I'm going to have to double check this, but I think I many have stumbled into some sort of parallel universe today. Best that I can determine it, the portal to this universe is the door to the washroom at the near by Barnes & Nobles. My first clue was in the washroom stall. Graffitied just above and in the same scrubbed-out ink as the GIANT Star of David was the phrase, "Death to the RIAA". I smiled, but didn't really suspect anything at the time, or at least I was focusing on the matters at hand.
After I had completed my business, I returned to my table at the enclosed coffee shop where I had previously placed some magizines and my hat as a means to assert my squatting rights. Among the magazines was a special addition of The Economist called "The World in 2004", which it seems is a yearly wrap-up of events... for 2004... Including an interview with a fungus (Philobolus crystallinus) discussing it's recently published book, "Do We Need Mankind? A Fungal Perspective".
It wasn't until after I left that I realized something was up. It wasn't until I was down the block, and across the street that I saw the empty storefront that I knew something was different. A HUGE American flag, acting as a symbol of might doing right, sprawled across the inside of a bay window over the part of the building with the dirty outline formed by years of weathering around the tentant's recently removed sign. A negative logo, and a closed McDonald's -- banish to a far off place by a lost lease, and what I can figure, a universal balance.
Somebody please watch Toto, I think I'm going to stay.
