Friday, April 11, 2003

posted 4:07 PM
HEART OF THE DRAKKAR NOIR

"Watching the current action in Baghdad is extremely strange," writes a friend. "First of all, those palaces of Sadaam's, all of which look like Atlantic City casinos -- plastic washbasins with gold faucets and hollowcore doors. Then, the sight of burned out tanks and bodies in the road, both in the middle of what appears to be the more distant stretches of, say, La Cienega just above the intersection of I-5...."

What grabs me most are the accounts (lists, really) of the regime's more personal gomi. Drakkar Noir definitely the cologne of choice. They all seem to have been avid readers of VANITY FAIR (which makes a horrid kind of sense). Well-thumbed Danielle Steele paperbacks seem to turn up pretty frequently as well. One of Saddam's sons had a pretty cool collection of personal firearms, but nothing really that a Montana dentist and heavy contributor to the NRA couldn't assemble, with a little help from his friends. Saddam's yacht managed a little of the old Austin Powers super-villain flash, though, boasting a secret underwater escape-hatch (though the mini-sub, my Plot Device noted, is *missing*) and a private operating theater with a black leather operating table (maybe this was for tweaking the doubles into more Saddamoid parameters?).

Personally I think he's in that mini-sub. Reading Danielle Steele.

THE GREAT AND GLOWING WEN

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030411.html

Where I will soon be going.

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