KAREN SAYS, 'LOVE IS A ZERO-SUM GAME'

That Tori Amos video was on MTV. Very cool video. Maria turned up the sound.
Karen was wearing biker shorts and a yellow and black Campagnolo cap. And a
t-shirt she had silk-screened herself. It was one she didn't wear much
outside the house. My guess is that the scene it depicted, involving herself
and Bart Simpson, had *something* to do with that.

Howard had scored some great dope and was passing a red bong.

"Oooh," said Maria, who had just bought the cd, "this is the best part:


     [  So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts,
        What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?
        Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon.
        How's *that* thought for you? ]

"I like that a lot. With that one line she raises the stakes of the whole
song."

"Great phrasing," said Maria. "I'd do her if she asked me."

"Throw in the cd." Howard did.

Cool cover. Redhead girl in a wooden box. Barefoot with a tiny piano.
Definite David Lynch feel to it. And on the back cover these phallic
mushroom stalks and caps.

"Hey," said Howard, looking over the cover, "Isn't David Lunch's daughter
supposed to be doing something about a girl who lives in a box?"

"Sounds likely."


     [ she's been everybody's girl
       maybe one day she'll be her own. ]

Karen said, "Hey, you know the prisoner's dilemma? For some reason I was
thinking about it the last time I tripped."

Karen had been reading up on game theory and famous paradoxes. The
prisoner's dilemma is more or less: You and another person are captured by
the police. You are held in separate rooms and both made the same offer. If
you defect(tell all to the police) and the other one doesn't, you get off
scot free. If you both refuse to defect, you get one year in jail each. If
you both talk, you both get three years. So, what do you do?

"Sure. We know the prisoner's dilemma. What of it?"

"Well, do you talk or not?"

Howard said, "I think that before I would commit any crime I'd talk it over
with my accomplices beforehand and have everyone agree that if we got caught
and were presented with--"

"But can you trust them?"

Maria said, "I read about this guy in Scientific American...I guess it was
in the old Martin Gardner column, does he still do that, who auctioned off a
dollar for $3.40."

"Shubin was the guy's name who did that. Something Shubin"

"Whatev. What made it cool was whoever bid second-highest had to pay that
much, so no one wanted to be that--there was an imperative to keep going."

Karen thought it over a moment, then said, "Neat" and tossed the Campy cap
onto a table.

Josh and Erin walked in.

"I remember a different version. Twenty people, you and your friends,
sitting in sealed booths. You each have a gun pointing at your head and a
button by your hand that you can press. For anyone who pushes the button,
the odds of survival are set at ninety percent. Not too bad, but with twenty
people, almost certainly two will die. You following, Josh?"

"Yeah. We're already baked. Go on."

"Well, for anyone who doesn't push the button, the odds of being shot are
one over n-squared, where n is the number of people who don't push. So, if
five people don't push, the odds are what, one in twenty-five. Not too bad.
But if you're the only one..."

"Blammo."


     [ I wanna smash the face of those beautiful BOYS
       those Christian boys so you can make me cum
       that doesn't make you Jesus I remember yes
       in my peach party dress no one dared no one cared
       to tell me where the pretty girls are those demigods
       with their NINE-INCH nails and little fascist panties
       tucked inside the heart of every nice girl...]

"Who's the singer?" asked Erin, while I pulled Josh over to help me with
some drinks.

"Tori Amos."

I set up the glasses and Josh filled each with a shot or so of Bailey's.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Chambord."

"Ooh, raspberry. Good deal. What's with the spoon?"

"Check it out. Paul showed me..."

"The bartender?"

"Yup." I showed him how to dribble the liqueur over the back of the spoon so
the Chambord would remain separate, on top.

"Funky." He held up the glass in the light and bent his wrist in and out as
he looked it over. Then, he drank it. "Man, that's good shit. What's it
called?" And he poured himself another one.

"Paul calls it Good Sex. I don't argue with him."

"What's he doing these days?"

"Workin' on a novel."

"Really? Cool."

"Yeah, he was always a slow reader."

"Shit. I stepped right into that."

"I won't tell," I lied.

"Thanks."

We brought the drinks back.

"So you really wouldn't press that button?"

"If no one presses, then you've only got a one in four hundred chance of
dying."

"But you can't be *sure*."

"What if the others are all stupid?"

"What if they're not? What if they're all Secretaries of State, all War
Ministers, all Henry Kissingers? What changes? For you??"


     [ I'll go wearing my NAUGHTIES like a jewel
       they'll be my ticket to the universal opera
       there's Judy Garland taking Buddha by the hand
       and then these seven little men get up to dance
       they say Confucius does his crosswords with a pen...]

"Sounds like the arms race."

"The analogy is probably clearer with that dollar bill auction."

"Dollar bill auction?"

It was explained to Josh and Erin.

"There's no imperative really to win. In fact, you just end up looking
foolish, because you bought a dollar for three bucks."

"The only imperative is not to finish second, in which case do you lose not
only near as much as the high bidder, but you don't even get the buck for
it."


     [ oh god could it be the weather oh god
       why am I here if love isn't forever and it's
       NOT THE WEATHER hand me my leather...]

"I second *that* emotion," said Karen.


     [ "IN A SENSE" he said "you're alone here
        so if you jump you best jump far"...]

"And *that* one. Hey Josh, Erin, either of you take any anthropology
classes?"

"A while ago, yeah. Just for the requirement. Why?"

"Oh...I was just thinkin' about something..."

"All right. What?"

"Well, the very very first humans. I mean, at some point there had to be a
human whose parents weren't...human."

"Well, how are you defining 'human'?"

"I mean, the first ones to have 'language'. The whole thing. There must have
been some point where a girl had language and her parents didn't. She must
have been so lonely. I bet there were a lot of suicides among these people,
before they finally found each other."

Erin took a hit and said, "What makes you think it happened like that?
Couldn't there be some with just the rudiments of language--"

"Five nouns, four verbs, no adjectives."

"Well, yeah. Kinda."

"No. They say there's no such thing as a 'primitive' language. Every
language is capable of saying exactly what it wants to say. They are all
infinite. It's just how language works. So this poor girl had all of
infinity inside her, and her parents were still sniffing each other's
butts."

"Some things never change," said Josh, sniffing Erin's.

"No, I'm serious, this really bothers me. Language is an all- or-nothing
thing. You have it or you don't. That girl must have been *so* lonely..."

"Oooh, this is a cool line."


     [ Neil says hi by the way
       I don't believe you're leaving because me and Charles Manson
       like the same ice cream." ]

"Wonder what flavor?"

"Ben n Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough," said Howard, from the kitchen.
"Want some?"

"Bring the whole thing. And a bunch of spoons."

The ice cream disappeared, noisily.

"So...as soon as this poor lonely girl had language available to her, she
instantly had everything that language creates--"

"Dreams that she could remember, hopes, desires, mystery, wonder, awe.."

"God, death, love."

"Oh, yes," said Karen. "Do you think love is a zero-sum game?"

RICHH
--Have fun, CJ