Brain Hammer

Open letter to Nature regarding Nature.

When I say “Nature,” Oh Nature, I usually refer to you and not the scientific journal Nature, that I, sometimes, in my weakness, take to be your mouthpiece. Usually I strive, I swear I do, to take your lessons from your own lips, to discern your thoughts from your clues and yours alone, and trust not in the reports of these upstarts, these scientists. But sometimes, Oh Nature, when I stare into the inky blackness, it doesn’t, pace Nietzsche, stare back, yet alone tell me whether or not the curvature of Space-Time is explicable without positing the existence of Dark Matter. Sometimes all I get is nada. And I, desperate for some news from the front, turn to the journals. But hey: as I heard once (from a Love and Rockets song, actually): “You cannot go against Nature. Because when you do. Go against Nature. That’s part of Nature too.” So there. Also part of Nature, for better or for worse, is Love and Rockets. And, more to the point, so is the journal Nature.

Which brings me to my current concern. Have you heard what these bitches are saying about you? Apparently, squirrels have heated tails utilizing infrared to ward off predator snakes. Who makes this shit up? Is it you, Nature? Or just Nature? And get this one: It hurts less to be a man because testosterone damps pain sensations?!?! I’m not buying it. Who, besides me, can feel my own pain? No team of scientists, that’s for sure. And finally there are the octopuses alleged to have a preferred tentacle. Why bother being right-handed when you’ve got seven others at your disposal? And, more to the point, who fucking cares? Not me, oh Nature. But I care about you. I would never talk trash about you, no matter how tempting it might be to mix it up a bit. Tempting, say, to convince the world that men use the heat in their preferred tentacles to ward off pain. But that’s poetry. Or porn. And, I guess, it is all ultimately, truth as well as fiction, part of you, Nature. As am I. But not part of Nature.

Keepin’ it natural,

Dr. Smax

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 28th, 2004 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.