What would you do for True Love?

I'm writing this really quickly before our cooking meeting (sorry I'm so late).

I love the Vonnegut stories and I agree with Amrita, Vonnegut is a lot better in Welcome to the Monkey House. My favorite of the stories we have read are Welcome to the Monkey House and EPICAC. EPICAC was a very imaginative story and had a magical quality to it, kind of like a children's story where an object comes to life at night. I was impressed with the self-sacrifice of EPICAC, who is a very interesting character despite being a machine. I think it is notable that he was being developed for war and he destroyed himself for love. He was in many ways superior to humans emotionally, probably as a result of his stoic machine nature. He understood sacrificial love almost as soon as he was given a definition of love, a feat that most humans could never claim. His understanding is especially obvious next to the narrator's, who betrays him and misleads his wife. I guess the narrator never told Pat about what EPICAC did.

I thought Welcome to the Monkey House was interesting because of the way it glorified rape. When Billy explains his motives to Nancy at the end, he explains that he only did this to her in order to bring her to the light, to let her hate him and look for another man that she could actually love. Does the end result of Nancy being in love justify the means of rape? Love is obviously necessary to a person's life, but is physical love worth demeaning him or her? I think Billy could have spent a little more time with Nancy and made the near gang rape unnecessary; he could have used other means. I think this debate is interesting in our contemporary society, which is obsessed with finding true love and especially with everyones' right to and desire for a fastidious sex life.

Kurt Vonnegut and the Temple of Doom

The only other Vonnegut work I've read aside from "Welcome to the Monkey House" is "Slapstick" and I can say without a doubt , "Monkey House" is way better. The stories short and simple, but they aren't any less comical or poignant for it.

Of EPICAC and "All the King's Men" I enjoyed the former. The chess game premise was an engaging set-up, but somewhere in the middle of the game it started to lag and became somewhat predictable (I mean, who didn't see sacrificing a kid to save the troops coming?). EPICAC, though not as comical as some of the works we read last week, was a nice man/woman/machine love triangle, and works with self-aware computers tend to turn out well. Vonnegut has a way of weaving humanity, technology, love and war together in a way that has some splendid results.

I didn't dislike "All the King's Men," (in fact moments after finishing it I told one of my roommates to pick it up and read it) I just felt it could have been tightened up in the middle. Also, and it may just me who had this problem, I had a hard time segregating Pi Yang from the Asian smuggler who tries to swindle Indiana Jones in "The Temple of Doom." They were both the same kind of cocky, shallowly drawn characters. Still a good read though.

Epicac

I really enjoyed reading this weeks selections from Welcome to the Monkey House. I've been a Kurt Vonnegut fan for some time but haven't spent much time reading his short stories. His ability to pick some social topic, throw it into some outrageous scenario, and have it spit out a sound message at the end is uncanny. "All the King's Horses" seemed to me more of an entertaining read than some profound statement. Although I hate to admit it, this may be because it conjured up images in my head from that chess scene in harry potter... EPICAC however, I enjoyed thoroughly. I'm fairly sure it is spelled differently, but the title made me think of that medicine used to induce vomit. I'm not sure how appropriate this is in reference to the story, but it made me laugh. As an engineer, the "mathematician romance" also made me laugh.

Only in a Vonnegut short story would a multi-million dollar super computer designed to pinpoint a rocket to Stalin's coat buttons turn out to be a helpless romantic. This story plays along with our discussion of last week pertaining to people being masked by/in order to please society. The narrator used this war machine to pursue Pat, whereas he wouldn't have stood a chance winning her over by himself. This "betrayal" ultimately leads to the self-inflicted short-circut of Epicac, only after he vomits enough poems to last the narrator 500 years of anniversaries.

Oh Vonnegut!

Last semester as part of Colloquium, we read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." I actually wasn't very impressed by the book, though I found some parts interesting (such as the repetition of "So it goes..." following the death of a character. But Susan insisted that Vonnegut was one of her favorite authors. I remember her sharing "Harrison Bergeron" with me as we walked up the hill to Hillcrest one afternoon, snickering incredulously the whole way, and I thought, well, I might as well give him another try - thus "Welcome to the Monkey House" appeared on this group's reading list.

I definitely liked "Welcome to the Monkey House" better than "Slaughterhouse Five." Maybe it was the bite sized short story format, that gave a hint of Vonnegut flavor to a different scenario every chapter. Maybe it was because it's set in the future - and offers more room for speculation on my part. The five stories I selected were ones I felt closest to, for various reasons.

"Harrison Bergeron," of course, was the story that drew me to the book. It wasn't that I couldn't fathom a world in which such extremes of the enforcement of equality were possible, it was that I COULD fathom such a world - in our near future. I mentioned religious equality in France - the fact that a country searching to eliminate barriers that cause racial tension could create a system gone so horribly wrong, where religious symbols are treated as gang paraphernalia, is incredible. And to think they're trying to uphold philosophies found in the US Constitution - separation of church and state! The state is, in effect, negating church completely!

"Welcome to the Monkey House," was not chosen because it's the title of the book, nor because (as some people would like you to believe) I'm obsessed with sex in fiction. I actually chose it because of the complete contrast Vonnegut presented to the society in which we live today. Today we are obsessed with sex. I saw a "Torchwood" episode recently (go ahead and laugh, Kerry, you've got me hooked) where an alien came to Earth and fed from human sexual energy. The episode included a montage of one of the characters walking down streets lined with posters for perfume ads featuring scantily clad men and women, ads for underwear (where, of course, the models must wear the item they're selling, and only the item they're selling), etc. While Vonnegut might have been trying to state that a culture that avoids sex at all costs is no better than one that obsesses over it, he was referring to the 1960s - what does it say about our society that we have not evolved in 40 years? Our thoughts towards sex need not get more prudish, nor do they have to become extremely open (as they have). Surely advertising managers are intelligent enough to find some images that don't involve sex to sell arbitrary items like shoes and deodorant?

I selected "Who am I this time?" because I love Kerry. The question of identity was one I felt could be interesting to discuss. As individuals in the process of "growing up," as the experience of living by yourself for the first time, taking control of financial affairs, etc. is part of going to college, we start to define ourselves. How do we present ourselves to a potential employer? A potential professor? A friend? A lover? ...that and the concept of method acting has always fascinated me. I'd love to have the chance to truly lose myself in someone else's skin (something I don't think can be done without truly knowing yourself first, or you run the risk, as Harry Nash did, of losing your own identity).

It seemed to me that "All the King's Horses" was made into a movie at some point...and as it were, Wikipedia notes that it was made into a TV adaptation in 1991, but IMDB has nothing to say about it. Hmm...well, I'm a terrible chess player, and I know if I were placed in the Colonel's position, I'd surely have lost the match about two paragraphs in. I thought the concept of a chess match to the death was very cruel, and that J.K. Rowling really needed to come up with her own plot. The End.

Not quite, actually: the last short story we read was "EPICAC." More than an odd fascination with sex and fiction, I'm interested by the de-evolution of the courting process in society. Here is a computer that wants to love, that writes poetry in the medieval manner of courtly love that is taken advantage of, by man. (An odd reversal of roles when it comes to science fiction, where the computer generally recognizes it is more powerful than man and then takes over the world - here the computer is not quite gullible, more naive). Sadly, today we don't even look to poetry as a means of courtship. Hell, and we even have all the words of past poets at our fingertips - at least Dennis had one thing right.

So there you have it. Why you had to read the short stories you did :) See you at 5:15!

Same and Equal

In our discussion last week about “Harrison Bergeron” we brought up the words “equal” and “same.” In this short story, society has forgotten that these things are separate. The story begins: “the year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.” Instead of giving its citizens equal rights, the “agents of the United States Handicapper General” forces U.S. citizens to be exactly the same. And since it is easier (and possible) to make people dumber, less athletic, and uglier, than to improve education, mess with genetics or plastic surgery to make people physically the same, they use “handicaps” to bring everyone down to the same level. I find this concept fascinating, because we know as humans that other people are better at us in some ways and that we are inevitably better than other people in other ways. In this future society, however, it is wrong for anyone to be better, because that means that people are not equal.
We also talked about how despite the fact that people are handicapped down to the same level, the parents in the story, George and Hazel, still judge people based on their handicaps. For example, when they were watching a certain ballerina, it was “easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.” People still judge other peoples true capabilities by how much they need to be handicapped to be brought down to the average. Vonnegut seems to be saying that humans will always judge who is the most beautiful, the strongest, the smartest, etcetera, and trying to make everyone the same is doomed to fail. We can make all people equal as seen by law, but not as seen by each other.
People being the “same” was also brought up in “Welcome to the Monkey House,” which is also a short story about the future. All of the hostesses in the story “hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing,” and are “plump and rosy, and at least six feet tall.” To the hostesses “any old man, cute and senile, who quibbled and joked and reminisced for hours” was called a “Foxy Grandpa.” All “nothingheads” exhibit the same behavior. People don’t seem to be individuals in society, in Vonnegut’s many imagined futures, but machines that merely function within society as they are told they should. Although in both cases there are people who break through the mold and fight society to be themselves: Harrison and Billy the Poet.

The Reduction Factor

I'd like to take this post to really focus on 'Harrison Bergeron', not to say the other stories we discussed lacked merit and surely they will make their way into my ramblings, but I am struck by the ideas of equality presented in 'HB'. The reader is presented with the world in 2081, where everyone must be handicapped in order to ensure no one rises above anyone else. There's a Handicapper General to ensure an equality throughout the population.

It's really just too easy to compare this to what's going on in the world today. Anyone who's grown up in Virginia public schools knows about the SOLs: those dreaded exams, that for at least some people only served as an annoyance. All through elementary, middle and high school the SOL was present in order to ensure that everyone fits a minimum level of education. Now, I loathed these exams; they wasted my time, and offered no challenge. Then again, I test pretty well and memorize facts quickly. I would read articles about those less fortunate who just couldn't pass the test, no matter how much time or preparation. And everyone of those kids had stellar talents in other areas. I think I recall an Olympic level gymnast who couldn't get the English SOL.

As I watched my fellow students fly through the exam, or struggle for hours, there were the teachers to consider. Every one of them had to "teach to the test." The curriculum was handed down from the state, and I always thought really limited my teachers. Those who taught AP-level courses still had those limitations: all the students still needed to take the SOL, and then the AP exam needed its own prep.

I get the idea that everyone needs a basic foundation, I understand that there should be a common background for the population, but forcing everyone to one set of rules really limits the opportunity for individuality. I think my senior English teacher would have loved the freedom to just play with novels and poetry, instead of getting us into college and past the exam. He found the joy he could with the structures he had, but I wonder what it would have been like to just go for it.

The ballerina's in 'HB' appear to me an extreme example of equality-bringing beautiful and graceful figures down to ugly, ungainly beasts. But in the home of Harrison's parents the reader sees a somewhat above-average man not allowed to think due to a device that creates just enough sound to distract. It's the equality of the everyday-making the average more average, and that bothers me more than ballerinas. It's counter-intuitive to everything I was told growing up. It was always, "be yourself!" "don't conform!" "be all that you can be!" So, what part of that also means, "don't you dare make yourself a true individual. Don't even think about thinking." I can't resolve those ideas of individuality with standardized testing, or the celebration of the unique with the encouragement to be the same as your neighbor.

Well, can't say I got to the other stories, but soap-boxing does wonders for the soul.

The Loved One

I have never read The Loved One before, or anything quite like it. I found the warning at the beginning to be quite humorous and did not even consider "returning my copy to the bookstore or library unread". I really didn't have much trouble getting into The Loved One, as I kept waiting for the entrance of "the ultimate embalmer" and the "crematorium cosmetician" promised by the back of the book. Once the pieces began to fall in place, however, the sheer absurdity of the situation began to become apparent. I did enjoy Barlow's description of American women as "the standard product". I think it does say alot about our culture to be able to "leave such a girl in a delicatessen shop in New York, fly three thousand miles and find her again in the cigar stall in San Francisco, just as he would find his favorite comic strip in the local paper...". I realize this isn't always true, but I do think its funny when you pass the same girl ten times crossing the drill field. You know, the one with the big sunglasses, the jean miniskirt, the rainbow sandals, and that bag that all girls have? I did find it odd, though appropriate i suppose that Aimee appealed to Dennis' pursuit of "the veiled face in the fog, the silhouette at the lighted doorway, the secret graces of a body which hid itself under formal velvet," all images which allude to death in my mind.

I am not afraid of death, nor nearly as intrigued by it as the characters in the book. Perhaps it is my roots in Christianity, but I am wary of the way these characters glorify death. I realize that these are occupations which are needed in society, and perhaps I have never given thought to all the work that must be done before "waiting ones" say goodbye to their loved one by means of a funeral. Still, this was a very interesting book that opened my mind to many new perspectives in a short amount of time.

Alot like Fargo

For me The Loved One was alot like the movie Fargo. Both are blacker than black comedies that you feel bad about smirking about. I first read The Loved One in high school and I remembered liking it, but not this much. Waugh very cleverly pokes fun at American culture (or perhaps more accurately, lack thereof.) I agree with some of the other bloggers that the book starts very slow, I personally read the first fifty pages over the course of three or four days, but once things picked up I finished out the last hundred or so in one sitting. I really liked the several hideously hilarious scenes in the book, (e.g. when Amy Thatagenos goes from glum to beaming when she receives a smiling cadaver from Mr. Joyboy, or Dennis' poem about Sir Frances being painted like a whore.)

All in all a very entertaining, albeit brief, read.

"I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."

In our discussion of Waugh's The Loved One, someone posed the question along the lines of, "Do you think our generation has a special fascination with death, particularly in the media?" Men have always been fascinated with death; it's the end of one lifetime and, to many, the beginning of another, hence the many representations of the afterlife in mythologies across many cultures. I don't think our perceptions of death have changed either, though The Loved One presents a more modern perspective on commercialized grief. I see that economic value as what our era has brought to the table in the treatment of death. Not only in the actual ritual itself, where you can shop for how you want to bury your dead, but in general attitudes as well.

I refer to how our generation has spawned the goth movement, a social scene that fetishizes morbidity, or at least that's how it's marketed. It's cool to think about death and dress like it! Brand yourself with dreariness! While the movement draws from many other movements (i.e. roots in post-punk, focuses on individualism, aesthetic associations with the Victorian era), the watered down version targeting the more gullible prepubescents at Hot Topic focuses on the mainstream associations of which death is a part of. There's nothing wrong with a curiosity/interest towards death--it's just weird to think about an actual consumer market for this interest.

Anyway, while I do appreciate some aspects of the gothic aesthetic (damn Ms. McPherson, you make pretty shit), there's only so much I can take of the bleak attitude in regards to death. I mean, I'm a big fan of Kerry's Irish wake, the more celebratory and joyous mindset. In his comic classic The Sandman, Neil Gaiman wrote my favorite personification of Death (pictured and quoted in the subject line), depicted as a seemingly young woman with high energy and always ready with a smile. Never malicious or wicked, she's instead presented as someone you'd probably wanna hang with if she didn't, y'know, accompany everyone to the afterlife. That's not to say she takes her job lightly, and speaks of herself with gravity but without melodrama: "I'm not blessed, or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do, and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes; in hospitals and forests and abbatoirs. For some folks death is a release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them." Gaiman's is a delightful treatment of death without trivializing or dramatizing it, but makes you feel like when it's your time to go, whether you were ready or not, you're in good hands.

Other death-related media worth mentioning:

• "Six Feet Under" - A six season HBO dramedy about a dysfunctional family that runs a funeral home in Los Angeles. It also deals with the commercialization of grief in a similar manner as The Loved One, when the family business is almost bought out by a funeral service conglomerate. Though really, you should watch it for the most upbeat embalmer you'll ever encounter.
• "The Frogs" - One of the first black comedies? By Aristophanes, the god Dionysus
  thinks good tragedy's gone to hell, so he goes to retrieve it ... in the form of Euripides.
• "Dead Like Me" - An HBO comedy about grim reapers.
• "Stranger Than Fiction" - Metafiction is sweeeet, especially in the film medium where the genre has only a small presence. A man starts hearing a voice narrating his life and learns of his imminent death. The moral about life in the face of death is pretty generic, but the storytelling is smart in all other aspects.
  
• "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" - Not mentioning this as a rec, per say, but with the popularity of all these forensics shows, I wonder whether the appeal is in the mystery scenarios that crime scenes provide or in the victim's death.
  

American Women

Fiction Side: “The Loved One” was the first book I have read by Evelyn Waugh. I found his humor, which was pretty dark, very entertaining, and I enjoyed reading it.
Waugh definitely had an interesting take on the American woman. Dennis found American woman to be all the same, a “standard product,” who would “croon the same words to him in moments of endearment and express the same views and preferences in moments of social discourse.” Dennis finds American women boring, even going was far to say that they all look alike, and when he does get involved with Aimee, he does not get emotionally attached (well, he is English). This is shown when she dies, as Dennis goes right into the business of getting rid of her body, the only regret of her death a “I loved that girl." There are many interesting characters in this book, and names too, especially “Joyboy,” since there was such a contrast of serious dialogue and descriptions with Mr. Joyboy’s name (very amusing). Examples: “‘This is no time for recrimination, Joyboy,’” “Mr. Joyboy was debonair in all his professional actions.”

Food Side: Ben and I scoped out D2 International Chocolate Day and discovered that they do not do chocolate and chili pepper well. Kerry, however, has promised that she does it very well, so that is perhaps a project to consider for later on.

Love, Death, and American Culture

The Loved One started out dull, but as soon as Sir Francis died, it got a lot more interesting. At first I was shocked by how cynically Waugh treats death and then I was appalled by it. Overall, I really liked the book; it provided a good sense for American culture, outwardly proper, but inwardly callous, that still easily applies today. A couple of examples of this duplicity are the characters of JoyBoy and Dennis. While at work, JoyBoy is gentle, strong, and passionate, but once he goes home, he becomes pathetic and powerless. Dennis, who seems unassuming and asexual in the beginning, morphs into a sadistic and sarcastic joker after he is seen through Aimee's eyes.

I was amused by how far out of his way The Dreamer was willing to go to make the park a place for lovers. The ferry brings young couples to the lake island so they can "neck," the Wee Kirk o' Auld Lang Syne provides a place for lovers to swear their eternal love, and a section of the gardens is a burial for couples, presided over by a statue of The Kiss. This approach could be interpreted as a noble blending of the love from life and love in death, but with Waugh's tone it turns cheap. Aimee might be one of the few people who takes the Heart of the Bruce seriously and she kills herself in order to escape it. Maybe this suggests that The Dreamer uses love as a way to urge people into earlier death. Part of the sales routine to get people to make their "Before Need Provision Arrangements" is to exploit their love for their families.

Overall, a good, short and sweet read. In my mind, I can still see Dennis reading a novel as his "fiancee" is incinerated..

On Dying and Diets (among other things)...

So we chose this book because I believe it was the Waugh novel neither Kerry nor I had read. Having come from "Handful of Dust" myself, I was glad to be reacquainted with Waugh's sharp humor and incredible word choice, all bundled into a tiny package of death and Hollywood.

There are a couple of quotes from the book I brought up at our cooking session that I'd like to revisit:

"We limeys have to stick together. You shouldn't hide yourself away, Frank, you old hermit." (p6)
I'm not a "limey," exactly, but I have left my country for the US, and can say that Asians have the whole "sticking together" mentality down pat. It's important, I agree, to retain a level of familiarity with tradition, but not at the cost of assimilating into society. It's a fine line, cricket in the morning and tea and scones in the afternoon is just dandy, as long as it doesn't mean you're never going to step into Starbucks.

"Clever chap, but he went completely native - wore ready-made shoes, and a belt instead of braces..." (p11)
I was amused, throughout the book, by Waugh's portrayal of what it means to be American. Such as this little bit here.

"...he came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death." (p37)
With a continuous stream of exposure to violence via media, I can't help but wonder if this statement continues to be true for our generation, though in a different sense. Waugh refers to the effects of the world wars on Dennis' generation; we. too, have our wars, fought on the other end of the world but brought into our homes on the television. Our siblings, we ourselves, have played war games (Halo, anyone?) and while this is not a rant about the negative impact of violence in video games, I can't help but wonder what having such a familiarity with death and violence can do to our generation.

"I presume the Loved One was Caucasian?"
"No, why would you think that? He was purely English." (p45)
*snicker*

"My memory's very bad for live faces." (p87)
Don't we all know that person that gets so involved in their work that they have no life outside the realm of a job?

"Why, my dear girl, it's only money that has been holding me back. Now you can keep me, there's nothing to stop us." (p110)
Marriage was originally an economic union; as "love" became a determining factor, the value of marriage as a means of economic stability dwindled. If deemed once again as an economic union in the eyes of the law, issues like "gay marriage" would be placed in a whole new light - without the argument for or against the ability of homosexuals to love each other in the same way heterosexuals do, without the argument for or against the "correctness" (moral or religious) of homosexuality, the only debate remains: can two men support each other economically in the same way a man and woman can?

"The cigarettes Mr. Slump smoked were prepared by doctors, so the advertisements declared, with the sole purpose of protecting his respiratory system." (p118)
This reminds me of the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper," where his character wakes up a couple of hundred years after being frozen, to find that in the future, science has proved that salad is actually what deprived humanity of enough nutrients, and eating steak and fries every night for dinner results in a healthier, longer life. Our society is preoccupied with diets, because of our preoccupation with appearance. The consumer-hungry nature we possess results in the plethora of diet options, all "medically" proven to be successful solutions to our weight-loss issues. Will we, too, learn that our cigarettes (diets) are no longer good for us?

"Your little Aimee is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you." (p163)
What an appropriate ending.

Shropshire Soul Cake

The recipe:
4 c. self-raising flour
1 tsp. apple pie spice (mixed spice)
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 c. soft butter
3/4 c. superfine sugar (+ sprinkling)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 c. raisins
approx. 2 tbsp. milk

Method:
Preheat over to 350 F; line a baking sheet. Sift flour and spices in one bowl, while blending sugar and butter to a light and fluffy state in another. Beat the eggs into the sugar mixture, then gradually fold in the flour mixture. Add enough milk to bind the dough, roll on a floured surface to a 1/4" thickness, cut into rounds . Arrange on cooking sheet, prick with fork to make cross design and bake for approx. 15 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar and enjoy.

According to my cookbook, Shropshire soul cakes were given out on All Soul's Day to those who would go out "souling", or singing for the souls of the dead. The traditions that surround death have always fascinated me- the Victorian death and mourning traditions took up volume upon volume: the dress, the flowers, the actions-death was an art. Death is still an art-according to the National Funeral Directors Association the average cost of funeral in 2004 was $6500. The coffin takes up some thousands, then the service, the flowers, and then there's the emotional costs...and so forth. From ancient times to the modern era, the ceremonies of death have been a huge part of culture. How we treat our dead ends up reflecting on our abilities to care for another, from the end of life into the world beyond.

Is this treatment of death, doesn't society go too far? In Loved One, lives of characters revolve around the funeral home. Every description of the "Whispering Glades" memorial park and funeral home paints a picture of the most luxurious possible final resting place, which really only settles the peace of mind of the deceased's "waiting ones". The 'Loved One', unless he or she has left final instructions, really won't have an opinion on the final procedures regarding, to put it crudely, the disposal of the body. Perhaps it's only that when I die I only request a quick cremation, a lovely urn, and one heck of a wake. Specifically an Irish Wake. From what I understand, this means my friends and family left behind get drunk and celebrate the life I led, and the memories I'll leave behind. I spend part of every day wondering about the legacy I'll leave behind, and wondering how I want to be remembered. Each day is a little closer to the final end, and all I really ask is something more lasting to humanity than a stone. I believe in the ancient tradition of the name lasting through the ages. Preferably not in a hated way, but so long as I'm found in a history book, I'll be happy.

Welcome!

A quick greeting and orientation to this blog.

Instead of writing a paper at the end of the semester, Russell has allowed us to post to this blog bi-weekly, to fulfill that requirement. As noted in the email, you should submit your post by midnight on Wednesdays.

We had our first filming session this week, and as soon as Kerry and I can edit the film (if there's someone willing to help us with that, please let us know!) it'll be posted as well.

See you next week!