(no subject)

Spam, scam, and money laundering...this e-mail has it all!

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a Private Investigator based in Europe. A group of Government Officials from an African Country contacted me with a Proposal. I am to Make contact with you and state their offer, if your Interest is Genuine, you will be contacted for your Account details to which will be transferred the sum of $33,600,000.00 USD. (20% of which is yours)You are then required to forward the remaining balance (Minus the Interest, handling and tax clearance charges, which Will be offset by Us & Deducted from the transferred sum) to a nominated Bank account in the Cayman Islands. I don't think I need to spell out the importance of Secrecy in this Matter considering the amount involved. Let me state clearly here that the account that you would be providing does not need to have funds in it; it is only needed to be active and be able to receive funds. So, if I don't hear from you within three days I will assume you are not interested and will solicit for a new partner, but if you know you are
interested let me know. List your phone & fax Numbers so we may communicate with you. This is important as we would Have to talk about the modalities of the transaction.
Waiting to hear from you.

Armstrong Pete
peteam1@tiscali.co.uk


Okay, so I received this to my iu account today (grr...I'm starting to get spam there, which sucks!), and as near as I can tell it's a scam to get bank account information disguised as a money laundering scheme.

God, this is such a strange little pocket of reality!

But, in case it is real, I've included the return e-mail for any of you who might wish to break into the lucrative field of money laundering. I mean, just because I think the randomly capitalized words suggest jokitude doesn't mean this guy isn't legit. Really.

Halloween Roadtrip, 2004

I'm announcing it now so that y'all can plan ahead.

After three years of exceedingly banal Halloweens, I have come to a conclusion:

Halloween in the midwest sucks sweaty donkey balls.

This is a completely subjective opinion and in no way reflects on the good times had by others on Halloweens past, so don't even bother to tell me why I'm wrong because for *myself*, I'm not. As I've expounded upon in LJ posts elsewhere (and pasted and edited here), Halloween is my favorite holiday, and has significant creative and spiritual charge for me. But this charge is not linked to parties or pagan rituals. It's all about the masks and illusions and creative chaos.

I'm a costume whore. And Halloween is a day dedicated to costumy goodness. And there are both celebratory and spiritual aspects to that which for me exceed any celebratory or spiritual aspects found in Halloween parties or Samhain rituals. There is something ecstatic for me in spending *months* planning and executing the most amazing costume I can think of, then going to a place where *tens of thousands* of other people (whose costume skills put mine to shame) have done the same thing, and just walking around in ecstatic communion over the beauty and creativity of the masks that we put on to show our real selves, our imagined selves, the selves we admire and wish to bring into us. If identity is performative, then Halloween is the time when we get to *be*. And the more energy we put into *being*, the more we can embody our deepest dreams and fears.

Really, it's all about the illusions that we work so hard to make into reality that they become more real than the everyday. Hyperreality at its best.

I'm talking Knott's Scary Farm, with cool mazes and monsters who chase you with chainsaws, and the original Freddy vs. Jason vs. everyone in pop culture. I'm talking wandering hoardes of trick-or-treaters all over the place, who run from house to house trailing parents behind. I'm talking about hundreds of people at gothic masquerade balls that would put the scene in Labrynth to shame.

But beyond anything else, I'm talking Santa Monica Blvd. -- the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval. It's filled with beautiful people in beautiful costumes that you can never approach competing with because the people who made them have spent several months, tons of money, and loads of creative energy and love putting them together. I would work pretty hard every year and wouldn't get a whole lot of attention because there were just so many impressive costumes and costumed groups, which was fine because just looking and applauding others' efforts is the best part. You just walk up and down the Blvd and marvel at the beauty and creative genius that regular, everyday people can put forth for no other reason than to celebrate each other and clothing and the masks we wear that show our true selves.

So, next year I'm going home for Halloween. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome. We'll get crash space somewhere, and have an ecstatic, magikal Halloween, L.A.-style. Screw this midwest bullshit. Lame-ass interior of America.

Kitsune
Angst is for amateurs. Professionals rant.