UPDATED: You gotta love NOLA!!

Update: So here was a pleasant greeting from cnn.com this morning:

"Hand-holding Family No Match for Tornado."

http://www.koco.com/news/18703666/detail.html

Sigh.....

Did I mention, "Sigh......."?

Now, back to your original program, already in progress.

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Okay, you know the drill by now. It's not a composite. I took a photo of this passerby's reflection (the man, not the skeleton) in the window, inside which was this cheesy skeleton conjuring up images in a crystal ball.

Which makes you naturally wonder this: Aren't crystal balls most helpful for the living? I mean, what's the point of being dead if it isn't for the certainty of the thing? It's like receiving tenure in a manner. Here's what you need to know if you're a skeleton: You're dead. I don't know what death will be like, but I always sort of saw it in one of five ways:

1. You cease to exist, and that's that. In which case, the whole skeleton with the crystal ball thing is just silly. Good for taking photos, and that's it.

2. You go to heaven, and that's that. In which case, the whole skeleton with the crystal ball thing is just silly.

3. You go to hell, and that's that. In which case, the whole skeleton with the crystal ball thing sounds pretty good. Because though I might not want to make a career of looking into a crystal ball as a skeleton, I can imagine far worse scenarios for hell. Or can I? Maybe the hell part of the crystal ball scenario comes from the torment. "Ah, now I look into this crystal ball to see our future. Ahhh....yes, something is emerging. Yes! I see it clearly now. It's.... It's.... It's....Oh, damn my soul! It's me looking into this crystal ball. For eternity. My eternity is just me looking at myself eternally looking at this crystal ball for eternity. Damn you, mocking infinite regress!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

So if the essence (and certainly the entrance) of hell is this--"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"--then a gift upon entry of a crystal ball that tells the future would be a devilish gift indeed.

Look what you've done now, reader. You've gone and upset me. Again.

4. Purgatory, in which case there is hope for a blessed future, even if that hope comes only by way of purging your sins through a refining fire. In which case, you might want to have that crystal ball handy to discern how much longer of your Extreme Soul Makeover you'll need to endure.

But maybe you don't want the crystal ball. I mean, Dante tells us that the whole purgatory thing will really hurt. Bad. True, it will be a sublime hurt because--we're told--the purging of our sinful nature, while painful, is also accompanied by the joy of becoming more holy. And that's good. But what exactly is the pain to joy ratio of the process? What exactly is the mixture of the two? Is it like the mysterious and supremely complex and wonderful mixture of pleasure and pain connected to love in all its expressions? Or is it more like having a gangrenous wound on your arm cauterize--but instead of getting anaesthesia for the procedure, you get a candy bar instead. True, the chocolate still tastes yummy, but its creamy yumminess is somewhat muted by the excruciating pain and the smell of your burning flesh.

So it's like this. If in purgatory we believe that our release is, like Hoover's promise of economic recovery from the Great Depression, "just around the corner," then we could withstand just about anything--including the candy bar/cauterization scenario. If, however, our crystal ball were to tell you that, oh man, we have another seventeen thousand years of burning flesh fumes to deal with--and the candy bar is getting stale--then you might want to start peeking around for the exit signs.

Which leads you to this question: Is purgatory kind of optional, like going to college? Or is it more like Marines Boot Camp, in which case you still have a choice--going AWOL--but the penalty is stiff? Or is it more like being strapped to an assembly line conveyor belt and you go through the process just trying to transport your mind to another place?

I'm thinking conveyor belt.

In which case, you don't want a crystal ball.

5. You might be subject to metempsychosis. In which case, you'll be wondering as you gaze into your crystal ball, "Why am I a skeleton? Wasn't my spirit supposed to be transplanted into the body of an aardvark or something? Is this whole skeleton simply a way-station? Is it a punishment, or is it a reward? Is it better to have arms I can use as drum sticks, or is it better to be sticking my snout in in ant nests for my next meal? Tell me, crystal ball, tell me!!"

In which case a crystal ball would come in most handy for a skeleton.




This is a creepy picture.

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Three other things you need to know.

1. I really like coffee in the morning. I'm on cup number three!!
2. You can't stop me from posting creepy pictures.
3. I learned the word "metempsychosis" from a book about politics.

Boom!