Greetings to My Great Descendants of the Fish People from Outer Space,

It's been a minute since we've had a good telepathic communication. I've had my thought crystal soaking in a chalice of Oil of Olay and hair slackening product since our last talk as per the IBW Protocol of Purine Communication (PPC).

A lot has changed while my cranial crystals were in milk-suspension. You might even say everything has changed. But how would you know?

It seems we've moved into a new phase of this lockdown, a new chapter where the excitement, worry and inertia from the first phase has petered down and calcified into what is becoming a New Reality.

What's become clear to me is just how important structure is for helping me not feel completely at drift. The difference between a good, thoughtful, productive day and another day in my robe is a shower, a schedule and a list of goals. It's like, as we've constructed these artificial boundaries with our stay-at-homing, our masks, our 6 feet and Howard Hughes level of suspicion about every god damn person in eyesight, that the old boundaries of our day-to-day have become wildly porous. It's like we're make believing our lives in zero gravity. Or water

I'm happy to say that I'm one of the fortunate folks who gets to quarantine with their best friend and that it's going mostly very well. But even companionship has been put under the microscope of our strange time. Some of us have even taken in new guests.

Recently, I received word that one of the founding Priests at IBW and his lovely space partner have experienced an uninvited guest. After several poltergeist phenomenon including wildly shaking lamps and disincarnate whistling, we decided to do what any right thinking ghost host would do: we whipped out the old tried and true Ouija board to initiate communication. On Zoom of course.

The Ouija Board is a wildly American contribution to the world of alternative communication practices. It lands somewhere between Yahtzee and a Black Mass, but carries with it a certain mystique of danger the Black Mass just doesn't project.

Everyone has stories from their childhood of a lark with a Ouija board going south. Possession, prophecies of terror, portals to eldritch worlds being torn open never to close again. But let's admit it, that's part of the fun! And, if we're not opening portals for disincarnate intelligences to enter our world and use our flabby egos for play toys, then what are we really doing here anyway? And how do you explain the awfultude of social media?

Of course, there are other, newer members of the IBW cult who still believe their lack of "belief" in such things matters. Belief is an adorable puppy-like entity all unto itself. But that cutey, poopy, puppy everybody lugs around with such pride and conviction sure can grow up into one of the worst demons of all if you aren't careful. My suggestion to these new, naive members of our Dark Society is that you keep your belief in beliefs on a rather short leash. That shit can really get away from you.

Anyway, your task for today, oh fair Fish People of Tomorrow, is to make your own Ouija board and start using it... on Zoom or off. Even if you're one of those reductionist yucks who thinks it's "all you" pushing the planchette, it's still a wild investigation into phenomenon. Like the surrealist practice of "automatic writing", even if you view Ouija activity as a methodology for by-passing the conscious mind into a different manner of cognition and creation, it's pretty fascinating stuff.

Hell, there was even a Pulitzer Prize winning book of poetry written in part by an entity contacted through a Ouija board. And, as if the Pulitzer Prize isn't indication enough of quality, take my word for it, James Merrill's "The Changing Light at Sandover" is a really great book and a lovely eye into the working process of one of America's great 20th Century poets.

Here's an article that gets into creating, using and explaining the Ouija Board and it's history. It's one of our great stories of Spiritism in America and worth enjoying. And here's an Instructable on creating your own Ouija Board. But keep in mind, you don't need to do anything other than write the alphabet on some cardboard or something and then use an over-turned glass as your planchette. Be patient, be serious, something will happen.

Oh hey, the Beverage Division of our little UFO cult has some new beer out in the world, too. Brainwash and Trust are floating around at all your favorite bottle shops. Millenial Munchies dropped a week or so ago. It's a 13.5% stout with coconut, coco and non-allergenic peanut flavor. And it's bonkers.

A new batch of Spoonful of Sugar hits city stores today! It hits West burbs Wednesday, North burbs Thursday and South burbs Friday.

Persistence persists as we continue to twist around that glorious life-begetting star that warms us from space. Do your best to stay healthy and respect the hopes and fears of your neighbors no matter how jaw-droppingly dumb they might be. And, if you have the luxury, try to enjoy your nervous system during this moment where humanity scripts its future in real time. It's pretty wild!