It came as quite a shock to my system.
According to my records, I first spelled it wrong around 1993. The second time I spelled it wrong was on the 26th of September 2010.
So, I've been thinking wrongly of the word 'barbiturate' for more than twenty years.
Until Tuesday I was certain it was 'barbituate'.
Apparently the word can be pronounced barbituate, but it's spelled barbiturate.
I had to check several spellcheckers to be sure.
All this time I was wrong.
It's 'barbiturate'.
My whole history is altered.
(Okay, it's not Harry Mulisch's The Assault, but still....)
And I came upon two lads arguing.
And they were arguing about which was better: Louis Armstrong's solo at the start of Saint Louis Blues, or a wet beer fart.
And I said unto them, "Neither can be called strictly better."
And the lads said, "How's that, sir?"
I said, "One is better in certain ways; the other's better in other ways. Armstrong's note is more sublime aesthetically, while the fart has more humour, and is more surprising."
And they said, "Thank you, sir. I fear we were nearly on the verge of having values."
I smiled. "Go in peace."
The elevator door opened just as I got to it. A woman standing there said, "This isn't fair."
"What?"
"I've been waiting three minutes and you haven't."
"Them's the breaks."
"Do not get on this elevator."
"Why not?"
"You should be graceful and wait for another one."
The logic seemed right at the time.
She got on the elevator and the door closed. She didn't even smile.
Then I saw the flaw in her reasoning.
What a tool she was!
(Okay, I confess. She and me? It was the other way around. I hate being on elevators with other people.)
We can't call him a bad guy, but sometimes he says something provocative. He could ask for a thing he somehow should not have.
And everyone's running around madly being afraid of him.
He has a pickup truck and he's been known to carry automobile motors in the back of it. I can't say it's always legal.
And everyone's running around, madly being afraid of him.
He's not my cup of tea, but I think he might be someone's. Nobody really notices every single move he makes. He tries too hard.
And everyone's running around madly, being afraid of him.
The man sends a note to a lady over the Internet, and he says to her, "Hi. Want to have a baby?" And she thinks about it, and says, "Okay." So the man takes a pee cell and he puts it in his scanner until it spits out a whole bunch of letters I think. Then he sends the letters to her, saying, "Here. Don't get them mixed up." The lady writes, "Thanks." She puts the letters in her scanner then there's a pill and she takes the pill. Then the lady shits out a baby.
What's so great about a city?
Why does every country lad dream of escaping his rural idiocy?
Or even—dare I say it for ingratitude?—suburban idiocy?
It's the noise and the chaos and the constant irritants naturally.
(More naturally than nature can ever irritate.)
Up to twice on the subway a day, down the steps, and the train is delayed somewhere.
You have to think.
Ten minutes late? twenty minutes late?
Time to muse about anything at all.
Wordsworth composed odes strolling cricks while I come up with up to five words' worth.
Like "Constant Irritants of the City."
For a reason I'm not getting into, I found myself at work naked.
From a stairwell I ran for the nearest men's room. How to escape, how to repair what had been done? Then I noticed that beside the sinks was a pile of clothes, and they fit well enough. Baggy, though.
A week later, I found myself in the same situation. Into the men's room again; and there I found a small Asian woman holding clothes.
I took them from her.
"How often do you put clothes here?"
"Often."
"How often?"
"Often enough, I guess."
"Why?"
"Because they're needed."
Things put in writing last very much longer
Than voices can make when they're singing a song or
When shouting a yawp een though it be love or
The love that I feel when with you not another;
For writ down on paper or een up a website
Though death stops my voice my love won't come unsight-
Ly I mean false eternity earned by the word
Will mirror forever the love I've for you;
Deficient in rhyme written down is no worse
Than the silence I register speaking these lines;
What's writ's signified of a love never dying.
Untitled
2013
John Skaife (b. 1965)
Nothing on Anything
On loan from the artist
0" x 0" x 0" x 0"
Since his arrival in 1981, John Skaife has tried repeatedly "to convert nothingness into nothingness." This late work, casually called "Number 3000 of 3000," continues this exploration. Using a palette deficient of all parts of speech and all colours and all dimensions, it expresses a space in which everything and nothing can be simultaneously placed. Both a parody of the post-modern moment and a product of the post-modern moment, the work expresses everything that can be said, or not.
Book One
PART TWO
Chapter Two
2.
Now while all this was going on, the author was on the last section of the first part. He was almost exactly halfway through. Just another sixty-two words to go, and the second book would begin. He looked again; forty-nine words. What can happen in forty-nine words? What can happen in thirty-seven words, because that's all that remained to do? He couldn't remember the names of any of the characters. They must be sleeping. Fourteen to go! Yes, they were all asleep. Sleeping as only fictional characters can....
Q: How many lead singers of Vag Halen does it take to form a sexist group then claim to be victims of sexism? How many lead singers of Vag Halen does it take to categorize groups, then complain that 'People like to categorize'? Is it ever possible for the so-called arts community to be gaga about any art that does not give them licence for condescension and sneer? How many lead singers of Vag Halen can say that "It's pretty incredible how offensive people can be without even knowing it"?
A: I'm offended by your questions. Shut the fuck up.
--5 June 2013
Silvia was showing me a folio of automobiles, one of which she was going to construct. I noticed I was digging my fingernails into the cloth she'd given me to hold; I handed it back to her. We turned back to the folio, but it was gone. "That damn cat!" Something moved in the cupboard. A big frog, in primary colours. I brushed it out, got a towel to grab him. I bent down and there were two there. Looking like whistles. Also a tiny chicken. In the cupboard now were Laraine Newmans, Gilda Radners, and Jane Curtains. Four apiece.
Still I go around in circles and never make any real progress. How about making some kind of goal for myself? As if I'm going to talk about them now. Because failure—almost inevitable—is embarrassing. How could I ever re-attain face in such a circumstance? So I keep going, one after another, no end in sight. There's nothing too startling about it really. Just same old same old. Believe it or not, it's still a struggle.
Let's see. Go to Ottawa in a couple weeks. Then to Cape Breton again in about a month. And what to do there?
The man with the fat neck put an ad in the newspaper to draw other people with fat necks to a Congress of People with Fat Necks.
"Gentlefolk," he began, "the other day, on the streetcar, I felt a curious sensation upon the nape of my fat neck. It wasn't until I was at work that a fellow pointed out to me that some person or persons had drawn a frowning face using the fold oat the nape of my fat neck as the frown."
The crowd responded with shouts.
"We must make a stand! Up with fat-necked people!"
"Hurrah!"
Though I am a slave, I own several thousand acres that can never be taken away from me; and though I am an abject slave, I have two dozen houses ranging from 17th century English to Frank Lloyd Wright; and though I am a snivelling abject slave, I have more women to love (who love me back grandly) than I can ever fully satisfy; and though I am a base snivelling abject slave, I have twenty-two bank accounts plus a thousand investments; and though I am a dirty base snivelling abject slave, I can find nobody to envy at all.
"Soft mechanical hands pull the baby from the birth canal and through the form-fitting plexiglass mould that protects it from the contagion of the mother's thighs and lays it gently into the comfy foam-lined robotic bassinet. The bassinet rolls quickly out of the birth room, away from the mother's sound and smell, to Nursery 18 of Ward 7 of Floor 9. Silence. Down quietly from the ceiling drops the nutritional mechanisms which provide succour to the newborn when its vital signs—measured remotely—show need. Eighteen months it develops, eighteen months precisely, for anything deviating from that would be sub-optimal."
"A single man, a blacksmith holding a horseshoe, his sole defence, appeared between my eyes and the red of the burning, his eyes wide, mentioning the chaos to me, and a family, father with his horse reins in his hand and pretty wife in a scorched dress in the saddle, and boy and girl alongside, then the field opened up as hundreds appeared, the cooks with their ladles, the funeral parlour man, the bakers in bakery hats, the fine ladies and their swains, the politicos still clutching memos, the business man, the barefoot thief, all, all were fleeing the Martians."
"So what? The US government is assembling metadata. Just metadata! Not even data! Not even listening in on phone calls! Of course, metadata creates vectors of associations between elements—IP addresses, phone numbers, websites—giving each connection a strength from '0.00000'-'1.00000'. That's all! 'Cat' has a stronger association with 'dog' than 'xylophone.' So what? You know what else uses metadata like this? Google, that's who! Search engines don't give a damn about content. Just the strengths of associations! So the US government is only building a web of vectors like Google. And it's not like Google has any power, right?"
Sadly, the greatest artwork in the history of the world, surpassing all we have known and all we will ever know, greater than all of Shakespeare, all of Leonardo, and all of Bach, will be unveiled to the whole world simultaneously via a technology designed especially for said work, and all the world will immediately know that, yes, this work is the greatest achievement of mankind, telling more about the human condition and humanity's place in the universe than, frankly, all the other works created before or since combined, in 2036, and I will have died the year before.
The radio telescopes told me one day that the most distant stars appeared to be going out. Simply vanishing.
After a while, on a clear night in a dark sky sanctuary, I could see with the naked eye the phenomenon. All vanishing.
Pluto vanished; Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, the Moon.
The planet Earth was all I had.
Communications ceased from China, India, Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, England, South America.
I did the calculus. Seven days I had left.
I seemed to be the only one to notice. (?)
Province, city, street.
Legs, arms.
And then I died.
Er behandelte mich wie Toilettenpapier.
-Angela Merkel
Il a assassiné bigfoot.
-Brigitte Bardot
Ho dormito. Quando mi svegliai, Roberto Guado stava tirando fuori il mio intestino.
-Roberto Rossellini
Wziął dwadzieścia dolarów od mnie. Chciałam seksu!
-Bolesław III Wrymouth
Hy is dwelm man. Hy steek dit weg. Ek sien hom met sy dwelms.
-Nelson Mandela
Он саентолог. Вы не можете доверять ему.
-Dostoyevsky
Estás tontos! Usted dice que es una ciudad de clase mundial!
-Fernando Pessoa
يجب ايقافه.
Mohamed-
הוא הרג את ביגפוט.
Moses-
Hij is een eland en hij neukte mijn zus.
-Nehterlander
The motion. The Councillor said, "The people aren't afraid enough of us, and where's the fun in that?"
Another Councillor said, "You're right. I'm in this to control people."
"Too much freedom diminishes us."
"Let's steal something from them."
"Something that's not ours."
"Heritage site!"
"You betcha! What, where?"
"The University of Toronto! I understand they want to astroturf their muddy field."
"Great! We'll force them to stop it!"
"Aren't Heritage designations great?"
"To the untrained eye, they don't even look like theft."
"But we know better."
"I think I have to masturbate now."
"Good idea!"
"Theft...."
"Theft...."
"Theft...."
"Theft...."
In prison now. Bread and water. All for a word.
Tin cups rattle like Nibelungs day in and day out.
The cement floor is no stage for an actor like me.
I've made friends with two mice and a cockroach.
Beyond the bars, there's sky. Yet another barrier.
What I wouldn't do to be a sous chef instead.
Everything is way too loud. No sound absorption.
Funny thing is, they won't tell me which word it was.
Nothing to do but perfect these ten lines of freedom.
Things could be worse. Real freedom would be much worse.
It was early '66 I decided I'd had enough. I wanted to get away from my stupid parents. I headed out, a bona fide run-away just ten years old. Course I'd been to Manhattan before—dumb-ass museums mom wanted to visit—but now just me.
I slept in Central Park and, a ten-year-old boy-ass being its own currency of course, I rolled more than a couple perverts. Not proud.
Then I'd had enough. Back to New Rochelle in May. Just in time, cuz Dad then sold our life story to Alan Brady, and we were rich.
Bright and early this Sunday morn, I hopped out of bed, donned casual wear, and proceeded down the stairs to my den.
What a glorious night it had been!
Perkily I powered up my computing machine to unearth the responses to my witty late-night postings of yestereve. What fun I had had with usages of litotes and triple negatives!
I lit a cigarette and prepared to dive right in, as they say. Then I noticed a bottle upon my desk. Some beverage left-over!
I took it and imbibed. But—wouldn't you know it?—it was one of my piss bottles!
I decided it was time to join the modern world and get a cell phone or smart phone or whatever.
I went to the Bell store. I picked one out: a Samsung model.
A woman gave me a form to fill out. Name, address, other phone number, IQ.
IQ?
"Excuse me?"
"Yes?"
"Why do you need my IQ?"
"It's actuarial."
"Oh."
138.
I handed in the form.
She made some computations.
"Your base monthly fee will be $98.22."
"Heavens! Whatever happened to $29.95, as advertised?"
"We have to cover our costs, and you're too smart to wrack up enough minutes."
Past Jupiter now.
I remember when they arrived on Earth. They showed us the most wonderful inventions far beyond our capabilities to even fathom. As a gift they presented us with a digital device like an iPod. Written across the top: TO EDUCATE MAN. Our greatest minds got to work deciphering it.
They wanted to take one of us back to their planet, and I, being a famous astronaut, was chosen for the task.
Day of launch.
And the aliens manhandled me onto their ship when one of our scientists, holding the digital device, cried, "Roger! Roger! It's a TEXTBOOK!"
Lincoln came to me last night.
He unrolled a great map depicting Bull Run and Manassas, Virginia.
He said, "This depot is what we want to take. We don't know the opposing force. McDowell is commanding. He wants to head straight for Henry Hill, but I'm uncertain. What do you think?"
"Why don't you push in here, with artillery, and flank both sides with cavalry? The infantry should be harum-scarum."
He nodded. "I see what you mean. Thank you."
He waved to go. I said, "Lincoln, why me?"
He shook his head, paling. "I knew only you could help me."
What is melancholia? What is melancholia, male?
I've been acquainted with maybe a thousand women in my life. (To pick a number.) And in every one of those cases, I have failed to sit down beside her and say
I think you're really beautiful. Not just appearance-wise, but everyway-wise. You break my heart with your beauty. I want to do things for you. Just name what! I'll build you a house, I'll sit at your feet. I love you so much! I just want you to know that.
and there is no way on Earth I could ever do that.
A curious Monday, this one, following a most curious weekend. You see, I had nothing to feel guilty about. I hadn't been rude to anyone; in fact, I'd been quite pleasant. Who did I think I was, really, not being nasty to people?
Later on, M-e asked me what I was reading. I showed it: The Civil War, The First Year. He asked me if I wrote, and I said no (because what I do is too hard to explain). He said he'd writtnen a poem on the weekend and he recited it. It was good, and I was jealous.
A curious letter was published on a non-letters page of The National Post today. Entitled, 'Engineer decries transit meddling,' said engineer (currently of Toronto) was a student of the chief engineer in the '60s, and he mentions grade separation, the planned elimination of streetcars, planes flying at different altitudes, and so on.
It's curious because on two occasions I have been trapped on the College-Carlton streetcar with a loud crazy man saying precisely the same things. Co-incidence?
Just goes to show you that your average transit anycrazyman, given a pen, can come up with a sensible letter.
What'd I say?
--25 June 2013
"Omigod."
"What?"
"Have you read this?"
"What?"
"Obama's cancelled his Africa trip."
"Because of Mandela?"
"What?"
"Because he doesn't want to be around when he croaks?"
"No, no. Hmmm... Anyway, he's says he's cancelling it because of his big global warming speech yesterday."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Here's the quote. 'If, after demanding everyone pay their fair share to reduce admissions, I, the President, were to jet off with fourteen cargo planes containing fourteen limousines and forty other cars, I'd be the biggest fucking hypocrite in history.'"
"He said that?"
".... I'm lying. The biggest fucking hypocrite's still off to Africa."
--26 June 2013
Dear Abby,
Two years ago I was stopped by police on highway 407 during one of their annual drunk driving awareness programs. There happened to be a television crew doing some kind of a story about the program. No worries, I thought at the time. But last night I saw a news item and I appeared in it. There I was, being stopped by the police, and the reporter was saying, "A surprisingly large number of sex offenders are caught during routine safety checks." Now, even though I am a sex offender, multiply so, do you think I would sue?
One of our correspondents, Im Known As......., writes, quote, Fuck that nigga Zimmerman, I'll kill that nigga myself, endquote.
This communication sent shockwaves through the nation's blood. Was it the case that George Zimmerman was, in fact, a nigga? How had we been misinformed so as to believe he was Hispanic? The trial is delayed pending tests.
Furthermore, our lexicologists are working overtime to accommodate certain new words hitherto unknown to God's tongue:
ima
Cracka
ill (meaning 'I will')
bruh
goin
azz (and its intensified 'badazz')
wit (not meaning 'characteristic of a heightened use of language' obviously)
--28 June 2013
