Willum Mortimus Granger was beside himself. In fact when his body was found the top half was right next to the bottom

Granger's body was split in two. "Well, we can rule out suicide" said the coroner. "I rule out NOTHING!" I replied

Self bisection was not at the top of my list of likely solutions. I hate ceding any ground when it comes to crime deduction

"Maybe this was self inflicted. Then how do you explain the other 3 1/2 victims just like this I have at the morgue?"

So Granger wasn't the only one cut down in his prime. "You said 3 1/2 victims. You have half a body?" "No. Siamese twins."

Willum Mortimus Granger and 31/2 others (as per the coroner) were dead, their bodies sliced in half.

I stared at Granger's lower torso. Marshall McLuhan famously claimed that the wheel was an extension of our feet. Now I got it!

Granger had owned a perfume concern, a blue coal mine and two pickle factories. His company was called Lavender Blue Dilly Dillly

Hit hard by the economic downturn, LBDD failed the smell test, couldn't sink to new depths and finally everything didn't go sour

A cloning pioneer, Granger had replaced every part of his body. Calling his lab Body Parts R Us, he was literally a self made man

If the economic downturn had hit Granger's cloning lab, Body Parts R Us, like it did at LBDD, he could have lost an arm and a leg

I knew a lot about Granger. By chance I'd just read his NY Times best-seller "100 Things You Need To Know About Me Before I Die"

"I was born at a very young age." begins Granger's autobiography, 100 Things..., "I was very close to my mother at the time."

Born to a family of neo-vegans, Granger ate only oats til age 17 when he became the first entrant to win the Kentucky Derby without a horse.

A self-taught fly fisher, when Granger discovered the sport's purpose was to catch fish, he released the flies back into the wild

I looked at Granger's severed torso. Here... and here lay the remains of an entrepreneur, athlete, scientist and podcast mime.

 Sure he was a failed entrepreneur, uncertain athlete, questionable scientist. But he was undeniably a world class podcast mime.

Who can forget Grangers's podcast masterpiece, "Man Walking Against the Wind"? Or "Man Trapped in an Invisible Cube"?

Now he was ready to perform his final mime podcast "Man Silent as the Grave." Placing my cell next to his torso, I ...

pressed RECORD. Willum Granger was dead because, despite all his advantages, he couldn't be in two places at the same time.

We stood a moment in a respectful silence which the doctor broke asking "How can you do mime in a podcast?" Just then my cell rang

Granger's last podcast would be ruined! I scooped up my cell wondering when I uploaded "Torn Between Two Lovers" as a ringtone.

My own phone was strangely silent. By the time I pried the other cell phone from Granger's cold dead hand, the music had stopped.

Looking for Caller ID I saw two things: Granger had been on Twitter at the moment of his death and the battery was almost dead.

Granger had been Tweeting when he died! This phone was the Holy Grail, the Rosetta Stone, the Jeopardy Daily Double of this case.

If Granger tweeted his assailant's name, or some clue, I'd wrap up this case and tackle those 3 1/2 other victims at the morgue.

If Granger wrote "Hey, Larry from LBDD!  What are you doing here?"  Or "Saw Vince from the lab" Those would be a definite leads.

Granger had married twice, divorced 3 times.  His last wife had been really, really mad at him.  Perhaps a she would be fingered in a Tweet.

I needed to know three things.  What was the motive for the murder? What was the method? What was this stuff I just stepped into?

"What is this stuff, tapioca?" "No," said the coroner "That's his spleen."  "It looks just like tapioca."  "Believe me, its not."

Doc's words reassured me.  Tapioca always turns my stomach. Wiping my shoe on Granger's shirt, I tapped the phone on with my pen.

As the phone came to life the coroner scoffed "Do you seriously believe you can solve this case by following Granger on Twitter?"

"I won't follow his tweets to learn where he'll be.  I already know with grave certainty where he's going to be from now on."

"I'll solve this murder not by tweeting forward, but by retweeting backward," I hit ENTER and Granger's final Tweet appeared:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaa

Either Granger wanted his followers to know he suffered an extremely slow, painful death, or his finger got
stuck on the "a" key.

"aaaaaaaa...?" said the coroner. "That's it?" "It may be a code of some kind." I replied "All I have to do is figure out the key"

The coroner continued, "Facing imminent death, as a final act Granger logs onto Twitter and tweets 'aaaaaaa…' to his followers?"

"Does that description do justice to the scenario you're painting here?" "Maybe we should look at his next-to-last tweet."

The coroner was getting on my nerves. I should put him on my suspects list. Once again I tapped the cell to view Granger's tweet:

"Stomach unsettled" Granger had tweeted, "I guess that tapioca didn't go down well."  I glared at the coroner.  He just shrugged.

The lab team was done and wanted to put Granger into body bags.  His phone too. There wouldn't be another tweet out of either.

"A whad?" "Many people experience a sort of tunnel vision when they talk on the phone while driving. It's called 'inattentional blindness."

"I thoughd thad odly cabe frob basterbating." "Not exactly. Its clear that human consciousness is affected by doing too many things at once"

"You were on your cell, your voice recorder, your laptop; you had a pen and pad of paper in your mouth. You went into a multitasking fugue."

"You then attempted parallel universe parking. Your mind left your body and you tried to park in two different spots at the same time."

"Ad thad caused by head idjury?" "No. The guy you cut off from the second parking space got out of his car and clocked you a good one."

It was becoming clear to me that I had been set up. "It’s luggy I wasd't pilotig ad airplade." "Yes. You might have ended up in Milwaukee."

"The good news is your car suffered minor damage. The bad news is you yourself may need some new parts. Fortunately, that's what we do."

"This is 'Body Parts R Us'?" "Yes." "Let be speag to A." "A? He doesn’t work here anymore. You also appear to have a head cold. Drink this."

I downed the clear bubbly liquid. My sinuses cleared and my cold was completely gone! Except for my slight concussion I never felt better!

"This is amazing! Was that some new experimental antiviral drug? "No. Alka-Seltzer Plus. If you lie back down, we'll prep you for surgery."

"Wait. Why are you operating?" "You can't see it, but the accident made a terrible mess of your face. We can help." "Let me have a mirror."

I looked in the mirror and didn't see anything different. "What are you talking about? This is how I've always looked." "Sorry. My mistake."

"I had a run-in with a swarm of bees. It will heal on its own." "If you say so. We still can help with your little problem..um, down there."

I pulled the sheet up higher. "What little problem? I don't have a problem. It's cold in here." "I was referring to your ingrown toenail."

"My toenail?" "Yes. What are you talking about?" "Never mind." "You know, we can help you there too. We get a lot of requests of that type."

"We started 'Body Parts R Us' to clone internal organs and enhance lives. It turns out most of our business comes from enhancing penises."

"We also replace breasts, thighs and wings. All our work is guaranteed. If you don't like your new part, return it for a full refund."

"Maybe some other time." "If not a larger penis, how about something hepatic? We have a blue plate special today on liver and bunions."

"I could slot one in for you at a very attractive price." "My liver is fine." "Our prostates are big, I mean normal size but popular."

"I'm very happy with the prostate I have." "We also do vasectomies." "No." "Tell me, what will it take to put you in a brand new model you?"

He leaned closer. "Help me out, will you? I need to meet my monthly quota." "I'm not here to be cloned. I'm investigating Granger's murder."

"Bring me my clothes so I can get out of here and make some arrests." He looked at me sheepishly. "I'm afraid I can't do that." "Why not?"

"I thought you'd be in surgery. Your clothes smelled like you fell in a vat of black orchids marinated in brine. I sent them to be cleaned."

"What about my things?" "Your cell phone, a sticky piece of note paper and what looks like tapioca are in the drawer next to your bed."

In her Salon column this week Camille Paglia spared a few column inches to consider and then completely trash the entire career of Claude Levi-Strauss:

"Continuing on the theme of overrated male writers, I was appalled at the sentimental rubbish filling the air about Claude Lévi-Strauss after his death was announced last week. The New York Times, for example, first posted an alert calling him "the father of modern anthropology" (a claim demonstrating breathtaking obliviousness to the roots of anthropology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) and then published a lengthy, laudatory obituary that was a string of misleading, inaccurate or incomplete statements. It is ludicrous to claim that Lévi-Strauss single-handedly transformed our ideas about the "primitive" or that before him there had been no concern with universals or abstract ideas in anthropology.

Beyond that, Lévi-Strauss' binary formulations (like "the raw and the cooked") were a simplistic cookie-cutter device borrowed from the dated linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, the granddaddy of now mercifully moribund post-structuralism, which destroyed American humanities departments in the 1980s. Lévi-Strauss' work was as much a fanciful, showy mishmash as that of Joseph Campbell, who at least had the erudite and intuitive Carl Jung behind him. When as a Yale graduate student I ransacked that great temple, Sterling Library, in search of paradigms for reintegrating literary criticism with history, I found literally nothing in Lévi-Strauss that I felt had scholarly solidity.

In contrast, the 12 volumes of Sir James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (1890-1915), interweaving European antiquity with tribal societies, was a model of intriguing specificity wed to speculative imagination. Though many details in Frazer have been contradicted or superseded, the work of his Cambridge school of classical anthropology (another of whose ornaments was the great Jane Harrison) will remain inspirational for enterprising students seeking escape from today's sterile academic climate."

Now you know I couldn't let that go unanswered! I posted the following comment:

Bashing Levi-Strauss? Really?

As someone who made your academic bones explicating ad nauseum the opposition between Apollonian and Dionysian, I am surprised that you so blithely dismiss Claude Levi-Strauss. To reduce his massive career to a few-sentence caricature implies that you haven't read him carefully or completely.

Even if its granted that his structural armature was a bit overwrought; even if you discount his visionary explication of Amerindian mythology; even if you deduct from his oeuvre all writings from the 1960’s onwards, at least you can grant him some props for the sense and sensibility of his Tristes Tropiques and let him rest in peace. Just sayin’.

I recently submitted my in-progress Twitter novel Executive Severance to a site called Textnovel.com which helps fledgling authors like myself get noticed. I'm happy to announce that my story has become an "Editor's Pick"!

Please go to Textnovel.com and vote for my story.

I recommend two excellent obituaries about Claude Lévi-Strauss, the father of Structural Anthrology, who died this past weekend. The New York Times does a good job summarizing his life and times.

The Guardian does a better job explaining the roots of Levi-Strauss' Structural Anthropology and I believe, underscoring its importance to Media Ecology. In particular, Maurice Bloch of The Guardian writes:

The basis of the structural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss is the idea that the human brain systematically processes organised, that is to say structured, units of information that combine and recombine to create models that sometimes explain the world we live in, sometimes suggest imaginary alternatives, and sometimes give tools with which to operate in it. The task of the anthropologist, for Lévi-Strauss, is not to account for why a culture takes a particular form, but to understand and illustrate the principles of organisation that underlie the onward process of transformation that occurs as carriers of the culture solve problems that are either practical or purely intellectual.

It seems to me that there is an unspoken assumption in Media Ecology that there are no differences in the intellectual capabilities of peoples of different ages or technological achievement. By this I don't mean differences in sensory balances, which may be determined by the particular technologies or media of communication available, but rather differences in the basic structure and capacity of the human mind.

When we use the terms, "oral" or "literate" or "post literate" in lieu of "primitive" or "modern", we are not referring to intellectual complexity or intelligence, but rather the modes of thought, the uses of systems of symbols and the religious, social and psychology outlooks encouraged or discouraged by a media environment. In refusing to see the people of cultures without writing (as he called them) as "primitive" or somehow inferior to Western white races, Lévi-Strauss provided the philosophical foundation for McLuhan, Postman and Ong. In a letter to the journal Technology and Culture in 1975, McLuhan acknowledged his debt to Lévi-Strauss' structural methodology for his own Laws of the Media.

If it is possible to distinguish a "primitive" mind from our own then how could we apply Marshall McLuhan's Laws of the Media universally across all cultures and time periods? We can talk about the sensory impact of different types of communication media in different eras only if we accept that the basic mental equipment and the capacity for intellectual activity we are born with has been the same throughout all human history and everywhere in the world. In his exhaustive analysis of Amerindian mythology, Levi-Strauss put the study of human culture on a scientific basis and his work belongs in our Media Ecology foundational canon along with Lewis Mumford, John Dewey and Edmund Carpenter.

Lévi-Strauss wrote:

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.

Isn't this what we Media Ecologists claim in our own studies of how symbol systems and technologies affect human beliefs and activities? Lévi-Strauss discovered and demonstrated connections between seemingly disparate mythic stories, and offered explanations for seemingly random elements of those stories. His methodology can be used as model for ways to interpret the products of our contemporary culture, which, while seeming to be unrelated, actually constitute our system (or systems) of symbolic meanings.

Rest in peace Professor Lévi-Strauss, and thank you for your life and your work.

"Whad differedce does it mage which hebisphere is where?" "It makes a big difference." said X "Different sides control different abilities."

"The right processes images and spatial orientation. The left controls the three 'R's, reading, writing and 'rithmetic." "Whad happeded?"

"With his left and right hemispheres switched, Granger couldn't tell his 'R's from a hole in the ground." "Did he have any other problebs?"

"He complained that his kidneys were put in backwards and his bowels were shaped like a klein bottle. He was a man under a lot of pressure."

"To sub up, A switched Gradger's braid hebispheres, screwed up his idterdal plubbing, redacted his DNDA ad you wadted to bill hib for it?"

"Hey, Granger put his pants on just like the rest of us, one leg at a time." "Dot ady bore." "Well, he should pay for services rendered."

"Subthig I still dod't udderstad. You create perfube frob coal tar idstead of whale vobit ad you wadt be to eat cucubers soaged in it?"

B looked surprised. "If I were you I'd question A about Granger's murder. He had motive and he had means." "A did't do it. I thidg you did."

"That's crazy!" ""Too bad you did't realize thad before you gilled hib." "You think I killed Granger?" "You are by dumber onde suspect."

"Why?" "Gradger would have kept A's secrets to protect his cloding lab. You hab a better chadce of collectig your bill frob his estate."

"You lost your fight with A and your cobpady is in the toilet. Gillig Gradger puts you on top at LBDD with Gradger's cash in your pocget."

"You suspect me after my proper speech and contrite demeaner?" "Yes" "And my alibi and the tapioca?" "You could hab sedt thad to yourself."

"WLL THN FCK Y Y SSHL!" Consonants again? I looked at X. "B says you'll have to speak to his lawyer from now on. And you're an asshole."

"How do I kdow B wod't go uddergroud whed I leave?" "He already is underground. I'll show
you out." "Dod't bother. I cad fid by owd way."

As I made my way to the door B sneezed several times. "GD DBBT!" He roared "V CGHT YR FCKG CLD!" "Gesudheit." I called over my shoulder.

Chapter 6: How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?

12 hours later, reeking from perfume, covered in bee stings, ravenous and in serious need of a bathroom, I emerged from LBDD's Tunnel Tower.

There's a time in every criminal investigation when you should stop and smell the roses. I needed to stop because I smelled like roses.

Time to head home. I thought my car was missing but soon realized that it was still in the left Wright parking lot, right where I left it.

As I drove home I thought about how all the pieces had fallen into place. B's 'perfect' alibi of perfumed pickles was patently preposterous.

B knew that Rachel Lehcar would never miss one jar of her honey and that the coroner would overlook the tapioca in lieu of the severed body.

B lured Granger to a remote spot, fed him toxic honey-laced tapioca and cut his body in half. It all made sense. It was the perfect crime.

Except B forgot one thing: Granger was such a Twitteraholic that he would try to tweet a dying message. It was too bad he didn't succeed.

I had Granger's Twitter password. There still might be something to find in his online account. I pulled the paper B gave me from my pocket.

Tapioca in my pocket had gotten onto the paper, smearing most of B's writing. The letters left read 'murderir b not.' What did that mean?

My cell phone rang. With the tapioca soaked paper in one hand, I fished the cell phone from my holster while driving with my elbow. "Hello?"

"Want a tip on Granger's murder?" asked a husky voice. "Who is this?" "Got a pencil and paper?" I put the phone between my ear and shoulder.

Pulling a pad and pen from my jacket, I said "Go." "Have you got a voice recorder?" "Yes." "Take it out. You'll want a recording of this."

I put the pad and pen in my mouth and fished out my recording device. "OK." "You'll need a computer to view a website I'll give you."

My opened my laptop and set it on my lap. "Ready." "How are you at multitasking while driving?" said the voice. Not so good it turned out.

I woke in bed in a dimly lit room. I was in a hospital gown, hooked to an IV. A bandage was wrapped around my head. "Where ab I?" I asked.

A man came in. "You're awake! You had us going for a while." "Whad happeded?" "You were injured in a cell phone induced traffic event.”

Granger had spent his last moments tweeting and probably would be tweeting still were it not for roaming charges. Was tweeting his te deum?

Whether out of tedium or a te deum, Granger's terminal tweeting was still central to my investigation. I needed his Twitter password.

I felt hot and cool at the same time. I couldn't tell if I was shedding light on or light through my case. It was time to marshal my wits.

Just then a young woman came in. "Sorry to interrupt. Did you find the bowl of tapioca that was sent to you? I left it there on the floor."

I glared at B. He just shrugged. Wiping my foot on the rug, I asked "Who sent the tapioga?" "The note just said 'Enjoy! Signed, Anonymous.'"

I turned to B. "Do you ofted receive gifts of tapioga adodybously?" "Hell no" he replied, "I thought it was an anonymous gift of ambergris."

"Gradger ate sumb tapioga pudding just before he died. It wedt right through hib. If by suspiciobs are correct, I just saved your life."

"From pudding?" "Do. toxic hodey. Do timb to explaid. I deed to dow Gradger's Twidder password." "Why?" "I believe a follower gilled him."

"This goes to the lab for adalysis." I put what was left of the tapioca in my pocket. That was a mistake. I should carry evidence bags.

"I'll write down Granger's password." "You cad't just tell be?" "No." B spent several minutes writing and thinking and thinking and writing.

He handed me the paper which read: 'Ullhodturdenweirmudgaardgringnirurdrmolnirfenrirlukkilokkibaugimandodrrerinsurtkrinmgernrackinarockar."

"This is Gradger's password?" "Yes. He believed in using complex passwords." "You're dot gidding." I slipped the paper into my pocket.

"I hab two guestiods. Firsd, where were you Tuesday dight?" "We were here, working." "Were there witdesses?" "Is that the second question?"

"Do. Id's a follow up to the firsd questiob." "Several staffers were with us, testing our surplus perfume for use as a pickling agent."

"We're developing sweet smelling pickles. The black orchid half-sour smells promising." "Good lug with thad. Whad did you ad A fight aboud?"

"Why do you need to know why we fought?" "X told be there was sub terrible accidedt durig Gradger's last clodig tradspladt." "Yeah, so?"

"Ad that's whed you becabe so adgry at your siblings you stopped usig vowels." "So what?" "Dod't you thidg it a bit extrebe?" "Not at all."

"You know Granger funded 'Body Parts R Us' to commercialize on cloning technology and he replaced nearly every part his own body." "Yes."

"The economic downturn hit us all hard. With funding constrained, Body Parts R Us began cutting more than just corners." "Whad do you bead?"

"There's a lot of our DNA that scientists can't identify yet." "Uh huh." "The lab rats at BP'R'U just decided to leave those base pairs out"

"They used cut-rate DNDA?" "Granger thought he was getting cloned when in reality he got spliced. The cloners took him to the cleaners"

"So you fought with A ad the other vowels because they were cheatig Gradger by shortchadgig his DNDA?" "No. I didn't care about that."

"Whad bothered you?" "Granger wasn't paying for services provided. You pay plastic surgeons a lot for a little nip and tuck, right?" "Sure."

"We gave Granger the equivalent of a DNA liposuction–without charge. BP'R'U didn't want it to come out. I wanted to send him another bill."

"You said BP'R'U toog hib to the cleaders." "They also did his shopping and walked his dog. They provided many concierge services for free."

"Were there side effects frob the DNDA splicig?" "Not to speak of." said B. "That's not strickly true." said X. "Granger complained a lot."

"Granger wasn't himself after his last brain transplant." "Well, he had a dew braid afder all." "He claimed they mixed up his hemispheres."

"Granger complained his left side was seeing left and his right side was seeing right." "Odly his left side was affected?" "No, both sides."

But if Granger sired B Jr and his 25 siblings, why not join him and rule the LBDD empire together? What kind of man kills his own father?

Looking at B and X, I couldn't imagine a baser pair. What were A, T, G and C like? Their dark DNA secret caused the phonetic family feud.

Perhaps being in the coal mine so long was playing tricks on my mind. I checked my canary who slept peacefully at the bottom of its cage. OK

Even if there was an ancient family curse which doomed B to commit patricide and to marry his own mother, that was no excuse under the law.

For now I decided to keep my suspicions to myself. I looked around B's cavernous office. "So" I asked, "Adythig Oedible aroud here?"

"This is an office at the bottom of a coal mine" said X, "The only thing I can offer you is coke" "No Pepsi?" "Y thnk ths s fckng Grk dnr?"

"Fair edough." X set a lump of coal in front of me. "Led's assube for the sage of argubedt you gilled Gradger, dot dowig he was your fader."

B and X both stared daggers at me. Undaunted, I continued. "Ad led's assube thad you thed barried your buther id ad irodig turd of evedts."

Both men jumped up. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" shouted X. "Y MTHRFCKR!" yelled B. "Agtually, I'b wodderig if you are the buther fugger."

Screaming incoherently B lunged for me. X had to restrain him physically. I open my coat to expose the holster I wear under my left armpit.

I wish I had remembered my gun. Instead I had a cell phone with a "virtual gun" application. I took aim and pulled the virtual trigger.

B's cell phone chimed. He stopped his assault and took it out to read the text message sent from my phone's virtual gun ap. "BANG!" it read.

B stopped dead in his tracks. I pointed at X. ""I hab ad idchy virdual trigger fidger. Dod't bage be text you too." They both sat down.

Stuffed up as I was, it was clear that B and X had no idea what I had just said. That didn't matter. I was the one holding the virtual gun.

"Wht dd ths sn f btch sy t y?" "He said 'Don't make me text you too.'" "N sht?" B put his head in his hands. I blew my nose and continued.

I needed to know three things. Where was B when Granger died? Why did he fight with his siblings? What was this stuff I just stepped into?

"Whad is this stuff, tapioga?" Looking up B said "That's ambergris. It comes from whales." "It loogs like tapioga." "Believe me, its not."

"We used to use it to make perfume. Now we use synthetics derived from coal or oil." B's words reassured me. Tapioca always turns my stomach

I realized that B was speaking normally! "You're speagig dorbally!" "Yes. You've made me see that effective public speaking is important."

"I understand how hurtful obscene language can be and I recognize the perils of speaking without vowels." "Really?" "Words have power."

"We live in an environment where communication media determine what we say, think and do. We shape a 'media ecology' and then it shapes us."

"Bud you were Gradger's ghosttweeter because you dod't use vowels." "Yes. Now I can separate speaking from tweeting. Form dictates content."

"Huh?" I said. I admit that even though B seemed to be speaking normally, I understood him even less than when he 'spoke in consonants'.

I looked at X. "B is saying that as we pass from secondary orality to secondary literacy, we must be aware that the medium is the message."

Now I couldn't understand X either. Twitter was the only medium I was concerned with. Most tweets were tedious. The tedium was the message?

I'm almost certain Twitter is not so tedious as death. The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Or tweet.

The elevator arrived. X handed me a hard hat with a light and a cage with a canary inside. "You can keep the canary afterwards." he said.

As we descended I heard a loud buzzing. "Whad's thad doise?" "You can't smell it? Our unsold perfume storage vats are on the first level."

"I hab a code," I said "I ca'd sbell a thig. Whad's that budzing?" "All that perfume attracts millions of bees. We can't get rid of them."

We arrived at the third level. If the motif for the upper floors was "prairie office" the layout before me might be "subterranean prairie."

Tunnel Tower indeed! Stretched before me as far as the eye could see were offices and worker cubicles carved out of the depleted coal seam.

Of course in the dark the eye couldn't see very far. LBDD Inc in extremis had gone underground horizontal, eliminating the room with a view.

The original mining rail connected the 'bottom' of the tunnel tower to the 'top." "Where is B?" I asked. "He's in the executive shaft."

The coal car started down the mine. Nestling the bird cage on my lap, I asked X, ""If all your worgers are dowd here, who is id the tower?"

"We leased our LBDD Tower space to companies that are still financially viable; insurance carriers, lobbying firms and internet startups."

So the once proud firm of Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly, Willum Granger's vast industrial empire, was reduced to this trifling carbon footprint.

The train stopped at a large, ornately carved wooden doorway. X opened the door to reveal an office suite built directly into the bedrock.

A broad shouldered man sat at a large desk. He looked up at us from his computer and said "Wh th fck s ths sshl?" "B says 'Welcome'" said X.

"He said 'Welcobe'?" "Yes" "Whad aboud the rest?" "Rhetorical flourish" said X. "Wht's hs fckng prblm?" asked B. "He has a cold." X replied.

"Yr fckng tllng m tht ths mthrfckng ccksckr brght hs fckng cld dwn hr t sprd rnd?" "Whad he say?" "He says he's concerned about your health"

I could see that this interview would require my utmost subtlety and finesse to be successful. "So, how's the ebbezzlig busidess?" I asked.

"WHT?" said B. "Afder all, you liderally drobe LBDD idto the groud. Was thad why you killed Willub Gradger, to hide your cribe?"

"Bllsht! Dn't hv tm fr yr fckng nnsns!" I looked at X. "B is a no-nonsense kind of guy" I said "You'll tage my dodsedse and you'll lige id!"

"FCK Y!" "UB YOURS!" "Wht?" "Whad?" "Gentlemen, please calm down!" said X "It's clear that what we have here is a failure to communicate."

"You're wrong about my brother embezzling us into ruin. LBDD is bankrupt due to his ruthless and unrelenting mismanagement not malfeasance."

X continued "You give my brother entirely too much credit. B is just not capable of the complex financial manipulations you ascribe to him."

X was probably right. After all, what sort of idiot decides to make his speech patterns all but incomprehensible due to a family argument?

B released his headlock and I let go of his jacket. "Do hard feeligs." I offered my hand. "Kss my ss" said B "nd kp yr fckng grms t yrslf."

"B is goonish and ill-spoken," X concluded, "but not criminal." "Y cn pss n my mngmnt" said B "bt ths dpshts dtctng rlly scks hgh n th tt."

"Whad he say?" "B compared his managerial acumen to your detecting prowess." Not rising to the bait, I decided to let B goons be B goons.

"Led's stard over. I'b idvesdigatig Gradger's death. I hab sob guesdions for you ad yes, I hab a code." "Wll fck y nd th hrs thrt y rd n n."

I didn't get much of that. Something about my hoarse throat. "Do you ever ged gridicized for usig profadidy so graduidously?" "Sht ys."

Something about B was unsettling. I knew him from somewhere else. Hadn't I seen his likeness at the post office or maybe in a police lineup?

I realized that B was the spitting (and cursing) image of Willum Granger, only younger, heavier, with a different nose, chin and a monobrow.

And while B's hair and eye color, skin tone, body type and skull phrenology were all different his resemblance to Granger was still uncanny.

Had there been a tragic mixup at the artificial insemination lab all those years ago when B and his 25 letter siblings were conceived?

Did they discover a DNA match during Granger's recent transplant? That could mean that Willum Granger, not B Sr, was B Jr's father! Nooooo!

Allyn & Bacon, 2009. 240 Pages

As an experienced media ecologist and communication scholar, Paul Levinson brings to his new work, New New Media, a keen insight into the effects of computer-based communication forms. Levinson documents his encounters with various contemporary forms including blogging, wikis, podcasts and social sites like Facebook and MySpace. Along with a multitude of examples from actual web experience, Levinson compares and contrasts the “new new” media with traditional media and suggests how widespread adoption of these new forms will affect existing social institutions and attitudes.

Levinson sets the phenomenon of blogging in both an historical and a media ecological context. To properly understand what is happening on the web today, it is necessary to understand the way differing media have influenced information transmittal over human history. Thus the nature of blogging is comprehensible if we understand the pluses and minuses of oral, print and mass media communication and the impact the various stages of communication development have had on social mores and cultural and political movements.

Levinson distinguishes the “new new” media from previous forms (including the “old” new media) by the relative ease of entry for non-professional content producers and the absence of gatekeepers. Anyone with a keyboard, a monitor and a web connection can become a movie mogul, a music megastar, a political pundit, an investigative journalist or a widely-read novelist. If Levinson is right, the various internet based media are dramatically altering our notions of professionalism, consumerism, artistry and performance.

Expertly conversant on the mechanics of blogging, Levinson presents not just a scholarly survey, but also a how-to for aspiring bloggers. He discusses individual and group blogging, the influence (or lack thereof) of blogging gatekeepers, and the monetization of blogging content. In comparing blogs to books, Levinson provides an easy reference point to which both Millennials and Baby-boomers can relate.

Blogging’s influence on our social institutions is still in the state of becoming. For example, as the traditional print and mass media news outlets decline, the potential of blog-based investigative journalists to fill in the void remains to be seen. Levinson’s discussion of bloggers’ 1st Amendment rights is on target, and I’m sure would inspire some interesting online discussions.

This very immediacy may be the only shortcoming of Levinson’s book. The relevance of many of Levinson’s examples, while appropriate for this current edition, may quickly pass out of the public sphere, and therefore out of contextual significance. While we may still be talking about the “Obama Girl” during the next election cycle, other references may not be familiar to readers in 2012. This is both a strength and weakness of Levinson’s use of hyper-current examples. The references illustrate his points well, but their possible fleeting nature may be a hindrance in the long term. Things change so fast that each new edition of the book may require significant re-writing, or perhaps a migration from the printed page to a hyper-text online wiki edition. This may be unavoidable given the nature of the topic.

Today’s twenty-somethings and younger, members of the so-called “Millennial Generation,” inhabit the world depicted by The New New Media. They live in a world where texting, tweeting, blogging, Facebook and MySpace and a myriad of other social media are taken for granted and become the tools used for their interactions with their peers and the outside world. As a member of the “Baby Boomer,” generation, I found myself continually checking out Levinson's references to these various social media on my computer. Levinson is deeply involved in many actual aspects of the “new new” media and documents this in his book. So I have viewed his blog pages, his tweets, listened to some of his podcasts, etc. Though this may seem to non-millenials as an introduction to a disorienting brave new world, Levinson’s down-to-earth discussion of the “new new” media is an effective introduction to the impact of cyberspace structures and institutions on our current media environment.