22 August Epic Dump

"I'm telling you I don't know how she does it. It's some kind of conjuring trick. She's even let me skip rent for a month. Always she's got lots of money to spend. Nothing is beyond her except silliness. It's like she goes out at night and comes back with dollar bills in her hand, that's almost what it's like. She even said I could quit working, yes she said that. I wish I knew her secret. Once I asked her about it and she just laughed and touched me under the chin. She's my best friend. She's simply marvellous."

 

***

 

Wouldn't you know it. David and Linda and me were sitting in a cafe talking about the old days when I glanced out the window and say [XXX] and XXX walking past. Hadn't seen them in ages. Then they see me, they come in, and I don't know their names.

[XXX] says, "Hi, John!"

"Hi." (Maybe they'll mention their names if I introduce them.) "This is David and Linda."

[XXX] says, "Hi, I'm Brent."

XXX says, merely, "Hello."

Conversation goes on for some time. Then they leave.

David says, "Who were they?"

I say, "I really wish I really knew."

 

***

 

The Blob

 

Today I poured a third of a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide into my left ear, desperate to clear it before going to Bala Saturday.

The peroxide bubbled away as I read a book.

I went to the shower and blasted water into my ear.

Then—oh miracle!—a huge blob came out!

I grabbed it before it ran down the drain.

It was black with some ochre streaks mixed in.

"Mary, look! It's out!"

I showed it to her.

"It was probably in there for ten years."

She said, "Oh."

I popped it in my mouth.

Mary puked.

 

***

 

This idiotic fool walked to the streetcar

The kingly 504

Noting the birds and the children

Singing a song with bundle on stick over shoulder

Took an offered transfer though it wasn't necessary

Being polite right

The streetcar diverted at Parliament

And this idiotic fool thought naught of it

Having a metropass in bundle

But

At the Queen Street station, disembarking, recalled there was no metropass in bundle

So needed the transfer after all

But where had it gone?

Pocket?

Other pocket?

Bundle!

Opened the sweating bundle

Riffed through trembling objects

And found it there finally

This idiot and fool.

 

***

 

The Lake, Mostly. August 10 to August 17

 

This is the month of August.

We are going there once again.

We will be off soon.

It'll be quiet, eventually.

But first, for two nights, we will have guests.

Friends of ours.

What will happen?

Who knows?

I am writing this on my new Kindle Fire.

I am using simple ideas now.

I don't want to break it just yet.

It cannot give me a word count, so I am just going to guess.

I'm probably at about sixty-five words now.

(I really don't want to break this thing.)

There will be canoes and swimming involved.

Seven nights altogether.

Maybe that's enough talking for now.

I'll talk to you tomorrow.

 

Today went by internally, with much less happening on the outside.

Made breakfast, watched the dog run around freely for possibly the first time in his life, drove into town for milk and yogurt, jumped off the big rock for the first time in three years, made David build a quality fire, played a game on this here machine, started folding another lionfish, ate salmon and mussels and vanilla ice cream smothered with liqueur, listened to David and Mary sing, cleaned David's clock at poker, all the while drinking Coors Light.

As I said, everything that was important happened internally.

 

Hoo-boy, now I've done it.

I was out somewhere with John Wakaluk--was that the cause of it all?

I had all sorts of assignments to do, including one I'd been neglecting for months. I've been neglecting it for years, too. I've been hoping the teacher had forgotten it, but I've evidence she hasn't this evening.

And now, on top of that, I mentioned tamarinds to my father--only because I didn't know what they cured--and I rented a videotape that had something to do with tamarinds.

Then, this evening, at about three, the doorbell rang. I went out of my room to look--it was my father at the door.

Some time later, my brother and my mother came to my door. My  brother made to hit me.

'You asshole. Why'd you do it?'

My mother said, 'That movie you rented. It's about cholera. You know how sensitive you father is about public health issues.'

I hadn't known. So now, for years, my father in my dreams will be mad at me for some stupid video!

And I still have that assignment to deal with!

 

The Rolling Thunder Review of 1974 I believe was when Bob Dylan performed the version of Isis that appears on the collection called Anthology. At the beginning of it, he says, 'This is for Leonard, if he's still here.'

This is an arcane gag. You see, Leonard is actually one Leonard Finkelmeister, one of Dylan's friends from his younger pre-fame days. Isis was written by Finkelmeister, and Dylan stole it. When Finkelmeister found out about this theft, he threatened to sue. So Dylan hired Peter, Paul and Mary to kill Finkelmeister. His corpse is in the Hudson river to this day.

Dylan made this into a joke. Heartless prick.

 

You're asking me about Franz Schubert? Well, let me tell you.

It's deep stuff all around. I'd have to learn German to completely get to the bottom of it.

And even that wouldn't be enough. I'd have to build a time machine, at great expense, to get back to Vienna a couple years before 1828. I could see all the influences--the milieu, if you please--that made him first choose his verses (I'd comb the bookstalls) and then I would have to learn the music theory he'd studied in order to fully appreciate how he organised it all.

But hell, why not go all the way? Since I'm already building a time machine, I might as well build a replicator. I'll create a Schubert from nothing, then inject my soul into his. But--then I'll be nowhere, won't I? So I won't learn anything.

I guess I'll never get to the bottom of anything.

 

It's the big sky one sees here. The sky is big in the city, too, but it's invisible, right? Similarly, the moon, the stars. The moon sets an hour and eight minutes earlier day in, day out. It's something easy to forget. And you pay more attention to food, too. The feeling of water rippling over one's body, the sheer solidity of the stuff. The long trains carrying things to places you've never heard of. Foxes and herons and geese and ducks and chipmunks. How cool it is at 7:30 in the morning. Voices not far off, clearly heard. Other people's lives, how they do things differently. The strangeness of autoreplace....

 

The town, whatever its population, lives through the winter and makes all their money during the summer months. They are rough-skinned, big bicepped, thick legged, and the men are worse. They have one main road running straight through plus four or five residential streets. One of them is now a museum of the town, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. We've never been in it, not knowing anything about the woman. (At least not me.) There's a side-road—the original road, from before the highway—off to the east. Quaint little shops there. There's not much else to it. It changes very slowly.

 

My own computer. So, 100 words.

At the Brass Tap, I said, "You wanted to compare distance seeing. And you were doing that seek puzzle. So let me ask you: did you see the naked woman yesterday?"

"Where was she?"

"She was in plain sight. Did you see her?"

"Nope. Where was she?"

I made canoeing gestures. "You remember up on the shore, house set a bit back, The woman who yelled, 'Hello, ladies'?"

"Yeah."

"The woman who was lying down was naked."

"Really? On her back or her front?"

"Front."

"I didn't see her."

"It was something worth seeing."

 

***

 

Ses'na

 

Airplanes that are as quick as my verse commit high overhead their great and greater flights,

While these flights of airplanes (so great, so quick) commit my earthbound verse

To the universe and verse of their own flights; O you please, commit such airplanes (so quick, so great)

To my great verse concerning the quick flights of these my many selfsame airplanes; commit,

As only you can commit, these great airplanes to my verse concerning flights so quick

That quick, O you please, you commit some flights or great or greater to my universe and verse, O you airplanes!

 

***

 

Don't we all want a cleaner planet? Don't we all want to pitch in? Maybe even send a message, or raise awareness? Take a look around. Take a look at your computers, your personal digital assistants, and your smartphones. I bet you've got it on sleep, ready for awareness at the touch of a button.

But did you know that if we Canadians changed their habits just a little; if we'd only chose to shut off our devices rather than let them sleep; we'd save enough energy to power an entire North Korean prison camp for over four thousand years?

 

***

 

Models

 

Boy meets girl. He courts her. They get married.

Boy meets girl. He courts her. She marries someone else.

Boy meets girl. He hates her. She marries someone else.

Boy meets girl. He hates her. They get married anyway.

Boy meets girt. He courts her. They get married anyway.

Boy meets girl. He courts her. She dies suddenly.

Boy meets girl. She's his sister. She dies suddenly.

Boy meets girl. She's his sister. They get married.

Boy meets girl. She's a gold-digger. They get married.

Boy meets girl. She's a gold-digger. He kills her.

Boy meets girl. The end.

 

***

 

Though I'm not sure, and I'll never be sure, just how deep into the desert I was, I drove that prime sports car with just a thousand clicks on it as fast as possible. There wasn't an obstacle for a thousand miles—or so I thought—to get in the way of my escape from nothingness to nothingness. Just me and the car, that was all there was. It was as if I was catching up to something that I had mistaken for the sun or the curvature of the earth or the earth itself. Just me and the moon.

 

***

 

Now when we were off in Cape Breton I had a scheme to write a story using sixteen stories I'd already written. Here's the dates.

18 February 2006

6 August 2006

23 January 2007

12 July 2007

28 December 2007

15 June 2008

2 December 2008

21 May 2009

6 November 2009

25 April 2010

12 October 2010

30 March 2011

16 September 2011

4 March 2012

20 August 2012

6 February 2013

But you know I just couldn't get the contraption off the ground. (Something wrong re time and memory.) I ended up doing something else.

Reader, you try.

Angelas

My soul communicated with my body, saying, "I am the real thing, not you."

The city phoned up the country to complain. "How dare you say you're more real than me?"

My radio marched into my tv room yesterday, I believe to say it was more real.

Of course, this here--this written I--holds the other one--the writing I--like a puppet.

Half the things are suing the other half the things. Infringement of ontological copyright is the charge.

Borrower is annoyed because Lender thinks he's the one driving this.

And everyone knows women are the crazy ones.

 

***

 

Out-of-the-way Places

 

These buildings here all have stairs that lead nowhere.

I remember high school. I remember going up into the theatre's fly gallery to be alone and read.

I don't ever want to see anyone I know. It's great to be in a crowd full of strangers who will never see you again.

They're far easier to part from that way.

You don't even have to say goodbye.

Sometimes I wonder how often I've seen this person or that person before. There are only so many paths in a city.

And I am afraid--so afraid--they remember me.

 

***

 

"Hey, pretty baby, what's your name?"

"Angela."

"Angela, huh? I've known my share of Angelas. All began in primary or thereabouts. She asked me to dance, I danced with her. I'll remember that forever. Then there was a waitress, I was a busboy. She was surprised I was a Tom Waits fan. Oh yeah, at Ryerson there were two Angelas. One was from Romania. I think her name was anglicized. The other one was kinda short, but she had this rack, I couldn't believe it. So, you're Angela. Well, hello, Angela."

"Thanks for taking such a keen interest in me."

The Island, Mostly. July 27 to August 5

Mother, mother.

Mary and I checked our boarding passes. We weren't seated together. I was in the 11th row, she was in the 6th. I shrugged it off.

Then once we were actually seated, in rows six and eleven, I got nervous. The idea--what if we crash? We'll be so far apart! I felt so lonely then.

The feeling: what was the feeling? It was the feeling of a little boy, separated from his mother in a store. Only thing in his head: "I need my mommy!"

A desperate need, in both cases. "I want Mary! I want Mary!"

 

Last Monday night seven teens got into a car built for five. They drove out down the Shore Road.

Just after the wooden bridge, probably speeding, they went into the ditch, rolled.

All except the driver, who was wearing a seatbelt, were thrown out of the car.

Three of the six thrown were killed, either immediately or shortly thereafter.

A woman named Anne Marie, who stays where we are staying, at the Lighthouse Cottages, heard the sirens rush by. Then she heard the helicopter that took the injured to the hospital.

The funerals were yesterday, in Judique and Port Hood.

 

Father, father.

What is it with me and difficult people? A normal person avoids difficult people; I go to them. (I'm thinking right now of three people, one of whom I dined with this evening.)

I'm making this sound more like a riddle than it actually is. The answer is, simply, Father.

He would get into difficult moods, and I, with my charming ways, would go to him to calm him down, or distract him.

And thus I look for difficult people--I suppose because, now, there's also the meaning that I am, in some way, again with my father.

 

Difficult people like to modify their behaviour so that they don't look like difficult people.

Here, it's actually the 31st of July, not the 30th. A red-breasted robin is bob-bob-bobbing along in front of me.

What will I say about tomorrow, or is it today?

I'll talk about a day free of complexity--until what I'll write about tomorrow--watching the blue water and the blue sky.

What else, it's a vacation.

Except to say that no-one really gives a damn about anything at all.

We're all just waiting to die, and we don't care who's left behind to grieve.

 

It's hard to have a simple day here. We've been here a dozen times or so. Father was here maybe nine years ago.

Yes--one time, me, Mary & Mother went down to the water and while we were gone he got into the state I was in when I was in the airplane.

I got sad on the airplane; he got mad waiting for his mother, er, wife to return.

So this theory's a general theory. At least as far as men are concerned.

Or at least as far as my family is concerned.

Or my father and myself.

 

Oh yes, the ritual of the Shaving of the Pubic Area.

Sometimes it seems a drag--oh, here we go again!--but, barring expensive and time-engulfing electrolysis, it's essential.

I mean, what lady could resist? No more of that infernal nose-tickling, no more fear of a hair getting caught in your throat.

And consider the appeal of the optics. Tinto Brass knew what he was doing in that film about the nazis. It simply looks bigger, and we all know how the ladies can squeal with delight.

So shave it dry, boys. Your ladies and your man-root will thank you.

 

The newest thing out here is nudism. Mary and I decided to check it out.

The place was in a shopping mall.

(Geoff was there too.)

We knocked on the door.

A bare-breasted woman came out angrily. "Yes, what?"

We said we were there to be nude.

"Uh-uh, no. Who told you about this place?"

"You advertised."

(Peeking inside, naked people watching a film.)

"Forget it," slamming the door.

We went to get Geoff's car from the lock-up. It was nowhere to be found.

They'd even stolen Geoff's car! What was wrong with them?

(Dreams are part of vacations, too.)

 

Tonight we went to a dance.

And although the folks on the floor were happy, I wasn't; I was distant from it (partially because one of my ears is blocked up and everything sounds like a wash), which led me to consider the emptiness of the world (partially because I've been reading the Tale of Genji) and aspire to--or merely ponder--the inevitable pain of all departures and that the only way to avoid the pain is by renouncing the world, maybe by entering a nice monastery. Have I mentioned I have the taste of cancer in my mouth?

 

Danglingly tired of everything, we found a note on the door. "Back @ 7:40 B & T." Which meant, to my eyes, nothing less than the return to Cape Breton of Mary's parents. After Bernie had done his Sunday Mass assistance at the Veteran's Hospital, they'd driven back from Halifax. Which meant also they'd want to drive us to the bus in Port Hawksbury. I schemed and phantasied as I applied hydrogen peroxide to my ear.

Car pulled up. Brother Bernard. The T had meant Tanya.

Moral: When danglingly tired of everything, ask questions before squandering precious space of imagination.

 

I expected a disaster somewhere along the way back. The taxi arrived one minute early. We heard the bus company had to put another bus on because of all the travellers, but it didn't affect us. A big rainstorm at the airport put us on the plane to Ottawa an hour late, but we still caught our connecting flight. My bag was at the carousel before I was. We decided to go to Gabby's because I figured they'd still be serving food at eleven, and they were. The cat was still alive. There was no disaster.

There was no disaster.

チャイニーズ•ゴースト•ストーリー

明仁天皇、大阪の徹底的に、狂った不謹慎、不道徳、​​悪の科学者の二十四年三月二十二日目に彼の研究室の通路を渡って、彼が開催されたことを特徴彼のダンジョンにゆっくりと降り3年間の囚人限り、誰もが知っていた地獄の二〇から八門の一つであった井戸の底にある大阪吹き替え孤児の女の子、、。
科学者は科学者が女子高生の恐怖で素晴らしいと不合理な信者であること、ダンジョンの雰囲気のカメラとマイクによってすべて記録、非同期的に、常にあった書き換え可能なコンパクトディスクユニットの銀行になった後、一瞬でよく耳を傾けフィクションと、当然、マンガ。
彼は再びウェルになって、耳を傾けた。彼がダウンして叫んだ：応答がありませんでした。おそらく、彼女は死んでいた、関係なく、彼は彼女が一週間で死んでいることを知っていた。これは、彼が心の最後のビートがた臓器ごとオルガンを線引き飢餓によって死の必然性をマーク彼のチャートから知っていた。
二週間後、科学者は彼らのトレイから書き換え可能なコンパクトディスクを削除し、日本の町や都市の旅程項との症例からのビデオ店で彼の公共の場所でこっそりと、左のディスクまたは交換、、人気のデジタルビデオディスクに着手彼自身。
若い男はバス停の近くに謎ディスクの1つを見つけました。常に好奇心、自然の、そして実際に彼が起こることが悪意や超自然的なものを期待して、スターバックスでは、自分のノートパソコンにディスクを入れて流れを開始しました。水が水没、それを始め、すべての内に店が彼らのお互いを食べる習慣と複雑でのろわれた作られた陽気なことを特徴とひれ状冥界に千フィートかそこらを落としたように自分の足がグラグラ行く感じたコーヒーショップの色合いが青緑色になっ駄洒落、左右に200フィートを測定する割れ目を残して。
一方、大阪の女の子は、彼女が習慣だったので、ジェームズ·キャメロンのアバターのコピーを借りても、映画を見て彼女の前にハードドライブにコピーしました。ハードドライブのファイルはすぐにそれ自体がそのようなケイトの風と共に去りぬ赤ちゃん、、そして、皮肉なことに、リングの誕生などの名前を与え、ビットトレントプロトコルに、ネロを介して、自分自身を複製し始めました。女の子はすべてこれが起こっていた仮眠を取って、彼女の心は彼女の非常に胸からリッピングによってとりこにされたことマッドサイエンティストの作成の空白の音と映像を見ながら、それは次の日までではなかった...何か。
この精神は、適切な儀式で、残りの部分になだめすることができ、いくつかの誤解の女の子ではありませんでした。またそれは、その骨は返すか、適切に埋葬持っていることにひどく受容になる予定だった、いや、この精神は全くの行為に甦らされていた堕落と精神そのものの悪意を累乗するのに役立った純粋な悪。
このようにアジアのポルノのためにサーフィン、ロッククリフ、カリフォルニア州で中年の男をした、自身がアジアの女子学生が無修正というビデオを見て見つける。細かい家はシーンだった円卓宿題はシナリオだった。女の子は別の部屋から何かを聞いて、誰もそれが何であったかを見るためにあえて。驚くべきことに、自慰行為を少し年上の女性だった、と若い盗撮は助けるが、彼女のプリーツスカートを通して彼女自身に触れることができませんでした。一方、別の女の子が探検に行きました、そしてそれをすべて見ました、彼女は彼女の友達に戻って走り、それらはすべて彼らの口を介して自分の手でくすくす。
その後、ロッククリフでコンピューターの画面から出て達し手は、彼の隆起によって中年男をつかんで、奇跡的にカリフォルニアバタバタ爆発その後部屋の天井を浸し血のカスケードでオープンバーストマシンに彼を引っ張った。
パリの空に向かってエアレス成層圏を越えて推力たとして大阪の科学者が嬉々として、世界的な混乱のトラックを保った、すべての全体の世界的なグループとして、（当然アメリカの観光客を含む）（不自然にすでに死んで人々のために保存）9歳殺す可能な限り歳は、その家族を殺害し、それが最初の場所に存在していなかったかのようにオーストラリアとのすべての連絡先として神秘的に中止した。しかし、その後、彼は疑問に停止：なぜ確かに彼自身の自己昔よくそう不当に静かな、自分自身の研究室で、自分の家でしたか？なぜ明らかに世界全体の彼の住所は確かに至福の、影響を受けなかった？何も - ウィンドウに彼は恐怖や四肢切断の悲鳴をリッスンするために行ってきました！
ダウン彼のダンジョン（サイレント）に彼が行き、ダウンだけでなく、それ自体（サイレント）に彼が行き、足足で下向きの彼は（もちろんロープで）行ってきました;ウエット底に彼が辞任した。井戸の壁が離れて18フィートだった。彼は懐中電灯の周りに輝い。孤児の女の子の兆候はありませんでした。
ただ、上からは、彼女の声が来た。 "あなたは永遠にここになります。"
ロープは彼の足に落ちた。
一週間後、彼はまだ空腹ではなかった。彼女は言ったことを意味していた。彼は、彼が行っていたものに反芻する、永遠であることだった：彼は物語が絶対に本当証明していた。

 

(A Chinese Ghost Story

 

(On the twenty-second day of the third month of the twenty-fourth year of the Emperor Akihito, a thoroughly mad, unscrupulous, immoral and evil scientist of Osaka crossed the aisle of his laboratory and descended slowly into his dungeon wherein he has been holding prisoner for three years an orphan girl, dubbed Osaka, at the bottom of a well which as far as anyone knew was one of the twenty-eight gates of Hell.

(The scientist listened at the well for a moment, then turned to the bank of CD-RW units which were always, asynchronously, recording by camera and microphone everything of the ambiance of the dungeon, the scientist being a great and irrational believer in schoolgirl fright fiction and, naturally, manga.

(He turned to the well again, and listened. He shouted down: there was no response. Perhaps she was dead; regardless, he knew she would be dead in a week. This he knew from his charts marking the inevitability of death by starvation which delineated organ-by-organ unto the final beat of the heart.

(Two weeks later, the scientist removed the CD-RWs from their trays and set out on an itinerary of towns and cities of Japan wherein he surreptitiously either left disks in public places or replaced, in video shops, popular DVDs from their cases with his own.

(A young man found one of the mystery disks near a bus stop. Always of a curious nature, and indeed expecting something malevolent and supernatural to happen he, in a Starbucks, put the disk into his laptop and started the flow. The coffee-shop's hues turned bluish-green as water began to submerge it and all within felt their feet go wobbly as the shop dropped a thousand feet or so into the finny underworld wherein the damned made merry with their habit of daemopophagy and complicated puns, leaving a chasm measuring from side to side two hundred feet.

(Meanwhile, a girl in Osaka borrowed a copy of James Cameron's Avatar and, as was her wont, made a copy to her hard drive before even watching the film. The hard drive's file quickly began replicating itself, via Nero, to the BitTorrent protocol, giving itself names such as BBC_KATE_BIRTH, GWTW, and, ironically enough, RINGU. The girl took a nap which all this was happening and it wasn't until the next day while watching the blank sound-and-picture of the mad scientist's creation that her heart was ripped from her very chest and devoured by ... something.

(This spirit was not some misunderstood girl who, with the proper rites, could be placated to rest; nor was it going to be terribly receptive to having its bones returned or properly entombed; no, this spirit had been brought forth in an act of utter depravity and pure evil which served to exponentiate the malevolence of the spirit itself.

(In this way did a middle-aged man in Rockcliff, California, surfing for Asian porn, find himself watching a video called Asian Schoolgirls Uncensored. A fine house was the scene; a homework roundtable was the scenario. The girls heard something from another room and one ventured to see what it was. Surprisingly it was a slightly older woman masturbating, and the younger voyeur could not help but touch herself through her pleated skirt. Meanwhile another girl went to explore, and saw it all; she ran back to her friends and they all giggled with their hands over their mouths.

(Then a hand reached out from the computer screen in Rockcliff, grabbed the middle-aged man by his prominence and pulled him into the machine which burst open in a cascade of blood that miraculously soaked the ceiling of the room then California exploded noisily.

(The scientist of Osaka gleefully kept track of the worldwide turmoil, as Paris was thrust skyward beyond the airless stratosphere, kill all (save for the folks already dead unnaturally) (including American tourists naturally), as the entire worldwide demograph of nine-year-olds wherever possible murdered their families, and as all contact with Australia mysteriously ceased as if it had never existed in the first place. But then he stopped to wonder: why was his own home, his own laboratory, indeed his own self-fashioned well so unreasonably quiet? Why of apparently the entire world was his domicile unaffected, indeed blissful? To the window he went to listen for screams of terror or dismemberment--nothing!

(Down to his dungeon (silent) he went; down into the well itself (silent) he went; foot by foot downward he went (by rope of course); onto the wet bottom he stepped. The walls of the well were eighteen feet apart. He shined his flashlight around. There was no sign of the orphan girl.

(Just the from above came her voice. "You will be here forever."

(The rope dropped to his feet.

(A week later he still wasn't hungry. She had meant what she had said. He was to be forever and ever, to ruminate on what he had done: he had proven the stories absolutely true.)