The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Alan Moore, �Promethea: Book 4�

Started February 8 � Finished February 12, 2006. Posted 25 March 2006

Brilliant as always. Though if you read Alan Moore, you�ve probably already read this, so you don�t need to hear it from me. If you�re reading Alan Moore, but somehow haven�t read this, there is something wrong with you. As for the rest who don�t know who Alan Moore is � your loss.

But I�ve already talked about this book for the previous three collections, and now that it�s easy to do an author search, I don�t need to hotlink them here. So let�s talk about, oh, I don�t know � the weather?

See, living in Hawaii previously as a child, I certainly remembered getting caught in the rain (and liking Pi�a Coladas). But the standard joke I made is that living up in the Manoa Hills, you got used to quick downpours, where it rained so hard that it hurt. If you were lucky enough to find an overhang when these torrents happened, you simply had to wait about five minutes, and then it would be over. Even if you couldn�t find shelter, you just had to wait it out and the sun would come back out and it wouldn�t take long to be dry again.

Not so as of late. Apparently, the islands are sick of New Orleans getting all the attention.

I don�t know how most of you get your news, so this may not come as a surprise, but New York Times wasn�t particularly interested that the Big Island has been having flash flood warnings for two weeks, and just over a week ago, there was a 200-foot-wide breech in the earthen dam in Kauai, flooding out the Kaloko Reservoir. Seven people are believed dead at this point.

Meanwhile, here on Oahu, it�s just really fucking wet.

Katrina happened almost right after I first got here, and of course, all the newspapers went into the �can it happen here?� mode, and they said it most certainly could. In fact, they showed the area that would be hit first and hardest, taking the runoff from the hills, down to the Ali Wai River, which is already too high and slow to spill off excess into the ocean efficiently. The result from heavy flooding, the report said, would have the water ultimately cresting the banks, and then the runoff from the hills would effectively submerge the buildings in the area. The X marking the biggest problem area on the map was right on top of my apartment at the time.

Of course, no that I moved out of that joint, who cares? Let the old roommates worry about it. I mean, sure, my house now is on the edge of the hill, but if we do go sliding down, we�re practically gonna land on top of them, and that would just be too funny.

Seriously, it�s been fucking crazy. Rain coming down so hard it feels and sounds like it should be considered hail. Lightning going off everywhere. Thunder so loud you�d think the volcano decided to start up again.

Those of you who�ve been reading this site for a while know that one of the reasons I picked Hawaii, rather than trying to push through my application to Columbia University, was because I don�t like weather.

Well, that, and the whole thing about my father talking offhandedly about suicide.

In any case, this, my friends, is weather. The eight minutes it normally takes me to get to work got stretched to 20, because nobody could see where the hell they were going even with the wipers going at full speed. Finally, after getting to the club, I still had another half hour before the club was going to open, so I was stuck either outside, where the wind made it that even the overhang for the club wasn�t a safe, dry place.

It�s my standard mode when I get to work early to go into The Hideaway, which is one of the reasons I decided to write about it � I mean hell, I�ve spent enough money in that joint, in makes sense that I should try and get something back. Anyhoo, I sprinted to the overhang just across from the place, and saw the parking lot was flooded.

There aren�t really any lights in that parking lot, so there wasn�t any way to gauge how bad the flooding was. The bartender, who now treats me as a minor celebrity after the article came out, was watching from the bar, egging me on, waving me inside. I took three steps, and then was up to the bottom of my calves in water.

Not ankles. Calves.

The bartender was giggling as I waded through, then poured a pitcher to have it ready when I finally passed the natural moat the parking lot had become. �This,� I said to her as I came in leaving a trail of water, �better be the best fucking beer I�ve had in my life.�

It wasn�t, but I took two just to be sure. And then worked six hours behind the beer in my sopping Docs which now served as virtual fishtanks.

Or feettanks, if you prefer.


Rating: Worth new.

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