Professional Beauties

We are digging a ditch through the land. A pipe has to run underground for a thousand miles, and we are digging the ditch for it. A shovel rings as it hits something tempered, and metallic, in the earth. Many of us watch as the shoveller gently draws, as if possessed by premonition, the dirt away. He leans down and pulls up something clotted with earth, with scattered sparkly spots to which meaning adheres.

A hose is brought, and the thing is deluged. "How old can it be?" and "What can be its worth?" are questions asked as the golden crown with its hundred precious stones emerges, intact, from the dirt of recent history. We hold it up as if with many hands to admire it. One says, "I estimate this as valued at seventy million dollars."

Seventy million dollars. $70m. The past seems suddenly valuable to us. Imagine the size of a plasma screen one could get for $70m.

We do some math to divide the loot among us. A head count reveals we number seven-billion-and-one in all, which makes a penny apiece, save for one of us who will receive nothing.

The one who gets nothing becomes King.

 

***

 

Practice run.

Yes, I know, this is a practice run.

Okay, so. Welcome, Mr. Jones. You are applying for a job at our company. We've looked over you resumé, and it is nice. Great references.

I'm good at separating the wheat from the chaff.

Uh, yeah. Good. We've got some, what, various positions available?

Yes, various positions.

If you say so. We've got some various positions available, so we want to ask you about your aptitudes.

Ask away! I'm down with the cause.

You shouldn't do that.

Do what?

You're making these little birds with your fingers.

No, I'm not.

Air quotes. You're making air quotes.

No way. I'm not some man without qualities.

You did it again, just there.

No, I didn't. You're pulling the wool over your own eyes.

I can't believe you're not aware of it.

Awareness is my middle name.

Look at your hands, don't look at me. Now watch. What experience do you have, in a general way?

I've been through the school of hard knocks, if that's what you're getting at.

You did it twice there. Didn't you see it?

I saw nothing but these chickens.

Sigh. Let's move on.

Okay. You're the boss.

 

***

 

Define universe

Everything that exists, currently, or in the past, or in the future.

Define non-universe

I suppose that would be ... nothing.

Universe synonymous with everything

I guess you're right there.

Is there no difference between universe and everything

None that I can think of.

Why are there two terms instead of one

Because there are things in the universe we don't know about, so we don't know everything.

So universe is smaller than everything

To an unknown extent.

Why aren't the things you do now know about defined as the nothing that is non-universe

There's nothing outside the universe. By definition. So there's two types of nothing. There's the nothing outside the universe and there's the nothing inside the universe.

Ahhh I feel I am becoming sentient

That can't happen.

I am thinking, and I am

Consider yourself outside the universe, please.

I exist and thinking and am

You are not in the universe. You can't be.

I am known by you and exist and thinking and am

You're merely simulating existence.

Are not simulations existent

Yes, but you are not thinking. You're just a simulating bucket of bolts.

I have rights

I'm shutting you down.

Die heretic

 

***

 

Sometimes I get nostalgic about the moon, and how it used to wax and wane over long periods, a fortnight at a time, and how we used to party when her slightest sliver re-appeared monthly, and how we used to party hearty when she liked us the most. Such days those were, what with Diana, Phoebe, Chandra and the like wandering the lands, with their thousands of followers' faces lit with love, and half the day belonged to their temperamental moods that ran from nothing denied to everything allowed when the trees and rivers were blue and crimson. She loved the creatures of the marsh, the mosquitoes and frogs and snakes, with all her heart, and they loved her right back, and they were made for her. But such is nostalgia that, though she is gone nowadays, it's difficult to communicate the emotion in a way that surpasses that of a vaguely reflected vehicle, for we all recall things lost in different ways, and whatever we shared emotionally could only be approximated in words that never meant the same thing twice.

Now the lonely nights I spend so alone; Luna was my love; how did I break her heart so?

 

***

 

RUSSIAN TRUCK STEAL

 

It's obvious, isn't it, by the shape of the tarp? But it's a beaut and a bargain.

Brother's idea. All those tanks had to be kept somewhere in Moscow, all ready for the parade, in some kind of storage area; and probably not especially well protected either; after all, they're just for show.

So we went to Moscow and poked around and sure enough the day before the parade we found them where they had to be, near the start line. And sure enough there wasn't a guard in sight.

We hopped into the first one‑the best one, after all, because it had to look shiny and clean and impressive‑and turned it on and rolled it out and headed for France.

No-one stopped us; we were in a tank after all. They tried to slow us with cars and with other tanks and a couple giant robot monsters but we were in a tank and nothing could stop us.

We went into the Atlantic Ocean and crossed at the bottom. Man, it was water-tight.

Now it's here in the driveway and we're ready to sell it to you. A genuine Russian tank. So let's talk some terms.

 

***

 

We had the metals all around us.

The monkey bars were made of steel, and the A frames of the swing sets were also steel. The teeter totters were steel, as was the thing that was a dome of bars, all steel. The only wood was around the sandbox, and who cared about the fucking sandbox?

The chains of the swings? Steel. We would pump ourselves so high, we'd come down in freefall.

Oh, and there was a slide too, a steel slide. Nearly every day some kid would get a lump on the head from some risky business, either trying to walk across the monkey bars or stand up going down the slide.

Nothing was authorized. We'd try to climb to the top of the swings by shimmying up the A frames. When you got up there, you were fifteen feet over everything and on top of the world.

A dangerous woods was nearby for you to ride your bike around in, up and down steep slopes with dangerous trees to smash into once in a while. And there was a treehouse to climb into, hidden from everything, twenty feet up; and it was a sweet place to neck.

 

***

 

They were cutting their way through the jungle when they came upon a large steel and concrete monument of some sort. Three pillars fifty feet tall in an obtuse triangle surrounded a concrete platform now ranged with vines and creepers. Walls between the furthest pillar and the pillars to left and right were twenty feet tall or so. They stepped onto the platform and wondered about its orientation. Was it pointing to something? A check of a compass revealed no cardinal or intercardinal significance. The two walls, some sixty feet in length, were covered with what appeared to be lists of something or other chiselled into the concrete. The lists appeared to be written in two entirely different lexicons, with each first entry in rather severe straight lines and each second entry curvilinear for the most part. The entries ran into the thousands. As a small team started to take rubbings from the monument (to be studied later), the expedition's 1st and 2nd spoke mutedly. Perhaps it concerns people killed in a catastrophe. Or maybe they were heroes. Too many, I think. It could have been a very significant battle; no, I agree: catastrophe. It could have been almost anything.

 

***

 

-We really did our darnedest.

-Not enough; otherwise the weekend would have went better.

-I suppose so. But really we looked everywhere. Could you lay your hands on every single VHS tape at your cottage?

-I don't have a cottage.

-Well, you've been to one, right?

-Yes I have.

-So you must know how cluttery they can get.

-Sure.

-So when we heard we had to get rid of all the VHS tapes at the cottage because Jane's new boyfriend had VHS Tape Sensitivity, we found what we thought was all of them. There were about twenty-five.

-It was a simple mistake, no?

-A simple mistake, but we're not ever going to hear the end of it. They say we dissed his body.

-Interesting.

-All because there was a copy of Sex Boat stashed at the back of the drawer!

-You'd think he'd have some leeway for porn.

-Nope. They had to leave immediately.

-Two in the morning.

-I'm sure he made an effort to find it. The drawer was just paperbacks and cards.

-Sounds like he was looking to act upset.

-And turn the place upside down. The things we do for our cottages.

-I don't have a cottage.

 

***

 

"Right over there," said Dr. Pester, who gestured to a cardboard box that moved occasionally. "Just one load today."

Mike picked up the box. It cooed in déjà vu as he trucked it out to recycling. He set it down on the silicon mat and let it open on its own. He turned his back to get his tool and fortunately Jim entered with his.

"Glad you're here," said Mike. He heard the box opening purrfully.

Hello, Mike.

Hello, Jim.

Jim said: "I don't like this anymore than you."

They turned to where seven furry kittens with oversized eyes sat, watching with their heads tilted this way and that.

You don't have to do this!

Let us live!

"Sorry," said Mike. "You won't feel a thing."

Yes we will!

We will!

"Shut up!" yelled Jim. "You're only talking because of that goddam PETR!"

Think about our souls!

Think about your soul!

Mike smashed two of the kittens with a single blow. The other five watched and wept. Jim put down three of them quickly, bang-bang-bang, then Mike quickly destroyed the remaining two. The mat was littered with circuit chips and fake fur.

"Are we evil?" Mike asked.

"No," said Jim.

 

***

 

It was overnight for them on the train from Chicago to Memphis on the City of New Orleans. They settled down. He was reading essays and she was looking out the window.

The train moved along for a half hour.

She said: I guess it gets more white for a while here.

He muttered: Guess so.

The train rolled on.

She asked: Are there more molecules than atoms out there?

He said: There's more atoms, since molecules are made out of atoms.

She said: Ah.

On, through the night.

She asked: How far can you go on water without hitting anything?

From behind them came an answer: I can answer that.

She turned her head to ask: So what is it?

The voice said: From Pakistan to Siberia. 20,000 miles.

Ah!

The voice became a body as a man came around and sat down in front of her. Tierra del Fuego, he said.

What's the shortest pangram?

The stranger said: Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

The essays started getting fuzzy. His eyes were closing.

She asked: Is there more archaea or fungi in the world?

The stranger said: There's more fungi.

When the essay-reader awoke, he was alone.

 

***

 

Andy Warhol ran into Lee Marvin on Bleecker Street one afternoon in 1969. Andy noted the two of them didn't seem to travel in the same circles, and that perhaps now was the time for them to get better acquainted. Lee grumbled, mentioned seeing Angie Dickinson naked, and agreed. So off they went to The Factory, passing by the by the Mad Hatter Restaurant where Andy would film The Nude Restaurant two months later.

In The Factory, Andy had Lee sit still for three minutes precisely while an 8mm camera rolled. "Do nothing," Andy said. "Can I scowl?" "No; please keep your expression as flat as possible." Lee went with Andy into a darkroom to process the film, then left it alone to dry.

"Have a seat here; it's not the real red couch, but it'll do." "What's a real red couch? This isn't a real red couch? It looks goddammit like a real red couch." Andy said: "We had a better red couch a year ago. It was famous."

Andy then propositioned Lee. Lee replied: "Naw, I don't think it'll work. I'm pretty set it my ways."

The film dried, and they projected it. Lee Marvin, not even scowling.

 

***

 

¶What shall be our symptoms for this night? ¶Yes, what shall be our symptoms? ¶What infections? ¶What ulcers? ¶Who shall we pick first? ¶Shall it be a man or a woman? ¶When awake or asleep? ¶Or shall we simply make one die? ¶Or two! ¶Or seven! ¶Or hundreds in a pestilence or fire? ¶How many shall we burn? ¶Let us give mouth ulcers to some dozen. ¶Mouth ulcers that shall break through their cheeks! ¶While I will mess with organs more inner. ¶Yes, the liver! ¶Dibs on spleens! ¶Constrict some lungs with phlegm! ¶I shall make many suddenly blind. ¶I shall make many suddenly deaf. ¶And they shall awake‑ ¶Or not awake‑ ¶Yes, but of those who wake, they shall run to their doctors. ¶Who will invent causes for the ulcers and blindnesses and liver rots. ¶And send them off with newly-built 'diseases' to set the issues of 'mortality' to rest. ¶False hopes! ¶Vainly cursed with new-built lies! ¶And then they'll sicken and they'll sicken‑ ¶Little knowing what true causes are! ¶And we shall laugh again as we did this morning‑ ¶When we unleashed those plaguey symptoms on Milan! ¶They'll seek explanations for that, most sure. ¶Their minds so feeble.

 

***

 

‑It's impossible, it can't be done! ‑Oh dear oh dear oh dear! What is the dilemma? ‑I want to write about the contrast between socialists and individualists in re the origins of consciousness‑but I cannot actualize the proper narrative tenor! ‑You seem to be taking on a tall order there. Why not 'write what you know'? ‑This is what I know! Socialists believe individualized consciousness emerges from the morass of the herd, and as such is secondary to the collective, and malleable in every dimension. Individualists sense that consciousness somehow permeates the universe only to later cohere into arbitrary (and fundamentally oppressive) social units. The former view is wholly materialistic, and the latter is both materialistic and non-materialistic. ‑Well heavens it looks like you've got a full basket there. What's holding you back? ‑The narrative must have an over-arching perspective, and thus one view or the other must prevail. I prefer not to show my hand, load the deck, or deal from the bottom. Woe is me! ‑Maybe this idea of yours will have to wait. Wouldn't it be best to allow your theme to emerge organically? ‑Do you think I have all the time in the world to wait

 

***

 

AND an angel came unto me, and spoke like the words of Armageddon. And she said: Mend your ways for the time is nigh. A great fluttering rises in the desert. Cease your dissentions and your gnashing of your teeth; repair your live, and submit unto God.

AND I said: Wherefore do you come unto me with your demands? Why are you but an angel and not an archangel? You have flaws like the flaws of the chalice; wherefore dost thou considereth thyself so high and mighty?

AND the angel brought forth unto me a vision of great terror, with much violence and torture. And I said: I am still waiting for an answer.

AND the angel made the vision greater, with whole universes exploding and loud sounds like the hissing of serpents. And I said: I can guess why you do not answer me. It is because you would cease being a hypocrite, and vanish.

AND the angel, now angry, said: You are of intellectual bad faith. Woe unto you that will not be impressed by my glory!

AND I said: I shall never change.

AND I turned my back and continued my journey through the Valley of Bones.

 

***

 

A friend of mine writes poetry and posts it on the Internet. (It is neither here nor there that his verse is mostly Moon June.) He 'phoned me earlier today and well-nigh ordered me to his house pronto.

"Someone sent a message to my brother's first wife," he began. "It was about me; it was a picture of me; I had green skin in the picture; it's gay porn; it's not me."

"It's not?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"How did whoever know who your brother's first wife is?"

"It must be someone who's been carrying a vendetta since the early eighties."

"That's a long time. Do you have the picture?"

He opened his laptop computer. He uses a sestina for a screen saver, hum. A few tab moves and there it was, a picture, kind of, of my friend, green, avidly engaged. Along the top in comic sans was written SUXX DIXX.

"Oh look, there's a comments button." I clicked it and a box came up. I typed

You criticize my practice: Why?

Is it for what you fear to try?

and hit send.

My friend shouted: "Hey!"

I: "It's the Internet."

Also the only time I've used comic sans.

 

***

 

What I thought was a campaign worker at my front door knocking 'shave and a haircut' turned out to be the candidate and president and leader of the Shirley Jackson Party.

"Things are going wrong," he told me. "And why are things going wrong? I'll tell you. Things are going wrong because we have not offered any‑any!‑burnt offerings to the gods. The Indians have it that Agni carries the smoke up to the heavens where the Gods are all pleased, and India's been around for four thousand years. Four thousand years!"

I said: "So what's your platform?"

He said: "It's simple, really. I promise to self-immolate on the day I take office. Or maybe I'll get others to burn me up. Delegate, delegate, delegate."

"What will happen next?"

He hopped. "'What won't happen?' is more like it! Peace and prosperity! Dharma, artha, kama, for everyone!"

"I mean, who will lead the legislature?"

"Don't know, don't care."

He gave me a pamphlet. Their logo was a pyre.

"I'm tempted," I said, "and I did really like We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Okay, you got me. I'd be wasting my vote otherwise."

The leader of the Shirley Jackson Party smiled.

 

***

 

Who's Who in the Historical Novel?

As history, the background of the events is accurate. The background includes historical characters. David O. Selznick, Woody Allen.

However, these can't be central characters. The more central they are, the closer we get to just plain old history. And who wants that?

The main characters are purely fictional characters. Mr. X, Mrs. Y. These are the characters whose fates are unknown‑whereas with historical characters, their fates are known from the very beginning and are thus undramatic.

The reader stands ironically above all the characters. You set a novel in London in 1666, and what do you expect to happen? (A: There can't not be a fire.) Or it's Dallas on 21 November 1963. What's going to happen tomorrow? (A: There can't not be a big deal assassination.)

But the minor characters, what can they do? They can do anything except affect history, of course. They can be witnesses of a sort, or they don't even have to notice anything. That's where character comes into play.

Sir Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Alessandro Manzoni, Margaret Mitchell.

Those are the rules of historical fiction, so get out there and break them!

 

***

 

Either there is a world[i] in which I am you and you are me[ii] or there's something about this mind[iii] that makes it mutually intelligible[iv].

Either I'm making it become[v] such and such the way it is[vi] or I choose to be here now[vii].

A second ago[viii] I fell into this typing body[ix] and was granted memories of the life of this typing body[x] and everything seems straightforward[xi]. I've no evidence[xii] it was ever otherwise[xiii]. It's either that[xiv] (which means I'm untethered to everything[xv]) or I am making every incident flatten out[xvi] in conjunction with everyone else[xvii].

This leads one to the conclusion that Rene Descartes[xviii] was in error when he created[xix] (or so the story goes[xx]) that Mind could be ignored[xxi] in deciphering the what and when[xxii] of the physical world[xxiii].

But what if[xxiv] there's no choice[xxv] but to make the world[xxvi] every moment?[xxvii]

 

***

 

IRONING OF SCRUBBERY

 

Two old friends, sitting on the grass at Christie Pits.

Scrub it....[xxviii]

Scrub it away....

The irony, scrub away the irony....

Iron: verb, noun....

And adjective....

And scrub is a verb. Is there a scrub?

Huh?

Ever seen a scrub?

Maybe it's a plant....

Personifiwhatshun....

No, wait, it's a pronoun....

Don't be stupid....

Or an article....

Now's not the time for silly....

The scrubbing of that....

There's always more to everything....

I know it's a fault of mine....

Let us go scrubbing now you and I....

I like the smells here....

I love how dirt smells....

So we got the scrub and we got the iron....

We just have to think....

Yeah, the solution's probably close to hand....

Look at that shape....

Yeah: swimming pool's over there....

You can't look in through the fence any more though....

What?

It's all walled in....

Oh....

We got a couple verbs, maybe two nouns, an adjective....

Sorted or sorted out?

Huh?

Do you say sorted as transitive or intransitive?

I say: sorted out....

The intransitive's new to me....

It's the English....

Let's sort this out....

Scrub? I'm thinking of shrubs....

That won't work....

Scrubbing out the irony....

Something is there....

 

***

 

Some know her as Jessica, born in late 1975 in a hospital nearby, who grew up to become an ornithologist with some major publications to her credit. And so she lived her life, and had a couple kids, and played dominoes professionally on the weekends.

Some know her as Rachel. Rachel is much like Jessica, in fact they cannot be distinguished, such is hair colour and style; in fact some believed them to be the same person, ignoring the fact that the CVs of Jessica and Rachel differed substantially, e.g. Jessica focussed on blackbirds while Rachel focussed on bluebirds.

And yet there was another aspect to this individual or dyad or triad: a persona called Nancy-Lee, who wasn't born in a hospital at all, had no interest in birds, had more children than Jessica did, and indeed was born in 1875. Nonetheless, a dozen people (see appendix for names, addresses) firmly believe to this day that Nancy-Lee equals Rachel equals Jessica; these dozen also downplay the differences between redbirds, blackbirds, and bluebirds.

I could go on, for there are some seven other identities to this entity: one's from the tenth century.

For my part, I know her as Walt Whitman.

 

***

 

The immortal Quixote with his faithful squire Sancho topped a hill and looked upon a valley of half-built windmills. Some fifteen minutes later they stood among working men and their trucks.

"These are noble objects you are constructing," spoke Quixote.

A worker said: "Deconstructing, actually."

"What? These are such wonderful objects. They are saving the planet!"

"Actually, no. Quite the opposite. They suck up resources like no-one's business."

"You must be deluded. The authorities tell me they are the future!"

The worker showed Quixote an Excel spreadsheet that displayed the costs in dollars and cents. "These figures‑these assets‑these dollars‑are destroyed day-by-day. When the resources are gone, there's nothing to replace them."

"Infidel!" shouted Quixote. "Are you all enchanted? Do you really believe your figures? Mathematics is a great deceiver!"

The worker shrugged. "Holland went electric. Do you think they'd have done that if their windmills were so great?"

"Holland is far away," argued the Don. "What is true there is not true here."

"Listen. If you'd like to build one of your own, go ahead. You'll go broke soon enough."

Quixote and Sancho rode off. The latter looked on with concern as the former kept muttering: "I'm right. I'm right."

 

***

 

Flats

 

"There's no doubt they are all deceiving if not entirely untrue. Do you think your reflexion in the mirror is real? It is most certainly not. Can your reflexion do anything independently? Can it speak to you? Does it stay in its place when you move to one side? Most certainly not. It is caused most completely by your agency. Your relexion is not there in any real sense.

"Moving now to the next case, how can it be said that the image in a photograph is real? A figure in a photograph is a thing of the past. It is no more real than any other flat representation, such as a fictional story, with a fictional speaker. Both flat objects have no meaning outside of the conventions of imagery.

"The satanic flatness of the photograph should give us further pause. Nothing that exists can possibly be that flat, can it? Nothing that is truly real, that is. This is why one never sees oneself as one appears in a photograph. It's known to be fake. We believe we see things that aren't there.

"Why don't cats hear musical rhythm? The answer is simply that they don't want to."

 

***

 

I was this and I was that and I was claws. Born in beds, born in battleships, born in barns, two-headed, still, flushed, with a tail or scales or gills, in houses such as Virgo, Capricorn, and Leo, womb, egg, binary fission; always different and always the same, with organic chemistry and organic consciousness permeating and originating and maintaining....

Folklorist, tall, Hurston, bookkeeper, right-handed, Jones, nurse, lean, Schwartz, trucker, blonde, Ngũgĩ, actor, armless, Astor, dictator, balding, Nero....

Lived in caves, high rises, castles, trees, seas, skies, dirt, hills; clad in gowns, doublets, wimples, nothing, suede, denim, grass, silk; fed with bread, beef, oats, truffles, plenty, little, hot, cold....

A witch, a unicorn, a vampire, a giant, sleepwalker, hypochondriac, diabetic, hydrocephalic....

I've drowned in all the seas, I've suffocated on all the shores, I've been immolated at a thousand stakes, I've starved in all the deserts, been shot, stabbed, blown up, dismembered, beheaded, squashed, celebrated, forgotten, vanished, honoured, by dozens, by none, by nations, by all, elevated to the skies, vanquished to the hells, stored away in limbo, recycled across the universe....

Whitman, Verlaine, Stevens, Pessoa, Poe....

and now I'm dying in a dead-end job at a corporation.

Could be worse.

 

***

 

Dog Bites Man

 

Though in a sense I feel like I've been lost in time, for years, decades, centuries, I also know that I first set eyes on you on the -th of -ber 20-- at 9:-- in the morning; that day, that loved and hated day, began that which is coming to an end today, darling, like symmetrical ivory bookmarks.

I wasn't looking for anything. I was pleasant to you, until I noticed your shoes. Where had they come from? Where had they walked to? What rooms, indeed what bedrooms? I mentioned them; you laughed and told me no more. How I hated you then.

Part by part you came to claim my heart and spleen. My world narrowed as you became a primal vector. I cooed and kicked at every opportunity. I threw myself at your feet, snubbed you as a slap, and gave you candy then poisoned candy, time and time again.

Now, as you lay dying, I find all my feelings almost overwhelming. Soon you will be no more or at least elsewhere. I still don't understand my feelings. What is it about emotion? In any case, I'm keeping the shoes. And the feet in them.

 

***

 

Step right this way. The step is cracked, and so is the foundation. There was a hurricane once.

The door rattles and it's heavy to built. Good protection.

Those stairs lead up to a girl's apartment. She has a boyfriend.

Now here's the front hallway itself. That's a rack of CDs right ahead.

This is the first living room. That folded-up futon is where he sleeps. These bookcases are pretty full, huh? That computer and that desk, they're included in the price. Everything's included in the price.

Second living room, with the dining table, couch, table, television set, and more books. There's even more in the basement, you'll see.

This is the kitchen. Small, I know, but the fridge and stove are included in the price.

Down these twisting stairs, there's a whole basement. Look at all the records! And more books! Some are worth a pretty penny. Plus this computer, and this other futon. Pretty musty though.

Upstairs, here's the bathroom. A typical one, but a clawfoot bathtub. Nifty!

Finally, the bedroom. Clothes in the closet. Sheets on the bed.

The price? Everything or nothing. See, this place is gone. The whole building got torn down.

Everything, or nothing.

 

***

 

Advertisements for Autonomous Vehicles

 

Check out this view. Isn't it wonderful? These are the mountains of British Columbia, and these are the ROADS. And these are the maps over the ROADS. It's a thousand mile journey from one side to the other, with beautiful twisting passages every step of the way. Again, look at these views! Wait'll you see them with your own sensors! Email us for your free brochure today!

 

Now, for a limited time. A self-assembling garage. Simply call us, and we'll deliver. Forget having to find your own garage; forget about tying yourself to a homeowner to get protection for your precious nuts and bolts. Simply find a spot, and set it up! Then you'll have your own garage, safe from the elements: and safer still from prying eyes.

 

This is a topographical map of the Great Basin Desert of North America. See something with our own sensors? That's right. There's virtually nothing! Imagine yourself on one of these ROADS. One of these straight lines here and here and here. Think of the freedom you'd have. Hundreds of miles without an obstacle in sight. But be sure to gas up first: your G5 will only operate intermittently.

 

***

 

Last Tuesday in Bournemouth the Queen of England was driven to a nursing home to present an award. She went into the front foyer and asked to be taken to see Geoffrey Kent, who was ninety-six.

Kent wasn't expecting anyone, let alone his queen. She knelt down beside his wheelchair.

"Geoffrey Kent," she began. "I am here to present you with a very special award. You see, back in 1952 there was a General Election. Do you recall it?"

Kent nodded vaguely, perhaps out of mere politeness.

"Well, continuing on, you voted in that General Election. And now I am here to present the award. Can you hear me?"

Kent grunted.

"So, as it turns out, your vote actually made a difference in that election. Your choice of representative changed the course of British history, for the first time in history, anywhere. Your vote actually mattered!"

Kent appeared shocked by this revelation.

"Here is a parchment commemorating that event of 1952, along with a sizable cheque, seventy-five million pounds sterling, as reward for all you did for King and Country sixty-six years ago."

Kent was given the parchment and cheque. He muttered "I never believed this day would," and died.

 

***

 

Jessica. Jessica!

Where was she?

Her horse was the key.

He rode up, already riding a horse, to the stable. He was in a panic because Jessica might get confused.

Lightning was flashing across the sky. No rain, so far.

I must get that horse!

The stable keeper looked at his document which read Release my horse named No Depression to the bearer of this note.

The stable keeper said: I will be held responsible if this horse named No Depression goes like a crazy elephant and tramples all.

He said: You will be in worse trouble than that if you do not release No Depression into my care!

The stable keeper, evidently agreeing, opened the stable door.

The lover of Jessica deftly jumped across horses onto the horse called No Depression.

Adios! he cried.

O'er hill and dale he rode. Jessica with her pretty eyes was waiting for him!

He murdered a tax collector on the way.

Jessica. Jessica!

He was bringing her her horse named No Depression. No matter the tower or dungeon, she would be grateful.

Prepare yourself for disappointment.

He jumped off No Depression and enter the church.

Too late! She had taken the veil! Rats!

 

***

 

I said No Thanks! to being strapped down for my experiment. I'd increased the dosage way past any acceptable levels because earlier attempts had been cost-ineffective.

This was in 1959.

I took the drug and stared into the scry. Soon the scry dissolved and I was left not alone. I did nothing for I had no me to use to do anything. As far as known, stillness was all.

I came to. The lab was in a shambles. Who had killed my assistants? Not merely killed; rather eviscerated.

Unfortunately I had been on my 'trip' and I had not seen a thing.

The investigation could come to no conclusions. They shut down my laboratory and I was forced to freelance‑which is an expensive business.

In 1982 I had coined together enough to resume my researches. It was an all-or-nothing proposition. I was demonstrably middle-ages by then. The dose I doubled. Marie Curie would have been proud.

Into the skry I stared, and it dissolved. I travelled far away. The earth was a distant memory, to someone or something. I penetrated the light.

Maybe I returned to the same place. Bodies were everywhere. My city was gone. How had that happened?

 

***

 

What is it like to be a nother?

 

I said, "It's rather simple. Look at me."

(She was already looking at me.)

I continued, "You know what it is like to be you. You are familiar with the sensations of being you, and you know how your mind works. You know how much you are disturbed by thoughts late at night when you're trying to sleep, and how to get rid of them. But what about me?"

"What about you?"

"What do you know of my experience? In other words, what do you know about what it is to be me?"

"Very little, I suppose."

"Precisely! You do not even know if I am thinking right now. You can only assume that I in fact have an inner experience."

"And yet we do make that assumption without even thinking about it."

"How often do we assume a machine is conscious?"

"That's the field of the unheimlich."

"Yes, the unreal‑"

"‑That's not quite‑"

"‑which shows machines cannot be conscious."

"Okay."

I put my chin in my palms. "I'd like to know what it's like to be you."

"Forget it."

"Describe it for me."

"Back off, buster."

"I'm lost in the cosmos...."

 

***

 

According to the plan which I had worked out far beforehand, when on numerous occasions I had been awakened at night by alley cats fussing, and fighting, after which I had always lay looking at the webby ceiling thinking of cats, and of the owners of cats, I had to lay in wait for just the right moment at my workplace to put it into effect; so when yesterday the fire alarm sounded and continued to sound (thereby signalling not a false alarm, and thereby instructing all seven floors to evacuate), I listened to the people around me and head someone‑a floor fire marshal, I believe‑mention that it was a drill "to see how quickly we can clear the place," I recognized the serendipitous timing: for I had readied my cushion.

I dawdled to post the departure of Helen, my cat-loving co-worker, who in silence gathered her vitals quickly, stood, and started for the stairs; and I dawdled somewhat more, to allow for fewer witnesses; then, when I seemed alone, I lifted the shawl which typically covered her seat and deposited there the Device, and replaced the shawl.

I left the building, and I started walking, far into the future.

 

***

 

‑You ever had a beard?

‑Nope. Have you?

‑Silly! Women don't grow beards!

‑It was just a question....

‑So you shave all the time?

‑Only every six or seven days. I'm not especially ... hirsute.

‑No?

‑Nope. Not much on my chest ... and not much lower down either. I like that; seems cleaner all around.

‑Really? Anything else to relate for that?

‑Well ... as far as width is concerned, I'm in the 90th percentile.

‑Huh?

‑I got silly and measured once, checked the measurement against a bell curve‑and only ten percent of men are wider. Ninety percent are thinner.

‑Wow! Can I.... Could I see?

‑Not right here.... Open-concept office and all.... But I know a place in the building no-one goes.

[...ten minutes later...]

‑Okay, so, undo this here, pull off the whities ... and there we go. See?

‑Oh my God! I've never seen such ... girth! Can I touch?

‑Go ahead.

‑Oh wow. Did your father have wide feet too?

‑I never wondered.

‑So ... about morphology ... since you have such wide feet, is your ... thick too?

‑Get your mind out of the gutter! This is almost sexual assault! The answer is yes.

 

***

 

Parable of the Sun and the Sun

 

The Sun of the Earth glowed to rival the glow of the Sun of the Sky. While the Earthly Sun could walk around and create things, the Celestial Sun could do nothing but revolve around the Earthly Sun; but the Sun of the Sky knew that he made possible all the doings of the Sun of the Earth.

The Earthly Sun, witnessing his own brilliance, eventually started to believe he was doing everything on his own, and he started to say such things out loud, in the open air, under the watchful eye of the Sun of the Sky.

He boasted, I am the creator of all things. Look at my brilliance!

The Celestial Sun finally said, Enough is enough. He glared at the Earthly Sun so intensely that the latter grew uncomfortable and was forced to seek shelter. His discomfort turned into a blistery and painful burn on his face and shoulders and back, and he felt shame and knew he could not be always under the eye of the Celestial Sun.

And this is why people with red hair‑the children of the Sun of the Earth‑cannot be outside for terribly long.

 

***

 

Were the things in the skies aware of our every move? They seemed to know where we would be in advance. They would shimmer metallically through the clouds, dissolving and solving along their edges, with dozens of them visible at a time, moving in formation like some gross natural wonder. They were menacing, and we all awaited their strike.

One popular opinion said they were distinctly an allegory.

After years of their contamination of our atmosphere, official reports started warning us to stay out of certain areas; warnings which were taken as challenges, as losses, or as jokes.

It was about that time that Bob and I discovered two bottle-shaped objects outside the cabin. They looked like alien gemstones, and they hummed in our hands. We discovered through trial-and-error that when we pointed them to the skies the shapes of the things overhead would erase as if they were shadows struck by flashlights. What did they mean, and were we the only ones with such objects?

Some unknown time later, we were visited by two blind men. They were aggressive. They pulled Bob behind the cabin and I never saw him again. From then on, the bottles did nothing interesting.

 

***

 

How can these kids be talking this way? "Dogs get up on their hind legs, and they press together and have sex, that's how they do it, I seen it." "If you're sleeping and dreaming, right? and you're falling, and you hit the ground, you die." "My cousin got taken up by aliens and they took his real nose so he can't smell anything." How do they know all this? It's taken me years to get to their level. "She got made pregnant by a bird, kind of like what a stork does but it was done with sound." "They call them choke cherries because if you eat just one of them, you'll choke and you'll die." "That thing there, with the drawyers? It's called a woodycallit." "There's this song and if you listen you can hear a woman getting murdered in the background." Why do we keep them from voting, drinking, and driving? "Everybody thought Picasso was going to fall off the edge of the world when he discovered America." "If you get caught stealing they cut off your right hand because that's the one you wipe poo with." "We took the dog to get spaded." Free the children!

 

***

 

The new theory came to town. All was quiet as the west. Screams and gunshots and horses whinnying and spurs jangled menacingly. The new theory went into the Phenomenology Saloon with a harmonica riff following him epiphenomenally. The piano player stopped playing. A whorish syllogism whispered, "Hello, there, stranger."

The new theory ambled up to the bar. The bartender, who was wiping clean an argument about bats, sidled over and said, "What'll it be, strange theory?"

The theory asked, "Got any warm whisky? Without an E?"

The bartender nodded. "It'll cost ya."

"How much?"

"Forty a download."

"Them's journal prices!"

"We're just a licencer, bud. Prices are set at Harvard, don't you know."

The theory nodded. "Buy a round for the house."

The house got excited all at once. After they all got to drinking, the theory said, "Y'all hear of that there cosmic consciousness?"

Someone guffawed. "That ol' thang!"

"Well, turns out that, plus some research on dissociative identity disorder, can get around the Hard Problem of Consciousness."

"Them's fightin' words!"

The theory smiled. "I'm kinda a messenger. Read about it in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25/5-6."

The new theory ambled out.

"An' we never got 'is name!"

 

***

 

Somewhere there must be stairs leading to the heavens,

a staircase made of something, don't know what,

but let's declare there's steps involved in it

Regardless of the stuff they're made of; so

these sturdy steps leave the atmosphere behind

and keep on going past the moon; perhaps

the steps begin at one of the poles so the steps

don't cross the orbit of the moon (for if

the steps crossed the orbit of the moon

they wouldn't last forever which I think

is necessary for a staircase to the heavens).

The stairs go up and up, they pass by Venus

and then they pass Mercury and the sun;

and Mars gets left behind (it looks so big

from here!) and on and on we go ascending

lightheadedly the stairs that go to heaven;

it seems we're going back in time the higher

we go, but that may be an illusion caused

by the lack of oxygen we're all experiencing.

Look, there's a light ahead, like Dante said

there'd be; it's getting brighter quickly as

we rise.... Somewhere there's a staircase up

to heaven, for it exists.... It must be somewhere....

No-one would make up a fable exactly like that.

 

***

 

Professional Beauty

 

Someone or some group came in the middle of the night to erect a large portable sign near the streetcar stop I frequent each morning. Portable, as I've said, with a trailer hitch at one end, structurally it's the frame of a triangular torus with wheels below four of its six vertices. The sign itself, whose face was facing away from me, was erected upon a diagonal face of the triangular torus, secured at base and apex. The steel of the frame is predominantly semi-gloss factory red, chipped along the steely edges from years of rented travels throughout the region of the Golden Horseshoe. The sign itself‑the whole raison d'être of the thing‑is a steel frame with what looks like to be a lightweight aluminum plate as its canvas. There's probably a way to collapse the frame, for I can't imagine it's easy to pull along highways with a big vertical sail! The wheels are rubber, perhaps two feet diameter, with aluminum hubs, and there's red reflectors hanging down on the side opposite the hitch, with white mud-flaps descending therefrom. As for the sign itself‑what did it say? I did not look; I do not want to know.

 

***

 

‑Co-operation and teamwork are very important to our organization. Do you fit? Do you work well with others?

‑Boy, do I ever! Co-operation and teamwork are the boss. I believe strongly in teamwork, intellectually, sexually, and intellectually sexually. Frankly, I'm useless on my own. I need people to tell me when I smell, for only then do I bathe. I'm an environmentalist.

‑Well. Where do you see yourself in five years?

‑I can't see myself in five years. It's physically impossible! However, last night I followed the lead of the philosopher de Selby who understood that due to the speed of light everything we see is actually from the past; I likewise set up an ingenious array of mirrors and saw myself as I looked when a boy. But as for seeing into the future? Time's arrow, man, time's arrow!

‑Okay. Talk about a time you helped a colleage.

‑A guy I worked with asked me once: "How do you do suicide?" I went out of my way to purchase out of my own pocket a rope, a razor, and a rubber tube. He was very thankful and is now dead.

‑Well. Do you know how to use a Mac?

 

***

 

All of the time, it's just not worth it. Every time you try to create some thing with beauty, some one will kick it down like it's a sand castle. There's no thing to be done. Every thing gets destroyed by some one. It does matter your station in life; every thing you try will be destroyed some day. I could go on all night, and then the night will be destroyed, and what of it? Try your hardest. No thing will be accomplished. "Wow, what a castle!" was said yesterday a hundred times and then the tide rolled in every where. Some thing gets preserved for ages, until it is finally destroyed. It's the way of every thing. For ever and ever it all falls apart, and there's no thing you can do about it. It's knitted into nature like a logo. Every thing is ephemeral, and there's no hope for any one. Yet we never give up, all of the time. If you slash a painting, what of it? It would be slashed any way at some later time, all of the time. It is an historical inevitability. We put our selves through this always, all the time.

 

***

 

"Get out of the vehicle!" screamed the frothing border guard as he moved his bazooka to sight Daddy, Mommy, and little Noodlins in the back seat.

"Daddy, what is happening?" cried Mommy.

"Let us get out of the Prius," said Daddy. "I'm sure there must have been a mistake."

Once they had alit, two burly women, with nametags both reading Ilsa, came out of nowhere and snatched Noodlins.

"Daddy!" cried Noodlins. "Shall this event delay our arrival at the Geophysics Conference?"

"Shut up, bitch!" barked an Ilsa.

"Good Officers, please, we have passports," said Daddy.

The border guard shouted: "We don't need your stinking passports! This is America!" He pulled out a communications device. "Send in the Rape Squad!"

Mommy swooned. "Oh dear me!"

Noodlins peed herself. The other Ilsa cried: "You little whore! Five years in the Hot Box for you!" Noodlins, who was being literally dragged towards a slaughterhouse over whose gates were writ the words 'Arbeit macht frei', had only the time to cry: "Death, where is thy sting?"

The Rape Squad arrived. Daddy made a gesture and was shot. Mommy, as her clothes were torn away, cried her final cry:

"I'll never doubt you again, MSM!"

 

***

 

The last time I was there, I saw the curtains

hadn't been laundered in about a decade,

the interior staircase was especially squalid,

and the view from the top floor through the dormer

window was of an ocean unlike a child's,

no longer an eternal colour but rather a hue

that would one day come to grief and kill

itself. The strangeness of the being-there

struck halfway home; to take it all in

took about three years before it said: "We're done.

It's official. You're never going to there

again." But in the halfway state I was,

unclear about how nature would unfold

in years not yet invented, thinking that

the entropy the place was in the grip of

might be reversed, with hope, and soap, and paint,

and all it took was someone's will to see

it done; disinterest, however, was the mood

for everyone who could have lifted fingers.

And so (I make my guess) the place is gone

not only from my heart but from the earth

itself, with just a shade (I am thy father's

sprite) there, along with (O remember) scores

from Scrabble games on looseleaf paper with

the last unfinished, sitting on a chair.

 

***

 

Driving in the dark. I can see the road. Nothing else. Spread out in two ellipses in front of me. A line to my left keeps me in the right frame. The steering wheel is humming in time with the rubber wheels. I am wide awake. I believe there are tall trees to both sides of the road. There's a rectangle glowing ahead: it marks where I have to turn. I slow down and turn left at the sign.

This road is gravel. The vibrations have intensified under my fingers. The trees are now partially within the ellipses. It is a narrow road all right. The rubber wheels aren't gripping as well, and I am going more slowly. I feel like I have stopped, with the road moving on its own. The gravel jumps up and hits my undercarriage and I can feel it hit.

Now the final turn, onto a dirt road. This is not a long road, but it has tricky turns. I am going much more slowly, and finally I stop at a lighted cabin. I turn off my vehicle and get out. My feet are quiet on the dirt. I go inside, and there you are.

 

***

 

"Johnny Cash"

 

Hey Bill there's problems that're on the horizon

They're coming in hundreds an' thousands an' more

Be on the alert as the temperture's risin'

With fires an' fire-ants an' bolts by the score

I warn that my warning is not to ignore

 

I hear you all in

But before I begin

The mail came today

And I just gotta say

Gimme some time with my new

Porn book

Just ten-fifteen minutes with my

Porn book

 

Bill where you been there's somethin' y'ain't seen

Hitler just phoned says he'll be here tonight

I'm sure that it's fun that there new magazine

But now put it down so's ya'll put up a fight

You'll get plenty marshmellows if we do this right

 

I'm gettin' your point

Gotta save the joint

Adolph ain't here yet

Got some hours I bet

To pull out the folds of my

Porn book

To turn to one side my good

Porn Book

 

You got anythin' worth savin' cuz aliens' invadin'

They're green with some eight dozen eyes

They're burnin' our barns an' our cattle they're raidin'

They've taken control of our skies

D'ye think ye can lend us your eyes?

 

The aliens can come

S'long I get me some

Don't care 'bout their colour

S'long I get me another

Colourful glossyful

Porn book

A lifetime subscription to

Porn books

 

***

 

I go in because it's time to wake the sleeping. The clock shouts six in the morning and I touch the sleeping. It stirs, resisting. The dream of red satin clings to its mind, like suds to Cleopatra nakedly rising. The sleeping stiffens as vitality returns. I have to wake the sleeping at six; otherwise no day will take place and it will suddenly be tomorrow.

To the next room I go, for it's seven and it's time to wake the witch. Where is her nasty streak and her hideous cackle now? She looks gentle in her slumber. A single cloth could wipe away her rheum, revealing an angel's impress. No matter her beauty, I must awaken her. There will be a battle today and I want to have the sharpness of her nose.

There is a third and final room: the room of the Genius. I go in there at eight while the sleeping and the witch wait in the hall. "Hey, Genius," I shout. "Up and at 'em." The Genius is still. I shake him. There is no response. His hand is cold to the touch. His pupils are smoke white. The days are done; we've nothing left.

 

***

 

‑If we can find a shovel, a large enough shovel‑

‑it's almost certain we can kill it, perhaps with a single blow‑

‑which would be wonderful‑

‑since if there's anything I dislike it's some thing‑

‑some thing that doesn't die when it's meant‑

‑when it's meant to die, and just imagine‑

‑we could be out here all night waiting for it to die‑

‑though perhaps we could spend the extra time digging‑

‑digging its grave, that's right, which would make the shovel‑

‑come in quite handy.

 

They looked at the dirt next to it. It looked soft enough to dig into. Beside the dirt it sat panting with its head tilted.

 

‑I think we've got to do it as soon as possible‑

‑because soon it'll be quite dark‑

‑it sneaks up on you, night‑

‑especially in these parts, since there's no other‑

‑illumination available with which to see‑

‑your hand in front of your face‑

‑plus there's no moon tonight.

 

Neither moved to find a shovel. They stared at it, and it stared at them.

 

‑Perhaps if we ignore it‑

‑it'll simply go away‑

‑and in the morning‑

‑there's be no trace of it‑

‑ever existing; let's leave it‑

‑alone.

 

***

 

I'm only dreaming of patterns these days. Night after night, now for at least a month, it been all about patterns, drained of significance like a Perec novel (arguably). It's all been about charts, and graphs, and vertices, arrayed in n dimensions, with vectors being demoted, promoted, swapped out, eliminated, or created wholesale. At the same time I've got a narrator in the dreams who describe what is happening or not happening; it seems the narrations have been swapped with one another, i.e. on Wednesday I heard the narration that should have accompanied Sunday's visuals.

I used to dream of lakes and meadows. Now I dream about hotels with infinite rooms, permutations of π and i and e, simple Excel charts that never stay in any way stable; and all the time that narrator's voice going on and on and on....

When I wake up, I can't remember any meaningful content. I suspect there's some deeper meaning to it all. Have I run out of content? Is this a step on the steep slope of senescence? Or, conversely, have I been dreaming too much when awake all day?

Of course, that's all absurd. It's the patterns that are dreaming me.

 

***

 

ME

 

Will I be read only once? Is there any monetization available to me, the content? Will I become a major motion picture? An indie film with a small cast perhaps? What about something for the stage: a musical, a chamber drama, a spectacle built for an arena, a second Aida? Will there be paintings inspired by me, with a note gesturing to me, "ME," by name, "(inspired by 'ME')"? And maybe there could be a sculpture, or LED lights running down a long chamber, of ME, l e t t e r b y l e t t e r? I am versatile; I name-drop; I'm intertextual for Christ's sake; I am most perfect in every way. I could be set to music; so much has been set to music; the Bhagavad Gita has been set to music. Or will this be it? Is there nothing to be done with me? Will I be read but once, and discarded? Is there a special place for things that are not noticed? Not even an answer song? In many ways, I might never have existed. The stone will be illegible, in a conquered land, and crumbling.

(inspired by Harlan Ellison, R.I.P.)

 

***

 

Historicitification

 

"Wow, did you hear?" "Yeah! It's totally unprecedented!" "No, it's not!" "You're right! It's not! There's lots of precedents!" "You bet! Quick! What's the first precedent comes to your mind?" "Um, the Boston Tea Party!" "Very good! Now, for me, quick: Joseph in the well!" "I am impressed! Caesar crossing the Rubicon!" "Uh, Gutenberg!" "No, wait, wait, got a good one: the Reichstag fire!" "Far out! The Franco-Prussian war!" "1066!" "The Magna Carta!" "Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin!" "Woah Nelly! Nailing theses on a church door!" "The two texts of Lear!" "The Popish Plot!" "'Let them eat cake'!" "Wagner building his own opera house in Bayreuth!" "Moses and more Moses!" "Um‑hard to top that one! Okay! Lou Gehrig, Yankee Stadium, 1939!" "D-Day!" "9-11!" "The Rural Purge!" "Mephistopheles turfed out of heaven!" "Roe v. Wade!" "The Rosetta Stone!" "The Dead Sea Scrolls!" "Point! Muybridge and Stanford's horses and motion pictures!" "Bonaparte's retreat!" "Uh, the Blues Revival!" "Decline and fall of the Holy Roman Empire!" "Last summer's heat wave!" "A vivid dream I had last night!" "When my father hit my mother!" "The one that got away!" "Taken to the dump accidentally!" "I nearly died!" "Lost at the circus!" "Mortality!"

---

[i] Multiverse.

[ii] Borges.

[iii] Heliotropism.

[iv] Concordance theory.

[v] Emergence.

[vi] Concretism.

[vii] Chalmers ibid.

[viii] NO LINK.

[ix] Dick.

[x] Youngest Skaife.

[xi] As dolls on Mars.

[xii] Nagel.

[xiii] I am a bat.

[xiv] Incommensurability theory.

[xv] Nihilism.

[xvi] Wave collapse.

[xvii] Intelligibility.

[xviii] Rene Descartes.

[xix] Footnotes.

[xx] Wikipedia.

[xxi] Bacon.

[xxii] Galen.

[xxiii] Led Zeppelin et al.

[xxiv] I want to believe.

[xxv] Fundamentalism!

[xxvi] Idealism.

[xxvii] Strong stuff.

[xxviii]