BEg2 chapter 4 summary part 2

[Keith Davis]

Great work!

linktr.ee/keithdavis

> On Nov 15, 2021, at 6:28 PM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Shawn the emotherapist claims knowledge from the Far East, but Maxine knows
> his real experience, though not expertise, is with surfing.
> 
> Maxine’s session with Shawn revolves around Shawn rather than Maxine.
> 
> Shawn is irritated at the Taliban for blowing up the
> thousand-five-hundred-year-old Buddha statues. He lets his tongue run free,
> conflating the fundamentalist Taliban with Islam itself.
> 
> In fact, Shawn apparently spends the whole session on this rant, with
> Maxine nudging him towards calmness.
> 
> Looking forward to a Brady Bunch marathon, he ends the session early with
> no therapeutic efforts other than an insincere query for her thoughts about
> the Brady Bunch episode where Jan gets a wig
> https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0531167/
> 
> 
> Maxine picks up Otis and Fiona at the Kugelblitz School, but Ziggy is
> headed for Krav Maga class with his classmate Nigel and Nigel’s sitter.
> 
> 
> The rest of the chapter, in Maxine’s apartment, consists of
> 
> a)settling Otis and Fiona in to watch The Aggro Hour, with non-sugar soda
> and health food Cheetos.
> 
> b) Ziggy coming home from Krav Maga with a “ haze of early-adolescent sex
> angst” engendered by the female instructor, Emma Levin, and indulged by her
> ex-Mossad boyfriend Naftali “who will kill anybody even looks at her sideways,
> unless maybe it’s a kid who can’t help having some preadolescent longing.”
> 
> c) Maxine walking in on Fiona showing Ziggy and Otis the new first-person
> shooter game her father has created. At first scandalized, Maxine’s lured
> in & comes to appreciate the way it gives her an opportunity to disappear
> ill-mannered yuppies and give their children up for adoption.
> 
> d) Convo with Vyrva about the latter’s meeting which was with Gabriel Ice.
> Ice offered to buy her husband & his partner’s software, which they called
> Deep Archer. Apparently there’s a piece of it that can enhance
> untraceability, and that’s the piece that Ice is willing to buy the whole
> thing to get.
> Maxine reflects on how secure privacy inevitably leads to abuses.
> Vyrva relates that the partners are both torn on whether to accept the
> offer, or to release the code for free.
> Maxine understands that choice is not a no-brainer, that money isn’t always
> desirable: “…above a critical amount, it’s all bad.”
> 
> e) the last part of the chapter relates Mrs McElmo’s Beanie Baby
> obsession/side hustle. Ostensibly collecting them for Fiona, she is much
> more the mover in this hobby, and thinks it’s a great investment.
> Ziggy quite maturely (and out of Vyrva’s presence) critiques the pitfalls
> of Beanie Babies as an investment: moth and rust and wear and tear - and
> concludes that Vyrva, at least as regards Beanie Babies, is crazy.
> --
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