The link: http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/catalogo/Cat_int/catalogo_notebooks.htm
I was going to the art store today, to look for little paintbrushes. I told Hussain. I start at the page above, because this is the link Hussain sent me, after he said:
HussainC: Go get me a Moleskine notebook
HussainC: Or two
It's important that you, too, start at the page linked above, because it will help you take the journey into the depths of gay of the sort that Hussain so often leads me on. Initially, this looks like a page from some online store, that sells stationary. There's some helpful diagrams at left that show the different ways in which a little notebook might be configured. But the “Moleskine” name was picking up heavily on the gaydar, and I knew it was Hussain I was dealing with, and not, for example, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
I noted the following in the product description: “An expandable inner pocket made of cardboard and cloth contains the Moleskine history.“ History? It's a fucking notebook, not a Mongol emperor. And note the focus on materials. I've found, thanks to my reading of Gene Wolfe (and from Gene Simmons), that excessive attention to fabrics is a sure sign of pretentious faggery. I realized that I had wandered off the hetero path, and was surrounded by a haunted forest of homosexuality.
I asked myself, “what kind of online store has artsy photographs taking up half the fucking page?” So I click on the “home” link to try to figure out what the hell this is all about. “For two centuries now Moleskine has been the legendary notebook of european artists and intellectuals, from Van Gogh to Henri Matisse, to Pablo Picasso. ... Moleskine is a family of notebooks for different functions, according with a free mindstyle, both basic and emotional.” Yup. From behind one of the dark trees of Homo Forest, an oiled party boy clad in DeepPink biker-shorts attempted to grasp hold of my genitals. I fled to the “history” link.
“This long-standing tradition was continued by writer-traveller Bruce Chatwin who used to buy his moleskines at an old Paris stationery shop in Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie where he would always stock up before embarking on one of his journeys.” Sweet, if you can get them in Paris, they must be good. They're fucking books, you pretentious assholes. Just because Van Gogh used one, that doesn't mean you're like him.
But it gets yet more gay.
An Englishman and a Chilean. With not even an affection for the sound of the word 'homeland' in common. The Englishman a nomad because he could be nothing else, and the Chilean an exile for just the same reason. There should definitely be a law against encounters of this kind or, at the very least, they should not be allowed to take place in the presence of minors.
At the initiative of Bruce's Spanish publisher, the meeting had been arranged for midday and I arrived right on time. The Englishman was there already; he had settled down with a beer to read one of the perverse El Víbora comics. To attract his attention I tapped on the table. The Englishman raised his head and took a sip before speaking.
"I can put up with a punctual South American, but a man who has lived in Germany for several years and doesn't bring flowers when meeting someone for the first time is simply intolerable".
Holy FUCK that's gay. Not just gay, but violently pretentious. Like, somebody comes to meet you, you've never met them, and you can't be bothered to stop your deep reflection and your important thoughts to greet them politely. Instead, you make dry jokes, that demonstrate how worldly you are. “We're both in the world traveller's club, and thus we both know that it's the empty spaces between words that truly carry meaning. Would you care to cornhole the snot out of me now?” That's right, pretentious Orange, into faggy DeepPink.
The point here is simple. Hussain can't even shop for stationary without making it faggy, pretentious, and European. Not that this is a surprise to anybody, but it comes at a particularly ominous time, as I have been asked to bear witness to Hussain's quality as an American worthy of government security clearance.
Yesterday three documents arrived at my house, all pretty much identical, and all asking for a scantron evaluation of Hussain. I have scanned one for your viewing.
Page 1 and Page 2
I even did that black censoring block over addresses, so it looks official and intimidating.
On page 2, you'll note that they're asking for “adverse information” about Hussain, but they don't offer a bubble for “relentlessly faggy Euro-pal.” It's all stupid crap like “abuse of alcohol and/or drugs.” I have to assume this is Hussain's way of testing me. On the same day I'm asked to vouch for his patriotism, he's asking me to go get him some sort of “legendary book used by ass spelunkers to record their subterranian observations.” I think it's my patriotic duty to check the “I wish to discuss the adverse information I have” bubble, and await my call from the FBI.