Oh Humanity!

She, like you, wanted to get from one point to another, from A to B, from origin to destination. She had so many choices about how to travel there, that she, like you, had to make a list of them all.

First on the list: she, like you, could take a chain of local buses all the way there. At the end of each local's area there was always a connection to the beginning of the next. It would be like using stepping stones, a bit at a time. However, it would take weeks to get to her, like your, destination.

Secondly, a long-distance bus line travelled nearly to her, like your, destination. But, again, there were many stops along the way, and it would, in the end, take five days.

Third: she, like you, could learn to drive, which would take less time. However, she, like you, would have to learn to drive.

An airplane could get there pretty quickly, but airplane travel is so unreliable nowadays there was no guarantee she'd, like you'd, get there in one piece.

Finally, she, like you, could build a rocket-ship. However, building rocket-ships is difficult and time-consuming.

She, like you, never went.

 

*

 

I've been working on this song, and I'm looking for some feedback. I'm going to play the music, and you'll have to imagine me, aurally, playing the guitar, to words to some effects like these words. I'm not sure that's possible, but I'm something of a romantic, which will become apparent as the song goes on. You may hear the music.

 

Just yesterday morning, they called to tell me you were gone

And all my visions shattered on that day

You were a ton of bricks, and a castle in the air

Until you fell to sea, like Icarus.

 

Oh, there's been fire and there's been rain

Your sweet machine got useless then, didn't it

And now you've drowned down in the deep sea

I don't know how to pick up all these pieces.

 

I thought you'd never leave me, [hum] in body or in soul

Because those words we said they meant [hum] some [hum] thing

This meadow's like my broken back

Or maybe I'm exaggerating more than anyone's ever done

An' it's just my greedy soul or heart you broke.

 

Did you hear the music? Do you get the meaning? It's a W.I.P. Lemme know its potential, SVP.

 

*

 

Mary and I went to Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada, in 2022.

Now I've ruined it!

Let me start again.

"I've been to many cottages. The Deakins' especially often, but also the Gutsells', my aunt's, the Terwilligers. I was six when my father sank into a marsh somewhere near Skeleton Lake with me on his shoulders, and the expression on my face was, as I've been told, pretty funny. I looked shocked to be suddenly dropped five feet.

"When I got to be 21, I had a stock of memories in my head, and one was about a little town, on a sloped street. Since then, I've been travelling around up there, in the Very Near North, but I hadn't found that street on which I'd bought a puzzle book.

"I had to conclude it had been a dream. There was no such street. There was no such puzzle book. I'd been to all the towns there. The place didn't exist."

Mary and I went to Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada, in 2022. I realized I'd been there before. I knew their sloped street, and I knew the store from which I'd bought the puzzle book when I'd been seven: on the east side.

 

*

 

I got back into the long-playing-record about a month ago. I started with a Nina Simone record. My beloved brother then recommended an Eric Dolphy record, so I got that. This is all how the record company fuckers get you hooked.

I bought all the Beatles LPs, the anthologies which were put out in November. Meanwhile, I remembered an actual record store in my neighbourhood. (I don't want to name them, since we might be getting defamatory here.)

I picked out the new Lana Del Rey record, and something recent by Titus Andronicus.

But the hit wasn't enough.

I said to the record-store merchant: "This is nice.... but do you have anything harder?"

He casually pretended ignorance. "I don't know anything." He held out his hand, looking otherways. I put four twenties in said hand. "Come with me."

I followed him down stairs, and then down more stairs, and then through an ancient iron door.

And there they were. Rows and rows of cylinder recordings. Racks of yellowed sheet music. Lacquered transcription disks. It was almost too much to comprehend.

He said: "We'll have to run a security check on you before you can buy. You're not a cop, right?"

 

*

 

When I came to, five bright lights were shining up me, and three four shadowed figures were arranged between them. Two of the figures were smoking. One of them said: "You've returned to consciousness, have you? It's been quite some time."

I replied: "Where am I? Who are you? For that matter, who am I?"

"Don't play games, Mr. B," said a female voice. "You know why you're here, and you know what we want."

I tried to recall anything of the past, but I could not. Words failed me, because I knew too few of them.

"All we want," said a third shadow: "is the location of the diamonds."

"Diamongs," I said to myself though aloud.

"Diamonds, we're after the diamonds, that's all." I don't know if this voice belonged to a fourth shadow or not.

I pictured a park. "They're in parks. And stadiums. It's part of a game."

"Not those diamonds." (How long had I been there, wherever it was? "You know what we want."

I continued to know nothing, and some weeks later they released me.

I looked up at the ball of fire in the sky. I'd held on. The diamonds were safe with Abernethy.

 

*

 

Sweeney Todd was busy at work grinding up a corpse for a special recipe of carrot spiced ground human when there came the jingle of his shop's bell. He wiped the blood on his apron and went out amongst the display cases to see three rather thuggish-looking men in blue suits and red ties. Sweeney tried to be cheerful. He said: "And what can I do for you today?"

The men said, in turn: "We're from the government."

"Her Majesty's Government."

"And it's come to our attention you're making cannibal pies."

Sweeney felt iron bars closing down upon him. "Oh, nothing could be further from the truth!"

"We've tested your wares."

"Definitely human flesh."

"We have our own chemists."

Sweeney confessed. "It's true! Take me away!" He put out his wrists, awaiting fetters.

"We're not arresting you."

"That's not our task."

"We're only here to get some paperwork done."

Sweeney was shocked. "Paperwork? And nothing else?"

"You have to have a licence for your product."

"A licence from the government."

"A licence to cook as you do."

Sweeney said: "But, isn't it a crime?"

"Do what you will."

"But the government's attitude is...."

"We demand a piece of the action."

 

*

 

"To begin.

"We'll determine the next sentence by the one that comes before it.

"Or, non-controversially, we might determine the sentence by the two that came before.

"There's really no end to the determinism; three sentences are a powerful determinator.

"Language itself takes a hand in what becomes possible, and it's only through great effort that the spell can be broken.

"I don't know much physics, but it's easy to see that the whole universe, with all its causes and effects, is not terribly far removed from this one little observation.

"In fact, the shape of a narrative follows greater laws that the tipbits and tidbits you read about in 'How to be a Good Writer.'

"Not that there's any such book; I made up the title because I've never read one and I don't know what they're called.

"To go back a couple sentences: as A follows B and as C follows B, the pull of determinism applies on page one, page one hundred, page one thousand.

"Otherwise, you'll be called out as a gibberish-cooker.

"Because the reader insists that the structure be there.

"For he himself is partially part of the deterministic laws, along with his lovely wife."

 

*

 

The criminals are in their hideout. The sky is beginning to lighten. Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman knows it's time to act. He shouts: "Come out with your hands up!"

A single criminal comes out. He says: "Do you know how many criminals are behind me?"

Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman says: "It doesn't matter. You are all under arrest."

The criminal says: "Hah! You stumbling idiotic fool!"

Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman says: "I know you are, but what am I?"

The criminal is confounded! He doesn't know how to respond! There are murmurs of confusion from the criminals behind him. What is going on? The main criminal says: "Okay! We're surrendering! Only don't say what you said again!"

Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman collars the criminals and hauls them off.

Such is the nature of Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman! This eight-part series will tell of his adventures amongst the thieves, the murderers, and the all-around scoundrels. In each of his adventures, wherein all seems to be lost, his wit saves him, yes, through his mocking statement: "I know you are, but what am I?" No-one is ever prepared for this razor-sharp ego deflation, this puzzle of a statement, which is always couched in a sneering and sassy tone.

Tune in next week for another episode of Iknowyouarebutwhatamiman!

 

*

 

I think our sensory abilities are very curious. For a single and simple example, consider the distant stranger. Even on a dark street, at, say, ten o'clock in the evening, one can tell, from a distance of two blocks, if the (virtual) silhouette of a person is coming toward you or away from you. The person is simply an outline, and yet you can tell in what direction the person is heading.

Let us consider the humble squirrel. You approach a tree at the base of which is a squirrel engaged in squirrel business. The squirrel leaps onto the tree and scurries to the other side. The squirrel hides from you, and yet, it may be asked, is the squirrel conscious of its behavior? Did it learn how to hide? No. Naturally, it was instinct and nothing else. If the squirrel did not behave like that, the squirrel would have no opportunity to reproduce its genes (being dead, you understand).

Thus, the ability to know if someone two blocks away is coming towards you or going away from you is instinctual, just as the squirrel's avoidance is instinctual. We never learned it; it's something in our bones. Same as thought.

 

*

 

Though I certainly must have heard their music before, I like to think that the first time I heard it was on a car trip to somewhere, probably in '72 or '73, through a single earphone, off a portable C-battery cassette player.

In my Great Aunt's house, in Long Beach, CA, I found an electric organ. I could read music well enough, so I picked out a couple of their melodies. I think that was 1977.

They were always around. Once I started buying long-playing records, maybe the tenth or eleventh LP I bought was by them.

I remember playing their music in a friend's basement, with two other musicians. We were electric guitar, electric bass, and since I couldn't play anything I either sang or banged on the drums.

The band had broken up by the time I became aware. Millions of people wanted them to get back together, but that idea ended when one of the bandmembers got shot in New York.

Years pass, and I find myself in possession of a collection of their original mono records. (I lend the box to a friend, and he seemingly lost one.)

Now they've been mixed to stereo.

Oh humanity!