Find below my third installment in this latest project to bring literary enlightenment to these fetid landlocked colonies of man.

Panel the First: MonkeyZen appears in the near-distance, small. A drum floats before him (perhaps on a tiny table? suspended from a belt? No means of support are visible to us.) and in each paw he grips a drum stick (of the musical-instrument type, not the torn-from-a-fowl type.

Panel the Second: We, the viewers, draw near to MonkeyZen, and he is subsequently in close-up. He appears to have moved nought, although it is undeniable that some ill intent does dwell in his simian eyes. In the larger eye, at any rate. The smaller eye is a darkened wreck, and of dubious value in sight.

Panel the Third: With a mighty, although silent, yawp, MonkeyZen discards his parumpa-pum-drum and thrusts a drum stick to within his nasal cavity, causing a great gouting of blood.

Before we continue with our examination of this comic play's significations, I am greatly feared that I must issue a second mea culpa, rescinding my apologetic mea culpa of week past . It appears that the second over-hasty traverse of my inbox was even more error prone than the first. NickSnow, the pater of MonkeyZen (that is the comedy strip, not the character. The character is a work of fiction and has no literal father) does indeed live within the municipality of Ann Arbor. Additionally, he appears to indeed by a man-type-thing, not a monkey-type-thing. Quite frankly, I turn a shamed chartreuse at such carelessness on my part, and do beg for the pardoning of the artist. Truth be told, I have great suspicions that some nefarious sort is pulling-upon-my-extremities, manipulating my e-mail in order to make me to appear ridiculous before you, my readership. Also, that same individual keeps switching my Hello Kitty desktop theme, which action I find vexing in the extreme.

There are particulars by which my desktop must be maintained, and the presence of assorted Sanrio branded characters rest headward of that list. The playful eye-ball-flickering of the Kitten-to-Greeting, while firstward need not be the only, for there are other assorted brand-champions of the Sanrio-verse to whom I am partial. Choco-cat, whose love I share with Ms. Sang, especially holds dear to me for it's delicate prancing after the sweetened bean-curd. Also, of course, my affection is extended to that amphibious Keropi creature, eyes as large proportionately as my own, it's blank expression as terrible and deep as the benthic trenches.

Secretly, in the abyssal of night, as I sleep-not and the Motorized City slumbers, I wish to be immortalized in the form of a Sanrio creature so that Nipponese school girls might worship my ancestral heritage and my powerful form. It is a woeful and unreachable desire, even for me who is so powerful.

But, all of this is matter trivial. Onward with our business!

Brief Interpretation: I am made to recall a brief ditty of Christian origin, recounting the trials of a Little Drummer Boy who approached the Enfant Terible, Lord Jesus, with no gift. The diminutive drummer boy played to his utmost, and although the blood mother smiled, and the ox and lamb both roundly approved, the Little Lord Jesus only smiled before tearing down the fires of Heaven upon the head of the giftless drummer boy, searing his flesh. He, the Lord Jesus, then proceeded to peel back this charred skin, and feasted toothlessly on the pink, tendered, barb-the-qued flesh within.

The nine orders of the Sephiroth, flaming and crystalline at once, descended from that third and highest of levels in heaven, their swords of obsidian glass as sharp as the crystalline spheres of Pythagorean space. The Drumming Child, who only knew the Principia Melancolia I, beating out the measured and proportional rhythm of the Earthly world, could not even comprehend the Godly and pure terror he experienced as the Baby Jesus, born not only full of mind but also with adult teeth, sank those cuspids deep into the center of the cortex. As his soul was consumed, his pineal seat collapsed between Christ's molars, a light appeared in the being internal of the Drumming Boy. It was revelatory and holy to a degree unattainable by lesser supplicants unwilling or unable to see the deeper beauty and truth of total bodily deconstruction.

We can learn much from this tale. Does not MonkeyZen feel the mounting pressure of knowing he approaches the Great and Terrible with no gift in hand, save his mediocre musical talents? And does he indeed stand strong under this pressure, only to snap in the final moments and bear upon himself destruction rather than suffer before Lord Christo's infantile wrath? We are only left to wonder who is more noble: the monkey who kills himself to evade a Deity's wrath, or the monkey who kills a Deity to evade his own wrath?

It is possible, ultimately, MonkeyZen understands this truth more fully than we can know, as he searches with his own crude instrument of rhythm for a more complete opening of the inner eye.

I agree wholly and in parts with Rob: this is heavy stuffs indeed.

Also of note is that MonkeyZen has once again used the leftmost manipulator in wrecking his auto-destruction. Biblical allusions run deep through the veins of MonkeyZen. Are we left only to presume that there is a Cain and Abel residing within each primate, each seeking at once to please the Blood God and to punish that part which please, resulting in naught less than the self-of-destruction? And yet you tell me, over and over and over and over once again that you do not believe we are upon the eve of destruction.

And, by "we" I most certainly mean "you-all."

All for the Best,
the Giant Squid.