I sing my hymn
to the flag I sing,
Of the Great
Charlemagne leaping onto
The land of
mountains, land on the river,
At
the dawn of a new day, forever and a day.
Somewhere deep
within the
Other bold
voices are singing: “Blessed Be This Noble Land.”
Only
on one single night?
Nay, on every night they sing,
Till
the end of the world, and past the end of the world.
We have a
mighty and a royal kingdom,
We call it
“Song of Freedom” and when we stage our
March of the
volunteers in our beautiful homeland
in our isle of beauty, isle of splendour.
We let us
tread the path of our immense happiness
Regardless of
whenever the concord of us and us
Can hail the
ruler of all minds in one body politic;
Oh God of all
creation, in all of all creation.
Oh, beloved
land of our ancestors, Oh, our Language,
O, bright dawn
of May with hundreds of flowers,
O William,
master man of this our chosen land:
Total
independence!
So strum your koras, strike the balafons
Through the
lightning Over the Tatras
That we forged from the love of liberty!
***
I know this
will be taken wrongly.
I know how to
create true equality.
Object A is
not the same as Object B.
If they were
the same, they’d be Object A and Object A’.
(Even then
they wouldn’t be the same.)
But eliminate
Object B and equality has increased.
For A equals A.
Thus is it
proven than elimination increases equality.
Just
as augmentation would decrease equality.
Know what I’m
saying?
So we have
here a programme to increase equality.
And that can
only be accomplished by elimination.
Eliminate,
eliminate, eliminate, to get equality.
Until
there’s one person left.
***
Luigi was so proud he gave a cigar to a little girl. “I’m-a gonna be a pa pa!” All up and down
Six months passed. His wife got bigger in the belly. Still came out
the cigars from his overalls. “I’m-a gonna
be a pa pa!”
Then: problem! The gods had decreed that his beloved Italian soccer
team would be playing their very first game in the FIFA World Cup 2014 on 14
June—the very day his wife was expected to give birth!
Luigi was torn in his lamentable dilemma. For a whole week, June 1 to
June 8, he couldn’t sleep. His wife consoled him. “It’s-a tearing you up, my
Luigi! What’s-a to be done?”
Thursday the 12th of June. Still he couldn’t decide. Watch the game
at his local ice cream house, or be at the hospital? He walked home
distractedly.
His wife greeted him at the door. “My Luigi!”
He looked down: she had no belly!
“It’s-a
He wept; for how can one live with such love in the world?
***
One thing I noticed about Zola. People eat. They’re eating like
they’re real characters. There are feasts that go crazy with gluttony. He seems
to have one big set piece of eating in each novel. Me, I never wrote about
food. It kind of made me sick to think about it. Oh well. I’m half-way through Money. I’ll never finish it....
When the Liberal Party of Ontario won the most recent election....
Funny how in retrospect there’s all these issues you
never thought of before. That budget they tabled, I liken it to a drunkard’s
plea. Please make me stop. I’ll die if I
continue. Anyway, the silver lining is that they own their next four years of decay and collapse. It’s all theirs, boyo....
I wonder why, in grade two or whatever, I kicked away that girl from
another school I’d had a crush on the previous summer? She shows up to do a
play, and I was embarrassed to see her or something. It really patterned the
rest of my life: or the pattern had already been there, inside me....
I am so happy to be dead. I have so much more time to simply think about things....
***
Jayne noticed as she passed through her livingroom
on her way from work to her bedroom her cat Numbers lying on the floor,
apparently stroked out by the July heat. Jayne got into her evening clothes.
She went back downstairs; Numbers was still just lying there.
“Hey, Numbers,” she said.
Numbers didn’t move. She didn’t move at all.
Jayne knelt down and looked at Numbers’ face. Her tongue was hanging
out and one eye was a little open.
Jayne lifted Numbers’ head. Totally limp, with no resistance. Why?
Jayne lifted up Numbers, totally limp still. “Numbers?”
She sat down on the couch with Numbers in her lap. Numbers was not warm.
“C’mon, Numbers.”
Jayne shook Numbers lightly. She’d been fine that morning: hadn’t
she? How had she been in the morning? Jayne couldn’t remember.
Jayne moved Numbers onto the couch. Am I in shock? She looks like
she’s just sleeping.
Jayne went into the kitchen. There was food in Numbers’ bowl. Plenty of water.
An hour later, Jayne checked Numbers again. So this is how it ends.
She dug a hole in the yard in the dark and put Numbers in the hole.
She buried Numbers, went inside, and cried.
***
In 1994 or so, at the store, an older jerk came up to the counter. A
younger jerk was behind him, giggling and chortling at the older jerk’s
witticisms. They’d already caused some trouble. I rang it in.
The older jerk pointed out my glasses. He said, “I usta import that shit by the crate.” I said, “They’re gold.
Stamped as gold.” Hostile-like.
“Ahhh, got ‘em
by the crate.” His compadre chortled. I rang
in what he wanted—I can’t remember what.
Then the older jerk said, “You look like Charles Dickens.” (He
pronounced it ‘Chaales’ if that’s a clue.) I must
have smirked or something. He continued, “But lemme
tell you: you ain’t no Chaales Dickens.”
That got me. I sold him whatever I was selling him and sent him on
how way. Maybe he said other stuff, but I don’t remember.
I went out in the hall, beside the elevator where I could smoke. Then
T.K. Sheppard came out and asked me about what happened. I was almost all
choked up as I told her.
She said, “What does he know? Maybe you are a Chaales
Dickens.”
Oh T.K., so long ago. Bless her heart. Very sweet
woman.
***
Roger Scruton’s
reply, as it should have been, on 13 September 2012, after Scruton
made a point about culture giving a sense of belonging that the sciences do not
offer, after Terry Eagleton countered with a point
about scientists having a terrific sense of belonging, working together
“Terry, you dope, you’ve missed my point entirely. I meant there’s a
form of knowledge that gives a reader or listener a sense of what it is to be a
human being that is entirely lacking in statements of scientific fact. Can you
not see that “1+1=2” has a different content than “What a piece of work is a
man”? Can you not see, you fat fuck, that the former
statement is about something radically different than the subject of the second
statement? The former is a description of the world merely as it is, while the
latter is a description of how the world feels?
That the former has no belonging to it, and the latter does? My God, I never
knew how stupid you are until now. Additionally, you’re not as funny as you
think you are. You look like a rummy, you grotty little man. P.S. You’re richer than me.
***
The dog in the yard is on a tether that is ten foot in length. The dog circles and circles, always ten feet from the post to which
the tether is attached. There’s no grass in the circle that measures
twenty feet in circumference. The dog knows the tether well. He can see, he has
seen, every bit of the yard there is to see. Around and around he goes.
Even when the dog uses its wings, it can only get ten feet off the
ground. Imagine that. A hemisphere is all the dog has, around, around, up,
down, around.
***
13 Things To Do Before
You Are Murdered
1. Get your
papers in order.
2. Answer the
telephone, expecting to hear your daughter.
3. Scribble on
a pad an address.
4. Drive to
the address.
5. Go into the
building with the ajar door.
6. Shout,
“Hello? I’ve got the ransom!”
7. Hear
something—a scratching—from the cellar.
8. Go to the
top of the cellar steps.
9. Try the
light-switch, several clicks.
10. Go down.
11. Have your
head bashed from behind.
12. Print most
of your murderer’s name in blood on the floor.
13. And you’re
done!
***
I took the kid out this afternoon. I was running low on funds so I stopped
at a bank machine. The kid had never seen one working before.
I put in my card and punched in my code.
The kid said, “What’s it doing now?”
I said, “It’s printing up some money for me.”
“It’s a money-printer?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow.”
I showed him the clean bills. “Freshly printed, ta-da.”
“So, how did it know how much to gave you?”
I showed him my card. “It’s my virtue card. I get money according to
my virtue.”
He looked. I laughed inside.
***
I got a phone call. It was Lois Lerner, former head of
something-or-other at the IRS in the
“John, you gotta help me. You know all
those emails we were ending back and forth a couple years ago?”
“You mean the ones about how you fucked over all the TEA groups,
under orders from above?”
“Yes, those. Well, be a doll and delete them, would
you?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m asking you to.”
“Oh, I’d want a better reason than that.”
“If you don’t, there could be another revolution here!”
“Still, I need a better reason.”
“$100,000?”
“Bingo.”
***
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Once I was in
One evening, we were on the deck patio, in the sunshine. I was
looking at all the ships in the lake. Several were cruise liners for the
I was getting hot—I felt like I was burning—so I went inside, to the
lounge. I took up a guide to the cruises in the area. Amazingly
enough, I saw that
My sister came into the lounge and joined me looking through the
guide. Then my parents passed through the lounge on the way to the restaurant
and my father said, “Okay, Joanne, come along to dinner.”
Joanne looked at me and said, “Oh, they must mean you, too.”
“Why didn’t they say so?”
“I don’t know. Come on.”
I followed her reluctantly. I wasn’t wanted, for some reason. How
could I find out? My parents were sitting at a table set for four; my sister
sat down in a third chair. I looked at my parents and they looked at me. They
were silent in their stares.
My heart was racing. Why wouldn’t they say anything? I found I
couldn’t say anything either. They were my parents; They
should be the ones to speak; They were paying for the meal. Yet they said
nothing. They just stared at me.
I left. I went back out onto the deck patio. The boats were still
moving slowly in the distance. I counted fourteen big boats. I was waiting for
someone to come out, maybe tell me it was all a joke. I listened for my name;
no-one said my name. I’m waiting there still.
***
It’s the
Wasteland!
It’s the
Goldberg Variations!
It’s the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel!
It’s the diary
of Samuel Pepys!
It’s all
eternity!
It’s Monty
Python’s Flying Circus!
It’s the Rougon-Macquart books!
It’s Proust!
It’s Dr.
Seuss!
It’s a
cookbook!
It’s a map of
the world!
It’s grooving
with a Pict!
It’s the War Against the Persians!
It’s Finnegans Wake!
It’s a load of
rubbish!
It’s postmodern!
It’s a series
of postcards!
It’s
Beethoven’s string quartets!
It’s Hitchcockian!
It’s all those
colours out of space!
It’s newsreels!
It’s a sixth
Marx brother!
It’s prolifiosity!
It’s rags! It’s
bones!
It’s void!
***
Angus MacEachern was his name. Premier of
But mostly both at the same time.
O how he kept his cabinet in stitches with his long-winded shaggy
tales with many bits of argot found only in the Dictionary of Newfoundland
English!
Sometimes he’d get his wife laughing so much she’d spontaneously
deliver twins.
On the mainland his accomplishments became known through long-playing
records.
He was re-elected nineteen times, four of those times being
unopposed.
Ah, yet a cruel tyrant he could be. Yet it was all in good fun.
He retired, from politics and comedy, in 1948.
***
INTERVIEWER: And it’s rolling.
HW: Let’s get down to it. Waddaya wanna know?
-Let’s begin with executive compensation in the motion picture industry.
To get it out of the way.
-Okay, fine, fine.
-If you compare the
-I see where you’re goin’ here. So what? We
got lots of moolah. We make people happy. Does GE make
people happy? Fuck no. We’re worth every penny. This is the dream fuckin’ factory.
-I was going to say: I can’t see much of a difference.
-No shit? Well, thank God for
-It’s something else entirely. It’s about all the pederasty in
-Yeah, so? We’re all animal lovers. You see that, “No animals were
harmed” and so on shit at the end of every movie? We love animals.
-Um, that’s not pederasty.
-No?
-Pederasty is the sexual use of children.
-Oh! Well.
-Yes?
-Look, it’s show biz. It’s education!
-Hmm?
-Waddaya think apprenticeship is? I heard
the Greeks—the Greeks!—did it always.
-That was a long time ago.
-Thesbian. You know what it means?
-Actor.
-Yeah. And where’s the word from?
-I don’t know.
-It’s Greek!, I think.
-Sure, but—
-Don’t you see? It’s a custom! We’re the dream factory!
-You’re not—
-An’ look—old plays—they always had boys playing ladies, right?
-I think—
-I got this on authority of a guy who read a Shakespeare play.
-Oh.
-An’ you think it was all just acting? Nahhh. It
was ‘method’ acting!
-It should be stopped.
-Look, do that an’ you can kiss this
industry goodbye.
-I don’t think so.
-Are you a big-shot producer?
-No.
-Then shut the fuck up! Bigot! Nazi! This interview is o-ver!
***
In my wanderings, I came upon a shop on a corner with butcher paper
covering all its windows from the inside. The paper was torn in places; in some
places, the paper was repaired with tape, while in other places the tears
looked recently made. Some of the tears were from, possibly, just yesterday,
which others, probably, had been made the day the paper had been pulled from
its roll. In a dozen spots the tears were fist-sized, allowing, I suppose, some
light to stray inside like mice or rats.
I went around to the other, perpendicular, side to see what I could
see. I wasn’t surprised to find brown paper covering the other side. Again, the tears of various ages; again, the tears of various
causes. I couldn’t surmise, from where I was standing, what was inside. Could
it be being made into a restaurant? a used bookstore? a computer shop? I had no way of knowing, from where I was
standing. I flushed from head to foot at that moment. I stepped toward the
window after making sure no-one was watching me. I pressed the tip of my nose
against the glass an inch below the most convenient tear.
My eyes adjusted and I stopped listening to the outside world as if
to hear the silence inside the shop on the corner. I saw the far wall, and a
silent mirror running out of eye-shot in both directions. A counter was below
it without evidence of its potential or intended use, though it looked to be of
wood. High above it I could see a lamp hanging down, green or brown. And that
was all I could see.
I stepped away dizzily and looked at the paper again. I had been
enlightened.
Ramon Fernandez, you are that shop.
***
Angry
We got a nasty
rage now
We call our
own
And
Whole lotta fire
Burn all right
And Euxine hairdo
People takin’ up their guns
So mad that
they can’t see
Yeah
An’ we got a marchin’ beat now
Give us your
businesses now, woo
Listen to
machine gunner
Beat beat beat beat
beat
Listen to the
tank man, yeah
Sweet sweet sweet sweet
sweet
Listen to that
tear gas, baby
Make it feel
real good/bad
Feeling
good/bad
Bring it on
home, pet
We so angry
now
Oh yeah angry
Angry
Pay attention
to this now, Barry
Thinks it’s
got some power
Good god, I
mean
And
It’s just too
goddamn cold
But
This so
everybody know
And we’re now
real angry
Russe speaks got Russe
soul
All right
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
Angry
***
Here’s a bit of evidence one can apply when faced with the question How’s the Internet changed everything.
(I feel like I’m trying to describe the Dark Ages....)
Back in the ‘70s—this will apply to everyone alive in the ‘70s, not
just kids like me and my peers—we could not verify in any way if a woman was
actually murdered during the recording of ‘Love Rollercoaster’ by the Ohio
Players.
Heck, what did we know about how
What I’m saying is that we were comparatively ignorant quite. We
didn’t know it was ludicrous that the cry during Love Rollercoaster was the
death scream of an LA woman. All we had was rumor and
reason....
But today we know everything. There are no more mistakes in our
cognition. The Internet has given us access to everything ever everywhere.
Nothing’s a rumor anymore.
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