Dogs
Say the Darnedest Things the Moment They See Something To Chase: A Selection
"What the. Something moved! It has to
be food! Oh, let me go, c'mon, let me at it, I have to get there now! Let me
go!"
"Hey! Something! A squirrel or
something! If only I was free! C'mon, let me go, let me at it! I want that
thing!"
"What the. In the leaves! Something's
there! Could it be a cat? I like chasing cats! If only I was free to
chase!"
"There! Maybe it's a cat! I want to be
free to chase it! It's definitely a cat! Whiskers and everything! What
the."
"I have to go, there's something
there! I have to know what it is! I know it's something! Let me free,
please!"
"Hey, wait. There's something over
there! O my bondage! I could catch it, I swear I could! It might be a squirrel!"
"What the. In the leaves! I have to
get there now! It has to be food! C'mon, let me go, let me at it! Over
there!"
"Something's over there! Maybe it's a
cat! I know it's something! I could catch it, I swear I could! Over
there!"
*
Maiming
Dogs For Fun and Profit
Tired of the nine to five? Tired of your
commute?
"Oh these dirty streets!"
"Oh this pollution!"
Maybe you're just looking for a change.
Well, look no further!
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someone just like you!
We'll set you up.
You'll be your own boss!
Know an uncle with an abandoned shack he
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"'International Industries' set us up
lickety split, and we sold our first emotionally-damaged pooch in our first
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"You should have seen the look on the
yuppie's face: He was crying as he was paying good money for Limpy, but it was
a happy kind of crying!"
That's right. Our programme includes a
steady supply of normal dogs, templates for alternative newspaper ads, and
suggestions for physical and emotional crippling techniques!
"I was never good with a knife, but
'International Industries' showed me the way!"
"Who knew loud noise could do such
things?"
Write to us today! Get started in this
growing lucrative industry! Be your own boss! Order today!
*
"The culprits are still at large and anyone who has any
information at all is requested to call the Crimestoppers unit. In traffic,
everything looks good. The 401 had some trouble around the DVP but everything
else looks good. Weather now. It'll be around ten below zero tomorrow, with a
wind from the west. That's about it for the news tonight. Good night."
"Okay, and out. Catch that?"
"Yeah, we're done. Phew!"
"Not bad. It's to air. Wait. Robert has something. Looks
pissed."
"Fuck! You call that professional?"
"I."
"You're wearing plaid. You know how that fucks up the
rasters?"
"Rasters?"
"You've got no backdrop. I can see cars going by behind you.
And is that a cobweb there?"
"Oh. I didn't notice it before."
"This is major television, man."
"I'm just a temp."
"You mispronounced artesanal."
"Really?"
"You never check your collar? It's higher on the
left."
"Sorry."
"Too late to change anything I guess."
"Can I go now?"
"What?"
"I want to go play some poker."
"You're very disappointing."
"Well."
"Have anything to say for yourself?"
"I stepped in, and I did your network news. The information
got through. Look: every dollar is up here on the screen."
*
I'm
so beautiful but I got to die someday
The station's where I am, awaiting death-
Black train. I've nothing in my pockets to
Protect me from the future and its verbs,
No adjectival talisman of white
To light my way inside the carriage car.
A rabbit says its prayers with every leaf,
The deck of cards decides its order day
By day, and in my hand I hold the pins
That represent my moments joyous true,
So few my nails can press into my palm.
The train's unseen but coming one fine day,
An unexpected blast of black will dark its way
And I don't need a ticket or a chit.
It comes for everyone eventually,
No matter what your body or your mind
Decrees. The days tick off talk tock tick tock
No matter what you do or don't, regard-
Less of your faith, your future, and your fate.
It's true, so here I wait in ignorance
Of destiny or destination, here
I wait to shed or not to shed, aye that's.
What else to say, I wonder? Consolate?
The numbers come and go, and smaller every day,
They fall from trees like leaves, like leaves of grass.
*
Pre-op. Morning.
"Nice light this morning."
Suzy opened her eyes. Not a dream. A woman,
dressed like a nurse, was looking out the window. The woman turned: she was
holding a mason jar filled with fluorescent orange and a paintbrush. "Good
day," she said.
Suzy, lightly sedated, said, "Who are
you?"
"I'm here to mark you where they're
gonna cut you." She flourished the brush and whistled.
Suzy noticed the scratchiness of the sheets
under her. Her left hand was stiff.
The nurse continued, "So let's get you
naked."
She rolled Suzy onto her side and untied
her gown, then dropped her back down. She pulled at the sleeves and Suzy was
naked. The whole process took three seconds.
The nurse dipped her brush. "I'm
feeling like ... a cheetah today!"
Suzy felt cold slashes on her torso as the
nurse speedily outlined a cheetah. Suzy looked down at the cheetah, which was a
very nice cheetah indeed.
"I thought this was about my
leg."
"No, it's got nothing to do with your
leg. That was a misdiagnosis."
Suzy rang the nurse-buzzer.
The nurse said, "Why did you do that?
You've ruined everything."
She hurried out. Better luck next time.
*
In the 1920s, at Harvard University Student
Union Services, the following conversation took place.
"Hello, I'm new here, where do I sign
up for accommodation?"
"Wait a sec. What was that past
word?"
"Accommodation."
"Here at Harvard, we pronounce it
'accommodation'."
"I'm sorry for my mistake."
"'Mistake' you mean, right?"
"Are you making fun of my regional
accent?"
"No, it's just that I've never heard
anyone talk quite like you."
"Well, you talk funny too. The way you
sat 'heard', that's very funny, you know."
"Okay, we talk differently."
"Hah! 'Differently.'"
"How far away are you from?"
"About a thousand miles."
"You know, I'm going to start talking
a little like you, and you're going to start talking a little like me."
"Finally we'll sound the same, I
suppose."
"What causes this? I guess it's any
technology that shrinks space."
"I know folks who are picking stuff up
from the radio and records."
"Everything will be flattened."
"And there's no way to stop it.
'Flattened.' Heh."
"We won't know who we are anymore.
Yes, 'Flattened.'"
"'Flattened.' The flavours of the
world will be bland."
"And travelling to other places;
that'll 'flatten' stuff too."
"What are we doing? 'Flattened.'"
"'Flattened.'"
"'Flattened.'"
*
It was a nice night out there downtown. Me
and my buddies, we'd been drinking all day more or less; I'm bragging a
bit--over the course of the whole day I'd had maybe six beers, which isn't that
much at all over a whole day, is it?
I looked out at the corner of South
Broadway and West Sixth. Couple tourists there. It was after one; they're lost,
I knew. What crackers would be walking around downtown
"You guys look like you're looking for
some place?"
The he--he was drunk--said, "I think
we missed our stop."
"So do I. Where you trying to get
to?"
The she, she said, "The Omni."
So I led the along, they'd missed it by a
couple blocks, I took them back to their hotel. We chatted along the way, I
poor boyed it, said I'd been drinkin' all day. Which, as I said, was
technically true but not entirely true.
"There it is, right there."
He said, "Great! That's great."
He dug in his pocket. "Can I reward you?"
"Sure."
Twenty bucks.
*
The New Tamburlaine: A Novel
Book Two
PART TWO
Chapter One
1.
Sure enough, the scratch walked into
Frederick Stout's bedroom after precisely an hour. (Precisely an hour back then
meant anywhere from fifty to seventy minutes approximately. Anyway, it was dark
and Stout couldn't waste a light to look at the clock on the mantle. He didn't
care much either way. The scratch had told him it would come, and here it was.)
The scratch said, "I bet you're
wondering where your girl is."
"Who?
"I'm talking about the other
one."
"Hmm, now that you mention it, I do
recall there was some other woman involved. But I can't remember: is this my
country estate or hers?"
The scratch scratched its chin. "I
think it's yours. Yes, you're rich and she's poor. You've lured her here, like
Lovelace lured Clarissa."
"Ah. So, am I as bad as
Lovelace?"
"I don't know. I haven't read ahead.
If there's anything to read, of course. Quick! You'll see her in the morning. I
wanted to get in that bit of commentary before talking nonsense. She'll be
there if there's any there to be. If life continues."
*
And God said:
1. Move your third letter to the left of
your eighth letter.
2. Reverse the positions of your letters
seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, and eighty.
3. Put the second half of your sequence
into alphabetical order.
4. Transfer all your RNA-centric 2'-deoxyoligonucleotides three
base pair to the left (from your point of view).
5. Reach 10,000 named species and estimate
how many remain, then check the Mariana Trench and open your eyes, open your
eyes.
6. Answer me: are there more stars in the
sky or grains of sand on Laurence's Beach?
7. Pack up your troubles in your old kit
bag and smile, smile, smile.
8. Again, move your third letter to the
left of your eighth letter.
9. Wisen up, listen up, keep in the front
of your mind the fact that one day you will meet Me and be held accountable.
10. Draw a map of all the places you've
never been and to which you'll never travel.
11. Palmeres, seken straunge strondes to
ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes.
12. Predict the date and time of your death
and mail your prediction to Me. The farthest guess will win a prize (to be
decided).
*
Marx: "So what we'll have is a special
kind of society, see? This is just a rough draft, people, but in my kind of
society, you can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and write poetry
in the evening, all without become either a hunter, a fisher, or a poet."
1st Proletariat: "You're gonna force
us to write poetry?"
Marx: "You're missing the
point--"
2nd Proletariat: "Can I eat all the
ice cream I want instead?"
Marx: "You don't--"
3rd Proletariat: "He means instead of
writing poetry."
Marx: "All right now--"
4th Proletariat: "Morning's better for
fishing. Any dope knows that."
Marx: "Shut up."
5th Proletariat: "Can't very well
write poems in the evening if you're maimed by a bear in the afternoon."
Marx: "Shut up!"
6th Proletariat: "Ice cream!"
Marx: "I said, shut up!"
7th Proletariat: "Where we gonna
sleep?"
8th Proletariat: "Yeah, what about
when it rains?"
Marx: "Both of you, shut up!"
9th Proletariat: "Hey, who cut your
hair? Was it the hunter, the fisher, or the poet?"
10th Proletariat: "Looks like it was
the poet to me!"
Marx: "Shut up! Shut up!"
11th Proletariat: "I like sleeping
in."
Marx: "Goddamn peasants."
*
On Enough Said
"Can't believe you can't see it."
"You're crazy."
"C'mon. It's
"You can pull this trick with
anything."
"And also she's fucking a friend of
her daughter. It all makes sense. They've just taken out the fucking and put in
dialogue."
"So you're saying this story has been
kicking around
"Okay, well, why not? Properties kick
around that whorehouse for years before they're green-lit. The story was
probably made up by a Screw freelancer in 1972."
"Do you have any, like, evidence for this?"
"None! But it completely explains the
plot, which is really tepid. It would have worked as a half-decent porn movie.
The masseuse is fucking her three clients, and a poet, and some guy into video none the less, and a barely legal
teen. Plus there's two parties slash orgies."
"You've got a dirty mind."
"All those references to threesomes!
And the barely-legal gets deflowered: all doable!"
"Well, I still think Taboo was better."
*
Idly at work he was bored and someone
crossed him mind. A cute girl, from the depositions department. He wondered if
he could find her photograph on the Internet. Just for fun.
R yes
U where's she
B saw her
Y today
R from behind
E nice
Y who knows
N what'll
O come up here
L probably nothing
D she's private
S maybe maybe
and he hit enter and then he hit images.
There were a lot of pictures of Ruby
Reynoldses--and one of them was the one he had in mind.
Whaddaya know, twitter. She's on the
twitter.
For fifteen idle minutes he read her
twitterings, in backward chronological order. And he was SHOCKED.
(Now understand he'd barely spoken to her.)
Every message was minutiae. Ideas about
clothes, her cat, her living alone, the books she rated, more about her cat,
even more about her cat, crocheting, and that was about it. For weeks and
months and years....
Boy, was he disappointed. I wasted brain
cells on this bozo?
He got back to work. 'Twas the end of that.
About a year later he saw the headline Nine
dismembered male corpses found in cat fancier spare bedroom.
