Opening Linda's Eyes: Is There Life After Happiness?
by Richard Oxman

–Dedicated to Thomas Pynchon–

Linda's eyes are about to be opened. Along with her Happy 20% of the U.S.

Who's Linda? The 20% she represents? For that-either see -My Night at the Oscars-
( http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp03112006.html ), or ask me to forward the CPunch article via snail mail. It would be an honor to get you started with Ben Tripp's delightful downer of USer life in and around well-Re/Awarded LitUpTitTown. Dwarfing other so-called Current Events in The News with much needed Epiphanic Humor.

Ben does not appear to be one of the Stupid People I referred to in my recent -Stupidity About Way More Than Yellow Tibet- ( http://oxtogrind.org/archive/146 ). Rather, he seems to be lodged at the opposite end of the Rectum Spectrum, firmly ensconced in a sweet SonicSmart/SillyTonic/SavingStrengths Wavelength. A good soulful writer.

At the risk of seeming to be Mr. Self-Promoter (in addition to Mr. TootTrippHorn), I ask readers to rundown an excerpt from Chapter I of my fictional -'Mmmerican Waterloo- below ( http://oxtogrind.org/archive/64 ), which will provide some idea of how -Yclept- Linda Gosselin is slated to have her optical range widened.

-Mmm-.

Mexico, Maine, not very far off from the longitudinal line of *Marlborough* (is how The Mastermind liked to spell it), went up "the little red brick building and its immediate area" at virtually the same time as the white house hugging the nearby rugged, but beautiful private island of Manticus, one of the last places in Mooseland where the old Down East lifestyle survived in anything like its pure form, unspoiled and unpretentious. The Wyman Dam, so crucial for the Kennebec, *went* at the same time as the residential village situated along U.S. 201 which housed most of Moscow's citizens. 11:09am (EST) all, all on time. 07/07/07.

A bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Highway 101 taking out some Buddhists working for George Lucas in Marin County, bummer-to-bummer traffic coming to a halt, the official bird of the country (the third finger) raised in multiples, a very special set of passengers in a Winnebago midst the Mojave Desert, spilling java to and fro, a museum in Monterey (adjacent to restaurants, antique shops and the like), near where the beaches were once festered with fish guts and flies, Meriden, CT 06454 (where the world's first player piano was manufactured), many police stations in Miami, one singular old-age home in -God's Waiting Room- (also known as Miami) where the relatives of many anti-Castroites spend their last days, a Dade County municipal building elevator in the -capital of Latin America,- two research center buildings at Miami University (Ohio), a bar and grill where Little Richard is the topic of conversation every other day in Macon, Georgia, four hotel lobbies on Maui, the mayor's office in Muncie, Indiana (where the Lynds did their study for Middletown), Manhattan Beach in California, Manhattan, Kansas (which was originally named Boston), and the NYC mucousal mayor's mansion on the upper east side of the borough of Manhattan, Marblehead (parts of the MA town seemingly untouched since the 18th-century still), the house at 2104 Kenwood Parkway in Minneapolis, Minnesota (where the opening shots of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has become the locals' Graceland), John Updike's -Paris of the 90s,- Missoula, Montana (the infirmary at the University of Montana), the fire engine used for Medicine Lodge, Kansas (near where prohibitionist Carrie Nation made some marks), spot-on-target where the Martians supposedly landed (near Princeton) for Wells' War of the Worlds, Weehawken, NJ, where Burr and Hamilton dueled, the lighthouse at Montauk Point, a bank overlooking Cincinnati "which shall remain nameless for the moment" where one of Harriet Beecher Stowe's characters is said to have crossed the famous river, army recruitment-related buildings in two Mariettas, two musical history monuments in Memphis, an empty flat one-story building with a corrugated roof in Mathis, Texas, Manchester, Mystic, Montpelier (an insurance office), Mansfield, two Middletowns, Morgan, Medicine Bow, the handsome bronze half-clad Native Ameican statue in Iowa's Muscatine Riverside Park, the famous statue of Massasoit on Cole's Hill facing Plymouth Rock (commemorating the landing of the Pilgrims), a postal substation in Mississippi, a pharmaceutical company's headquarters (of a sort) in Michigan, and lots of other places in Washington (Hummer dealerships exclusively), West Virginia, Wisconsin (including a correctional officer's home adjacent to a dam) and Wyoming.

Then a pause - when eleven after eleven - more than two false alarms were called in on two Wall Streets.

Well over 200 spots *went south* at 11:09am that day. The criminals who created the havoc, etc. numbered less than 200. And they conducted their horrific business calmly, easily. Few had any official records with which to trace them; few changed their behavior suddenly before or after. No one knew anyone else; four to a state. Few used anything except 10-12 lb. computer keyboard size packages. At least that's what the ransom notes said. Almost all were legally situated in the U.S. And very few looked like Muslims. None were.

Oh yes, only one place was made uninhabitable forever.

Mmm-.

It's not quite the sound that the Universe makes. But something was done.-

Including in attractive homes untouched by illness or insecurity-previously.

BOUNCING OFF OF BEN'S TITLE, PERHAPS THIS SCENARIO –which I'm not urging on Al Qaeda, Uncle Sam, honest!– SHOULD BE TITLED -THE UNHAPPY PEOPLE SPEAK OUT.-

Regardless, all else being equal (which seems to never be the case in life, oui?) one could say that if Ben got his knees on Japanese TV on the Academy's Pantone 201C -red- carpet, we can certainly count on a 'Mmmerican Waterloo scenario to bring this Happy Meal Country to its squealing patellar region. Screamingly easy, it would be.

When? How exactly, for real?

Nether, you mind. Nethermost, I trust, for this ear-to-ear smilin' Netherworld, however long it takes.

One problem is (though) that even after the smile is wiped off of the face of the obviously detestable Jo(e)s (made of straw)-the 80% Other are gonna have to tweak their lower-footprint version of what it means to go after happiness.

At present it is the vast majority of the American people, not the government with its minority of electoral supporters, which guarantees barbarism in perpetuity.

Richard Oxman, info@parisgraves.com, feels he's touched upon a profoundly challenging thought here, and acknowledges that he couldn't have come up with it without considering Big Ben's coming down on the Happy People from Central Casting.