The critics hailed my first book. They called it "an
astounding masterpiece," they called it "greater than the Bible and
the Oxford English Dictionary both," they called it "a book that
redeems humanity for ever and ever amen."
My second book came out a year later. The critics called
it "so like the first, we in retrograde call them both failures,"
they called it "a repeat performance that diminishes his previous
work," the called it, "a repetition that can only lead to a vast disappointment
and despair on par with an intelligently sympathetic reflection upon
*
He plucked her from the streets and made a star of her.
She married a billionaire who took her in even though she didn't have a penny.
Her thesis advisor saw she outshone him and did everything to have her hired
and tenured. Her best friends pooled their money together and bought her a
thoroughbred.
She was the envy of everyone. Best seats in restaurants
and theatres and ball games. She couldn't say anything not witty.
One year she won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony.
When she killed herself, all agreed it was the greatest
suicide ever.
*
Top of the tower, through a door, light-people coming, I
shut the door, opened, shut, opened, still the same distance every time I
opened the door regardless of how close they'd been last time I'd closed the
door; in the chamber someone at the tower stairs, I couldn't hear them, but
whoever was there was there, I opened the door, shoved him off, turned out he
was a delivery boy; something else was wrong there, it was the cats, one I sent
out onto the landing, the other I lit a fire under, cat in flames, didn't seem
to care.
*
Personality
Been thinking recently
"I don't get a fair shake;
"I'm a nice guy
"Underneath it all;
"An attractive guy
"Underneath it all;"
Been thinking recently
Why the discord between what they see and what I
see?
If only they knew the real me, I'd be utopial.
But now I've come to realize that what they see is the me
that's more real than the phantastic self-image I've
invented solely in my head with no external reference whatsoever, an idea
cooked up from trauma and armouring,
I am what people say I am,
Rotten,
Crippled,
Cold,
Silent,
Heartless,
And cruel.
*
MEMO re "GET"
In a communication dispersed recently, the verb 'get' was
employed in a critical position. This is obviously not acceptable.
As a governmental organization, scion to the medieval
clerisy and grand-scion to levitical authority, we cannot tolerate a lingua
franca. An amalgam of senatorial vocabulary and the cant of the agora is a
diminished potency. The hoi polloi may furthermore begin to question the
relationship between our sapient dominance and their brute force, which would
be deleterious and untenable.
Hence, from this day forth, substitute in all situations
the proper Latinate verb 'acquire' wherever 'get' is vulgarly purposed.
*
Jihad Hee Haw
Got the crates in the cave, all ready for some
Crouchin' an' a-prayin!
We got special guests Jabal Jabal Jabal and Sons, performin' "Blowed Up With Your Faith, Lord."
Comedy provided by 'Heavenly Hassan,'
bitin' the heads off some good ol'
Jew-snakes.
We gonna bang some good ol' rocks together for a spell.
Sermon provided by Imam 'Grandpa' Jones, only two hours
long, then we got some riotin'
against ol' Great Satan.
We gonna stone the pertyest girl we can find!
Hymn 6, "Killin' the Ungodly Ones Today."
G'night everbody!
Keep away from the blue Datsun outside!
*
I didn't have time to burn every painting I intended to
burn because it takes time to rip paintings to bits and the bits take time to
burn. Combustion is a chemical process. I estimated that two hundred or so
Picassos, Rembrandts, and Van Goghs would remain, so as a last resort I tore
them to shreds and stuffed them into cardboard boxes marked GARBAGE. It was all
I could do.
That I had actually purchased them in the first place was
a great shame; not my greatest shame, admittedly, but a significant shame.
The end of the world beckons.
*
I bought Genesis's record Abacab
some time in the third week of September 1981. James was with me when I bought
it. Then record in hand, we went over to his house; I had to go home
immediately for dinner. He said, "Lend it to me so I can tape it." I
said, "No way. I want to hear it first." "You can come get it in
an hour!" "You don't get it. It's my record. I should hear it
first!" In the end I took it with me. I had to. You understand this? Stop reading if you don't.
*
So I've been hearing a lot about this "Are Men
Obsolete?" argument going around. Seems Maureen Dowd is in on it. (Some
wag remarked, "Civilization would last until the oil needed
changing.") But it got me to thinking, Maybe it's
women who are obsolete.
Why not put women in barns, for breeding purposes? (This
idea is based on something by James Tiptree, Jr., God
rest her soul.) Kill off the excess; raise them like sows.
Then us guys can get on with the
business of inventing stuff and creating works of art.
Just kidding, you know I love you, bitches.
*
Jane goes down to the riverside and sees a man with one
high boot.
On the planet Earth (a planet being a celestial body
orbiting a sun), a creature homo sapiens (i.e. capable of cognition) known to
others of her species by the cognomen Jane used her two motive legs (lower
limbs) to move to a river (which is a stream of water running from high
altitude to low) where she saw (meaning employed her visual sense receptors in
the past) a creature with a penis who was wearing (among other things) one high
boot (no need for explanation there).
*
Our house was on the out of a corner. A
basement, a ground floor, a second floor, and an attic. My father cut
the garage in half to create another room on the ground floor. He walled it in
wood and installed a fireplace whose aluminium chimney rose through the room
above and out. An antique non-operational candlestick phone hung from a wall.
The second television was in one corner. A lamp hung from a beam over the couch
and I could lie there reading. The windows rattled in the wind. That's what it
was like, once upon a time.
*
What is the heart of
The heart of
What are the veins of
The veins of
What is the stomach of
The stomach of
What is the brain of
The brain of
What are the lungs of
The lungs of
What is the anus of
The anus of
What is the soul of
The soul of
*
TRIGGER WARNING
Contains peanuts, peanut by-products, peanut dust, eggs,
gluten, dairy, dairy by-products, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, soft drug use,
hard drug use, effects of tragedy, effects of comedy, rape imagery, incest
imagery, bestiality imagery, homosexuality imagery, heterosexuality imagery,
objectionable signifying, heavy objects, objects that appear larger than they
are in reality, melancholy, bitter foolery, poetry, prose, theatre, film, music,
architecture, drapery, bodily functions, reproductive functions, gustatory
functions, trigonometric functions, allusions, litotes, sarcasm, mock shock,
physics, chemistry, too much biology, too much information, too much geometry,
familial strife, marital strife, moral strife, intertextuality,
in-jokes, optical illusions, impossible objects, zero, and infinity.
*
Two Logic Puzzles
I may have related the first already. Neither is original.
Oh well. Here goes.
The cops go to raid a criminals' den. The building turns
out to be much larger than they expected, with more exits than they can
possibly guard. So they surround the house beside it, which has fewer.
A particular stretch of highway has DEER CROSSING signs
all along it. Every couple weeks or so a deer is hit.
Locals are disturbed. How can this all be prevented? Then they solve it. They
move the deer crossing to a less traffic-heavy highway stretch nearby.
*
I came home from work today to find eight lesbians holding
a birthday party in my kitchen.
The cake said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANYCE." I looked
at each lesbian. I had no idea who Janyce was, and I
couldn't ask.
You see, they were too busy talking and laughing. Not a
one of them bestowed upon me even a glance.
I moved around behind their circle to get to the fridge
from which I took some bread and luncheon meat. I was so frazzled I forgot the
mustard.
I moved over to the cutting board to make a sandwich.
That's life.
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