We
will make up stories in this civilization because stories are capable of
talking about the inner experience.
Look:
there's Julius Caesar. He's in
Look:
there's
Look:
there's William Shakespeare. He's in
Look:
there's
Whitman
looks up and thinks about his tall buildings bursting with humanity.
Shakespeare
looks at parliament and sees the cut-throat machinery operating.
Barthes
feels something when he looks again at a photograph of his mother.
Julius,
ambitious Julius, knows he is smarter than anyone. He knows he's playing a
deadly game.
There
you are, and here am I, with just one life apiece. We know this, and we know
pretty much nothing else.
How
can we prove the ephemerality of the everything, and the non-ephemerality of
ourselves?
Fact
is: we can't. Not in a gabillion years. It can never become obvious.
Forty
years ago, there were three states of matter, known as liquid, solid, and gas.
Today,
there's a fourth.
Called
plasma.
You
expect me to believe the newspapers?
*
I
was sitting at the police station, waiting for a lawyer to arrive, when a man
with a primary-blue face sat down beside me. He smiled and said, "Good
morning."
I
said, "Hello."
He
said, "You're surprised, I see, that I have a blue face."
"Something
like that, yes."
"It's
an existential matter," he continued in a measured and reasonable tone.
"I believe you will be seeing more of us over the coming weeks and
months."
"Blue-faced
people?"
He
laughed gaily. "No, not exclusively blue. All sorts of colours. Yesterday,
I was purple. Tomorrow, who knows?"
"And
there are others doing this too?"
He
nodded. "So far, there are six of us."
I
asked, "So this is all to show ... what exactly?"
"It's
not a matter of showing. It's a matter of existing. By pretending to be
something I am not, I have stripped myself of the dirty effluvia of
being-in-the-world. I am this, and I am no other. I have discovered what it is
to be alive, alone."
"That's
very interesting."
A
cop came up. He led the primary-blue man away.
He
was there, I later found out, to receive an award. For saving kittens from a
fire.
*
It
was not a hot day. It was not a day to go swimming.
It
had rained overnight, so the sand was like mud.
The
boys dug into the mud, because mud was all they had.
It
seemed like there was nothing in the universe but mud.
The
boys found all these bits of glitter in the mud.
The
glitter looked metallic, not like mud at all.
They
realized what they were finding was golden glitter.
They
went into the wet shed to get buckets and bowls.
They
took a yellow pail and a broken red bowl from it.
Scooping
up the mud and gold, they talked about what to buy.
They
had to make a sifter from something to get the gold.
They
didn't find a sifter so they didn't need a sifter.
"Gold
is heavier than mud, isn't it?" said the bigger boy.
From
the pail to the bowl they poured the muddy gold.
The
gold didn't free itself from the mud for some reason.
"If
this was gold wouldn't it have been found by now?"
That
sentence, from the smaller boy, defeated them.
There
was no gold in the mud after all.
Circa
1974, with Robby Gutsell.
On a cold winter night the sky was full
of stars.
The
smaller one was in the snow with a girl named K.
K.
said, "Let's see if J. is up to anything."
(J.
was another girl; he'd even kissed her once.)
J.
wasn't up to anything, so the three wandered.
They
went to the house in which the bigger kid lived.
The
basement was where the bigger's brother lived.
No-one
was home. There were five bottles of beer.
Smaller
kid was sitting with J.'s legs on his lap.
K.
was attentive to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on hi-fi.
The
bigger kid held up a videotape, smaller kid to see.
It
was 'Sex Boat', one of the brother's porno movies.
A
head was shaken. It just didn't seem right.
The
tape was put away, while J.'s legs got touched.
Then
it was
K.'s
father was coming to pick K. up.
The
smaller one was well beyond finding gold in mud.
J.
went home and on the front lawn in the snow
K.
kissed and kissed before the father got there.
Everything
changes when innocence becomes experience.
This
moment is pinned to the 1st of January of 1982.
One
or two years later, Big's parents went away.
Big
invited his metalhead druggie friends over.
Little,
and Loopy, and Dave, and some others.
The
kitchen they were in was in the middle of the house.
Hot
knives and beers were the orders of the eve.
(Big
was in bad books with his parents; he'd soon go away.
(He'd
go live in Parkdale and work as a cook.)
The
partying that night had barely begun.
I
don't think any hash had been cooked up yet.
Like
out of nowhere it happened because of the noise.
Someone
was laughing about something someone said.
Rob's
mother was there, at the door of the kitchen.
She
didn't look at anyone except the one I've called Big.
She
didn't say anything. She slapped him across the face.
Everyone
was quiet as she went down the long hallway.
Everyone
was quiet as they went down to the coatrack.
No-one
said goodbye to Big as the door saw them outside.
Out
in the dark street there was not much to talk about.
Only
thing to do was find another place,
Someone
else's shack, somewhere not too far away,
With
a stove's burner-coil, and two knives unmissable.
I
don't know who you are or why you are reading all of this.
So
years pass during which Tall and Short are strangers.
Their
parents at times pass information on about each other.
Short
hears how Tall is down-and-out, boarding house life.
(Short
moved away just about as soon as he could manage.)
Tall,
he hears, has had his periods of crack addiction.
He
gets to understand that Tall's parents don't want talk.
Then
Short's mother tells him Tall is dead.
He
was found in his room and the coroner was checking it.
It
could have been an overdose or suicide or other.
Again
the crack addictions had to be commented upon.
Short
calls Tall's parents and offers his condolences.
He
thinks about the boy he knew digging for gold in sand.
Then
about some other experiences that were noteworthy....
Then
he's pretty much out of anything worth remembering.
He
didn't want to know if there was going to be a service.
It
was a life that simply didn't work out as anyone wanted.
Short
continued being alive. For some time at least.
One
moment of inseparability, digging through some mud.
It
seemed so long ago, didn't it seem?
*
The
family was out for dinner when the fire started. It would be some time before
any cause would be known.
Do
you know the cause?
Their
new kitten, Mumbles, was, by chance, trapped in a closet. There was a sizable
gap at the bottom of the door.
Was
the gap big enough?
A
neighbour called the local fire department. The truck driver, Claney, took a
last sip of coffee before leaving.
Did
this delay matter?
The
closet door was closed. Mumbles was in the closet. The closet was upstairs. The
trucks were coming.
Did
the dimensions of the closet matter?
The
family was digging into dessert. They had chosen to share a lemon pie. The
waitress provided too much whipped cream.
Did
this change what occurred?
The
fire was extinguished. There had been smoke everywhere. The ground floor was
pretty much a write-off.
Did
something much worse happen upstairs?
A
long time ago a thought problem was formulated involving a closed space and a
cat and a subatomic process.
Is
this programme being rigged from afar?
It's
up to you to observe what happens to the kitten, and your observance will
determine the facts.
So,
what? Alive, or dead?
*
All
I remember is that I was standing on that which is designated as being a corner
of what we've been assigned to call a street, waiting for that which has been
designated to us as being known as a traffic light (with colours that have been
assigned with the cognomens "red", "amber", and
"green") to change from the light designated as "red" to
the light assigned at birth as "green" so that I might cross that
which (as I have already said) we've been assigned to call a street.
What
happened was that that which we designate as being a structure containing as it
so happened to be that which we have had assigned to it the idea of
"traffic light" converted itself through some kind of magic from
"red" (conventionally signified as "stop") to green
(designated culturally as "go") and thus I stepped onto that which is
assigned to be called the street.
I
was run down by that which is designated to be a fire-truck that was carrying
improbably two things that were assigned the concept of anvil at birth plus
that which is designated to be an enumeration of what's called a Steinway baby
grand piano.
*
I'd
been dreaming of a fat fish too big to swallow. I thought I was going to choke
and I awoke. The sky was getting light, and it was time to go see what I could
catch.
I
waddled into the deep water. My feet paddled quietly on the glass-smooth lake.
I appeared to be the first one awake. I looked left and I looked right. It was
so serene. It was a good morning to be a duck.
The
water was nice and cool. I slurped up some slime to get my digestive juices
flowing. The slime was sweet with chlorophyll. Sometimes your forget how sweet
the stuff is, and then there you are.
I
looked back to shore. My five babies were still sleeping happily. The trees up
above were green and bitter-looking. My head turned before I knew it. Minnows
galore, a school of them, were passing under my feet. I thrust me head under
and gobbled up three. They went down nice.
Ah!
It's good to be a duck! The water was cool and uniform. The sun was coming up.
The day was just beginning. Some more minnows I could see heading my way. Such
peace.
*
The great
enemy we know is coercion
Because the
work won't get done
Just like
rolling a stone*
sang
Sisyphus as he grunted and shoved that big old rock up that big old hill. The
summit was in sight.
A
bright light wearing Nike sneakers appeared over his head.
Sisyphus
prevented the rock from rolling down the hill and cried out, "Ave, Mercury," for it was indeed
Mercury.
Mercury
said, "Sisyphus! Sisyphus! I've got some news for you!"
"Oh
yeah? Well, spit it out. I've got rock-rolling to do."
"You're
being pardoned by Jupiter!"
"Jupiter?
Oh, right. Zeus. I'm so old."
"It's
been a long time, and he's changing his ways."
Sisyphus
thought about this. "I don't want to be pardoned."
"What?"
"This
is my identity. If I stop doing what Sisyphus does, I won't be Sisyphus
anymore."
"You
could retire. There may be some kind of pension involved."
"And
what about my fame? I'm famous everywhere. I'm like the patron god of, well,
everyone and everything."
"This
may anger Jupiter."
"What
he going to do? Give me two boulders?"
"This
will be litigated."
"Let
it be litigated then. They won't take my identity away from me. Vale."
*Trans. mine.
*
Coming Soon to a Province Near You
A
knock at the door is usually a bad thing. What could be wanted?
One
of them said, "We're looking for a relative of, let me check my notes,
Daniel Peter Jacobs."
"And
you are?"
"Alice
Jacobs. What's this all about?"
"Can
you prove you're Alice Jacobs?"
She
found her passport and showed it. The other one photographed it and handed it
back. "So now can you tell me what this is all about."
"Your
son. He's killed himself. Jumped off a bridge."
"Oh
my God!"
"Yes,
off a bridge. And he didn't have a permit."
"A
permit?"
"A
suicide permit. Do you know if he filled one out?"
"No,
I don't. Omigod!"
The
photographer said, "We couldn't find any paperwork. We wanted to know if
there had been a mistake on our part."
"I
don't know about any suicide permit."
"That's
bad. Very bad. There's a fine you'll have to pay, as next of kin."
"How
much?"
"$500."
In
a daze
The
photographer shrugged. "Government's just after their piece of the
action."
*
The
pneumonia was travailing merrily along the boulevards and through the
arrondissements last week, and Cherlie insisted on taking a cabriolet to the
Princess's masque-ball at the palace, which, he assumed, undoubtedly had more
than one convenience scattered through its wings.
We
piled in, still laughing about the Variété's clever rhymes and expressions, the
five of us‑Nick and me, Cherlie and Jayne, and our fifth-wheel Lucas, who
was still thinking through the lengthy rebus his horoscopist had granted him,
which he had written out in capital letters, all twenty-six of them, that she
had promised him would solve all the problems about which he knew and about
which he knew not.
After
we were graciously received, Lucas, rebus in hand, bid adieu to our quartette
and went off to seek out the twenty-fifth letter, a big ϕ which he was certain signified a grand
dame in the Italianate style, domino'd as a belled jester.
We
nearly ran into him next morning‑I say nearly, for he avoided us. As we
heard the tale, poor Lucas has sought the wrong orthog of his rebus, and as a
result he had received that 'new kind of loving' from his own mother!
Yours,
Tania
*
I
wonder I do what day it is.
What
ordinal number is today. I wish I knew.
Is
it my twenty thousandth day yet.
I
must be there, or past there.
And
in the generations, what day is it.
How
many hundreds of millions of days have there been.
Or
could it be, like in science fiction, the first day.
My
brain in someone's vat, an imagined typer imagining you.
It's
the end of this day, and it's one-thirty-nine in N+L.
I
wonder I do what day it is.
What
has changed during this day.
Who
was born, and who died.
I
don't know the answer to the first question.
I
know the answer to the latter includes Leonard Cohen.
Watch
the news for the details because there's more.
The
earth turned the sun around. Hello, earth.
I
wonder I do what day it is.
What
negative ordinal number is today. I don't know.
Could
there be fifteen thousand more to get through.
Or
is this the third last or even the penultimate.
This
matters everything, doesn't it.
O
God will you have me if this be my last night.
O
Earth will you find a little space for me.
*
OFFLINE
I remember being naive. So do you. We were children. We looked at calendars
because we were shown them, and we calculated. We saw, deepest darling
Terri-Lynn, that we would be thirty-five in 2000. And we thought it was
extraordinary. 35. So old!
Kids
are morons. "Kids" means anyone born after
I
don't like knowing everything I know. I want to know nothing like a child
knowing nothing again. I don't want to know how girls are. I don't want to know
how electronics are. I don't want to know how the relatives are.
I
have to be violent here. On some Fall day in 1979 Melissa called me to say that
Terri-Lynn Hodgson didn't want to know me any more. And over the phone I
shrugged.
That
was the first time I was a total jerk. I should have settled it, but I didn't.
She
may read this.
How
can I say I loved her? How can I say she was a wit, and funny, and pretty? How
can I say that I made such a long-range mistake that I'm still paying for to
this day?
Meanwhile,
she's settled down. Somewhere up north. She's................ happy.
*
The Decay
The
eaves are full of leaves and they're in stages of decay. Up in the sky there're
a thousand suns all in their decay. The sidewalk is cracked and torn, and it'll
be more cracked and torn tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Aren't these trees
getting somewhat ... old? A strong wind comes, and a little or a lot comes to
ground.
Oh,
and the houses along here, along this street here, are going to seed. Entropy
in action everywhere: the whole universe is decaying. Once it's fully decayed,
there will be no record it ever existed. Just one big fat nothing.
The
passing cars are slowly rusting. The glass in their windows is slowly melting.
Friction is weakening their joints, and many of them will crash into stuff someday.
There they are, in the ditch alongside a narrow highway, all busted up and
leaking fuel into the air.
Thing
is, this is the price of knowledge. It seems innocence itself has decay built
in. The rain gets in like a blanket.
And
yet, and yet, there's the park, the Broadview park, and there's old Chinese
ladies hanging out there, and they're laughing about Chinese things, in
Chinese.
*
A sea salt
sweet shop with a pyramid
Of jawbreakers
in many different hues
Is front and
centre shouldered by two paws
Each built of
salty taffy clawing from
The sea I hear
some hundred metres off
But you are
not here.
Confectioners
here gather every June
To buy and
sell what's carmelized or clear,
While in the
shoulder season such as now
I smell the
sweetness, thumb my coins, and count
The necklaces
of rubber string and beads
But you're
never coming back, and you've never been here.
I'm here in
all my ages all at once,
Astride the
clocks and atlases at once,
Not able to
decide which drug to buy
To soothe my
mind and memory of what
Was once a
time and place so similar.
I know you're
not ever coming back. I know I have to make my choices alone.
It wasn't on
the sea. A corner store
Instead, with
nothing special there at all.
And yet I
bought a chocolate bar for you,
And then you
bought some gummy bears for me.
Three years
ago. My ages all at once.
You're not
coming back. It's certain. Time doesn't end when you want it to.
*
"So?"
"This
guy is your cousin?"
"Yes."
"Close
or distant?"
"Second.
Why? What happened?"
"We
had dinner, and then we went to a movie. The movie had a couple dogs in
it."
"So
what's that mean?"
"I'll
get to that. He chose the movie, understand. Anyway, we were getting along just
fine. He really likes dogs."
"You
noticed that too."
"How
could I not? So he invited me back to his place and I accepted."
"Lucy!
I never knew."
"It
was nothing. I wasn't feeling anything, and it didn't seem like he was feeling
much either. I thought perhaps something would come. Some kind of sign. You
ever been to his place?"
"Never."
"He
put on a mix tape. All the songs seemed somehow alike. I didn't realize it at
the time really. He had a bunch of yellow folders on his coffee table. Fat
folders. The tab on the top one of them read, 'beach.' I opened it up. It was
all of dogs on beaches."
"He's
quite the photographer."
"Next
folder was 'kitchen.' Dogs in kitchens. The next folder was 'big &
beautiful.' Sure enough, big dogs. Do you have dogs?"
"Two."
"He
talked about you a lot."
*
I
was very nervous fifteen minutes before the party, and I nervously started
picking at the scab, one inch by one-half inch, on my ring finger‑the
scab I got from the accident that took place when I was walking my cat. (I've
written about this already.) In my obsession, I pulled the scab completely off.
I even cleaned the edges of the resulting reservoir with a fingernail.
Pulling
off the scab was a bad idea. I saw that I would have to bandage it up again so
I went into the washroom. I found gauze and some bandages while the wound
started overflowing with pus.
I
hung my hand down to let the pus drain out. The pus flowed for approximately
twenty-one seconds in a steady stream. I had a chance to take a look at the
wound. On the sides of the interior was raw flesh that looked a lot like
chicken meat. The finger-bone could be seen, white and shiny. Also there were
two electrical wires, a red one and a yellow one, crossing laterally from
meat-to-meat.
I
drained it of pus again and gauzed it and wrapped it with bandages.
I
wish I'd learned how to live.
*
One
day, in the past, about two millennia in the past, on a seventeenth of
November, there will be a person in Rome who starts to wonder, seemingly out of
nowhere and unprecedentedly, about the nature of time (for he's been reading
the marginalia of Hermes Trismegistus in a quality translation), and about
(miraculously) what people will be saying years and years in the future, say,
in 2016, in 2016 specifically, yet realizing that any assessment of the present
must needs be made in the future he wonders about being in 2116 thinking about
events one hundred years previous, namely about 11/17/2016, so the person
(Roman) through arcane and frankly pagan practices invents (or discovers or
re-discovers) a means by which he astrally projects himself to 2116 where he discovers
everyone of any (Latin) account is reading yrs trly, thus is prodded to learn
the Original Tongue (i.e. Canadian English) and there he finds, finally, that
all of World History has been encapsulated and implied in the event fictitious
and without any basis whatsoever (i.e. this word, sentence, anecdote, epic),
thus that he is the one watched and seen and addressed when all is finally
said, and done:
Hi,
Roman.
*
Summary of Chapter 1266 of the
Mahabharata
Sruchavati
practiced severe austerities because she wanted to marry Indra, the king of the
gods. After a long time, Indra, disguised as the brahmana Vasishtha, appeared
to her. She said to him, "O brahmana! I will do anything for you but wed
you. I practice my austerities for Indra alone." He said, "Cook these
berries."
She
cooked, but she ran out of wood. She happily burned her feet. Indra appeared to
her undisguised and said, "You have pleased me with your devotion. Ascend
to heaven with me. I sanctify this spot as the Badarapachana tirtha. On this
spot, long ago, Arundhati performed severe austerities during a drought. Shiva
was pleased. He went to her disguised as a brahmana and begged for food. She
said, 'We have no food. Have these berries.' She cooked him berries. Shiva told
her wisdom and the drought ended. Shiva praised her and granted her a boon, and
this became Badarapachana. You have done the same for me. I grant you a boon.
Let any who bathes here obtain worlds." Indra ascended to heaven, and
flowers rained down. Sruchavati followed him, becoming his wife.
Balarama
went there and bathed.
*
O
sing to me, Atalanaxos, O Goddess of Self-Pity, and tell me of lonely walks and
lonesome corners, and of the pains in the feet of all, of the old-time
half-remembered half-invented old-midnight thoughts of girls and boys missed
kissed, O pity me thou Goddess of Pity!
Let
me be a Hungry Ghost as I certainly shall be, woe me, with none to feed my
bones pitiful in the dirt; let me wander the Earth and how howl dismal'y, with
a bamboo bowl sutured with glue, seeking sustenance of flesh + blood that I
will never ever receive.
I
saw a sad marsupial today, said
No-one
will clean my grave, said the Essene. But I will not be hungry, for I will have
food aplenty.
O
Atalanaxos! What will happen to us poor sinners who have no faith? Pity me. I
am abandoned all over. The birds eat fruits fallen from trees, but not me.
*
The sign fell
down again. Happily, I put it back up.
Sappho
continued, "It's the spark that counts. The gods give me a fragment of the
immense cosmos, merely a fragment, but it's a true fragment. To go on and on
about it would quickly descend into falsehood."
"But,"
I said, "You could make a lot of money from writing a novel. You could get
off this damn island for example."
She laughed.
I'll always remember Sappho laughing. She said, "Besides falling into
lies, probably around the third stanza if not earlier, there's no evidence it
would sell. Think of the cost in papyrus! It's unfeasible. Therefore,
book-writing is both false and impractical."
I looked
across the waters, towards
She smiled, I
believe. "I'm not required for the singing. The song sings on its own.
Strings are being touched everywhere."
Happily, the
sign fell down again. I put it back up. I never read what it read.
*
Sisyphus as a Blind Ballyman
23,657,645.
Length: 29.64
km.
Width: 8.54
km.
Incline: 2.2
deg.
Sphere diam:
216 cm.
Bumper circum:
895 cm.
Bumper
placement, expressed as ratios:
.385, .954
.121, .548
.945, .192
.687, .028
.401, .365
Paddle force:
18 kg psi.
Button
resistance: 2 kg psi.
General elasticity:
.64 scale.
Digital
display: MOS Technology 6510 @ 1.28 MHz, 12 digits, RGB A085C3
Free play
release: 20,000 pts.
Two weeks
later, I received a cable. The cable read, "Configuration unacceptable.
Does not work. Start over."
I cabled back,
"Can I have some feedback here?"
Two weeks
later, I received a cable. The cable read, "Configuration unacceptable.
Does not work. Start over."
I cabled back,
"What part doesn't work?"
Two weeks
later, I received a cable. The cable read, "Configuration unacceptable. Does
not work. Start over."
23,657,646.
Length: 39.62
km.
Width: 11.98
km.
Incline: 3.1
deg.
Sphere diam:
208 cm.
Bumper circum:
761 cm.
Bumper
placement, expressed as ratios:
.222, .645
.014, .547
.354, .005
.475, .500
.862, .828
Paddle force:
19 kg psi.
Button
resistance: 3 kg psi.
General
elasticity: .32 scale.
Digital
display: MOS Technology 8568 @ 2.91 MHz, 15 digits, RGB 18C452.
Free play
release: 10,000 pts.
*
Oh,
the wish to be a fearsome alligator, sliding quietly through the waters west of
Miami, Florida, with eyes at the level of the swamp water, half above and half
below, silently seeking out prey and moving my stubby arms and stubby legs and
long tail to propel me so silently I can come up upon anything in the water or
on the land or in between; to dig into the mud with my two hundred or so teeth
to lay my eggs under the mud and to wait near there for weeks scouting out and
smelling out fine feeding grounds, waiting for my fifty babies to crack their
shells and feel their motions in the mud under my feet, and to raise them up
and feed them and send them off, always knowing them by their smell; to return
to the waters to wrestle a snake to death or catch a heron or a pelican once in
a while with a powerful jaw-crush that can easily break driftwood into
splinters if I wanted, to warm on the bank of the swamp and pass the time
digesting a hound, oh what I wouldn't give to be an alligator of fearsomeness.
*
I was feeling
exceptionalsome horny that afternoon, wondering (when not distracted by my
priapical concerns) if Julie, my playdatemate, was of the same lean in a big
way or even in a small way. It was warm summer and my parents were awaysome.
Coming up the street I was clutchingly through her slender clothings
air-kissing the bits we owe and urge to mitosis and meiosis when suddenlyish
five digits met one digit respectively hers and mine and I knew I was on the
track that was right. Tho the street was a desertlike I subsumed 'playing
house' would be more of-a-speed as she cooed Ooh.
When what did
I see but the great boat of my parentals resting in the driveway atop the
yacht-trailer behind their modest Datsun. The boat loomed as largely as the
battleship in Marnie. We stopped
deadly digits-on-digit and paw on hind, seeking Eros's succour and Cupid's
resolve. Mayst we sneak in silent to the basement, avoiding thus the long-take
and -tale?‑cut down to not likelily.
Then I grabbed truth and saw my generation as a locus amoenus of green
pleasantry and a talking brook once-upon-a-timingquite.
"To the
woods, my dear, to the woods," I sang.
*
>N
>W
>N
>N
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>W
>You hit a
wall.
>E
>You hit a
wall.
>S
>W
>N
>You hit
another wall.
>S
>W
>W
>You hit a
wall.
>N
>N
>N
>You've hit
a wall.
>W
>W
>W
>There's a
wall here.
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>S
>W
>You hit a
wall.
>E
>S
>W
>W
>You hit a
wall.
>E
>N
>W
>N
>E
>E
>E
>E
>You've hit
a wall.
>N
>N
>N
>There's a
wall here.
>W
>There's a
wall here.
>E
>There's a
wall here.
>S
>E
>You hit a
wall.
>W
>S
>S
>E
>N
>E
>S
>E
>N
>N
>N
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>W
>W
>There's
another wall here.
>N
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>W
>W
>W
>You hit a
wall.
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>S
>W
>N
>There's a
wall here.
>W
>N
>N
>N
>N
>N
>There's
another wall here.
>E
>E
>You hit a
wall.
>N
>N
>You hit a
wall.
>W
>W
>There's a
wall here.
>N
>E
>E
>E
>E
>You hit a
wall.
>S
>E
>E
>E
>You hit a
wall.
>N
>N
>Congratulations.
>You have
finished.
>End.
*
"Here
comes Napoleon."
"Everybody.
Make way for the Great Napoleon."
"Remember:
Don't mention
"Maybe
"Yes.
Maybe he's that kind of
Napoleon."
"That
kind of Great Napoleon."
"Here he
comes."
"Move
that chair out of the way, pronto!"
"Moving
chair, moving chair."
"What's
taking so long?"
"Security's
checking his ID."
"Oh,
security! Such Neanderthals!"
"He's
travelling in his own double-secret security."
"Pretending
to be someone else! How clever!"
"Those Neanderthals. I should file a
complaint."
"But
really. How embarrassing."
"Especially
for the Great Napoleon."
"Being
who he is."
"Oh
goodness there he is!"
"He's
become taller, I believe."
"That
can't be. He's the Great Napoleon."
"It must
be that the nature of distance has changed."
"Yes.
Space has been stretched vertically."
"At least
in his vicinity."
"Such is
the power of the Great Napoleon."
"Someone
speak to him."
"He's
wanting a greeting."
"Bonjour, Général Bonaparte, comment
allez-vous?"
BONAPARTE:
"What's that you said?"
"Facinating!"
"He has
expanded the French language to include English phraseology!"
"Only the
Great Bonaparte could expand la langue
Français so!"
"An
imposter is buried at Invalides!"
"Undoubtedly!"
"He's
spry for 212."
"I'm glad
to be here."
"Happy
it's whatever year you say."
*
That
which two major characters in Vertigo, Scotty and Midge, take to be a
joke turns out to not be a joke at all.
It's
the only joke in the whole movie, and if Scotty had understood it, the film
would have been North by Northwest instead.
In
the third scene, Scotty notices a brassiere designed by an engineer according
to the principle of the cantilevered bridge. Midge says the engineer (retired,
I believe) designed it as a hobby. Scotty leers. "As a hobby."
The
leer shows Scotty does not understand fetishization, and it is his
misunderstanding of fetishization that (as everyone knows) is his ruin.
Later
(as we see) he must get the Woman's clothes right. He has to get the appearance
right.
To
the engineer, the (clothing) brassiere is a (Woman) substitute. But Scotty
thinks it worthy of a leer and a joke. He cannot see.
The
engineer's story is a (comic) encapsulation of the whole movie, mistaken to be
a joke.
The
engineer loved her.
Then
she was gone.
So
he made a substitute.
And
what can you make but clothes?
A
dress, a brassiere.
She
will never come back.
The
lack makes the surface.
Surface.
Clothes.
*
[The Manichee]
I am nothing but a trivial man. When I look
out my trivial window, all I see are matters of trivia. My interests are
trivial, with no need to elaborate, yet I will elaborate trivially. I have
trivial hobbies that can't be bothered leaving my trivial house. Look over
here, where it's ordinary daylight, and see my trivial wife. Maybe there was
love between us long ago. Now we have merely a trivial connection. I could be
someone else entirely, and the relationship would still be exactly the same. I
cannot imagine becoming non-trivial. If I was a spaceman, I would be a trivial
one. If I was a cab-driver, I would be a trivial cab-driver. The skies that
look down on me are, in my way of seeing, entirely trivial, and no atmospheric
change could ever change that. Whatever I write I could immediately dispose of,
such is its triviality. I work during the day. I sleep during the night. I know
I matter to no-one. My death will be one of billions, and unremarkable. Maybe
there was a long-time-past, when I wasn't trivial.... That's not possible.
GAGO. I trivially fritter away my unimportant time, o death.
*
Once
upon a time there was a very bad town named
Until
one day an even badder town named
Now
it was about that time that a new town showed up, a town called
*
Jacky
was walking around after the show with his eyes wide. "Did you hear
it?"
Andrea
asked, "Did I hear what?"
"We
hit it. We hit the big time there."
"I
didn't notice anything."
"You
didn't? Hey, where are the tapes? I can show you it."
Jacky
went out, to the soundboard presumably, while I lit up something sweet and Kate
poured some cheap Glenlivet.
I
said, "Good show, though."
Kate
said, "It was nice, yes."
Jacky
stormed in with an Asus laptop computer. "Look, I'm sure I can find it, it
was, it was ... transcendental. The way we all fit together, and the sounds....
Nothing like it before."
He
zipped back and forth through the record file. "Yes, in Begin the Beguine,
look, we hit it, this chord, listen."
"♪♪♪"
"No,
wait, that's not it. It's here somewhere. Eight bars later, listen to this,
big-time."
"♪♪♪"
"Where
did it go? It was Begin the Beguine. Maybe it was the next tune."
"♪♪♪"
"Jesus
Christ, where did it go? Didn't anyone hear it? Was I the only one?"
He
went back and forth in the record. He said the recording was wrong. Impossible
to lose it. He quit music.
*
The clothes
she touches, elbow, knee, and nape,
By thigh or
thumb, of cotton, leather, gold,
Enclosing her
by gravity's blind cape;
The air against
her clothes that is so bold
To be but
fabric-distant to her flesh
As silent
winds press silent kisses there
And there and
there, each breeze so fresh
With wet so
light it's carried in its hair;
The sounds her
ears create to fill the world
With voices,
songs of singers, beasts and birds,
That beg
response by touching senses curled,
With whispers
and entreaties softly heard,
That speak
receptively of bed or park
Or even public
changing room or bath;
The images
that sprout from out the dark
Of nothing's
evermore to make a path
To her two
eyes impressively so meet,
So begful with
their textures and their hues
In competition
all to catch her sweet
And loving
glance for her to loving choose:
I'm jealous so
of clothing, breezes, sounds
And sights
that come to her without request;
I hate them
so, so easily making rounds
Around her
mind and heart that I can't rest;
I grit my
teeth and curse all senses, so,
That travel to
the places I can't go.
*
I'd
read of a Duke who scented his wife's deathroom with jasmine candles, so we
chose to light hers with lavender as a compromise, for jasmine makes my eyes
water.
After
a sweaty moaning bout, she regained a happy consciousness. Through bleary sight
she looked at me with something of a smile. I said, "Good morning, Mrs
Ooter."
She
said, "Morning, Mr Ooter."
"The
end is nigh, I believe."
"It
does seem so. Much, so much, has been left unsaid."
"Yes,
much; I will miss you so." I paused, then continued, "Do you think I
could have a memento?"
"Of
what sort, Mr Ooter?"
"Of
that which is known as your 'specialty.'"
She
looked at me oddly. "Have you been writing things on lavatory walls?"
"No,
no, certainly not. Do not you recall I made such a remark on the train to
Bristol one bank holiday? After you had, er, performed upon me?"
"Of
that I have no recollection."
"Well.
It would be simple, really. If I put my knees upon the pillow on either side of
your head‑"
"Mr
Ooter, this is no time for such an activity."
I
shrugged. "Just a thought."
Later,
I used my suggestion happily.
*
So
I was at a party last night. I don't go to parties often. I'm too nervous
around strangers. I see hatred in their faces.
A
woman was there who was rather known for her newspaper columns which were quite
outspoken, and which I rarely agreed with. In fact, I was almost aways 180° away from her.
We
happened to wind up in a group, with a couple mutual friends. I was quiet, of
course. I had the impression (as has been over-stated) that she vividly hated
me.
There
was a topic, on which she held forth briefly. Then she looked at me and asked,
"What is your opinion?"
After
a moment hemming and hawing I said, "My opinion isn't mine to give."
"How's
that?"
"My
opinion has been constructed for me by so many influences that it more rightly
belongs to the atmosphere of all history, including biological. My parents had
a hand in my opinions, as has my genes, my experiences, my hormones. No opinion
of mine supersedes what meets your eye right now."
She
nodded. It was the right answer, for she invited me upstairs to a bedroom.
None
of this is true, which makes it true.
*
"And
the award for greatest writer in world history goes to ... William
Shakespeare!"
William
Shakespeare, writer of the plays Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The
Tempest, is coming to the stage. He is also an accomplished actor, musician,
and leatherworker. William Shakespeare is wearing Dior stockings, an Armani
codpiece, a Versace doublet, and a ruff by Brooks.
"Thank
you, thank you. Really‑thanks! I don't know if I deserve this. It's true!
People ask me, all the time, to what do I owe my tremendous success? There's no
secret to it: I did what everyone else was doing‑but I did it much
better. [Laughter.] I mean that! I was the most unoriginal writer ever. So,
thanks. Also, my advice to those who want to imitate you? Build a style. Build
a style such that people can imitate you.
My style involved convoluted metaphors. Parody is flattery! Unique unimitatable
writers are a dime a dozen. Look at some of these guys? Who imitates Tristan
Tzara? Who imitates Laurence Sterne? Who imitates, I don't know, Idon'tknow583
Idon'tknowLoganAvenuesay Idon'tknowToronto? Who would bother? So: imitate, and
be imitated. It's the key to glory. So, thanks all! What a strange new world,
huh?"
*
He
said, It's the problem of the primes, isn't it?
She
said, I'm more interested in intersecting bell curves for non-exclusive
concepts.
He,
Think of the number line. All the numbers are equally spaced. They could be
pebbles or comets. Completely abstract.
She,
If you superimpose medial male IQs and medial female IQs on a bar graph where
x=IQ and y=population.
He,
And along this line are prime numbers, that is, numbers that will divide by no
other number save 1 and itself.
She,
You'll see that the female population clusters more tightly around the center
while the male is shorter and stretches further left and right.
He,
So these primes occur seemingly at random. But how can that be? Since the
number line‑itself a regular pattern‑underlies the primes, how can
the primes be chaotic, i.e. random?
She,
It appears to me that this means the X chromosome causes instability and
irregularity. I can reach no other conclusion.
He,
The pattern must exist, and it must be a formula.
She,
We could alter the X chromosome any way we want.
He,
I would really like to find the solution now.
She,
I would really like to find the solution now.
*
Beginning because there has to be a beginning =S
Pretending
to have dropped from the sky ab ovo This
convention causes all that follows to be relatively false THESIS
I
awoke this morning and the sky was dark. BOOK THE FIRST We gathered
our equipment and loaded the steerage with food
The
beginning is caused by the middle and the end Adi Sabha Vana Virata Udyoga
Middle because there has to be a middle =M
Confusion
of the sky-dropped chaos cause-maker The
falseness must be adopted to current circumstances ... somehow ANTITHESIS
Slowly,
through the day, the storm cleared up. BOOK
THE SECOND We sailed across the sea, days and nights we sailed
The
middle is caused by the beginning and the end Bhishma Drona Karna Shalya
End because there has to be an end =P
Re-arrangement
of reality to incorporate dropped Let's
find a way to get back to the beginning like nothing happened SYNTHESIS
By
the time I went to bed the sun was shining. BOOK THE THIRD The land
we sighted looked to be a green and pleasant
The
end is caused by the beginning and the middle Sauptika Stri Shanti Anushasana
Ashvamedhika Ashramavasika Mausala Mahaprasthanika Svargarohana
*
"You
can't really make any good arguments in fiction you know. Emile Zola, right?
Wrote a magnificent series of books. But to people who don't read him, what's
he known for? J'Accuse. Very effective writing, but it's not fiction. In
the same way, like, I'd like to make an argument about bachelors and spinsters.
This is it. Why are there so many of them? If the sex drive of our species is
all so be-all-and-end-all, shouldn't everyone be matched up? So, like, maybe
there's a special‑special, as in species-al‑purpose to all these
bachelors and spinsters. That's to say, maybe we help our siblings get married
and thereby are populous even without having kids. I'd do some research on it,
of course, but I think there's been an argument about this to that effect. We
non-propagating members assist our parents in having grand-children. There'd be
a by-proxy evolutionary advantage there. Really, it's not weird. Look at bees.
There's like a gazillion males for every female. So with us, we homo sapiens,
we wind up with unmarried people. But how can you argue something like that in
fiction? You can't put anything past anyone these days," said I to Diddle
Diddle Dumpling.
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