Let Us Now Praise Famous Angels, and: Reported Number of Teen Virgins Rises, or, When Squid Attack

14 the minnesota review Claudia Grinnell Let Us Now Praise Famous Angels I see right through them: all holy and terribly wasteful—conspicuous consumption of the heady (four, by my count) sort to point towards the cardinal directions with all the moral authority of rodents scurrying through Beverly Hills. They sold themselves to Time—full page, full color; to Hallmark— all rhyme; they pimp for Springer (you fat slut!) and hawk natural breast enhancement products during 4 a.m. remainder rate slots. They are spokespeople of the always-happening miracle, gathering at water-coolers, bending over just so. Now that they walk among us it has become increasingly difficult to escape their morbid fascination with flesh; they slip under shirts and poke belly buttons. They have grown too fat to fly, often crashing dangerously close to schools and hospitals and other places of refuge. On dear days, you can see them tormenting god, eating meat on Fridays and dancing on pins without a seat belt. They smoke recklessly, great big ethereal cigarettes; they are notjealous of us, they don't pity us, they are not desolate. They have cable, three-dimensional puzzles, photographs of themselves at the Grand Canyon. They carry their own crosses until they get tired. Grinnell 15 Reported Number of Teen Virgins Rises, or. When Squid Attack Not a moment too soon, of course, what with all sectors of the economy wailing for sacrifice. Virgins are tossed into the mouths of giant squid by people who normally raise sheep. But the sheep raising industry, too, is slumping (wool being too warm and too itchy for most climates now) and virgins are a-plenty and annoying: half-hovering, halfslinking down streets and into stores, wearing their intact hymens woven into bracelets and hair ornaments (male virgins are harder to detect; we have to take their word for it). They don't buy things, of course, merely stand by banana displays, holding signs, wordless signs. We all know how to interpret the white space: empty is good. Brief doubts arose during the snowstorms in South Africa, but it turned out they used a second hand virgin, from Albania, no less, a country noted for its secondary virginity industry. Sweatshops filled with limping, droopy-eyed children who sew late into every night: whores from the Reeperbahn turned back into freshly-minted , tender girls, ready for export to any region with existent or impending doom. The squid knew better, and it snowed for six weeks, deliberately and fiercely, snow with purpose, one might say. That'll teach 'em, the virgins said. ...