Overture
We can't simply begin with the first song, the one about the special journey he is on. Even with a four-bar introduction, it's still not enough for the audience. They want some warning that something is about to happen. Give them time to gracefully pause their conversations; they can't be talking about anything too important anyway: they're in a theatre, for God's sake, and they know what they're there for: they're there for a musical.
Since it's a comedy, we'll start out bright and cheerful. Major-major-major all through the first half of the overture, then a bit in the relative minor, just to make the audience know it's not going to be all fun-and-games; there's going to be a villain, and the chance for disaster, and maybe he won't get her. Make them think things may turn out badly. What if an accident happens? What if a train is missed?
Oh, but no, we rapidly return to the first key, bright and happy, quoting some of the songs that will follow throughout. Back to the opening theme! And then
A great modulation into a finale theme, rising higher and higher into another theme. A cymbal crash! The curtain rises:
*
Exam
I outwitted Morpheus this morning. He wanted me to leave his realm, but I refused.
As is a typicality, I hadn't completed a take-home exam, an examination in some foreign language. The other students submitted theirs, and I pretended to submit one. A good idea! I was confident, and I didn't wake up. I stayed in the arms of Morpheus.
However, I knew I had to rectify the problem as soon as possible. I hurriedly completed the exam, in ten minutes or so, and my next problem was to get it into the pile of the others. Would the teacher turn her back to give me enough time? She wouldn't turn her back. Morpheus really wanted me to go.
I enlisted an invented dim-witted character. I told him to take mine up to the teacher's desk, saying he had found it on the floor. He did so. The teacher asked him about it, and he said it had slipped off her desk.
I had submitted my examination. Morpheus tried another tactic. He tried to make me fail. However, by a supreme act of will, I had written a perfect exam. I was top of the class.
I slept on.
*
Romance
"He's out there, somewhere, waiting for me."
"Hush, child."
"She's somewhere out there, waiting."
"Now, boy...."
"He's waiting tonight, three hundred miles away."
"You're going to give yourself a fit."
"I can almost see her. Three hundred miles distant."
"This is almost funny."
"I don't know what he looks like, but I can see his soul."
"That's impossible, girl."
"Her features are vague, but I sense her spirit."
"Maybe you've had too much."
"I know he's smiling, waiting for me."
"Still, impossible."
"The shape of her lips, and her smile."
"Not even finishing sentences now, huh?"
"I'm certain he was born in June. June nineteenth."
"Hah!
"She, like me, was born on the nineteenth of June."
"Highly unlikely!"
"I think I know the direction to go. South by southeast."
"I dunno."
"She's there, out there: north by northwest."
"Now you're just quoting rubbish."
"If I start now, we'll be meeting in between."
"If he's coming."
"One step after another, and we'll meet halfway."
"Take a pedometer, heh."
"Our hands will touch, with all gentleness."
"Fine imagination there."
"Palm to palm, intimately."
"Stop."
"He's incomplete without me."
"I wonder."
"She needs me to make her whole."
"You are so naïve."
*
Faith
What do you expect to get from faith?
You get a whole class of insecurity. You'll never have the ability to know if you are working towards the right goal, because the works count for nothing at all in the end.
You'll also find other people difficult to deal with. You'll never know if things are going well or badly. You'll lay awake wondering of you are doing the right thing.
In fact, you won't even know if the above two paragraphs are accurate or not. There could easily be some invisible clauses in them, undetectable, inscrutable, and ineluctable.
What do you expect to get from the alternative?
You'll have mathematical methods ready at hand to determine, in a utilitarian mode, efficiencies that tend towards the greatest good for the greatest number.
You'll sleep well at night, comforted with the knowledge that you're doing nothing wrong or, at least, that if you're wrong then everyone else is wrong, and misery loves company, right?
You'll know the preceding two paragraphs are bang-on, without flaw, and perfect in the way they are, although in the future there may be some refinements made to their deep-rooted convictions.
It's not a difficult choice.
*
City
Once upon a time, I noticed an entire city had disappeared. It was the city I had grown up in, 'til I was eighteen or so. Once upon a time, I noticed it was gone, and that it had been replaced by something else entirely.
This street used to be the street I walked on to go to school, and now it had been replaced. The curve in the street wasn't right at all. The entire street had vanished, and a new street stood in its place.
A clever imitation of the old downtown area stood in the downtown. Instead of four movie theatres, there were dancehalls and rock-climbing places. Why had anyone taken away such a city as the one I used to live in?
The faces of the people in the crowd: what did they mean to say? They weren't saying things in any proper way, and with not at all the right messages. They were aliens, and they used a foreign code, and each gesture meant something inexplicable.
The disappearance of my city must have happened in a flash. One day it was there, and the next: gone. It makes me wonder if I'm the same.
*
Bomb
We were all convinced there was a bomb in our neighbiurhood, just waiting to go off. We didn't know if it was in a house, or if it was being carried from place to place acording to some secret utinerary. Nonetheless, we were all cinvinced it was there, just waiting for us to make some filse move. So, it was agried we'd all just stay in our houses, and not trade things from house to house. We fugured so long as we weren't travailing around, the bimb wouldn't get to us.
A funny thing happened, though: all our lives went downhill. Everyone started going brake, like there was some kind of a curse on us, and we didn't know how we could iver blame for it. It was like some kind of an invasable hand had come down from the haivens to strike at us all no matter how we tried to hide. It was some kind of wutchcraft, that's what it musta been.
Years passed, and we healed. You know how? All the kids got rially stopid, so we couldn't tell just how aweful things really were. Couldn't read nothing, and we figgered we were doing just fine.
*
Donna
Donna Mulligan wrote, in response to Michael Cole's note "Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been re-elected with another majority": "Only 40% of Ontarians went to vote."
Golly! I guess it must mean we're living in some kind of a tyranny! How can people (such as me) not slog off wastefully to shove a little bit of paper into a cardboard bin? Ooo, Donna thinks it means the government is illegitimate, but (I'm making a guess) she'd not be bitching so if the NDP commies had won.
I do it too; I'm sometimes as stupid as Donna. When my Team Carlyle loses, I think the game must be riggered somehow. It's totally infantile, but there's a part of us all, this is including Donna, that's infantile. Donna should rejoice in her stupidity. (I know I do.)
So, what, Donna, please, tell, now, What would be a more legitimate government? In your infinite wisdom, should people be forced to vote? I think the Soviet Union demanded that, and Ortega too. They got 90% all the time.
So I sez to myself: Donna Mulligan is just some drycunt braindead collegeeducated bluehaired tatoomarred nipplepierced ... woman.
I didn't vote because it was wasteful.
*
Power
The festival had to be advertised by a powerful sign, and I was the one in charge of turning on its power. However, the whole sign contraption had been inconveniently designed, and none of us had ever bothered to put it right.
I put the ladder up against the concrete wall nearest the power switch. I'd done it a hundred times before, and I had to do it again. Up the ladder I went, up three floors or so, and I twisted around so as to see the powerful switch some eight feet away from me.
I leaned out backwards, my right hand grasping a ladder-rung, and reached. The switch was out of my grasp, of course, but I knew what to do. My right hand slid away from the ladder-rung until only the tips of my fingers were holding on. Now came the hard part.
My right fingers released, and I was approaching horizontality. My left fingers lightly touched the power switch, then, with a grunt, I slapped it on; my right hand grabbed the ladder again. Thus, outside, a sign reading WELCOME lit up.
It's my only job, that, and so I have to get it done.
*
Cops
"They get a back-story: they knew each other when the were rookies, as they're called. Then they both moved to other towns, and then the moved back at, like, the same time. And they wind up together again, but they don't really know what the other was up to in the five intervening years.
"And this is where it gets interesting. The squeaky-clean first cop gets convinced the second cop is on the take and working for the local crime boss, a mafiosi named ... Alonso, say. He's got buckets of evidence, and the first cop is only waiting for the second cop to make a mistake.
"Meanwhile, the squeaky-clean second cop gathers evidence about the first cop. All the evidence means that first cop is actually a jewel thief from way back, before becoming a cop. And the cop business is all a cover and nothing more. First cop is a klepto, second cop is certain of that.
"And this is where is gets really interesting. In actual fact, both cops are right. It's all mired in contradictions! It's almost impossible to figure it all out! How can any of it make sense?
"Then something something the end."
*
Travel
We could go to Paris. They say it's nice in the spring, though perhaps those speaking are only tourist ads.
France is a big country, and there are lots of places we could go instead. Chartres, or Nice, or Normandy. I can't think of any other places there, but there certainly are.
But, since we would be in non-English country anyway, why limit ourselves to France? What about Germany, where there's Germans, or Italy, where there's Italians, or Spain, where there's Spaniards? Any of those places would be fine with me.
There's a bunch of other countries around there too. But beyond those, there's Eastern Europe, including Russia and the other Russias. I don't know much about Russia except for their arts. I wonder what it's like?
Oh, there's all that Africa too. Lagos comes to mind, and so does Cairo. Or the far east: China! India! Japan! Those I've read about.
South America or Central America look good too. Argentina, Brazil, Chile. Any place like that would be fine by me.
The Hawaiian islands. Polynesia, Indonesia. We can go any place.
But not Australia. For God's sake, not Australia. Don't ask me why. Let's never go to Australia.
*
Bullies
How can one not look back over the years and sigh when thinking of one's bullies of yore? The ringleader of my beloved tormentors was a snarling little moron who didn't have a brain in his head, and yet he had his own gang all dedicated to tormenting myself and a number of other weaklings.
I recall the time they ganged up on me near the public school fence. Somehow they'd getting their grimy hands on a bundle of fibreglass insulation, which they proceeded to stuff down the back of my shirt. They left me then, having accomplished their immense cruelty. I can feel the scarring to this day. Godspeed, bullies!
Or the time they with their skateboards kept running into me, pretending all the time it was one mighty joke, and one mighty joke it was! I finally caught on enough to flee, and they pursued me for a time before becoming bored.
And, of course, they picked on me because of my little girlfriend, Kim Wilson. They tried to force us to kiss, and when we wouldn't, they beat me up.
Ah, savor those days, people everywhere! They won't come again; leastways, not in the same form.
*
Forgets
She gentle lays me down in white sheets too soft to be real, and she is talking quietly although not whisperingly. She is telling me things we both believe already, just so there's not irritating suspense to disturb. She says:
"Don't worry about what happened in the past; don't worry about when you were a child, or an adolescent, or about the things that happened ten years ago, or last year, or yesterday, or even how you came to be laying here in these white sheets. There's nothing to regret or fret about, and every matter is water under the bridge and that water is never coming back.
"Forgetting is the cure to every ailment no matter how big or how small. I'm so mellifluous, aren't I? Nothing is harsh where we are. It's a time without dimensions here: no breadth, and no width. Isn't it good to forget? Hope you'll never remember again, and I'll join with you.
"This is something here, and there's nothing of any value anywhere else. Take your time, there's no rush, be at ease in my white arms, touch me or not. With the wind softly blowing, we're lights that can gently flicker."
*
Abject
Lady Donna, I recommend dirt. There 's a large pit near my mansion. They 're digging for gold there. I do n't know if they ''ve found any yet, but that is irrelevant to our purpose here. It 's a pit, pre-dug, and ready for you to dig your plans into it.
They made a number of test bores, you see, scattered here and there across their property. These holes have been covered over with plywood, so they 're easy to spot. With an assistant, it would be quite simple to drop down one of these holes—-they go down almost a mile–-with a supply of food and water, and have your assistant cover the hole up again. Thus, you could n't be found for quite some time.
Once you ''ve had enough abjection, if one can ever have enough abjection, please send a note somehow to your assistant and, assuming he has not met with some fatal misfortune, he ''ll help you get out of the bore hole. (Do n't ask me how. He ''ll know how.)
Oh, these are details! Petty matters! What matters is for you to achieve a harmony between your insides and your outsides. Enjoy!
*
Ireland
Noon seemed a good time to leave, but the airplane rules changed, so we pushed it to 12:30. I went off to find some nicotine gum, and I had to pay dearly for it: almost fifty dollars all told. The trip had already become outrageously expensive.
The cab ride to the airport was quiet, or so I recall. All that was asked for was the terminal number. The Aer Lingus check-in counters weren't even open yet, though there were some thirty people ahead of us. Finally, we got them checked, and security was next. Mary got chosen for some random screening, and as a result we breezed past everyone else.
After a sandwich, and some idling, we found the right airplane and got on. How Irish will this be? I wondered. The flight crew were all Irish. Is this real? Does Ireland really exist?
We got into the air, and Ontario we passed, and Quebec we passed, and Labrador we passed. Night came. We looked at the flight map. We'd left the Americas behind. The old world was the new world and the other way around. Curious, that.
We hit midnight somewhere over the Atlantic. Sunday.
-"11 June 2022"
*
Ireland
Entrances are difficult.
The green dawn fields under the airplane looked like photographs of Irish fields, all demarcated with hedges, not in orderly Ontario squares but rather with the irregularity that comes with agedness. After a little something to eat, we spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out the buses. Finally, a bus took us to Swords (pronounced with the W). From there, another bus got us to The Skerries. We had to dodge a bicycle race to find our little cottage.
We couldn't get in the door for quite some time. The keys of Ireland are different from ours.
And then we slept for a couple hours.
We checked out the town, the fishing village, walking along the Sea's edge, past the boats, out onto a promontory, and back onto the main street. We recognized where the bus had dropped us off, so it was like we were residents already.
We had pizza at a place called Bus Bar, and some drinks there too.
All the street signs were bilingual. I'd hoped to escape the like, but to no avail. We were stuck with a foreign language everywhere.
This is Ireland.
-"12 June 2022"
*
Ireland
The Skerries has three windmills, and they've been turned into tourist attractions. High on their hill are two of them; one is medieval, and the other is from, say, 1800. (I'm roughly guessing here. I could look it up, but I won't.) That's where we wanted to go, so, after looking at a map to maximize our travel efficiency, we set off.
You go up the Dublin Road, and the place is on your left. You can't miss it. They're windmills.
We paid for and received a tour, which took us through the grain mill, to the older windmill, and to the newer windmill. The tour was conducted by 'Paddy', who'd lived on the property alongside when he was a lad. We were the only visitors that hour. I think he preferred weekends, which are the times when more people come to The Skerries (being a seaside fishing village and all). Nonetheless, he did a fine job.
We headed back to Strand Street, back to the Bus Bar for a couple drinks.
An Austin, Texas couple got caught there when the mandates came down. They decided to become Skerrians. They sold their American home sight unseen.
-"13 June 2022"
*
Ireland
We had to see what Dublin was all about; we had plans to go on Thursday, for Bloomsday, so why not go on Tuesday, as regular tourist types? The commuter train station was just past the windmills, hence easy to find. (We got a little lost anyway.)
Connolly Station is the city's central station, so we disembarked there, and simply walked. As it turned out, we went in a good direction, and found the Liffey. The streets were chaotic, the bus noise was deafening, and there was no time to take photographs because of the mess. (Later, we consulted reviews of Dublin: some wag called it the Lagos of Europe.)
We stuck to the Liffey, the south bank then the north. We found a pub and ate, then proceeded again to the south side, to see Trinity. So many tourists there to see the Book of Kells! We pitied the poor students who had to put up with attracting so many foreigners onto their campus.
We went along the Liffey again, down to the old docks which were being colonized by branch offices for multinational corporations. Some warehouse facades remained, though, dressed in quaint pre-modernity togs.
-"14 June 2022"
*
Ireland
We'd heard tell of something like a castle some miles to the north, so we set off to find it. A quick look at a map gave me some indication of where it was, and the rest would have to be left to chance.
The roads are very narrow in Ireland. I think it's simply beyond them to widen them, in some concoction of nostalgia and bureaucracy. Consequently, we came to a section without any shoulders at all, so we went inland on a hunch, found a dirt path, and would up beside a school in a suburb. We hadn't gone wrong at all.
The grounds of the castle--which was rather a country house instead--Ardgillan Castle by name--had grounds finer than the house itself. We took a quick tour of the house. I noticed Cromwell mentioned, but it didn't seem like Cromwell himself had anything to do with the house. I had to ask, and the result was that the present owner was a Cromwell rehabilitator. There was no connection at all.
Each of these entries could easily be four times the length. Topics excluded: Idiot, drowning, footbridge, Balbriggan, railbridge, beach, Brick House.
-"15 June 2022"
*
Ireland
Though I had chosen the week to coincide with Bloomsday, the programme of the day's events didn't quite appeal to me. It all looked rather kitschy, plus it would mean having to go back into the hell of Dublin. So, we decided to recover from the previous day's long journey instead, venturing out at about one in the afternoon.
The goal was the pier, and only the pier. As we approached the beach, we noticed people were swimming. (We were wearing coats at the time.) One bather said, of course: "It's nice once you get in."
We bought some ice cream. I wound up with a few pennies and tuppence, if decimalized Euros are still called those things.
We went along the shore, down to the edge. There were a lot of bathers. On the beach, when we got past the promontory, we checked out the water's temperature. It was rather warm!
We returned to the main drag, and bought (as it turned out) too much fish. We went back to our rented cottage, and we found it without making a wrong turn. We felt like residents.
After dinner, we watched a movie. Relocation was tomorrow.
-"16 June 2022"
*
Ireland
In the morning, we had more fish, and packed up all our stuff. We had to get on the other side of Dublin, to a town named Bray. Two commuter trains later, from the north to the south, put us in Bray.
Word is, Bray's better days are behind it. It was fashionable before the war, and spent a period in decline. I don't have any facts to present.
However, on 17 June 2022, it was apparent it had attacked a goodly number of foreign tourists such as ourselves. Many languages could be heard amongst the promenaders (for such did Bray have: a long seaside promenade).
After a late lunch, we hiked south, along a cliffside path. We got some ways to the next town, then turned back. Excellent views, nonetheless!
We'd been warned beforehand that the Martello Hotel also had a nightclub, so we knew there'd be noise. Yes, it was a noisy place. Going down and out to vape late, I saw firsthand what's referred to as Yob Culture. I care not to describe the ladies, for it is bad form to call your hosts fat and slovenly.
We fell asleep to disco music.
-"17 June 2022"
*
Ireland
They don't service early risers (before 8:00) at the Martello Hotel on Saturday mornings. I went out for a vape at 7:30, through the hotel, and past the army of employees who were cleaning up the previous night's debaucheries. One lone woman was drinking tea at a table, one of the hundred patio tables of the establishment. I don't know where she got the tea from.
It seemed everyone in the town was 'sleeping it off.' I saw two dogs, and two tenders, and that was all to be seen on the Bray strand.
The train took us back to Dublin. We took a cab from there, since the public transit system in Dublin is famously dysfunctional.
"You know airports. Everyone here's been to an airport, right? Ah, the miracle of flight.... I always get misty for the people who work in airports. You'll never see anyone you serve ever again, no matter their beauty. If a romance happens, it's over in sixty seconds, which is, ironically, longer than I can ever accomplish. Anyway, it took a long time to get through the airport."
I didn't take any pictures that day, so here's some appropriate geometries.
-"18 June 2022"
*
Allegany
We had some time in the morning; the bus was at eleven or noon or something: I forget. Fortunately, we'd found out where the new bus station was, which was not at all the place we had previously thought it was. It's a long block south of Union Station; I don't think you can get from one to the other without going outside.
Buffalo is a pretty spectacular town. It's a little rough, but some like it a little rough. There's a restaurant we like to go to, called The Big Ditch. John says check it out.
From Buffalo to Olean is a two-hour ride. You get into the mountains about halfway along, and it's all valleys and twists and little lively towns.
We got there late. We had to take a cab out to our hotel which was within walking distance of the St. Elizabeth Motherhouse.
We were tired, and not hungry, which was fortunate, because all their restaurants close at nine. We watched some very stupid television; my mind boggled at the stupidity of it. (This is my milieu, my field?)
Sleep came quickly, and we awoke a short distance from the Allegheny River.
-"24 June 2022"
*
Allegany
Before setting off, we took advantage of the free food of the Microtel Inn and Suites. The day was pleasant, and we walked to the Motherhouse as we had planned.
The head Sister there told us to be ready for a significant change in Aunt Helen (known as Sister Ellen). And it was true: she was very thin, and her teeth hadn't held out. It was a drastic change physically, but it was the difficulty communicating that was remarkable. She had trouble speaking, and she was quite deaf, so we had to shout and enunciate. She'd had a nervous problem and a heart problem for quite some time, and it was wearing her down. We left when mealtime arrived.
Lunch in Allegany, then back for an hour in the afternoon.
We wheeled her outside, but it was too hot for her. We told her things, and she understood.
We had our dinner at a place called Grand Slam Grill, then we went onto St. Bonaventure University grounds, down to the river, and there we saw deer. Lots of deer. I'd never appreciated deer before. On one football field I counted eleven: apparently, they're quite the plague.
-"25 June 2022"
*
Allegany
Again we got a bite to eat at the ol' Inn and Suites, parked our luggage behind the porter counter, and set off for the Motherhouse, this time for 9:30 Mass. The Masses there are officiated by friars from St. Bonaventure, who come daily. These friars are university professors, so there's nothing dopey about them.
We found Mary's aunt, and sat talking to her for something like two hours. It was hard to leave, for all of us. We had to put her in her room; she wanted to see us to the door, but there'd be no way for her to get back to the medical wing.
We talked to the house's manager, John, on our way out. I must say it seems everyone we meet everywhere has heard of Toronto, which reminded me of the time I said, when arriving at Niagara Falls: "I bet people from, like, two hundred miles away come to see them."
We walked back to get our bags, called a cab, caught the bus in Olean, caught the bus in Buffalo, caught the streetcar on King. We didn't talk once about the matter at hand, about the Big Question.
-"26 June 2022"
*
Disgusting
Still groggy, I went into the common room. Carlos was in there, watching the Disgusting Channel.
As if out of the blue I said, pointing back to my bedroom where I'd been sleeping: "So, I was in a prison. I think I was a prisoner, but a new prisoner. There was a box on the floor, sign on it reading: 'Do not open.' I opened it, and there was nothing inside. Then I was out in a corridor, and there was a sign on a door, said: 'Do not open.' I guess I'm always curious, so I opened it. Inside was a guy I'd seen before, but maybe from a crime soap. The door got slammed on my face, and a guard said: 'Don't tell anyone who you saw!' I got disturbed, me and my curiosity, and I couldn't sleep any more."
The television channel had gone to a Thai seafood market. The screen showed a dolphin suspended over an iron meat grinder. Lots of noise, then a knife cutting the dolphin's belly. A good-sized foetus, still alive, fell into the grinder. Blood everywhere, and the men cheered.
"Disgusting!" cried Carlos.
"They eat it to get hard," I observed.
*
Constantine
The Emperor Constantine the Great of Rome, at the time pretending to be listening to a nowheresville sycophant at an Aegean resort cocktail party, and bored of all the travels, and of all the hotel rooms, with their intentionally inoffensive still lives and watercolours every seven foot apart, their soaps, irons, buckets, remotes, hangers, lotions, and openers, and with the forced uniformity that comes from being a province so close to the Seven Hills, and bored with the protocol that came from being a soldier, then an emperor, then a Christian, such that all encounters with all individuals would have to involve either salutes, or bows, or handshakes, suddenly, with his mind on slow groove, recalled that he (Constantine, remember) had three days before received a vision, the contents of which he no longer quite rightly recalled, even though he'd vowed to the vision to remember it and set down a representation in ink; Constantine withdrew to seek, amidst the glitterati of his social circuit, some sliver of her his vision, for all else was thick cloud, yet he ultimately regained sight of the miracle, and fortunately found a way to record the vision that had been sent him.
*
Answers
It's a bit much for me to even try to bat up for the Residents. I was in Ireland some weeks ago, and I was in flyover western New York last weekend, and during those times I had not a single thought about the Residents; rather it was Blake, Shakespeare, Joyce, Yeats, Flannery, Methodists, Irish Catholicism, Roman Catholicism, St. Patrick; then to Olean (NY) to see Mary's aunt Helen, Mary's father's sister, who took up the cloth not long after becoming a nurse, now in a very bad state from which she may not recover, though pray with your heart for her; then on Tuesday, two days after hugging her (she was grateful: she said: "It's so nice to be touched by a man"), I find I got the little C, the Wuhan Flu, the Bug.
But I recall the whole theatre shaking when the Residents did the Straussian overture to start the second act, and I recall that I'd dragged a reluctant Gary Wagner to see the biz, at the Danforth Theatre. It was a stunning and a shocking show, and I am listening to the Amsterdam (Netherlands) recordings of that tour.
You're mistaken if you are disliking.
*
LPs
Since Val had some time to kill before her medical appointments the other day, she went into a junk shop to look around. Among all the stuff hanging from the ceiling and littering the floor and adorning the walls and sitting on stands, she found a couple racks of LPs. Something stood out: it was far thicker than the others. She pulled the box out. It was a ten-record collection, the complete extant recordings, so it said on the cover, of a nearly-forgotten guitarist by the name of Scope Turner, recorded in the late '30s, and now collected for the first time ever on ten disks, with a bonus LP of late-night risqué recording probably by Turner (performing under the name Nose Naso). Val took the plunge, paid for the records, and that evening gave them all a listen. The recordings were not very good. He didn't seem to know how to play well, and his voice was pretty bad, too. The risqué records were boring. She put the collection away, to save it for another time, or give it away, or even pass it on to future generations. Maybe they'll be interesting to listen to, in the future.
*
Joy
Joy can appear in many places simultaneously, all across the world, all at once, with a euphoria that makes one stop and take stock of where they've been and where they're going.
Heather is in a vacant lot at night, with an oil barrel, dumping clothes into it and burning them. As the smoke rises, she is thinking: "I'll never be that person again," and she feels joy.
Three hundred miles away, Jack has finished reading a very long book. He turns to look at the cover, to remember it more fully. He feels entirely accomplished, like there's little more to do.
Elsewhere, perhaps in Australia, Tina has finished cleaning the bathtub. It had been filthy, and at last it's clean. She wipes her face on a freshly-washed towel, and tries to think of other dirty places.
Meanwhile, not terribly far from Tina, a man, an unnameable man, is throwing a pistol into a deep body of water. He'll never need it again, considering what he had done with it, and it can sleep happily at the bottom of the lake.
Joy comes in many forms; simple, complex, unsavory, smoke-filled, literary, here or there, day or night, all over.
*
Singles
She appeared in the music lending library. We were barely functioning in those days.... She said: "I received a notice about an overdue 45 single." She showed it to me. I said: "It says it's overdue by twelve years." "Yes, I know." She blushed. "But I'm certain I returned it. Yellow Submarine." "Ah yes, Eleanor Rigby on the flip side." "I returned it. Can you look?"
I wrote down the paticulars nervously. I went to the catalog and saw that yes it had been signed out by a person with her name, and not returned. I asked: "Did you hang it in personally? Did you get a receipt?" "I don't think so. All I know is I returned it." I tried to come up with a solution. "Someone may have stolen it after you returned it." This was possible. However, it was impossible to know.
I went back into storage to see if the record was there, but it wasn't. I returned to tell her: "The replacement fee would not be terribly much, you know."
She said: "I'm sorry; I refuse to pay. Good morning."
Off she went, and I never saw her again. My heart broke that day.
*
Moon
We were simply just another tribe out in the world, hunting, gathering, you remember what it was like. A rounded thing, like a circle cut in two, appeared brightly one night in the sky. It went away in the morning, but re-appeared when the sun had gone down. Had it actually gotten thicker? We argued about it, and it wasn't until two nights later that we knew for certain that, yes, it was getting thicker. Would it ever stop? A few more nights, and it was, like, half of a circle. Something weird was going on. No-one had any explanation. Why here, to us, why now? A group would stay up in the night to see if anything further happened, because it had daily gotten bigger. What was it anyway? A few nights more--we were keeping track--the thing was a complete, and bright, circle. It was like the sun at dusk or dawn, and perhaps related in some way. We were frightened but exhilarated. We stayed up all night partying. A few nights later, we saw it was shrinking again, and not too many nights later it was gone. We never saw it again. What an experience....
*
Persephone,
the tale of a young North American girl during the Trojan War, published well over eighty years ago, as recounted by the young girl herself, and scribed by anon with illustrations by another anon, in a little under two hundred pages (not including the illustrations which cover plates in the middle of the binding), recounts her inchoate sense that something terrible was happening somewhere, and that the feeling lasted for ten years from the time she was eight to the time she was eighteen. She would describe the sensation to anyone who was capable of listening, but the listener would invariably point out that there was no evidence to support what Persephone believed to be the case; there was nothing being carried on the wind, and the gossip from afar made no mention of anything terrible happening elsewhere; and all was peaceful at the time and that it had been peaceful since before Persephone had been born. Nonetheless, Persephone maintained her belief for a very long time, all her life in fact, and when, finally, it was discovered that there had been a great war on the other side of the world, she felt vindicated, and she died peacefully.
*
Adults
When we were over in Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland, I felt like a colonial.
And why shouldn't I have? Canada is a colony, and (since 1759) it's never been anything else.
Colonies are to Empire what children are to parent. In other words, they're childish and immature.
There was something about the Irish that indicated adulthood. They are mature, and they have ultimate control over their country. You can see it in the way the move and in the way they think. They don't have to look over their shoulders to see what Empire is doing. They do whatever they want.
As a reward, they have their own culture. What would this Canada be if it was a Republic? It would have its own art, which is something sorely lacking at present.
I continued thinking about all this a few weeks later, in New York State. An adult country, full of adult thought.
It would be nice to be a Republic; however, that can never happen, since all we have as a Canadian Zeitgeist is anti-Americanism, so becoming a Republic, which would make us slightly more like America, is a non-starter.
We're children. So's your old man.
*
Bloodslide
"That little town there, the one we just passed through, that was the town of Bloodslide. It used to be a pretty nice place, full of laughing and singing and gambling and drinking; for about fifty years it was like that. However, before it became that laughing-singing-gambling-drinking place, it was like Hell on earth. Terrible crimes, unspeakable crimes, got committed there, and there was no law nowhere to prevent any of it from happening. Before that time, of course, it was just a settlement on the prairie no different from a ten-thousand of the like. Well anyway, after it was the laughing-singing-gambling-drinking place, it went downhill. Whole kinship systems all up to no good would arrive in the middle of the night, whole wagonsful of inbred hooligans, and the streets we all bloody once again. Then, suddenly, the survivors all moved on, leaving three full cemeteries in the hills. People got to being happy again. There was an opera house and a dance hall, side by side, co-existing peacefully. But then of course it didn't last. Evil spirits crept in, tore the place apart. If we pass this way again, I'll bet it'll be a happy place once more."
*
Saved
I could have saved her. I could see how the walls of the canyon were unstable as she on her own passed between them. If I'd have gone with her, then we would have had four eyes to watch what was happening or about to happen.
She could have saved me. Why didn't she ask me to come along with her? I would have come with her, and she would have saved me. The canyon was a long canyon, and the nights would have been cold, perhaps the coldest nights on earth.
I could have saved her. "I'm not letting you go alone, no sir, I'm coming with you." I had a better horse than she did, and just like that we would have gotten through to the open spaces, to the wide-open prairies. If she didn't want me there after that, so be it. Can't have everything.
She could have saved me. "Thanks, Tex, I can go on from here all on my own." My obligation would be over, not like it is now. I'll never be free of my obligation now, I'll never be able to get on with it. Night came down, while neither got saved.
*
Day
:I woke up this morning,: said the man in the coffee shop, :completely unawares of what had happened. I mean, how do you gain an entire day?:
But it was all true, all across the globe, in one unifying event. How had it happened that the calendar had not changed overnight? The big one everyone measured everything against said it was so. Yesterday was such-and-such a day, and today it was exactly the same day.
:All records have been consulted,: said the newsreader, :and there's only one conclusion, and that's that the source is our enemy himself.:
By general consensus, instead of creating a new symbol for this unusual day, we'd rather have a forty-eight-hour day. All the other matters, all the matters of billing and giving and receiving, would fall into place eventually.
:Gaia is unhappy with us,: said one soapbox-man, :and this is her way of showing her displeasure. Gaia is very unhappy with us.:
Evening fell, and we all settled down to rest. Anxiously so, though, for we didn't know what was to come. Would we jump ahead twenty-four hours? Or had time stopped, meaning tomorrow would be the very same? Would tomorrow be another day?
*
[Interior]
Me, I must get out of here; where is the exit? What's the way out? I see outside, but since that's all I see--outside--I can't understand what the word 'outside' means, because that's all I can see. How can I see inside? I can't; best I can do is see people looking at me here in my invisible inevitable and inviolable prison.
There has to be a way out; there has to be a method or a means of getting out. I would like to see me from the outside. I would like to be present long enough to see my funeral happening, like others will witness it, like I have witnessed the funerals of others.
But still I'm in here, with the mistaken belief that the words I write must be taken to reflect my interior; but that's an illusion too, since I can't prove any interiority exists in others, not in any other of the arts either. That line was painted by a hand, that note was stroked by a hand, that letter was drawn by a hand. What do my savage yawps prove, really?
Something yawped, that's for certain. But was it really me?
*
Authoritarianism
I suppose I never knew myself until the day I got insubordinated. I had been raised up from humble beginnings, then I became a supervisor of others. For a couple of weeks, without intending to, I found myself drawing charts detailing everyone's relationship with everyone else, and also scheduling endless meetings, possibly to better observe my crew. They would come into the meetings, and I would closely observe their behaviour. I felt these meetings were naturally making me a better trainer of people.
Then, under the eyes of my superior, whom I didn't know well at all, I got insubordinated. One of my minions dialed in to the meeting rather than be present. I deftly contained my shock and surprise during those 120 minutes, but the following day I ran into the miscreant, almost by chance, and I asked, casually: "O, I was casually wondering why you dialed in to the meeting yesterday."
The miscreant said: actually, I don't recall what he said. Whatever it was, I replied: "I appreciate your situation, but you have to understand that these matters of your physical presence are my call, not yours."
Suddenly, I knew myself. I was doing the right thing.
*
The Modern Sisyphus
Sisyphus slept in. He almost always slept in. Out in the kitchen he found his coffee ready for him, via a Keurig system attached to a timer. He remembered newspapers, but he hadn't received one in such a long time....
He took the coffee out onto the terrace. The Aegean was looking mighty swell, that winedark sea, with fishes he might fish for later. Who knew what an easygoing day might bring?
The morning and the first couple hours of the afternoon drifted away, with Aeolus taking his leisurely ways with the wind, a gentle breeze....
A gentle alarm went off, from Sisyphus's Kindle. Three in the afternoon, which meant it was time to labour. He arose with a mighty weight from his lounge, went into his office, and awoke his Dell from sleep mode. The bar graphs, meters of the many parts of the machine he'd constructed, told him all was normal. His boulder-mountain-upper machine was nearing the top, and soon the boulder would once again roll to the bottom, and the machine would again descend, and start pushing the boulder up again.
Sisyphus sighed, grateful for his genius. A little oil's all it took. Modernity!
