On the Lower East Side of Saskatoon, midway between the Hall of Potash and the Early Farming Equipment Museum of Saskatchewan, there looms a hotel whose internal dimensions fluctuate coincident with the phases of the moon. When the moon is most gibbous, the number of available rooms swells to 180; when most nearly crescent, usable accommodations slip to 154. Likewise, its street address varies. Normally located at the corner of Frog Street and the Algonquin Highway, the building has been known to shift up to 80 feet west when the north branch of the Cryogenesis River, which stubbornly flows through the hotel lobby, is in flood stage. The hotel, which has no formal name, is run by outcasts from the Sphagnum Parsonage, itself a free range spiritual commune whose disciples revere peat moss and its culinary byproducts. The hotel is alternately tranquil and tumultuous, depending on the equanimity of the guests and the rate of flow from the volcano in the pantry. It is an ideal spot to contemplate the place of Mobius strip malls in the universe. Conversely, it is where Beano Bengaze maintains office hours 9am-1pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Trowler the Weasel appeared normal except for the powdered wig made of chihuahua fur and the false eyelashes affixed to his contact lenses. He spoke with a common blue-black accent, but tended to lapse into gibberish whenever Phobos and Deimos rose bickeringly over Mars. If not for the life-size harpoon fastened ornamentally to the hood, his car might be described as nondescript. He walked with a limpet, which itself clung gastropodically to a nervous rock harvested from the local tidal pool. His countenance radiated anxiety the way portable telecommunication towers emit BTUs. For Trowler the Weasel was a Sphagnum Parson not affiliated with the Saskatoon hotel. Rather, he was of the order of Universal Nihilists, who held that the Earth existed in the cosmos solely as an example of what other universes should avoid, else, it would've been destroyed eons ago. He was to an optimist what a vacuum was to an out-of-kilter geyser -- which coincidentally sometimes threatened the hotel's East Wing rooms.

Bengaze's office was on the third floor -- or fourth floor during Gibbous Periods. It was not noticeably different from other neighboring suites, except that it seemed to float six feet off the ground and was guarded by temporal fogdogs crooning homage to their ancient Mesopotamian roots. The hallway outside was littered with former clients who, after Beano had finished with their cases, had nowhere to go. Thanks to his mystical powers, they existed in a kind of time warp stasis, and could be stacked atop each other without one ever seeming to infringe on another's space.

By the time Trowler had located Beano's office, the phase of the moon had progressed from crescent to croissant -- the stage, according to Skull of Montovani myth, when Weasel Slayer devours the waxing satellite, often with jam, coffee and the morning newspaper. There follows seven days of godlike indigestion, after which the queasy god pukes it back into the night sky. And while Trowler had indeed found Beano, he was in a different time-space continuum. Although they could only observe one another through transient cracks in the temporal office, they could pass notes back and forth via the fogdogs. However, canine slobber caused some of the words to run, and Trowler's wants were never clearly defined. Resolutely, they agreed to wait for Weasel Slayer to return the moon -- and, by extension, Beano -- to the more amenable oriange flambeau time-space connection.

Today's 168th episode of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar also looks forward to a more equitable state of affairs, as this one seems entirely out of whack, though that may be a personal observation with no basis in fact, which in fact is a typical state of affairs. Likewise typical, through no fault of his own, are the impending observations of Kalvos.