---   B E N   M I L L E R  

He rolls out of bed, walks into the kitchen, sticks his skull in the brain toaster and flips the switch that causes the potassiated ions to flow, no more coffee for Daddy, caffeine too hard on the heart, worse on the stomach, whereas this tidy steel appliance with the hand grips has no known side effects and works so much quicker, cutting through the sleepfog in seconds, neurons revving in the manner of Indy cars, stats and priorities roaring around the skull:

1.) Jokeless rate among teenagers now at 46%, much joshing with delivery kids in order.

2.) Rain last night, puddle sketching paramount.

3.) Tape Cajun tumor music for Maryann.

4.) Arrange for delivery of steel catering coffin to sub-level party room at Marriott Marquee.

5.) Present first annual Wisdom Award to the urban photographer known at the Ansel Adams of 17th Street who tells every subject: A blur is never a bad thing.

6.) Finish tossing the tricky salad of autumn leaves and writing the one act play entitled: Don't Give Me That! I Need It!

7.) Get angry at somebody, doesn't matter who, and end the rant with the following rhetorical question: What do I look like, a spoiler in a boiler room?

8.) Ponder why it is that when asked for the time some people feel compelled to lift their wrist higher than necessary and pinch the watch face tightly between two fingers.

9.) Give recipe for soul scallopini to Gavin.

10.) Pick vase shards out of knit cap and then put cap on and further investigate the lingering suspicion that the wantonly colorful old woman downstairs murdered her husband last Winter by spilling fruit punch on the sidewalk and creating a purple ice slick near the newsstand where he routinely bought The New York Times.

11.) Notify owner of The Crepe Factory the sign out front reads The Creep Factory.

12.) Try once more to convince that stubborn little niece that her favorite snack is called caramel corn not camel corn.

13.) Meet with the big eyebrow guy about the instillation of the Stations of the Dross mural in the lobby of the Cathedral of Commerce on 48th Street.

14.) Talk to the little pinkie woman about enlargement of 24th Street to accommodate the left turns of the new, longer limos carrying the new, longer executives.

15.) Sing a song of six pence in Central Park with Sal the crow and, if there's time, an original or two, such as: We live on an ugly block / houses treated for shock / all the neighbors in hock / bought the wrong stock.

16.) Pocket the rye Klein can't use and deposit it in a bushel in the bailiwick of Bronson.

17.) Rent a billboard on a major thoroughfare, preferably the FDR drive, and hire someone, preferably a union man, to mount a tiny story written in huge letters, for example: Harold Arlen was appointed supervisor. Jim had never liked the songs of Harold Arlen. In went the ear plugs and when one fell out, Jim quit.

18.) Explore via video essay the close visual relationship of the words QUIET and QUIT.

19.) Answer e-mail criticism of S. Dooley who mercilessly makes fun of this brain toaster even though she owns a much more ridiculous Liquid Phone and also an Expression Machine that frumes and huffs and puffs and spits into a little cup a little piece of paper with bitter stuff written on it, such as: ANOTHER FACT THAT WILL MAKE YOU ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN--In the Fall of 2000 a group of Minnesota high school girls wearing matching spangled jackets flew to the Smithsonian where they performed an adaptation of "Yesterday" called "Westerday" on Africanly decorated drums made out of truck tires and masking tape.

20.) Contact government official and demand an explanation for the close visual relationship of the words NASA and NAZI.

21.) Call eye doctor and tell him things are looking too one dimensional again.

22.) For reasons of safety try not to make love or enter any buildings until the one dimensional vision problem clears up.

23.) Sue the author of the too historical novel that caused the excess squinting that resulted in the one dimensional vision problem.

24.) Interview Yale graduate who came upon a horrific gingerbread house on the edge of New Haven during a mad dash to escape an alumni function involving scissors and champagne.

25.) Take advantage of the reality-muting effects of one dimensional vision and visit that gingerbread house surrounded by the 14 terribly deformed children, some with huge heads on stilts, others with no legs or arms, lying like pale eggs in the tall grass.

26.) Raise blow gun to lips and shoot tranquilizer into the neck of the mentally ill mother/torturer of these children, the Yale drop-out with filthy red hair who lives to create deformity, purposely taking large doses of the drug Accutane as soon as she becomes pregnant by a trustee or a janitor.

27.) Load all the bent, broken, swollen, twisted, leaking, beaked "God's children" onto an ambulette and deliver them to the healer/ghoul in the Bronx who lives in the bungalow covered with normally shaped body parts—noses, arm pits, knees, necks etc. etc.—and charges reasonable rates for attachment.

Bing.