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# Creature
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/creature/
- Published: 2020-10-07T23:38:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-15T03:49:47.000Z
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Notebook

A fly sat atop Mike Pence’s head for two minutes and three seconds during the vice presidential debate. This headline appeared in the *New York Times* and elsewhere, and I’m glad it was recorded for posterity. During this debate between two supernaturally telegenic candidates, a large fly landed on the vice president’s perfectly shellacked, snowy-white hair. It hardly moved while the man rambled about hallucinatory riots. The fly complemented the aura of this man who already lives in the uncanny valley, a man who seems like an alien lifeform doing its best impression of a movie president circa 1958.

The fly felt like a portentous symbol in a year that has reached the caliber of myth. Perhaps it was an emblem of this administration’s rot, bringing to mind [Sartre’s play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FFlies?ref=jamesreeves.co) that introduces Zeus “as the god of flies and death.” (As a counterpoint, there was the time a little bird landed on Bernie Sanders’s podium in 2016.) The fly could also be read as proof of our craving for spectacle—and as a symbol of our attention spans. Within a week, we’ve darted from the president’s tax evasion to a horrifying presidential debate to wondering whether the president was dead to tracking the spread of the coronavirus throughout the White House to, oh look, a fly. For two minutes and three seconds, the fly had done what even a pandemic could not: it briefly unified the nation.

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#### [Suicide – Creature Feature](http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Creature%20Feature.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co)

###### The First Rehearsal Tapes, 1975 | [More](https://www.superiorviaduct.com/products/suicide-first-rehearsal-tapes-lp?ref=jamesreeves.co)

[http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Creature%20Feature.mp3](http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Creature%20Feature.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co)