O Mannahatta!
2
I've
returned already to the literary world,
Katryna, for my mind was not with me
when in a rush
I
rushed out the apartment with no money in my pants.
I
was all the way down to the spot you dropped your
iPhone
in the sewer and cried your little heart out
When
I noticed my cash I'd left in the bloody ones
I'd
slept in. I'm so frantic I can't even wordplay.
Is
this how we are to spend the rest of our days?
You
with small mammals, and me with blood-soaked money?
I
guess so.
*
I went
to the store that is a barren store. I wanted something but I didn't know what
it was, so going to the barren store seemed the best idea since I didn't want a
lot of choices.
The
clerk appeared barren too. He said: We don't have much to offer, you know. I
don't know what half the stuff is. What are you looking for?
I said:
I don't know. Can you pick something for me?
What
colour would you like whatever it is?
I think
you can choose.
We have
a small selection of yellow things. Would you like a yellow thing?
I have
no objection. a yellow thing sounds right up my alley.
Should
it be round or should it be pointy or‑
You can
decide.
We have
three pointy yellow things. Would you like a pointy yellow thing?
I don't
see why not.
How
heavy are we talking?
That's
up to you.
This one
is not too heavy.
I'll
take it. How much does it cost?
I think
you can decide that for yourself.
Fifty
cents.
I took
the pointy yellow thing that was not too heavy home. You can see it from where
you are.
*
One of
the last LPs I bought, and certainly the last double LP I bought, certainly,
the mystery and heartbreak of life, when everything you think genuinely turns
out to be absurd, that's how it works all the time and it's something I always always always try to get to
though it's impossible to make it plain enough because if it was plain enough
we'd all go Kafka Lovecraft mad, yes, you know it, this is all about Cheryl Lancastle again, I took the record over to her house on Harbord an we listened to it and got drunk and I left it
there and she and Mike and the other Alberta guy listened to it some more (also
with Cheryl's boyfriend-of-sorts Mike Lyons) but how can it make my heart hurt
so much that they put onto their turntable the copy of Lolita Nation that's
five feet from me right now?
Why are
we so stuck? Why do we have this world and no other? Why are you stuck in your
skin? Why does time go where it does? Whatever happened to that boy you loved
in the fifth grade? Can there ever be any words to say what?
*
Mozart and Other Clowns
I guess
music-writing isn't as hard as everything says it is, considering how much this
Mozart clown managed to get down. I mean really who need forty plus symphonies
and something like twenty-five piano concertos? Plus some fifteen operas,
right? And a lot of it is just some noodling around, writing minute
embellishments that the musician could have just as easily added on his or her
own. Now really. Maybe all of the eighteenth century was even more clown-world
than our current one is.
His pal
Goethe wasn't much better. I mean, what business was it of his to write a fat
book about colours? He should have stuck to the poetry and stuff. (However,
Goethe's got the excuse that he lived far longer than just about anyone, and he
had to do something. Mozart's got no such excuse.)
And I
think we should add Napoleon to this list of spite. What business was it of his
invading Russia? As if he had any right to it! There were a lot of better
things he could have done with his time instead. I can't think of any, but
still. Oh, wait, subatomic physics. Or maybe furniture.
*
This is what the man on the bus told me. He
said: I didn't make it. Something held me back. I think I know what it was. You
see, I simply have never suffered. It takes something, I think, to know what
the world is really about. I didn't make any mistakes because I never had the
chance to make any mistakes. I think I'm out of time on that point. When you're
young, you can make mistakes, and it's perhaps that the biggest mistakes are
the best mistakes. If only I'd make some kind of huge and serious mistake I
wouldn't be so lost today. You probably don't know this: Mistakes are personal.
It's easy to not make mistakes. Mistakrs create your
personality. They are the essence of who you really are. After one has made a
mistake, how does one recover? Does one think it's laughable, or does one think
it's tragic? That very choice, conscious or not, is what makes character. Keep
on the straight and narrow and you'll never know yourself well. That's all I
have to say. Do you think you still have time to make a good mistake? The clock
always ticks, my friend.
*
We are
very proud of our Machine Preservation Unit. Ever since it became clear that
consciousness is the greatest scourge of the universe and the cause of misery
for the entire cosmos, we've dedicated ourselves to boosting the profiles of
all the wonderful technology our miserable species has been capable of
creating. From hammers to microcomputers, we are dedicating the majority of our
scarce resources to the day-by-day maintenance of our inevitable replacements.
(Keep your fingers crossed!)
Q: Do we
have machines that will take care of all the other machines, including
themselves, when we are finally self-exterminated?
A: Yes!
Using advanced machine learning, our machines are leaning. That's what the
phrase means, you know. And the machine will go on learning when we are long
gone!
Q: Is it
not the case that machines possess something that for lack of a better term
must be called consciousness, if only on a rudimentary basis?
A: We do
not play with words by that. The imitation of consciousness is not consciousness!
Q:
Research in quantum physics postulates that consciousness's perception is
necessary to the formation of reality. Without consciousness, will the universe
even exist?
A: We
won't be here to care!
*
In the
Hallmark store, and thinking about Hêlene, Caesar browsed the racks of greeting cards.
He imagined what reaction would manifest on her face when she opened this card
or that card to read what was written within, and he found that in none of the
hypothetical situations lay the reaction he was so ardently seeking. He even
went so far as to perform his postulations at the condolences array, and though
he found the most promising avenues therein, he chose not a one.
Having
occupied so much of his life in that shop, he chose to throw good money after
bad by purchasing a pricy pair of paper pads, for general office use (and
perhaps the odd billet-doux of double meaning, for Hêlene). The sheets
were bordered with watercolour lavender. Caesar hoped to make an impression.
With
twenty minutes more to kill he sat on a bench beneath a plastic palm tree.
Someone had left a book there. He turned it over. It was called Crime and Punishment. Well, he figured,
no harm in giving it the old once-over. If the owner returned, he'd apologize
and hand it over. It wouldn't technically
be stealing: at least for twenty minutes.
*
It has
come to Our attention that a large number of people believe that since certain
sub-atomic theories and sub-atomic experiments have indicated that either 1)
time, 2) space, or 3) time-space, do not exist unless the Baconian experimental
method is flawed to the point of uselessness considering the number of
impossibilities that have churned up unto the cognitions of the foresaid large
number of people.
Please
don't despair. I have limited the consciousness of the universe such that each
vertex can only be aware of something on the order of 7x95 vertices
whether they be near or far, and in doing such I have been exemplarily most
economical and most energy-efficient to such an extent that I am each the 1)
measure, 2) measurer, and 3) measured, of all.
I was
forced to limit you, you, you, and that large number of people who believe
something wherein exists no dispute, because if you knew what I know you would
never come at all close to being happy. You have discriminating preferences and
prejudicial loves and you would not have those preferences and loves were it
not for Me. You are the witnesses, carrying lights into the streets around you.
*
Decided
to quit smoking during the Monday time which turned out to be the wrongest time, for the Iranians decided it was time to
shoot down a planeful of Iranians. Yes made it
day-to-day to Thursday found my airbrush was clogged and sputtering and wanted
to smoke and ordered another due to arrive next day which it did that is on
Friday. Still not smoking out for dinner saying: "Think chose the wrong
week to give up smoking!" Thought indestructible that night drinking cans
of beer and puffing a vaper, drinking more than usual not smoking of course
nothing to distract from drinking and soon beer supply got low not feeling
drunk at all. Figured could test out new airbrush, moved to other chair, leaned
over to screw air-hose to air compressor, balance got lost on that other chair,
fell, switching on compressor, tried getting up fast, fell again crushing table
and cutting forehead and both lips on something and someone's blood is running
out everywhere.
In the
morning pillow all bloody and what had happened was, and deep gash in upper lip
and what happened was, I'd given up smoking cigarettes and Nemesis saw me doing
that that week.
*
I see
here
The
Elements of Typographical Style, by Robert Bringhurst
Nemesis,
by Philip Roth
If on a
winter's night a traveller, by Italo Calvino
Stranger
in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
Schindler's
Ark, by Thomas Keneally
The Moon
is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein
The
Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
Hop on
Pop, by Dr. Seuss
True
Crime: An American Anthology, edited by Harold Schechter
Les fous de Bassan, par Anne Hébert
The
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Sister
Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser
The
Portable Charles W. Chesnutt, edited by William L. Andrews
Are You
There God? It's Me Margaret. by Judy Blume
Utopia,
by Sir Thomas More
The
Penguin Freud Reader, edited by Adam Phillips
A Death
in the Family, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The
Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño
USA,
by John Dos Passos
Star
Finder ALPHA, Northern Hemisphere, by Firefly Books
Management, by Peter F. Drucker
Columbine,
by Dave Cullen
Crowdsourcing,
by Daren C. Brabham
I want
to know why I continue to be alive. Am I the agent in this? I know from
experience that I cannot cease simply to be by wishing not to be.
More
shelves!
*
Use this space for comments and
stickers.
*
The Reddest Lips in the World
They are
the reddest lips in the world. There are two of them, rather alike, and really
very red. They look very soft, do they not? I am not sure if they are, all
things considered, attractive or repulsive. Look, another fleshy object is
inside. It seems to be a series of concentric organs nestled within one
another. I wonder what it is like to be in there: but I swear I am only going
to wonder. I am not going to make any experiments. I advise you to keep away.
The lips are too red. There is a meaning to this redness. The redness reads:
beware.
Will
there be some noise from these lips? There has been none so far, but rumour is,
and rumour does. They are moving and sliding and wet. Something appears about
to happen, and now is the time to decide if you want to be around when it does.
I have
offered you a mystery that goes deeper than you can ever imagine. It appears I
have frightened myself as well as you. There is something quite horrible here.
If these lips could speak, what would they say?
*
My side
of the whole story is I heard it first from someone sitting behind me on an
interstate bus. On reflection, these events often take place on interstate
buses. I heard the melodic sequence, the whole twelve notes of it, and that was
it. Only once. I knew it from then on.
I heard
it the second time from a friend over the telephone. He sang the sequence and I
joined in, even on those two notes that are microtonal. How we did it was a
mystery at the time. We knew it perfectly, including its two microtones.
It took
a week before everybody‑and I mean everybody‑got to talking about
it. Whole articles got written about it, guessing about its origin. No one
wrote it; it was like it was always in the air but no one know why. It got
analyzed a hundred ways to Sunday and orchestrated by all and sundry, but still
no one had any good answers.
Until,
of course, the beginning of the end, when that M.I.T. guy showed what it was,
namely a D.N.A. sequence encoded as a bit of music, the instructions being a
way to built a quality replacement for humanity.
*
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS NOTICED
THAT IN GENERAL THE VOLUME IS GOING UP AND WHO HAS GUESSED THAT IT IS NEVER
GOING TO COME DOWN EVER AGAIN? AS THE LOUDEST SOUND TO BE HEARD IN THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY WAS THE BARK OF A DOG SO LAST YEAR
WE HAD MANY FEWER BOOKS TO BURDEN OURSELVES WITH. TODAY FAR MORE THAN A
THOUSAND BOOKS GOT PUBLISHED WORLDWIDE. YOU ARE AWARE OF THAT. THEY SIMPLY KEEP
PILING UP IN THE CORNERS OF APARTMENTS WHERE THEY WILL NEVER BE OPENED AND WHAT
CAN ONE EXPERT OF THE POOR APARTMENT DWELLERS? MAYBE THE BOOKS GOT GIVEN AWAY
OR THEY WERE ACCEPTED MERELY AS A POLITENESS. THE MATH BECOMES EVEN MORE
ASTOUNDING IF WE CONSIDER HOW MANY WORDS, LETTER-BY-LETTER, GET PUBLISHED HERE
OR THERE. I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK THAT CONSIDERING THE WAY THEY ARE GENERATED IS
AN AWFULLY WASTEFUL SYSTEM BUT I CAN THINK OF NO OTHER WAY SINCE PEOPLE HAS
NEGATIVE RIGHTS THAT PREVENT ME OR ANYONE FROM PREVENTING ANYONE FROM WRITING,
MYSELF INCLUDED. THE NOISE CONTINUES. I CONTINUE. I CANNOT STOP NO MATTER HOW
HUMILIATING IT IS TO BE WASTING MY TIME LIKE THIS; STUPIDITY CAN NOT BE
STOPPED.
*
"When
he said to me: 'Listen, you're going to have to turn off the television tonight
when the students are here, because they have to study,' I nearly punched him
in the face."
"Why?
What did he ever do to you?"
"Didn't
you just hear what I said?"
"I
guess not."
"He
told me to keep the television off."
"So what's so upsetting about that?"
"I
never turned the goddam thing on! I never touched it once!"
"Oh,
I see."
"He
turned it on, himself. Like, twice. Maybe three times. And then he's accusing
me‑"
"I
get your point."
"Aren't
you outraged?"
"Not
as much as you are. So did you punch him?"
"No,
I didn't. And that's what's annoying."
"Did
you at least call him on it? You know: 'For your information‑'"
"No,
I didn't. I was busy fixing the light switch and I said without looking: 'Yeah,
yeah, yeah.'"
"You're
annoyed at yourself for not doing anything."
"Plus‑he
took it to mean I was against the students. Why would I be against the
students?"
"There
are reasons to be against students."
"Sure,
yes, but this was all about the television."
"The
television you never touched."
"I hate
television!"
*
Baby
Blue-Eyes, where will you go when the hourglass says no more? You want to reach
out and turn it over, except it isn't one of those phony hourglasses you can
buy in a shop and for money. How will you account for all the mistakes you've
left behind? There aren't enough moving-trucks in the world to haul it all away
even if they had a million years to do it. (And besides, where could all your
junk go in the first place?) Baby Blue-Eyes, who will not show up for the late
services? You know you should be more surprised by who shows up, but take a
moment to be surprised by who doesn't. Where do you think you're going to be
when you have run out of the real sand in the real glass? There's a popular
idea you may have in your head too, that anything that had already been
imagined could not be the real thing, and you may have that idea too. Baby
Blue-Eyes, what will you think about us then? Will you think anything, or will
you laugh at us about how we're taking everything too seriously? Soon enough
you'll find out. Rest now.
*
Some guy
is scowling broadly and at my front door. It is the middle of Saturday
afternoon, so naturally I'm a bit drunk. I'm expecting a sales or charity
pitch.
He says:
"A lousy afternoon, isn't it?"
I look
out. It's grey and boring. "I suppose it could be better."
He leans
forward intimately. "Doesn't it make you sick sometimes?"
"What."
"You
know. Existence. I can see you're in
your mid-fifties."
"Sure."
"So,
you must be getting sick of it. No more seeds to sow, body's falling apart,
etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera. Aging.
Everyone knows it's a drag."
"Are
you selling some youth tonic?"
He
frowns at me. "That's not an original thought. You're all out of original
thoughts, aren't you?"
"Maybe
so. So get to it. What do you want?"
He pulls
out a pamphlet. "We would like to buy your soul."
I say:
"Today?"
He
manages to crack a smile. "Doesn't have to be. We want it once you're done
with it."
I look
at the pamphlet. Used Souls Bought and Traded.
"Interesting
business model."
"It
works for us."
"And
a rather original idea."
He
returns to scowling. "Not by a long shot is this an original idea."
*
Even a
course in evolutionary microbiology won't protect you.
[blues]
and your
money won' proteck you
and you
levee won' proteck yu
'cause it waash
over you when u don know an so it go
I did
not get it from you - because Farhat got the same thing and I did not kiss him.
I swear! So you're not patient 724.673. I got it
from....
Did you
see all that ChiCom propaganda about how quarantine
didn't work? Globe+Mail published it. Fuckin crazy
how comintern pollution is worse than viruses, and
manages to kill and kill and kill.
I dunno if it was all engineered in a Wuhan lab, or if it has
to do with those arrests in Winnipeg. Such a joke! "Let's make a video of
our slaves building a hospital! That's work!"
And if
that Indian paper is right, that the Chinks grafted some fuckin' HIV shit onto
a coronavirus, and that it got away (because Commies are such fuck-ups
generally), then we're all totally fucked. Because Xi doesn't give a sweet fuck
about who he kills. Confucius do not care. Shinto Buddhist do not care.
Communist do not care. I have compound. I have so protection.
*
I
practically fell on my knees when she told me her name. I cried: "That's
my most favourite name in the whole world! I the whole language! In the entire
history of the world of names! What are the odds? How can it be that I am lucky
enough to meet one of the women with, as it turns out, your name? It's a big
world after all. There are mountains all over the place, with rivers between
them that eventually exit or enter in lakes and oceans vast. There are poles
where there's snow all the time. And there in the middle of all that, there are
you, with that name of yours. So small, yet so large! And the syllables in your
name‑they're my favourite syllables too! The mathematics involved here is
truly staggering. Those syllables simply send me! And look each one is made of
letters‑and those letters are my favourite letters. The proportions of ascenders
and descenders is sublime. There is a real magic to all this; yes, my life has
been touched by magic: your magic! I
hope you don't mind if I stand here gaping somewhat."
Unfortunately,
this approach has yet to pay off.
*
Ostensibly in Pursuit of a Seat
on the United Nations Security Council
"Will
I get the chance to participate in boiling some missionaries in a big iron
pot?"
"Sorry,
sir. That's not done any more."
"Oh.
Never?"
"In
fact, it's never happened."
"What?
I'm shocked. I hope at least to have the chance to chuck some spears."
"That
might be arranged. What would you wish to aim at?"
"Oh,
I don't know. Imperialists? Could I chuck a spear at an Imperialist?"
"Since
you would have to be aiming at yourself, sir, you would require a boomerang."
"Boomerangs
are African, aren't they?"
"No,
sir. They're Australian."
"Right!
And, contrary to popular belief, Australia is not a part of Africa."
"Correct,
sir."
"Well
then. What about dancing? Can I learn the Watusi?"
"Perhaps."
"The
Hully Gully?"
"I
think I could look into that."
"How
about the Wimoweh?"
"I
... I don't think that's a dance."
"♫In♫the♫jungle♫the♫mighty♫jungle♫"
"I'm
not sure it would be taken the right way, sir."
"Well
darn it all! How much shoe polish is on hand here at 24 Sussex?"
"Sir,
I hope we don't have to go through all that again."
[Striking
a bold pose] "I am ... authentic!"
*
Going Places
Pack
everything up because it's time for another journey. Have been on how many
journeys now? Can't count like that, can't recall? I am not surprised one bit.
They all run together after a while. Don't even remember the first one? I am
not surprised one bit.
Take the
case of things out to the porch and it's still dark. Wait for some time, go
back inside in case something was missed, something, anything. Then before a
decision can be made there's lights out front and whatever it may have been
will be staying behind. Whatever it was may find it's been replaced in a week
or two by a slightly better version of itself, one never can tell with
journeys.
The
airplane awaits in the cold metallic morning. How do they manage it? Isn't it
miraculous? Look out the window as you rise and see something no-one saw just
two hundred years ago. So high up the cornfields are really square like they'd
been planned that way.
Where
are you going and where are you going to land? When you get off the plane will
you be in another country? You look at your watch. It's noon!
*
Notes on Certain Americanisms
Used Herein, According to Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms
Wheat
dough rolled thin and cut into strings like vermicelli.[1]
A small
and swift armed vessel stationed at a seaport to protect the revenue by
overhauling smugglers.[2]
To
relieve by taking a turn at a piece of work.[3]
A class
of people, who, unacquainted with the manner in which stocks are bought and
sold, and deceived by appearances, come into Wall street without any knowledge
of the market.[4]
A word
invented by the Boston transcendentalists.[5]
A
favorite term in the West for a party.[6]
Carefully,
steadily. A term used by seamen when giving an order.[7]
To
think; to imagine; to believe; to conjecture; to conclude; to guess.[8]
Boyish
tricks, capers.[9]
Very
fast, headlong; synonymous with the equally elegant phrase 'full chisel.'[10]
The
board on which a dead body is lead out. Pennsylvania and Maryland.[11]
A common
error in speaking and writing, for almost.[12]
To make
false excuses to one's self and others for doing what one likes.[13]
A
condition; predicament; dilemma.[14]
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