I Can't Explain

This night is like a bloody tooth so sharp

that nothing even steel could ever resist.

Like blocks of ice I cut from it some darks

to make an alley igloo for my sleep

and now my hands are touching what is not.

They slide across the ebonies I've made,

and hum and whistle as they speak aloud,

recalling all they can of what they've lost,

and pained because there's so much more no more

to be recalled. Their tips are listening

to phrases heard a hundred years ago

that have no place or context of a year

to set themselves like greasy dominoes

with some afore some others, others aft,

with texts implied by where they stand erect.

The darkness isn't saying anything

to help with time or space; the weightlessness

it does and doesn't have won't hand a clue.

They're having visions, muscle memories,

that twitch across their semi-conscious minds

but then, again, it's jumbled like a jig

saw puzzle missing all its outer parts

with every edge and corner gone somewhere.

And so, I'm here, my hands the only truth,

within this tent of night, without a ghost

to lead me back to where illusions lie.

 

*

 

It was decidedly odd, going to work that first day at the new location, the new location being in a big shopping mall (just steps away from the food court) rather that the university grounds. The owner had had to cut costs, and he'd gotten a good deal on the new location.

"The cash register isn't here yet," I was told. "It may be a few weeks."

Certainly, plenty of people were already there, and a lot of them were children. One asked me where the comic books were.

"We don't have comic books here," I told the urchin. "We're much too solemn."

He snorted, wiped it away, and plunked down a copy of Evolutionary Microbiology, 3rd ed. "There's pictures in this, though. How much?"

I opened it. "$119.95."

"Okay." Credit card produced. Another satisfied customer.

I was told: "I'll show you your spot."

Through some swinging doors into an antiseptic space for book-pricing.

"Looks fine," I said.

I went out into the food court for a bagel. I watched from a plastic table the people going in and out of the store. Late Henry James novels were selling good, and so was Kant.

Nothing would ever be the same.

 

*

 

What was it like? What was it like when the first eye looked through a microscope to witness all the activity taking place in a drop of water? Was it believed? Is it believed to this day? How could things so small be believed about? Yet there they were, swimming around, pushing themselves here and there, doing things no-one had ever seen before. Again: do we wholly believe in it? There they all are, millions upon millions of unknown species, with more discovered every day. And we, us, we got shunted off to one side of the genetic tree, with bacteria on the other side. Yes, bacteria on one branch, and everything else on the other; and more of less in an evolutionary balance. Who could ever in a million years believe this was the real way of the real world? (Where are they? They're invisible to the unaided eye. Get out of here!) And yet it's so, and there's methods‑chemical methods‑to make them and destroy in dozens of ways. They're all over you, crawling and swimming, and inside you, crawling and swimming. 2000+ species in your navel alone. I mean, who can believe this? How to believe anything now?

 

*

 

‑I've made us a very great deal this day.

‑What kind of a deal?

‑A savings deal. We're going to save tons of money.

‑And how's that going to be done?

‑I've gotten a sole supplier for us. Everything‑I mean everything‑is going to be ours, for seventy-five percent off.

‑That's amazing.

‑Yes. We will be able to buy four times as much stuff.

‑It's hard to believe.

‑Perhaps. But it's true.

‑So, who is this sole supplier?

‑It's the devil.

‑You made a deal with the devil?

‑Look at the rates, darling. Four times as much stuff.

‑But, how does he keep his costs so low?

‑It's simple. He had a hundred million slaves working for him.

‑That doesn't sound terribly ethical.

‑Seventy-five percent off, may I remind you.

‑But‑to profit off slavery‑

‑Don't you believe in free trade?

‑Of course I do. That's how we met.

‑Ah yes, in that class. So, I've put in a pile of orders already.

‑Something doesn't sit well with me.

‑Protectionniste!

‑He's a slaver!

‑Chauvin!

‑I think we should give this some time.

‑I think there's a loophole.

‑Say‑why aren't you wearing a mask?

‑We're all wearing masks already, baby. See Erving Goffman.

 

*

 

I never signed on for being everyone's temp, but everyone's temp I've become. Sign on my door reads: EVERYONE'S TEMP, and that's exactly what I am.

Thus it was no surprise when I got the call. An art class was without its instructor, and the students were getting restless. I put on a smeared smock and away I went down the hall to the classroom.

The naked girl let me in. "They don't know where to start with these"--here she indicated--"or this"--again indicating. I nodded, because I'd seen it all before.

A dozen students were looking at me too.

"Okay, everyone, pick up your palettes or whatever and get down to painting or sketching or whatever."

The girl struck a pose and the creation of art proceeded apace.

A guy doing nothing caught my eye. The student sitting next to him noticed and said: "Oh sir, this is my friend. He's monitoring the class. Can I get him some supplies?"

"Sure, knock yourself out."

Everyone settled in finely, the monitorer now with charcoals in hand.

Forty minutes later I reviewed their work, thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

The monitorer's drawing was best, though.

It looked exactly like the girl.

 

*

 

All you have to do is touch your head, your temples, in a particular way, and it will all come back to you: all you have to find is the spot. That's how your special memory works. You've got a map of everything on your head: your head is a Memory Palace and, just by touching the proper spot, it can all come flowing back into your main channel. You're way past ordinary science. You've mastered the art of remembering everything.

Then, one day, you touch a spot expecting to find the time and place of your first kiss, and you find there's nothing there. Confusion! "I know I put it there; or...." You're no longer sure you put everything on your head in its right and proper place. In fact, you're no longer sure of your hierarchical table of placements. "Maybe I put it here. No, that Christmas 1977. It must be close to that, though. Is my chronology wrong?"

And how did you organize this in the first place? You must have followed some principle of organization. You look for the spot containing your principle of organization. No; it's a mess and a shambles. So much for artifice!

 

*

 

"Ain't I a Human?"

 

Rameau said it best when he said: "It's dance music. Keep the tempo goin', plaster on some pleasant melody, and the folks will have fun with it."

All my EDM fans know what he was talkin' about, and they know what I'm talkin' about.

(On numerous occasions I've been asked: If your stuff is so good, why don't cats and dogs respond to it?

(And I have to tell them cats and dogs don't respond to it because they got better things to do.)

Let's get us all jumping around! because there's so much joy to be found amongst us with higher intellects. I bet you God didn't know, when he gave us these higher intellects, that we'd use 'em to invent literature and painting; plus ideologies that said he didn't exist in the first place!

Look at that weed. What a wonderful weed! In other circumstances we'd encircle it to cry in unison: "Goom Bah! Goom Bah! Trey-trey-trey!"

'Twasn't the weed that caused the chant. No, 'twas Rameau.

You'll be dead soon, and so will I. Our etchings will survive, though; for a while, they'll survive. For an eternity, if you adjust your spectrometers right.

 

*

 

La Ronde Redux

 

I know I've gotten up to this before, and I have no doubt I will again, as sure as the roll-rolling-roll of the seasons, which is a metaphor carefully chosen (for once). It's about time to re-do La Ronde. However, this time around, to make things even more uncanny, murder rather than love could be involved, to be executed, naturally enough, in twelve scenes.

First scene: Michel kills his business partner Yvan.

Second: Berenice, stumbling up the scene, kills Michel.

Third: Lily kills Berenice in a fit of jealousy or something.

Fourth: David kills Lily for some reason that's a good one.

Fifth: Anne pushes David off a cliff into the sea.

Sixth: Marion poisons Anne because of a childhood quarrel.

Seventh: Marion gets drowned by the Investigator.

Eighth: The Bishop of Nice shoots the Investigator in the head.

Ninth: The Judge sentences the Bishop to hang.

Tenth: Returning home, the Judge has her car crashed when she swerves to avoid a cat.

Eleventh: The cat gets drowned by a cruel little girl.

And twelfth: Michel's business partner Yvan immures the little girl behind a wall.

Finally, twelve bodies litter the stage.

It's got TV possibilities too.

 

*

 

We remember her well, with witness often being made of a figure hunched over an oaken desk, wearing a red visor reflecting serious wounds on the walls and ceiling animatedly refracted from the purest of natures beyond her big melting window in the Chelsea yard of a mighty empire beyond. She was our Britannia in the flesh, the sparrer of spreadsheets and the accountant of aerial actualities, at all times moving invisible tokens from one side of her imaginary board to the other to hold the Visible Empire in check and in balance. At times she would send out a dictum or two in triplicate to four or five folks across all six continents and all seven seas, and those were the common meagre numbers back in those days, such was our analog world. When we one day add up the losses--if we are able to perform addition at all by that time--we have no doubt that the numerator will have diminished whilst the denominator will have increased. And yet still she is sitting at her desk, at least in our minds, pondering the rightness or wrongness of the performances of the chaos that stretches across the universe.

 

*

 

On King Stephen

 

"I never bargained for this," he said. "My cousin William, he was supposed to become King, but then he goes and gets himself drowned in the English Channel. My uncle's really disappointed. All he does is mope and mope."

"Cross the channel and claim England," a little voice said. "It's up for grabs, since your uncle has died; Or haven't you heard?"

And so he crossed the channel, etc. etc.

But his uncle: Henry: imagine him. His only son drowned a sea. Washed away, lost forever, and now but a father of birds and more birds. It must have been a special kind of misery for Henry. Pipsqueak nephew who should have drowned instead, now set for the throne, looking down on a deathbed greedily.

Fortunately, Stephen himself came to a bad end, for he was a pretty bad King, constantly engulphed in Anarchy. He died, as all die, but not as he did, on 25 October 1154. In fact, he was the only individual to die on that day. The chroniclers make no note of the fact, for they weren't keeping track. I was the only one keeping track, that 25th day of October, 1154.

 

*

 

The French Ambassador to the United States and the American Ambassador to France went into the Oval Office together, like a team. The President stood and shook the French Ambassador's hand. The French Ambassador said: "Mr. President. 'Ow are you?"

The American Ambassador sniggered. The President rebuked him by distinctly saying to the French Ambassador: "I am fine. I believe in your country the phrase is rendered: 'Comment?'"^[1]

The Ambassador smiled and said: "I am very good."

The President went on to say: "Comment aimez-vous notre fine Washington? Comment va ton hôtel?"^[2]

 

*

 

As the clock ticks, so do I. How many ticks per second do we tick? That all depends on who's doing the counting. For me, it's a little less than once per second, and for you, it's somewhat‑possibly vastly‑more than once per second. In either event, the clock is ticking and the hand is always going clockwise; you'd think a mirror would solve that, but it doesn't. Since in the mirror the back becomes the front and the front becomes the back, still the clock is clocking clockwise. You think there's a cure for it. You think: sometimes it stops dead.

"British long-playing records were once kind in that they didn't always tell you the lengths of its tracks. You had to judge by the band-width. That was a small mercy fondly remembered: when everything didn't have a goddam clock stuck to it. Some days the hours would pass on the hammock with the comic books and the cream soda. Time would ignore you for a while, and only return when it was supper or something had to be done. Until that time, there seemed to be no time at all. Those days, which never existed, will never come again."

 

*

 

"Waiting, waiting...."

I sat up. Quiet voices in the night were whispering to me, barely audibly. "Who's that?"

"We're the ones," they whispered. "We're the ones who are waiting. Waiting, waiting...."

I could barely hear them, but I heard them. "Come out, and show yourselves."

"We're all ready out, here, here, and waiting...."

I knew that if I moved, I would not be able to hear them anymore. So I sat unmoving, to say: "Can you describe what you're waiting for?"

For a while there was no answer, so I figured I had been imagining it all. I again rested my head upon the pillow, only to hear once again: "Waiting, waiting...."

I played dumb.

"You hear? We're waiting...."

I said: "You must tell me what you're waiting for."

Finally I got something of a response. "You know what we are waiting for. Isn't it obvious? You've always known we were near, while we have always been near. Very very near."

"You don't know what you're talking about," was the only response I could come up with.

"Ah. Ah."

I leaned over to turn on the electric fan. A blank noise filled my consciousness. Next day was scheduled a meeting.

 

*

 

From the Bestselling Film

 

Imagine you're seeing a dirt road, crossing your field of vision horizontally. There are green grassy fields past it, probably corn, though it could be something else that looks a lot like corn. Above it all is a moderately cloudy sky, with the white clouds tightly packed together and an unnaturally blue sky around them. The clouds look like loose bundles of spun cotton. Oh, and imagine the sound of wind blowing through the corny stuff. Look at it for a while. Let it sink in.

Now imagine you're hearing a clop-clop-clop sound which you realize: it's got to be horses. Just a little later you see the horses approaching from your left, along the road, and there's a wagon there too, an old-fashioned stage-coach with a sleepy-looking guy with a whip on top of it. They must have been travelling for some time, it looks like.

Suddenly you're transported inside the coach, pow, and you're looking at a middle-aged woman knitting in dusty clothes. She looks out the window. You look to her right and you see an old geezer with a big moustache sleeping.

Then a man's voice says: "Driver, how long before Dodge?"

 

*

 

145. Hey, look: Destroying the economy and ruining people's lives and rendering them unemployed has had a repercussion. (Insert Arabic characters that represent a person shrugging here.)

146. Meanwhile, here in Toronto, the Globe and Mail is trying to get some comparable rioting going. A crazy woman went off a balcony last week. See if you can spot the journalistic malpractices, answers in footnotes: "Lawyer Knia Singh, who represents the family, previously told The Globe that Ms. Korchinski-Paquet’s mother, Claudette Beals-Clayton, had called police to defuse an argument between her daughter, who was in mental distress,[3] and her son. [...] When officers arrived, Ms. Beals-Clayton pleaded that her daughter be escorted[4] to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health,[5] Mr. Singh said."[6]

147. I don't care it's ANTIFA behind all this rioting. We've had all the govt resources directed to keeping people from beaching, so fuck them if they're 'concerned' by what happens when they ruin lives.

 

*

 

"If you want to make this into a thriving metropolis, you'll have to find a spring and dig a well down to it. This is a desert, with all its waters underground, in underground rivers."

"It's a great location," we said. "How can we find a spring? Is there a guide?"

"There's no guide. Do you have a drill?"

"We don't have a drill."

"Well you've certainly got your work cut out for you. How many shovels do you have?"

"None. We've got this forked stick though."

The codger laughs. "I suppose you can lean on it if you get tired."

We're hurt. "A lot of scientific people say it works. Subtly."

He stares at us for a moment. "Okay," he says, "Knock yourselves out."

We wander around with our stick held horizontally, and watching its every move. Mary picked a flower off a cactus and smelled it. "It's got no scent," she said. The stick would droop sometimes, and we tried to follow its lead. We were getting warmer, warmer. Then, finally, the stick made a pronounced dive. It was hard to avoid. The tip was practically touching the sand. We'd found it. Unfortunately, we didn't have any shovels.

 

*

 

Weird!

 

Before I was based in North America, I lived there, never travelling much more than fifty miles from the hospital in which I was born. Now I am based there, with nothing more than the verb altered.

Enough with the pre-amble! I'm here to talk about colours and colors.

Colors or colours are all made from 1) pigments and 2) binders. Now, the binder in most cases can be the same material, but the pigments vary wildly, from organic plants to inorganic metals.

As is widely known, colours or colors vary according to one's culture. For Shakespeare, gold was not a color or colour. Rather, the element gold‑Au‑for Shakespeare was the colour or color red. Same goes for all of the English language before Shakespeare. Gold was the color or colour red.

So when I cross the border between Canada and the USA, everything apparent to my vision changes colour or color. It's a subtle thing, but real nonetheless. In fact, no color or colour here is the same colour or color as its color or colour there. The binders remain the same, perhaps the pigments do too, but every colour turns to color when I go south. Weird!

 

*

 

The New Yorker (a weekly magazine) featured two ink drawings of Josephine the Mouse last issue. She hasn't been seen for quite some time, in any magazine or anywhere else for that matter. What did we see in the first drawing? She's got a bundle of new babies in one arm, and a six-pack of beer in the other.

A caption informs us, long-windedly, she has since gotten some help in her hard mousy life in that she'd met a rich man quite by accident and she was now safe and secure living in his home under the floorboards. She was turning her life around, all her babies were getting the attention she deserved, and she'd gotten gainfully employed in a respectable cotton manufactory.

The second ink drawing shows us the man reading (an issue of the New Yorker, naturally) while under his feet there's Josephine and a handful of her children playing an exciting round of tag and laughing. Josephine is most prominently portrayed, very much in motion, while all her present brood are represented sketchily. I suppose that's in keeping with murine demography, seeing as half of them will die or be killed forty or so issues later.

 

*

 

After eight years of living in this house, last week I discovered something for which I have no explanation. This house has three levels altogether, and, absently last Wednesday, I decided to count the steps from the lowest level to the highest. (I was on a mission to fetch a teapot.) I counted twenty-eight, and then, with teapot in hand, I descended, counting, and hit the very bottom having counted twenty-nine.

I figured I had miscounted, but the next day I was on the top level and had to descend, again for the teapot. I counted twenty-nine steps going down, but only twenty-eight going back up.

I experimented. I counted the steps of the lower staircase. Numbering from top to bottom, in both cases the answer summed to fourteen. However, on the upper staircase, when I counted from top down, I found fifteen there; however, counting from bottom to top, there are only fourteen. I repeated the counting several times, always coming to the same conclusion: fifteen going down, and fourteen going up. There is no doubt.

I wonder where else this phenomenon exists. I'm certain my house is not the only house affected. Perhaps you should check yours now.

 

*

 

I Can't Explain

 

"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to Madison Square Garden, to witness the heavyweight match between Alozo Guitarez and Jack Dorisson. I'm Devin Squire and this is the CBS network."

"And I'm Tim McMaster. We're expecting a peaceful match this evening."

"Yes, it's going to be a peaceful meet-up here, no doubt. And there's the bell. Guitarez and Dorisson and circling one another now."

"Very peacefully, I'd say. It's like ballet."

"Very much like ballet, Tim, though their visages are telling another tale."

"It's like they're lovers in a comical misunderstanding."

"Yes, quite the I Love Lucy look, also on the CBS network."

"Oh, wait! Guitarez just tried to hit Dorisson!"

"My God! Whatever happened to peacefulness?"

"And Dorisson is pounding Guitarez back, to the midriff!"

"This is incredible! We may have to call this event 'mostly peaceful' now!"

"Wow, Guitarez has grabbed Dorisson's arm!"

"He's pulling and pulling!"

"GUITAREZ HAS RIPPED DORISSON'S ARM OFF!"

"'Mostly peaceful,' definitely!!"

"Now he's beating Dorrison with it!!"

"Dorrison looks stunned, as if to say: Whither peace?!!"

"This is all totally unexpected for such an event!!"

"It's like we were taught wrong!!"

"And to think this all started out peacefully!!"

"I can't explain!!"

---

^[1] FACT CHECK: The President is, of course, wrong. 'Comment' is not in any way equivalent to 'How are you." On its own, it means: 'how' or 'what'. That the President would make so egregious an error in the sacred realm of international diplomacy merely underlines our editorial view that he should be removed from office immediately.

^[2] FACT CHECK: Though the sentences do translate to "How do you like our fine Washington? How is your hotel?" it is ridiculously nave to believe that he-who-should-be-removed-from-office-immediately could possibly speak any language up to and including English. He was wearing an earpiece, or he memorized the sentences phonetically; logic requires nothing less.

[3] What normal person would ever use that wording?

[4] Yeah, 'escorted'.

[5] Really? Ms. Beals-Clayton used the whole phraseology?

[6] Hyup hyup we're gullibul here at the G&M, we fuckin' don't have to fact-check stuff. We'll even re-phrase stuff so our fuckin' Annex readers can tut-tut!