Don’t you worry about the atmosphere

We go now to Hank, with the news from Washington. Government offices are shut down for a third straight day, Iran is possibly cooking up some nuclear weapons and… I’m almost out of crunchy peanut butter. We’re contending with some real end-of-the world type stuff here, people.

Heavy snows, 60 mph winds, whiteout conditions, suffering and pestilence… the city has collectively burrowed into a snow cave, rolled over and died. I didn’t see a single person outside when I went out to clear the steps this morning. No sidewalk-scoopers, no sledders, no crazies trying to snowboard behind SUVs. Just me and the eerie rattling of our next-door neighbor’s wind chime and the occasional distant siren.

As I finished the front walk, I saw a blurry shape approaching through the swirling snow– A guy slogging up 13th street on a blue bicycle–a road bike in fact– all pink cheeked from the wind and the effort. I sang him a few bars of the “wicked witch of the west on a bicycle” song. He grinned and raised a hand from the handlebars to salute me. Kindred spirits meet at the end of the world. (He was pretty cute too.)

I came right in and listened to Tables and Chairs by Andrew Bird, one of my favorite favorite favorites. It’s the kind of post-apocalyptic song that makes you want the end of the world to come quickly because all our friends will be there and we won’t have to worry and there will be… other really good stuff too. Just listen.

“I know we’re going to meet some day in the crumbled financial institutions of this land,
There will be tables and chairs, there’ll be pony rides and dancing bears.
There’ll even be a band.
Cause listen, after the fall there will be no more countries, no currencies at all.
We’re gonna live on our wits, we’re gonna throw away survival kits, trade butterfly-knives for Adderal.
And that’s not all.
Ooh-ooh, there will be snacks there will
There will be snacks there will.
There will be snacks.”

-Andrew Bird

The other thing I revisited today was a short film called Forever’s Not So Long that my friend Rob sent me at some point last year. It’s a feel-good 12 minute rom-com about the obliteration of the planet.

Forever’s Not So Long from garrettmurray on Vimeo.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 4:11 pm and is filed under spare change, wisdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.