECTED A MAN WHO IDENTIFIED HIMSELF AS A BRAD PITT. I WASN’T IMPRESSED AT THE TIME, BUT NOW I WONDER: WAS I TOO HARSH?

MANDATORY RULE #17:

All TV shows-whether they be scripted or unscripted, fictional or non-fictional-must include an episode depicting a freeze-in-place beam of some kind. This entails an elaborately designed person-portable raygun that, when fired, causes the target to freeze in place with a minimum of special effects and camera tricks. The target stops moving, locked into a pose evoking mid-movement. The target holds this pose until hit with an anti-freeze-in-place beam or the freeze-in-place beam raygun that has affected the target has been destroyed. There are no exceptions to this rule.

This I command!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #201:

REPUBLICANS ADVANCE BILL REQUIRING FETUSES TO PROVIDE EITHER PROOF OF CURRENT EMPLOYMENT OR PROOF OF ACTIVE JOB-SEEKING BEFORE BEING ALLOWED TO MISCARRY.

F.A.Q. #20:

Q: Do you think 69 should be replaced by 79?

A: No.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #200:

NEW LAW REQUIRES ALL PEOPLE WHO MERELY SCAN HEADLINES TO BE CHARGED THE SAME FEES AS REGULAR SUBSCRIBERS.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #76:

Pyramidal parameters.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #199:

“SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO LET THE ONE YOU LOVE THE MOST GO FREE.” IN A SEARING NEW INTERVIEW, THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN TALKS ABOUT THE PAIN OF WATCHING HIS FORMER WINGMAN DONALD TRUMP MAKE BESTIES WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN.

GHOSTS COMPLAIN . . . (#3)

. . . when they realize they’re dead and therefore will never enjoy earthly pleasures ever again, and then they complain when they come back from the dead and realize they gotta deal with things like job, toilet paper, dusting, doomscrolling, Climate Inferno, pain-in-the-ass friends who resent their recent absence, ever evolving youth slang that they don’t have the patience to track, endless sequelizations of yesteryear’s pop culture franchises, the housing affordability crisis, the price of eggs, AI hallucinations spreading catastrophic disinformation, the erosion of democracy, creeping autocracy, rising water lines . . .

People complain.

Even as they’re back from the dead . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #198:

NEW POLLING INDICATES MOST AMERICANS FINE WITH A NEWLY EMERGENT PANDEMIC PATHOGEN OR A RADICAL RESURGENCE OF OLD FAVORITES LIKE MEASLES OR TUBERCULOSIS IF IT MEANS THEY DON’T HAVE TO GET BACK UP.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #14:

A Starship Troopers fan made music video cut to the theme song from Bugsnax.