Brave New B Side

We're having an offsite "Day of Learning" today for work. I'm really excited, I'm in fact so excited that I have shaved each of the Lucky Charms' colorful, marshmallow shapes into my pubic hair. This way, when some other poor schlub who is forced to learn something about me, a complete stranger who they will probably never see again, I can merely lower my pants.

Honestly, I would be more excited if work was hosting an offsite "Day of the Dead", where we are all given a gun and let loose in an underground containment facility full of flesh eating zombies. Whoever gets through without having their entrails ripped out wins whatever the point of this exercise is...

The "Day of Learning" is being held at a hotel downtown that has always sort of bothered me. This hotel is two thin cylinders, reaching into the sky. It seems like a hotel you might see in Japan, which is not what bothers me. It seems like some lame architect’s idea of futurism, which isn't what bothers me. It seems like a leftover set piece from Blade Runner, which really isn't what bothers me. I can't say what bothers me specifically, it just seems to hurt my delicate sensibilities, and every time I see these towers I think to myself, 'Slender Fungus'.

There is a scene in Huxley's Brave New World where a character is looking down on the buildings of a city and mentions that they rise up like slender fungus. When I read this, not only did I picture the exact sort of building like this hotel, but I took particular notice as there is a Tones on Tail song entitled Slender Fungus.

I had a strange attraction to the song Slender Fungus for awhile before I realized that the name was borrowed from Brave New World. For quite awhile, the song was not available on CD. I found it on the album 'Pop', which was a difficult find, but find it I did, in a small record store inside of a remodeled house in "downtown" Gig Harbor, Washington.

It took me a little while to realize that what I liked about the song was the rarity of it and that I didn't really like the song itself all that much. And I'm afraid this has happened to me on more than one occasion. I become entranced by the limited availability of some import only B side, or one off cover that was on some compilation album. I need to remember that hard to find does not necessarily mean worth finding*.

Thank you work, but it appears I've had my day of learning.

*Then again, I have found some hard to find, or out of print songs and albums that have absolutely blown my mind and remained favorites. And it's a little psychotic that I had the obsessive need to explain that.