Set phasers on “flange”

The other day at the bookstore I met this guy because we both showed up simultaneously at the information counter to ask what the music was. The music was the soundtrack to The Triplets of Belleville and it’s all this crazy French cabaret stuff that you don’t expect to hear in a chain bookstore. The other guy was a stereotypical geek: hunched forward and bony, bowl haircut, oddly fitting clothes, and the intense shifting stare of someone full of divine madness. I said to him “It’s odd to hear that kind of music here at all, isn’t it.” He looked about carefully and pronounced in an emphatic way that “Well I had to MAKE SURE as I thought it sounded like MAURICE CHEVALIER but wasn’t entirely DEFINITIVE”.

I ran into him again at Diedrich. He was fighting with the pay phone so I offered the use of my cell, for which he was elaborately grateful. We then struck up a conversation and he revealed to me his plan to produce a set of science fiction guitar effects with sounds reminiscent of classic old sf movies. He was looking for people who were good at analog synth stuff because this is expensive, etc. Quite an interesting convo.

While we were talking, odradak showed up and looked uncomfortable as he sat down. odradak often looks uncomfortable so I didn’t think anything of it.

SF Guitar Effects Guy, who seemed to have a breadth of knowledge and the classic geek social awkwardness, but was very nice, then left. odradak said: “That’s the guy who hung out at Ruba. The one with the crickets all over him.” Crickets? Apparently, yes. He had crickets all over him at the other coffee house.

His name is Linus, by the way.