Karmic Warriors
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- Words: 45,755
- Pages: 354
in loving memory: Yehudah Lev son of Shelomo Natan the Levite with special thanks: Bernie Boudreaux, Larry Estes, Mike Faris, Steve Garriott, Paul Gustie, Tom Keogh, Steve McCarthy, Eric Oberchmidt, Stan Paik, Shane Rooks, John Schellman, Roger Stouff, Brad Tollefson, Dalt Wonk.
ad astra per alla porci!
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A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
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Midway this way of life we’re upon, I awoke to find myself in a dark wood, Where the right road was wholly lost and gone. Hell, Canto 1 —Dante
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PLAYING CATCH ON RANDOM STREET IN THE SHADOW of
a northwest icon, enmeshed in the mechanism that is SEATTLE, aimlessly roam people of all shapes and sizes, kinds, colors and sexes; people of differing propensities, predispositions, perspectives, predilections and peculiarities; some who are happily engaged, selfcertain, even driven; others who are lost, subservient, and without wills of their own. Some are preposterously prosperous, painfully trendy and pointlessly hip, while others are battered and chagrined, permanently nonplussed, and poignantly without a clue; some of them are right brain dominate, some of them are left-brain dominate; few if any of them is like Pomeroy Jarvis.
After brushing his teeth, Pomeroy Jarvis dresses in bluejeans and T-shirt, a woolen L.L. Bean Lumberman’s coat and a Mariners baseball cap. Then he decides on what his day will be like. Here is how he does this: he uses a BB maze, the kind you roll around and try to make the BBs fall into little holes. This particular BB maze is an antique one decorated with a colorful image of Betty Boop.
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If all the BBs fall into the little holes in the sixty seconds he allots himself, then he determines he will have a “good” day. Whereas, if only one or two—or, worse, none—fall into the little holes, then he prepares himself for a “bad” day. “Good” and “bad” are defined thus: bad might include a missed bus; a forgotten favorite bladder pen; wilted lettuce on his sandwich; poor service on his cellphone; having to stand too close to someone in line at Starbucks, etc. While a good day might include—besides the opposite of everything already mentioned—a smile from the red-headed, freckled receptionist; no rain; plenty of seating on the bus; a free Latte; finding a wallet in the men’s room filled with twenty dollar bills. And so on. As he steps outside, having divined that his day will be moderately bad (only 3 out of the 8 BBs went into their little holes), rain starts to fall. (“Fall,” to most people, means an object being compliant with the Laws of Nature as described by Isaac Newton; it means, in essence, motion from a perceived
higher place to a perceived lower one. Thus, rain in most geographic locales can be said to “fall” from above. This is not always the case in Seattle. In Seattle, rain—in other parts of the country known as “mist”—can fall from almost any direction, even perpendicular to the earth.) He adjusts his Mariners baseball cap so that its bill is facing forward, and sets off for his favorite Starbucks, and another glorious day at work. And what PJ does for a living is this: he presses buttons. The buttons form a part of a keyboard that rests on his desk beneath a large, flat illuminated screen. When he presses the buttons on his keyboard, characters appear on the illuminated screen. According to which buttons he presses, he can control the shape and frequency of the characters’ appearance. Here is what some of his characters look like:
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and Spanish, but to master those languages one has to look at and speak with other people. Here is an example of PJ’s sense of humor, as well as what he does in his spare time. This is the wellknow Western European (North American continent version) ditty, “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” written in Perl: ‘’=~( ‘(?{‘ .(‘`’ |’%’) .(‘[‘ ^’-’) .(‘`’ |’!’) .(‘`’ |’,’) .’”’. ‘\\$’ .’==’ .(‘[‘ ^’+’) .(‘`’ |’/’) .(‘[‘ ^’+’) .’||’ .(‘;’ &’=’) .(‘;’ &’=’) .’;-’ .’-’. ‘\\$’ .’=;’ .(‘[‘ ^’(‘) .(‘[‘ ^’.’) .(‘`’ |’”’) .(‘!’ ^’+’) .’_\\{‘ .’(\\$’ .’;=(‘. ‘\\$=|’ .”\|”.( ‘`’^’.’ ).((‘`’)| ‘/’).’).’ .’\\”’.+( ‘{‘^’[‘). (‘`’|’”’) .(‘`’|’/’ ).(‘[‘^’/’) .(‘[‘^’/’). (‘`’|’,’).( ‘`’|(‘%’)). ‘\\”.\\”’.( ‘[‘^(‘(‘)). ‘\\”’.(‘[‘^ ‘#’).’!!—’ .’\\$=.\\”’ .(‘{‘^’[‘). (‘`’|’/’).( ‘`’|”\&”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\””).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘[‘^(‘)’)). ‘\\”).\\”’. (‘{‘^’[‘).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘[‘^”\/”).( ‘`’|”\(“).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘[‘^”\,”).( ‘`’|”\!”).( ‘`’|”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘,’)). ‘\\”\\}’.+( ‘[‘^”\+”).( ‘[‘^”\)”).( ‘`’|”\)”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘[‘^(‘/’)). ‘+_,\\”,’.( ‘{‘^(‘[‘)). (‘\\$;!’).( ‘!’^”\+”).( ‘{‘^”\/”).( ‘`’|”\!”).( ‘`’|”\+”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\$”).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘[‘^”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘.’)). ‘,’.((‘{‘)^ ‘[‘).(“\[“^ ‘+’).(“\`”| ‘!’).(“\[“^ ‘(‘).(“\[“^ ‘(‘).(“\{“^ ‘[‘).(“\`”| ‘)’).(“\[“^ ‘/’).(“\{“^ ‘[‘).(“\`”| ‘!’).(“\[“^ ‘)’).(“\`”| ‘/’).(“\[“^ ‘.’).(“\`”| ‘.’).(“\`”| ‘$’).”\,”.( ‘!’^(‘+’)). ‘\\”,_,\\”’ .’!’.(“\!”^ ‘+’).(“\!”^ ‘+’).’\\”’. (‘[‘^’,’).( ‘`’|”\(“).( ‘`’|”\)”).( ‘`’|”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘%’)). ‘++\\$=”})’ );$:=(‘.’)^ ‘~’;$~=’@’| ‘(‘;$^=’)’^ ‘[‘;$/=’`’;
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Even when he was in Kindergarten, Pomeroy was good with numbers and drawing and using clay and scissors and brass clips and fluffy string and delicious paste and smearing hand paints and applying glitter. What he was not good at was this: looking at the teacher, looking at other students, and looking at
the chalkboard; also, he was not good at talking to the teacher, talking to other students, standing and talking at the chalkboard. Some of this had to do with the fact that Pomeroy could not see well from an early age. Some of this had to do with his naturally reticent predisposition. Most of it had to do with his parents. Pomeroy’s parents were an ill-suited couple who suffered from terrible and persistent hangovers. KW
Night and day, or so it seemed to young Pomeroy— and, later, to old Pomeroy—they fought. And when they fought they would do these things: they would yell; they would throw things (glass ashtrays were a favorite); they would use bad language, and they would
tell their only child, Pomeroy, that he was all that was holding them together, and that as soon as he grew up they would get a divorce. But this was just a lie; they never did get a divorce, even after Pomeroy went through the trouble
of growing up. In Pomeroy’s adult judgment, he concluded his parents had become so used to fighting that life without it would have seemed empty. Pomeroy, through his college years, would occasionally visit home to see if his parents were still fighting; satisfied that indeed they were, he would return to his dorm room to smoke dope until he couldn’t talk, drink beer until his head spun, and stare endlessly and without conscious intent into the alluring blue that was his computer’s screen.
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It could be fairly reported that Pomeroy lacked for friends all his life. Even as a child he had been alone, which is not to say lonely. Pomeroy always had an easy time amusing himself. He had learned to read early, and pursued this activity with alarming ferocity. First, he devoured all the books in his parents’ house; this had not taken long. They were, in no particular order: The Holy Bible, Gone With the Wind, Tobacco Road. He had not understood any of what he read, but that was OK with him; he liked to read. Soon he acquired a library card and began to read all the books he could carry, starting with science fiction; later, he moved on to more serious topics, with a special interest in science. Pomeroy longed to build a rocket ship and live on the moon. When he was ten
he was given a pet poodle. He loved him dearly, but his pet poodle soon committed suicide. There has always been a component to Pomeroy’s soul that determined life was basically meaningless, but you must go on. You must put on your blue jeans, pull on your NIRVANA T-shirt, adjust your Mariners baseball cap and continue to play this game called Life, even if you would rather not. Even if, like your pet poodle, you would rather commit suicide. In years to come, Pomeroy would adopt this as his heraldic motto: Item Not Won; Similar Items Found. In Latin (a dead language nobody really knows how to pronounce, and one Pomeroy never learned to read or write), it would go something like this: Item non won; similis items instituo.
When it became time for Pomeroy to find a job—after the graduation ceremony his parents forgot to attend— he had such an easy time of it he hardly had to try. In fact, there were so many recruiters who attended the graduation ceremony that all Pomeroy (along with many others) had to do was sign a piece of paper and move that same day from a tiny, windowless dorm room into a bright, roomy condo. It was that simple. A snap.
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And the company that snapped up Pomeroy on the glorious day of his graduation was MicronSearch, a software company adored by some and endured by everyone else. But all that was years ago. And during all those years, Pomeroy had seen most of his contemporaries at MicronSearch move up the ladder to larger offices, or simply retire to sail around the world. But he had done neither of these things. He had steadfastly insisted on remaining in the little windowless office that had replaced his little windowless dorm room; he was, he thought, happy exactly where he was, doing exactly what he did. And the people who owned MirconSearch weren’t going to argue with him. The people who owned MicronSearch were also happy with where he was, and with exactly what it was he did. But something was beginning to happen to Pomeroy Jarvis as he approached 40: he was beginning to slow down. Perhaps the voice of his soul was changing. “Life is meaningless, but you must go” on was starting to sound like “Life is meaningless, I was wrong about the rest.”
On this unremarkable, November day—the sky a slate gray with purplish clots, the street glistening with moisture from the previous night’s rain commingled with rain from the current morning’s moisture—men and women hurry along sidewalks, some dry beneath blossoms of umbrellas, others hunched forward to avoid rain falling on their faces and running KW
their makeup. Lines are beginning to form outside the thousands of Starbucks that populate Seattle, and groggy-eyed panhandlers are wheezing, coughing and shuffling their way to work. Pomeroy has to do this each and every morning: he has to walk past a gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. He hates that he has to walk past them; he hates that they exist. Early one morning once, before he had had his Latte (i.e., before his brain was operating properly), he made the mistake (he views it to have been that) of giving one of the panhandlers some change. Now, to this day, the panhandler he gave the change to smiles and nods whenever he sees Pomeroy, and Pomeroy is uncomfortable with this. There is a part of him that would like to take this panhandler aside and present him with a stern lecture on the virtues of employment and paying taxes, only a) he would be afraid to be alone with him, and b) there was always the possibility he might be wrong. There is also another part of him that has searched for a better route to the bus stop. By better, he means one that passes another Starbucks but not another gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. So far, that part of him has been stymied; sadly, Pomeroy is no Magellan. For all his searching—and there had not really been that much— he has failed to discover a better route to the bus stop, or a better Starbucks than the one with which he is so long familiar. So each and every morning he walks past a gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. And he hates it. But, then, everyone else does, too. The panhandler he once gave change to smiles and nods and doffs his hat. There had never been an occasion in his life when Pomeroy was doffed by any-
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one—doffing having fallen into comfortable anachronism. He just wants more money, decides Pomeroy. He is doffing me for money. It seems somehow a sad thing, this reduction of doffing to an act of pecuniary gain. It is as if the Graces had swept up Their scant belongings and left our planet, in search of greener pastures. A chill runs through Pomeroy’s thin, pale, muscousy frame; a vague, creakiness creeps into his joints and ligaments, like tunneling heteroptera. His eyes shift focus and roll off the bearded, doffing panhandler and his sign and his bowling bag, to the inviting glass door of his favorite Starbucks. Inside, it will be warm and dry, with wooden chairs that scrape on terrazzo floors and echo just like the chairs had done when he was in elementary school. And there will be a big, faux fireplace with an eternal flame, like the one at JFK’s grave. And there will be tables scattered with today’s Seattle Times and the Weekly and this month’s Wired and People magazines. And there will be WiFi. But, best of all, there will not be any wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers, or panhandlers of any kind. And there will be no more doffing.
(People in Seattle, as a general rule, do not doff; most wear black leather and avoid eye contact altogether.) Turns out his Latte is not free. He did not really expect it to be, having put only 3 out of the possible 8 BBs into their little holes. But one could always hope. He stands, Latte in hand, and sips. He is surrounded by a roomful of vaguely familiar faces, and this is as it should be; after all, he has been coming to this Starbucks since the day it opened, fifteen years ago. But still he knows no one, and no one knows him. In the years that have unraveled since he began sipping Lattes here, he has seen hundreds of faces appear and disappear behind the warm, green plastic counters. Perhaps some had finished grad school and moved on; perhaps some had become famous musicians or novelists and moved on; perhaps some had found better jobs or a new hair stylist or a better yoga teacher or achieved Samadhi and moved on; one thing was certain: they had moved on. Moved on with their lives. And in this, Pimlico Jester has something in common with them. He, too, has moved on with his life. On and on and so on. And now he is buying his (he does a quick calculation) 5, 467th Latte (another quick calculation places his total to date investment with Starbucks corporation at approximately $14,000US); but still he knows no one, and no one knows him. Except the bearded, doffing panhandler. Pomeroy can see him through the glass that sepa-
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rates them, warm on one side, cold on the other. Glass is like this: it’s real and not real. Nor is it so much wall as membrane. A membrane that appears to offer safety and security, but is in fact exquisitely pervious; a rock thrown or insult hurled could easily collapse it into glistening rubble. Pomeroy, however, is not thinking about the paradoxical nature of glass as he watches the panhandler. He is waiting. And what he was waiting for is this: an opportunity to steal out of Starbucks in such a manner that he will not have to have further contact with the bearded panhandler. Being doffed makes him feel sulky. While he refrains from exiting Starbucks, he studies the situation. It had never occurred to Pomeroy Jarvis during his 40 years on earth to ponder things too deeply, if at all. He is convinced he has no answers to anything someone else couldn’t more easily divine. He is also convinced his opinion is just that, and ought to be kept from public view and therefore criticism. Everyone on TV has an opinion; everyone who writes for newspapers, or who publishes blogs has an opinion; if there were answers to the problems that plague the world—the few that he’s aware of— by now they would have been figured out, what with so many voices talking all the time. Pomeroy Jarvis is neither a registered driver of automobiles, nor a practicing participant in the American system of vote casting. He studies the sign the panhandler holds in his grubby hands. This seems original. But, of course, not true.
What’s true is this: panhandlers are hopeless alcoholics (like his own parents), addicts of things far worse than books. Also another thing that is true about panhandlers: they will say anything to part you from your money. Their signs are contrived to appeal to our weaker instincts. For instance. The reason so many panhandlers have dogs is because there are so many dog lovers in the world. And dog lovers will give money to a panhandler with a dog just so they’ll be able to feed their dog. Of course, the panhandler will feed his dog something, but dog food is cheap; the rest of that money will go directly into a liquor store cash register. The fact that the bearded, doffing panhandler holds a sign that suggests he loves to read is just another ruse, along the same lines as having a dog. The panhandler knows a lot of people in Seattle love to read; he also knows it will warm these people’s hearts to believe that he would rather read than be drunk. So they will give him their change, believing that, once he has accumulated enough, he will take it straight to Barnes & Noble and purchase books that will ennoble his mind. But this will not be the case, a Latte sipping Pomeroy Jarvis concludes. The change they give will instead enable his drinking. As Social Security has done for his parents. He is unpleasantly surprised when his Latte runs out. He glances at the electronic clock on his wrist. He hasn’t time enough for a second Latte. He has to get to work. Most of the other people in the Starbucks are also looking at their electronic watches. They, too, have to get to work. Pomeroy crushes his Starbucks double-lined recycled paper cup nearly completely into a ball before he drops it into a handsome, simulated wood trashcan. He saunters to the door and waits. Soon, several
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leather-clad men and women join him. They all appear uncomfortable, glancing out the warm/cold glass membrane at the gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. The panhandlers, for their part, also having noticed the time on their own electronic watches, stand to attention and outstretch their paper cups. Their dogs bark and wag tails in anticipation. Not a word is spoken among the leather-clad group that has grown in number at the door. One of them, apparently in possession of a leadership strain, leans on the push bar and leads the crowd outside. Bedlam ensues as the well-dressed Employed exit the Starbucks and pass the shabbily-dressed Unemployed.
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Pomeroy Jarvis heads for the curb; he’s done this before. He jockeys to get as much space and as many people between him and the panhandlers as he can. He is happy with the results of his strategy. The way it works is this: he gets away scot-free, while others have to expend energy either speaking with or painstakingly avoiding eye contact from the gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. His pleasure at successfully having avoided the gauntlet fades when he notices the bearded, book-loving panhandler. He is smiling at him—Pomeroy Jarvis—and doffing.
Rain that was drizzle then mist is finally fog by the time PJ’s bus hisses to a stop outside the big gates and bigger guardhouse at MicronSearch’s endless main campus. Pomeroy Jarvis attaches his nametag before exiting the bus; he likes people to know where he works because it’s so famous and this, by extension, makes him feel somewhat famous, too. He steps into the damp concrete day, leaving the soft bus glow behind. At the guardhouse he is inspected; a wand is passed over his body; his pockets are searched and he is asked several questions to which, hopefully, only he will know the answers. Then he signs in and is thumbprinted and escorted by two armed sentries along a winding path through hydrangeas, rhododendrons and roses, beneath transplanted spruce and alder and maple, to the wireglass-reinforced steel entrance of the main building. Here he is searched again, wanded again and, like Oedipus, asked three questions. Upon successfully answering these questions, he is permitted entrance into the building. At the vast semi-circular guard’s desk, Pomeroy
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Jarvis signs in again. Then, handcuffed to a uniformed guard, he is escorted to a bank of elevators not thirty feet distant and accompanied to his floor (No. 23) and into his office. (It always makes Pomeroy feel safe to be at work. Although he is not exactly sure why there are so many precautions in evidence everywhere around him, he is exactly sure the people who own MicronSearch know what they are doing; after all, it must cost them a bundle to do it, so they surely have good reasons.) The guard uncuffs Pomeroy then locks him inside his small, windowless office where he will work his magic, pressing buttons, for the next eight hours, with 15 minute breaks every other sixty minute period, and a 23 minute lunch at noon. Before Pomeroy can immerse himself in the problem he left unfinished the day before—as he has done on successive days now for many years—he notices this: a yellow square of paper affixed to the center of his terminal’s illuminated screen. Pomeroy frowns. He is certain this yellow square of paper had not been there yesterday; certainly, he had not put it there. And his office is securely locked when he leaves at the end of the day, every day, by a ruthless appearing, unsmiling, uncommunicative, uniformed guard. Pomeroy creaks down upon his baby blue, customized chair and angles his head so as better to read the small, unfamiliar script that inhabits the yellow square of paper. The yellow square contains these words:
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Pomeroy’s frown deepens. What could this mean? Is he in some sort of trouble? His mind reaches back over his life and is met with some resistance. (Has he not always behaved as expected? always produced massive amounts of code? often stayed late—more so in the early days, before the security tightened—and never, never complained?) Then he hits on it—a promotion! But he doesn’t want a promotion. Hasn’t he always turned them down? Of course! That was the problem! The one, single blemish on his career—he has never accepted a promotion. Now they are going to make him take more money, give him a bigger office, and require that he assume the mantel of managerial responsibility. Pomeroy Jarvis shakes his head. He does not wish to manage people. He does not even like people. All he wants to do is write code. It is the one thing he enjoys, and the one thing he is good at. What will he tell them? Will they give him a choice? Two minutes later, still thinking these things, there comes a knock at the door.
The man they sent to fetch him is sallow and thin and pimply; he produces a feigned smile when he says: “Please come with me, sir. The boss wants to see you.” (His eyes inflate for emphasis when he utters the word boss.) Pomeroy had expected him to say he would be meeting with someone from Human Resources; he could not possibly have imagined the boss would want to see him! (The emphasis placed on that word by the sallow, thin, pimply man had been unnecessary.) The boss we are speaking of here is none other
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than that Man of Mystery, Code Ninja Extraordinaire, Mister MicronSearch Himself—Ron Delworthy. Some say he is the richest man in America, others that he is the richest man on earth. Everyone agrees he is a genius of the first rank and mad as a hatter. Unlike where most men of his position might be expected to have his office—on his own building’s top floor, with the vista of the city at his feet—Ron Delworthy’s is in the basement. In fact, it is in the subsub-sub basement. In further fact, it is so deeply and so secretly and so securely buried that a dedicated elevator is required just to get to the special elevator that takes you to the heavily guarded private elevator that takes you to its door. Ron Delworthy may be said to be a private man; he may be said to be a man who scorns attention; he most certainly may be said to be a man who believes in security. Pomeroy Jarvis is led into the first elevator, where he is blindfolded. After this elevator descends 39 floors and sighs to a stop, he is led to the second elevator; that elevator descends a single floor and stops, then he is led to the third, final, elevator. He and his pimply companion sink another level deeper. He is next led down a long hall and told to stand quite still while his body is examined by a tunneling electron microscope. Satisfied he carries within his cavities no nano-terrors waiting to explode, his blindfold is removed and he finds his nose almost touching a polished wooden door. With barely a sound, the wooden door slides open to reveal a darkened room. Pomeroy Jarvis rubs his eyes. The hallway in which he stands is lit with a warm, rubious glow. This helps his eyes adjust to the darkness that yawns before him. “Don’t just stand there! It isn’t safe! Come in, damnit—come in!”
P. J. does as the voice insists. The polished wooden door glides shut behind him. “Don’t be afraid, Pervus. You’re safe in here. Probably for the first time in your life.” Pomeroy has always felt safe when he was at work. But he has to admit this: he feels much safer now. A brief, unexpected sadness befalls him, sweeps across him as if the shadow of a cloud: for, once he leaves Ron Delworthy’s office, he doubts he will ever feel safe again. He senses more than sees a light and finds himself moving in its direction. The light suddenly flares and serves partially to illuminate the room in which he stands and the man who sits in a large wingback before him, his feet propped up on a table. It is Ron Delworthy, someone Pomeroy Jarvis has only see in small photographs published in weekly tabloids. He has an almost round head that is entirely bald; a white, walrus mustache obscures his mouth. He wears what appears to be formal attire; his bowtie is white, and the front of his starched, white shirt is studded with black buttons; his black coat is an old fashioned cutaway, and shiny stripes run along the length of his black pant legs. His appearance is strangely comforting to Pomeroy.
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Ron Delworthy—boss, as well as host—pulls a corona-corona out of a nearby humidor, and offers one to Pomeroy. “From my own plantation. Not for sale. I have millions of ’em.” But Pomeroy Jarvis, as with many of his Seattleite peers, is not a smoker. “No, thank you, Mister Delworthy.” Ron Delworthy closes the humidor and motions for his employee/guest to sit in the companion chair to his right. He lights his cigar while Pomeroy takes a seat. “Look at my skin, Jarvy,” commands Ron Delworthy. He angles his face so Pomeroy has a better view of his cueball head. “Even my scalp is healthy and unwrinkled. What about yours?” Pomeroy hesitates, then leans forward into the light. “Not bad,” assesses Ron Delworthy. “Of course, you lack wrinkles because you lack gravitas. I have gravitas up the ass, but no wrinkles. Know why, Parmus?” Pomeroy Jarvis does not know why. “It’s because I use this.” He removes from inside his coat a small white jar with a silver screw cap. “Made especially for me. No-one else on earth can have any. It’s all mine.” He replaces the white and silver jar into his coat. “You like movies, Pumice?” Pomeroy does indeed like movies, but he seldom goes out to see any, preferring to cocoon at home with rentals. “Yes, sir.” “So do I. But I hate the crap Hollywood makes— don’t you?” Actually, Pomeroy loves the crap Hollywood makes. “Yes, sir.” “Know what I do about it, Plurvis?” “No, sir.”
“I make my own. Must have two hundred of ’em by now. I come up with the ideas, hire the writers and directors, cast the roles, finance everything, fuck the chicks, guide the editing, then watch it right here. And no one else can see them. No one who works on the pictures can ever talk about ’em—or else.” Pomeroy is impressed by this unexpected information. “You like Socrates? I have a wonderful musical comedy about him.” Pomeroy Jarvis is pleased to hear this; he has always liked to say the word “Socrates”. His boss and host stares into the glowing coal of his ignited cigar. “You know what poverty means, Pom?” Before Pomeroy can reply, Ron Delworthy continues. “It means God doesn’t care. Oh, not that God doesn’t care about the human race. He just doesn’t care about you—if you happen to be poor. You’re not poor, are you? No, of course not. You worked for me, didn’t you? See, Jurvis, the fact is this right here—this so-called earththing of ours—is actually an afterlife: You and I—we’re already dead and buried. This is all an illusion, shadows cast on a wall. And the present condition of your so-called life is in direct relation to the judgment God made of you when you died. See? None of what we do here actually matters. Buttons you press, code you write, money I make, these cigars—all meaningless. But only a few people know about this. The privileged few.” Pomeroy is not really listening; he is dwelling on the past tense verb his boss/host used in reference to his employment status with MicronSearch. “I started MS as a lark, just something to do while
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I luxuriated in God’s beneficence. Have to go through the motions. So I give money to charities so men and women still working on their karmas can siphon it off and feather their nests in the hopes of getting caught in the act so they can advance to the next level maybe in a few thousand years, the way I did. It’s a slow process, and I’ve been at it a while now. Owning things is such a bore, but it’s part of my job—while I’m here. After all, someone has to be top dog so others can envy him. Envy is a very important part of the whole, you know, formula—the megillah as our Jewish cousins call it. You’re not Jewish by any chance, are you, Jarvus?” Pomeroy Jarvis is certain he’s not Jewish. “Good. Now tell me. What do you know about inhalers?” “Inhalers?” “Yes, inhalers, man, inhalers. When you can’t find an inhaler anywhere—that’s when you know you’re in trouble. You know what they say about frogs and reality? Well, the same is true about inhalers.” Pomeroy Jarvis is glad to know this. He had not known it before. He is beginning to feel as if he is among the privileged few. “By now you’re wondering why I sent for you, right? Only natural you should.” By now, the ash on Ron Delworthy’s corona-corona is so long he is required to hold it at right angles to the so-called earth-thing of ours, or it will fall off. He does this, rather than use the ashtray. In fact, Pomeroy—after he notices the lengthening ash—notices also that there are no ashtrays anywhere to be seen. “I’m told you’ve been with us a long time and done good work. I like to reward people who stay with us a long time and do good work, Jarffle. So here it is. This is it. Your reward. Did you know I could hire three Chinese students to do what you do for the same amount of money I paid you? That’s right—paid.
Think of the savings to MS, and the increased productivity! Hell, Chinks work endlessly. You’ll be fondly remembered for your sacrifice, don’t worry. And, best of all—you’ll finally get some gravitas. No doubt being broke and unemployable will give you plenty of wrinkles. Gray hair, too. You’ve been one of my drones long enough. It’s time you unfolded, become whatever it is you’re going to become. Before it’s too late. I mean, there’s a war on, you know. You may not think so now, but I’m doing you a favor, son. Now you agree to do me one, too, as you rise to leave.” Pomeroy, in shock at what he has heard, stands. “Keep quiet about the inhalers.” Pomeroy’s mouth is very, very dry. He licks his very, very dry lips with his very, very dry tongue and asks, “Why me?” Ron Delworthy puffs out a pinwheeling smoke ring, and shrugs. “I wonder that myself. Have a nice life, Purvis.”
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ORDER, DISORDER AND THE SECRET LIFE OF RUBBER BANDS
There are ways of walking that merely bring you to your goal; there are ways of walking that avoid unanticipated follies or pitfalls; there are ways of walking that provide witness to God’s humor; there are ways of walking that provoke stares and prohibit calm observation; there are ways of walking that confirm abstruse theorems; there are ways of walking that are benign, ways of walking that are overt, ways of walking that are balletic, ways of walking that are spare and succinct and honed. All these ways and more has Zeno walked. Zeno, who has walked perhaps more than any man in his time. Zeno, who has striven, stridden and stumbled; who has ambled and shambled and lumbered and lurched; who has struggled and shed and shone throughout the hails of bullets, darkling skies, dictates of Universal Prescription or Kismet or Preordination or Fate or whatever other Universal Metaphor might spring to mind— Zeno who is—in technical parlance—a Peripatetic. Zeno who is, in philosophical jargon, a Stoic.
Zeno who is, in sociological terms, a bum. Zeno who is as Zeno does. Long live Zeno.
On this day in the jungly jungle that is life in Seattle, Zeno—who, unlike those laved by the flickering glow of marble fireplaces, or warmed by the hushed rush of heated air through brass floor registers, never complains of the cold or the damp or the wind or the vagaries of Life—stands outside yet another Starbucks and prepares for yet another day of thinking. Yesterday, and the day before—and as far back as he cares to recall—he had also stood and thought, had also walked and thought, had also lain and thought; had also, during the night, and the nights before, dreamed his thoughts into aeries of vine-clung turrets, into dappled, verdant fields alive with songbirds and marigolds, into lakes so pristine that to drink from them was to be restored to the
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state of an infant’s innocence. He unfurls his hand-lettered sign made from durable corrugated cardboard, and nods to his fellow voyagers who line the sidewalk beside him. His sign reads: I Need Ca$h 4 BOOKS. He is one of them, yet he is not. He stands together with them, yet apart. There is this about life yet to be understood—why we cling to the perception that there are “others”; that there is an “out there”; that a separation exists between us when evidence abounds that cries to the contrary. This will be today’s exercise. He will think and ponder and sidle up against this profundity; he will wheedle his way towards the heart of God; he will whittle away at the delusions that conjugate and separate and hobble our various passages through life. It will be a grand day. But it has not always been so. Days have not always been grand for Zeno. There had been times when overcast skies were perceived by him to be bleak and depressing, as if contoured to fit his life. There had been times when he had had to be places, many places, often all at once. There had been times when the phone would ring and, like a cloud of gnats
dispersed by a sudden gust of wind, his thoughts would vanish, never to reassemble. And there had been times when his heart was tied to others for its happiness. The rain has turned to mist. Soon, it will turn to fog. The men and women who gather in Starbucks, who have places to be, and telephones to answer, warm themselves KW30 inside and out with coffee and a gas fire. There had been other distractions for Zeno, as there are other distraction for us all. But Zeno had not been Zeno in those days. In those days, he had been know by another name, as had Madonna, Cher and Bono in their before years. In those days, he had been regarded and ignored in almost equal measure. In those days, he had been married and fathered and beleaguered and blessed and benighted and bemused; he had been charitable and sulky and pinchpenny and often, so often, drunk. Things had not gone well in those days; but they had managed to go better than expected. In the end, life can be that way. What he had been taught he ought to be; how he had
been expected he should behave; these twin pillars had cast a coldness across his life, shadows most thought comforting and often mistook for the sun. From a roomy coat pocket he withdraws a paper cup. Men are not much different from each other when they are naked; the same can be said of them when they are poor. The blind see perfectly well, only without light. In some ways, they see better than those attracted to the flame. Hunger, thirst, warmth and sleep; these are the sutures that tie us together, that cause us to huddle close, that bind us to the earth and make us call life hard. But life is not hard; life is easy. It’s only seems hard when we struggle. Zeno had given struggle a try, and found it wanting. He had done it for others principally because they had expected it of him. First, his parents; second, his peers; finally, his wife. He had failed them all. Failed them miserably. Zeno had always, in others’ eyes, been a failure, a lucid stooge; something of a fool. He had been sorry he had failed them; he hadn’t meant to. He had loved his friends; he had loved his family; he had loved his parents; but, somehow, that wasn’t enough. They wanted more.
The truth was, his heart wasn’t in it. Slowly, this realization that he was failing others led him to begin a lifetime of allconsuming speculation, beginning with this question: what, if anything, was his heart worth? He began with the things he knew about himself. He knew he wasn’t happy KW32 making money; he knew he wasn’t happy doing as expected; he knew he wasn’t happy engaged in struggle. This led him to his second question: what ought to be the goal of his life? Was it to be productive? Was it to be pleasant? Was it to give and to receive love? Was it to be benign, or bitter, or angry or anxious? Was it even possible to be happy? And, provided that it was, was happiness a worthy goal, in and of itself? Or was it simply another form of selfdeceit? And, if it was possible to be happy, then how best ought he to go about becoming that way? Could the achieving of happiness be justified if, in the doing of it, in its pursuit, others were dissatisfied, displeased, disapproved, or themselves made unhappy?
This led him to this question: is there a real world out there in which there are real values that are actually accessible and steadfast? If there was, then that meant there were rules of right and wrong, and that his own and others’ lives could be valued or devalued according to the touchstone of those rules. If there was not—if the world we encountered was merely a projection of our imaginations—then it was up to each and every one of us to unveil our relationship to the universal blend of realities that formed the atomic clouds we called tables, chairs and single malt scotch. The result of posing these questions to himself led to a marked reduction in his overall vitality; instead of, for instance, rising each day eager to tackle the mundane assignments his life had fostered, he began to stroll. This strolling started off in a small, unremarkable way. It started after dinner one evening. This new facet of his life raised few eyebrows, since it was becoming known in those days that walking was considered by the American Medical Association to be a perfect form of exercise for overweight Americans. Later, he began to stroll before and after breakfast; still
nothing was said. It was assumed by his wife that this meant her husband was determined to be “fit for life”, and she was pleased by this because it would reduce their insurance premiums. At work, during his lunch break, instead of eating, he strolled. This was worth remarking upon, since he had always KW34 been a man of great appetite. Added to this, he was beginning to appear distracted, was ambivalent about replies, and made vague suggestions instead of giving orders. Then one night he went out for his evening stroll and failed to return. His body was never found, so it was concluded he had been hacked to pieces and ground into sausage, or else his various parts had been scattered to dozens of dumpsters all over town and, like Humpty Dumpty, would never be put back together again. His wife wept, wore black, collected the insurance, sold their house, and remarried. Her new husband was a good provider, a good father, and a good businessman. He was a pillar of the community. He was a Deacon at their church. He was a Boy Scout leader. He had a passion for
roses. Years later, after he died of a heart attack, she cried and donned black and collected the insurance and, while selling their house, discovered trunk upon trunk tucked away in their attic, whose locks, having yielded to the persuasion of a crowbar, revealed an immense trove of child pornography. During the years after his wife had remarried to live out the life she desired, Zeno’s strolling took him many places and, paradoxically, nowhere at all. They had, for instance, taken him here, to stand outside this Starbucks on a cold November morn when the rain had turned to mist and would soon turn to fog.
It would be unimaginable for Zeno to think of this Starbucks, or of any other Starbucks, as a destination. As a goal. For Zeno, it can honestly be said, lives without goals. It was simply where he happened to be standing at the moment. As he happened to be standing outside this Starbucks a few weeks earlier when a gentleman had ap-
proached and handed him a handful of change. The gentleman in question—the donator of said change— had been tall and gangly, and wore a Mariner’s baseball cap. His eyes had been slitted with residual sleep, and he had spoken not a word. Immediately upon dropping the change into Zeno’s palm, he had stumbled into Starbucks. But not before Zeno had smiled and nodded, by way of saying thanks. The man had either failed to observe Zeno’s smile and nod, or had thought them unworthy of response; in either case, he ignored them completely. Later, his system revved with coffee, the gangly man had tumbled out of the Starbucks amid a crowd of leather-clad Employed and had, shielding his face, hurried away along the sidewalk without a backward glance. Upon observing this behavior, Zeno had concluded he was afraid.
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One of the many conclusions Zeno has reached in his study of the human soul is that most of what we do we do because we are afraid. It is as if we are hounded by Fear, chased by it from birth to death. First, it is shadows and creaks; then, it is beasties under the bed; later, it is others’ opinions of us; sooner or later, it is about selfjustification, the rightness of our goals, the finality of money and possessions as reasons for our deeds. Zeno has concluded that most of the people who hand him change and occasional dollar bills do so out of a form of fear called guilt. Furthermore, he has determined that most of the people he has met who live on the street and who panhandle and who sleep in boxes or under bushes or on park benches, and who wind up frequently in jail, are also for the most part driven by this same force. Perhaps when there is nothing left to lose is when we cling tightest to what has driven us to our destination. To Zeno, struggle is everywhere; people have the hardest time letting go. If it isn’t a struggle for Rolex watches, it’s a struggle to be first in line at the Mission for breakfast, or a struggle to get another bottle of wine, or to crash a warm crib, or to penetrate a woman. To the Four Horsemen of Hunger, Thirst, Warmth and Sleep must be added this—Sex. Everywhere he looks, he sees it: in averted eyes, in hurried steps, in expensive luxury automobiles—fear. But Zeno can be said to have conquered his fears. Or most of them.
At least the obvious ones. The hardest is the fear of death. One of Zeno’s many Gedankenexperiments, or thought experiments, has been to try and return his mind backwards until he was two, a time when a child knows no fear, nor has a sense of impending doom, or knowledge of life’s eventual and inevitable termination. He had to some degree achieved this, first by forcing his thoughts to dwell in the Now and not to stroll, as did his feet, into the so-called future or the re-called past; second, by observing mothers and fathers and the behaviors of their children so that he might approach the threshold of anarchism that is a child’s reserve. He had, for a while, himself become an anarchist, a naysayer, a grabber, a recalcitrant, an unbathed, snotty-nosed brat. One of the wonderful things about letting go of the rules and regulations, the niceties of society, is the freedom it allows to do all those things that would otherwise cause one to be shunned and judged and disallowed. It was a way of turning Order inside out, of embracing the Disorder that dwells inside; of allowing Topsy to become Turvy. As with security, orderliness is merely an illusion, a forcefully imposed reality, an indication of just how frail and weak a species we actually are. Sheep have no need of associations or governance; iguanas do very well without Social Security; butterflies give no heed to juvenile delinquency; emus are insensitive to political corruption. That we should require such self-deceptions, and cling to them with such tenacity,
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speaks volumes for the fear that resides in our collective Soul. His sign unfurled, his bowling ball bag resting beside him on the littered sidewalk, Zeno stares off into the middle distance and enjoys the event of mist turning into fog. And he thinks about the secret life of rubber bands.
WATLING STREET AT KNIPPLE BRIDGE It is a dark and stormy day. Winter is expected to be wet in Seattle, but it is seldom expected actually to rain. To mist, yes; to hail, certainly; to shower, of course; even every once in a blue moon to snow is thought agreeable, if unnecessary; but, to rain? Big, fat, splashy drops of water falling from the sky? Falling, mind you, as in straight down and with willful determination—no; this is not the norm, this is not the case; rather, this is the unexpected exception that crowds life with such uncertainty as at times to make it seem almost unacceptable. It’s no wonder the suicide rate in the NW is so high.
Perfidious Jackal stares out his window as flattening drops impinge themselves upon his pane and flow downward, toward the earth’s surface, carrying with them dirt and grime and birdshit, carrying with them hope and warmth and beauty and subtlety; and, as if in empathy with the rain-washed world, tears rill down his own cheeks and face, carrying with them dirt and grime and regrets and ambiguity and dread. He flinches when a pigeon smacks into his window, lost in the water-thwarted air world where he lives, his meat-processor-chemico-radar useless in the white noise that puddles the streets, rushes into culverts,
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and gushes on a geodesic towards the Mother of Us All. Purvis Trickleheart is sad. The speech that ran through his head last night— the one made to him by his former Boss, and wealthiest man on the planet, Ron Delworthy—runs through it still, and will run through it he feels for all time to come, or until an event of equal magnitude intercedes in his life, an event that, at this juncture in the array of all things Jarvis, would be impossible to imagine. The former MS employee sniffs, more for himself than for the pigeon. He had been not merely Employee; he had been chapel warden; he had been acolyte; he had been redoubtable advocate, reliable apologist, unfailing booster; MicronSearch had not been merely his Employer, but his home, his vocation, his avocation, his reason for getting up and getting down and grinning and bearing. And, worse still: MS was everywhere, always would be. Its web has been cast worldwide; it is the dubdubdubdot of his soul. How could he ever not use another MS product? They are ubiquitous. How could he ever enter a software store again? Would he be able to use his laptop without falling apart at the three-tone overture as his applications open? The former MS employee wipes his nose. The pigeon, stunned, recovers on the windowsill. He is like that pigeon, Pomeroy decides. He had been sailing through the aether unaffected by the world when bam! he had encountered an unyielding barrier, unexpected wall. Now he sits, stunned, wet with tears and chilled
to the bone, sits on the metaphorical windowsill of a very real edifice; sits uncertain what to do, incapable of flight, scared that other hidden barriers may lay in wait for him if ever he re-enters the world. There is a certain property of the human brain that as yet has no name, or if it does is likely an inaccurate or ill-descriptive one; a portion of that gray bag of snapping synapses that hangs back until it’s needed, much like a DC Comics superhero costumed as a salesman who, in truth, is endowed with the powers of flight and searing rays that emit from his eyes, but who hangs back until the situation warrants his super intrusion. And when that time arrives, he’s off like a flash into the nearest phone booth then up, up and away. This as yet innominable portion of Pomeroy’s brain similarly leaps into its own version of a phone booth and sweeps in a flash into his neo-cortex to his rescue—PJ shakes himself as an unexpected imagery enters his head, and inexplicable, inescapable aromas confront and cause comfort to his olfactory glands. He is gripped by a ferocious, uncontrollable urge to visit his favorite Starbucks. Like, now. It is the great lifesaver, is Routine; calling, nudging, suggesting, urging; it is the cumulative effect of years spent repetitively rising, dressing, slumping to Starbucks, schlepping to work, sitting and typing code, stumping to Starbucks again, then dinner, then cruising the Net, then falling into bed to rise the next day to dress and then slump back to Starbucks and so on and so on until the weekend when he would not know what to do with himself and sometimes he would never leave his condo except to go to Starbucks.
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Routine, in the case of Previous Jamboree, saves his life, rescues him from the swale of lethargy, scoops him from the curtain of fog that is Depression. By possession of a severely limited wardrobe, he is saved from thinking about what to wear; he dons jeans, white T-shirt, woolen woodman’s overshirt and Mariner’s baseball cap. He slips the strap of his laptop’s carrying case over his head. In deference to the downpour, he grabs an umbrella. Then he exits his sanctuary, leaving the stunned pigeon behind. If the pigeon is still there when he returns, PJ decides, still shuddering on the windowsill, still uncertain of its future, then he will offer succor and a share of his sanctuary, and make him his pet. It will be his first pet since the passing of his poodle.
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It is staggering to believe that this allegorical, allegedly intelligently designed Universe should allow a fellow to lose his job like that; furthermore, that it would allow poverty and disease and war and why is there always a clutch of homeless people gathered on the street to nudge guilt up from the still pool where it naturally and quite happily hibernates inside the human soul? At least, his human soul? It is not that PJ is an unkind man; nor that he is a flinching one in the face of poverty and injustice; he just prefers not to notice. It has always created in him a certain amount of dyspepsia to interact with the lower order, deal with the unwashed, uneducated,
unemployed. This last category clutches his throat and lodges heavily in his breast as he turns the last corner before his favorite Starbucks. Unemployed. It is a word that now describes him. Is he to be homeless, as well? Is he, too, destined to be untethered from the Real World, to wander the earth his remaining days, parsing his life with a butter knife, a paper cup outthrust to scurrying passersby, a perpetual gnawing inside, permanently cold, prematurely old, perennially wet and shunned? Ahead of him he is relieved to see that the line of panhandlers is missing. All save one. It is the downpour that has dispersed them, the vagabonds and tramps, the Laurels and Hardys, the fugitives and wanderers, men and women broken on the wheel of Life. All except one. The one who doffs. The one who, as their eyes meet, doffs him even now. This is the final straw! It’s not enough to be dismissed from the single safe harbor he has ever known; no! Now he must be mocked by a weatherbeaten bum! This is definitely the final straw. PJ averts his eyes and ignores both doff and doffer as he races towards the Starbucks glass door. His heart pounds as he grabs the hand-worn door handle—close enough to touch the street chevalier if he isn’t careful—and jerks open the thick glass door that separates rain swept Seattle
from cozy warmth, calming tones, and the soothing aromas of Starbucks. Inside, he shakes then furls his umbrella, takes a deep breath and relaxes; here, finally, he is among his own. The undercurrent of clacking as dozens type on
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their laptops soothes his jangled nerves; the steady glow of the gas log in its oversized fireplace softens his pinched features; the gentle din of subdued conversation among iPodded couples is as congenial as a cinematic Christmas scene. If only the world were everywhere thus! If only there were no wars, no hunger, no disease, no corruption in high places; if only the world were a giant Starbucks, an enormous Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood— The door at PJ’s back encounters his still, pondering body as another patron hurriedly enters, effecting his own escape from both severe weather and panhandling doffer. The hurriedly entering patron ignores PJ, the man whose back he has struck with the door; instead, he snaps closed his umbrella, twists it as if running someone through—releasing a spray of chilled water droplets—then, rushing past PJ, heads for the counter where he joins in its rubbernecking queue of menu
seduced clientele. PJ doesn’t mind the brusque behavior evidenced by the dripping patron; he is a Seattleite, after all, and Seattle is a town where rudeness is the norm. It actually serves to comfort PJ, this behavior; after all, serial killers and child molesters are mostly neat, courteous and polite people. Normal people— safe people—are exactly the opposite. Familiar faces uncluttered by the flotsam of names or the jetsam of personalities serve to soften the horrific tragedy that has befallen him, and lighten his darkening mood. In servitude to the Coffee Bean, he advances toward the counter and fills the empty position behind the back thumping, recently-entered, rain peppered fellow. He is feeling buoyed by the chittering crowd, and the proximity of his favorite coffee drink. When his turn finally arrives, he instructs the broad-shouldered, tattooed, bigbicepped girl (at least, he thinks she’s a girl)—the same possible girl he has given his order to every day at this same time of day for the past several months—how he would like his drink prepared. She scowls as he recites his drink’s peculiarities. Over the decades, PJ has become something of a coffee connoisseur; his delicate taste buds can differentiate not only Javanese from Ecuadorian, Sri Lankan from Ugandan, Robusta from Arabica, but also estimate the altitude at which the beans were grown, the month they were
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harvested, and the method of harvest itself (mechanical harvest bruises the precious coffee fruit). Ultimate comfort could only be achieved, he feels, if the pseudo-girl employee could, besides preparing his potation correctly, additionally remember his order without his having to recite it every day. Would that be too much to ask? Perhaps if he had himself more of a memorable personality, then she—or he—might possibly be able to remember him, and therefore remember his order. These few musings are abandoned when his drink arrives and the androgynous employee takes his money, punches his card, then looks beyond him, over his shoulder, to the impatient customer standing behind. PJ is grateful for his steaming beverage. He carries it as if a sacred offering to an empty table, positioned nearby the hissing gas fire, and up against one of the big membranes of glass. He sets his coffee down and rests his umbrella upon the window sill. Next, he pulls the laptop bag’s strap over his head. He sits and unzips the bag. The white laptop slides out of the bag’s black folds as if a jewel stolen from a potentate. Briefly, he is reminded of the David Cronenberg film, Videodrome, where people slide VHS tapes inside a vaginal slot on their stomachs. This image passes quickly as he sets the laptop on the tabletop and pops the lid off his coffee cup. He brings his nose as close to the heated liquid as he dares, until his nostrils sting from its radiating heat. He closes his eyes and inhales. The imagery of the Cronenberg film is replaced by that of nut-brown men with greasy hair and lined faces turned sepia by
the sun. They wear colorful serapes and wide-brimmed straw hats. Slowly and methodically they move among an endless vista of bushy plants, plucking by hand the cherries that will eventually be reduced to clattering coffee beans. A mile-wide smile muscles his cheeks aside. His cares and worries dissolve in the coffee’s steam, and are siphoned away. The world is reduced to this small experience: appreciating his cup of Joe. When he opens his eyes the first thing he sees is the panhandler. He stands outside, partially sheltered by the building’s awning. Stands outside and stares inside at him, PJ. There is no mistaking this. Their eyes meet and when they do, the old panhandler smiles. Then his right hand rises towards his head and PJ knows exactly what he is about to do. Quickly, he looks away. His eyes dart about the room. All the other tables are taken; there is nowhere for him to move. So he sets down his coffee—his appreciation of it thoroughly ruined—and opens his laptop. PJ thinks WiFi is a wonderful invention. If there were no further computer innovations after the introduction of WiFi, that would be all right with him. He loves that he can be someplace other than his condo, other than his cubicle (briefly, a lump swells in his throat), and yet still be online. The three tones heralding the opening of his browser tugs at his heart. “Yawyawyawyaw,” he says, in an effort to drown it out. He knows without looking that the old panhandler is staring, so he angles his long frame such that his
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left shoulder rides up against the cold glass membrane. If he must stare at PJ, then let him stare at PJ’s profile. The screen of his laptop welcomes him. He taps in his secret password (ILUVMS123), and checks his RSS feeds. Really Simple Syndication is a way of keeping track of blogs. Each and every time someone publishes a posting on his blog, it registers if that blog is linked to an aggregator. An aggregator is software that collects RSS feeds. It’s like having a magazine reader that alerts you each time a new article is published. This way, you don’t have to keep re-visiting the many blogs you like to read; instead, you are alerted each time a selected blogger posts a new entry. Phinneas Jaffle has been reading blogs since the middle ’90s. (He has always been ahead of the curve technologically; life at MS was good for that.) Blog reading long ago replaced book reading for him. His favorite blogs are not political; in his opinion, there are far too many of these, and they all seem strident and self-righteous and difficult to follow (especially if, like Permeable Jerrywinter, one doesn’t keep up with world events). Instead, he likes to read blogs about people’s lives. The ones that are akin to diary entries.
The ones that most blog readers consider boring. One of his favorite bloggers is Madeline Swift’s havocflowers. Madeline Swift writes posts like this: “…and that’s when I told Tom we had better not let Mary know we are seeing a counselor. I don’t think that children are able to understand when their parent’s (sic) are seeking help from therapist’s (sic), or what it is a therapist does, really. I remember when mamma and poppy used to fight, and I guess now I am reliving the very things that used to make me so sad… He especially likes the flower pictures that she includes in her posts. PJ likes flowers, but knows little about them. From time to time, Permafrost Jabberwocky has wanted to write his own blog. The title of his own blog, if were to write one (he has already reserved the domain name) would be this: BRAINSWEAT. But what would he write about? He knows nothing about politics (the subject tugs at his eyelids), and he doesn’t have an interesting life, like Madeline Swift and her husband, Tom. Tom Swift. So he holds on to his domain name and continues to read the RSS feeds that interest him. Maybe one day things will happen in his life that will give him something to write about. So PJ drinks his coffee, reads his blogs, and ignores the doffing panhandler outside. And all the while he is doing this, the clock cuts slices off the giant salami of Time. He is reading from another blog, this one titled fingermarks. “…having an affair. I was not surprised. Lillian has always had a wandering eye, but with her best friend’s husband? That was a shocker. She says they only
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kissed, but that could mean anything, besides—I think that kissing is more erotic than climbing on board, if you know what I mean, and most women would agree. Kissing is worse than sex. It means there is something emotional going on. But sex is just getting off. I could forgive Hank if he did that, but if he liked kissed someone, then I don’t know what…” Pomeranian Juicer stops reading. Something is sneaking up on him. Something is terribly wrong. His eyes are fixed on the blue rectangle sitting on his borrowed tabletop. What is it? What is it that is terri-
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bly wrong? What has changed so much in his environmental niche that he can no longer concentrate on his reading? It is then that he notices that a quiet has befallen his favorite Starbucks. He would like to know more about what the author of FINGERMARKS would do if she ever found out Hank had had sex with someone, but his curiosity pulls his eyes away from the words to see what has, if anything, changed in his world. The first thing he notices is this: the tables are all empty. Next he notices the line of people at the front door. They are all standing there—leather jackets put on, laptops and iPods put away—staring at him. At Pomeroy Jarvis, Esquire. This is an unappealing situation. He does not like being the center of anyone’s attention, much less so for a roomful of his peers. But are they still his peers? After all, they have jobs. While he is very unemployed and has nowhere to go. He can sit here all day if he like, and read blogs. Finally catch
up on the doings of hornycapricorn and justtakingnotes and pardonmysarong and incandescentyellow and all the other blogs he likes but never has time to read. This had not occurred to him before, the fact that he has had idle time thrust upon him. Maybe this is what Ron Delworthy meant when he said he was doing him a favor. Even the perhaps-girl behind the counter is staring. They are waiting for him to join their line. They are used to his solidarity—whatever his name is, wherever it is he works—his standing in line with them (there being strength in numbers) and helping their phalanx of leatherclad Employed shove through the throng of papercupped Unemployed. Perhaps they had not noticed there is no throng today, that the weather has driven them elsewhere? PJ thinks they should stop looking at him and look outside instead. There is only the old Doffer to deal with, and he should be easy. They don’t need him. But PJ is wrong; they do need him, whoever he is. Like any herd of bovine animals, when one of their number suffers, so do they all; when one of their own loses his way, so do they all moan until he is found. If they have to go to their cubicles, then he does, too. The last thing they want to know is that while they are at work he is not; that he has managed to find a way to stay here in Starbucks and drink coffee and read things on his laptop. Maybe he has made a fortune with a software idea? Maybe he has been given early retirement with a huge buyout? Or maybe. Just maybe— —maybe he has been fired.
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If this last is true, he is no longer one of them. If this last is true, he is a pariah. If this last is true, he must leave this Starbucks at once, never to return. If this last is true. If this last is true. They await his reply to their silent questioning. But Pathetic Jester has nothing to say. Or, rather, he has much to say, but no way of saying it. He avoids their curious eyes by returning to his laptop’s blue screen. “…rise like she said it would, so maybe I put in too many eggs…”
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But his heart is no longer in his blogs. He can feel their accumulated stare worse than the single stare of the old Doffer. Perhaps if he were to explain what happened? Tell them he had had an audience with Ron Delworthy himself? Then would they leave him alone? Then would they understand? After all, it could happen to anyone in today’s marketplace of outsourcing and downsizing. It could even happen to them. If only they understood, then maybe they would have some empathy, the way he had had for the pigeon, and they would allow him to continue to visit his favorite Starbucks in peace. But in his heart he knows the truth is otherwise. By their unified stare, he knows his world has changed forever. That he is no longer one of them. That he has been cut from the herd and would proably wander off to die alone at another coffee franchise. The crushing weight of truth is that this would be his last day at his favorite Starbucks. This is worse than losing his job. Now, truly, he has nothing.
UPON THE EXODUS of his clan, the red sweep second hand on the Starbucks electric clock slowed, as if encountering an invisible, resisting force. The crushing silence that descended as sign of their judgment had exited along with their squeaking heels on terrazzo; the brawny barista (or baristo), having shrugged with resignation at the passing of a momentary distraction, soon resumed the duties of due diligence required by her or his Employer. Thus had Piers Jowlman been left alone, feeling discarded, dejected and disdained. Not to mention disliked. His coffee’s paper cup has grown empty and cold, returned to its initial state of advertising. The blog on his screen “…the grandkids were fun to have around during the holidays, but it took its toll on the cats (sic) nerves…” has emptied itself of its former allure. A thickish feeling descends as an almost tactile memory unfolds. (Return with him now to Fifth grade when his teacher, Mrs. Harmon, would so often have PJ as her after school guest, sitting wretched and alone at his etched wooden desk, while his peers—his clan—ran home to play.) Childhood jeers ring loudly in his ears. With the descension of these past events comes once again a lumpish obstruction in his throat. Sitting there, red-faced, swollen-eyed, he feels like a turnip root in a
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vat of ice cream. A desire to slink away unobserved overwhelms him. But there is the Doffer to consider. Stripped as he is of the group protection he formerly enjoyed, he is faced with this dilemma: is it worse to remain inside Starbucks, condemned and damned, a figure of ridicule, or to exit alone past the panhandling Doffer, inevitably to be forced into intimate eye contact, and potentially seduced into the giving of alms? Not to mention being doffed. In other words, is it better to be a sitting duck, or a turnip? This is what his life has come to; in his opinion, he is as low as he can go. Maybe there’s a back door? This thought, however, holds forth faint hope. For, in order to take advantage of said portal— provided one exists—there would be required a dialogue of some sort with the Ambiguous Mythological Maiden, and this seems an unlikely, and potentially dangerous, avenue to pursue. So it seems he is struck here, lodged like a bewildered pigeon on the ledge of a circle in Dante’s Hell, one reserved for insipid dilettantes, aged virgins, and the seriously uninspired. Praxis Janusfaced is tormented, and sulks appropriately. The red sweep second hand remains red, but no longer sweeps; nor do seconds do their duty and become minutes, mired as they are in a treacle of gelatinous tachyons. The Starbucks stands empty but for him; all other forms of human life are currently off elsewhere, gainfully Employed.
Ptarmigan Jingleballs sighs. His eyes crawl downward, as if extinguished suns, settle on the blue rectangle that is his laptop’s screen. Thoughts both inchoate and incredible swirl about inside his skull, like artificial snowflakes stirred by a violent shake. Maybe I should look for another job? But anything, after MicronSearch, would seem paltry by comparison. Maybe I should move? Thoughts to betake himself to other climes have never been seriously considered. Maybe I should go back to MS and pretend nothing happened? After all, it is a Big Place, and maybe Ron Delworthy forgot to mention PJ’s termination to anyone. And maybe cow-tipping will become an Olympic event. As these thoughts cross and crisscross his mind, events elsewhere in his world are taking place. Outside, the old panhandler briefly studies his watch. He picks up his bowling ball bag and, with this in tow, pulls on the handle of the Starbucks door and steps inside. Boldly, he approaches the plastic counter where he engages the ambivalent server in a brief conversation. Minutes later he is delivered a steaming cup of black tea for which he forks over a portion of his hard-begged change. As reward for the server’s congeniality, he leaves a hefty tip. Bowling ball bag in one hand, cup of tea in the other, he surveys the empty room. Empty, that is, except for Pithecanthropus Jabberwocky, who sits slumped, staring into his laptop as if into the ocean’s depths. Piebald Jodhpurs hears the scrape of wood on concrete, which fact serves to deepen the two parallel furrows that cleave his forehead, left to right.
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There is a slight trembler as a weighty presence is felt on the tabletop; this event serves to disturb the harmonics of his sorrow. He breathes deeply and expects the worst, and is served with exactly that when he looks up. The Doffer is sitting at his table.
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THE GESTURE OF A LIFE IS ESSENTIALLY INWARD There are no people I wish would fall, or that Knipple Bridge might be raised in their faces, as those bustling businessmen who have so infinitely much they must accomplish in the world, instead of, like the rest of us, when Knipple Bridge is raised, finding it a good opportunity for musing. (1) Go away.
Blind swimmer. I have made myself see. I have seen. And I was surprised and enamored at what I saw, wishing to identify myself with it. (2)
Leave me alone.
When the effect produced ceases to be in a ratio to the cause, disorganization follows. (3)
I’ll call the cops. I will. Really.
Facts shackle the imagination. Facts appeal to that part of human nature that needs to control. Please?
Observation is my métier. And my observation of you is this: you are tormented by loss of control. I will give you a dollar. A whole dollar.
Observe outside. Is it not wet? While inside, is it not dry? What separates the two? Is it luck? Is it desire? Is it the human will? Is it a pane of glass?
Please. Leave. Now. Please?
Everything flows, nothing stays still. (4)
Oh my God. You’re insane.
That would certainly simplify life.
I’m sitting in a Starbucks at a table with a madman.
Great wits are to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide. (5)
Look. I just want to be alone. Leave me alone, OK?
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? (6)
So I like to be left alone, what’s wrong with that?
There’s a difference between being left alone and hiding out.
The only thing I want to hide from is you.
You show the universe indifference. What?
...the price good men pay for indifference is to be ruled by evil men. (7)
I’m not… what you said.
Do you vote? Do you?
I never vote for anyone; I always vote against. (8)
That’s nonsense.
Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense. (9)
Look,I. I will tell that. That. Girl. If she. He. Anyway. To kick you out… Don’t you have someplace you’d rather be?
A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere. (10)
Oh, I get it. You want more than a dollar. Enough for a room, right? Here. I have forty bucks, two twenties— take ’em. Now, go.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. (11)
What’s that supposed to—are you going or not?
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. What am I doing right? (12)
You’re happy just being…what you are? You know what I mean. No offense. But you’re. You beg. No home, no family. You can’t be happy.
We all beg. Have you a home, or only a dwelling? Where is your family? How are we so unalike?
Hey—don’t compare me with. I have a…job. A career. I can do something. I am a productive member of society.
I have been young, and now I am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (13)
I don’t. Look, old man. I. I have to get to work now, OK? I have a lot to do. People depend on me.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. (14)
I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t know me or what I do—you, who do nothing.
My work is a game, a very serious game. (15)
Oh, yes, very serious. Holding out a paper cup... So, if you want money to buy books, what sort of books do you buy?
Books have the same enemies as people—fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content. (16)
Don’t you ever answer a question?
It is not every question that deserves an answer. (17)
Well, I don’t deserve you sitting here, either… So what kind of question would you answer?
A wise man’s question contains half the answer. (18)
Oh, so you think you’re some kind’ve philosopher, right? That if you talk in circles, people will be impressed.
Fill what’s empty; empty what’s full. Scratch what itches.
Very deep. Very wise. If you’re so wise, why can’t you make it in the real world?
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. (19)
Ah. so. A critic. Too good for what the rest of us has to do. That why you’re always alone?
Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone. (20)
I’ll try to remember that.
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. (21)
I can’t believe I’m even giving you the time of day.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (22)
Ha-Ha. You can afford to make your little jokes. No one cares if you live or die. You and your kind don’t even know what the word “Responsibility” means.
Corporation. Noun. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.(23)
You can’t be talked to, can you? Think you know it all. You don’t hear a word I’m saying.
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening. (24)
You’re like a parrot. You repeat stuff you don’t understand.
The only good is knowledge; the only evil is ignorance. (25)
Fine. If you won’t go, I will.
There’s nowhere to go.
Man. Look at it. Pouring down, still. When’s it gonna stop?
The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. (26) Hm. Maybe you’re right.
Maybe I’m not right.
Oh, yeah?
You make mistakes?
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right— especially when one is right. (27)
A verbal trap. You’re probably good at chess.
Chess is as elaborate waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency. (28) I was never good at it, myself… OK, so we agree on two things.
Admit this, then. That you have no job. That you are coerced by newly-developed circumstance to sit here and talk with me.
No. I don’t. You’re right. I was… outsourced.
More’s the pity! To be wounded by a neologism.
It’s all my fault. I should have worked harder.
Best men are molded out of faults and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad. (29) You don’t understand; you wouldn’t. A man my age. I’m. Washed up. I’ll never write code in this town again.
You miss not your Job, but its regularity. You should rejoice that your life has been changed for you, alleviating you from the not inconsiderable task of doing so yourself.
This is not something to joke about, old man. I’m too old for this to happen.
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. (30)
Easy for you. I’ve done everything right. My credit is perfect. I have bills to pay. You have cardboard to scrounge.
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun. (31)
What will I do with myself? I need to find a job.
Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing yourself. (32)
But MS won’t give me a decent reference. Who’s gonna hire someone replaced by foreigners?
Then you’re free.
Excuse me?
You haven’t realized it yet.
Realized what?
That you’re free. That can’t be. Free?
Free to rise when you want. Free to read what you want. Free to eat when you want. Free to go where you want.
But I don’t want to be. Free. I. I don’t know how.
Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting. (33)
Chaos…that’s right. Where will I end up?
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be. (34)
Words. Pretty words. This is reality. I’m not like you. I don’t pretend to be anything other than what I am—a code writer. I can’t...do anything else.
Reality is highly over-rated. As is this coffee.
Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn’t go away. (35)
Thanks.
OK, OK. I get it. Is that all you ever do, quote people? Don’t you have thoughts of your own?
A table of random numbers, once printed, requires no errata. Great. Just great.
You’re welcome.
I’m going home. While I still have one. I need to feel secure again, like I did at MS.
There is no security on this Earth; there is only opportunity. (36)
You would say something like that. But in my world, things are different. We have cell phones and alarm systems, police departments and garbage disposals.
To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed. (37)
Do me a favor. Keep your fortune cookie wisdom to yourself. And, if we ever meet again—which I hope we don’t—don’t doff your hat.
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. (38)
REFRENCES 1 Soren Kierkegaard 2 Max Ernst 3 Baizai 4 Heriklitis 5 Michael Dryden 6 Ray Bradbury 7 Plato 8 W. C. Fields 9 Robert Frost 10 Marcus Valerius Martialis 11 Dorothy Parker 12 Charles Schulz 13 Psalm xxxvii, 25 14 Bertrand Russell 15 M. C. Escher 16 Paul Valery 17 Publilius Syrus 18 Solomon Ibn Gabirol 19 Krishnamurti 20 The Dhammapada 21 Lewis Carroll 22 Groucho Marx 23 Ambrose Bierce 24 Seneca 25 Socrates 26 Longfellow 27 Nietzsche 28 Raymond Chandler 29 Shakespeare 30 Michael Pritchard 31 Katharine Hepburn 32 Charles Baudelaire 33 Alan Dean Foster 34 Douglas Adams 35 Philip K. Dick 36 Douglas MacArthur 37 Lao-tzu 38 Ali Ibn-Abi-Talib
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Who sees the variety and not the unity wanders on from death to death. KATHA UPANISHAD
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COMES THE TIME OF 23
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The dark lines are about to mount upward and overthrow the last firm, light line by exerting a disintegrating influence on it. The inferior, dark forces overcome what is superior and strong, not by direct means, but by undermining it gradually and imperceptibly, so that it finally collapses.
SPLITTING APART. It does not further one To go anywhere.
This pictures a time when inferior people are pushing forward and are about to crowd out the few remaining strong and superior men. Under these circumstances, which are due to the time, it is not favorable for the superior man to undertake anything. The lower trigram stands for the earth, whose attributes are docility and devotion. The upper trigram stands for the mountain, whose attribute is stillness. This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain quiet. For it is a question not of man’s doing but of time conditions, which, according to the laws of heaven, show an alteration of increase and decrease, fullness and emptiness. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action.
—from The I Ching, hexagram 23 Wilhelm/Baynes translation
THE EXCLUDED MUDDLE 1
Imagine a basic Law of Nature turned on its ear by a common, ordinary, office product!
A form of Reversed Inertia2! A little-reckoned subset of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be summed up thus: over time a closed, ordered system becomes spread out and disordered. This is why we grow old and— rumor has it—die. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is also known by another name— entropy. As the opposite of a fact3 is a falsehood; as the opposite of Chaos is Coca-Cola™; so the opposite of entropy is anti-entropy (or enthalpy, or Gibbs Free Energy,4 or we could all be mistaken and it’s nothing whatsoever because it has no equal and opposite). Disorganization (disorder) leads to a little thing called heat death.
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The opposite of heat death is called Life. And the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.5 As above, so below.6 (Oddly enough, however, in the Great Scheme of Things, there is no opposite of Up.) As Alfred E. Newman was wont to say, What, Me worry?.7 (Another opposite of entropy is evolution8.) (We shall pick up an existence by its frogs9.) Entropy is about future times. Anti-entropy is about past times.
There is no Law of Disorder coded into Nature: it requires energy for wood to rot. The Second Law only describes what energy tends to do in the future.
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Id est, run down. Become lumpy. Disorganized. Like coins spread upon your bureau top. That is, if you have a bureau top. If you even have a bureau. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bureau, you know. Why, there are some places on this small, planetary orb so poor that not a bureau may be found.
ATP molecules (Adenosine Triphosphate) are the major energy source for all warm bodies. When any warm body moves or makes sounds (as in benign conversation or orgasmic ululation) ATP changes into ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) to release the little electric sparks that make our parts go ’round—a release of energy described as an increase in entropy, or a decrease in order. In other words, it is only because of the downhill flow of energy, according to the Second Law, that life (as we know and roll about in like a puppy in the grass) is possible.
THE PARADOX10
Contrariwise, likewise, and in all wise, is this true as well: it is only because of the downhill flow of energy, according to the Second Law, that life (as we call it laughingly on days when our foreheads bleed) eternal is impossible.
Living creatures are energy processing systems that fail miserably unless a bunch of biochemical cycles operate synchronically to oppose the Death Star of Entropy. When these systems fail—i.e., loss of energy flow—or malfunction due to critical errors in synthesis or the introduction of toxins or competing agents such as viruses entyer into the picture, then
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systemic dysfunction—colloquially known as “death”—occurs: that is, energy can no longer be processed to carry out the many reactions required for life that are contrary to the Second Law. Get it? Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy in a system at a specific temperature over a specific period of time. You see, order (life) has a very low probability of existence in Universe. For instance: the odds of dealing four aces from a shuffled deck can only be expected (according to the Theory of Probability) to occur once in every 270 thousand deals. In other words, to deal four aces on the first try would be similar to those coins on your bureau top, if you have a bureau top, suddenly assembling themselves into rolls. The entropy of Universe increases during any spontaneous process11. THE OPPOSITE OF A PROFOUND TRUTH MAY WELL BE ANOTHER PROFOUND TRUTH.
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FOOTNOTES: 1) Ah, yes. Well, now. Here’s a word we use a lot. But what, exactly, does it mean? And, furthermore, to pile Pelion upon Ossa, what does exactly mean? What, for that matter, does anything mean? And what has this to do with the word “Nature”? But, then, you see, and so on. I mean, one thing leads to another, doesn’t it? All things being equal, all equalities being equivalent and, of course, all roads leading to Rome. There has been some head scratching I can tell you over the word “Nature”. But we can (some of us, at least) agree on this: Nature is the material world, and it is composed of matter and energy. What matter and energy are is anybody’s guess. The word “Nature” is mostly Latin (natura), with a pinch of Greek (ϕυσιζ), and means, au fond (which is French), “physical,” although the Latin connotation is “birth,” and the Greek is “growth,” but then they never really did agree on much anyway. The scale of Nature is immense, and by this I mean huge. Imagine everything there can be, being at once in a blink of an eye, and stretching all the way from sub-sub-sub(etc.)-molecular to the macro-gigantic size of Universe itself—which of course, you can’t do because you only use 10% of your brain—and you have the beginning of a slight notion of the immensity of Nature. It has nothing to do with computers. If you happen to believe all the stuff of Nature is mere twaddle and faery dust, then you are most likely a Solipsist (an extreme form of Idealism). This means it’s all in your head. If, on the other hand, you are of the cause-and-effect school (i.e., hammer hits thumb, vocal chords tense with scream), then you probably believe in an objective Universe, and are what we would call a Realist. Of course, the fact that there are only two choices should be a red flag (or herring) to anyone even vaguely interested in complexity theory (of which the less said the better). Is there a difference between “real” and “artificial”? That is, besides the number of letters and the fact the words actually sound unalike? This, naturally, shifts our attention to the so-call mind/body problem, which means (au fond) nobody really knows what. It is for those of you who can’t live without the
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trifle of ambiguity in your lives that there are designer drugs. 2) Inertia is one of the very most basic things you should have learned in Kindergarten, along with all the social graces. It goes like this (with kudos to Sir Isaac Newton): Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces imposed. Of course, this description is only germane to classical physics, that arena in which we play whenever we smash our thumbs with a hammer, or try to hit a target with a BB rifle. Perhaps a better explanation: you are eating an ice cream cone in the back seat of an automobile when your father comes to an abrupt stop. The ice cream now on your face is inertia. 3) A fact is that which supports your opinion and ignores all else that might contradict your opinion. Another word for fact is disambiguation. In Philosophy, a fact is a true proposition; in Law, a fact is something that convinces a jury; in Science, a fact is a datum with value. Facts, as a general rule, are void of ambiguity, despite existing within an ambiguous reality; therefore, a fact is something of a paradox. A fact, therefore, for one person, may not be a fact for another; or, it may be a fact, but the fact is not worth a damn. This is one reason why Universe is such a slippery place in which to write footnotes. The questioning of facts, then, in the relationship of evidence to conclusions, may lead to the epistemological stasis called underdetermination. In other words, a theory (accumulation of facts) is underdetermined if there is a rival theory inconsistent with that theory, but just as consistent as that theory given all the evidence, or facts. This is another facet of Skepticism, or the challenge of beliefs about knowing. That old French vagabond, Rene Descartes, was a great juggler of underdeterminations; he attempted to argue from a skeptical position to a position in which he had significant knowledge, i.e., his dream argument in which he pointed out that sometimes while dreaming one feels awake and can’t determine the failure (or success) of the dream experience (say, falling) to represent reality (i.e., being asleep in bed). So…if you can’t distinguish dreams from reality, you can’t completely rule out the theory that you’re actually asleep reading this (which
you might very well be, given the topic), rather than having a veridical experience (being awake and reading, eyes getting heavy). Thus, the theory that one is having a veridical experience is underdetermined. But all this does is lead to Hume’s problem with induction with respect to empirical truth. As in the sun has always “risen,” so it will “arise” tomorrow. Or will it? Dig? 4) This denotes (in thermodynamics) a potential and is therefore a state function of a thermodynamic system. Named after Willard Gibbs, father of vector analysis and the first man to receive a PhD in engineering from Yale (this does not mean all the prior recipients were women), GFE is a factor (for instance) of determining the voltage of an electrochemical cell, or the equilibrium constant for a reversible action. More simply, in thermodynamics free energy denotes the amount of energy in a physical system that’s free (i.e., available) to do work. 5) Quotation from Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, who, when asked if he believed the horseshoe above his door actually brought him luck, said: “No, but I’m told it works even if you don’t believe in it.” He also is reputed to have said, “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox! Now we have some hope of making progress.” He noted that the task of physics wasn’t to discover what is the essence of Nature (see footnote 1 above), but only what can be said about Nature. He was also very tall. 6) From the Kybalion, a mystical, hermetic book that supposedly describes the teachings of alchemist and all around wizard, Hermes Trismegistus. The seven Hermetic Principles, by the way, are 1) Mentalism; 2) Correspondence; 3) Vibration; 4) Polarity; 5) Rhythm; 6) Cause & Effect; 7) Gender. In this form of metaphysics (a dualist perspective) everything is pitted against everything else, and balance is the fulcrum point upon which Universal opposites reside. Hence, the dictum that everything is dual; everything has pairs of opposites. This esoteric insight was later transmuted, during XIVth Cent. France (and elsewhere), into a rule of thumb (so to speak) to help guide ladies in their choice of male companionship, i.e., the length of his nose being an indicator of the length of his…well. As above, so below. 7) Alfred E. Newman (Neuman), mascot for EC
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Publication’s MAD magazine, first appeared in 1954. Later, his image (one that had drifted through the imagery aether for decades before being employed by EC) would be refined to its present day iconic perfection by Norman Mingo. His origins (Alfred’s, not Norman’s) are shrouded in mystery (much as his spiritual brother, Kilroy). One thing we do seem to know is that his name—Alfred E. Neuman—derived from one of radio comic Henry Morgan’s (of “I’ve Got a Secret” fame) radio shows, in which he made reference to motion picture music composer, Alfred Newman. This would make Randy Newman (Alfred’s nephew) directly related to Alfred E. I hope this helps explain one of the more recondite aspects of American culture. 8) Phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. 9) A grand quote from a grand man, Charles Hoy Fort, but what it’s doing here is anybody’s guess. Charles Fort (1874-1932) was the world’s premier investigator of the supernatural, or anomalous phenomena. A failed writer (novelist), he authored at least ten books, only one of which was published (critics claimed it was “ahead of its time”—death knell!). Always a melodramatic character, Fort burned all his manuscripts, renounced writing as a slave trade and vowed he would never set pen to ink again. The next book he wrote was destined a) for fame and b) to set him on the true calling of his life. It was titled, appropriately enough, The Book of the Damned. A journalist, a natural-born contrarian, a humorist, something of a poet—these qualities made him manifestly perfect for the role of Enquirer into the Privy of Nature. Far ahead of his time (but not as a fiction writer, thank god), Fort mocked scientific positivism and reductionism long before it was fashionable (it is still fashionable, isn’t it?), and with his prejudice that scientific explanation is only one of a range of explanations, none necessarily more justified than another, was well in advance of Thomas Kuhn’s work on “paradigm shifts,” and the Anything Goes anarchism of Paul Feyerabend (ever get the feeling footnotes need footnotes that would, in turn, themselves need footnotes and on and on, ad nauseam?) Claimed by many as the Father of Paranormalism (what a distinction!), he coined the term “teleportation” to
explain disappearances without a trace, conjecturing (and this was back in the 1920s) alien abduction. His other books were Lo!; New Lands; Wild Talents. A favorite saying: “The earth is a farm. We are someone else’s property.” 10) Living as we do in what some have touted an “Age of Irony,” it may be difficult, and seem unnecessary, to understand the importance (or the power) of paradox. Paradox has always been a component in anagogic teaching, and used as a tool to help the novitiate “see” things that would otherwise be impossible to see. Simply (and dryly) put, a paradox is a seemingly true statement that leads to its own contradiction, or to a counterintuitive conclusion. The recognition of (and this is very important) ambiguities and equivocations underlying paradoxes has led to many outstanding advances in science, mathematics and philosophy. A quaint example is this is the Birthday Paradox. This states that if there are 23 (!) or more people in a room, then there’s a chance of more than 50% that at least 2 will have the same birthday. This paradox is a mathematical truth that contradicts intuition (i.e., it is counterintuitive). There are, of course, all sorts of paradoxes, some famous, others infamous. Zeno’s Paradox (no relation to Our Hero) states that a flying arrow can never reach its target since it is always halfway there, i.e., the distance traveled is an infinite number of halves; then there’s the Grandfather Paradox (the one where you go back in time and either kill your grandfather or sire your grandfather by having sex with your grandmother), as well as paradoxes that aren’t really paradoxes at all, but only seem to be, such as the Epimenides Paradox (actually a logic problem), exemplified by the statement, “All Cretians are liars” (Epimenides was a Cretian, by the way), which was an early variation of the Liar’s paradox that goes like this: “This sentence is false.” (This is similar to the Nihilist paradox; i.e., truth doesn’t exist, and this statement itself is a truth, thus proving itself incorrect). Others: Exception Paradox (if there is an exception to every rule, is there an exception to the rule that states there is an exception to every rule?); Hegel’s Paradox (Man learns from history that man never learns from history); Curry’s Paradox (if this sentence is true, then the world
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will end in a week); Choice Paradox (if I ask you for a million dollars, will your answer be the same as to this question?); Sorites Paradox (at what point, after how many hairs have fallen, does a man become bald?); Control Paradox (man can never be free of control, for to be free of control is to be controlled by oneself ); Newcomb’s Paradox (how do you play a game against an omniscient opponent?); Black Hole Paradox (they violate a tenet of science that information cannot be destroyed); and on and on. One of the seeming simplest, yet for some (e.g., Wittgenstein) most perplexing of paradoxes is Moore’s Paradox: It is raining outside, but I don’t believe that it is. Story has it when Wittgenstein first heard this, he awoke Moore in the middle of the night and made him repeat the lecture word-forword. Wittgenstein’s early emphasis was on linguistic problems relating to science and philosophy, and our understanding of what can (and cannot) be “said” about Universe, Life and Everything. Moore’s statement, broken in parts, is logical but peculiarly inconsistent: It is raining outside. I don’t believe that it is. Contrast this with: It is raining outside, but he doesn’t believe it. This statement seems consistent. The paradox comes in the conjunction of It’s raining outside with the subjective belief, I don’t believe that it is. Namely, he believes is descriptive of something in the physical world (he believes he’s hungry; he believes the lawn need mowing); however, the first person equivalent, I believe, seems to function not as a description of the outside world, but rather as an affirmation of the proposition believed in itself (i.e., hunger; mowing). In other words, there is an asymmetry between first-person and second-person attributions of belief. But that should be obvious. 11) Get your hands on a thick rubber band. Place it against your forehead. Notice that it’s cool to the touch. Now hook your thumbs through it and pull it apart; that’s right, stretch it out and release it; then do it again. Repeat this several times. Place it against your forehead again. It feels warm, doesn’t it? Here’s why: an object (in this case the rubber band) feels cool when heat flows from your skin into it. Conversely, an object feels warm when heat flows from the object into your skin. Whether a material expands or contracts when it’s heated can be called that material’s entropy level. The
entropy of a material is a measure of the disorderliness of it molecules. When molecules are nice and ordered, their entropy is low; when molecules are disorganized and scattered, their entropy is high. But this isn’t exactly true of rubber bands. Inside rubber bands, the messy tangle of stringy molecules get straightened when they get heated (pulled apart), and actually lose some of their entropy. In physics, when the entropy goes down, a system emits heat. Likewise, when a system increases entropy, it takes in heat. So…when a rubber band contracts, it sucks heat in from the environment. If you were to heat the rubber band, it would contract even smaller than before—why? Because by heating it up we cause it to increase its entropy. This means that a rubber band stretched around a core of other rubber bands into a huge rubber band ball has, in essence, reduced the measure of entropy in Universe. This will be important for later.
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Your thoughts go here
And so on...
STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO THROW UP You can measure the culture of a country by the extent to which its lavatory walls are scribbled on. —Adolf Loos
Fat Max Crwth Sez In the beginning was the pun. And God saw that the pun was good because it’s hard to find a funny pun. Then came the groan and there lurched into view Everything Else. And darkness was upon the waters because it was night and nighttime is, by definition, dark. And so on. And language in those days was an exponent of self-congratulation. And peace reigned in the heart of beasts because no one can commit violence when in a state of wonder. And things were pointed to and laughed at and that became their names. And the Act of Naming lasted an infinite series of presents. And as the presents accumulated they became known as the past. And the sense of the world lay outside the world. And in the world everything happened as it happened and was as it was. And in that series of presents, value which was of value existed outside all happening and being-so.
And no-one spoke German. And there was no death but only occasional cessation. And nothing was said except what could be said. Except, of course, in German. For German was reserved as the language of human philosophy. But neither humans nor philosophy had yet been distributed into being-so, so no one knew any of this. And the feeling of the world in that series of presents moved from a wholeness and oneness to a being-so that was as a limited wholeness and oneness. And God saw this was just OK and not particularly funny. God was never One to live outside the moment. And then came the series of finites that became the walking and talking types and they walked and talked and when they moved they did so to commit precise actions and when they spoke they did so to say precise things, and they lived fully in the present, which is God’s favorite chaise longue. And this mode of expression was named by He Who Names, and the name was: self-attention. And it was bequeathed unto the walkers and talkers to name themselves, and their tongues were given strength in numbers so that they might discover punch lines and thus amuse God who still missed the initial crack-up of the First Pun. And so worlds were made and they were set free and upon these worlds walkers and talkers walked and talked and presented their genitalia one to another until there burgeoned any number of walkers and talkers, thus multiplying the potential for punchlines.
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And God listened through a multiplicity of ears, hoping, longing, desiring the attainment of the First Groan. For walkers and talkers in those days were conscious beings and dwelled in a timelessness that did not include toys. And so more days passed, relative to everything in being-so that is not time, and in the fullness of this measure came the metric we call Man. And at that moment the memories of oneness and wholeness vanished and became complexities and contradictions and ambiguities, and self-attention became something other and that something other was named ego. And, Lo, there came Socrates. And, after Socrates, Paradox. Oh, and The Fall was swift and painful, for swiftness and pain are modes of Man. Soon, acting became thinking, and thinking caused Man to live the limited existence called Future. And without the aid of self-attention, man next created Ordinary Language. And then came German. And God saw that it was what it was, and didn’t really care much because on other planets walkers and talkers were much funnier. Furthermore, German offended God because jokes spoken in that tongue were brutish, and few and far between, and even for Him hard to understand. KW123
All, that is, except for those written by Immanuel Kant. And so God created Welsh. And God saw that this was really good, actually in fact better than the dodo, and far better than fish.
What riled God most was all the measuring Man did. And as Man invented more and more toys, especially computers, God’s attention wandered. Drifting towards the far lesser languages of precision required by machines, man became duller and more lackluster, and his humor, what little he had originally possessed, became feebler and feebler until it was downright nonexistent. And, Lo, God drifted off, alerted there were marvelous punsters in a galaxy far away who practiced self-attention and did not kill everything it could get its hands on. But God did not abandon Man. For, just in case things changed for the better, He created a class of walkers and talkers who would monitor events and remain vigilant for signs of increased spiritual development—i.e., a sense of humor. And these people would not know they were the minions of God, but they would be bestowed with awareness of dissatisfaction and a desire for truth. And this would lead in some to self-attention, as in the infinite series of ye olde world. And God saw that it was a good set-up. And so on.
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Donald Duck and don Quixote are exactly alike in that neither has ever trod the earth This is: a) True b) False c) Neither true nor false d) Both true and false e) Completely meaningless f) Mostly meaningless g) Mere quackery h) All of the above i) Some of the above, but not sure which j) You’re not being serious enough
“Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety..” —Plato
Smile Upon Ambiguity’s Face
Exploitation has grown exponentially; therefore, ‘seems’ more often than not, is just that.
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” Discuss.
“The Seven Samurai” is to “The Magnificent Seven” as The Second Law of Thermodynamics is to The Second World War
“ But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” —Lord Byron
“Son, I am able she said though you scare me, watch, said I, beloved, I said watch me scare you though, said she able am I, son.” —They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18
“He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.” —Plato
Fat Max Crwth Relates ~In Detail~
Aspects of EDNA’s Speculative Existence and Her Relationship to the Post-Modern World or
How EDNA Refused to Die for King Kong’s Sins This is a story about a grrl. A grrl with arms past her knees, and with fingers that touched her toes (even when she was as erect as the men who viewed her). This is not the type of story everyone will be able to enjoy. If you don’t think you will enjoy it, stop reading now. There is no point to it, anyway. This is not a parable or a put-on or a paradox or a pun; this really happened in the way all things really happen, vaguely and with plenty room for error. Her name was EDNA. EDNA is an anagram for ADEN, and for DENA, and for NADE as well as for DNA-E. These are the only ones that make sense.1 But her name was EDNA. Not Edna. It was 1956. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles2, had just said, “The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art”.
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The King was hot. Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog were on top. Top is an anagram for pot. Pot is the shortened form of the word marijuana. Whilst semordnilap is a semordnilap for palindromes.3 Teens were swooning over Love me Tender. But EDNA had not been born to swoon. EDNA had been born a grrl. To say she had been an ugly child at birth would be to say if you stare too long into the sun you will go blind. It was that obvious. Sometimes the obvious is not apparent. Some would say that ENDA did not have a parent. Parents’ eyes are supposed to fill with love when they first see their child; EDNA’s presumed parents took one look at theirs—the accumulative creature they had borne into this veil of whimsy and woe—and carted her off for adoption. All that pain for nothing. KW139
Even at birth, EDNA had been an aberration; doctors (and nurses, too, but especially orderlies) had marveled at her hands that reached her feet.
She also had bristly hair that covered her knuckles, a fact the medical men of that time thought exceptionally weird. The years slid by, as did the potential adopters at the Phyllis Pomeroy Home for Improperly Birthed Girls. In fact, when they came to EDNA’s bed, the potential adopters slid by so fast they made pages on medical charts hanging on the wall flutter. Summer followed Winter followed Summer with most annoying regularity, depending on where you began. In time, EDNA came to the terminal point in her initially temporary residency at the PPHIBG; if she wanted to remain there beyond her first score years, she would have to be an employee of the enterprise, an extremely unlikely proposition at best. After all, who would hire someone whom children, upon first sight, fled from, shrieking and crying? Besides Mr. and Mrs. Bela Lugosi.4 But they had a child of their own. However, as the only girl in the 23 year history of the PPHIBG not even once to have been considered for adoption, a special niche, along with a modest stipend, was created by Phyllis Pomeroy herself, whose heart went out to this poor, unloved, misbegotten knuckle-dragging Eighth Wonder of the World.5 (Phyllis herself, poor dear, was sterile as a pair of latex gloves; as barren as the moon. Still, she had always pointedly
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refused to adopt a child of her own. As she put it, in her own homespun manner, to those who asked her why, “When I adopt a girl out, I have a profit. If I adopt a girl, I have a loss. Comprendi?”) EDNA, touched though she was by this gesture (a seldom enjoyed experience for a grrl who, if touched by anything, had been most touched by wind and rain), made up her mind it was time for her to travel beyond the safe enceinte of her room; she desired to toss herself into the slipstream of life, and see upon which Golden Isle6 she would wash, if indeed she must be a laundress. Besides, the numbers, she estimated, were in her favor. Long perusals of newspapers had convinced her the world was for the most part insane. This being the case, there must be someone out there crazy enough to love her.
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Of her time spent in the PPHIBG, not much is known, or what was known has been lost, or what is true has been suppressed for the sake of children and sensitive, impressionable types, or truth is itself speculative at best and seldom really known, for do not as many people who view an accident report back that many separate, independent stories, with but the slightest resemblance one to another? Nevertheless, it seems unlikely she would have lost her maidenhead whilst living there, considering both the circumstances and her grotesque appearance. As for those who latterly came forward to lay claim as being first to distend her hymen, all may be discounted as the ravings of lost, lonely souls hungry for the fifteen
minutes Andy7 promised, pressed into service and abetted by soulless scribes. EDNA’s first employment was in a Woolworth’s8. It lasted a week. The store was soon flooded with complaints of frightened babies. And then there had been the graffiti on the building’s face, especially the one in threefoot tall red letters that proclaimed: 9
DARWIN LIED FOR YOUR SINS! Such obviously Bolshie agitprop10 convinced the Woolworth’s bigwigs EDNA was a liability and she was forced to turn in her tunic. EDNA soon thereafter became an habitué of the street, a regular at the bread lines. Then the Miracle occurred. Walking along the Boulevard Extraordinaire11, dejected and depressed, her head sagging forward, her eyes reading the sidewalk, her knuckles dragging the ground, EDNA heard someone call her name. “Hey, you!” She turned to face the voice’s owner, fully expecting to be spat upon, and was instead greeted with the sight of a tall, prodigious man wearing two vests, a porkpie hat from which sprouted a chicken father (red), hobnailed boots (one red one blue), checked pants and a U.S. Naval officer’s greatcoat. A bull-
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whip was coiled and attached to his belt, along with several as yet unidentified mechanical doohickeys. Through the parting of his bulging shirt (the vests were necessarily unbuttoned) a cavernous, pasty omphalous12 could be seen. “Yes?” (As it happened, EDNA had the most amazing voice. It was balanced precariously between provocative and sexy. It was sweet and yet knowing. It was lilting and musical. It was a voice that could— and often did—still the song of birds. With a few words, EDNA could calm enraged animals. Over the telephone, she could seduce any man who ever lived.) “Yes?” The portly, preposterously attired man was aghast at the sound of her voice. Fluted. Mellifluous. Canorous. Eisteddfod. He was Odysseus lashed to the mast, the wax melting in his ears. He was Pan enamored of Syrinx. He was Stendhal13 standing before the David.
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Obviously agog, he made an ostentatious execution of a European bow, then set to twiddling his mustachios. This effort required both hands, as his mustachios, which described two sixes back-to-back, fell well below the length of his chin. (They were, in fact, if stretched to their maximum length, well over
a foot long, each side. But this is inessential information.) Finally, after a lengthy pause, during which EDNA had begun to lose hope, he said, “Hew hare no reptile, hare hugh my zweet?” “No more than you are a gentleman,” had huffed EDNA by way of reply. Despite her pinched features and simian nose, it was obvious to the portly gent he had wounded her pride. She spun on her heels—no mean feat when considering the length of her arms—and began to grow smaller with distance. The man halted her with a single command. “Halt!” EDNA froze in her tracks; it was as if someone had pierced her heart with a bicycle spoke. Slowly she turned, and this is when she produced a smile. The cracks in her chin fluttered; her rheumy eyes glistened; a cloud of blackheads scudded; a lunar landscape of zits (both incandescent and recrudescent) undulated. The man again cried out. “Halt!” He squinted throughout his lengthy examination of her in the hope that
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this technique might mitigate her haggish plug-ugliness. Her ante-pulchritude. Her Gorgonesque deformity. “Hugh hare naught run hov zee meel,” he suggested, in a vaguely European accent. EDNA narrowed her own eyes. “You smartin’ off at me, buster?” With a swoop of his headgear, he replied thus: “Bermit me to hintroduce zelf. Hai ham Hizzlefizzle14 von Neustater hov zee Lichtenstein von Neustaters, howner and hoperator hov zee Leetle Lichtenstein Lechery Shoppe hon hupper Broadvay, God Bless Hamerica. N’cest-pas?” EDNA cringed—this man was a moral leper! Zounds! Her mind reeled. Carnal knowledge was his byword, and standing even this close to him caused her severe adrenal agitation and a rising fear of algolagnial15 contagion. “Away with you, you sexual zany!” she cried, her ears now fluttering in syncopation with her chin.
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(Several passersby still live and for a fee will testify to the day’s events. Says Louella Bandini, of Sassafras, Ill., “It was weird, you know? I mean, they was standin’ there, she holdin’ up this golden cross, an’ spittin’ at the fat dude, an’ all the time he was zippin’ and unzippin’ his boots…can I go to the hospital, now?”)
EDNA fell into the “leaping Bear” stance taught her by the PPHIBG’s janitor, one Morris Dufonski16, quondam K’ung Fu world title champ and eighth degree belt holder, who had been latterly ousted from competition for his propensity to carry a Lugar and shoot to death those opponents who beat him. Hizzlefizzle himself assumed the “Crane” position—both lethal crouches—which EDNA instantly recognized and caused her to hail her assailant as, at least combatively, an equal. Overwhelmed by his outré mannerisms, she finally consented to attend a séance in his company, followed by a Romanesque debauch and a turkey on rye with a bottle of slivovitz17. They were wed in the following Spring, the one following the Winter they were in that had followed the Fall that had been preceded by a Summer, depending on where you began. Hizzlefizzle, who had battened considerably and well off the pigeons who paid good money to watch badly-photographed scenes of near-obscene nudity between horses and women of various ethnic identities, among other things, remanded his new bride into the hands of Dr. Thurgmond P. Reichenbach18, of the hinterlands of Bolivia, an expert in skingrafting and recovering lampshades. In hardly any time at all, he had EDNA’s face wrapped extensively in gauze, much to the relief of his goosestepping staff. Then came the surgery and, when the healing was done—voila!
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EDNA was somewhat less ugly than before. Sixteen operations later, EDNA surpassed everyone’s expectations vis-a-vis feminine pulchritude. She now possessed a pert, upturned nose, moonlight blue eyes, and skin as smooth as rose petals and the color of alabaster19. She divorced Hizzlefizzle in the fall. That’s the one that was anteceded by the summer that followed the former fall of their betrothal. The money she acquired from the dissolution of their union was so great that she soon thereafter enrolled in Hermione Pluterguild’s School for Etiquette and Sexual Conquest. There, she quickly acquired superb table manners and an impressive collection of Alpaca sweaters20. Not to mention the amour of Hermione’s eighth husband, Filbert Pluterguild, a sixty-ish septuagenarian with a camel-like penchant for spitting and possessor of as many oil wells as Carter has liver pills21. On his deathbed, several weeks after separating from his wife of 83 years, as he lay dying in the Paris apartment he had shared with his new lover for three full weeks, his last words were reported to have been: “Oh, my God…those arms…oh, my God…”.22 KW147
Now with her own retinue of servants and surgeons, EDNA’s next conquest was K. P. Goodfellow, owner of Cambridge and Oxford and large bits of
Zaire. They were wed on the weekend after they met at the Florence Club in downtown Dayton, Ohio, which he also owned, as well as other bits of the state. But the union was annulled to the tune of $30 million when she discovered he preferred bananas to The Other Thing. EDNA was now worth eight hundred million dollars, AT. After Taxes.23 Then the scandal hit. EDNA, who preferred to sleep nude upon an under-inflated tractor tire, had been photographed in this lurid position by a certain member of her staff, a sexual scalawag who afterwards shared the stories of her adventures (for money!) with the world. The most amazing thing Uncle Joe and Auntie Harriet learned from the checkout stand tabs had to do with the variety of previously unsupposed positions that became possible when one’s hands reached one’s toes.24 Within months, models in such magazines as FUSE and BRISTLE and PORN AGAIN and LEATHER LEADER’S DIGEST were featuring their long, painfully altered arms, expensively lengthened by none other than Dr. Thurgmond P. Reichenbach. As the world—not then engaged in any distracting wars—fell prey to the innermost details of EDNA’s unseemly and sordid existence, EDNA by degrees grew listless and camoused. Then she became despondent.
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And finally chapfallen and umbilicate.25 For, despite all her brief alliances and even briefer dalliances—none, alas, had been for love. In that one aspect, she had failed in her life’s quest. She had supposed the world crazy enough in potentia to possess amongst its billions of souls one insane enough to love her as she was. But now she found herself no longer as she had been back when good old Hizzlefizzle had unzipped his boots in plain sight on the sidewalk. Those days, like her sex drive, were spent and behind her. How she longed for the time she sent little children crying to their mums! How she wished she had never stepped foot on this path of hedonism that led to her sybaritic26 end! Despite her newfound beauty and her bottomless trove of cash, love eluded her completely. EDNA thereafter, as everyone knows, disappeared. A note was discovered glued to a chiffonier donating it, along with her eight hundred millions (which were inside the chiffonier) to the World Without Hiccups Society.27 Her last words: “Love don’t come cheap.”28 An unsubstantiated report had her running naked through a rainforest in Burma,29 her knuckles scoring troughs in the moist earth.
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FOOTNOTES: 1) An anagram is a type of word play (ana—“again” and graphos—“write”). The result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase in order to create new words using the same letters, anagrams often are expressed in the form of an equation, thus: EDNA = DENA, or earth = heart. Isn’t this thrilling? It gets harder. Here’s a well-know one: roll in the hay = thrill a honey. There are people who do this sort of thing. Sit around day after day. Sometimes, when the subject and its anagram result in a complete sentence, a tilde is used, hence: semolina~is no meal. There are rules for everything. And, as with everything that has rules, there is usually some sort of hoary past. Ancient Kabbalists, fond of asserting such gibberish as “secret mysteries woven in the numbers of letters,” were quite keen on the things. The ancient Romans called the art of divining anagrams “ars magna”. Coincidentally “ars magna” is an anagram for anagrams. (Jim Morrison = Mr. Mojo Risin on L.A.Woman) 2) Dulles (1888-1959) served under Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and had just a terribly lot to do with the whole Cold War Thing. Here’s another quote to give a better flavor of the times: “There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction.” He advocated a very militaristic saber rattling-ish stance against all things perceived Communist, Communistic or Communist-related, or derived. In fact, he launched a veritable Holy War on the philosophy of Communism, on the very idea of anything not-American. He supported the French in their little imbroglio in Indochina, the one we later grew so fond of and that caused so many students to roam the streets bearded, braless and with maps to Canada in their VW vans. Another example: “I wouldn’t attach too much importance to these student riots. I remember when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, I used to go out and riot occasionally.” People like this are still running the world. 3) Yes, well this opens up a can of worms, doesn’t it? Obviously (it is obvious, isn’t it?), semordnilap is an anagram of palindromes, but this brings up the whole question of what exactly is a palindrome, and why is it mentioned here? It could simply not have been
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mentioned at all, but there it is, mentioned, and more than that, anagrammed. First, as to what it is: a palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units (such as a strand of DNA) that has the property of reading the same in either direction (the adjustment of punctuation and spaces between words is generally permitted). The word “palindrome” comes from the Greek palin “back” and dromos “way.” And yes, there is a hoary past and so on, the Greeks, the Romans and on and on. I could adduce examples for you until night falls, or rises, as the case may be. Only a few should suffice: civic reads the same in both directions, as does was it a cat I saw? Some palindromes use words as units rather than letters: You can cage a swallow, can’t you, but you can’t swallow a cage, can you? The first rule of palindromes is this: you must be very clever. The second rule (if there is one,) is probably: you must have plenty of time on your hands, preferably be unemployed, likely be unemployable and, of course, still living with your parents. Unless you happen to be “Weird Al” Yankovic. In his album, Poodle Hat, he included a song called Bob that is composed entirely of rhyming palindromes. I believe he still lives with his parents. Here is a computer program written entirely in C Code by Brian Westley for the 1987 International Obfuscated C Code Contest: type ‘a elbatum = ‘a ;; type lol = bool ;; type pop = int ;; type b = { mutable lol : lol elbatum } ;; type i = { mutable pop : pop elbatum } ;; fun erongi lol pop n -> pop.lol <- let nuf = erongi ; fun erongi lol pop n -> pop.lol ; ignore n in erongi ; lol.pop <- n pop lol ignore nuf ; ignore = fun tel -> lol.pop <- n pop lol ignore nuf ;;
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But there’s more. Palindromic motifs can be and are found in most genomes, or sets of genetic instructions. However, the meaning of palindrome in the context of genetics is slightly modified. Since the DNA is formed by two paired strands of nucleotides, and the nucleotides always pair in the same way (Alanine (A) with Thymine (T), Cytosine (G) with Guanine (G)), a (single-stranded) sequence of DNA
is said to be a palindrome if it is equal to its complementary sequence read backwards. The sequence ACCTAGGT is palindromic because its complement is TGGATCCA. Get it? Also, some philosophers suspect a palindromic relationship between astrophysical-biological evolution and the experiencing beings in it. The issue is related with ascertaining if Nature is an instrument (i.e. merely a means) and otherwise devoid of any value, instead of having intrinsic value (i.e., an end in itself ); likewise, if sentient beings are merely a means (one to entropize Nature faster, but cf. supra., etc.), or possess any intrinsic value whatsoever. So, either the whole set of empirically-found realities, or facts, makes sense in both directions (palindromic), or sense can be ascribed to such a set by reading it in one single direction only, as one would a written (non-palindromic) sentence. A single direction means reading Nature in a classic, materialist/idealist sense, while reading it in both directions means a mirror or reciprocal functionalization. In either case, both realities (mind-possessing living creatures, and astrophysical-biospheric evolution) uses for its own ends the reality that uses it as a means. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? What’s at stake you might ask? The answer would be—everything. The possibility of ascertaining whether conscious beings are worthier than non-conscious Nature depends on if axiological (values, or meanings) readings ascribing a sense to what is found going on in Universe can be obtained in both directions. (And you thought a rose was a rose was a rose, right?) Finally, as to the second question, that is why palindromes are mentioned here at all, when they fairly well could have been dispensed with, the answer is—because. 4) Bela Lugosi the actor, not the Balkan politician. This is the guy who portrayed Count Dracula, not the chocolate cereal guy. He was in numerous horror movies, not Sesame Street. He was married a lot and often, but had only one child, Bela Lugosi, Jr. Imagine how many lunches that bought. He was born Be’la Ferenc Dezso Blasko in Hungary, back in 1882. Yes, that Lugosi, the friend of Ed Wood. An apocryphal story has Vincent Price saying to Peter Lorre at Lugosi’s funeral, “Do you think we ought to drive a stake through his heart, just to be sure?” 5) For those of you whose lives have been debilitated by a surfeit of television and a lack of a classical education, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient and Modern Worlds (beginning with the Ancient) are: The Colossus of Rhodes; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon;
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The Great Pyramid of Giza (this is the oldest Wonder and the only one still remaining); the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Mausoleum at Helicarnassus. Counterpoint these with the Seven Modern Wonders: Itaipu Dam in Brazil/Paraguay; the Netherlands North Sea Protection Works Project; Panama Canal; the English/French Chunnel; the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada; the Empire State Building (yes, there are now taller buildings, but had many had King Kong fall off them?) and, last but never least, the Golden Gate Bridge. Imagine being compared to any one of these! To be considered the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World! What a prodigy! What an accolade! Unless, like EDNA, the mantle settles on your humbled shoulders because you happen to be amazingly ugly. 6) When they miss us we shall be Well afloat, Dancing gaily o’er the sea In a boat! While the breezes from above Carry whispers of our love, And are singularly free What they quote! When an island comes in sight We will land, For we’ll run the vessel right On the sand; Then we’ll leave our fairy ship, And across the surf I’ll skip, If my lover holds me tight By the hand O my own and my adored! To some island unexplored Let us fly across the blue and sunny sea! Population only two Shall I weary first of you, Or will you, my love, grow weary first of me? We shall see! We shall see! KW153
On that golden Grecian isle We shall stay, Making love in classic style Day by day! If my grammar should be weak
When I worship him in Greek, Yet my heart knows all the while What to say! Then we’ll build a house for two Nice and dry, For it won’t be always blue In the sky; And we’ll live in figs and grapes Served in many ways and shades! Oh, you don’t know what we’ll do — He and I! O my own and my adored! To some island unexplored Let us fly across the blue and sunny sea! Population only two Shall I weary first of you, Or will you, my love, grow weary first of me? We shall see! We shall see! 7) Reference here is to Andy Warhol, a sort-of artist/conman. He famously once claimed that “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” He also said: “I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is ‘In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.’” Of course, you can see the difference. And then there was: “I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.” But my personal favorite remains, “When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.” Ah, the life of an artist. It’s the only life for me! 8) F.W. (for Frank Winfield) Woolworth, founded in 1911, was among the first five-and-ten-cent stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents (hence the name), undercutting the prices of local merchants (an early version of Wal-Mart). It was also the first store to put merchandise out for shoppers to touch before making a purchase. Prior to this, customers presented the clerk with a list of items which were kept behind counters. The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. The son of a farmer, F.W. actually aspired to be a merchant. In 1910 F. W. commissioned architect Cass Gilbert to design his new corporate HQ, a 60 story skyscraper that was, for a time, the tallest building in the world. This was changed in 1930 when the Chrysler Building opened its doors for business. Woolworth’s building’s splendor
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and resemblances with European Gothic cathedrals caused the Rev S. Parkes Cadman to call it a Cathedral of Commerce during its opening ceremony. Ah, commerce. Ah, Christianity. And what of those merchants in the Temple? 9) Charles Darwin, known to his intimates as Chuck, is buried at Westminster Abbey alongside a bunch of other famous white dudes. He is probably best known as the father of ten children, after having married his cousin, Emma. I had a cousin I was hot for when I was a teenager, but my mother told me I couldn’t ever marry her because we were related. I couldn’t explain to her, because she was my mother, that I did not want to marry her (my cousin, not my mother), I only wanted to have sex with her (again, for clarity’s sake, my cousin and not my mother). Maybe one day Chuck woke up, put on his glasses, looked at what he’d done, and it occurred to him he wasn’t supposed to have married his cousin, either. So he sat down and, in his spare time (he was a professional naturalist, so he was severely underemployed), scribbled (for this was in the day when people were so marvelously educated it seemed each and every one of them could write; for example, look at all the military men who returned from the carnage that won them battle ribbons, to write voluminously and in great detail all about how they missed their men, the smell of their sweat, their grunts at hard labor, and all the other swell things that go with that choice of professions, unless of course one doesn’t actually choose one’s profession so much as it is chosen for one genetically which, long way round the barn, brings us to—) The Descent of Man, followed up by Selection in Relation to Sex (a title no doubt chosen by his publisher since Chuck’s first effort had not enjoyed brisk sales), and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. So you can see how marrying so close to the trunk of his family tree might have had an influence on his choice of subject matter. One wonders—had he chosen perhaps more wisely, or used some sort of prophylactic—might he not have scored as one of his century’s better crime writers, a la Conan Doyle? As it happened, his influence—outside the crime genre, that is—was still rather broad, and today still serves as a flashpoint for certain sorts of minds who are prone to vicious screeds, vituperative expositions, Bible thumping (King James version), and who generally express a deep-seated need for control, albeit not self. 10) I just love the intimate juxtaposition of these two words, KW155 don’t you? Always fun to throw into a cocktail conversation, or to mutter in a dark manner as one passes a group of picketeers on the street. Some chap is buzzing right along, expressing his thoughts on Ugandan economic development, or what price HIV, when you lock his eyes with yours
and utter, “Bolshie agitprop”, then stalk away with one of those cartoon black clouds in your wake. I mean, really, what sort of repost is possible? For that growing segment of you who are probably not reading this anyway, ‘Bolshie’ refers to the not much longer word, Bolshevik, which itself means “majority faction”, something of an oxymoronicism if there ever was one. Bolsheviks referred to themselves as the “Marxist Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party”. They were opponents of both Russian traditional statehood (read: Czar) and the Russian Orthodox Church (read: God). Besides the Bolsheviks there were the Mensheviks. Even though to our ironic smartass ears this sounds something like a ski team in a Mad magazine sketch, in reality it means nothing more or less than “minority”; hence, the Mensheviks were the minority of the majority faction, for which no real word has even been coined. After the split, in 1917, a dude named Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, and the Bolshies became more popularly known as the Communist Party. As for agitprop…it’s a slang word applied to any form of media that tries to peddle opinion, especially if its aim is to convince people (read: sheep) through agitating their minds with highly emotional language (read: biased, self-righteous blather). Just to be erudite, the word evolved not from the popularly suspected contraction of agitational propaganda, but shortened from that self-same Communist Party’s term, otdel agitatsii i propagandy, i.e., Department for Agitation and Propaganda, later renamed, perhaps more mellifluously, certainly more obscurely, as the Ideological Department, making it sound rather like it belongs in the Platonic Shopping Mall. 11) Memphis, Tenn. 12) Obviously, from the hobnailed boots, it was the Fab Sixties when this took place. The reference to Omphalous is an interesting one, and leads as we shall see in a moment to the philosophical dead end of “Last Thursdayism”. But first a word about the meaning of the word Omphalous. It means navel. Umbilicus. At the Shrine of Delphi, a navel-shaped stone was believed to designate the center of the world. This brings us to the so-called Omphalos Hypothesis. Named after the title of an 1857 book by a forgotten fellow—so we shall remember him here, if only for a moment—Philip Henry Grosse (for whom the Grosse Fugue had not been named), in which he argued (with what degree of conviction it is impossible to say, not having read his book) that, in order for the world to be ‘functional’ God must have created earth with mountains fully formed, trees with their growth rings, Adam & Eve with pubic hair, navels, nails and
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PMS, and that therefore (logical leap here) no evidence that we can see of the presumed age of the earth or of universe can be taken seriously (read: reliably). This argument has been extended by deeper thinkers (yes, they are a species of creationists, for creationists do evolve) to the property of light, claiming that it (light, that is) only appears to travel from far-off stars. These are perhaps the same ones who believe A&E had no navels (which, coincidentally, may very well be the case for cloned humans, another form of Adams and Eves, but we’ll leave that for another time). The philosophic problem that arises from this is powerful, if a bit silly. Since the hypothesis is posited upon the conceit that apparent age is just that—apparent—and therefore an illusion, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the world and everything in it was created perhaps only minutes ago. Any memories one may have of before times were created in situ , in the same fashion as was the fossil record. This is whence the expression “Last Thursdayism” derives, since everything we know could as well have been created last Thursday as 50 billion years ago. British philosopher/logician and political activist, Bertrand Russell—an eminently rational white dude—wrote the following in reference to Grosse’s idea: ”There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.” (Analysis of Mind, 1921) Hence the inescapable fact that we are born in mystery, we live in mystery and we die in mystery. 13) For brevity’s sake we shall assume you are schooled in the stories of Odysseus, and Pan’s love for Syrinx. But how many these days are familiar with the French author, Stendhal? Or much less the Stendhal Syndrome? I thought not. Simply put: the Stendhal Syndrome is a psychosomatic (what an ugly word!) condition that results in accelerated heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and hallucination when exposed to—art. Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) described just such an experience in his book, Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio, which he wrote in 1817. Florentine art has a history of making people dizzy. Has something to do with all the curly-cues. The syndrome was named by one Graziella Magherini (the KW157 Magherini Syndrome just didn’t sound right), in 1979. 14) Of completely no value is this: there are no anagrams for Hizzlefizzle. 15) I have been accused in the past of being unnecessarily sesquipedalian and macroverbumsciolist. This could not be
further (or farther) from the truth. I am very circumspect in my choice of language. Take, in this instance, for instance, the use of the word algolagnial. It is based on the Greek αλγοσ = “pain” and λαγεια = “lust.” Thus, algolagnic is the paraphilia of deriving pleasure from pain. What does paraphilia mean? Hang on. Let’s finish up with algolagnic first. I thought it relevant to add that algolagnia is not the same as masochism, since algolagnia is simply an enjoyment of pain and does not require the subtler stimulus of domination, submission or humiliation that go into the packet we like to think of as masochism. Paraphilia, on the other hand, is derived from παρα = “besides, or around”, and ϕιλια = “love,” and means sexual arousal in response to situations (or large, bumpy vibrating objects) which may interfere with the capacity for affectionate sexual reciprocation. This does not, of course, make it wrong. 16) Another name that has been lost to us in the mists of time. Morris Dufonski was born Morrie Duchamp (8 lbs. 9 oz.) in Dexter, Ga., USA, on or about 1909 or 1912 and in the merry month of May. Hence, he was a Taurus. He stood fully stretched at 5’ 3” and weighed various weights throughout his life, both naked and fully clothed. He was, according to legend, for that is all we have left for us upon which to gnaw, something of a runt. One of those famous 90 lb. weaklings whose face is continuously covered with sand kicked there by a string of bullies who had nothing better to do that afternoon. Morrie was a lonely child and self-taught martial artist until WWII sent him packing to the S. Pacific where, upon being demobbed, he remained for a while, soaking up culture and surface radiation, until he felt reasonably assured he could return to the States and kick some white butt. The rest, as they say, is history (history being a nightmare from which we are all still trying to awaken.) Biography, of course, is riotous with confections, and one would hate to lay claim to the omniscience many of the nasty fellows who write such things claim. Nevertheless, we have it on good authority that Morrie, besides being a psychopath and highly trained killer—thanks to the US Army—was also, perhaps not unlike most men, a repressed homosexual. But, also not unlike most men, so unable to express his inner longings that he found it necessary to channel his frustrations into his own unique form of creativity—i.e., killing people with his bare hands. Or with a Lugar. Which he would also use with his bare hands, unless it was cold and then he wore gloves. It was shortly after he had been sentenced to 20 years
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in Sing-Sing for impersonating an airship in public that we find him employed by the PPHIBG. As an escaped felon he was rather cheap labor for Phyllis. 17) This intoxicating beverage, also known variously as rakia, or plum brandy, originated in the Balkan Peninsular. The name derives from the South Slavic word for plum, sliva. Production is concentrated in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, the Czech republic, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia—in other words, everywhere you might envision men wearing long fur coats, jackboots, enormous ZZ Top-like beards and giving imperious glares at Western girls in skintight jeans. It is the national drink of Serbia and Montenegro, and comes in pretty round bottles. You must be 21 to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages, Lord knows why. 18) Didn’t you think Gregory Peck was miscast in The Boys from Brazil? 19) Think Myrna Loy. 20) Highly prized by ingénues and cross-dressers alike, these sweaters come from the fleece of camel-like ungulates called Vicuna pacos or, more popularly, Alpaca. “Alpaca” is the name given to two distinct things: the wool from the Peruvian alpaca, as well as the style of fabric manufactured therefrom, also known as mohair or Icelandic sheep wool It comes in 22 vibrant, natural flavors and no, alpaca are not the same as llamas, although both animals, as with all camelidae, enjoy the unpleasant habit of spitting. 21) As an aside to some of our younger readers, if such a thing exists, this reference is to a quaint time in the heritage of our country, a bucolic XIXth Cent., not long after the Civil War and continuing right up to the Big One (WWII) when medicine was still (still!) in its infancy—i.e., before the genome had been mapped—and people were (still!) gullible and more than a little naïve. This was the heyday of so-called patent medicines. In those days, such products existed as “Pink Pills for Pale People” (a very big seller for the Civil War, which had not been named that as yet), and “Carter’s Little Liver Pills”. This latter is, obviously, whence our reference was drawn. Carter’s Little Liver Pills were many and varied, and were guaranteed to improve digestion, pollinate the KW159 peter, palliate neuralgia and sleeplessness (of which there must have been a lot after that noisy Civil War), prevent blindness (yes, blindness), resolve gout (whatever that is), mitigate sciatica, act as a rebarbative for rheumatism, darken sallow complexions, lighten
monthly discharge, restore locomotor ataxia (rampant in the XIXth Cent., along with TB), as well as partial paralysis, St. Vitus’ Dance (whatever happened to that?), as well as mop up the after effects of la grippe, soothe heart palpitations (arrhythmia), calm La Tourete’s syndrome, fade fistula, heal hernias, abate bladder infections, alleviate apoplexy, eradicate blackheads, rid ringworm and hooknose, not to mention cure dandruff and saturnine or phlegmatic personality disorders (these were pre-Prozac days), mend malaria and manic depression and even harness chronic masturbation. Unfortunately, the formulae for these pills were lost in the hubbub of the Second World War (WWII), so medicine was forced to start over and has been foundering ever since. 22) This is, of course, key to understanding EDNA’s allure, the major source of her charm, as it were. For, despite the amounts of radical rhinoplasty she may have undergone, or the numerous skin grafts from her derriere, the one item she retained from birth was her greatly (and naturally, unlike her epigone) exaggerated arms. This not being a prurient narrative, we must needs leave it to readers’ imaginations exactly what the wondrous applications of such lengthy appendages might be. 23) In 1862, in an effort to support the War Between the North and the South, Congress enacted the first income tax law. It was a graduated tax, so that a person earning from $600 to $10,000 a year paid at a rate of 3%, and anyone who made more than $10,000 paid more. This was, BTW, when the so-called inheritance tax made its debut. This tax was eliminated in 1872. The Supreme Court actually decided, around the late 1890s, that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states uniformly. But then, in 1913, along came the 16th Amendment. That, of course, made the income tax a permanent fixture…just in time for the First World War (i.e., the First War to End All wars). 24) Cf. 22 supra. 25) The basic idea behind Hedonism is that all actions can be measured by how much pleasure they produce or, conversely, how little pain results. Philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham established Hedonism through their critical assessment of the concept of Utilitarianism. (Utilitarianism can be summed up thus: all action should be directed towards achieving the greatest good/hap-
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piness for the greatest number of people.) There are 2 schools of Hedonism: 1) Bentham’s approach was quantitative; i.e., the value of a pleasure = intensity of pleasure x duration, while 2) Mill’s approach was qualitative; i.e., higher levels of pleasure are better than lower levels of pleasure. He believed simpler beings, such as pigs (Johnny loved pigs), can access pleasure easier than we since they don’t “see” relational events, consequences, etc.; hence, unlike us, they can roll about in mud endlessly, and eat until the excretion is above their knees. As for we humans—well, obviously we’re mired in the mud of mentation and haven’t time for rolling about lazily in feces (except metaphorically). But what, you may ask, has this to do with our story? To this I would answer Nothing, then move on to addressing Sybaris, a city of Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) on the Gulf of Taranto. This was an Achaean (think: ancient Greek) colony founded about 720 BC (the Spring and Autumn Period in China), back when the area (unlike today) was fertile, fat and fine. Sybaris became proverbial throughout Greece for its magnificence and luxury. Such was it that, throughout the VIth Cent., no other Hellenic city could compare to it. Inner turmoil between democrats and republicans (lesson here!) led to an internecine war that destroyed the city utterly. So, while being a Hedonist may be considered a philosophical position, as well as a heck of a lot of fun, being a sybarite is pretty much the same as being dead. 26) Recurring theme. This word is used in an associative manner, thus: umbilicus means naval (omphalous); a navel is concave (inwardly shaped), and therefore depressed. Many might say this is a mere contrivance, and something of a stretch. I say it is a way of energizing language. By providing old words with new meanings not usually associated with them, the old words profit in several ways, in the main by being used rather than sleeping within the pages of moldering dictionaries, but more importantly by bringing new imagery to pedestrian concepts, in this case “depression.” So next time you’re feeling blue, try using “umbilicate,” as in this sentence: “Hon, I love you but I’m feeling a bit umbilicate tonight.” 27) Annually, some 30 people or so will die horrible deaths from uncontrolled hiccups (hiccoughing). The KW161 medical term, singultus, comes from the Latin, singult, translated roughly as “trying to catch your breath while sobbing is like having sex while stirring an oxtail stew.” Hiccoughs lasting more than 48 hours are
described by doctors as protracted. Hiccoughs lasting more than a month are termed by these same healthcare professionals as intractable. While hiccoughs that persist more than several months are considered to be contractable to most small carnivals or sideshows specializing in bizarre human behavior. The longest attack in recorded history lasted 60 years, but was finally cured when the patient died. Hippocrates and Celsus associated hiccoughs with liver inflammation. They were too early in the history of humankind to take advantage of Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Galen believed hiccoughs were due to violent emotions arising from the stomach. (Apparently, the ancients were unfamiliar with flatulence.) Protracted cases of this debilitating and socially offensive disease occur more often in men than women and can develop at any age, even in utero. Many instances of hysterical hiccoughing are never resolved, but several psychogenic speculations have been adduced: they include, shock, fear, conversion disorders, personality disorders and malingering. This would explain why I always started hiccoughing when assigned chores as a child. If you or any of your friends, associates, past lovers, relatives or lien holders know of anyone who suffers from this potentially tragic disorder, please, step up to the plate and help. World Without Hiccups is a non-profit charitable organization that is completely tax deductible. Please send your checks or Money Orders (PayPal is also accepted) to: Reverend Bob, P.O. Box 023, Delworthy/ Provo, Utah, America, and receive a virtual backslap. 28) “The tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony” (Richard II, II.1.5-6, William Shakespeare, or whoever) The last words of famous men/women linger in the air and help us guide our lives as we move among the shadows of this multi-dimensional plane we insist upon calling “the world”. Take, for instance, the last words of American cinema idol, James Dean, who died violently in a car crash when he slammed his Porsche into another car: “That guy’s gotta stop…he’ll see us.” Then there’s the chilling final words from that famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, “KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low.” Or how about Thomas de Mahay, Marquis de Favras, who plotted to help Louis XVI escape during the French revolution. He was handed his official death sentence as he was being led to the scaffold. Reading it over, his last words were: “I see you have made three spelling mistakes.” One of my personal favorites
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has always been the last words of the stage actor, Edmund Gwenn, who reportedly said: “Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.” The German Philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Hegel: “Only one man every understood me. And he didn’t really understand me.” Conrad Hilton, the Hotelier, as he lay dying, was asked is he had any wisdom to leave the world. He replied: “Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.” When Timothy Leary died, his last words to help urge us along with our lives was this: “Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Yeah.” Many people doubt the accuracy of Nostrodamus’ predictions. But who could doubt him after hearing what he said the day before he died: “Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here.” Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise d’Etoiles Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV, when she died, called on God to “Wait a second.” Then she quickly rouged her cheeks. But the best is yet to come. General John Sedgwick, a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, while at the battle of Wilderness, peered over a parapet at his troops. His officers urged him to take cover from sniper fire. His last words before being shot in the head: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—” 29) Modern day Myanmar.
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not a blank page
“
The nature of God is a circle in which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” —Empedocles
“Cliché is the armature of Universe.” —Alfred Jarry
The future is likely to be less traumatic for you if you accept that there can be truth without absolutes science without objectivity morality without rules society without uniform values and religion without a church
Zeno’s Paradox
or How to Stop Suffering and Learn to Love Aplomb Zeno was sitting one day on the wooden dock beside the ferry terminal unpeeling a burrito, a bandage on his head. Seated beside him was Phylactery Jones stretching his neck and scratching the stubble on his prognathous face. “Master,” asked PJ, to no one in particular, “why is there something instead of nothing?” “Who says there’s something?” responded Zeno, a smear of mustard on his ragged smile. “Ah,” Postulator Juniperbush responded, heaving a heavy sigh, “that is bloody unfathomable.” There was silence amongst them whilst Zeno masticated. Again, interrupting the Silence, Mankind’s natural state, Passionfruit Jodhpurs asked, “Is not the material world an anchor to our flight?” Licking his dirt-impregnated fingertips, Zeno astonished his follower with words arranged thus: “Only consciousness of the material world frees us from it.” “But how can that be?” wondered Zeno’s acolyte, his brow ploughed with furrows as if a fresh field in spring. “Is not attachment the very trouble of it all?” “Do you want my pickle?” responded Zeno, pinching the limp green gherkin fruit (Cucumis sativus) between soiled right thumb and index finger. “Ah,” came the enlightened reply.
“Every joke is a tiny revolution.” —George Orwell
Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick Review the Latest Hollywood Blockbuster SHAMAN 2: THE ASTANGA STRANGLER Followed by an Interview with the Director, TRANKAS DROOKING KW180
W: Fuck, man. N: Yeah, fuck. W: What a fuckin’ pimp flick. N: Pumped me hard. W: You’d have to be a rug-munchin’ asshole not to dig this shit. N: Fuckin’ A. W: Did you see that bitch’s fuckin’ rack? Shit, man, why don’t they bring back 3-D? N: Yeah…whatever. W: You don’t fuckin’ know what 3-D is, do you, shithole? N: Fuck I don’t, duckwad. W: You mean dickwad, asshole. whore. N: Fuck you. W: Uh-uh—fuck you. N: Oh, that’s a clever riposte.
Fuckin’ illiterate
W: Retard. N: I know you are but what am I? W: No, you are. N: No, you are. W: Not, dipshit. You, dildo. I mean, uh… N: If I’m a dildo, then you’re an infected zit. W: Whath’fuckever. We have to take a pee break while our corporate pimps jack off. When we come back— N: You’d like to come back, wouldn’t you, turkey baster dick? W: —we’ll talk to the director of this dope franchise. Up yours, cock sniffer. N: Oh, yeah? You smelly motherhumpin piece of—
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And so on…
The Meaning of Myth, Mirth & Money or Cantata Castrata
I was a good cop. I liked being a cop. My daddy had been a cop, although not a good one. My grand-daddy had been a cop, I hear a fair one. For all I know my great grand-daddy was a cop, too. Who knows what kind, or if they even had cops in those days.1 In other words, I come from a family of cops. We were brought up poor, but honest, loved, well-fed and with extremely creative corporal punishments. The sad fact is, if I had a son—which, of course, is impossible now—I would want him to be a cop. If I had a daughter, on the other hand, I’d want her to be a massage therapist. The worst day of my life began like any other. The sun came up2, the sky brightened, and the mercury rose. Before noon I knew it would hit over a hundred in the shade in Mojave. But here in Seattle it would be a cool 68º F with a gentle breeze wafting off the beautiful Puget Sound.3 I pulled on my Kevlar™4 underwear and slid into my black Buster Browns.5 Then
I thought better of it and slipped on my pants and shirt as well. I fried up a rasher of bacon and a couple eggs, made some syrupy java and burned some whole wheat sesame toast. Slathering tahini8 on the toast, I fed the eggs and bacon to my blue heeler, Russell (named after Lord Bertrand Russell6, the mathematician). I’m a vegetarian myself, always have been. Actually, not always. Just since I stopped eating lard7. Nor do I drink coffee, stuff kills you. But I do love the smell. I wiped tahini off my chiseled features and poured the syrupy java down the drain. I reminded myself that soon I would have to replace the pipes, as the caffeine appears to be eating through the “O” rings that hold the trap together. Perhaps this is a clue to the Challenger disaster.9 I put on my tie, my shades, my utility belt, my Glock 23®10, and settled my cap onto my burnished head. I slipped a couple of unused Trojans®11 into my pocket, too, because I’m a cop and you never know. I used to love having sex with other human beings in the back of my cruiser. Little did I know, as I stepped out of my run-down second-story walkup in the seedy part of Capitol Hill12, that today would change everything in my life, rearrange my thinking about the meaning of existence, how poodles fit in, and where all my lost socks had gone. Never again would I take life for granted or pour coffee down the drain.
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I unlocked my cruiser and slid inside. Reflexively, my right hand grasped the grip on the 12 gauge Mossberg 50013. I still tingle whenever I recall the sound of a cocking shotgun. It was at times like these, with the Mossberg 500 in one hand and the Glock 23 on my hip, that I most seriously loved being a cop. I pulled out of the drive, nearly knocking over a lezzy14 couple in black with spiked hair and tattoos. I bumped the siren just to make ’em wet their panties. Although I don’t believe lezzies wear panties. Might hamper the spontaneous nature of their relationships. I flipped them off and hit the streets. I needed to bust someone’s chops. Not the lezzies, that’d be too easy. I needed a guy to hit. Someone who could take it. I popped my knuckles in anticipation. Now, in retrospect, that was a wrong thing for me to want to do. Not only because it had the potential to fuck up another human being permanently, but because it pissed someone off bad enough to really want to fuck me up.
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It happened when I was exiting the vehicle. I had dropped my baton into its loop on my belt, and was headed towards a green dumpster where a terrified bum was urinating (I used to love the looks I’d get when they saw me coming. I’m a big guy. Six three, two ten or twenty, all muscle. I make faggots sigh like young girls). That’s when it happened.
I wasn’t expecting a trap. I wish now I had read more Sartre15. I heard the footfall and began to turn when I saw the constellation Cassiopeia16 and thought that was strange, what with the sun out and all. Then it hit me. The taped piece of galvanized pipe. I sagged like a sack of yesterday’s potatoes. Another hit. My arms flew to my head for protection. Through a red haze I could see the first bum moving in. No longer was his face filled with fear or was he peeing. Now he looked like a Miss America finalist who didn’t win. Without the tiara17. Next thing I know I’m coming to and relieved to be alive. You ever have that happen? You know, maybe fall off your Harley18, hit your head, black out for a while? When you finally come to, you check your body over one part at a time— first your toes, then your ankles, then your knees, and so on until you reach your neck. That’s what I did. Went through the drill. I seemed to be OK. Nothing broken. Neck worked. Splitting headache, of course, but that’s what you come to expect from concussions19. Still, something didn’t feel right. I was getting that chill up and down my spine. Things definitely weren’t going the way I wanted. I was strapped to the bumper of my cruiser with my pants pulled down, a ticking bomb hanging from my scrotum20. I think the worst part in these situations is usually the tourists taking pictures. One of the tourists used his cellphone and called 911. The Bomb Squad was alerted and they brought out Wanda the Wonder Dog, a German Shepherd who could sniff
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out a bomb buried under a thousand pounds of elephant shit21. Sure enough, Wanda wagged her tail and set to licking the general location of the explosive device. I have been assured by those who know about such things that bomb dogs are trained to lick explosive devices in order to ascertain their chemical composition. Whatever the reason, it felt good. Next thing I know, I’m looking Captain One-Arm Janssen22 in the face, and he’s got on a scowl that would stop a cement truck. He told me the timer only gave them about three minutes and then the lower extremity of my body would be blown to smithereens (he could never bring himself to use the word disarm). I wasn’t sure what a smithereen was, but I knew I wasn’t interested in finding out the hard way. “What? That’s it?” “Yup,” the Capt. said. “…unless.” “Unless?” This seemed like a reasonable question at the time. “Unless we cut off your balls.”23 “Cut off my—?”
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I could hear some of the Bomb Squad guys giggling. Tourists continued to take pictures. And all the time Wanda was licking furiously, tail wagging like a willow in a windstorm.
“Two minutes,” advised the Capt., glancing at my crotch. Apparently, there was a digital readout on the explosive device that was visible whenever Wanda wasn’t licking. Which wasn’t very often. “Joe’s ready if you are.” Dr. Joseph Sallinger was standing nearby, latex gloves on, scalpel in hand. The latex gloves reminded me of the Trojans in my pocket. I wished at that moment I could start the day over. Knowing what I knew, I would have looked a little harder for someone to punch out. I only had seconds to make up my mind. “OK,” I croaked. “Do it.” The Captain nodded at Joe. One of the guys yanked on Wanda’s leash to get her out of the way. “No time for anesthetic,” the Doc growled as he bent to his task. “This is gonna hurt like hell.” He was right. What a lousy way to lose an erection. And here’s the irony. Turned out the bomb had been defused by all of Wanda’s licking. I guess both me and the bomb have that in common. I tried to stay on the force. I pretended everything was OK. We all did. But
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everything wasn’t OK. starting to happen.
Weird shit was
For one thing, I stopped wanting to bash people. It kinda crept up on me. One day I was bashing this piece of filth’s face into a bloody pulp when in mid-punch I lost interest. In fact, I lost my lunch. After that, I never hit anybody again. Not even perps24 who deserved it. There was other things, too. Like I started wearing sweaters to work. No, not angora like Ed Wood25. Just plain sweaters. Cardigans, mostly. Didn’t want anything to get in the way of my Glock 23. Not that I was ever going to use it again. The boys razzed me pretty hard about the sweater thing, I guess because it was summer when I started wearing them, and really hot out. Then came the hot flashes26. But maybe the weirdest thing was the deeply satisfying sense of calmness that descended upon me. Used to be, at the end of a long shift, I was ready to flip people off for anything, looked forward to knocking back a bottle or two of single malt. Shit, even a red light would send me ballistic. I’d bang on the steering wheel and scream all sorts of obscenities. KW189
But after the “event,” all that changed. Now I ended the day feeling like a feather floating on air. Fit as a fiddle and ready for
love, as the song has it. Calm and collected. Serene. I even smiled and nodded to jaywalkers. I no longer felt hostility towards punked out, tattooed lezzies. Hell, I even started to understand some of the pain gay men have to go through, living in a world filled with prejudice and hatred. One night, sitting alone in my apartment with nothing on the boob tube, I picked up one of my handjob mags27, leafed through it, then tossed it back on the pile. I had an epiphany. I was no longer interested in jerking off. It stared me in the face like an ugly broad daring me to pop her bra strap. At first I panicked. What had been for my entire adult life a daily thing to do was suddenly and irrevocably gone. I had no idea an orchiectomy28 could do all that. Here’s the kicker: after the initial shock, I didn’t give a damn. It was fine. Now I didn’t have to spend every waking minute thinking about pussy. Sometimes just a hunk of ass to sink my hard cock into. But these days my cock doesn’t get hard anymore. Well, hardly ever. Now I use that time for other things. I’ve taken up beekeeping and gardening on the rooftop, and even learned to knit. I stopped watching movies and started watching films. And I stopped watching the boobtube altogether. But the best part is I stopped losing my hair. Not only that, but I started growing some. It looked pretty good, so I decided to let it go long. I had forgotten how wavy it was.
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It’s true my memory isn’t so good as it used to be before I was what the Docs call hypogonadal29. But, so what? I sleep better, my skin is smoother, and my thighs, well, they’re looking good. Obviously, I no longer fit into a testosteronefilled environment like a cop shop. I went through a series of jobs after I quit, from being an undertaker (cried too much), to working a food counter (gave away too much—what are we going to do about the homeless?), to what I’m doing today— selling flowers. I have a cart on Broadway up on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, and it’s a good business, especially with cops stopping by all the time for bouquets. I’ve made a lot of new friends, especially transgendered30 people, both post- and pre-op. I do yoga, and started meditating. I’m even leading a support group for fellow castrati. I was amazed how many of us there are! A couple of us are thinking about writing a book, maybe even making a video.
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So, as you can see, although it’s not something I would have asked for, life after castration ain’t so bad. In fact, it’s led me to believe it’s the things we don’t want that might just be the things we need. It’s opened up my mind to understanding we don’t know dick about anything, not like we think we do, and that science and religion are illusions. Things to do to pass time. And politics! To me, the way I am today, politics is just another form of cruelty to animals. Now I look at the world differently. Now I embrace duality, doubt purposefulness, and remember the long road to freedom takes more than a single step.
What a world it would be if men, after they finished breeding, would have themselves snipped. Peaceful. Serene. And more interesting socks to choose from.
And Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male be not male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness, then you will enter (the Kingdom of Heaven)…” —The Gospel of Thomas31
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FOOTNOTES
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1) In one form of another, there have always been cops. Cop is a shortened form of copper, an English slang reference to the metal used to make policemen’s (Bobbies) badges, or shields. The world police was coined in XVIIIth Cent. France. In Anarchist theory, cops are the force responsible for maintaining and defending the interests of the bourgeoisie (i.e., the fatcats), shoring up the status quo ante; also for protecting private property; also for keeping capital from the dispossessed classes, or proletariat (skinny cats); also for promoting the male dominator, hierarchical form of society; also for enforcing a class-ordered societal structure; also for, creating psychological duress; also for fostering inequality and a general atmosphere of fear. Racism, homophobia and sexism—to name but three—are in the main staunchly supported and promoted by policing agencies worldwide. 2) Sunrise is also often referred to by English speakers as sunup. Sunrise is when the sun appears over the horizon and should never be confused with dawn, the point at which the sky begins to lighten, ending twilight. Both sunrise and sunset are optical illusions caused by the bending of lightwaves that result in the sun appearing to peek over the edge of the earth while it is, in fact, still below the horizon. Buckminster Fuller, the XXth Cent. pantechnicon, theorizer, inventor, architect, champion of William James Sidis, and general all-around wizard, despised the terms as so offensively inaccurate that he replaced them with sunsight and sunclipse. If you’re wondering why the sky is blue, or sunsets are so beautiful, this fact can be “explained” by the socalled Rayleigh Scattering Effect, i.e., the scattering of light (electromagnetic radiation) by smaller particles than light’s wavelength. In other words, teeny tiny particles that are suspended in a medium of a different index of refraction (water droplets) diffuse a portion (approximately 25%) of incident radiation (direct sunlight) in all directions (the sky). For instance, when the sunlight is nearly tangent to earth’s surface, the light path through the atmosphere is so long that most of the blue and yellow spectrum is scattered out, resulting in reddened skies. Here is the scientific formula for a beautiful sunset, or sunclipse:
3) Puget Sound is an arm (sound) of the pacific Ocean. It extends approximately 90 miles south from the
Strait of Juan de Fuca to Olympia, Washington. The Indians of the area used to refer to it in the Lushootseed language, as “Whulge”. Its modern name came from one Peter Puget, who explored its southern end back in 1792. The first settlement, New Market (Tumwater), was settled in 1846. The Sound is a huge, or whulge, saltwater estuary fed by freshwater from the Olympic and Cascade watersheds. A state-run ferry system connects the coastlines of the Sound, as well as all the islands. Unfortunately, the ferries no longer serve alcohol. 4) DuPont Company’s brand name for its polyparaphenylene terephthalamide fiber. It is 5x stronger than the same weight of steel, extremely heat resistant, and decomposes above 400°C without melting. Invented by a woman, Stephanie Kwolek, it was originally intended to replace steel belts in tires. 5) Buster Brown was a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault (The name “Buster” was derived from the then very popular Buster Keaton). The strip holds the distinction of being the first in America to feature a talking dog, Tige. John Bush, a sales director at the Brown Shoe Company, persuaded his superiors to purchase rights to the Buster Brown name. The brand was introduced at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and is still going strong today. 6) Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18721970), British philosopher, logician, mathematician, educator, liberal, socialist, anti-war activist, prophet, humorist, raconteur, philatelist, commentator, comedian, dancer, naval officer, editor, racing buff, synthesizer, woolgatherer, economist, intellectual, poet, sharpshooter, equestrian, Illuminatus, alchemist, writer, humanitarian, Nobel Laureate, essayist, water colorist, polygamist, pacifist, cross-dresser, knitter, savant, wit and damn good cook, was also the creator of these memorable bon mots: “War does not determine who is right. Only who is left.” “The secret to true happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.” “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wise people so full of doubts.” 7) Animal fat produced from rendering the fatty portion of a pig. Although few in First World still eat food cooked in the stuff, it continues to be is used to manufacture soap. It is also the name of a punk group. 8) A paste made from ground up sesame seeds. A major component of hummus, it comes in two varieties, hulled and unhulled, and makes an excellent substitute for peanut butter. 9) This is in reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that occurred on the morning of 28, January, 1986. The shuttle was destroyed 73 seconds into its
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flight because of the failure of an O-ring seal in one of the solid fuel boosters. The Rogers Commission was formed to investigate the matter. Among its panel of scientists and consultant was the famous, infamous and formidable Richard Feynman. Feynman famously demonstrated (on television no less) how the O-rings became less resilient at ice-cold temperatures by dunking part of one into a glass of ice water. He also pointed out the discrepancy between NASA’s management claiming a 1 in 100,000 chance of serious failure, and the engineers claiming only 1 in a 100. Feynman, a brilliant physicist, bongo player and one of the many godfathers of the Atomic Bomb, added greatly to our understanding of quantum electrodynamics and quark theory, for which work he was awarded a Nobel prize (some say he ought to have received two). Something of a practical jokester and wag, he wrote many popular books, and said many imponderable things, to wit: “Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.” “What does it mean, to understand? I don’t know.” “Dear Mrs. Chown, ignore your son’s attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is.” And his last words: “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” 10) Trojan (based on the ancient Greek city of Troy) is a popular brand of prophylactic, or condom (latex or sheepskin), sheath worn on the erect penis. The Trojan company started life as Youngs Rubber Company, begun in the 1920s by Merle Youngs, a conservative, devout Presbyterian farmer. In the 1980s, the company was bought out by Carter Wallace of Carter’s Little Liver Pills (cf. Supra.). Early condoms (“rubbers”) were manufactured from vulcanized rubber; they were thick, smelled of sulphur and kerosene, had leaky seams and were most likely toxic. New technology has improved the condom considerably. The newest® development is Durex Avanti, made from DURON , which is 2x stronger than latex, yet actually thinner. The purchase of condoms in the US was illegal before the 1970s. It is rumored that frequent use of them will make you blind. 11) Police in the US usually carry pistols or sidearms, among which Smith & Wessons, Sig-Sauers and Glock are the most popular. Glock is a defense contractor named after its founder, Gaston Glock, in DeutschWagram, Vienna. The Glock handgun first came into prominence as the Glock 17, a polymer-framed handgun that was essentially a 9mm Luger Parabellum with a 17 round capacity. The most recent version, Glock 23, is currently the single-most popular police sidearm used in the US. Contrary to popular myth, Glock pistols will indeed set off a metal detector, as well as a tired, under-educated, underpaid and generally angry airport
security employee. A full 82% of Glock handguns is metal. The “plastic” bits are actually a dense polymer which is radio-opaque, a fancy way of saying it shows up on X-ray machines. Glocks are simple, contain fewer moving parts than most handguns, and are among the least expensive semi-automatic weapons on the market. 12) Capitol Hill is perhaps the most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, and considered that city’s center for gay life and hip counterculture. No one seems to know why it is named Capitol Hill. One story has it that a real estate developer in 1910 named it to attract the state government to move up from Olympia. Formerly, it had been known as Broadway Hill. 13) The Mossberg 500 is manufactured by O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. The 500 is not a model, but a series of hammerless, pump action repeating shotguns (typically 12 gauge) and is the only shotgun (reputedly) to have passed the US Army’s Mil-Spec 3443E test. This may not be the truth, but it is a good selling point. 14) A generally derogatory name for lesbian. “Lesbian” denotes a homosexual female and may be used as a noun or an adjective. The word derives from Lesbos, a Greek island in the Aegean. There the lyric poet, Sappho, lived and ran a school for girls in the VIth Cent. BC. Many of her poems were about her passion for her students’ bodies. Historical reports of relations between women are sparse. This is in no small part due to the fact most records were kept by men, and men have a tendency to put the best face on things (i.e., lie). Nevertheless, in most Western societies prohibitions against women-to-woman relations have been less strenuous than those against men-to-men. This may be, in part, because men have always been men, no matter when or in what part of the world they may have lived, and men generally are turned on by the thought of two women doing it. In the UK, where male homosexuality was criminalized in the XIXth Cent., lesbianism was left alone. Queen Victoria (so the story goes) refused to sign a bill outlawing the practice, insisting that “…ladies do not do such things.” Alternate terms for lesbians are: dyke, byke, bulldyke, diesel dyke, bulldagger, butch, stone butch, glamour butch, granola dyke, gold star dyke, leather dyke, lipstick lesbian, low femme, PC dyke, soft butch lezzie, tryke, U-hauls, and vagitarian. 15) Jean Paul Sartre was a French stand-up comic who regaled the crowned heads of Europe as well as the uncrowned heads of lower Bohemia. He was a parttime poofter when being a poofter meant Reading Gaol. He was born in Paris, and spoke French fluently. He was not so tall, not at all like Cary Grant, and when he died he remained that way. When he wasn’t telling
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jokes, he spent a great deal of time masturbating. And reading, which is much the same thing. As is mathematics compared to physics. When he was with a woman, it was usually Simone de Beauvoir, who had affiliated herself with him because he could help her get published, make beds, whisk eggs just so, and wore women’s undergarments exactly her size. She was a feminist and he was a faminist. The two things are practically identical except for the spelling. Sartre loved mescaline but it made him nauseous once so he wrote a book, Nausea. He was horrified of what he termed “naked existence,” only he said it in French so it sounded more like nahkeed hackzaustaunce. Before he died he made up a religion called Existentialism, which he stole whole-cloth from German philosophers and the hilariously named Phenomenological Movement (sounds classier than Bowel Movement). He was not a happy man, as is the case with most comics. Take Jerry Lewis, for example. He was not a happy man. In fact, since he is still alive, we can surmise he is still not a happy man. Although he may be happier today than he was when he was young. He probably would have been happier if Dean hadn’t got all huffy and quit the team. The French rewarded Jerry with their highest honor (English: honour)—a brief buss on both cheeks by another man. For more information on JPS, read his book of jokes titillatingly titled, Being and Nonethe-Less, or How I Came to Terms with Rejection from My Father, Who was a Naval Officer, and Learned to Pretend to Like Women If They Looked Even a Little Like Mon Oncle. 16) A northern constellation based on the Greek myth of vain Cassiopeia, one of the 50 Nereids, and the “sole daughter of the sea.” She was the mother of Andromeda, sired by Cepheus of Aethiopia. One of the 88 modern constellations, it was also one of the 48 listed by Ptolemy, inventor of Ptolemaic astrology. 17) From the Persian tara, for crown. Traditionally, a tiara is a high crown shaped like a cylinder narrowed at its top. The ancient Assyrians used to make them complete with bull horns and feathers, lacking lustrous stones such as diamonds. The Pope used to wear a tiara—that funny shaped Conehead hat. This was, however, set aside by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council, a decision based on the fact his head was too lumpy for the hat to settle properly (it kept listing to the left, and this fact was being interpreted by some of the more extremely mystical minded as a sign of a Neo-Marxist conspiracy). Probably the coolest tiara ever was the one worn by superfly babe, Wonder Woman. Hers is so cool because, like Oddjob’s bowler, it can be used as a weapon. (Cf. also, Sailor Moon, a Japanese animated manga series by Naoko Takeuchi based on the concept
of reincarnated defenders in sailor suits—all of them magical girls—come from a destroyed kingdom that once spanned the entire solar system. It is arguably one of the most famous anime series in the world.) 18) Po-TAH-toe, po-TAH-toe, po-TAH-toe©—probably one of the most recognized sounds in the motorcycling world: the sound a Harley Davidson makes riding down the road, trying to loosen its load. Popularly known as “Harleys” or “hawgs”, these machines, manufactured by the Harley-Davidson Motor Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are designed basically as heavy cruisers and cost a lot of money. They also leak oil, or at least used to. More iconic than practical, distinctively American, they were never famous for either engineering, gas mileage or performance, but mostly for their distinctive sound and constant, costly maintenance. Did we mention they are also very expensive? Since 1998 Harley-Davidson has been owned by the Buell Motorcycle Company. 19) He is referring here to a MTBI, or Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Also called, by some physicians, a “bonk on the head.” The MTBI is among the most common (and least serious) injuries sustained by human beings, with the possible exception of ingrown toenails. 20) The male homologue of the woman’s labia majora, the scrotum (from Latin scrotum, cognate with O.E. scrud “garment,” source of the word shroud. “Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotum-tightening sea. Epi oinopa pontoon.” — Joyce, “Ulysses”) is basically an external bag that holds the testicles. The function of the scrotum is to keep sperm chilled, shaken, and not stirred. Temperature control occurs when a man pulls his testicles inside his body (this is called the cremasteric reflex), thus keeping them warm when it is cold outside, and vice versa. The scrotum is also a martial arts target for a) women who are trying to escape a rapist; b) men who are trying to escape a rapist; and C) rapists who are trying to escape the police. 21) Yes, it’s true: dogs can indeed “sniff out” bombs. Teaching a dog to find high explosives (such as nitrates TNT; plastique PETN, and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX) is much easier than it sounds. Harder is teaching the animal not to fetch. (An elephant can excrete up to 100 lbs of poop per day.) 22) A reference to the American actor, David Janssen, who starred as Dr. Richard Kimble in the TV series, The Fugitive (1963-1967). In this dramatic series, Dr. Kimble is accused of his wife’s murder and sentenced to death. While he is being transported, still in custody, the train he is on jumps its rails and he is given the opportunity to escape. This event sets him (and the series) off in a new direction—tracing down the real killer, a one-armed man. The final episode, when Dr.
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Kimble finally corners and faces the one-armed man, remains one of the single highest-rated episodes of a TV program in history (TV history, that is). The series was supposedly inspired by the true-life Sam Sheppard case of the 1950s in which a physician was found guilty of murdering his wife and sent to prison where he languished for many years before being acquitted by the US Supreme Court. (This, of course, is in no way germane, but is mentioned as an example of yet another cultural layer that glosses our beliefs in socalled Reality.) 23) Is it just coincidence that this is footnote #23, and his balls are being cut off? Some would say no. For is not 23 the sacred number of Eris, goddess of discord (according to the Principia Discordia)? Is not 23 Skidoo the title of a poem in Alister Crowley’s The Book of Lies—Falsely So Called? And is not hexagram 23 in the Book of Changes not titled Splitting Apart? Others will call this a case of apophenia. Eerie, to say the least. But even more eerie is this: the so-called Skull and Bones 322 Identity. Tangentially related to Euler’s Identity, this pattern identifies an intercept node of addition/ multiplication/exponents and the transcendentals “e” and “pi”. For instance, the left side of the equation is ((3*2*2*) * (3+2+2)) = (12*7), just as December 7th was the attack on Pearl Harbor. Also, this: a skull has 3 holes and 2 bones (2 femurs, each with 2 knobs) so that (7*2*23) = 322! Is this synchronicity or simply pareidolia? In any case, the separation of a man’s testes from his trunk is a big deal. 24) The bad guys, i.e., perpetrators; politicians. 25) Edward Davis Wood (1924-1978) was a filmmaker who bore the title “worst director of all time.” Having no money and little talent, he nonetheless was able to bring to the screen such Z-grade pictures as Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space (“We used Cadillac hubcaps for flying saucers in that.”), as well as resurrect the flagging career of Bela Lugosi. Ed Wood was a transvestite who, after a long day spent directing, enjoyed nothing better than dressing as a woman, wrapping his male torso in angora, and consuming a bottle of whisky. He maintained, however, that his transvestitism was not a sexual perversion, but appealed to him because the angora provided him with maternal comfort. His career as a film director and actor (he claimed the same distinction as his hero, Orson Welles, for having written/directed/starred in all of his own films) eventually dried up, which was more than he could say. He lived on, writing novels (Raped in the Grass, The Perverts), and drinking whisky until he faded out to closing credits at the age of 54. There is a Church of Ed Wood, composed of a reverential group of True Believers, who worship his works, his life and, of course, his holy angora shroud.
26) A symptom of the onset of menopause and changing hormone levels, in this case the result of a loss of testosterone. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. 27) So-called pornographic (from the Greek πορυογραιϕια, literally meaning writing about hookers, the root of which, πορυη, means to sell) or dirty magazines filled with nude images of women and men and shaved poodles in various attitudes of sexual arousal for the benefit of (generally) male masturbation. Although thought of often as synonymous in the popular mind, there is a difference between pornography and erotica. Erotica, from the word Eros, “to love,” include literature, works of art, film, etc, that deal substantively with the portrayal of human sensuality and sexuality (again, two separate things often confused) on higher emotional levels than porn, but just as much fun to watch. 28) Twenty dollar word for castration. Also known as gelding or neutering, orchidectomy is any action— surgical or chemical—in which the male of the species loses his testicles. 29) Another fancy word. This one refers to a defect of the reproductive system that results in the dysfunction of the gonads. The gonads (or, more popularly, the “nads”) produce hormones (estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, inhibin B and antimullerian), activin and gametes (eggs/sperm, depending on which sex you happen to have been born wearing). 30) Who knows? These days it can mean anything from one end to the other of the post-modern sexual continuum. Anything, in other words, that is perceived as being in opposition to conventional (read male dominator/ missionary position) male-to-female sex roles. To illustrate, this is one of symbols for transgenderedism:
Confused? Not as much as (some would say) they are. 31) Discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, this Coptic papyrus manuscript contains a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. The text was written (i.e., attributed to) Didymus Judas Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples (the famous “doubting Thomas”), and claims that the special revelations and parables it contains were made by Jesus directly to him (Thomas). The saying that is quoted above is the final one, number 114, and has caused considerable disagreement as to its meaning among scholars. Jesus apparently held that women were worthy of receiving spiritual teachings. To
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say the least, this was an unpopular view. The Gospel of Thomas confirms that Jesus had female apostles, including Mary Magdalene and Salome; however, the canonical gospels state otherwise, i.e., that Jesus’ apostles were only men. In a Platonic, or Platonist, context “male” and “female” had the philosophical denotations of representing “form” and “constituent matter,” respectively. Hence, an object’s “maleness” equated to rules governing its formal composition, while its “femaleness” was the material from which it had been composed (it’s “stuff ”). Given these meanings, the process of becoming “male” equated with the Platonic veneration of form. Thus, Jesus’ statement here creates the idea of spiritual ascent and perfectibility for all people—even women. In any case, the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the canon for several reasons. Besides siding with women, it was generally considered heretical and inauthentic and, perhaps worse, its emphasis on individual spirituality (i.e., apart from the Church) was anathema to organized religion. In the book of John, the emphasis is on Jesus as the “only begotten son” of the Father; while, in Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying that “…the Kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.” In Thomas, Jesus was attempting to bring about individual enlightenment; thus, he was engaging in an attack upon the structure of belief (“maleness”), in favor of the content of our being-ness (“femaleness”), a counter-revolutionary position to take even today. This strand of Christianity was of course quashed, for were it to become known that there was no need for hierarchical male dominator Popes and Bishops, et Alia, then there would be no need for a Church, per se. Taken in this way, the teachings of Jesus as presented in Thomas are closely aligned to those “taught” by mystics elsewhere and in other times. This in no way undercuts Jesus’ message, or the importance of his personality; instead, it places the responsibility for spiritual growth, and the acceptance of the revealed truth of Jesus’ words that the hearer of is divine, directly on the shoulders of the individual. The fact that enlightenment is available to all who enter into the understanding of the message (the real Good News), that “…the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth…” would change the structure of society overnight, level the playing field as it were, and make every single soul equally important was every other single soul (which is, of course, the fact). Thus was Jesus’ message of enlightenment as the great Democratizer was crushed.
Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick present A Dialectic on Epistemology & Ontological Comedy W: Fuck you. KW202
N: No, Fuck you. W: You’re a fucked-up sickshitmotherfucker. N: You’re a Lowlife asswipe. Get th’fuck away. W: Don’t you fuckin tell me what to do, cumrag. N: Shitforbrains. W: Rugmuncher. N: Eat shit and die. W: Suck my anal probe. N: You’d like that, you fairy fuckin twisted perv. W: Kiss my hairy ass. N: Fuck you. N: No, fuck you.
Und so weiter…
Fat Max Crwth’s Creia1 No.23 or Why it’s Good to be a Dog ~ including ~ Exhortations to PJ & Z
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No; of course; it’s never enough; obviously, there’s need for more; must needs be need for more; one can never be obstreperous enough; one ought never be sufficiently immund;2 ribald and feculent; filthy, lousy, squalid—become, I say to you, a task for Cleaning Man Hercules to undertake, one to make the Augean Stables3 appear a shining shrine in contrast! If you have hair, then grow it! To cut your hair is to bespoil Nature’s gift! Watch them, watch them— see how they grovel, trigged and well-kempt, the lot as solid underneath as old bongwater, filled with Starbucks and Arugula, with Celtic tattoos, shaved pussies, nipples and navels pierced; watch them walk gladly on their way to another day of enslavement; watch them as they wear down their dimea-dozen souls, dozing little chameleons terrified of bird droppings, always on the lookout for predators—for predators are always on the lookout for you, when you live in fear. Do I live in fear? Ha! I fear a boring conversation more than I fear death! If only I had a master like Antisthenes!4 Still, I wear a cloak and carry a staff and wallet as badge of my trade. Remember, fellow souls, it is good to do good and to be abused. By this credo have I lived, bloomed, withered and soon one day die. There is no right or wrong about it. Credo quia absurdum.5 One need only fear the solid argument. And nuptials. I honor he who has never married; I worship he who has never fornicated; I humble myself before he
who has never farted. I spent many years begging the statues in Seattle to give me money, food—but never work. Not one in ten—nay, not one at all—ever returned a smile, much less a stater or an tetradrachm.6 Thus grew I in my resolve; thus did I learn to embrace rejection. Worse than being a novelist! I performed my antics for steel and stone, acquired tolerance for cold and wet, let mold and mushrooms find habitats between my toes; only then did I know how to beg. This thin veil, this sliver of veneer called civilization is a dogma that needs pissing on. And I’m just the dogma to do it! The deeds of my teacher fill me with gratitude, with eudemonic song.7 Look at my penis. Go ahead, look at it! Hiding its little head in the brush. Is it a paradox, or a paradise? The pair of dice hang below. Soft, warm, inoffensive little glow worm. But let him take umbrage, let him get his blood up! See his head snake forth unfettered, his glistening eye range the landscape seeking its prey? It is a dualnatured beastie, boys, as is the heart that pumps it up with blood and the brain that primes it with lust.8 This I can train you to control! Why wait until 90 to do the deeds of today? Ah, masturbation!9 I sing to thee a paean, for in life is death and in cumming is going and in hardness is softness in the implicate order10 of being is sameness and nothingness commingled. So much heat wasted on dissolution! Men talk in awe of violence, fighters who can take on tenfold foes and survive! If they but put a tenth as much fascination into their own souls!11 They care naught for what becomes them, peradventure they live beyond their twenties! Fear crops them like a blight—they are afraid to grow old, afraid to become fat, terrified to lose hair, lose control, let loose a fart in public—in short, afraid to be different from the herd! Do you look at them passing and see you there
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any to respect? We only look up to them because our asses rest upon the ground. See how they studiously ignore us? They fear exchanging language with the likes of us. Ask my comrade, Zeno here. All he does with money, my Balzac,12 is waste his mind with books. They think it’s an angle, a scam. They think hunger is a disease. Throw money at the designated people and all will be well! Place your thumbs upon your eyes, press, and you will see stars! How they have complicated the simple gifts of the gods! One day they may be blind or crippled. How many will live to make fifty? Who will care if they do? Is this why they breed? But their brood grows to ignore them, which is a worse fate than hate. So many of them actually believe lies are truths, and turn their eyes from truths that seem like lies. Security—what does that mean exactly, except the inevitability of death? Wealth—why, the richest man I know is filthier and jollier than I! Happiness—do these people think watching movies and making money is happiness? Happiness to them is but momentary distraction. But we will all starve together. And when the darkness13 comes, those used to the light will be blindest. They sprinkle themselves with holy water once a week to purify their souls, to wash off the muck of commerce— when it would benefit them more to learn grammar! To teach themselves how to reason. To understand rhetoric. Philosophy is nothing more than word play, and demons are as golden-tongued as gods. The gods provide every one of us with the means to be happy and good, yet we devote ourselves to striving after phantasms, and making ourselves miserable. You know, my friends, there’s but a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool. If a man raises his first finger and speaks, people might think him wise, and give heed. But if he lifts his middle finger like this—they think him
dangerous, and run away.14 This is why I am a dog. A dog lives life freely, doing what he does with respect for none, fealty to few, and dominion over nothing. The dog knows naught but the Rule of Nature. Dogs do not plot, plan or complain. Dogs live in the moment. When did you last see a conniving dog? They do not wear clothes or watches or drive cars. Small dogs, big dogs, it doesn’t matter; they learn to live in peace, travel in pax. When they get hungry enough, they’ll gladly eat their recently deceased best friend. They have no theology, no sophistry, no science, no tools. I am a dog to them, hustling along with their backpacks and iPods, agendas and routines, deliveries to make and papers to grade and prescriptions to fill and groceries to buy and payment plans to worry over. I cry, “throw me a bone!” But they hear me not. They can’t hear above the din in their heads, the dim light that leads them to their suicides; they are too taken by the gay colors of this festival of cruelty.15 If they only knew that god is dog doo on their shoe.16 So close; so far away. All is without reckoning, can’t be added up, balanced, taxed, recorded. It is like catching fish to play a game of Parcheesi!17 Numbed and mumbling, they hope to buy a house, take vacations, send their kids to college—all the while believing in induction and post hoc ergo propter hoc,18 and in post and ante meridian, and in status quo ante and in Truth,19 Justice20 and the American Way21 while they look forward to Social Security, retirement and a gated community in Tallahassee.22 I say unto you two mortals before you reunite with the body political, think you as a dog—What Would A Canine Do? Sniff your friend’s crotch! Lick your own ass! Gnaw contentedly upon a bone.
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FOOTNOTES:
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commonplace of the Progymnasmata 1) A (Προγυµνασµατα, Greek pro “before” and gymnasmata “exercises”), a set of fundamental exercises meant to prepare students of rhetoric for public oration. The Progymnasmata was central to ancient and renaissance pedagogy. There are 14 Progymnasmata in all: Fable; Narrative; Chreia; Proverb; Refutation; Confirmation; Commonplace; Encomium; Vituperation; Comparison; Impersonation; Description; Thesis; Defense. The word used here, chreia (chreiodes, “useful”), is defined as “…a brief reminiscence referring to some person in a pithy form for the purpose of edification.” Typically, a chreia takes the form of an anecdote. 2) An interesting word, and an unusual one. It extends from the Latin immundus, as in im- “not” + mundus “clean.” Throughout this monologue will be used many words not typically heard in casual speech. This may be a result of crossing over into a parallel universe, or a form of atavism, or else the fact that our world is composed, as Democritus—c. 450-370 BC (who, according to legend, was supposed to be mad because he laughed at everything. He was sent, by those who felt his disposition a threat, to the great physician Hippocrates to be cured. Hippocrates determined that Democritus was not mad at all, merely happy. And so to this day he is often referred to as the Laughing Philosopher)—taught, of many discrete atomic worlds, some with similar spin, others with reverse spin, and still others with no spin at all. 3) Grade school stuff, but probably worth reviewing. The Greek hero Hercules (aka Herekles) was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Alcmene. After he performed the Twelve Labors alluded to above, Herekles became a demigod, sort-of like being vice president. The Labors were: Slay the Nemean Lion and return with its skin; Slay the Lernaean Hydra; Catch the Ceryneian Hind; catch the Erymanthian Boar; Clean the Augean stables in one day; Kill the Stymphalian Birds; Catch the Cretan Bull; Steal the Mares of Diomedes; Steal the Girdle of Hippolyte; Steal the Cows of Geryon; Steal the Apples of Hesperides; Capture Cerberus. Apparently, being a demigod meant a great deal to the guy. No need to go into the details, except to say that the stables in question were owned by one
Augeias (meaning “bright”), King of Elis. Obviously, he was renown for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the known world…and had never been cleaned. Ever. The ancient Greeks referred to the constellation Capricorn (L.) as the Augean Stable, since the sun (the “bright”) rests there during the winter solstice. 4) Founder of the so-called Cynic school of philosophy, Antisthenes flourished between c. 444-365 BC. The word “Cynic” did not mean what it does today. The Cynosarges (from Gk. Κυον, or “dog”) was where he founded his school in Athens. He wore a cloak and carried a staff and wallet as the badge of his philosophy, and taught a form of Socratic virtue mixed with great disdain for pomp, pride and all that sort of thing. (Sound familiar? These ancient streams may have been forced below ground, but they do spring up now and again along the geodesic of history.) The Cynics rejected the so-called “norms” of society, and adopted shocking habits, flouting conventions to make their point. They challenged auditors to get in touch with their “natural,” animal side. Thus the dog became their symbol. This school of “thought” (actually rhetoric and sophistry) is considered to be a link between Socrates’ teachings— the “virtue is knowledge” guy—and that of the later Stoic—“prick my flesh and I don’t wince”—school. Antisthenes reduced Socrates’ words to their lowest denominator, and developed them into something very Nietzschean and existentialist; he taught that “knowledge” was not the Socratic harmony of morality with reason, but more the human will practicing action, essentially substituting “individualism” for reason and morality in social relations. He and his followers carried their terms of this individualism to its logical conclusion, decrying the ordinary pleasures of life as harmful inasmuch as they blunted the operation of the will. In other words, wealth, fame, power and the like tended to dethrone the authority of reason and prevent the soul from its natural predispositions—apparently behaving as if it were a dog. Man exists for and in himself alone; what others do or think or say is not worth a farthing; his highest end is self-knowledge/ self-realization apart from society. Thus, disrepute and poverty are desirable, for they drive one in upon oneself, purifying one’s intellect from the misleading (Vedic maya) appearances of the external world. So the Good Man wants nothing (except maybe a Good Woman); like the gods, he is self-sufficient (unless he’s
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demigod and goal-driven like Hercules); he is a citizen of the world and everyone else can go hang themselves (one of his mottoes: …gain wisdom or buy a rope.) Antisthenes is reputed to have written ten volumes, but only fragments remain. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Stoic, quotes him in his Meditations: It is royal to do good and be abused. 5) Literally, I believe because it is absurd. Variants are: I must be crazy to believe this and That’s just crazy enough to work. 6) Reference to Diogenes of Sinope, whose teacher was Antisthenes. He is reputed to have begged from statues as practice to become a mendicant philosopher. He is also reported to have (in the best Platonic sense) surpassed his teacher in living the Life Ascetic. He reduced his belongings to a single bowl and a tub. He lived in the tub. The bowl he drank and ate from— that is, until the day he saw a child drink water with cupped hands. After that, he broke his bowl because it “complicated” the simplicity of life. He was fond of masturbating in public. Once, when rebuked for this practice, he is reported to have said, “If only I could soothe my belly by rubbing it.” It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that Diogenes avoided the perils of earthly pleasures. He disdained what he perceived to be the folly, pretence, vanity, selfdeception and artificiality of most human conduct. He used to stroll through the Agora in broad daylight while carrying a torch, telling people he was searching for an honest man. One of the great “philosopher stories” centers around the meeting of Diogenes (there were many Diogeneses) and Alexander the Great. The Ruler of the Known World (and student of Aristotle) was thrilled finally to come face to face with the great man himself. He approached the dozing philosopher as he lay curled up in his tub and asked, as King of the Known World, if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes’ famous reply: “Move. You’re blocking the sun.” Alexander later declared that, if he were not Alexander, he would be Diogenes. Upon the event of his death, a pillar was erected to Diogenes’ memory. At the top of the pillar rested a marble dog. 7) A reference to Eudaimonism, a philosophy that defines right action as that which leads to “happiness” or “well being”. It originates from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where he writes that eudaimonism means all correct actions lead to the greater well being of an individual, and thus to a society. This concept posits
that human happiness is the central ethical concern. Later (much, much later in fact), Existentialism would come along and reject the notion of happiness as a bourgeois fantasy; even Stoicism turned its back on Eudaimonism. The concept was, however, imported into Christianity by Thomas Aquinas, who sought to prove that “happiness” or “well-being” was (is) found ultimately in a direct (and therefore individual and personal) perception of God. Still not a popular position in the West. 8) An erection (or “hard on” “boner” “beef bayonet” “a chubby” “tent pole” “stiffy” “sunrise surprise” “stonking bazza” “turkey twizzler” “Sir Throblington” “meat pole” “Norwegian wood” “woody” “hummer” “happy to see you” “rocket in my pocket” “HOFNAR—Hard On For No Apparent Reason” “best friend” and “boinger,” to mention but a few synonyms) occurs when engorgement of blood in the corpora cavernosa and corpus spongiosum (two tubular structures at the base of the penis) result from stimulation. Besides sexual stimulation (our personal favorite), an erection may also derive from a full bladder or spontaneously, as during a wet dream. Erection (or a stiffening of the male member, also known as a “thingamabob”) is apparently caused by the parasympathetic nervous system, that same area of the brain responsible for the “fight or flight” response. Hence, it is for this reason an erection may be difficult to maintain if, say, one is being chased by a irate husband. The sympathetic nervous system is also responsible for ejaculation (surprisingly, rhythmical rubbing has nothing to do with it), which is why men (not teenagers) lose their erection after they squirt. Men who may have an erection during sleep, but are unable to obtain one while awake, are sad. 9) The act of self-pleasuring, also known as “buffin’ the muffin” “beatin’ your meat” “burpin’ the worm” “rubbin’ one out” “hand job” “puttin’ the Kleenex kids through college” “spankin’ the monkey” “jerkin’ the Gherkin” “full knuckle shuffle” and the ever popular “jackin’ off.” Onanism, or the act of masturbation (from root word εζεα, “penises” and Latin turbare “to disturb”), extends from the Biblical character, Onan (Talmud Niddah 13a, wherein the act is likened to adultery), who spilled his seed upon the earth and earned for this act the wrath of the terrible Pre-Christian God. As a result, masturbation is frowned upon…at least in the Bible. Philosophically (at least in German philosophy), Immanuel Kant regarded it as a violation of moral
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law, making the a posteriori argument that “…such an unnatural use of one’s sexual attributes strikes everyone who thinks upon it as a violation of one’s duty to himself.” He thought suicide less of an immoral act. (He felt that the immorality lay in the fact that a man gave up his personality when he used himself as a means for the gratification of a bestial drive.) What a differing view from that of the Olde Aegyptians who believed that when a god masturbated it was a creative act! Or the Greeks who regarded it…well, you can probably imagine how the Greeks regarded it. On a more contemporary note, Dorothy Parker, the divine Miss Anthrope, reportedly said she had named her parrot “Onan” because “…he is always spilling his seed.” And the poet Allen Ginsberg, according to one biography, came up with the idea of his celebrated poem, “Howl,” while masturbating with a broom. 10) Physicist David Bohm is not into building blocks. This doesn’t mean he is childless, only that he eschews reductionism. (Reductionism means what it sounds like: that the nature of complex things cans always be reduced to or explained by more fundamental, smaller things. For an example, read The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins.) For Bohm, the Whole encompasses all things, structures, processes, abstractions, continua and quanta. In other words, parts are considered in terms of the Whole, constituting independent “subtotalities,” rather than the status of atomic units, or building blocks. The implication, of course, is that nothing is entirely autonomous. Bohm: “This new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement.” This view assumes that “flow” is prior to “things” (think vortex structures that occur in a flowing stream of water, wherein we might think of structural reality—even ourselves—as the vortices). This brings to mind the precepts of Taoism as discussed in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. “The Tao that can be told of is not an Unvarying Tao.” “Tao begets one; One begets two; Two begets three; Three begets the myriad creatures.” “Tao is like an empty vessel that yet may be drawn from without ever needing to be filled.” This thinking is underlain by the striking symbol of the blending entanglement of Yin and Yang, opposites that are not opposite mixed together into the vortex of the Whole. Also hinted at here is the Indian concept of “samsara,” which means “to flow together,” to pass through many states, to wander through a revolving door between incarnations, in between and amongst
Life and Death. In other words, the insights gained through Bohm, Searle, Einstein, Heisenberg, etc., brings our imagistic thinking closer to the shamanistic experience of the contextual Oneness of the flow of Universe, and breaks down the Western mythos of the “individual against nature” as epitomized in Bruce Willis movies.
11) In contradistinction to “spirit,” souls are conceived of as being eternal, immortal and to have existed prior to their being slipped into this physical world dimension. The use of the word does not correspond with the usage attributed to ancient Western thinkers such as Plotinus, Heraclitus, Plato, et alii. The root of “soul” seems to have originated from OE sawol, which has Germanic links to the root from which also is derived “sea.” Think living water. The Greeks called it ψχη, “psyche,” and the much later Latin word was anima, both meaning something like “breath.” There is a difference, by the way, between infinity and eternity. The figure 8 is symbolic of the former; the circle of the latter. One can only wonder if God caused mankind the most pain simply by our creation, or by giving us prepositions. Theists say God is eternally existent. This may mean either that God exists in eternity, where past, present and future do not apply, or that God exists through eternity, meaning at all times, so that past, present and future again are meaningless, only in a different way. In any case, the truth is infinity is a mathematical concept that may nudge us in the direction of eternity, but the difference between them (as far as the human mind is concerned) is not significant. But then (some may argue) neither is the human mind. 12) Reference to Honoré de Balzac (1788-1850), French novelist whose many books was collectively entitled La Comédie humaine. He finished 95 books, left 48 unfinished, and apparently died from drinking too much coffee. “When women love us,” he wrote, “they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.” He also suggested that…“No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.” 13) Uncertain; perhaps a reference to apocalypse (literally “disclosure”), the eschatological end of the world
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(as in millennialism); or it may refer to the so-called “rapture,” which event will precede the Last Days. During the “rapture” all the saved souls will go directly to Heaven, while the rest of us will have to slog it out on earth dealing with fire and brimstone, rains of frogs and spotty cellphone coverage. He might also simply mean Old Age, or even macular degeneration. Who knows? 14) It has been argued by anthropologists (imagine a roomful of anthropologists arguing) that “giving one the finger” is a variant of the phallic aggressive gesture used by primates to threaten and belittle an enemy. In other words, the “bird”—to use the parlance of our times—has been around a long, long time. Roman Emperor Caligula, that towering rôle model, made supplicants kiss his middle finger. Throughout most of the Middle Ages the MF went underground; the use of digits was severely restricted by the Holy See, who believed extended fingers belonged in the Mass only and not to the masses. We wouldn’t see it again, so to speak, until it cropped up in an 1886 photo of the Boston Beaneaters baseball team’s photo. In this image, Hall of Fame pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn can be seen slipping the finger to the camera. Thus sanctioned by sporting heroes, it soon became as American as mom and apple pie. And, why not? America in those days was a melting pot, a polymorphic polyglot of wretched refuse, of tired, poor, tempest-tost souls, of huddled masses, none of whom could understand a word the other spoke—what richer soil for so simple a gesture to sprout and grow? Yet, had it not been thus, a second chance would have come along with the introduction of the automobile; can you imagine a safer way for drivers to communicate their feelings to each other without letting go the steering wheel? “…remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness…” Isaiah 58: 910. KW213
15) A reference here to Antisthenes and his student, Diogenes of Sinope. This might stand as signet to their attitude towards the world. 16) Pantheism is the view that God-ness is in everything
(even dog doo); i.e., God is immanent; Universe and Nature are equivalent. In Hindu theology, moksha (from the Sanskrit for liberation or release) refers to breaking free from the cycle of death and rebirth by transcending phenomena and leaving behind any sense of time, space and causation; it is, in short, to become one with the God-ness of All Being-ness which is the Everywhen-ness of the Everynow. This is not the same as Christian “salvation,” which only recognizes the world as a battlefield and God as a supernal being far removed from His/Her creations. For the believer in Brahman, God-ness is like the light emanating from a prism; it only appears to be broken into colors, but is in fact unchanged. We also find this concept localized in the Jewish Kabbalah, which inspired and informed Spinoza’s own form of pantheism. (Funny enough, a now forgotten philosopher once criticized Spinoza for believing God was immanent in all “things,” making the point that it was a doctrine of “pure materialism” that, in itself, would lead finally to “pure atheism.” Seems silly now, but it did set the stage for the XVIIIth Cent. Einstein, by the way, claimed Spinoza as his greatest religious influence.) Problems abound, as you can imagine, with pantheism. For instance, what about Free Will? And for that matter, what about free beer and a good five cent cigar? And Free Verse, what’s that about? So, in summation, the thought that God might be dog poop may not be so far-fetched, after all. 17) Haven’t a clue. 18) Ah, yes, Latin again. Literally, “after this, therefore because of this.” Also “If, then therefore, because.” Post hoc, as it is known by those in the know, is a logical fallacy (or false clause) that assumes if one event happens after another event, then the event that came before must be the cause of the second event. This is known also as affirming the consequence, or massaging the facts, or fibbing. An example: a) Ice cream sales go up in July; b) Car theft goes up in August; c) Therefore, people eating ice cream cause car theft. Here’s another: a) A Republican is elected into the Presidency; b) The economy, driven by decisions made by two former Democratic Presidents, finally swings upward strongly; c) Therefore, Republican Presidents are better for the economy. 19) Insufficient space to pursue the topic. 20) A hypothetical, subjectivist evaluation diametrically opposed to juridical providence. 21) A Zazen approach to nationalism, as in “the watercourse
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way,” or “get out of my way,” or “do you know the way to San Jose?”; anything to do with the USA, or its inhabitants, especially those who inhabit the Pentagon; doing things unlike the French; only speaking one language; PepsiCo; Wal-Mart; Tri-Laterialism; reality TV; John Wayne. 22) Capital of Florida, USA.
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not a blank page
“It’s not worth the wile to go round the world to count the cats of Zanzibar.” —Thoreau
“Anything that happens happens, anything that in happening causes something else to happen causes something else to happen, and anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again. Although not necessarily in chronological order.” —Douglas Adams
Comes the Time of Capt. Twenty-Z Skidoo! → or ← Mr. Bland Builds a Blog!
The difference between a blog and a website is the difference between Rice Krispies® and the deep blue sea. Twenty Questions Asked: 1) How can a person, once having been dispossessed and lost to society, access the technology that would permit his or her thoughts publication on the World Wide Web? 2) What do brutal people think about when they masturbate? 3) Is “love” equivalent with “consciousness”? Is “will” the same as “hate”? 4) What is the significance of irony in relation to our notion of god? 5) What is the meaning of money in relation to the corruption of the human soul? 6) How do we reconcile the spiritual and material impulses that dwell within us side-by-side? 7) Is every new relationship a word? 8) If philosophy and theology are ideas-about-reality and not realities themselves, how can we know how to make right actions? 9) If the path of things is silent and we are really symbols, what should our relationship be to silliness? 10) Is death real or only sleep as a notion? 11) If poetry is as powerful as poets claim, why can’t it change the world? 12) Is Zenophobia the irrational fear of Zenos? 13) Is there Mind, or do you Mind? 14) Is the world and its enfolded events pre-ordained, or is it just Wednesday?
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15) Are order and disorder artificial divisions, man-made concepts, or do such things exist beyond our level of distinctionmaking? 16) Is any one thing more true than any other? 17) How can we ever know what, if anything, really happened in history? 18) Can there be ultimate wisdom if all knowledge is guesswork? 19) If there is no meaning to anything we do and there is no such thing as absolute morality, may I please have another milkshake? 20) If we removed the demarcation “decades,” would we still see patterns in history?
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Phinneas Jogger & Capt. Teuthry Chapter 2 (Part III) AMONG CANNIBALS!
Being an Honest and Truthful Rendition of Their Awful Adventures as Provided by a Drunken Amanuensis and Corroborated by Total Strangers
BEAR ON THE BEACH
∞ A Case for Spontaneous Combustion (also known as) Order, Disorder and the Secret Life of Rubber Bands (Part the Twenty-third) Wherein is Revealed the Whys and Wherefores Of Our Current Misfortunes And the Inevitability of the Loss of Inhalers Worldwide “Brothers,” he began, for one has to begin, “you either is the solvolutionist of the problems, or you is the problematic hisself.” To this there was attendant thunderous applause and sniggers. “The world is divided into dumbasses and asswipes, and I shall leave it unto your own hairy selves to discombobulate which one you is.” More souls gathered at the river. “They say drinks is bad for you; they say nickel bags of spontaneous combustion is a mixed blessing; they say you gots to read this, you gots to read that, you gots to toe the line, lift those bales, you gots to keep your mouth shut lessen you is in agreement-amIrightoramIright?” “Yeah you is!” sent up the chorus of assent.
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“Why is it you think inhalers can’t be found? Has you looked as I has in every Albertson’s in every Payless in every Safeway in all of Seattle?” “No, No!” An astonishment of glances clung to his coat. “Item not won--“ he glowered as his spoken words churned the surface “--similar items found.” “Ooooh,” Oh’d the crowd. “We looks upon the world through crosshairs like a killer of rhinos. Everybody got hisself a different sight to see through. And as if that weren’t enough, we’ll never get anywhere defining terms.” “Noooo,” No’d the crowd. “Why, a culture ain’t nothing but a bunch’ve folks what looks through the same damned sight.” “Amen,” amen’d a few mindfucked mumblers in the mix. “Some sights they is more pretty than others, and some sights they is more useful than others, but no sights is more better than others.” “At’site!” “Huzzah!” “Mamihlapinatapai!”
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“Make no mistake, friends--dividing life into order and disorder is the wrong way to head the horse. The belief that order is true, that order is good, and that disorder is its opposite--that’s plain dumb-ass. How do I know this is so? Look at me! Look at us! We has suffered the destructive aspects of their order. They have laws and rules and guns and mules to stop us from parking in the red zone and from partaking in the creative uses of disorder. They call it--civilization.”
“Hut! Hut!” “Consternation!” “Cavil and riding crops!” The crowd had grown from a fruit stand into a dizzying array of retail outlets. “Totally fallopian tubular!” “Outrageous!” “Steatopygous!” “Philosophizers has concerned themselves from time on high to get down low with sorting through all the sights we look through trying to find the perfect KW226 one that will describe all Reality, when all along this ain’t nothing but a hound dog just lying all the time. It’s a big-assed illusion’s what it is! Little t truth is what they call Big T Truth. Little t truth is the world defined relative to the sights we is looking through. Big T Truth is the sights themselves, the stuff the sights is made of and at the same time is Big T Totally Big U Unrelated to the Big Ass Sights themselves!” “Paradoxical!” “Far flung out!” “Anagogic to the Max, fat!” ‘Where are our inhalers now that we needs them?” The crowd, packed tight as jam on Samba Night, trickled forward. “The tyrant needs broken spirits!” “You got that right, Onk!” “Let the manchild sing!” “Just as broken spirits needs a tyrant!” “Perfect parallelism!” “Droll!” “Not bad for an assscratching nonentity!” “Historically, species at the end of their tether tend to reproduce and recombine in strictless mismea-
sure. The big question then on my fat lips is--is we is or is we ain’t got the juice, baby?” “We is!” “We ain’t!” “Jiz!” “Jeeze!” “Wilted lettuce let us waffle!” “At the best, nothing; at the worse, this again. BUT. Where are all the flooble inhalers? If the Buddha craps in the woods does anybody smell it?” “Tell us!” “Yell us!” “Yellow jaundice!” “I’ll tell you where you need to go, what’s you needs to know. Them inhalers is there, and they is there, but there ain’t any of them here--that’s an irrefudecidable fact.” “What we gone do?” “Is we gone make it?” His hand raised, dribbling a fat chicken. “Let us discuss tragedy and Popeye cartoons. Let us discuss the autopoetic way of life, the antichristial antievolutionarial antirevolutionarial antientropical antiverse! With a dollop of mayonnaise! And you and you and you, mister and missus Manapes! And just so’s you’ll know what it is I’m talking about, hear this truly: tragedy is when that that is secondary is acceptable for that that is primary--dig? Take money.” “Whoo Hoo!” “Over hear, boss!” “Lumped in an analogous group!”
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“Once filthy lucre replaces the quest for selfknowledgeability as the primary goal and ass mover in all things human and unpiggy-like, then there is trouble in Rubber City! Money must serve, not swerve! Lookit dudes--do I have money? You see me covered in filthy human detritus?” “Nyet!” “Not yet!” “You bet!”
“No, I doesn’t got money! And why doesn’t I? Let me express it thusly. I doesn’t gots money because I dunst wants to be its slave like bullhocky ballsboys, like until you Rolex’ed Few, you Choosing Faux! For I am circular and you is flat as Wiley T. beneath an Acme anvil! What is working for a limping but pimping for the man? Make it so he can add to his brood of blond, well-groomed hominem. It’s all Capitalism and Sex, my manfreudes. Lotta hot and cold running crapualism and sexualism. If money is the meaning of life and more is better than less, then let’s de-mentalize and re-group and long live the co-creators of chaos! But if they’re wrung--as I believes they is-then we is on the wrong goose step to heaven and we ain’t never gone get our gossamers! The world is the dream of an unconscious body--maybe and maybe not-but it ain’t what they says it is, it ain’t a battlefield, dudes and dudettes, and it ain’t no strip mall! Long as we doesn’t care what happens in the world, long as we dasn’t play close-ass attention, then we is the material world’s prisoners! Reality is the real between worlds! Money blinds us by solving little p problems! You gots a toothache--money is the answer! You’s got a fuse blew? Throw a wad of clash! But a soul ache? Feel lost and alone? Can’t figger out the mumble of things here in your lifeblood? Then you don’t buy a new pool! And you dasn’t buy more jewels! And you didn’t dip in no twice-bitten whore! Nossuh! We is so dumbass we usually wind up just wanting what money can buy! Mentalize and not Materialize! Don’t let or allow true inner experiences to be replaced by GameBoys or DVDs and on up the foolchain and ’way up the wazzu! Heck, noisy girls, everything is a symbol once you’re seeking! What did that old Greek fartflosser say, that God is just mind aware of itself? Then you can be God, white fools! Don’t let God in--be the bugger Hisself! Paradox is the just way! Hell is attachment to this so-culled world! Credit Cards are the lease to a condo in hell--have anything, pay with your brief residence, be a nothing--that’s credit, wobbleheads! Buy cheap, cost’s drear! Selling out means
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turning away from the path! There was a time when silver linings were mostly free, when corduroy smiled and bakelite mooned; now we is in a post-nuclear, post-pasty, post-toasty, past-greenhouse, post-ozone, posit-pistol, poast-dervish, post-inhaler world, and it’s as it has been since Topsy went Turvy and the goose cooked the gander--we is all misshapen without a pint to our names cradled in mama’s smelly arms! So get a leg up! Get a clue! Get a move on! And keep them doggies rolling!” “Rawhide!” whupped up the crowd of dumb-asses before it drifted off to views of lesser assaults and batteries. PJ & Z passed away into the shadowy shrubbery of unsanitized seattlilized mentalized reality, shapes and forms transposed, traipsing along sidewalks, tripping delightedly, fantastically, mumblingly unto themselves something or other.
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Murray Murnau’s Muddled Maps of Mistery Sect. 032; Subset 5; Quad. 1 presents
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AMAZING MEAT COMPUTER by Mr. Suck & Mr. Nobodaddy Bud Barclay groaned, cracked open sleep-encrusted eyes and blinked up at the man wearing a white lab smock. Tom Swift, Jr.™ smiled down at his old friend. In his seventies now, Tom still wore his hair in a crewcut, still went clean-shaven, still had steely blue eyes. Besides his features being more deeply-set, only his hair had changed from when they first met as boys; it had gone from blond to silver. Bud Barclay had not been so lucky. But then, Bud Barclay had not been a genius. Especially not a genius with an insanely rich father. He had not grown up with vast privileges and expensive schools. His parents had ridiculed him for his friendship with the high-falutin’ Swifts. But Bud hadn’t listened. He had even gone so far as to date Sandy, Tom’s sister. But, ultimately, girls had never been central to Bud and Tom’s lives. Adventure had been the binder that made them stick together. And adventures they had aplenty. But the last few decades had taken their toll. Tom’s father had been found guilty of embezzlement, and it had taken almost all his money to keep out of jail. Besides his fortune, it had robbed him of his most important currency—respect. The Swift star—for so
long among the brightest in the heavens—had forever fallen. The elder Swift retired from the world and eventually committed suicide. As for his son, Tom Junior, he withdrew from public scrutiny for many years, as many as he judged necessary for his memory to be forgotten. Chow Winkler™, they say, died of a broken heart. After that, Bud fell into a deep depression. It was the sixties, legendary decade of Free Love and Acid. Bud partook himself of both these offerings with great frequency and in deep draughts. He had not cared if he had sex with man, woman or beast; he had not cared if he overdosed; again and again, on his psychedelic trips, he saw Tom’s burnished face, his sandy hair, his steely blue eyes that danced with ideas; over and over, he heard Tom’s voice in his ear whispering his love and adoration, and he would bury his face in his lover’s chest and inhale deeply of his scent. There had also been lots and lots of alcohol. It was, in fact, alcohol that prevents Bud Barclay from being able to focus on his friend’s chiseled features. Bud—once considered good looking and by some (mostly men) even dashing—had not aged well. Drinking and smoking dope and cigarettes had taken its toll. He had grown blowsy and fat. His gut hung like a giant breast over his belt. His hair and beard had gone frizzy white and usually went uncombed and untrimmed. “What th’fuck?” He had not seen Tom for over forty years. “Zatyou?” “Bud, how the deuce are you?” “I’m fuckin’ fine, Tom. Fuckin’ fine.” “Excellent.”
Tom Swift, Jr.™ grinned in a boyish
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manner. “I’ve been looking for you. Ready to get back to work?” Bud Barclay groaned. Was he a sidekick dreaming he was a man, or a man dreaming he was a sidekick? He needed a drink. The bottle of Tequila lay empty on the floor between them. Bud had been sleeping in his own vomit. “Come on, then, old chum. Time’s a wasting! I’ve got the guldurnest gizmo for you to see!” Bud iterated his groan. It was as if Tom had not changed with the years. FuckinA. Hadn’t he dropped out during the sixties? Hadn’t he self-actualized throughout the seventies? Hadn’t he profiteered along with everyone else in the eighties? Hadn’t he cocooned through the nineties? Now, on the cusp of the end of the world, on the brink of his own crummy life, he comes waltzing back wearing a crisp, white lab smock, with the same moderately handsome features—in an ordinary one-in-ten-guy kinda way— and wants him to giddyup because of a guldurned whizbang gizmo? Fuckin-A. “What is it this time? A new Repelatron®? Trouble with the Kranjovians? The dingus on the Challenger fritz out?” Tom Swift, Jr.™ chuckled. Bud could always be counted on for comedic relief. KW233
“No, my friend. The biggest thing of all.” He wasn’t gonna tell; the fucker wasn’t gonna tell. Bud in a flash recalled how often he used to think Tom was an arrogant asshole. “Fine, whatever.” Bud sat up. He had been sleeping, besides in his own vomit, upon a dirty mattress without
sheets or blankets in a room that hadn’t been cleaned in eight-and-a-half years—the length of time he had been renting it. The last six years Bud had been earning his keep begging on the streets of Seattle. Early on in this career he had staked out an unclaimed Starbucks™ and managed to rake in a tidy sum of change every day. It was hard work, standing in all kinds of weather, people averting their eyes, tossing you coins to get rid of you. It had not been good for his self-esteem, but his mental state was far too delicate for him to engage in the Real World in any other manner. Thanks to the guilt-ridden, coffee addicted patrons of Starbucks™, he always had enough money for rent, booze and a few cans of potted meat— not to mention the occasional Frappuccino™. After all these years, he didn’t need any shit from Tom Swift, Jr.™ “Spill the beans, Tommy boy, or you looked me up for nothin.” Tom nodded and appeared thoughtful. Realizing the bind he was in—and wishing, despite his appearance of bonhomie, to get the hell out of this shithole Bud lived in—he came to an abrupt decision and smiled. “OK, old pal. You win. Here it is in a nutshell.” Tom bent down closer to Bud, but not so close as to smell him. “I’ve invented the world’s first meat computer.” “Say what?” Tom chuckled. “A computer that doesn’t need hardware because it’s all software, get it? It’s a biological computer that learns on its own and doesn’t need constant upgrades. It only requires a tetrawatt of power to operate, and I’ve supplied them with an atomo-cyclic-transgenerator® for that!” Tom waited for a reaction.
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Bud threw up. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and frowned at the dirty kitchen window. “Zit rainin?” He hated to beg in the rain. Tom had expected more. Quite a bit more, in fact. He been hard at work over the last four decades. He had redoubled—nay, retripled—his commitment to invention after his father’s embarrassment and then his gruesome death (by exposing himself to the 3D Telejector® Tom had invented when he was only thirteen), and all with the single-minded goal of relieving the world of MicronSearch™ and its inept technology. Now, poised on the pinnacle of success, he had located his old friend so they could share the fame and glory, not to mention the boundless wealth and power that would result—wealth and power far beyond anything achieved by his father. Greater wealth and power even than that enjoyed by Ron Delworthy himself, founder and CEO of the evil MicronSearch. Bud crumpled his face into a smile, exposing a mouthful of missing teeth. “Tom, old buddy, old pal, I gotta ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth—promise?” Tom frowned and produced a solemn nod. “Promise.”
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“Fine.” Bud leaned forward. Tom wrinkled his nose. “Got any spare change?”
Zid Tarbox is Alive and Well, And Eating Meat in Existential, Texas And then there’s the story of the man who, every morning, when getting into his car, noticed as if for the first time the inescapable fact of his gas tank being nearly empty. Every day he re-filled it, barely drove it at all, then every night went to bed to awaken next morning to find his gasoline almost gone. This happened for twenty-three days in a row. He is now a Charter Member of our Society. Next up: a man with two children and a fairly happy life arose one morning, dressed and ate, then walked out to his baby blue Volvo station wagon. Twenty-three minutes after he started the engine he was idling at an intersection waiting for the light to change when a car full of teenagers pulled alongside. From a distance you could hardly hear the shots. The following year his wife joined our Club. Fellow once got on a plane only to hear the pilot announce the flight had been delayed as a result of “two or three little problems…” Two hours and twenty-three
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minutes later, he and his fellow passengers were escorted onto a new plane—flight No. 023. Before this fellow could board, his knees started shaking, his fillings started buzzing, and he needed to pee and cry at the same time. Short form—he never did get on the plane. Flight 023 crashed on takeoff, killing all aboard. Anyone ever tell you that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, and that the earth’s axis is tilted at a 23° angle? And how about this little ditty— The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. The 23rd Psalm, in case you didn’t know.
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Did you hear the one about the Army football player who wore jersey No. 23? It was during the 23rd annual Army/Navy Game. Second half of the game and three yards from touchdown, a jagged bolt of lightening filled the sky and struck the player carrying the ball—No. 23. Did you know Pope John XXIII is an ac-
complished alchemist? In ASCII, character 23 is ETBEnd Transmission Block. Is it any wonder that so many people are fascinated by the number 23? Have you long suspected the numbers 2 and 3, written and spoken in that order, might be super symbolic, might contain darkly magical powers? Then you, too, could be a 23rdian! Look for the 23s and they will multiply! How can you refuse? What do you have to lose? The path of things is silent. ETB
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What, Exactly, is Zaniism And How, Precisely, Do We Prevent it? Doctor Nebo Gipfel in Conversation: (Feb. 3, 2023 transcript)
Q: Doctor, we’re back. NG: About time. Q: Where were we? NG: Discussing, I believe, the benefits of genocide. Q: Uh, no. Zaniism, how to prevent it. NG: Oh, that. Q: Quite. Let’s sum up what Zaniism is for any new listeners. NG: Must we? Q: I believe you described it as “feminine”? NG: I would hardly have been so kind. Q: “Female spirited” then? NG: More like vaginated eunuchs. Men who put down the toilet seat when they’re done. KW239
Q: I see. What else? NG: Oh, it’s such childish crap. They prefer “harmony” to conflict in ridiculous resistance to the thesis/ antithesis—or the yin/yang—nature of our hierarchical universe.
Q: So they don’t see the valuation of the world, as it were, as a series of steppingstones? NG: No, of course not, little man. They see everything as being neutral, therefore negative and useless. They’re Romantics, with a capitol A for asinine. They’re holists, do the whole “synthesis thing.” Accretive. They believe poverty’s our natural state, and the acquisition of artifacts—“stuff ” as an extension of ignorance, what they term “greed”—is an aberration. It’s nothing new, it’s syncretic, it’s ultimately shallow post-modern posturing. Q: This may be, but how do you explain its growing popularity, especially among the weak, the poor, the downtrodden and dispossessed? NG: That should be obvious. Weaklings have always clung to messages that exalted them—look at the whole Jesus thing. Thank God that’s behind us. Q: Of course, but not everyone can be a millionaire. NG: They could if they weren’t vaginized, if they didn’t ascribe absurdity to everything. See, this is what happens when your life doesn’t have a sense of meaning; when you drift and ogle the stars. Q: So you would characterize this more as a movement than a religion? NG: Religion? Ha! You have to have structure to have religion. These people are nothing more than agonists, cheap contrarians, anarchists. They present us with nothing—no programs, no plans, no blueprint for a better world. Really, all they want is to destroy. They want to rip down what Western Man has so painstakingly erected. They want us to become Communists. There’s not an original thinker among them. They would have us close down schools, stop wars, feed everybody! They don’t understand that poverty is not the natural state of man, but is the natural result of laziness. Poverty is punishment.
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Q: So these people are…lazy? NG: Every one of them. Otherwise, they would find ways to work within the system. It’s a mug’s game to be a critic—lazy people do it all the time—but it takes work, lots of it, to build a civilization. To design and construct the infrastructure, say, for a town. To design and manufacture better cars and boats and missiles. But all they do is talk and throw rotten fruit. And isn’t that appropriate, since that’s what they are in relation to us—rotten fruit. Q: Nevertheless, the movement is growing worldwide. Police are confronting thousands, in several cases tens of thousands, of these people, and they won’t fight, they won’t move, they just sit and smile and appear to be happy. NG: Happy? Drugged you mean! We haven’t mentioned the relationship of drugs to this sub-culture, have we? Q: Drugs? No, I. I don’t quite follow. NG: Drugs, man! You don’t think this thing would have caught on without drugs, do you? That’s what undercuts a man’s will to be a man—mind-numbing substances. Q: I see. I don’t believe anyone so far has been charged with possession— NG: Are you calling me a liar? D’you know who I am? Q: Well, of course, Doctor, we all know who you— KW241
NG: Their leader, this Zero fellow— Q: Zeno. NG: Whatever. Best not to give him a name, it only makes him think we respect him. Drugged out nonentity.
Q: He’s only one of— NG: Setting themselves up as revolutionaries! Q: You know what they say, that revolution is not political, but human— NG: What’re you—a sympathizer? Q: Uh, n-no. Of course not, ha-ha. NG: Then toe the line, mister. Get with the program. Q: Yes, of course, I was just— NG: You were just about to lose your job, is what. Q: No, no. Honest. I was just. Uh. So you. You think we need to handle this threat how, exactly? NG: We need to exterminate them, man! And we need to do it soon, before they cause irreparable harm, before they assassinate the President! Q: Assassinate the President? NG: You heard me. Our best intel indicates they may already have set up terrorist cells just for this purpose. Q: But they’re peace loving… NG: Until we eliminate this sub-human trash, our streets won’t be safe for women and children. Because of them there will be a greater need for prisons and gated communities. Q: I see, but what you’re suggest sounds like some sort of ethnic cleansing— NG: Until we get a spine and admit the world needs our direction—American direction—and incorporate the uneducated brown and yellow people into line with the need of production, distribution and consumption—
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Q: Yes? Until then what? NG: What? Then what? Why chaos, of course. You want to live in chaos? You want to wake up to a cold shower, go to hospitals filled with doped-up doctors, have your children taught subversive thoughts? Chaos will destroy all we hold dear and true! We have to build bulwarks against its encroachment! Have I told you anything about my experiments with water? Q: No, no sir, you haven’t. That will, unfortunately, have to wait for another. We’re out of, uh, time. I’d like to thank my guest, the distinguished Doctor Nebo Gipfel of M.I.T. and C.I.A. And this is Mutton Jefferies saying have a good night and a brilliant tomorrow.
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Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick present ≡ A Dialogue on Filth and Depravation as Proper Components of a Eudaimonic Existence W: The fuck’s that? N: Mine. Found. W: Lying sack of shit. Stole. N: Heresy. Damned lie. A pox upon you. W: The fuck that mean? Gimme some. N: Nay! I henceforth require more space than before. Move away, barbarian. W: The fuck you—say, what’s with the faggot talk? You homo now? N: Brother, I have changed my ways. I have seen an alternate path. I am pursuing a greater good. W: You’re pursuing a knuckle fucking sandwich is what, you keep this shit up. N: For your information and edification I no longer wish to associate with the likes of you and your salacious imagery. W: My fucking what? N: You heard me, scallywag. Begone. I have
gefilte fish to fry. W: Your shit back up into your brain or what? N: That’s just the sort of crudity I have come to expect and abhor. W: Don’t fucking call me a whore! N: I am beginning to find your barely prehensile existence and lowbrow harangues intolerable. W: Oh. Oh? You are, huh? N: Yeah. I are. W: Nerd-ass freakazoid. N: Am. W: At least you’ll admit it. N: What? W: Huh? N: Oh yeah? W: Yeah. N: Yeah? W: Yeah. N: Oh—yeah? W: Yeah! N: Fuckin-A! W: Fuckin-C!
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N: Furry-assed turd sucker! W: Limp-dicked granny fucker! N: Oh, yeah? W: Yeah! N: Oh YEAH? Etcétera, etcétera, etcétera…
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GOD AT LARGE Bondi swore he heard someone knock. How many days has he been down here in the bunker? Four? Fourteen? He was prepared to remain a long time. Where else was there to go? As far as he knew, everyone else in the world was insane, except for him. And sometimes he wasn’t so sure about himself. Not since he switched on the first machine. He had meant nothing by it, beyond the measure of a desire to do good. No one suspected at the beginning it would come to this. Nevertheless, he had been warned. In a dream one night, during the period when his experiments had developed to the testing stage, Gottfried Leibniz had come to him and spoke in perfect English, telling him there were areas in his mathematics that bid gross errors entry, areas wide and deep enough to prohibit any chance of a successful test. In fact, had insisted the three hundred year old philosopher, such a usurpation—the very word he used—such a usurpation of matter would result in a rending of the fabric of the universe. No one, Leibniz had insisted, should do what he, Bondi, was about to do. But that had only been a dream. What finally happened was a nightmare.
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He had switched on the machine. The machine that was guaranteed to produce sweet, clean energy. Energy that was essentially free. Energy that left no radioactive mess. Energy squeezed as if lemon juice from the hardrined fruit of our world. Who would have thought Spinoza was right? Bondi switched on a computer. A generator had started automatically as soon as the power grid fell. According to his calcs, if he uses his generator sparingly, he might have enough juice—at reduced usage—for nine months, maybe a year. Then what? Then would he—so long deprived of human contact—throw open the door and rush out to join the crowd? Would he become one of them? Wouldn’t that be condign punishment? Hoisted on his own petard, as it were. After all, it was all his fault. The madness. The bloodshed. And now this world war. How many have fallen? How many lives has he spoiled and destroyed? And how many miracles have there been? Too many to count. Bondi smiled. Maybe God would like it if he prayed. Then why doesn’t he? Why doesn’t he—the first human in the world to prove God exists—why doesn’t he pray? Why doesn’t he want to bend his will before the Great Creator? KW249
Bondi opens a bottle of cognac. His larder had been thoughtfully and thoroughly stocked. All his friends—back when he had friends—had laughed at him for building this bunker. “The Cold War is over!” they told him. “You’re throwing away money!”
But it was his money to throw away. He had earned it, every penny of it. All sixty-eight hundred million dollars of it. How he wished money could still buy things! If he could he would use it to buy back his sense of security, his feeling of safety. At one time he could have afforded to buy and live on a deserted island. Why hadn’t he? Instead he had flipped the switch that ended it all. Ended cascading waterfalls. Ended moonlight walks on the beach. Ended lovers’ kisses. Ended the laughter of children. How he hates himself for his arrogance! His greed. His need for control. All he has left now is this. An expensive hole in the ground. Yes, someone was indeed knocking.
www.Brainsweat/blog
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“Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded.” —Plato
“Think slow, act fast.” —Buster Keaton
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The heart gives the world a glancing blow. —Z
Happiness and property are usually incompatible. —Z
The next great leap will come from a garbage heap.
—Z
Thesis, antithesis, suckerpunch. —Z
Is that your Weltanschauung, or are you just sad to see me? —Z
More realism! More humor! More helium in the rhubarb! —Z
I’m just a boy who made god. —Z
Money buys everything but meaning. Unless you think the world itself is without meaning —Z
Thanks to all the little people. —Z
To pretend is to do; therefore pretend to pretend and you’ll do. —Z
Capitalism only cares about making us more comfortable in the world.
—Z
Ethics and elegance are analogous. —Z
The more people there are who think you’re real, the less real you are. Really. —Z
Once you question the front lawn, you are liable to question everything. —Z
But we do not have choice whether or not we have choice. —Z
The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious. —Z
Virtual Reality, as compared with what? —Z
Sentience is neither a gift nor a necessity, but it does help pass the time. —Z
Never ask all trees to have the same bark. —Z
How long does it take to know how to go on?
—Z
The obvious is not always apparent. —Z
If Jesus were to come back he would be very old. —Z
Relax, uncertainty is good for you. —Z
Comfort yourself with the awareness that selfawareness is uncomfortable. —Z
If truth is a virus, then paradox is its penicillin. —Z
Deep contradictions means you’re on the right path. Or not. —Z
When not in doubt, why not? —Z
What would you like to disorder today? —Z
Hurt ’til you laugh. Laugh ’til you cry. Rinse. Repeat. —Z
Who am I? I am a gruff, tough, squat, fat, balding, frog-faced, parchment-skinned, destitute, obdurate, old, oblate-spheroidal, hemorrhoidal, snaggly-toothed, hirsute, intransigent, intransitive verb. You? —Z
If Hierarchy is the metaphor for the Middle Ages, then Dance should be the metaphor for now. —Z
It doesn’t get any simpler than death. —Z
Keep your faith in the water, baby! —Z
Collect entropy as you would dried sponges. —Z
If you don’t laugh, who will? —Z
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ETB
“The last act is bloody, no matter how charming the rest of the play.” —Blaise Pascal
AND FINALLY! Trankas Drooking Expatiates on Syllogomania, the Diogenes Syndrome & the Evolution of Dirty Jokes By Lord Buddha’s Tooth! Shiver me lingam! What’s that you say? Let him talk, let him speak, for words soothe me. Yes? Say what? Louder, damn your eyes! I see. Yes. Interesting question, if ineptly phrased. Why are there so many old men and women about on the streets, is that it? You fear them, do you? Ah, for your purse or your life? I see. Of course. Your purse. Have you ever offered alms? No. Only encourages them, eh? By the horns of Beelzebub! That ties handsomely into what my film is about. After all I am here to pander. My latest picture, Karmic Warriors, is a quintessential slice-of-life about a high-level menial who loses his job. Since he has no idea how to do anything other than what it was he was doing, he eventually runs out of money and starts living on the street. That part, by the way, is played by Thug Candy, a recently discovered genius. Believe me, he needed less directing than most of the “A-list” names I’ve worked with. Natural talent. He just seems to “get it.” Quite epicene, but very very funny. One day, between set-ups, he visited my trailer and offered me a blowjob! I thought I was going to die. Funny stuff. God is this kid talented! But—zounds! Lest we forget. The old guy plays Zeno, KW329 right? Swear to God, found him on the street. Swear to God. Man of mystery, goes by “A.A.” And he’s not even an alcoholic! Another natural. We never learn his real name, he’s just Z. He walked away from wife and life and kept walking until we run into him who knows how many years later. Always writing things
down. Real philosopher type. Only begs when he needs to buy books. He’s released the programming, you dig? Let it all go. He’s not about performance or results. His gut doesn’t ache every night because of a mistake or a bad decision or a crushing schedule. I live scheduled. So I can’t get inside this Zeno character, he’s too unlike me. So I make shit up. That scene when he introduces Max Crwth? I was at a party when the idea came to me. And don’t you love the castration story? To me, some of the “philosophy” gets in the way. But then, hey, I didn’t write the book. And what a neat bit of writing it is, too. But long, my brothers. Too-many-fucking-words long. I KW330 had to do some serious editing. I know, I know. In Part III there could have been more scenes. But we had seriously run out’ve money by then, so we were only too happy to be able to get anything in the can. We missed out on some stuff, like Pomjar—that’s what we call him—starting his blog. Sitting in public libraries all over town, outside raining like mad, grokking his blog. I think that shit would have been awesome. Instead, we focused on the voices and, since we could no longer afford real people, we started using giant marionettes. But we could afford voice actors. So we blended all the strands together. Now you don’t so much see the scene as inhabit it. Be-there-likenow, you know? I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Personal freedom? Mine. Yours. We’re all in this shit together, folks, don’t forget. Chee-wow! So it’s all about unplugging. Anybody? No, it was not a conscious choice not to have Afro-Americans in the cast, just happened that way. Next? Clichés are the armature of the universe, baby. You over there? The one in the blue coat. Yes, you. Right there. Yes you. What d’ you want? Oh. We used a Panaflex, and edited in Avid. Can’t beat the tried and true. No, I’m not a Scientologist! I’m tired of being asked. Yes? No, we haven’t spoken since we broke up, last May. She’s doing a movie in Spain, some Spielberg spew. Let her do it. She’s made her bed. I’m fine without her. But it was a glorious, deep, soul defining three-and-a-half weeks. Maybe one day we can be friends. Yes? What do I think it’s about? I told you already. Why don’t you people listen? Yes, I will. But
I hate repeating myself. Personal freedom. You, teal top in the corner. Yes, it was my inspiration to use real street people as real street people. Talk about art imitating life! Lotta great shots. Wonderful faces. The French love faces, you know. I like French films. Never understood the whole Jerry Lewis thing, though. Another question? Yes, I know, but we decided to cut out all the nude scenes. We wanted a PG-13. The director’s cut will be out soon. As it is, there’s cussing and, well, cussing. So far, people are really dug-out on Wingnut and Nickledick. Am I right? Hear that? Well—they’re coming back! We’re already working on KW2. It’s going to be bigger and better, with more sophisticated special effects. Different writer. Without Z and Pomjam. Just a sort-of let the boys go really wild. Maybe follow them around and do the cinema verite thing. When I was in film school, I did a lot’ve hand-held. I love Soderbergh. And Dick Lester. I’d like to get back to that 60s verve thing, you know? Anyway. Again? That must be some potent crack you’re on, lady. I already told you what it’s all about. I’m not going to repeat myself. I hate repeating myself. What? My films are not all alike! Rasputin 3 and Shaman 2 are completely different. In R3 the killer is a shemale. In S2 the killer is only pretending to be a pre-op, post-hormone therapy transgendered male. Are there any intelligent questions out there? You, in the tweed? Ah, yeah. Thank you. No one has even asked about the whole rubber band thing. The bowling bags. Retro cool, eh? Can’t have people smoking or eating white bread anymore. But no laws—yet—against bowling bags. See, by collecting rubber bands, they’re reducing disorder in our universe. That sorta makes them warriors of a kind. You know? Yeah. It’s all about metaphysics and who knows anything about that, right? But the way we do it, if you never cracked a book, or even went to school, no problem. The what? The bathroom KW331 thing? Well, turns out it’s a kind’ve fixation of the author’s, the guy who wrote the book. That was in the contract. The boys had to visit five different bathrooms and the camera had to let the viewer read what’s written on the walls. I thought it was kinked at first, but it turned out pretty cool. What? Oh,
the whole 23 thing so creeps me out. Once you hook into it, you start seeing 23 everywhere. My room number tonight is 223! I’m not saying which hotel, though. By Jove and Buddha’s Belly! It’s time. Hate to, loves, but I have to go. Got another interview to do. Been real. Stay cool. Thanks, thanks, thanks.
THE ENTROPY INCREASES SPONTANEO
Y OF UNIVERSE DURING ANY OUS PROCESS
Habent sua fata Libelli
Your Thoughts Go Here
And so on...
The dudleyclark Story highbrow slapstick dudleyclark was born ahead of his time and somewhat against his will in New Orleans, Louisiana, wintertime 1952. His parents failed to be impressed when he began reading at three. Likewise, they were not much interested when, at ten, he declared himself a writer. Later in life, he dropped out not only from high school but also Tulane University where he vainly attempted to study philosophy––a subject that, ultimately, rendered him even less employable than he naturally was. Thus began his years of wandervogel (literally, wandering bird), and his accumulation of sometimes humiliating, sometimes stimulating, always excruciating jobs. In his time, he has been––presented here as neither a complete cataloging, nor in chronological order––a movie projectionist in a porno theatre, bookstore manager, welder, carpenter, rock ‘n’ roll roadie, television cameraman, advertising rep., yacht broker, bartender, waiter, nightclub manager, deck hand, assistant ranger, private investigator, building contractor, newspaper reporter, preschool teacher... and so on. Amazingly––considering the time-frame of his youthful years––he managed to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of alcoholism and drug abuse, and arrived at middle-life relatively healthy and robust and capable of completing not only whole thoughts and entire paragraphs, but books as well. His first book, monkeydo, proves this point admirably (as does the one you hold in your hand). An historical phantasm set in fin de siecle Africa, it is a comic send-up of the Tarzan story set within the confines of a pen-and-ink jungle. “Filled with the calls and cries of unfamiliar birds, along with caricatures, formulaic plotting and all-too familiar cliches, monkeydo somehow manages to break new ground, albeit with a very small spade, and provides fresh air to the stale genre of jungle-dwelling, vine-swinging he-men.” --The Charenton Post-Dispatch. He followed this up a few years later with Apocalyptic Crawfish!, a comic gem set in the green diadem of rural south Louisiana. AC! not only convolutes McCarthyism, mutant monsters, homosexual Air Force officers, and the ’50s dread of eggheads and all things foreign, it also provides a classic recipe for etouffé. dudleyclark, a man of some leisure, when not polishing another opus of post-modern comic primitivism (such as Roy Rogers in the Twenty-first Century, Vol. 4), can usually be found in a stupor hoeing in the veggie gardens of his heavily-fortified family estate, “elsewhere.”
Also by this Author: Woodman & Wonderboy Apocalyptic Crawfish! monkeydo Karmic Warriors Neither Here Nor There My Terrible, Horrible, Wonderful Life Remembrances of Old Pard (childrens) Roy Rogers in the Twenty-first Century (vols. 1 & 2)
And so on
ABOUT TIME PUBLISHING
New York Seattle N’Awlins Eugene Licensed under Creative Commons A-N-SA 2008 www.abouttimepublishing.com www.dudleysworld.com
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Z ya!
ad astra per alla porci!
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A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
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Midway this way of life we’re upon, I awoke to find myself in a dark wood, Where the right road was wholly lost and gone. Hell, Canto 1 —Dante
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PLAYING CATCH ON RANDOM STREET IN THE SHADOW of
a northwest icon, enmeshed in the mechanism that is SEATTLE, aimlessly roam people of all shapes and sizes, kinds, colors and sexes; people of differing propensities, predispositions, perspectives, predilections and peculiarities; some who are happily engaged, selfcertain, even driven; others who are lost, subservient, and without wills of their own. Some are preposterously prosperous, painfully trendy and pointlessly hip, while others are battered and chagrined, permanently nonplussed, and poignantly without a clue; some of them are right brain dominate, some of them are left-brain dominate; few if any of them is like Pomeroy Jarvis.
After brushing his teeth, Pomeroy Jarvis dresses in bluejeans and T-shirt, a woolen L.L. Bean Lumberman’s coat and a Mariners baseball cap. Then he decides on what his day will be like. Here is how he does this: he uses a BB maze, the kind you roll around and try to make the BBs fall into little holes. This particular BB maze is an antique one decorated with a colorful image of Betty Boop.
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If all the BBs fall into the little holes in the sixty seconds he allots himself, then he determines he will have a “good” day. Whereas, if only one or two—or, worse, none—fall into the little holes, then he prepares himself for a “bad” day. “Good” and “bad” are defined thus: bad might include a missed bus; a forgotten favorite bladder pen; wilted lettuce on his sandwich; poor service on his cellphone; having to stand too close to someone in line at Starbucks, etc. While a good day might include—besides the opposite of everything already mentioned—a smile from the red-headed, freckled receptionist; no rain; plenty of seating on the bus; a free Latte; finding a wallet in the men’s room filled with twenty dollar bills. And so on. As he steps outside, having divined that his day will be moderately bad (only 3 out of the 8 BBs went into their little holes), rain starts to fall. (“Fall,” to most people, means an object being compliant with the Laws of Nature as described by Isaac Newton; it means, in essence, motion from a perceived
higher place to a perceived lower one. Thus, rain in most geographic locales can be said to “fall” from above. This is not always the case in Seattle. In Seattle, rain—in other parts of the country known as “mist”—can fall from almost any direction, even perpendicular to the earth.) He adjusts his Mariners baseball cap so that its bill is facing forward, and sets off for his favorite Starbucks, and another glorious day at work. And what PJ does for a living is this: he presses buttons. The buttons form a part of a keyboard that rests on his desk beneath a large, flat illuminated screen. When he presses the buttons on his keyboard, characters appear on the illuminated screen. According to which buttons he presses, he can control the shape and frequency of the characters’ appearance. Here is what some of his characters look like:
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and Spanish, but to master those languages one has to look at and speak with other people. Here is an example of PJ’s sense of humor, as well as what he does in his spare time. This is the wellknow Western European (North American continent version) ditty, “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” written in Perl: ‘’=~( ‘(?{‘ .(‘`’ |’%’) .(‘[‘ ^’-’) .(‘`’ |’!’) .(‘`’ |’,’) .’”’. ‘\\$’ .’==’ .(‘[‘ ^’+’) .(‘`’ |’/’) .(‘[‘ ^’+’) .’||’ .(‘;’ &’=’) .(‘;’ &’=’) .’;-’ .’-’. ‘\\$’ .’=;’ .(‘[‘ ^’(‘) .(‘[‘ ^’.’) .(‘`’ |’”’) .(‘!’ ^’+’) .’_\\{‘ .’(\\$’ .’;=(‘. ‘\\$=|’ .”\|”.( ‘`’^’.’ ).((‘`’)| ‘/’).’).’ .’\\”’.+( ‘{‘^’[‘). (‘`’|’”’) .(‘`’|’/’ ).(‘[‘^’/’) .(‘[‘^’/’). (‘`’|’,’).( ‘`’|(‘%’)). ‘\\”.\\”’.( ‘[‘^(‘(‘)). ‘\\”’.(‘[‘^ ‘#’).’!!—’ .’\\$=.\\”’ .(‘{‘^’[‘). (‘`’|’/’).( ‘`’|”\&”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\””).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘[‘^(‘)’)). ‘\\”).\\”’. (‘{‘^’[‘).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘[‘^”\/”).( ‘`’|”\(“).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘[‘^”\,”).( ‘`’|”\!”).( ‘`’|”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘,’)). ‘\\”\\}’.+( ‘[‘^”\+”).( ‘[‘^”\)”).( ‘`’|”\)”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘[‘^(‘/’)). ‘+_,\\”,’.( ‘{‘^(‘[‘)). (‘\\$;!’).( ‘!’^”\+”).( ‘{‘^”\/”).( ‘`’|”\!”).( ‘`’|”\+”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘`’|”\.”).( ‘`’|”\%”).( ‘{‘^”\[“).( ‘`’|”\$”).( ‘`’|”\/”).( ‘[‘^”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘.’)). ‘,’.((‘{‘)^ ‘[‘).(“\[“^ ‘+’).(“\`”| ‘!’).(“\[“^ ‘(‘).(“\[“^ ‘(‘).(“\{“^ ‘[‘).(“\`”| ‘)’).(“\[“^ ‘/’).(“\{“^ ‘[‘).(“\`”| ‘!’).(“\[“^ ‘)’).(“\`”| ‘/’).(“\[“^ ‘.’).(“\`”| ‘.’).(“\`”| ‘$’).”\,”.( ‘!’^(‘+’)). ‘\\”,_,\\”’ .’!’.(“\!”^ ‘+’).(“\!”^ ‘+’).’\\”’. (‘[‘^’,’).( ‘`’|”\(“).( ‘`’|”\)”).( ‘`’|”\,”).( ‘`’|(‘%’)). ‘++\\$=”})’ );$:=(‘.’)^ ‘~’;$~=’@’| ‘(‘;$^=’)’^ ‘[‘;$/=’`’;
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Even when he was in Kindergarten, Pomeroy was good with numbers and drawing and using clay and scissors and brass clips and fluffy string and delicious paste and smearing hand paints and applying glitter. What he was not good at was this: looking at the teacher, looking at other students, and looking at
the chalkboard; also, he was not good at talking to the teacher, talking to other students, standing and talking at the chalkboard. Some of this had to do with the fact that Pomeroy could not see well from an early age. Some of this had to do with his naturally reticent predisposition. Most of it had to do with his parents. Pomeroy’s parents were an ill-suited couple who suffered from terrible and persistent hangovers. KW
Night and day, or so it seemed to young Pomeroy— and, later, to old Pomeroy—they fought. And when they fought they would do these things: they would yell; they would throw things (glass ashtrays were a favorite); they would use bad language, and they would
tell their only child, Pomeroy, that he was all that was holding them together, and that as soon as he grew up they would get a divorce. But this was just a lie; they never did get a divorce, even after Pomeroy went through the trouble
of growing up. In Pomeroy’s adult judgment, he concluded his parents had become so used to fighting that life without it would have seemed empty. Pomeroy, through his college years, would occasionally visit home to see if his parents were still fighting; satisfied that indeed they were, he would return to his dorm room to smoke dope until he couldn’t talk, drink beer until his head spun, and stare endlessly and without conscious intent into the alluring blue that was his computer’s screen.
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It could be fairly reported that Pomeroy lacked for friends all his life. Even as a child he had been alone, which is not to say lonely. Pomeroy always had an easy time amusing himself. He had learned to read early, and pursued this activity with alarming ferocity. First, he devoured all the books in his parents’ house; this had not taken long. They were, in no particular order: The Holy Bible, Gone With the Wind, Tobacco Road. He had not understood any of what he read, but that was OK with him; he liked to read. Soon he acquired a library card and began to read all the books he could carry, starting with science fiction; later, he moved on to more serious topics, with a special interest in science. Pomeroy longed to build a rocket ship and live on the moon. When he was ten
he was given a pet poodle. He loved him dearly, but his pet poodle soon committed suicide. There has always been a component to Pomeroy’s soul that determined life was basically meaningless, but you must go on. You must put on your blue jeans, pull on your NIRVANA T-shirt, adjust your Mariners baseball cap and continue to play this game called Life, even if you would rather not. Even if, like your pet poodle, you would rather commit suicide. In years to come, Pomeroy would adopt this as his heraldic motto: Item Not Won; Similar Items Found. In Latin (a dead language nobody really knows how to pronounce, and one Pomeroy never learned to read or write), it would go something like this: Item non won; similis items instituo.
When it became time for Pomeroy to find a job—after the graduation ceremony his parents forgot to attend— he had such an easy time of it he hardly had to try. In fact, there were so many recruiters who attended the graduation ceremony that all Pomeroy (along with many others) had to do was sign a piece of paper and move that same day from a tiny, windowless dorm room into a bright, roomy condo. It was that simple. A snap.
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And the company that snapped up Pomeroy on the glorious day of his graduation was MicronSearch, a software company adored by some and endured by everyone else. But all that was years ago. And during all those years, Pomeroy had seen most of his contemporaries at MicronSearch move up the ladder to larger offices, or simply retire to sail around the world. But he had done neither of these things. He had steadfastly insisted on remaining in the little windowless office that had replaced his little windowless dorm room; he was, he thought, happy exactly where he was, doing exactly what he did. And the people who owned MirconSearch weren’t going to argue with him. The people who owned MicronSearch were also happy with where he was, and with exactly what it was he did. But something was beginning to happen to Pomeroy Jarvis as he approached 40: he was beginning to slow down. Perhaps the voice of his soul was changing. “Life is meaningless, but you must go” on was starting to sound like “Life is meaningless, I was wrong about the rest.”
On this unremarkable, November day—the sky a slate gray with purplish clots, the street glistening with moisture from the previous night’s rain commingled with rain from the current morning’s moisture—men and women hurry along sidewalks, some dry beneath blossoms of umbrellas, others hunched forward to avoid rain falling on their faces and running KW
their makeup. Lines are beginning to form outside the thousands of Starbucks that populate Seattle, and groggy-eyed panhandlers are wheezing, coughing and shuffling their way to work. Pomeroy has to do this each and every morning: he has to walk past a gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. He hates that he has to walk past them; he hates that they exist. Early one morning once, before he had had his Latte (i.e., before his brain was operating properly), he made the mistake (he views it to have been that) of giving one of the panhandlers some change. Now, to this day, the panhandler he gave the change to smiles and nods whenever he sees Pomeroy, and Pomeroy is uncomfortable with this. There is a part of him that would like to take this panhandler aside and present him with a stern lecture on the virtues of employment and paying taxes, only a) he would be afraid to be alone with him, and b) there was always the possibility he might be wrong. There is also another part of him that has searched for a better route to the bus stop. By better, he means one that passes another Starbucks but not another gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. So far, that part of him has been stymied; sadly, Pomeroy is no Magellan. For all his searching—and there had not really been that much— he has failed to discover a better route to the bus stop, or a better Starbucks than the one with which he is so long familiar. So each and every morning he walks past a gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. And he hates it. But, then, everyone else does, too. The panhandler he once gave change to smiles and nods and doffs his hat. There had never been an occasion in his life when Pomeroy was doffed by any-
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one—doffing having fallen into comfortable anachronism. He just wants more money, decides Pomeroy. He is doffing me for money. It seems somehow a sad thing, this reduction of doffing to an act of pecuniary gain. It is as if the Graces had swept up Their scant belongings and left our planet, in search of greener pastures. A chill runs through Pomeroy’s thin, pale, muscousy frame; a vague, creakiness creeps into his joints and ligaments, like tunneling heteroptera. His eyes shift focus and roll off the bearded, doffing panhandler and his sign and his bowling bag, to the inviting glass door of his favorite Starbucks. Inside, it will be warm and dry, with wooden chairs that scrape on terrazzo floors and echo just like the chairs had done when he was in elementary school. And there will be a big, faux fireplace with an eternal flame, like the one at JFK’s grave. And there will be tables scattered with today’s Seattle Times and the Weekly and this month’s Wired and People magazines. And there will be WiFi. But, best of all, there will not be any wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers, or panhandlers of any kind. And there will be no more doffing.
(People in Seattle, as a general rule, do not doff; most wear black leather and avoid eye contact altogether.) Turns out his Latte is not free. He did not really expect it to be, having put only 3 out of the possible 8 BBs into their little holes. But one could always hope. He stands, Latte in hand, and sips. He is surrounded by a roomful of vaguely familiar faces, and this is as it should be; after all, he has been coming to this Starbucks since the day it opened, fifteen years ago. But still he knows no one, and no one knows him. In the years that have unraveled since he began sipping Lattes here, he has seen hundreds of faces appear and disappear behind the warm, green plastic counters. Perhaps some had finished grad school and moved on; perhaps some had become famous musicians or novelists and moved on; perhaps some had found better jobs or a new hair stylist or a better yoga teacher or achieved Samadhi and moved on; one thing was certain: they had moved on. Moved on with their lives. And in this, Pimlico Jester has something in common with them. He, too, has moved on with his life. On and on and so on. And now he is buying his (he does a quick calculation) 5, 467th Latte (another quick calculation places his total to date investment with Starbucks corporation at approximately $14,000US); but still he knows no one, and no one knows him. Except the bearded, doffing panhandler. Pomeroy can see him through the glass that sepa-
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rates them, warm on one side, cold on the other. Glass is like this: it’s real and not real. Nor is it so much wall as membrane. A membrane that appears to offer safety and security, but is in fact exquisitely pervious; a rock thrown or insult hurled could easily collapse it into glistening rubble. Pomeroy, however, is not thinking about the paradoxical nature of glass as he watches the panhandler. He is waiting. And what he was waiting for is this: an opportunity to steal out of Starbucks in such a manner that he will not have to have further contact with the bearded panhandler. Being doffed makes him feel sulky. While he refrains from exiting Starbucks, he studies the situation. It had never occurred to Pomeroy Jarvis during his 40 years on earth to ponder things too deeply, if at all. He is convinced he has no answers to anything someone else couldn’t more easily divine. He is also convinced his opinion is just that, and ought to be kept from public view and therefore criticism. Everyone on TV has an opinion; everyone who writes for newspapers, or who publishes blogs has an opinion; if there were answers to the problems that plague the world—the few that he’s aware of— by now they would have been figured out, what with so many voices talking all the time. Pomeroy Jarvis is neither a registered driver of automobiles, nor a practicing participant in the American system of vote casting. He studies the sign the panhandler holds in his grubby hands. This seems original. But, of course, not true.
What’s true is this: panhandlers are hopeless alcoholics (like his own parents), addicts of things far worse than books. Also another thing that is true about panhandlers: they will say anything to part you from your money. Their signs are contrived to appeal to our weaker instincts. For instance. The reason so many panhandlers have dogs is because there are so many dog lovers in the world. And dog lovers will give money to a panhandler with a dog just so they’ll be able to feed their dog. Of course, the panhandler will feed his dog something, but dog food is cheap; the rest of that money will go directly into a liquor store cash register. The fact that the bearded, doffing panhandler holds a sign that suggests he loves to read is just another ruse, along the same lines as having a dog. The panhandler knows a lot of people in Seattle love to read; he also knows it will warm these people’s hearts to believe that he would rather read than be drunk. So they will give him their change, believing that, once he has accumulated enough, he will take it straight to Barnes & Noble and purchase books that will ennoble his mind. But this will not be the case, a Latte sipping Pomeroy Jarvis concludes. The change they give will instead enable his drinking. As Social Security has done for his parents. He is unpleasantly surprised when his Latte runs out. He glances at the electronic clock on his wrist. He hasn’t time enough for a second Latte. He has to get to work. Most of the other people in the Starbucks are also looking at their electronic watches. They, too, have to get to work. Pomeroy crushes his Starbucks double-lined recycled paper cup nearly completely into a ball before he drops it into a handsome, simulated wood trashcan. He saunters to the door and waits. Soon, several
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leather-clad men and women join him. They all appear uncomfortable, glancing out the warm/cold glass membrane at the gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. The panhandlers, for their part, also having noticed the time on their own electronic watches, stand to attention and outstretch their paper cups. Their dogs bark and wag tails in anticipation. Not a word is spoken among the leather-clad group that has grown in number at the door. One of them, apparently in possession of a leadership strain, leans on the push bar and leads the crowd outside. Bedlam ensues as the well-dressed Employed exit the Starbucks and pass the shabbily-dressed Unemployed.
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Pomeroy Jarvis heads for the curb; he’s done this before. He jockeys to get as much space and as many people between him and the panhandlers as he can. He is happy with the results of his strategy. The way it works is this: he gets away scot-free, while others have to expend energy either speaking with or painstakingly avoiding eye contact from the gauntlet of wheezing, coughing, shuffling panhandlers. His pleasure at successfully having avoided the gauntlet fades when he notices the bearded, book-loving panhandler. He is smiling at him—Pomeroy Jarvis—and doffing.
Rain that was drizzle then mist is finally fog by the time PJ’s bus hisses to a stop outside the big gates and bigger guardhouse at MicronSearch’s endless main campus. Pomeroy Jarvis attaches his nametag before exiting the bus; he likes people to know where he works because it’s so famous and this, by extension, makes him feel somewhat famous, too. He steps into the damp concrete day, leaving the soft bus glow behind. At the guardhouse he is inspected; a wand is passed over his body; his pockets are searched and he is asked several questions to which, hopefully, only he will know the answers. Then he signs in and is thumbprinted and escorted by two armed sentries along a winding path through hydrangeas, rhododendrons and roses, beneath transplanted spruce and alder and maple, to the wireglass-reinforced steel entrance of the main building. Here he is searched again, wanded again and, like Oedipus, asked three questions. Upon successfully answering these questions, he is permitted entrance into the building. At the vast semi-circular guard’s desk, Pomeroy
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Jarvis signs in again. Then, handcuffed to a uniformed guard, he is escorted to a bank of elevators not thirty feet distant and accompanied to his floor (No. 23) and into his office. (It always makes Pomeroy feel safe to be at work. Although he is not exactly sure why there are so many precautions in evidence everywhere around him, he is exactly sure the people who own MicronSearch know what they are doing; after all, it must cost them a bundle to do it, so they surely have good reasons.) The guard uncuffs Pomeroy then locks him inside his small, windowless office where he will work his magic, pressing buttons, for the next eight hours, with 15 minute breaks every other sixty minute period, and a 23 minute lunch at noon. Before Pomeroy can immerse himself in the problem he left unfinished the day before—as he has done on successive days now for many years—he notices this: a yellow square of paper affixed to the center of his terminal’s illuminated screen. Pomeroy frowns. He is certain this yellow square of paper had not been there yesterday; certainly, he had not put it there. And his office is securely locked when he leaves at the end of the day, every day, by a ruthless appearing, unsmiling, uncommunicative, uniformed guard. Pomeroy creaks down upon his baby blue, customized chair and angles his head so as better to read the small, unfamiliar script that inhabits the yellow square of paper. The yellow square contains these words:
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Pomeroy’s frown deepens. What could this mean? Is he in some sort of trouble? His mind reaches back over his life and is met with some resistance. (Has he not always behaved as expected? always produced massive amounts of code? often stayed late—more so in the early days, before the security tightened—and never, never complained?) Then he hits on it—a promotion! But he doesn’t want a promotion. Hasn’t he always turned them down? Of course! That was the problem! The one, single blemish on his career—he has never accepted a promotion. Now they are going to make him take more money, give him a bigger office, and require that he assume the mantel of managerial responsibility. Pomeroy Jarvis shakes his head. He does not wish to manage people. He does not even like people. All he wants to do is write code. It is the one thing he enjoys, and the one thing he is good at. What will he tell them? Will they give him a choice? Two minutes later, still thinking these things, there comes a knock at the door.
The man they sent to fetch him is sallow and thin and pimply; he produces a feigned smile when he says: “Please come with me, sir. The boss wants to see you.” (His eyes inflate for emphasis when he utters the word boss.) Pomeroy had expected him to say he would be meeting with someone from Human Resources; he could not possibly have imagined the boss would want to see him! (The emphasis placed on that word by the sallow, thin, pimply man had been unnecessary.) The boss we are speaking of here is none other
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than that Man of Mystery, Code Ninja Extraordinaire, Mister MicronSearch Himself—Ron Delworthy. Some say he is the richest man in America, others that he is the richest man on earth. Everyone agrees he is a genius of the first rank and mad as a hatter. Unlike where most men of his position might be expected to have his office—on his own building’s top floor, with the vista of the city at his feet—Ron Delworthy’s is in the basement. In fact, it is in the subsub-sub basement. In further fact, it is so deeply and so secretly and so securely buried that a dedicated elevator is required just to get to the special elevator that takes you to the heavily guarded private elevator that takes you to its door. Ron Delworthy may be said to be a private man; he may be said to be a man who scorns attention; he most certainly may be said to be a man who believes in security. Pomeroy Jarvis is led into the first elevator, where he is blindfolded. After this elevator descends 39 floors and sighs to a stop, he is led to the second elevator; that elevator descends a single floor and stops, then he is led to the third, final, elevator. He and his pimply companion sink another level deeper. He is next led down a long hall and told to stand quite still while his body is examined by a tunneling electron microscope. Satisfied he carries within his cavities no nano-terrors waiting to explode, his blindfold is removed and he finds his nose almost touching a polished wooden door. With barely a sound, the wooden door slides open to reveal a darkened room. Pomeroy Jarvis rubs his eyes. The hallway in which he stands is lit with a warm, rubious glow. This helps his eyes adjust to the darkness that yawns before him. “Don’t just stand there! It isn’t safe! Come in, damnit—come in!”
P. J. does as the voice insists. The polished wooden door glides shut behind him. “Don’t be afraid, Pervus. You’re safe in here. Probably for the first time in your life.” Pomeroy has always felt safe when he was at work. But he has to admit this: he feels much safer now. A brief, unexpected sadness befalls him, sweeps across him as if the shadow of a cloud: for, once he leaves Ron Delworthy’s office, he doubts he will ever feel safe again. He senses more than sees a light and finds himself moving in its direction. The light suddenly flares and serves partially to illuminate the room in which he stands and the man who sits in a large wingback before him, his feet propped up on a table. It is Ron Delworthy, someone Pomeroy Jarvis has only see in small photographs published in weekly tabloids. He has an almost round head that is entirely bald; a white, walrus mustache obscures his mouth. He wears what appears to be formal attire; his bowtie is white, and the front of his starched, white shirt is studded with black buttons; his black coat is an old fashioned cutaway, and shiny stripes run along the length of his black pant legs. His appearance is strangely comforting to Pomeroy.
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Ron Delworthy—boss, as well as host—pulls a corona-corona out of a nearby humidor, and offers one to Pomeroy. “From my own plantation. Not for sale. I have millions of ’em.” But Pomeroy Jarvis, as with many of his Seattleite peers, is not a smoker. “No, thank you, Mister Delworthy.” Ron Delworthy closes the humidor and motions for his employee/guest to sit in the companion chair to his right. He lights his cigar while Pomeroy takes a seat. “Look at my skin, Jarvy,” commands Ron Delworthy. He angles his face so Pomeroy has a better view of his cueball head. “Even my scalp is healthy and unwrinkled. What about yours?” Pomeroy hesitates, then leans forward into the light. “Not bad,” assesses Ron Delworthy. “Of course, you lack wrinkles because you lack gravitas. I have gravitas up the ass, but no wrinkles. Know why, Parmus?” Pomeroy Jarvis does not know why. “It’s because I use this.” He removes from inside his coat a small white jar with a silver screw cap. “Made especially for me. No-one else on earth can have any. It’s all mine.” He replaces the white and silver jar into his coat. “You like movies, Pumice?” Pomeroy does indeed like movies, but he seldom goes out to see any, preferring to cocoon at home with rentals. “Yes, sir.” “So do I. But I hate the crap Hollywood makes— don’t you?” Actually, Pomeroy loves the crap Hollywood makes. “Yes, sir.” “Know what I do about it, Plurvis?” “No, sir.”
“I make my own. Must have two hundred of ’em by now. I come up with the ideas, hire the writers and directors, cast the roles, finance everything, fuck the chicks, guide the editing, then watch it right here. And no one else can see them. No one who works on the pictures can ever talk about ’em—or else.” Pomeroy is impressed by this unexpected information. “You like Socrates? I have a wonderful musical comedy about him.” Pomeroy Jarvis is pleased to hear this; he has always liked to say the word “Socrates”. His boss and host stares into the glowing coal of his ignited cigar. “You know what poverty means, Pom?” Before Pomeroy can reply, Ron Delworthy continues. “It means God doesn’t care. Oh, not that God doesn’t care about the human race. He just doesn’t care about you—if you happen to be poor. You’re not poor, are you? No, of course not. You worked for me, didn’t you? See, Jurvis, the fact is this right here—this so-called earththing of ours—is actually an afterlife: You and I—we’re already dead and buried. This is all an illusion, shadows cast on a wall. And the present condition of your so-called life is in direct relation to the judgment God made of you when you died. See? None of what we do here actually matters. Buttons you press, code you write, money I make, these cigars—all meaningless. But only a few people know about this. The privileged few.” Pomeroy is not really listening; he is dwelling on the past tense verb his boss/host used in reference to his employment status with MicronSearch. “I started MS as a lark, just something to do while
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I luxuriated in God’s beneficence. Have to go through the motions. So I give money to charities so men and women still working on their karmas can siphon it off and feather their nests in the hopes of getting caught in the act so they can advance to the next level maybe in a few thousand years, the way I did. It’s a slow process, and I’ve been at it a while now. Owning things is such a bore, but it’s part of my job—while I’m here. After all, someone has to be top dog so others can envy him. Envy is a very important part of the whole, you know, formula—the megillah as our Jewish cousins call it. You’re not Jewish by any chance, are you, Jarvus?” Pomeroy Jarvis is certain he’s not Jewish. “Good. Now tell me. What do you know about inhalers?” “Inhalers?” “Yes, inhalers, man, inhalers. When you can’t find an inhaler anywhere—that’s when you know you’re in trouble. You know what they say about frogs and reality? Well, the same is true about inhalers.” Pomeroy Jarvis is glad to know this. He had not known it before. He is beginning to feel as if he is among the privileged few. “By now you’re wondering why I sent for you, right? Only natural you should.” By now, the ash on Ron Delworthy’s corona-corona is so long he is required to hold it at right angles to the so-called earth-thing of ours, or it will fall off. He does this, rather than use the ashtray. In fact, Pomeroy—after he notices the lengthening ash—notices also that there are no ashtrays anywhere to be seen. “I’m told you’ve been with us a long time and done good work. I like to reward people who stay with us a long time and do good work, Jarffle. So here it is. This is it. Your reward. Did you know I could hire three Chinese students to do what you do for the same amount of money I paid you? That’s right—paid.
Think of the savings to MS, and the increased productivity! Hell, Chinks work endlessly. You’ll be fondly remembered for your sacrifice, don’t worry. And, best of all—you’ll finally get some gravitas. No doubt being broke and unemployable will give you plenty of wrinkles. Gray hair, too. You’ve been one of my drones long enough. It’s time you unfolded, become whatever it is you’re going to become. Before it’s too late. I mean, there’s a war on, you know. You may not think so now, but I’m doing you a favor, son. Now you agree to do me one, too, as you rise to leave.” Pomeroy, in shock at what he has heard, stands. “Keep quiet about the inhalers.” Pomeroy’s mouth is very, very dry. He licks his very, very dry lips with his very, very dry tongue and asks, “Why me?” Ron Delworthy puffs out a pinwheeling smoke ring, and shrugs. “I wonder that myself. Have a nice life, Purvis.”
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ORDER, DISORDER AND THE SECRET LIFE OF RUBBER BANDS
There are ways of walking that merely bring you to your goal; there are ways of walking that avoid unanticipated follies or pitfalls; there are ways of walking that provide witness to God’s humor; there are ways of walking that provoke stares and prohibit calm observation; there are ways of walking that confirm abstruse theorems; there are ways of walking that are benign, ways of walking that are overt, ways of walking that are balletic, ways of walking that are spare and succinct and honed. All these ways and more has Zeno walked. Zeno, who has walked perhaps more than any man in his time. Zeno, who has striven, stridden and stumbled; who has ambled and shambled and lumbered and lurched; who has struggled and shed and shone throughout the hails of bullets, darkling skies, dictates of Universal Prescription or Kismet or Preordination or Fate or whatever other Universal Metaphor might spring to mind— Zeno who is—in technical parlance—a Peripatetic. Zeno who is, in philosophical jargon, a Stoic.
Zeno who is, in sociological terms, a bum. Zeno who is as Zeno does. Long live Zeno.
On this day in the jungly jungle that is life in Seattle, Zeno—who, unlike those laved by the flickering glow of marble fireplaces, or warmed by the hushed rush of heated air through brass floor registers, never complains of the cold or the damp or the wind or the vagaries of Life—stands outside yet another Starbucks and prepares for yet another day of thinking. Yesterday, and the day before—and as far back as he cares to recall—he had also stood and thought, had also walked and thought, had also lain and thought; had also, during the night, and the nights before, dreamed his thoughts into aeries of vine-clung turrets, into dappled, verdant fields alive with songbirds and marigolds, into lakes so pristine that to drink from them was to be restored to the
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state of an infant’s innocence. He unfurls his hand-lettered sign made from durable corrugated cardboard, and nods to his fellow voyagers who line the sidewalk beside him. His sign reads: I Need Ca$h 4 BOOKS. He is one of them, yet he is not. He stands together with them, yet apart. There is this about life yet to be understood—why we cling to the perception that there are “others”; that there is an “out there”; that a separation exists between us when evidence abounds that cries to the contrary. This will be today’s exercise. He will think and ponder and sidle up against this profundity; he will wheedle his way towards the heart of God; he will whittle away at the delusions that conjugate and separate and hobble our various passages through life. It will be a grand day. But it has not always been so. Days have not always been grand for Zeno. There had been times when overcast skies were perceived by him to be bleak and depressing, as if contoured to fit his life. There had been times when he had had to be places, many places, often all at once. There had been times when the phone would ring and, like a cloud of gnats
dispersed by a sudden gust of wind, his thoughts would vanish, never to reassemble. And there had been times when his heart was tied to others for its happiness. The rain has turned to mist. Soon, it will turn to fog. The men and women who gather in Starbucks, who have places to be, and telephones to answer, warm themselves KW30 inside and out with coffee and a gas fire. There had been other distractions for Zeno, as there are other distraction for us all. But Zeno had not been Zeno in those days. In those days, he had been know by another name, as had Madonna, Cher and Bono in their before years. In those days, he had been regarded and ignored in almost equal measure. In those days, he had been married and fathered and beleaguered and blessed and benighted and bemused; he had been charitable and sulky and pinchpenny and often, so often, drunk. Things had not gone well in those days; but they had managed to go better than expected. In the end, life can be that way. What he had been taught he ought to be; how he had
been expected he should behave; these twin pillars had cast a coldness across his life, shadows most thought comforting and often mistook for the sun. From a roomy coat pocket he withdraws a paper cup. Men are not much different from each other when they are naked; the same can be said of them when they are poor. The blind see perfectly well, only without light. In some ways, they see better than those attracted to the flame. Hunger, thirst, warmth and sleep; these are the sutures that tie us together, that cause us to huddle close, that bind us to the earth and make us call life hard. But life is not hard; life is easy. It’s only seems hard when we struggle. Zeno had given struggle a try, and found it wanting. He had done it for others principally because they had expected it of him. First, his parents; second, his peers; finally, his wife. He had failed them all. Failed them miserably. Zeno had always, in others’ eyes, been a failure, a lucid stooge; something of a fool. He had been sorry he had failed them; he hadn’t meant to. He had loved his friends; he had loved his family; he had loved his parents; but, somehow, that wasn’t enough. They wanted more.
The truth was, his heart wasn’t in it. Slowly, this realization that he was failing others led him to begin a lifetime of allconsuming speculation, beginning with this question: what, if anything, was his heart worth? He began with the things he knew about himself. He knew he wasn’t happy KW32 making money; he knew he wasn’t happy doing as expected; he knew he wasn’t happy engaged in struggle. This led him to his second question: what ought to be the goal of his life? Was it to be productive? Was it to be pleasant? Was it to give and to receive love? Was it to be benign, or bitter, or angry or anxious? Was it even possible to be happy? And, provided that it was, was happiness a worthy goal, in and of itself? Or was it simply another form of selfdeceit? And, if it was possible to be happy, then how best ought he to go about becoming that way? Could the achieving of happiness be justified if, in the doing of it, in its pursuit, others were dissatisfied, displeased, disapproved, or themselves made unhappy?
This led him to this question: is there a real world out there in which there are real values that are actually accessible and steadfast? If there was, then that meant there were rules of right and wrong, and that his own and others’ lives could be valued or devalued according to the touchstone of those rules. If there was not—if the world we encountered was merely a projection of our imaginations—then it was up to each and every one of us to unveil our relationship to the universal blend of realities that formed the atomic clouds we called tables, chairs and single malt scotch. The result of posing these questions to himself led to a marked reduction in his overall vitality; instead of, for instance, rising each day eager to tackle the mundane assignments his life had fostered, he began to stroll. This strolling started off in a small, unremarkable way. It started after dinner one evening. This new facet of his life raised few eyebrows, since it was becoming known in those days that walking was considered by the American Medical Association to be a perfect form of exercise for overweight Americans. Later, he began to stroll before and after breakfast; still
nothing was said. It was assumed by his wife that this meant her husband was determined to be “fit for life”, and she was pleased by this because it would reduce their insurance premiums. At work, during his lunch break, instead of eating, he strolled. This was worth remarking upon, since he had always KW34 been a man of great appetite. Added to this, he was beginning to appear distracted, was ambivalent about replies, and made vague suggestions instead of giving orders. Then one night he went out for his evening stroll and failed to return. His body was never found, so it was concluded he had been hacked to pieces and ground into sausage, or else his various parts had been scattered to dozens of dumpsters all over town and, like Humpty Dumpty, would never be put back together again. His wife wept, wore black, collected the insurance, sold their house, and remarried. Her new husband was a good provider, a good father, and a good businessman. He was a pillar of the community. He was a Deacon at their church. He was a Boy Scout leader. He had a passion for
roses. Years later, after he died of a heart attack, she cried and donned black and collected the insurance and, while selling their house, discovered trunk upon trunk tucked away in their attic, whose locks, having yielded to the persuasion of a crowbar, revealed an immense trove of child pornography. During the years after his wife had remarried to live out the life she desired, Zeno’s strolling took him many places and, paradoxically, nowhere at all. They had, for instance, taken him here, to stand outside this Starbucks on a cold November morn when the rain had turned to mist and would soon turn to fog.
It would be unimaginable for Zeno to think of this Starbucks, or of any other Starbucks, as a destination. As a goal. For Zeno, it can honestly be said, lives without goals. It was simply where he happened to be standing at the moment. As he happened to be standing outside this Starbucks a few weeks earlier when a gentleman had ap-
proached and handed him a handful of change. The gentleman in question—the donator of said change— had been tall and gangly, and wore a Mariner’s baseball cap. His eyes had been slitted with residual sleep, and he had spoken not a word. Immediately upon dropping the change into Zeno’s palm, he had stumbled into Starbucks. But not before Zeno had smiled and nodded, by way of saying thanks. The man had either failed to observe Zeno’s smile and nod, or had thought them unworthy of response; in either case, he ignored them completely. Later, his system revved with coffee, the gangly man had tumbled out of the Starbucks amid a crowd of leather-clad Employed and had, shielding his face, hurried away along the sidewalk without a backward glance. Upon observing this behavior, Zeno had concluded he was afraid.
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One of the many conclusions Zeno has reached in his study of the human soul is that most of what we do we do because we are afraid. It is as if we are hounded by Fear, chased by it from birth to death. First, it is shadows and creaks; then, it is beasties under the bed; later, it is others’ opinions of us; sooner or later, it is about selfjustification, the rightness of our goals, the finality of money and possessions as reasons for our deeds. Zeno has concluded that most of the people who hand him change and occasional dollar bills do so out of a form of fear called guilt. Furthermore, he has determined that most of the people he has met who live on the street and who panhandle and who sleep in boxes or under bushes or on park benches, and who wind up frequently in jail, are also for the most part driven by this same force. Perhaps when there is nothing left to lose is when we cling tightest to what has driven us to our destination. To Zeno, struggle is everywhere; people have the hardest time letting go. If it isn’t a struggle for Rolex watches, it’s a struggle to be first in line at the Mission for breakfast, or a struggle to get another bottle of wine, or to crash a warm crib, or to penetrate a woman. To the Four Horsemen of Hunger, Thirst, Warmth and Sleep must be added this—Sex. Everywhere he looks, he sees it: in averted eyes, in hurried steps, in expensive luxury automobiles—fear. But Zeno can be said to have conquered his fears. Or most of them.
At least the obvious ones. The hardest is the fear of death. One of Zeno’s many Gedankenexperiments, or thought experiments, has been to try and return his mind backwards until he was two, a time when a child knows no fear, nor has a sense of impending doom, or knowledge of life’s eventual and inevitable termination. He had to some degree achieved this, first by forcing his thoughts to dwell in the Now and not to stroll, as did his feet, into the so-called future or the re-called past; second, by observing mothers and fathers and the behaviors of their children so that he might approach the threshold of anarchism that is a child’s reserve. He had, for a while, himself become an anarchist, a naysayer, a grabber, a recalcitrant, an unbathed, snotty-nosed brat. One of the wonderful things about letting go of the rules and regulations, the niceties of society, is the freedom it allows to do all those things that would otherwise cause one to be shunned and judged and disallowed. It was a way of turning Order inside out, of embracing the Disorder that dwells inside; of allowing Topsy to become Turvy. As with security, orderliness is merely an illusion, a forcefully imposed reality, an indication of just how frail and weak a species we actually are. Sheep have no need of associations or governance; iguanas do very well without Social Security; butterflies give no heed to juvenile delinquency; emus are insensitive to political corruption. That we should require such self-deceptions, and cling to them with such tenacity,
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speaks volumes for the fear that resides in our collective Soul. His sign unfurled, his bowling ball bag resting beside him on the littered sidewalk, Zeno stares off into the middle distance and enjoys the event of mist turning into fog. And he thinks about the secret life of rubber bands.
WATLING STREET AT KNIPPLE BRIDGE It is a dark and stormy day. Winter is expected to be wet in Seattle, but it is seldom expected actually to rain. To mist, yes; to hail, certainly; to shower, of course; even every once in a blue moon to snow is thought agreeable, if unnecessary; but, to rain? Big, fat, splashy drops of water falling from the sky? Falling, mind you, as in straight down and with willful determination—no; this is not the norm, this is not the case; rather, this is the unexpected exception that crowds life with such uncertainty as at times to make it seem almost unacceptable. It’s no wonder the suicide rate in the NW is so high.
Perfidious Jackal stares out his window as flattening drops impinge themselves upon his pane and flow downward, toward the earth’s surface, carrying with them dirt and grime and birdshit, carrying with them hope and warmth and beauty and subtlety; and, as if in empathy with the rain-washed world, tears rill down his own cheeks and face, carrying with them dirt and grime and regrets and ambiguity and dread. He flinches when a pigeon smacks into his window, lost in the water-thwarted air world where he lives, his meat-processor-chemico-radar useless in the white noise that puddles the streets, rushes into culverts,
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and gushes on a geodesic towards the Mother of Us All. Purvis Trickleheart is sad. The speech that ran through his head last night— the one made to him by his former Boss, and wealthiest man on the planet, Ron Delworthy—runs through it still, and will run through it he feels for all time to come, or until an event of equal magnitude intercedes in his life, an event that, at this juncture in the array of all things Jarvis, would be impossible to imagine. The former MS employee sniffs, more for himself than for the pigeon. He had been not merely Employee; he had been chapel warden; he had been acolyte; he had been redoubtable advocate, reliable apologist, unfailing booster; MicronSearch had not been merely his Employer, but his home, his vocation, his avocation, his reason for getting up and getting down and grinning and bearing. And, worse still: MS was everywhere, always would be. Its web has been cast worldwide; it is the dubdubdubdot of his soul. How could he ever not use another MS product? They are ubiquitous. How could he ever enter a software store again? Would he be able to use his laptop without falling apart at the three-tone overture as his applications open? The former MS employee wipes his nose. The pigeon, stunned, recovers on the windowsill. He is like that pigeon, Pomeroy decides. He had been sailing through the aether unaffected by the world when bam! he had encountered an unyielding barrier, unexpected wall. Now he sits, stunned, wet with tears and chilled
to the bone, sits on the metaphorical windowsill of a very real edifice; sits uncertain what to do, incapable of flight, scared that other hidden barriers may lay in wait for him if ever he re-enters the world. There is a certain property of the human brain that as yet has no name, or if it does is likely an inaccurate or ill-descriptive one; a portion of that gray bag of snapping synapses that hangs back until it’s needed, much like a DC Comics superhero costumed as a salesman who, in truth, is endowed with the powers of flight and searing rays that emit from his eyes, but who hangs back until the situation warrants his super intrusion. And when that time arrives, he’s off like a flash into the nearest phone booth then up, up and away. This as yet innominable portion of Pomeroy’s brain similarly leaps into its own version of a phone booth and sweeps in a flash into his neo-cortex to his rescue—PJ shakes himself as an unexpected imagery enters his head, and inexplicable, inescapable aromas confront and cause comfort to his olfactory glands. He is gripped by a ferocious, uncontrollable urge to visit his favorite Starbucks. Like, now. It is the great lifesaver, is Routine; calling, nudging, suggesting, urging; it is the cumulative effect of years spent repetitively rising, dressing, slumping to Starbucks, schlepping to work, sitting and typing code, stumping to Starbucks again, then dinner, then cruising the Net, then falling into bed to rise the next day to dress and then slump back to Starbucks and so on and so on until the weekend when he would not know what to do with himself and sometimes he would never leave his condo except to go to Starbucks.
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Routine, in the case of Previous Jamboree, saves his life, rescues him from the swale of lethargy, scoops him from the curtain of fog that is Depression. By possession of a severely limited wardrobe, he is saved from thinking about what to wear; he dons jeans, white T-shirt, woolen woodman’s overshirt and Mariner’s baseball cap. He slips the strap of his laptop’s carrying case over his head. In deference to the downpour, he grabs an umbrella. Then he exits his sanctuary, leaving the stunned pigeon behind. If the pigeon is still there when he returns, PJ decides, still shuddering on the windowsill, still uncertain of its future, then he will offer succor and a share of his sanctuary, and make him his pet. It will be his first pet since the passing of his poodle.
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It is staggering to believe that this allegorical, allegedly intelligently designed Universe should allow a fellow to lose his job like that; furthermore, that it would allow poverty and disease and war and why is there always a clutch of homeless people gathered on the street to nudge guilt up from the still pool where it naturally and quite happily hibernates inside the human soul? At least, his human soul? It is not that PJ is an unkind man; nor that he is a flinching one in the face of poverty and injustice; he just prefers not to notice. It has always created in him a certain amount of dyspepsia to interact with the lower order, deal with the unwashed, uneducated,
unemployed. This last category clutches his throat and lodges heavily in his breast as he turns the last corner before his favorite Starbucks. Unemployed. It is a word that now describes him. Is he to be homeless, as well? Is he, too, destined to be untethered from the Real World, to wander the earth his remaining days, parsing his life with a butter knife, a paper cup outthrust to scurrying passersby, a perpetual gnawing inside, permanently cold, prematurely old, perennially wet and shunned? Ahead of him he is relieved to see that the line of panhandlers is missing. All save one. It is the downpour that has dispersed them, the vagabonds and tramps, the Laurels and Hardys, the fugitives and wanderers, men and women broken on the wheel of Life. All except one. The one who doffs. The one who, as their eyes meet, doffs him even now. This is the final straw! It’s not enough to be dismissed from the single safe harbor he has ever known; no! Now he must be mocked by a weatherbeaten bum! This is definitely the final straw. PJ averts his eyes and ignores both doff and doffer as he races towards the Starbucks glass door. His heart pounds as he grabs the hand-worn door handle—close enough to touch the street chevalier if he isn’t careful—and jerks open the thick glass door that separates rain swept Seattle
from cozy warmth, calming tones, and the soothing aromas of Starbucks. Inside, he shakes then furls his umbrella, takes a deep breath and relaxes; here, finally, he is among his own. The undercurrent of clacking as dozens type on
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their laptops soothes his jangled nerves; the steady glow of the gas log in its oversized fireplace softens his pinched features; the gentle din of subdued conversation among iPodded couples is as congenial as a cinematic Christmas scene. If only the world were everywhere thus! If only there were no wars, no hunger, no disease, no corruption in high places; if only the world were a giant Starbucks, an enormous Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood— The door at PJ’s back encounters his still, pondering body as another patron hurriedly enters, effecting his own escape from both severe weather and panhandling doffer. The hurriedly entering patron ignores PJ, the man whose back he has struck with the door; instead, he snaps closed his umbrella, twists it as if running someone through—releasing a spray of chilled water droplets—then, rushing past PJ, heads for the counter where he joins in its rubbernecking queue of menu
seduced clientele. PJ doesn’t mind the brusque behavior evidenced by the dripping patron; he is a Seattleite, after all, and Seattle is a town where rudeness is the norm. It actually serves to comfort PJ, this behavior; after all, serial killers and child molesters are mostly neat, courteous and polite people. Normal people— safe people—are exactly the opposite. Familiar faces uncluttered by the flotsam of names or the jetsam of personalities serve to soften the horrific tragedy that has befallen him, and lighten his darkening mood. In servitude to the Coffee Bean, he advances toward the counter and fills the empty position behind the back thumping, recently-entered, rain peppered fellow. He is feeling buoyed by the chittering crowd, and the proximity of his favorite coffee drink. When his turn finally arrives, he instructs the broad-shouldered, tattooed, bigbicepped girl (at least, he thinks she’s a girl)—the same possible girl he has given his order to every day at this same time of day for the past several months—how he would like his drink prepared. She scowls as he recites his drink’s peculiarities. Over the decades, PJ has become something of a coffee connoisseur; his delicate taste buds can differentiate not only Javanese from Ecuadorian, Sri Lankan from Ugandan, Robusta from Arabica, but also estimate the altitude at which the beans were grown, the month they were
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harvested, and the method of harvest itself (mechanical harvest bruises the precious coffee fruit). Ultimate comfort could only be achieved, he feels, if the pseudo-girl employee could, besides preparing his potation correctly, additionally remember his order without his having to recite it every day. Would that be too much to ask? Perhaps if he had himself more of a memorable personality, then she—or he—might possibly be able to remember him, and therefore remember his order. These few musings are abandoned when his drink arrives and the androgynous employee takes his money, punches his card, then looks beyond him, over his shoulder, to the impatient customer standing behind. PJ is grateful for his steaming beverage. He carries it as if a sacred offering to an empty table, positioned nearby the hissing gas fire, and up against one of the big membranes of glass. He sets his coffee down and rests his umbrella upon the window sill. Next, he pulls the laptop bag’s strap over his head. He sits and unzips the bag. The white laptop slides out of the bag’s black folds as if a jewel stolen from a potentate. Briefly, he is reminded of the David Cronenberg film, Videodrome, where people slide VHS tapes inside a vaginal slot on their stomachs. This image passes quickly as he sets the laptop on the tabletop and pops the lid off his coffee cup. He brings his nose as close to the heated liquid as he dares, until his nostrils sting from its radiating heat. He closes his eyes and inhales. The imagery of the Cronenberg film is replaced by that of nut-brown men with greasy hair and lined faces turned sepia by
the sun. They wear colorful serapes and wide-brimmed straw hats. Slowly and methodically they move among an endless vista of bushy plants, plucking by hand the cherries that will eventually be reduced to clattering coffee beans. A mile-wide smile muscles his cheeks aside. His cares and worries dissolve in the coffee’s steam, and are siphoned away. The world is reduced to this small experience: appreciating his cup of Joe. When he opens his eyes the first thing he sees is the panhandler. He stands outside, partially sheltered by the building’s awning. Stands outside and stares inside at him, PJ. There is no mistaking this. Their eyes meet and when they do, the old panhandler smiles. Then his right hand rises towards his head and PJ knows exactly what he is about to do. Quickly, he looks away. His eyes dart about the room. All the other tables are taken; there is nowhere for him to move. So he sets down his coffee—his appreciation of it thoroughly ruined—and opens his laptop. PJ thinks WiFi is a wonderful invention. If there were no further computer innovations after the introduction of WiFi, that would be all right with him. He loves that he can be someplace other than his condo, other than his cubicle (briefly, a lump swells in his throat), and yet still be online. The three tones heralding the opening of his browser tugs at his heart. “Yawyawyawyaw,” he says, in an effort to drown it out. He knows without looking that the old panhandler is staring, so he angles his long frame such that his
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left shoulder rides up against the cold glass membrane. If he must stare at PJ, then let him stare at PJ’s profile. The screen of his laptop welcomes him. He taps in his secret password (ILUVMS123), and checks his RSS feeds. Really Simple Syndication is a way of keeping track of blogs. Each and every time someone publishes a posting on his blog, it registers if that blog is linked to an aggregator. An aggregator is software that collects RSS feeds. It’s like having a magazine reader that alerts you each time a new article is published. This way, you don’t have to keep re-visiting the many blogs you like to read; instead, you are alerted each time a selected blogger posts a new entry. Phinneas Jaffle has been reading blogs since the middle ’90s. (He has always been ahead of the curve technologically; life at MS was good for that.) Blog reading long ago replaced book reading for him. His favorite blogs are not political; in his opinion, there are far too many of these, and they all seem strident and self-righteous and difficult to follow (especially if, like Permeable Jerrywinter, one doesn’t keep up with world events). Instead, he likes to read blogs about people’s lives. The ones that are akin to diary entries.
The ones that most blog readers consider boring. One of his favorite bloggers is Madeline Swift’s havocflowers. Madeline Swift writes posts like this: “…and that’s when I told Tom we had better not let Mary know we are seeing a counselor. I don’t think that children are able to understand when their parent’s (sic) are seeking help from therapist’s (sic), or what it is a therapist does, really. I remember when mamma and poppy used to fight, and I guess now I am reliving the very things that used to make me so sad… He especially likes the flower pictures that she includes in her posts. PJ likes flowers, but knows little about them. From time to time, Permafrost Jabberwocky has wanted to write his own blog. The title of his own blog, if were to write one (he has already reserved the domain name) would be this: BRAINSWEAT. But what would he write about? He knows nothing about politics (the subject tugs at his eyelids), and he doesn’t have an interesting life, like Madeline Swift and her husband, Tom. Tom Swift. So he holds on to his domain name and continues to read the RSS feeds that interest him. Maybe one day things will happen in his life that will give him something to write about. So PJ drinks his coffee, reads his blogs, and ignores the doffing panhandler outside. And all the while he is doing this, the clock cuts slices off the giant salami of Time. He is reading from another blog, this one titled fingermarks. “…having an affair. I was not surprised. Lillian has always had a wandering eye, but with her best friend’s husband? That was a shocker. She says they only
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kissed, but that could mean anything, besides—I think that kissing is more erotic than climbing on board, if you know what I mean, and most women would agree. Kissing is worse than sex. It means there is something emotional going on. But sex is just getting off. I could forgive Hank if he did that, but if he liked kissed someone, then I don’t know what…” Pomeranian Juicer stops reading. Something is sneaking up on him. Something is terribly wrong. His eyes are fixed on the blue rectangle sitting on his borrowed tabletop. What is it? What is it that is terri-
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bly wrong? What has changed so much in his environmental niche that he can no longer concentrate on his reading? It is then that he notices that a quiet has befallen his favorite Starbucks. He would like to know more about what the author of FINGERMARKS would do if she ever found out Hank had had sex with someone, but his curiosity pulls his eyes away from the words to see what has, if anything, changed in his world. The first thing he notices is this: the tables are all empty. Next he notices the line of people at the front door. They are all standing there—leather jackets put on, laptops and iPods put away—staring at him. At Pomeroy Jarvis, Esquire. This is an unappealing situation. He does not like being the center of anyone’s attention, much less so for a roomful of his peers. But are they still his peers? After all, they have jobs. While he is very unemployed and has nowhere to go. He can sit here all day if he like, and read blogs. Finally catch
up on the doings of hornycapricorn and justtakingnotes and pardonmysarong and incandescentyellow and all the other blogs he likes but never has time to read. This had not occurred to him before, the fact that he has had idle time thrust upon him. Maybe this is what Ron Delworthy meant when he said he was doing him a favor. Even the perhaps-girl behind the counter is staring. They are waiting for him to join their line. They are used to his solidarity—whatever his name is, wherever it is he works—his standing in line with them (there being strength in numbers) and helping their phalanx of leatherclad Employed shove through the throng of papercupped Unemployed. Perhaps they had not noticed there is no throng today, that the weather has driven them elsewhere? PJ thinks they should stop looking at him and look outside instead. There is only the old Doffer to deal with, and he should be easy. They don’t need him. But PJ is wrong; they do need him, whoever he is. Like any herd of bovine animals, when one of their number suffers, so do they all; when one of their own loses his way, so do they all moan until he is found. If they have to go to their cubicles, then he does, too. The last thing they want to know is that while they are at work he is not; that he has managed to find a way to stay here in Starbucks and drink coffee and read things on his laptop. Maybe he has made a fortune with a software idea? Maybe he has been given early retirement with a huge buyout? Or maybe. Just maybe— —maybe he has been fired.
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If this last is true, he is no longer one of them. If this last is true, he is a pariah. If this last is true, he must leave this Starbucks at once, never to return. If this last is true. If this last is true. They await his reply to their silent questioning. But Pathetic Jester has nothing to say. Or, rather, he has much to say, but no way of saying it. He avoids their curious eyes by returning to his laptop’s blue screen. “…rise like she said it would, so maybe I put in too many eggs…”
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But his heart is no longer in his blogs. He can feel their accumulated stare worse than the single stare of the old Doffer. Perhaps if he were to explain what happened? Tell them he had had an audience with Ron Delworthy himself? Then would they leave him alone? Then would they understand? After all, it could happen to anyone in today’s marketplace of outsourcing and downsizing. It could even happen to them. If only they understood, then maybe they would have some empathy, the way he had had for the pigeon, and they would allow him to continue to visit his favorite Starbucks in peace. But in his heart he knows the truth is otherwise. By their unified stare, he knows his world has changed forever. That he is no longer one of them. That he has been cut from the herd and would proably wander off to die alone at another coffee franchise. The crushing weight of truth is that this would be his last day at his favorite Starbucks. This is worse than losing his job. Now, truly, he has nothing.
UPON THE EXODUS of his clan, the red sweep second hand on the Starbucks electric clock slowed, as if encountering an invisible, resisting force. The crushing silence that descended as sign of their judgment had exited along with their squeaking heels on terrazzo; the brawny barista (or baristo), having shrugged with resignation at the passing of a momentary distraction, soon resumed the duties of due diligence required by her or his Employer. Thus had Piers Jowlman been left alone, feeling discarded, dejected and disdained. Not to mention disliked. His coffee’s paper cup has grown empty and cold, returned to its initial state of advertising. The blog on his screen “…the grandkids were fun to have around during the holidays, but it took its toll on the cats (sic) nerves…” has emptied itself of its former allure. A thickish feeling descends as an almost tactile memory unfolds. (Return with him now to Fifth grade when his teacher, Mrs. Harmon, would so often have PJ as her after school guest, sitting wretched and alone at his etched wooden desk, while his peers—his clan—ran home to play.) Childhood jeers ring loudly in his ears. With the descension of these past events comes once again a lumpish obstruction in his throat. Sitting there, red-faced, swollen-eyed, he feels like a turnip root in a
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vat of ice cream. A desire to slink away unobserved overwhelms him. But there is the Doffer to consider. Stripped as he is of the group protection he formerly enjoyed, he is faced with this dilemma: is it worse to remain inside Starbucks, condemned and damned, a figure of ridicule, or to exit alone past the panhandling Doffer, inevitably to be forced into intimate eye contact, and potentially seduced into the giving of alms? Not to mention being doffed. In other words, is it better to be a sitting duck, or a turnip? This is what his life has come to; in his opinion, he is as low as he can go. Maybe there’s a back door? This thought, however, holds forth faint hope. For, in order to take advantage of said portal— provided one exists—there would be required a dialogue of some sort with the Ambiguous Mythological Maiden, and this seems an unlikely, and potentially dangerous, avenue to pursue. So it seems he is struck here, lodged like a bewildered pigeon on the ledge of a circle in Dante’s Hell, one reserved for insipid dilettantes, aged virgins, and the seriously uninspired. Praxis Janusfaced is tormented, and sulks appropriately. The red sweep second hand remains red, but no longer sweeps; nor do seconds do their duty and become minutes, mired as they are in a treacle of gelatinous tachyons. The Starbucks stands empty but for him; all other forms of human life are currently off elsewhere, gainfully Employed.
Ptarmigan Jingleballs sighs. His eyes crawl downward, as if extinguished suns, settle on the blue rectangle that is his laptop’s screen. Thoughts both inchoate and incredible swirl about inside his skull, like artificial snowflakes stirred by a violent shake. Maybe I should look for another job? But anything, after MicronSearch, would seem paltry by comparison. Maybe I should move? Thoughts to betake himself to other climes have never been seriously considered. Maybe I should go back to MS and pretend nothing happened? After all, it is a Big Place, and maybe Ron Delworthy forgot to mention PJ’s termination to anyone. And maybe cow-tipping will become an Olympic event. As these thoughts cross and crisscross his mind, events elsewhere in his world are taking place. Outside, the old panhandler briefly studies his watch. He picks up his bowling ball bag and, with this in tow, pulls on the handle of the Starbucks door and steps inside. Boldly, he approaches the plastic counter where he engages the ambivalent server in a brief conversation. Minutes later he is delivered a steaming cup of black tea for which he forks over a portion of his hard-begged change. As reward for the server’s congeniality, he leaves a hefty tip. Bowling ball bag in one hand, cup of tea in the other, he surveys the empty room. Empty, that is, except for Pithecanthropus Jabberwocky, who sits slumped, staring into his laptop as if into the ocean’s depths. Piebald Jodhpurs hears the scrape of wood on concrete, which fact serves to deepen the two parallel furrows that cleave his forehead, left to right.
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There is a slight trembler as a weighty presence is felt on the tabletop; this event serves to disturb the harmonics of his sorrow. He breathes deeply and expects the worst, and is served with exactly that when he looks up. The Doffer is sitting at his table.
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THE GESTURE OF A LIFE IS ESSENTIALLY INWARD There are no people I wish would fall, or that Knipple Bridge might be raised in their faces, as those bustling businessmen who have so infinitely much they must accomplish in the world, instead of, like the rest of us, when Knipple Bridge is raised, finding it a good opportunity for musing. (1) Go away.
Blind swimmer. I have made myself see. I have seen. And I was surprised and enamored at what I saw, wishing to identify myself with it. (2)
Leave me alone.
When the effect produced ceases to be in a ratio to the cause, disorganization follows. (3)
I’ll call the cops. I will. Really.
Facts shackle the imagination. Facts appeal to that part of human nature that needs to control. Please?
Observation is my métier. And my observation of you is this: you are tormented by loss of control. I will give you a dollar. A whole dollar.
Observe outside. Is it not wet? While inside, is it not dry? What separates the two? Is it luck? Is it desire? Is it the human will? Is it a pane of glass?
Please. Leave. Now. Please?
Everything flows, nothing stays still. (4)
Oh my God. You’re insane.
That would certainly simplify life.
I’m sitting in a Starbucks at a table with a madman.
Great wits are to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide. (5)
Look. I just want to be alone. Leave me alone, OK?
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? (6)
So I like to be left alone, what’s wrong with that?
There’s a difference between being left alone and hiding out.
The only thing I want to hide from is you.
You show the universe indifference. What?
...the price good men pay for indifference is to be ruled by evil men. (7)
I’m not… what you said.
Do you vote? Do you?
I never vote for anyone; I always vote against. (8)
That’s nonsense.
Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense. (9)
Look,I. I will tell that. That. Girl. If she. He. Anyway. To kick you out… Don’t you have someplace you’d rather be?
A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere. (10)
Oh, I get it. You want more than a dollar. Enough for a room, right? Here. I have forty bucks, two twenties— take ’em. Now, go.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. (11)
What’s that supposed to—are you going or not?
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. What am I doing right? (12)
You’re happy just being…what you are? You know what I mean. No offense. But you’re. You beg. No home, no family. You can’t be happy.
We all beg. Have you a home, or only a dwelling? Where is your family? How are we so unalike?
Hey—don’t compare me with. I have a…job. A career. I can do something. I am a productive member of society.
I have been young, and now I am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (13)
I don’t. Look, old man. I. I have to get to work now, OK? I have a lot to do. People depend on me.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. (14)
I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t know me or what I do—you, who do nothing.
My work is a game, a very serious game. (15)
Oh, yes, very serious. Holding out a paper cup... So, if you want money to buy books, what sort of books do you buy?
Books have the same enemies as people—fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content. (16)
Don’t you ever answer a question?
It is not every question that deserves an answer. (17)
Well, I don’t deserve you sitting here, either… So what kind of question would you answer?
A wise man’s question contains half the answer. (18)
Oh, so you think you’re some kind’ve philosopher, right? That if you talk in circles, people will be impressed.
Fill what’s empty; empty what’s full. Scratch what itches.
Very deep. Very wise. If you’re so wise, why can’t you make it in the real world?
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. (19)
Ah. so. A critic. Too good for what the rest of us has to do. That why you’re always alone?
Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone. (20)
I’ll try to remember that.
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. (21)
I can’t believe I’m even giving you the time of day.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (22)
Ha-Ha. You can afford to make your little jokes. No one cares if you live or die. You and your kind don’t even know what the word “Responsibility” means.
Corporation. Noun. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.(23)
You can’t be talked to, can you? Think you know it all. You don’t hear a word I’m saying.
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening. (24)
You’re like a parrot. You repeat stuff you don’t understand.
The only good is knowledge; the only evil is ignorance. (25)
Fine. If you won’t go, I will.
There’s nowhere to go.
Man. Look at it. Pouring down, still. When’s it gonna stop?
The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. (26) Hm. Maybe you’re right.
Maybe I’m not right.
Oh, yeah?
You make mistakes?
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right— especially when one is right. (27)
A verbal trap. You’re probably good at chess.
Chess is as elaborate waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency. (28) I was never good at it, myself… OK, so we agree on two things.
Admit this, then. That you have no job. That you are coerced by newly-developed circumstance to sit here and talk with me.
No. I don’t. You’re right. I was… outsourced.
More’s the pity! To be wounded by a neologism.
It’s all my fault. I should have worked harder.
Best men are molded out of faults and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad. (29) You don’t understand; you wouldn’t. A man my age. I’m. Washed up. I’ll never write code in this town again.
You miss not your Job, but its regularity. You should rejoice that your life has been changed for you, alleviating you from the not inconsiderable task of doing so yourself.
This is not something to joke about, old man. I’m too old for this to happen.
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. (30)
Easy for you. I’ve done everything right. My credit is perfect. I have bills to pay. You have cardboard to scrounge.
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun. (31)
What will I do with myself? I need to find a job.
Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing yourself. (32)
But MS won’t give me a decent reference. Who’s gonna hire someone replaced by foreigners?
Then you’re free.
Excuse me?
You haven’t realized it yet.
Realized what?
That you’re free. That can’t be. Free?
Free to rise when you want. Free to read what you want. Free to eat when you want. Free to go where you want.
But I don’t want to be. Free. I. I don’t know how.
Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting. (33)
Chaos…that’s right. Where will I end up?
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be. (34)
Words. Pretty words. This is reality. I’m not like you. I don’t pretend to be anything other than what I am—a code writer. I can’t...do anything else.
Reality is highly over-rated. As is this coffee.
Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn’t go away. (35)
Thanks.
OK, OK. I get it. Is that all you ever do, quote people? Don’t you have thoughts of your own?
A table of random numbers, once printed, requires no errata. Great. Just great.
You’re welcome.
I’m going home. While I still have one. I need to feel secure again, like I did at MS.
There is no security on this Earth; there is only opportunity. (36)
You would say something like that. But in my world, things are different. We have cell phones and alarm systems, police departments and garbage disposals.
To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed. (37)
Do me a favor. Keep your fortune cookie wisdom to yourself. And, if we ever meet again—which I hope we don’t—don’t doff your hat.
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. (38)
REFRENCES 1 Soren Kierkegaard 2 Max Ernst 3 Baizai 4 Heriklitis 5 Michael Dryden 6 Ray Bradbury 7 Plato 8 W. C. Fields 9 Robert Frost 10 Marcus Valerius Martialis 11 Dorothy Parker 12 Charles Schulz 13 Psalm xxxvii, 25 14 Bertrand Russell 15 M. C. Escher 16 Paul Valery 17 Publilius Syrus 18 Solomon Ibn Gabirol 19 Krishnamurti 20 The Dhammapada 21 Lewis Carroll 22 Groucho Marx 23 Ambrose Bierce 24 Seneca 25 Socrates 26 Longfellow 27 Nietzsche 28 Raymond Chandler 29 Shakespeare 30 Michael Pritchard 31 Katharine Hepburn 32 Charles Baudelaire 33 Alan Dean Foster 34 Douglas Adams 35 Philip K. Dick 36 Douglas MacArthur 37 Lao-tzu 38 Ali Ibn-Abi-Talib
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Who sees the variety and not the unity wanders on from death to death. KATHA UPANISHAD
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COMES THE TIME OF 23
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The dark lines are about to mount upward and overthrow the last firm, light line by exerting a disintegrating influence on it. The inferior, dark forces overcome what is superior and strong, not by direct means, but by undermining it gradually and imperceptibly, so that it finally collapses.
SPLITTING APART. It does not further one To go anywhere.
This pictures a time when inferior people are pushing forward and are about to crowd out the few remaining strong and superior men. Under these circumstances, which are due to the time, it is not favorable for the superior man to undertake anything. The lower trigram stands for the earth, whose attributes are docility and devotion. The upper trigram stands for the mountain, whose attribute is stillness. This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain quiet. For it is a question not of man’s doing but of time conditions, which, according to the laws of heaven, show an alteration of increase and decrease, fullness and emptiness. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action.
—from The I Ching, hexagram 23 Wilhelm/Baynes translation
THE EXCLUDED MUDDLE 1
Imagine a basic Law of Nature turned on its ear by a common, ordinary, office product!
A form of Reversed Inertia2! A little-reckoned subset of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be summed up thus: over time a closed, ordered system becomes spread out and disordered. This is why we grow old and— rumor has it—die. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is also known by another name— entropy. As the opposite of a fact3 is a falsehood; as the opposite of Chaos is Coca-Cola™; so the opposite of entropy is anti-entropy (or enthalpy, or Gibbs Free Energy,4 or we could all be mistaken and it’s nothing whatsoever because it has no equal and opposite). Disorganization (disorder) leads to a little thing called heat death.
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The opposite of heat death is called Life. And the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.5 As above, so below.6 (Oddly enough, however, in the Great Scheme of Things, there is no opposite of Up.) As Alfred E. Newman was wont to say, What, Me worry?.7 (Another opposite of entropy is evolution8.) (We shall pick up an existence by its frogs9.) Entropy is about future times. Anti-entropy is about past times.
There is no Law of Disorder coded into Nature: it requires energy for wood to rot. The Second Law only describes what energy tends to do in the future.
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Id est, run down. Become lumpy. Disorganized. Like coins spread upon your bureau top. That is, if you have a bureau top. If you even have a bureau. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bureau, you know. Why, there are some places on this small, planetary orb so poor that not a bureau may be found.
ATP molecules (Adenosine Triphosphate) are the major energy source for all warm bodies. When any warm body moves or makes sounds (as in benign conversation or orgasmic ululation) ATP changes into ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) to release the little electric sparks that make our parts go ’round—a release of energy described as an increase in entropy, or a decrease in order. In other words, it is only because of the downhill flow of energy, according to the Second Law, that life (as we know and roll about in like a puppy in the grass) is possible.
THE PARADOX10
Contrariwise, likewise, and in all wise, is this true as well: it is only because of the downhill flow of energy, according to the Second Law, that life (as we call it laughingly on days when our foreheads bleed) eternal is impossible.
Living creatures are energy processing systems that fail miserably unless a bunch of biochemical cycles operate synchronically to oppose the Death Star of Entropy. When these systems fail—i.e., loss of energy flow—or malfunction due to critical errors in synthesis or the introduction of toxins or competing agents such as viruses entyer into the picture, then
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systemic dysfunction—colloquially known as “death”—occurs: that is, energy can no longer be processed to carry out the many reactions required for life that are contrary to the Second Law. Get it? Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy in a system at a specific temperature over a specific period of time. You see, order (life) has a very low probability of existence in Universe. For instance: the odds of dealing four aces from a shuffled deck can only be expected (according to the Theory of Probability) to occur once in every 270 thousand deals. In other words, to deal four aces on the first try would be similar to those coins on your bureau top, if you have a bureau top, suddenly assembling themselves into rolls. The entropy of Universe increases during any spontaneous process11. THE OPPOSITE OF A PROFOUND TRUTH MAY WELL BE ANOTHER PROFOUND TRUTH.
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FOOTNOTES: 1) Ah, yes. Well, now. Here’s a word we use a lot. But what, exactly, does it mean? And, furthermore, to pile Pelion upon Ossa, what does exactly mean? What, for that matter, does anything mean? And what has this to do with the word “Nature”? But, then, you see, and so on. I mean, one thing leads to another, doesn’t it? All things being equal, all equalities being equivalent and, of course, all roads leading to Rome. There has been some head scratching I can tell you over the word “Nature”. But we can (some of us, at least) agree on this: Nature is the material world, and it is composed of matter and energy. What matter and energy are is anybody’s guess. The word “Nature” is mostly Latin (natura), with a pinch of Greek (ϕυσιζ), and means, au fond (which is French), “physical,” although the Latin connotation is “birth,” and the Greek is “growth,” but then they never really did agree on much anyway. The scale of Nature is immense, and by this I mean huge. Imagine everything there can be, being at once in a blink of an eye, and stretching all the way from sub-sub-sub(etc.)-molecular to the macro-gigantic size of Universe itself—which of course, you can’t do because you only use 10% of your brain—and you have the beginning of a slight notion of the immensity of Nature. It has nothing to do with computers. If you happen to believe all the stuff of Nature is mere twaddle and faery dust, then you are most likely a Solipsist (an extreme form of Idealism). This means it’s all in your head. If, on the other hand, you are of the cause-and-effect school (i.e., hammer hits thumb, vocal chords tense with scream), then you probably believe in an objective Universe, and are what we would call a Realist. Of course, the fact that there are only two choices should be a red flag (or herring) to anyone even vaguely interested in complexity theory (of which the less said the better). Is there a difference between “real” and “artificial”? That is, besides the number of letters and the fact the words actually sound unalike? This, naturally, shifts our attention to the so-call mind/body problem, which means (au fond) nobody really knows what. It is for those of you who can’t live without the
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trifle of ambiguity in your lives that there are designer drugs. 2) Inertia is one of the very most basic things you should have learned in Kindergarten, along with all the social graces. It goes like this (with kudos to Sir Isaac Newton): Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces imposed. Of course, this description is only germane to classical physics, that arena in which we play whenever we smash our thumbs with a hammer, or try to hit a target with a BB rifle. Perhaps a better explanation: you are eating an ice cream cone in the back seat of an automobile when your father comes to an abrupt stop. The ice cream now on your face is inertia. 3) A fact is that which supports your opinion and ignores all else that might contradict your opinion. Another word for fact is disambiguation. In Philosophy, a fact is a true proposition; in Law, a fact is something that convinces a jury; in Science, a fact is a datum with value. Facts, as a general rule, are void of ambiguity, despite existing within an ambiguous reality; therefore, a fact is something of a paradox. A fact, therefore, for one person, may not be a fact for another; or, it may be a fact, but the fact is not worth a damn. This is one reason why Universe is such a slippery place in which to write footnotes. The questioning of facts, then, in the relationship of evidence to conclusions, may lead to the epistemological stasis called underdetermination. In other words, a theory (accumulation of facts) is underdetermined if there is a rival theory inconsistent with that theory, but just as consistent as that theory given all the evidence, or facts. This is another facet of Skepticism, or the challenge of beliefs about knowing. That old French vagabond, Rene Descartes, was a great juggler of underdeterminations; he attempted to argue from a skeptical position to a position in which he had significant knowledge, i.e., his dream argument in which he pointed out that sometimes while dreaming one feels awake and can’t determine the failure (or success) of the dream experience (say, falling) to represent reality (i.e., being asleep in bed). So…if you can’t distinguish dreams from reality, you can’t completely rule out the theory that you’re actually asleep reading this (which
you might very well be, given the topic), rather than having a veridical experience (being awake and reading, eyes getting heavy). Thus, the theory that one is having a veridical experience is underdetermined. But all this does is lead to Hume’s problem with induction with respect to empirical truth. As in the sun has always “risen,” so it will “arise” tomorrow. Or will it? Dig? 4) This denotes (in thermodynamics) a potential and is therefore a state function of a thermodynamic system. Named after Willard Gibbs, father of vector analysis and the first man to receive a PhD in engineering from Yale (this does not mean all the prior recipients were women), GFE is a factor (for instance) of determining the voltage of an electrochemical cell, or the equilibrium constant for a reversible action. More simply, in thermodynamics free energy denotes the amount of energy in a physical system that’s free (i.e., available) to do work. 5) Quotation from Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, who, when asked if he believed the horseshoe above his door actually brought him luck, said: “No, but I’m told it works even if you don’t believe in it.” He also is reputed to have said, “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox! Now we have some hope of making progress.” He noted that the task of physics wasn’t to discover what is the essence of Nature (see footnote 1 above), but only what can be said about Nature. He was also very tall. 6) From the Kybalion, a mystical, hermetic book that supposedly describes the teachings of alchemist and all around wizard, Hermes Trismegistus. The seven Hermetic Principles, by the way, are 1) Mentalism; 2) Correspondence; 3) Vibration; 4) Polarity; 5) Rhythm; 6) Cause & Effect; 7) Gender. In this form of metaphysics (a dualist perspective) everything is pitted against everything else, and balance is the fulcrum point upon which Universal opposites reside. Hence, the dictum that everything is dual; everything has pairs of opposites. This esoteric insight was later transmuted, during XIVth Cent. France (and elsewhere), into a rule of thumb (so to speak) to help guide ladies in their choice of male companionship, i.e., the length of his nose being an indicator of the length of his…well. As above, so below. 7) Alfred E. Newman (Neuman), mascot for EC
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Publication’s MAD magazine, first appeared in 1954. Later, his image (one that had drifted through the imagery aether for decades before being employed by EC) would be refined to its present day iconic perfection by Norman Mingo. His origins (Alfred’s, not Norman’s) are shrouded in mystery (much as his spiritual brother, Kilroy). One thing we do seem to know is that his name—Alfred E. Neuman—derived from one of radio comic Henry Morgan’s (of “I’ve Got a Secret” fame) radio shows, in which he made reference to motion picture music composer, Alfred Newman. This would make Randy Newman (Alfred’s nephew) directly related to Alfred E. I hope this helps explain one of the more recondite aspects of American culture. 8) Phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. 9) A grand quote from a grand man, Charles Hoy Fort, but what it’s doing here is anybody’s guess. Charles Fort (1874-1932) was the world’s premier investigator of the supernatural, or anomalous phenomena. A failed writer (novelist), he authored at least ten books, only one of which was published (critics claimed it was “ahead of its time”—death knell!). Always a melodramatic character, Fort burned all his manuscripts, renounced writing as a slave trade and vowed he would never set pen to ink again. The next book he wrote was destined a) for fame and b) to set him on the true calling of his life. It was titled, appropriately enough, The Book of the Damned. A journalist, a natural-born contrarian, a humorist, something of a poet—these qualities made him manifestly perfect for the role of Enquirer into the Privy of Nature. Far ahead of his time (but not as a fiction writer, thank god), Fort mocked scientific positivism and reductionism long before it was fashionable (it is still fashionable, isn’t it?), and with his prejudice that scientific explanation is only one of a range of explanations, none necessarily more justified than another, was well in advance of Thomas Kuhn’s work on “paradigm shifts,” and the Anything Goes anarchism of Paul Feyerabend (ever get the feeling footnotes need footnotes that would, in turn, themselves need footnotes and on and on, ad nauseam?) Claimed by many as the Father of Paranormalism (what a distinction!), he coined the term “teleportation” to
explain disappearances without a trace, conjecturing (and this was back in the 1920s) alien abduction. His other books were Lo!; New Lands; Wild Talents. A favorite saying: “The earth is a farm. We are someone else’s property.” 10) Living as we do in what some have touted an “Age of Irony,” it may be difficult, and seem unnecessary, to understand the importance (or the power) of paradox. Paradox has always been a component in anagogic teaching, and used as a tool to help the novitiate “see” things that would otherwise be impossible to see. Simply (and dryly) put, a paradox is a seemingly true statement that leads to its own contradiction, or to a counterintuitive conclusion. The recognition of (and this is very important) ambiguities and equivocations underlying paradoxes has led to many outstanding advances in science, mathematics and philosophy. A quaint example is this is the Birthday Paradox. This states that if there are 23 (!) or more people in a room, then there’s a chance of more than 50% that at least 2 will have the same birthday. This paradox is a mathematical truth that contradicts intuition (i.e., it is counterintuitive). There are, of course, all sorts of paradoxes, some famous, others infamous. Zeno’s Paradox (no relation to Our Hero) states that a flying arrow can never reach its target since it is always halfway there, i.e., the distance traveled is an infinite number of halves; then there’s the Grandfather Paradox (the one where you go back in time and either kill your grandfather or sire your grandfather by having sex with your grandmother), as well as paradoxes that aren’t really paradoxes at all, but only seem to be, such as the Epimenides Paradox (actually a logic problem), exemplified by the statement, “All Cretians are liars” (Epimenides was a Cretian, by the way), which was an early variation of the Liar’s paradox that goes like this: “This sentence is false.” (This is similar to the Nihilist paradox; i.e., truth doesn’t exist, and this statement itself is a truth, thus proving itself incorrect). Others: Exception Paradox (if there is an exception to every rule, is there an exception to the rule that states there is an exception to every rule?); Hegel’s Paradox (Man learns from history that man never learns from history); Curry’s Paradox (if this sentence is true, then the world
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will end in a week); Choice Paradox (if I ask you for a million dollars, will your answer be the same as to this question?); Sorites Paradox (at what point, after how many hairs have fallen, does a man become bald?); Control Paradox (man can never be free of control, for to be free of control is to be controlled by oneself ); Newcomb’s Paradox (how do you play a game against an omniscient opponent?); Black Hole Paradox (they violate a tenet of science that information cannot be destroyed); and on and on. One of the seeming simplest, yet for some (e.g., Wittgenstein) most perplexing of paradoxes is Moore’s Paradox: It is raining outside, but I don’t believe that it is. Story has it when Wittgenstein first heard this, he awoke Moore in the middle of the night and made him repeat the lecture word-forword. Wittgenstein’s early emphasis was on linguistic problems relating to science and philosophy, and our understanding of what can (and cannot) be “said” about Universe, Life and Everything. Moore’s statement, broken in parts, is logical but peculiarly inconsistent: It is raining outside. I don’t believe that it is. Contrast this with: It is raining outside, but he doesn’t believe it. This statement seems consistent. The paradox comes in the conjunction of It’s raining outside with the subjective belief, I don’t believe that it is. Namely, he believes is descriptive of something in the physical world (he believes he’s hungry; he believes the lawn need mowing); however, the first person equivalent, I believe, seems to function not as a description of the outside world, but rather as an affirmation of the proposition believed in itself (i.e., hunger; mowing). In other words, there is an asymmetry between first-person and second-person attributions of belief. But that should be obvious. 11) Get your hands on a thick rubber band. Place it against your forehead. Notice that it’s cool to the touch. Now hook your thumbs through it and pull it apart; that’s right, stretch it out and release it; then do it again. Repeat this several times. Place it against your forehead again. It feels warm, doesn’t it? Here’s why: an object (in this case the rubber band) feels cool when heat flows from your skin into it. Conversely, an object feels warm when heat flows from the object into your skin. Whether a material expands or contracts when it’s heated can be called that material’s entropy level. The
entropy of a material is a measure of the disorderliness of it molecules. When molecules are nice and ordered, their entropy is low; when molecules are disorganized and scattered, their entropy is high. But this isn’t exactly true of rubber bands. Inside rubber bands, the messy tangle of stringy molecules get straightened when they get heated (pulled apart), and actually lose some of their entropy. In physics, when the entropy goes down, a system emits heat. Likewise, when a system increases entropy, it takes in heat. So…when a rubber band contracts, it sucks heat in from the environment. If you were to heat the rubber band, it would contract even smaller than before—why? Because by heating it up we cause it to increase its entropy. This means that a rubber band stretched around a core of other rubber bands into a huge rubber band ball has, in essence, reduced the measure of entropy in Universe. This will be important for later.
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Your thoughts go here
And so on...
STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO THROW UP You can measure the culture of a country by the extent to which its lavatory walls are scribbled on. —Adolf Loos
Fat Max Crwth Sez In the beginning was the pun. And God saw that the pun was good because it’s hard to find a funny pun. Then came the groan and there lurched into view Everything Else. And darkness was upon the waters because it was night and nighttime is, by definition, dark. And so on. And language in those days was an exponent of self-congratulation. And peace reigned in the heart of beasts because no one can commit violence when in a state of wonder. And things were pointed to and laughed at and that became their names. And the Act of Naming lasted an infinite series of presents. And as the presents accumulated they became known as the past. And the sense of the world lay outside the world. And in the world everything happened as it happened and was as it was. And in that series of presents, value which was of value existed outside all happening and being-so.
And no-one spoke German. And there was no death but only occasional cessation. And nothing was said except what could be said. Except, of course, in German. For German was reserved as the language of human philosophy. But neither humans nor philosophy had yet been distributed into being-so, so no one knew any of this. And the feeling of the world in that series of presents moved from a wholeness and oneness to a being-so that was as a limited wholeness and oneness. And God saw this was just OK and not particularly funny. God was never One to live outside the moment. And then came the series of finites that became the walking and talking types and they walked and talked and when they moved they did so to commit precise actions and when they spoke they did so to say precise things, and they lived fully in the present, which is God’s favorite chaise longue. And this mode of expression was named by He Who Names, and the name was: self-attention. And it was bequeathed unto the walkers and talkers to name themselves, and their tongues were given strength in numbers so that they might discover punch lines and thus amuse God who still missed the initial crack-up of the First Pun. And so worlds were made and they were set free and upon these worlds walkers and talkers walked and talked and presented their genitalia one to another until there burgeoned any number of walkers and talkers, thus multiplying the potential for punchlines.
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And God listened through a multiplicity of ears, hoping, longing, desiring the attainment of the First Groan. For walkers and talkers in those days were conscious beings and dwelled in a timelessness that did not include toys. And so more days passed, relative to everything in being-so that is not time, and in the fullness of this measure came the metric we call Man. And at that moment the memories of oneness and wholeness vanished and became complexities and contradictions and ambiguities, and self-attention became something other and that something other was named ego. And, Lo, there came Socrates. And, after Socrates, Paradox. Oh, and The Fall was swift and painful, for swiftness and pain are modes of Man. Soon, acting became thinking, and thinking caused Man to live the limited existence called Future. And without the aid of self-attention, man next created Ordinary Language. And then came German. And God saw that it was what it was, and didn’t really care much because on other planets walkers and talkers were much funnier. Furthermore, German offended God because jokes spoken in that tongue were brutish, and few and far between, and even for Him hard to understand. KW123
All, that is, except for those written by Immanuel Kant. And so God created Welsh. And God saw that this was really good, actually in fact better than the dodo, and far better than fish.
What riled God most was all the measuring Man did. And as Man invented more and more toys, especially computers, God’s attention wandered. Drifting towards the far lesser languages of precision required by machines, man became duller and more lackluster, and his humor, what little he had originally possessed, became feebler and feebler until it was downright nonexistent. And, Lo, God drifted off, alerted there were marvelous punsters in a galaxy far away who practiced self-attention and did not kill everything it could get its hands on. But God did not abandon Man. For, just in case things changed for the better, He created a class of walkers and talkers who would monitor events and remain vigilant for signs of increased spiritual development—i.e., a sense of humor. And these people would not know they were the minions of God, but they would be bestowed with awareness of dissatisfaction and a desire for truth. And this would lead in some to self-attention, as in the infinite series of ye olde world. And God saw that it was a good set-up. And so on.
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Donald Duck and don Quixote are exactly alike in that neither has ever trod the earth This is: a) True b) False c) Neither true nor false d) Both true and false e) Completely meaningless f) Mostly meaningless g) Mere quackery h) All of the above i) Some of the above, but not sure which j) You’re not being serious enough
“Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety..” —Plato
Smile Upon Ambiguity’s Face
Exploitation has grown exponentially; therefore, ‘seems’ more often than not, is just that.
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” Discuss.
“The Seven Samurai” is to “The Magnificent Seven” as The Second Law of Thermodynamics is to The Second World War
“ But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” —Lord Byron
“Son, I am able she said though you scare me, watch, said I, beloved, I said watch me scare you though, said she able am I, son.” —They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18
“He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.” —Plato
Fat Max Crwth Relates ~In Detail~
Aspects of EDNA’s Speculative Existence and Her Relationship to the Post-Modern World or
How EDNA Refused to Die for King Kong’s Sins This is a story about a grrl. A grrl with arms past her knees, and with fingers that touched her toes (even when she was as erect as the men who viewed her). This is not the type of story everyone will be able to enjoy. If you don’t think you will enjoy it, stop reading now. There is no point to it, anyway. This is not a parable or a put-on or a paradox or a pun; this really happened in the way all things really happen, vaguely and with plenty room for error. Her name was EDNA. EDNA is an anagram for ADEN, and for DENA, and for NADE as well as for DNA-E. These are the only ones that make sense.1 But her name was EDNA. Not Edna. It was 1956. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles2, had just said, “The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art”.
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The King was hot. Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog were on top. Top is an anagram for pot. Pot is the shortened form of the word marijuana. Whilst semordnilap is a semordnilap for palindromes.3 Teens were swooning over Love me Tender. But EDNA had not been born to swoon. EDNA had been born a grrl. To say she had been an ugly child at birth would be to say if you stare too long into the sun you will go blind. It was that obvious. Sometimes the obvious is not apparent. Some would say that ENDA did not have a parent. Parents’ eyes are supposed to fill with love when they first see their child; EDNA’s presumed parents took one look at theirs—the accumulative creature they had borne into this veil of whimsy and woe—and carted her off for adoption. All that pain for nothing. KW139
Even at birth, EDNA had been an aberration; doctors (and nurses, too, but especially orderlies) had marveled at her hands that reached her feet.
She also had bristly hair that covered her knuckles, a fact the medical men of that time thought exceptionally weird. The years slid by, as did the potential adopters at the Phyllis Pomeroy Home for Improperly Birthed Girls. In fact, when they came to EDNA’s bed, the potential adopters slid by so fast they made pages on medical charts hanging on the wall flutter. Summer followed Winter followed Summer with most annoying regularity, depending on where you began. In time, EDNA came to the terminal point in her initially temporary residency at the PPHIBG; if she wanted to remain there beyond her first score years, she would have to be an employee of the enterprise, an extremely unlikely proposition at best. After all, who would hire someone whom children, upon first sight, fled from, shrieking and crying? Besides Mr. and Mrs. Bela Lugosi.4 But they had a child of their own. However, as the only girl in the 23 year history of the PPHIBG not even once to have been considered for adoption, a special niche, along with a modest stipend, was created by Phyllis Pomeroy herself, whose heart went out to this poor, unloved, misbegotten knuckle-dragging Eighth Wonder of the World.5 (Phyllis herself, poor dear, was sterile as a pair of latex gloves; as barren as the moon. Still, she had always pointedly
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refused to adopt a child of her own. As she put it, in her own homespun manner, to those who asked her why, “When I adopt a girl out, I have a profit. If I adopt a girl, I have a loss. Comprendi?”) EDNA, touched though she was by this gesture (a seldom enjoyed experience for a grrl who, if touched by anything, had been most touched by wind and rain), made up her mind it was time for her to travel beyond the safe enceinte of her room; she desired to toss herself into the slipstream of life, and see upon which Golden Isle6 she would wash, if indeed she must be a laundress. Besides, the numbers, she estimated, were in her favor. Long perusals of newspapers had convinced her the world was for the most part insane. This being the case, there must be someone out there crazy enough to love her.
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Of her time spent in the PPHIBG, not much is known, or what was known has been lost, or what is true has been suppressed for the sake of children and sensitive, impressionable types, or truth is itself speculative at best and seldom really known, for do not as many people who view an accident report back that many separate, independent stories, with but the slightest resemblance one to another? Nevertheless, it seems unlikely she would have lost her maidenhead whilst living there, considering both the circumstances and her grotesque appearance. As for those who latterly came forward to lay claim as being first to distend her hymen, all may be discounted as the ravings of lost, lonely souls hungry for the fifteen
minutes Andy7 promised, pressed into service and abetted by soulless scribes. EDNA’s first employment was in a Woolworth’s8. It lasted a week. The store was soon flooded with complaints of frightened babies. And then there had been the graffiti on the building’s face, especially the one in threefoot tall red letters that proclaimed: 9
DARWIN LIED FOR YOUR SINS! Such obviously Bolshie agitprop10 convinced the Woolworth’s bigwigs EDNA was a liability and she was forced to turn in her tunic. EDNA soon thereafter became an habitué of the street, a regular at the bread lines. Then the Miracle occurred. Walking along the Boulevard Extraordinaire11, dejected and depressed, her head sagging forward, her eyes reading the sidewalk, her knuckles dragging the ground, EDNA heard someone call her name. “Hey, you!” She turned to face the voice’s owner, fully expecting to be spat upon, and was instead greeted with the sight of a tall, prodigious man wearing two vests, a porkpie hat from which sprouted a chicken father (red), hobnailed boots (one red one blue), checked pants and a U.S. Naval officer’s greatcoat. A bull-
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whip was coiled and attached to his belt, along with several as yet unidentified mechanical doohickeys. Through the parting of his bulging shirt (the vests were necessarily unbuttoned) a cavernous, pasty omphalous12 could be seen. “Yes?” (As it happened, EDNA had the most amazing voice. It was balanced precariously between provocative and sexy. It was sweet and yet knowing. It was lilting and musical. It was a voice that could— and often did—still the song of birds. With a few words, EDNA could calm enraged animals. Over the telephone, she could seduce any man who ever lived.) “Yes?” The portly, preposterously attired man was aghast at the sound of her voice. Fluted. Mellifluous. Canorous. Eisteddfod. He was Odysseus lashed to the mast, the wax melting in his ears. He was Pan enamored of Syrinx. He was Stendhal13 standing before the David.
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Obviously agog, he made an ostentatious execution of a European bow, then set to twiddling his mustachios. This effort required both hands, as his mustachios, which described two sixes back-to-back, fell well below the length of his chin. (They were, in fact, if stretched to their maximum length, well over
a foot long, each side. But this is inessential information.) Finally, after a lengthy pause, during which EDNA had begun to lose hope, he said, “Hew hare no reptile, hare hugh my zweet?” “No more than you are a gentleman,” had huffed EDNA by way of reply. Despite her pinched features and simian nose, it was obvious to the portly gent he had wounded her pride. She spun on her heels—no mean feat when considering the length of her arms—and began to grow smaller with distance. The man halted her with a single command. “Halt!” EDNA froze in her tracks; it was as if someone had pierced her heart with a bicycle spoke. Slowly she turned, and this is when she produced a smile. The cracks in her chin fluttered; her rheumy eyes glistened; a cloud of blackheads scudded; a lunar landscape of zits (both incandescent and recrudescent) undulated. The man again cried out. “Halt!” He squinted throughout his lengthy examination of her in the hope that
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this technique might mitigate her haggish plug-ugliness. Her ante-pulchritude. Her Gorgonesque deformity. “Hugh hare naught run hov zee meel,” he suggested, in a vaguely European accent. EDNA narrowed her own eyes. “You smartin’ off at me, buster?” With a swoop of his headgear, he replied thus: “Bermit me to hintroduce zelf. Hai ham Hizzlefizzle14 von Neustater hov zee Lichtenstein von Neustaters, howner and hoperator hov zee Leetle Lichtenstein Lechery Shoppe hon hupper Broadvay, God Bless Hamerica. N’cest-pas?” EDNA cringed—this man was a moral leper! Zounds! Her mind reeled. Carnal knowledge was his byword, and standing even this close to him caused her severe adrenal agitation and a rising fear of algolagnial15 contagion. “Away with you, you sexual zany!” she cried, her ears now fluttering in syncopation with her chin.
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(Several passersby still live and for a fee will testify to the day’s events. Says Louella Bandini, of Sassafras, Ill., “It was weird, you know? I mean, they was standin’ there, she holdin’ up this golden cross, an’ spittin’ at the fat dude, an’ all the time he was zippin’ and unzippin’ his boots…can I go to the hospital, now?”)
EDNA fell into the “leaping Bear” stance taught her by the PPHIBG’s janitor, one Morris Dufonski16, quondam K’ung Fu world title champ and eighth degree belt holder, who had been latterly ousted from competition for his propensity to carry a Lugar and shoot to death those opponents who beat him. Hizzlefizzle himself assumed the “Crane” position—both lethal crouches—which EDNA instantly recognized and caused her to hail her assailant as, at least combatively, an equal. Overwhelmed by his outré mannerisms, she finally consented to attend a séance in his company, followed by a Romanesque debauch and a turkey on rye with a bottle of slivovitz17. They were wed in the following Spring, the one following the Winter they were in that had followed the Fall that had been preceded by a Summer, depending on where you began. Hizzlefizzle, who had battened considerably and well off the pigeons who paid good money to watch badly-photographed scenes of near-obscene nudity between horses and women of various ethnic identities, among other things, remanded his new bride into the hands of Dr. Thurgmond P. Reichenbach18, of the hinterlands of Bolivia, an expert in skingrafting and recovering lampshades. In hardly any time at all, he had EDNA’s face wrapped extensively in gauze, much to the relief of his goosestepping staff. Then came the surgery and, when the healing was done—voila!
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EDNA was somewhat less ugly than before. Sixteen operations later, EDNA surpassed everyone’s expectations vis-a-vis feminine pulchritude. She now possessed a pert, upturned nose, moonlight blue eyes, and skin as smooth as rose petals and the color of alabaster19. She divorced Hizzlefizzle in the fall. That’s the one that was anteceded by the summer that followed the former fall of their betrothal. The money she acquired from the dissolution of their union was so great that she soon thereafter enrolled in Hermione Pluterguild’s School for Etiquette and Sexual Conquest. There, she quickly acquired superb table manners and an impressive collection of Alpaca sweaters20. Not to mention the amour of Hermione’s eighth husband, Filbert Pluterguild, a sixty-ish septuagenarian with a camel-like penchant for spitting and possessor of as many oil wells as Carter has liver pills21. On his deathbed, several weeks after separating from his wife of 83 years, as he lay dying in the Paris apartment he had shared with his new lover for three full weeks, his last words were reported to have been: “Oh, my God…those arms…oh, my God…”.22 KW147
Now with her own retinue of servants and surgeons, EDNA’s next conquest was K. P. Goodfellow, owner of Cambridge and Oxford and large bits of
Zaire. They were wed on the weekend after they met at the Florence Club in downtown Dayton, Ohio, which he also owned, as well as other bits of the state. But the union was annulled to the tune of $30 million when she discovered he preferred bananas to The Other Thing. EDNA was now worth eight hundred million dollars, AT. After Taxes.23 Then the scandal hit. EDNA, who preferred to sleep nude upon an under-inflated tractor tire, had been photographed in this lurid position by a certain member of her staff, a sexual scalawag who afterwards shared the stories of her adventures (for money!) with the world. The most amazing thing Uncle Joe and Auntie Harriet learned from the checkout stand tabs had to do with the variety of previously unsupposed positions that became possible when one’s hands reached one’s toes.24 Within months, models in such magazines as FUSE and BRISTLE and PORN AGAIN and LEATHER LEADER’S DIGEST were featuring their long, painfully altered arms, expensively lengthened by none other than Dr. Thurgmond P. Reichenbach. As the world—not then engaged in any distracting wars—fell prey to the innermost details of EDNA’s unseemly and sordid existence, EDNA by degrees grew listless and camoused. Then she became despondent.
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And finally chapfallen and umbilicate.25 For, despite all her brief alliances and even briefer dalliances—none, alas, had been for love. In that one aspect, she had failed in her life’s quest. She had supposed the world crazy enough in potentia to possess amongst its billions of souls one insane enough to love her as she was. But now she found herself no longer as she had been back when good old Hizzlefizzle had unzipped his boots in plain sight on the sidewalk. Those days, like her sex drive, were spent and behind her. How she longed for the time she sent little children crying to their mums! How she wished she had never stepped foot on this path of hedonism that led to her sybaritic26 end! Despite her newfound beauty and her bottomless trove of cash, love eluded her completely. EDNA thereafter, as everyone knows, disappeared. A note was discovered glued to a chiffonier donating it, along with her eight hundred millions (which were inside the chiffonier) to the World Without Hiccups Society.27 Her last words: “Love don’t come cheap.”28 An unsubstantiated report had her running naked through a rainforest in Burma,29 her knuckles scoring troughs in the moist earth.
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FOOTNOTES: 1) An anagram is a type of word play (ana—“again” and graphos—“write”). The result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase in order to create new words using the same letters, anagrams often are expressed in the form of an equation, thus: EDNA = DENA, or earth = heart. Isn’t this thrilling? It gets harder. Here’s a well-know one: roll in the hay = thrill a honey. There are people who do this sort of thing. Sit around day after day. Sometimes, when the subject and its anagram result in a complete sentence, a tilde is used, hence: semolina~is no meal. There are rules for everything. And, as with everything that has rules, there is usually some sort of hoary past. Ancient Kabbalists, fond of asserting such gibberish as “secret mysteries woven in the numbers of letters,” were quite keen on the things. The ancient Romans called the art of divining anagrams “ars magna”. Coincidentally “ars magna” is an anagram for anagrams. (Jim Morrison = Mr. Mojo Risin on L.A.Woman) 2) Dulles (1888-1959) served under Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and had just a terribly lot to do with the whole Cold War Thing. Here’s another quote to give a better flavor of the times: “There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction.” He advocated a very militaristic saber rattling-ish stance against all things perceived Communist, Communistic or Communist-related, or derived. In fact, he launched a veritable Holy War on the philosophy of Communism, on the very idea of anything not-American. He supported the French in their little imbroglio in Indochina, the one we later grew so fond of and that caused so many students to roam the streets bearded, braless and with maps to Canada in their VW vans. Another example: “I wouldn’t attach too much importance to these student riots. I remember when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, I used to go out and riot occasionally.” People like this are still running the world. 3) Yes, well this opens up a can of worms, doesn’t it? Obviously (it is obvious, isn’t it?), semordnilap is an anagram of palindromes, but this brings up the whole question of what exactly is a palindrome, and why is it mentioned here? It could simply not have been
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mentioned at all, but there it is, mentioned, and more than that, anagrammed. First, as to what it is: a palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units (such as a strand of DNA) that has the property of reading the same in either direction (the adjustment of punctuation and spaces between words is generally permitted). The word “palindrome” comes from the Greek palin “back” and dromos “way.” And yes, there is a hoary past and so on, the Greeks, the Romans and on and on. I could adduce examples for you until night falls, or rises, as the case may be. Only a few should suffice: civic reads the same in both directions, as does was it a cat I saw? Some palindromes use words as units rather than letters: You can cage a swallow, can’t you, but you can’t swallow a cage, can you? The first rule of palindromes is this: you must be very clever. The second rule (if there is one,) is probably: you must have plenty of time on your hands, preferably be unemployed, likely be unemployable and, of course, still living with your parents. Unless you happen to be “Weird Al” Yankovic. In his album, Poodle Hat, he included a song called Bob that is composed entirely of rhyming palindromes. I believe he still lives with his parents. Here is a computer program written entirely in C Code by Brian Westley for the 1987 International Obfuscated C Code Contest: type ‘a elbatum = ‘a ;; type lol = bool ;; type pop = int ;; type b = { mutable lol : lol elbatum } ;; type i = { mutable pop : pop elbatum } ;; fun erongi lol pop n -> pop.lol <- let nuf = erongi ; fun erongi lol pop n -> pop.lol ; ignore n in erongi ; lol.pop <- n pop lol ignore nuf ; ignore = fun tel -> lol.pop <- n pop lol ignore nuf ;;
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But there’s more. Palindromic motifs can be and are found in most genomes, or sets of genetic instructions. However, the meaning of palindrome in the context of genetics is slightly modified. Since the DNA is formed by two paired strands of nucleotides, and the nucleotides always pair in the same way (Alanine (A) with Thymine (T), Cytosine (G) with Guanine (G)), a (single-stranded) sequence of DNA
is said to be a palindrome if it is equal to its complementary sequence read backwards. The sequence ACCTAGGT is palindromic because its complement is TGGATCCA. Get it? Also, some philosophers suspect a palindromic relationship between astrophysical-biological evolution and the experiencing beings in it. The issue is related with ascertaining if Nature is an instrument (i.e. merely a means) and otherwise devoid of any value, instead of having intrinsic value (i.e., an end in itself ); likewise, if sentient beings are merely a means (one to entropize Nature faster, but cf. supra., etc.), or possess any intrinsic value whatsoever. So, either the whole set of empirically-found realities, or facts, makes sense in both directions (palindromic), or sense can be ascribed to such a set by reading it in one single direction only, as one would a written (non-palindromic) sentence. A single direction means reading Nature in a classic, materialist/idealist sense, while reading it in both directions means a mirror or reciprocal functionalization. In either case, both realities (mind-possessing living creatures, and astrophysical-biospheric evolution) uses for its own ends the reality that uses it as a means. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? What’s at stake you might ask? The answer would be—everything. The possibility of ascertaining whether conscious beings are worthier than non-conscious Nature depends on if axiological (values, or meanings) readings ascribing a sense to what is found going on in Universe can be obtained in both directions. (And you thought a rose was a rose was a rose, right?) Finally, as to the second question, that is why palindromes are mentioned here at all, when they fairly well could have been dispensed with, the answer is—because. 4) Bela Lugosi the actor, not the Balkan politician. This is the guy who portrayed Count Dracula, not the chocolate cereal guy. He was in numerous horror movies, not Sesame Street. He was married a lot and often, but had only one child, Bela Lugosi, Jr. Imagine how many lunches that bought. He was born Be’la Ferenc Dezso Blasko in Hungary, back in 1882. Yes, that Lugosi, the friend of Ed Wood. An apocryphal story has Vincent Price saying to Peter Lorre at Lugosi’s funeral, “Do you think we ought to drive a stake through his heart, just to be sure?” 5) For those of you whose lives have been debilitated by a surfeit of television and a lack of a classical education, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient and Modern Worlds (beginning with the Ancient) are: The Colossus of Rhodes; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon;
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The Great Pyramid of Giza (this is the oldest Wonder and the only one still remaining); the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Mausoleum at Helicarnassus. Counterpoint these with the Seven Modern Wonders: Itaipu Dam in Brazil/Paraguay; the Netherlands North Sea Protection Works Project; Panama Canal; the English/French Chunnel; the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada; the Empire State Building (yes, there are now taller buildings, but had many had King Kong fall off them?) and, last but never least, the Golden Gate Bridge. Imagine being compared to any one of these! To be considered the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World! What a prodigy! What an accolade! Unless, like EDNA, the mantle settles on your humbled shoulders because you happen to be amazingly ugly. 6) When they miss us we shall be Well afloat, Dancing gaily o’er the sea In a boat! While the breezes from above Carry whispers of our love, And are singularly free What they quote! When an island comes in sight We will land, For we’ll run the vessel right On the sand; Then we’ll leave our fairy ship, And across the surf I’ll skip, If my lover holds me tight By the hand O my own and my adored! To some island unexplored Let us fly across the blue and sunny sea! Population only two Shall I weary first of you, Or will you, my love, grow weary first of me? We shall see! We shall see! KW153
On that golden Grecian isle We shall stay, Making love in classic style Day by day! If my grammar should be weak
When I worship him in Greek, Yet my heart knows all the while What to say! Then we’ll build a house for two Nice and dry, For it won’t be always blue In the sky; And we’ll live in figs and grapes Served in many ways and shades! Oh, you don’t know what we’ll do — He and I! O my own and my adored! To some island unexplored Let us fly across the blue and sunny sea! Population only two Shall I weary first of you, Or will you, my love, grow weary first of me? We shall see! We shall see! 7) Reference here is to Andy Warhol, a sort-of artist/conman. He famously once claimed that “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” He also said: “I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is ‘In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.’” Of course, you can see the difference. And then there was: “I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.” But my personal favorite remains, “When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.” Ah, the life of an artist. It’s the only life for me! 8) F.W. (for Frank Winfield) Woolworth, founded in 1911, was among the first five-and-ten-cent stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents (hence the name), undercutting the prices of local merchants (an early version of Wal-Mart). It was also the first store to put merchandise out for shoppers to touch before making a purchase. Prior to this, customers presented the clerk with a list of items which were kept behind counters. The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. The son of a farmer, F.W. actually aspired to be a merchant. In 1910 F. W. commissioned architect Cass Gilbert to design his new corporate HQ, a 60 story skyscraper that was, for a time, the tallest building in the world. This was changed in 1930 when the Chrysler Building opened its doors for business. Woolworth’s building’s splendor
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and resemblances with European Gothic cathedrals caused the Rev S. Parkes Cadman to call it a Cathedral of Commerce during its opening ceremony. Ah, commerce. Ah, Christianity. And what of those merchants in the Temple? 9) Charles Darwin, known to his intimates as Chuck, is buried at Westminster Abbey alongside a bunch of other famous white dudes. He is probably best known as the father of ten children, after having married his cousin, Emma. I had a cousin I was hot for when I was a teenager, but my mother told me I couldn’t ever marry her because we were related. I couldn’t explain to her, because she was my mother, that I did not want to marry her (my cousin, not my mother), I only wanted to have sex with her (again, for clarity’s sake, my cousin and not my mother). Maybe one day Chuck woke up, put on his glasses, looked at what he’d done, and it occurred to him he wasn’t supposed to have married his cousin, either. So he sat down and, in his spare time (he was a professional naturalist, so he was severely underemployed), scribbled (for this was in the day when people were so marvelously educated it seemed each and every one of them could write; for example, look at all the military men who returned from the carnage that won them battle ribbons, to write voluminously and in great detail all about how they missed their men, the smell of their sweat, their grunts at hard labor, and all the other swell things that go with that choice of professions, unless of course one doesn’t actually choose one’s profession so much as it is chosen for one genetically which, long way round the barn, brings us to—) The Descent of Man, followed up by Selection in Relation to Sex (a title no doubt chosen by his publisher since Chuck’s first effort had not enjoyed brisk sales), and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. So you can see how marrying so close to the trunk of his family tree might have had an influence on his choice of subject matter. One wonders—had he chosen perhaps more wisely, or used some sort of prophylactic—might he not have scored as one of his century’s better crime writers, a la Conan Doyle? As it happened, his influence—outside the crime genre, that is—was still rather broad, and today still serves as a flashpoint for certain sorts of minds who are prone to vicious screeds, vituperative expositions, Bible thumping (King James version), and who generally express a deep-seated need for control, albeit not self. 10) I just love the intimate juxtaposition of these two words, KW155 don’t you? Always fun to throw into a cocktail conversation, or to mutter in a dark manner as one passes a group of picketeers on the street. Some chap is buzzing right along, expressing his thoughts on Ugandan economic development, or what price HIV, when you lock his eyes with yours
and utter, “Bolshie agitprop”, then stalk away with one of those cartoon black clouds in your wake. I mean, really, what sort of repost is possible? For that growing segment of you who are probably not reading this anyway, ‘Bolshie’ refers to the not much longer word, Bolshevik, which itself means “majority faction”, something of an oxymoronicism if there ever was one. Bolsheviks referred to themselves as the “Marxist Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party”. They were opponents of both Russian traditional statehood (read: Czar) and the Russian Orthodox Church (read: God). Besides the Bolsheviks there were the Mensheviks. Even though to our ironic smartass ears this sounds something like a ski team in a Mad magazine sketch, in reality it means nothing more or less than “minority”; hence, the Mensheviks were the minority of the majority faction, for which no real word has even been coined. After the split, in 1917, a dude named Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, and the Bolshies became more popularly known as the Communist Party. As for agitprop…it’s a slang word applied to any form of media that tries to peddle opinion, especially if its aim is to convince people (read: sheep) through agitating their minds with highly emotional language (read: biased, self-righteous blather). Just to be erudite, the word evolved not from the popularly suspected contraction of agitational propaganda, but shortened from that self-same Communist Party’s term, otdel agitatsii i propagandy, i.e., Department for Agitation and Propaganda, later renamed, perhaps more mellifluously, certainly more obscurely, as the Ideological Department, making it sound rather like it belongs in the Platonic Shopping Mall. 11) Memphis, Tenn. 12) Obviously, from the hobnailed boots, it was the Fab Sixties when this took place. The reference to Omphalous is an interesting one, and leads as we shall see in a moment to the philosophical dead end of “Last Thursdayism”. But first a word about the meaning of the word Omphalous. It means navel. Umbilicus. At the Shrine of Delphi, a navel-shaped stone was believed to designate the center of the world. This brings us to the so-called Omphalos Hypothesis. Named after the title of an 1857 book by a forgotten fellow—so we shall remember him here, if only for a moment—Philip Henry Grosse (for whom the Grosse Fugue had not been named), in which he argued (with what degree of conviction it is impossible to say, not having read his book) that, in order for the world to be ‘functional’ God must have created earth with mountains fully formed, trees with their growth rings, Adam & Eve with pubic hair, navels, nails and
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PMS, and that therefore (logical leap here) no evidence that we can see of the presumed age of the earth or of universe can be taken seriously (read: reliably). This argument has been extended by deeper thinkers (yes, they are a species of creationists, for creationists do evolve) to the property of light, claiming that it (light, that is) only appears to travel from far-off stars. These are perhaps the same ones who believe A&E had no navels (which, coincidentally, may very well be the case for cloned humans, another form of Adams and Eves, but we’ll leave that for another time). The philosophic problem that arises from this is powerful, if a bit silly. Since the hypothesis is posited upon the conceit that apparent age is just that—apparent—and therefore an illusion, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the world and everything in it was created perhaps only minutes ago. Any memories one may have of before times were created in situ , in the same fashion as was the fossil record. This is whence the expression “Last Thursdayism” derives, since everything we know could as well have been created last Thursday as 50 billion years ago. British philosopher/logician and political activist, Bertrand Russell—an eminently rational white dude—wrote the following in reference to Grosse’s idea: ”There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.” (Analysis of Mind, 1921) Hence the inescapable fact that we are born in mystery, we live in mystery and we die in mystery. 13) For brevity’s sake we shall assume you are schooled in the stories of Odysseus, and Pan’s love for Syrinx. But how many these days are familiar with the French author, Stendhal? Or much less the Stendhal Syndrome? I thought not. Simply put: the Stendhal Syndrome is a psychosomatic (what an ugly word!) condition that results in accelerated heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and hallucination when exposed to—art. Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) described just such an experience in his book, Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio, which he wrote in 1817. Florentine art has a history of making people dizzy. Has something to do with all the curly-cues. The syndrome was named by one Graziella Magherini (the KW157 Magherini Syndrome just didn’t sound right), in 1979. 14) Of completely no value is this: there are no anagrams for Hizzlefizzle. 15) I have been accused in the past of being unnecessarily sesquipedalian and macroverbumsciolist. This could not be
further (or farther) from the truth. I am very circumspect in my choice of language. Take, in this instance, for instance, the use of the word algolagnial. It is based on the Greek αλγοσ = “pain” and λαγεια = “lust.” Thus, algolagnic is the paraphilia of deriving pleasure from pain. What does paraphilia mean? Hang on. Let’s finish up with algolagnic first. I thought it relevant to add that algolagnia is not the same as masochism, since algolagnia is simply an enjoyment of pain and does not require the subtler stimulus of domination, submission or humiliation that go into the packet we like to think of as masochism. Paraphilia, on the other hand, is derived from παρα = “besides, or around”, and ϕιλια = “love,” and means sexual arousal in response to situations (or large, bumpy vibrating objects) which may interfere with the capacity for affectionate sexual reciprocation. This does not, of course, make it wrong. 16) Another name that has been lost to us in the mists of time. Morris Dufonski was born Morrie Duchamp (8 lbs. 9 oz.) in Dexter, Ga., USA, on or about 1909 or 1912 and in the merry month of May. Hence, he was a Taurus. He stood fully stretched at 5’ 3” and weighed various weights throughout his life, both naked and fully clothed. He was, according to legend, for that is all we have left for us upon which to gnaw, something of a runt. One of those famous 90 lb. weaklings whose face is continuously covered with sand kicked there by a string of bullies who had nothing better to do that afternoon. Morrie was a lonely child and self-taught martial artist until WWII sent him packing to the S. Pacific where, upon being demobbed, he remained for a while, soaking up culture and surface radiation, until he felt reasonably assured he could return to the States and kick some white butt. The rest, as they say, is history (history being a nightmare from which we are all still trying to awaken.) Biography, of course, is riotous with confections, and one would hate to lay claim to the omniscience many of the nasty fellows who write such things claim. Nevertheless, we have it on good authority that Morrie, besides being a psychopath and highly trained killer—thanks to the US Army—was also, perhaps not unlike most men, a repressed homosexual. But, also not unlike most men, so unable to express his inner longings that he found it necessary to channel his frustrations into his own unique form of creativity—i.e., killing people with his bare hands. Or with a Lugar. Which he would also use with his bare hands, unless it was cold and then he wore gloves. It was shortly after he had been sentenced to 20 years
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in Sing-Sing for impersonating an airship in public that we find him employed by the PPHIBG. As an escaped felon he was rather cheap labor for Phyllis. 17) This intoxicating beverage, also known variously as rakia, or plum brandy, originated in the Balkan Peninsular. The name derives from the South Slavic word for plum, sliva. Production is concentrated in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, the Czech republic, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia—in other words, everywhere you might envision men wearing long fur coats, jackboots, enormous ZZ Top-like beards and giving imperious glares at Western girls in skintight jeans. It is the national drink of Serbia and Montenegro, and comes in pretty round bottles. You must be 21 to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages, Lord knows why. 18) Didn’t you think Gregory Peck was miscast in The Boys from Brazil? 19) Think Myrna Loy. 20) Highly prized by ingénues and cross-dressers alike, these sweaters come from the fleece of camel-like ungulates called Vicuna pacos or, more popularly, Alpaca. “Alpaca” is the name given to two distinct things: the wool from the Peruvian alpaca, as well as the style of fabric manufactured therefrom, also known as mohair or Icelandic sheep wool It comes in 22 vibrant, natural flavors and no, alpaca are not the same as llamas, although both animals, as with all camelidae, enjoy the unpleasant habit of spitting. 21) As an aside to some of our younger readers, if such a thing exists, this reference is to a quaint time in the heritage of our country, a bucolic XIXth Cent., not long after the Civil War and continuing right up to the Big One (WWII) when medicine was still (still!) in its infancy—i.e., before the genome had been mapped—and people were (still!) gullible and more than a little naïve. This was the heyday of so-called patent medicines. In those days, such products existed as “Pink Pills for Pale People” (a very big seller for the Civil War, which had not been named that as yet), and “Carter’s Little Liver Pills”. This latter is, obviously, whence our reference was drawn. Carter’s Little Liver Pills were many and varied, and were guaranteed to improve digestion, pollinate the KW159 peter, palliate neuralgia and sleeplessness (of which there must have been a lot after that noisy Civil War), prevent blindness (yes, blindness), resolve gout (whatever that is), mitigate sciatica, act as a rebarbative for rheumatism, darken sallow complexions, lighten
monthly discharge, restore locomotor ataxia (rampant in the XIXth Cent., along with TB), as well as partial paralysis, St. Vitus’ Dance (whatever happened to that?), as well as mop up the after effects of la grippe, soothe heart palpitations (arrhythmia), calm La Tourete’s syndrome, fade fistula, heal hernias, abate bladder infections, alleviate apoplexy, eradicate blackheads, rid ringworm and hooknose, not to mention cure dandruff and saturnine or phlegmatic personality disorders (these were pre-Prozac days), mend malaria and manic depression and even harness chronic masturbation. Unfortunately, the formulae for these pills were lost in the hubbub of the Second World War (WWII), so medicine was forced to start over and has been foundering ever since. 22) This is, of course, key to understanding EDNA’s allure, the major source of her charm, as it were. For, despite the amounts of radical rhinoplasty she may have undergone, or the numerous skin grafts from her derriere, the one item she retained from birth was her greatly (and naturally, unlike her epigone) exaggerated arms. This not being a prurient narrative, we must needs leave it to readers’ imaginations exactly what the wondrous applications of such lengthy appendages might be. 23) In 1862, in an effort to support the War Between the North and the South, Congress enacted the first income tax law. It was a graduated tax, so that a person earning from $600 to $10,000 a year paid at a rate of 3%, and anyone who made more than $10,000 paid more. This was, BTW, when the so-called inheritance tax made its debut. This tax was eliminated in 1872. The Supreme Court actually decided, around the late 1890s, that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states uniformly. But then, in 1913, along came the 16th Amendment. That, of course, made the income tax a permanent fixture…just in time for the First World War (i.e., the First War to End All wars). 24) Cf. 22 supra. 25) The basic idea behind Hedonism is that all actions can be measured by how much pleasure they produce or, conversely, how little pain results. Philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham established Hedonism through their critical assessment of the concept of Utilitarianism. (Utilitarianism can be summed up thus: all action should be directed towards achieving the greatest good/hap-
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piness for the greatest number of people.) There are 2 schools of Hedonism: 1) Bentham’s approach was quantitative; i.e., the value of a pleasure = intensity of pleasure x duration, while 2) Mill’s approach was qualitative; i.e., higher levels of pleasure are better than lower levels of pleasure. He believed simpler beings, such as pigs (Johnny loved pigs), can access pleasure easier than we since they don’t “see” relational events, consequences, etc.; hence, unlike us, they can roll about in mud endlessly, and eat until the excretion is above their knees. As for we humans—well, obviously we’re mired in the mud of mentation and haven’t time for rolling about lazily in feces (except metaphorically). But what, you may ask, has this to do with our story? To this I would answer Nothing, then move on to addressing Sybaris, a city of Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) on the Gulf of Taranto. This was an Achaean (think: ancient Greek) colony founded about 720 BC (the Spring and Autumn Period in China), back when the area (unlike today) was fertile, fat and fine. Sybaris became proverbial throughout Greece for its magnificence and luxury. Such was it that, throughout the VIth Cent., no other Hellenic city could compare to it. Inner turmoil between democrats and republicans (lesson here!) led to an internecine war that destroyed the city utterly. So, while being a Hedonist may be considered a philosophical position, as well as a heck of a lot of fun, being a sybarite is pretty much the same as being dead. 26) Recurring theme. This word is used in an associative manner, thus: umbilicus means naval (omphalous); a navel is concave (inwardly shaped), and therefore depressed. Many might say this is a mere contrivance, and something of a stretch. I say it is a way of energizing language. By providing old words with new meanings not usually associated with them, the old words profit in several ways, in the main by being used rather than sleeping within the pages of moldering dictionaries, but more importantly by bringing new imagery to pedestrian concepts, in this case “depression.” So next time you’re feeling blue, try using “umbilicate,” as in this sentence: “Hon, I love you but I’m feeling a bit umbilicate tonight.” 27) Annually, some 30 people or so will die horrible deaths from uncontrolled hiccups (hiccoughing). The KW161 medical term, singultus, comes from the Latin, singult, translated roughly as “trying to catch your breath while sobbing is like having sex while stirring an oxtail stew.” Hiccoughs lasting more than 48 hours are
described by doctors as protracted. Hiccoughs lasting more than a month are termed by these same healthcare professionals as intractable. While hiccoughs that persist more than several months are considered to be contractable to most small carnivals or sideshows specializing in bizarre human behavior. The longest attack in recorded history lasted 60 years, but was finally cured when the patient died. Hippocrates and Celsus associated hiccoughs with liver inflammation. They were too early in the history of humankind to take advantage of Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Galen believed hiccoughs were due to violent emotions arising from the stomach. (Apparently, the ancients were unfamiliar with flatulence.) Protracted cases of this debilitating and socially offensive disease occur more often in men than women and can develop at any age, even in utero. Many instances of hysterical hiccoughing are never resolved, but several psychogenic speculations have been adduced: they include, shock, fear, conversion disorders, personality disorders and malingering. This would explain why I always started hiccoughing when assigned chores as a child. If you or any of your friends, associates, past lovers, relatives or lien holders know of anyone who suffers from this potentially tragic disorder, please, step up to the plate and help. World Without Hiccups is a non-profit charitable organization that is completely tax deductible. Please send your checks or Money Orders (PayPal is also accepted) to: Reverend Bob, P.O. Box 023, Delworthy/ Provo, Utah, America, and receive a virtual backslap. 28) “The tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony” (Richard II, II.1.5-6, William Shakespeare, or whoever) The last words of famous men/women linger in the air and help us guide our lives as we move among the shadows of this multi-dimensional plane we insist upon calling “the world”. Take, for instance, the last words of American cinema idol, James Dean, who died violently in a car crash when he slammed his Porsche into another car: “That guy’s gotta stop…he’ll see us.” Then there’s the chilling final words from that famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, “KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low.” Or how about Thomas de Mahay, Marquis de Favras, who plotted to help Louis XVI escape during the French revolution. He was handed his official death sentence as he was being led to the scaffold. Reading it over, his last words were: “I see you have made three spelling mistakes.” One of my personal favorites
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has always been the last words of the stage actor, Edmund Gwenn, who reportedly said: “Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.” The German Philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Hegel: “Only one man every understood me. And he didn’t really understand me.” Conrad Hilton, the Hotelier, as he lay dying, was asked is he had any wisdom to leave the world. He replied: “Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.” When Timothy Leary died, his last words to help urge us along with our lives was this: “Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Yeah.” Many people doubt the accuracy of Nostrodamus’ predictions. But who could doubt him after hearing what he said the day before he died: “Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here.” Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise d’Etoiles Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV, when she died, called on God to “Wait a second.” Then she quickly rouged her cheeks. But the best is yet to come. General John Sedgwick, a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, while at the battle of Wilderness, peered over a parapet at his troops. His officers urged him to take cover from sniper fire. His last words before being shot in the head: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—” 29) Modern day Myanmar.
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not a blank page
“
The nature of God is a circle in which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” —Empedocles
“Cliché is the armature of Universe.” —Alfred Jarry
The future is likely to be less traumatic for you if you accept that there can be truth without absolutes science without objectivity morality without rules society without uniform values and religion without a church
Zeno’s Paradox
or How to Stop Suffering and Learn to Love Aplomb Zeno was sitting one day on the wooden dock beside the ferry terminal unpeeling a burrito, a bandage on his head. Seated beside him was Phylactery Jones stretching his neck and scratching the stubble on his prognathous face. “Master,” asked PJ, to no one in particular, “why is there something instead of nothing?” “Who says there’s something?” responded Zeno, a smear of mustard on his ragged smile. “Ah,” Postulator Juniperbush responded, heaving a heavy sigh, “that is bloody unfathomable.” There was silence amongst them whilst Zeno masticated. Again, interrupting the Silence, Mankind’s natural state, Passionfruit Jodhpurs asked, “Is not the material world an anchor to our flight?” Licking his dirt-impregnated fingertips, Zeno astonished his follower with words arranged thus: “Only consciousness of the material world frees us from it.” “But how can that be?” wondered Zeno’s acolyte, his brow ploughed with furrows as if a fresh field in spring. “Is not attachment the very trouble of it all?” “Do you want my pickle?” responded Zeno, pinching the limp green gherkin fruit (Cucumis sativus) between soiled right thumb and index finger. “Ah,” came the enlightened reply.
“Every joke is a tiny revolution.” —George Orwell
Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick Review the Latest Hollywood Blockbuster SHAMAN 2: THE ASTANGA STRANGLER Followed by an Interview with the Director, TRANKAS DROOKING KW180
W: Fuck, man. N: Yeah, fuck. W: What a fuckin’ pimp flick. N: Pumped me hard. W: You’d have to be a rug-munchin’ asshole not to dig this shit. N: Fuckin’ A. W: Did you see that bitch’s fuckin’ rack? Shit, man, why don’t they bring back 3-D? N: Yeah…whatever. W: You don’t fuckin’ know what 3-D is, do you, shithole? N: Fuck I don’t, duckwad. W: You mean dickwad, asshole. whore. N: Fuck you. W: Uh-uh—fuck you. N: Oh, that’s a clever riposte.
Fuckin’ illiterate
W: Retard. N: I know you are but what am I? W: No, you are. N: No, you are. W: Not, dipshit. You, dildo. I mean, uh… N: If I’m a dildo, then you’re an infected zit. W: Whath’fuckever. We have to take a pee break while our corporate pimps jack off. When we come back— N: You’d like to come back, wouldn’t you, turkey baster dick? W: —we’ll talk to the director of this dope franchise. Up yours, cock sniffer. N: Oh, yeah? You smelly motherhumpin piece of—
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And so on…
The Meaning of Myth, Mirth & Money or Cantata Castrata
I was a good cop. I liked being a cop. My daddy had been a cop, although not a good one. My grand-daddy had been a cop, I hear a fair one. For all I know my great grand-daddy was a cop, too. Who knows what kind, or if they even had cops in those days.1 In other words, I come from a family of cops. We were brought up poor, but honest, loved, well-fed and with extremely creative corporal punishments. The sad fact is, if I had a son—which, of course, is impossible now—I would want him to be a cop. If I had a daughter, on the other hand, I’d want her to be a massage therapist. The worst day of my life began like any other. The sun came up2, the sky brightened, and the mercury rose. Before noon I knew it would hit over a hundred in the shade in Mojave. But here in Seattle it would be a cool 68º F with a gentle breeze wafting off the beautiful Puget Sound.3 I pulled on my Kevlar™4 underwear and slid into my black Buster Browns.5 Then
I thought better of it and slipped on my pants and shirt as well. I fried up a rasher of bacon and a couple eggs, made some syrupy java and burned some whole wheat sesame toast. Slathering tahini8 on the toast, I fed the eggs and bacon to my blue heeler, Russell (named after Lord Bertrand Russell6, the mathematician). I’m a vegetarian myself, always have been. Actually, not always. Just since I stopped eating lard7. Nor do I drink coffee, stuff kills you. But I do love the smell. I wiped tahini off my chiseled features and poured the syrupy java down the drain. I reminded myself that soon I would have to replace the pipes, as the caffeine appears to be eating through the “O” rings that hold the trap together. Perhaps this is a clue to the Challenger disaster.9 I put on my tie, my shades, my utility belt, my Glock 23®10, and settled my cap onto my burnished head. I slipped a couple of unused Trojans®11 into my pocket, too, because I’m a cop and you never know. I used to love having sex with other human beings in the back of my cruiser. Little did I know, as I stepped out of my run-down second-story walkup in the seedy part of Capitol Hill12, that today would change everything in my life, rearrange my thinking about the meaning of existence, how poodles fit in, and where all my lost socks had gone. Never again would I take life for granted or pour coffee down the drain.
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I unlocked my cruiser and slid inside. Reflexively, my right hand grasped the grip on the 12 gauge Mossberg 50013. I still tingle whenever I recall the sound of a cocking shotgun. It was at times like these, with the Mossberg 500 in one hand and the Glock 23 on my hip, that I most seriously loved being a cop. I pulled out of the drive, nearly knocking over a lezzy14 couple in black with spiked hair and tattoos. I bumped the siren just to make ’em wet their panties. Although I don’t believe lezzies wear panties. Might hamper the spontaneous nature of their relationships. I flipped them off and hit the streets. I needed to bust someone’s chops. Not the lezzies, that’d be too easy. I needed a guy to hit. Someone who could take it. I popped my knuckles in anticipation. Now, in retrospect, that was a wrong thing for me to want to do. Not only because it had the potential to fuck up another human being permanently, but because it pissed someone off bad enough to really want to fuck me up.
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It happened when I was exiting the vehicle. I had dropped my baton into its loop on my belt, and was headed towards a green dumpster where a terrified bum was urinating (I used to love the looks I’d get when they saw me coming. I’m a big guy. Six three, two ten or twenty, all muscle. I make faggots sigh like young girls). That’s when it happened.
I wasn’t expecting a trap. I wish now I had read more Sartre15. I heard the footfall and began to turn when I saw the constellation Cassiopeia16 and thought that was strange, what with the sun out and all. Then it hit me. The taped piece of galvanized pipe. I sagged like a sack of yesterday’s potatoes. Another hit. My arms flew to my head for protection. Through a red haze I could see the first bum moving in. No longer was his face filled with fear or was he peeing. Now he looked like a Miss America finalist who didn’t win. Without the tiara17. Next thing I know I’m coming to and relieved to be alive. You ever have that happen? You know, maybe fall off your Harley18, hit your head, black out for a while? When you finally come to, you check your body over one part at a time— first your toes, then your ankles, then your knees, and so on until you reach your neck. That’s what I did. Went through the drill. I seemed to be OK. Nothing broken. Neck worked. Splitting headache, of course, but that’s what you come to expect from concussions19. Still, something didn’t feel right. I was getting that chill up and down my spine. Things definitely weren’t going the way I wanted. I was strapped to the bumper of my cruiser with my pants pulled down, a ticking bomb hanging from my scrotum20. I think the worst part in these situations is usually the tourists taking pictures. One of the tourists used his cellphone and called 911. The Bomb Squad was alerted and they brought out Wanda the Wonder Dog, a German Shepherd who could sniff
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out a bomb buried under a thousand pounds of elephant shit21. Sure enough, Wanda wagged her tail and set to licking the general location of the explosive device. I have been assured by those who know about such things that bomb dogs are trained to lick explosive devices in order to ascertain their chemical composition. Whatever the reason, it felt good. Next thing I know, I’m looking Captain One-Arm Janssen22 in the face, and he’s got on a scowl that would stop a cement truck. He told me the timer only gave them about three minutes and then the lower extremity of my body would be blown to smithereens (he could never bring himself to use the word disarm). I wasn’t sure what a smithereen was, but I knew I wasn’t interested in finding out the hard way. “What? That’s it?” “Yup,” the Capt. said. “…unless.” “Unless?” This seemed like a reasonable question at the time. “Unless we cut off your balls.”23 “Cut off my—?”
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I could hear some of the Bomb Squad guys giggling. Tourists continued to take pictures. And all the time Wanda was licking furiously, tail wagging like a willow in a windstorm.
“Two minutes,” advised the Capt., glancing at my crotch. Apparently, there was a digital readout on the explosive device that was visible whenever Wanda wasn’t licking. Which wasn’t very often. “Joe’s ready if you are.” Dr. Joseph Sallinger was standing nearby, latex gloves on, scalpel in hand. The latex gloves reminded me of the Trojans in my pocket. I wished at that moment I could start the day over. Knowing what I knew, I would have looked a little harder for someone to punch out. I only had seconds to make up my mind. “OK,” I croaked. “Do it.” The Captain nodded at Joe. One of the guys yanked on Wanda’s leash to get her out of the way. “No time for anesthetic,” the Doc growled as he bent to his task. “This is gonna hurt like hell.” He was right. What a lousy way to lose an erection. And here’s the irony. Turned out the bomb had been defused by all of Wanda’s licking. I guess both me and the bomb have that in common. I tried to stay on the force. I pretended everything was OK. We all did. But
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everything wasn’t OK. starting to happen.
Weird shit was
For one thing, I stopped wanting to bash people. It kinda crept up on me. One day I was bashing this piece of filth’s face into a bloody pulp when in mid-punch I lost interest. In fact, I lost my lunch. After that, I never hit anybody again. Not even perps24 who deserved it. There was other things, too. Like I started wearing sweaters to work. No, not angora like Ed Wood25. Just plain sweaters. Cardigans, mostly. Didn’t want anything to get in the way of my Glock 23. Not that I was ever going to use it again. The boys razzed me pretty hard about the sweater thing, I guess because it was summer when I started wearing them, and really hot out. Then came the hot flashes26. But maybe the weirdest thing was the deeply satisfying sense of calmness that descended upon me. Used to be, at the end of a long shift, I was ready to flip people off for anything, looked forward to knocking back a bottle or two of single malt. Shit, even a red light would send me ballistic. I’d bang on the steering wheel and scream all sorts of obscenities. KW189
But after the “event,” all that changed. Now I ended the day feeling like a feather floating on air. Fit as a fiddle and ready for
love, as the song has it. Calm and collected. Serene. I even smiled and nodded to jaywalkers. I no longer felt hostility towards punked out, tattooed lezzies. Hell, I even started to understand some of the pain gay men have to go through, living in a world filled with prejudice and hatred. One night, sitting alone in my apartment with nothing on the boob tube, I picked up one of my handjob mags27, leafed through it, then tossed it back on the pile. I had an epiphany. I was no longer interested in jerking off. It stared me in the face like an ugly broad daring me to pop her bra strap. At first I panicked. What had been for my entire adult life a daily thing to do was suddenly and irrevocably gone. I had no idea an orchiectomy28 could do all that. Here’s the kicker: after the initial shock, I didn’t give a damn. It was fine. Now I didn’t have to spend every waking minute thinking about pussy. Sometimes just a hunk of ass to sink my hard cock into. But these days my cock doesn’t get hard anymore. Well, hardly ever. Now I use that time for other things. I’ve taken up beekeeping and gardening on the rooftop, and even learned to knit. I stopped watching movies and started watching films. And I stopped watching the boobtube altogether. But the best part is I stopped losing my hair. Not only that, but I started growing some. It looked pretty good, so I decided to let it go long. I had forgotten how wavy it was.
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It’s true my memory isn’t so good as it used to be before I was what the Docs call hypogonadal29. But, so what? I sleep better, my skin is smoother, and my thighs, well, they’re looking good. Obviously, I no longer fit into a testosteronefilled environment like a cop shop. I went through a series of jobs after I quit, from being an undertaker (cried too much), to working a food counter (gave away too much—what are we going to do about the homeless?), to what I’m doing today— selling flowers. I have a cart on Broadway up on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, and it’s a good business, especially with cops stopping by all the time for bouquets. I’ve made a lot of new friends, especially transgendered30 people, both post- and pre-op. I do yoga, and started meditating. I’m even leading a support group for fellow castrati. I was amazed how many of us there are! A couple of us are thinking about writing a book, maybe even making a video.
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So, as you can see, although it’s not something I would have asked for, life after castration ain’t so bad. In fact, it’s led me to believe it’s the things we don’t want that might just be the things we need. It’s opened up my mind to understanding we don’t know dick about anything, not like we think we do, and that science and religion are illusions. Things to do to pass time. And politics! To me, the way I am today, politics is just another form of cruelty to animals. Now I look at the world differently. Now I embrace duality, doubt purposefulness, and remember the long road to freedom takes more than a single step.
What a world it would be if men, after they finished breeding, would have themselves snipped. Peaceful. Serene. And more interesting socks to choose from.
And Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male be not male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness, then you will enter (the Kingdom of Heaven)…” —The Gospel of Thomas31
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FOOTNOTES
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1) In one form of another, there have always been cops. Cop is a shortened form of copper, an English slang reference to the metal used to make policemen’s (Bobbies) badges, or shields. The world police was coined in XVIIIth Cent. France. In Anarchist theory, cops are the force responsible for maintaining and defending the interests of the bourgeoisie (i.e., the fatcats), shoring up the status quo ante; also for protecting private property; also for keeping capital from the dispossessed classes, or proletariat (skinny cats); also for promoting the male dominator, hierarchical form of society; also for enforcing a class-ordered societal structure; also for, creating psychological duress; also for fostering inequality and a general atmosphere of fear. Racism, homophobia and sexism—to name but three—are in the main staunchly supported and promoted by policing agencies worldwide. 2) Sunrise is also often referred to by English speakers as sunup. Sunrise is when the sun appears over the horizon and should never be confused with dawn, the point at which the sky begins to lighten, ending twilight. Both sunrise and sunset are optical illusions caused by the bending of lightwaves that result in the sun appearing to peek over the edge of the earth while it is, in fact, still below the horizon. Buckminster Fuller, the XXth Cent. pantechnicon, theorizer, inventor, architect, champion of William James Sidis, and general all-around wizard, despised the terms as so offensively inaccurate that he replaced them with sunsight and sunclipse. If you’re wondering why the sky is blue, or sunsets are so beautiful, this fact can be “explained” by the socalled Rayleigh Scattering Effect, i.e., the scattering of light (electromagnetic radiation) by smaller particles than light’s wavelength. In other words, teeny tiny particles that are suspended in a medium of a different index of refraction (water droplets) diffuse a portion (approximately 25%) of incident radiation (direct sunlight) in all directions (the sky). For instance, when the sunlight is nearly tangent to earth’s surface, the light path through the atmosphere is so long that most of the blue and yellow spectrum is scattered out, resulting in reddened skies. Here is the scientific formula for a beautiful sunset, or sunclipse:
3) Puget Sound is an arm (sound) of the pacific Ocean. It extends approximately 90 miles south from the
Strait of Juan de Fuca to Olympia, Washington. The Indians of the area used to refer to it in the Lushootseed language, as “Whulge”. Its modern name came from one Peter Puget, who explored its southern end back in 1792. The first settlement, New Market (Tumwater), was settled in 1846. The Sound is a huge, or whulge, saltwater estuary fed by freshwater from the Olympic and Cascade watersheds. A state-run ferry system connects the coastlines of the Sound, as well as all the islands. Unfortunately, the ferries no longer serve alcohol. 4) DuPont Company’s brand name for its polyparaphenylene terephthalamide fiber. It is 5x stronger than the same weight of steel, extremely heat resistant, and decomposes above 400°C without melting. Invented by a woman, Stephanie Kwolek, it was originally intended to replace steel belts in tires. 5) Buster Brown was a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault (The name “Buster” was derived from the then very popular Buster Keaton). The strip holds the distinction of being the first in America to feature a talking dog, Tige. John Bush, a sales director at the Brown Shoe Company, persuaded his superiors to purchase rights to the Buster Brown name. The brand was introduced at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and is still going strong today. 6) Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18721970), British philosopher, logician, mathematician, educator, liberal, socialist, anti-war activist, prophet, humorist, raconteur, philatelist, commentator, comedian, dancer, naval officer, editor, racing buff, synthesizer, woolgatherer, economist, intellectual, poet, sharpshooter, equestrian, Illuminatus, alchemist, writer, humanitarian, Nobel Laureate, essayist, water colorist, polygamist, pacifist, cross-dresser, knitter, savant, wit and damn good cook, was also the creator of these memorable bon mots: “War does not determine who is right. Only who is left.” “The secret to true happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.” “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wise people so full of doubts.” 7) Animal fat produced from rendering the fatty portion of a pig. Although few in First World still eat food cooked in the stuff, it continues to be is used to manufacture soap. It is also the name of a punk group. 8) A paste made from ground up sesame seeds. A major component of hummus, it comes in two varieties, hulled and unhulled, and makes an excellent substitute for peanut butter. 9) This is in reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that occurred on the morning of 28, January, 1986. The shuttle was destroyed 73 seconds into its
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flight because of the failure of an O-ring seal in one of the solid fuel boosters. The Rogers Commission was formed to investigate the matter. Among its panel of scientists and consultant was the famous, infamous and formidable Richard Feynman. Feynman famously demonstrated (on television no less) how the O-rings became less resilient at ice-cold temperatures by dunking part of one into a glass of ice water. He also pointed out the discrepancy between NASA’s management claiming a 1 in 100,000 chance of serious failure, and the engineers claiming only 1 in a 100. Feynman, a brilliant physicist, bongo player and one of the many godfathers of the Atomic Bomb, added greatly to our understanding of quantum electrodynamics and quark theory, for which work he was awarded a Nobel prize (some say he ought to have received two). Something of a practical jokester and wag, he wrote many popular books, and said many imponderable things, to wit: “Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.” “What does it mean, to understand? I don’t know.” “Dear Mrs. Chown, ignore your son’s attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is.” And his last words: “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” 10) Trojan (based on the ancient Greek city of Troy) is a popular brand of prophylactic, or condom (latex or sheepskin), sheath worn on the erect penis. The Trojan company started life as Youngs Rubber Company, begun in the 1920s by Merle Youngs, a conservative, devout Presbyterian farmer. In the 1980s, the company was bought out by Carter Wallace of Carter’s Little Liver Pills (cf. Supra.). Early condoms (“rubbers”) were manufactured from vulcanized rubber; they were thick, smelled of sulphur and kerosene, had leaky seams and were most likely toxic. New technology has improved the condom considerably. The newest® development is Durex Avanti, made from DURON , which is 2x stronger than latex, yet actually thinner. The purchase of condoms in the US was illegal before the 1970s. It is rumored that frequent use of them will make you blind. 11) Police in the US usually carry pistols or sidearms, among which Smith & Wessons, Sig-Sauers and Glock are the most popular. Glock is a defense contractor named after its founder, Gaston Glock, in DeutschWagram, Vienna. The Glock handgun first came into prominence as the Glock 17, a polymer-framed handgun that was essentially a 9mm Luger Parabellum with a 17 round capacity. The most recent version, Glock 23, is currently the single-most popular police sidearm used in the US. Contrary to popular myth, Glock pistols will indeed set off a metal detector, as well as a tired, under-educated, underpaid and generally angry airport
security employee. A full 82% of Glock handguns is metal. The “plastic” bits are actually a dense polymer which is radio-opaque, a fancy way of saying it shows up on X-ray machines. Glocks are simple, contain fewer moving parts than most handguns, and are among the least expensive semi-automatic weapons on the market. 12) Capitol Hill is perhaps the most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, and considered that city’s center for gay life and hip counterculture. No one seems to know why it is named Capitol Hill. One story has it that a real estate developer in 1910 named it to attract the state government to move up from Olympia. Formerly, it had been known as Broadway Hill. 13) The Mossberg 500 is manufactured by O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. The 500 is not a model, but a series of hammerless, pump action repeating shotguns (typically 12 gauge) and is the only shotgun (reputedly) to have passed the US Army’s Mil-Spec 3443E test. This may not be the truth, but it is a good selling point. 14) A generally derogatory name for lesbian. “Lesbian” denotes a homosexual female and may be used as a noun or an adjective. The word derives from Lesbos, a Greek island in the Aegean. There the lyric poet, Sappho, lived and ran a school for girls in the VIth Cent. BC. Many of her poems were about her passion for her students’ bodies. Historical reports of relations between women are sparse. This is in no small part due to the fact most records were kept by men, and men have a tendency to put the best face on things (i.e., lie). Nevertheless, in most Western societies prohibitions against women-to-woman relations have been less strenuous than those against men-to-men. This may be, in part, because men have always been men, no matter when or in what part of the world they may have lived, and men generally are turned on by the thought of two women doing it. In the UK, where male homosexuality was criminalized in the XIXth Cent., lesbianism was left alone. Queen Victoria (so the story goes) refused to sign a bill outlawing the practice, insisting that “…ladies do not do such things.” Alternate terms for lesbians are: dyke, byke, bulldyke, diesel dyke, bulldagger, butch, stone butch, glamour butch, granola dyke, gold star dyke, leather dyke, lipstick lesbian, low femme, PC dyke, soft butch lezzie, tryke, U-hauls, and vagitarian. 15) Jean Paul Sartre was a French stand-up comic who regaled the crowned heads of Europe as well as the uncrowned heads of lower Bohemia. He was a parttime poofter when being a poofter meant Reading Gaol. He was born in Paris, and spoke French fluently. He was not so tall, not at all like Cary Grant, and when he died he remained that way. When he wasn’t telling
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jokes, he spent a great deal of time masturbating. And reading, which is much the same thing. As is mathematics compared to physics. When he was with a woman, it was usually Simone de Beauvoir, who had affiliated herself with him because he could help her get published, make beds, whisk eggs just so, and wore women’s undergarments exactly her size. She was a feminist and he was a faminist. The two things are practically identical except for the spelling. Sartre loved mescaline but it made him nauseous once so he wrote a book, Nausea. He was horrified of what he termed “naked existence,” only he said it in French so it sounded more like nahkeed hackzaustaunce. Before he died he made up a religion called Existentialism, which he stole whole-cloth from German philosophers and the hilariously named Phenomenological Movement (sounds classier than Bowel Movement). He was not a happy man, as is the case with most comics. Take Jerry Lewis, for example. He was not a happy man. In fact, since he is still alive, we can surmise he is still not a happy man. Although he may be happier today than he was when he was young. He probably would have been happier if Dean hadn’t got all huffy and quit the team. The French rewarded Jerry with their highest honor (English: honour)—a brief buss on both cheeks by another man. For more information on JPS, read his book of jokes titillatingly titled, Being and Nonethe-Less, or How I Came to Terms with Rejection from My Father, Who was a Naval Officer, and Learned to Pretend to Like Women If They Looked Even a Little Like Mon Oncle. 16) A northern constellation based on the Greek myth of vain Cassiopeia, one of the 50 Nereids, and the “sole daughter of the sea.” She was the mother of Andromeda, sired by Cepheus of Aethiopia. One of the 88 modern constellations, it was also one of the 48 listed by Ptolemy, inventor of Ptolemaic astrology. 17) From the Persian tara, for crown. Traditionally, a tiara is a high crown shaped like a cylinder narrowed at its top. The ancient Assyrians used to make them complete with bull horns and feathers, lacking lustrous stones such as diamonds. The Pope used to wear a tiara—that funny shaped Conehead hat. This was, however, set aside by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council, a decision based on the fact his head was too lumpy for the hat to settle properly (it kept listing to the left, and this fact was being interpreted by some of the more extremely mystical minded as a sign of a Neo-Marxist conspiracy). Probably the coolest tiara ever was the one worn by superfly babe, Wonder Woman. Hers is so cool because, like Oddjob’s bowler, it can be used as a weapon. (Cf. also, Sailor Moon, a Japanese animated manga series by Naoko Takeuchi based on the concept
of reincarnated defenders in sailor suits—all of them magical girls—come from a destroyed kingdom that once spanned the entire solar system. It is arguably one of the most famous anime series in the world.) 18) Po-TAH-toe, po-TAH-toe, po-TAH-toe©—probably one of the most recognized sounds in the motorcycling world: the sound a Harley Davidson makes riding down the road, trying to loosen its load. Popularly known as “Harleys” or “hawgs”, these machines, manufactured by the Harley-Davidson Motor Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are designed basically as heavy cruisers and cost a lot of money. They also leak oil, or at least used to. More iconic than practical, distinctively American, they were never famous for either engineering, gas mileage or performance, but mostly for their distinctive sound and constant, costly maintenance. Did we mention they are also very expensive? Since 1998 Harley-Davidson has been owned by the Buell Motorcycle Company. 19) He is referring here to a MTBI, or Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Also called, by some physicians, a “bonk on the head.” The MTBI is among the most common (and least serious) injuries sustained by human beings, with the possible exception of ingrown toenails. 20) The male homologue of the woman’s labia majora, the scrotum (from Latin scrotum, cognate with O.E. scrud “garment,” source of the word shroud. “Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotum-tightening sea. Epi oinopa pontoon.” — Joyce, “Ulysses”) is basically an external bag that holds the testicles. The function of the scrotum is to keep sperm chilled, shaken, and not stirred. Temperature control occurs when a man pulls his testicles inside his body (this is called the cremasteric reflex), thus keeping them warm when it is cold outside, and vice versa. The scrotum is also a martial arts target for a) women who are trying to escape a rapist; b) men who are trying to escape a rapist; and C) rapists who are trying to escape the police. 21) Yes, it’s true: dogs can indeed “sniff out” bombs. Teaching a dog to find high explosives (such as nitrates TNT; plastique PETN, and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX) is much easier than it sounds. Harder is teaching the animal not to fetch. (An elephant can excrete up to 100 lbs of poop per day.) 22) A reference to the American actor, David Janssen, who starred as Dr. Richard Kimble in the TV series, The Fugitive (1963-1967). In this dramatic series, Dr. Kimble is accused of his wife’s murder and sentenced to death. While he is being transported, still in custody, the train he is on jumps its rails and he is given the opportunity to escape. This event sets him (and the series) off in a new direction—tracing down the real killer, a one-armed man. The final episode, when Dr.
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Kimble finally corners and faces the one-armed man, remains one of the single highest-rated episodes of a TV program in history (TV history, that is). The series was supposedly inspired by the true-life Sam Sheppard case of the 1950s in which a physician was found guilty of murdering his wife and sent to prison where he languished for many years before being acquitted by the US Supreme Court. (This, of course, is in no way germane, but is mentioned as an example of yet another cultural layer that glosses our beliefs in socalled Reality.) 23) Is it just coincidence that this is footnote #23, and his balls are being cut off? Some would say no. For is not 23 the sacred number of Eris, goddess of discord (according to the Principia Discordia)? Is not 23 Skidoo the title of a poem in Alister Crowley’s The Book of Lies—Falsely So Called? And is not hexagram 23 in the Book of Changes not titled Splitting Apart? Others will call this a case of apophenia. Eerie, to say the least. But even more eerie is this: the so-called Skull and Bones 322 Identity. Tangentially related to Euler’s Identity, this pattern identifies an intercept node of addition/ multiplication/exponents and the transcendentals “e” and “pi”. For instance, the left side of the equation is ((3*2*2*) * (3+2+2)) = (12*7), just as December 7th was the attack on Pearl Harbor. Also, this: a skull has 3 holes and 2 bones (2 femurs, each with 2 knobs) so that (7*2*23) = 322! Is this synchronicity or simply pareidolia? In any case, the separation of a man’s testes from his trunk is a big deal. 24) The bad guys, i.e., perpetrators; politicians. 25) Edward Davis Wood (1924-1978) was a filmmaker who bore the title “worst director of all time.” Having no money and little talent, he nonetheless was able to bring to the screen such Z-grade pictures as Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space (“We used Cadillac hubcaps for flying saucers in that.”), as well as resurrect the flagging career of Bela Lugosi. Ed Wood was a transvestite who, after a long day spent directing, enjoyed nothing better than dressing as a woman, wrapping his male torso in angora, and consuming a bottle of whisky. He maintained, however, that his transvestitism was not a sexual perversion, but appealed to him because the angora provided him with maternal comfort. His career as a film director and actor (he claimed the same distinction as his hero, Orson Welles, for having written/directed/starred in all of his own films) eventually dried up, which was more than he could say. He lived on, writing novels (Raped in the Grass, The Perverts), and drinking whisky until he faded out to closing credits at the age of 54. There is a Church of Ed Wood, composed of a reverential group of True Believers, who worship his works, his life and, of course, his holy angora shroud.
26) A symptom of the onset of menopause and changing hormone levels, in this case the result of a loss of testosterone. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. 27) So-called pornographic (from the Greek πορυογραιϕια, literally meaning writing about hookers, the root of which, πορυη, means to sell) or dirty magazines filled with nude images of women and men and shaved poodles in various attitudes of sexual arousal for the benefit of (generally) male masturbation. Although thought of often as synonymous in the popular mind, there is a difference between pornography and erotica. Erotica, from the word Eros, “to love,” include literature, works of art, film, etc, that deal substantively with the portrayal of human sensuality and sexuality (again, two separate things often confused) on higher emotional levels than porn, but just as much fun to watch. 28) Twenty dollar word for castration. Also known as gelding or neutering, orchidectomy is any action— surgical or chemical—in which the male of the species loses his testicles. 29) Another fancy word. This one refers to a defect of the reproductive system that results in the dysfunction of the gonads. The gonads (or, more popularly, the “nads”) produce hormones (estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, inhibin B and antimullerian), activin and gametes (eggs/sperm, depending on which sex you happen to have been born wearing). 30) Who knows? These days it can mean anything from one end to the other of the post-modern sexual continuum. Anything, in other words, that is perceived as being in opposition to conventional (read male dominator/ missionary position) male-to-female sex roles. To illustrate, this is one of symbols for transgenderedism:
Confused? Not as much as (some would say) they are. 31) Discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, this Coptic papyrus manuscript contains a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. The text was written (i.e., attributed to) Didymus Judas Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples (the famous “doubting Thomas”), and claims that the special revelations and parables it contains were made by Jesus directly to him (Thomas). The saying that is quoted above is the final one, number 114, and has caused considerable disagreement as to its meaning among scholars. Jesus apparently held that women were worthy of receiving spiritual teachings. To
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say the least, this was an unpopular view. The Gospel of Thomas confirms that Jesus had female apostles, including Mary Magdalene and Salome; however, the canonical gospels state otherwise, i.e., that Jesus’ apostles were only men. In a Platonic, or Platonist, context “male” and “female” had the philosophical denotations of representing “form” and “constituent matter,” respectively. Hence, an object’s “maleness” equated to rules governing its formal composition, while its “femaleness” was the material from which it had been composed (it’s “stuff ”). Given these meanings, the process of becoming “male” equated with the Platonic veneration of form. Thus, Jesus’ statement here creates the idea of spiritual ascent and perfectibility for all people—even women. In any case, the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the canon for several reasons. Besides siding with women, it was generally considered heretical and inauthentic and, perhaps worse, its emphasis on individual spirituality (i.e., apart from the Church) was anathema to organized religion. In the book of John, the emphasis is on Jesus as the “only begotten son” of the Father; while, in Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying that “…the Kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.” In Thomas, Jesus was attempting to bring about individual enlightenment; thus, he was engaging in an attack upon the structure of belief (“maleness”), in favor of the content of our being-ness (“femaleness”), a counter-revolutionary position to take even today. This strand of Christianity was of course quashed, for were it to become known that there was no need for hierarchical male dominator Popes and Bishops, et Alia, then there would be no need for a Church, per se. Taken in this way, the teachings of Jesus as presented in Thomas are closely aligned to those “taught” by mystics elsewhere and in other times. This in no way undercuts Jesus’ message, or the importance of his personality; instead, it places the responsibility for spiritual growth, and the acceptance of the revealed truth of Jesus’ words that the hearer of is divine, directly on the shoulders of the individual. The fact that enlightenment is available to all who enter into the understanding of the message (the real Good News), that “…the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth…” would change the structure of society overnight, level the playing field as it were, and make every single soul equally important was every other single soul (which is, of course, the fact). Thus was Jesus’ message of enlightenment as the great Democratizer was crushed.
Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick present A Dialectic on Epistemology & Ontological Comedy W: Fuck you. KW202
N: No, Fuck you. W: You’re a fucked-up sickshitmotherfucker. N: You’re a Lowlife asswipe. Get th’fuck away. W: Don’t you fuckin tell me what to do, cumrag. N: Shitforbrains. W: Rugmuncher. N: Eat shit and die. W: Suck my anal probe. N: You’d like that, you fairy fuckin twisted perv. W: Kiss my hairy ass. N: Fuck you. N: No, fuck you.
Und so weiter…
Fat Max Crwth’s Creia1 No.23 or Why it’s Good to be a Dog ~ including ~ Exhortations to PJ & Z
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No; of course; it’s never enough; obviously, there’s need for more; must needs be need for more; one can never be obstreperous enough; one ought never be sufficiently immund;2 ribald and feculent; filthy, lousy, squalid—become, I say to you, a task for Cleaning Man Hercules to undertake, one to make the Augean Stables3 appear a shining shrine in contrast! If you have hair, then grow it! To cut your hair is to bespoil Nature’s gift! Watch them, watch them— see how they grovel, trigged and well-kempt, the lot as solid underneath as old bongwater, filled with Starbucks and Arugula, with Celtic tattoos, shaved pussies, nipples and navels pierced; watch them walk gladly on their way to another day of enslavement; watch them as they wear down their dimea-dozen souls, dozing little chameleons terrified of bird droppings, always on the lookout for predators—for predators are always on the lookout for you, when you live in fear. Do I live in fear? Ha! I fear a boring conversation more than I fear death! If only I had a master like Antisthenes!4 Still, I wear a cloak and carry a staff and wallet as badge of my trade. Remember, fellow souls, it is good to do good and to be abused. By this credo have I lived, bloomed, withered and soon one day die. There is no right or wrong about it. Credo quia absurdum.5 One need only fear the solid argument. And nuptials. I honor he who has never married; I worship he who has never fornicated; I humble myself before he
who has never farted. I spent many years begging the statues in Seattle to give me money, food—but never work. Not one in ten—nay, not one at all—ever returned a smile, much less a stater or an tetradrachm.6 Thus grew I in my resolve; thus did I learn to embrace rejection. Worse than being a novelist! I performed my antics for steel and stone, acquired tolerance for cold and wet, let mold and mushrooms find habitats between my toes; only then did I know how to beg. This thin veil, this sliver of veneer called civilization is a dogma that needs pissing on. And I’m just the dogma to do it! The deeds of my teacher fill me with gratitude, with eudemonic song.7 Look at my penis. Go ahead, look at it! Hiding its little head in the brush. Is it a paradox, or a paradise? The pair of dice hang below. Soft, warm, inoffensive little glow worm. But let him take umbrage, let him get his blood up! See his head snake forth unfettered, his glistening eye range the landscape seeking its prey? It is a dualnatured beastie, boys, as is the heart that pumps it up with blood and the brain that primes it with lust.8 This I can train you to control! Why wait until 90 to do the deeds of today? Ah, masturbation!9 I sing to thee a paean, for in life is death and in cumming is going and in hardness is softness in the implicate order10 of being is sameness and nothingness commingled. So much heat wasted on dissolution! Men talk in awe of violence, fighters who can take on tenfold foes and survive! If they but put a tenth as much fascination into their own souls!11 They care naught for what becomes them, peradventure they live beyond their twenties! Fear crops them like a blight—they are afraid to grow old, afraid to become fat, terrified to lose hair, lose control, let loose a fart in public—in short, afraid to be different from the herd! Do you look at them passing and see you there
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any to respect? We only look up to them because our asses rest upon the ground. See how they studiously ignore us? They fear exchanging language with the likes of us. Ask my comrade, Zeno here. All he does with money, my Balzac,12 is waste his mind with books. They think it’s an angle, a scam. They think hunger is a disease. Throw money at the designated people and all will be well! Place your thumbs upon your eyes, press, and you will see stars! How they have complicated the simple gifts of the gods! One day they may be blind or crippled. How many will live to make fifty? Who will care if they do? Is this why they breed? But their brood grows to ignore them, which is a worse fate than hate. So many of them actually believe lies are truths, and turn their eyes from truths that seem like lies. Security—what does that mean exactly, except the inevitability of death? Wealth—why, the richest man I know is filthier and jollier than I! Happiness—do these people think watching movies and making money is happiness? Happiness to them is but momentary distraction. But we will all starve together. And when the darkness13 comes, those used to the light will be blindest. They sprinkle themselves with holy water once a week to purify their souls, to wash off the muck of commerce— when it would benefit them more to learn grammar! To teach themselves how to reason. To understand rhetoric. Philosophy is nothing more than word play, and demons are as golden-tongued as gods. The gods provide every one of us with the means to be happy and good, yet we devote ourselves to striving after phantasms, and making ourselves miserable. You know, my friends, there’s but a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool. If a man raises his first finger and speaks, people might think him wise, and give heed. But if he lifts his middle finger like this—they think him
dangerous, and run away.14 This is why I am a dog. A dog lives life freely, doing what he does with respect for none, fealty to few, and dominion over nothing. The dog knows naught but the Rule of Nature. Dogs do not plot, plan or complain. Dogs live in the moment. When did you last see a conniving dog? They do not wear clothes or watches or drive cars. Small dogs, big dogs, it doesn’t matter; they learn to live in peace, travel in pax. When they get hungry enough, they’ll gladly eat their recently deceased best friend. They have no theology, no sophistry, no science, no tools. I am a dog to them, hustling along with their backpacks and iPods, agendas and routines, deliveries to make and papers to grade and prescriptions to fill and groceries to buy and payment plans to worry over. I cry, “throw me a bone!” But they hear me not. They can’t hear above the din in their heads, the dim light that leads them to their suicides; they are too taken by the gay colors of this festival of cruelty.15 If they only knew that god is dog doo on their shoe.16 So close; so far away. All is without reckoning, can’t be added up, balanced, taxed, recorded. It is like catching fish to play a game of Parcheesi!17 Numbed and mumbling, they hope to buy a house, take vacations, send their kids to college—all the while believing in induction and post hoc ergo propter hoc,18 and in post and ante meridian, and in status quo ante and in Truth,19 Justice20 and the American Way21 while they look forward to Social Security, retirement and a gated community in Tallahassee.22 I say unto you two mortals before you reunite with the body political, think you as a dog—What Would A Canine Do? Sniff your friend’s crotch! Lick your own ass! Gnaw contentedly upon a bone.
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FOOTNOTES:
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commonplace of the Progymnasmata 1) A (Προγυµνασµατα, Greek pro “before” and gymnasmata “exercises”), a set of fundamental exercises meant to prepare students of rhetoric for public oration. The Progymnasmata was central to ancient and renaissance pedagogy. There are 14 Progymnasmata in all: Fable; Narrative; Chreia; Proverb; Refutation; Confirmation; Commonplace; Encomium; Vituperation; Comparison; Impersonation; Description; Thesis; Defense. The word used here, chreia (chreiodes, “useful”), is defined as “…a brief reminiscence referring to some person in a pithy form for the purpose of edification.” Typically, a chreia takes the form of an anecdote. 2) An interesting word, and an unusual one. It extends from the Latin immundus, as in im- “not” + mundus “clean.” Throughout this monologue will be used many words not typically heard in casual speech. This may be a result of crossing over into a parallel universe, or a form of atavism, or else the fact that our world is composed, as Democritus—c. 450-370 BC (who, according to legend, was supposed to be mad because he laughed at everything. He was sent, by those who felt his disposition a threat, to the great physician Hippocrates to be cured. Hippocrates determined that Democritus was not mad at all, merely happy. And so to this day he is often referred to as the Laughing Philosopher)—taught, of many discrete atomic worlds, some with similar spin, others with reverse spin, and still others with no spin at all. 3) Grade school stuff, but probably worth reviewing. The Greek hero Hercules (aka Herekles) was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Alcmene. After he performed the Twelve Labors alluded to above, Herekles became a demigod, sort-of like being vice president. The Labors were: Slay the Nemean Lion and return with its skin; Slay the Lernaean Hydra; Catch the Ceryneian Hind; catch the Erymanthian Boar; Clean the Augean stables in one day; Kill the Stymphalian Birds; Catch the Cretan Bull; Steal the Mares of Diomedes; Steal the Girdle of Hippolyte; Steal the Cows of Geryon; Steal the Apples of Hesperides; Capture Cerberus. Apparently, being a demigod meant a great deal to the guy. No need to go into the details, except to say that the stables in question were owned by one
Augeias (meaning “bright”), King of Elis. Obviously, he was renown for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the known world…and had never been cleaned. Ever. The ancient Greeks referred to the constellation Capricorn (L.) as the Augean Stable, since the sun (the “bright”) rests there during the winter solstice. 4) Founder of the so-called Cynic school of philosophy, Antisthenes flourished between c. 444-365 BC. The word “Cynic” did not mean what it does today. The Cynosarges (from Gk. Κυον, or “dog”) was where he founded his school in Athens. He wore a cloak and carried a staff and wallet as the badge of his philosophy, and taught a form of Socratic virtue mixed with great disdain for pomp, pride and all that sort of thing. (Sound familiar? These ancient streams may have been forced below ground, but they do spring up now and again along the geodesic of history.) The Cynics rejected the so-called “norms” of society, and adopted shocking habits, flouting conventions to make their point. They challenged auditors to get in touch with their “natural,” animal side. Thus the dog became their symbol. This school of “thought” (actually rhetoric and sophistry) is considered to be a link between Socrates’ teachings— the “virtue is knowledge” guy—and that of the later Stoic—“prick my flesh and I don’t wince”—school. Antisthenes reduced Socrates’ words to their lowest denominator, and developed them into something very Nietzschean and existentialist; he taught that “knowledge” was not the Socratic harmony of morality with reason, but more the human will practicing action, essentially substituting “individualism” for reason and morality in social relations. He and his followers carried their terms of this individualism to its logical conclusion, decrying the ordinary pleasures of life as harmful inasmuch as they blunted the operation of the will. In other words, wealth, fame, power and the like tended to dethrone the authority of reason and prevent the soul from its natural predispositions—apparently behaving as if it were a dog. Man exists for and in himself alone; what others do or think or say is not worth a farthing; his highest end is self-knowledge/ self-realization apart from society. Thus, disrepute and poverty are desirable, for they drive one in upon oneself, purifying one’s intellect from the misleading (Vedic maya) appearances of the external world. So the Good Man wants nothing (except maybe a Good Woman); like the gods, he is self-sufficient (unless he’s
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demigod and goal-driven like Hercules); he is a citizen of the world and everyone else can go hang themselves (one of his mottoes: …gain wisdom or buy a rope.) Antisthenes is reputed to have written ten volumes, but only fragments remain. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Stoic, quotes him in his Meditations: It is royal to do good and be abused. 5) Literally, I believe because it is absurd. Variants are: I must be crazy to believe this and That’s just crazy enough to work. 6) Reference to Diogenes of Sinope, whose teacher was Antisthenes. He is reputed to have begged from statues as practice to become a mendicant philosopher. He is also reported to have (in the best Platonic sense) surpassed his teacher in living the Life Ascetic. He reduced his belongings to a single bowl and a tub. He lived in the tub. The bowl he drank and ate from— that is, until the day he saw a child drink water with cupped hands. After that, he broke his bowl because it “complicated” the simplicity of life. He was fond of masturbating in public. Once, when rebuked for this practice, he is reported to have said, “If only I could soothe my belly by rubbing it.” It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that Diogenes avoided the perils of earthly pleasures. He disdained what he perceived to be the folly, pretence, vanity, selfdeception and artificiality of most human conduct. He used to stroll through the Agora in broad daylight while carrying a torch, telling people he was searching for an honest man. One of the great “philosopher stories” centers around the meeting of Diogenes (there were many Diogeneses) and Alexander the Great. The Ruler of the Known World (and student of Aristotle) was thrilled finally to come face to face with the great man himself. He approached the dozing philosopher as he lay curled up in his tub and asked, as King of the Known World, if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes’ famous reply: “Move. You’re blocking the sun.” Alexander later declared that, if he were not Alexander, he would be Diogenes. Upon the event of his death, a pillar was erected to Diogenes’ memory. At the top of the pillar rested a marble dog. 7) A reference to Eudaimonism, a philosophy that defines right action as that which leads to “happiness” or “well being”. It originates from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where he writes that eudaimonism means all correct actions lead to the greater well being of an individual, and thus to a society. This concept posits
that human happiness is the central ethical concern. Later (much, much later in fact), Existentialism would come along and reject the notion of happiness as a bourgeois fantasy; even Stoicism turned its back on Eudaimonism. The concept was, however, imported into Christianity by Thomas Aquinas, who sought to prove that “happiness” or “well-being” was (is) found ultimately in a direct (and therefore individual and personal) perception of God. Still not a popular position in the West. 8) An erection (or “hard on” “boner” “beef bayonet” “a chubby” “tent pole” “stiffy” “sunrise surprise” “stonking bazza” “turkey twizzler” “Sir Throblington” “meat pole” “Norwegian wood” “woody” “hummer” “happy to see you” “rocket in my pocket” “HOFNAR—Hard On For No Apparent Reason” “best friend” and “boinger,” to mention but a few synonyms) occurs when engorgement of blood in the corpora cavernosa and corpus spongiosum (two tubular structures at the base of the penis) result from stimulation. Besides sexual stimulation (our personal favorite), an erection may also derive from a full bladder or spontaneously, as during a wet dream. Erection (or a stiffening of the male member, also known as a “thingamabob”) is apparently caused by the parasympathetic nervous system, that same area of the brain responsible for the “fight or flight” response. Hence, it is for this reason an erection may be difficult to maintain if, say, one is being chased by a irate husband. The sympathetic nervous system is also responsible for ejaculation (surprisingly, rhythmical rubbing has nothing to do with it), which is why men (not teenagers) lose their erection after they squirt. Men who may have an erection during sleep, but are unable to obtain one while awake, are sad. 9) The act of self-pleasuring, also known as “buffin’ the muffin” “beatin’ your meat” “burpin’ the worm” “rubbin’ one out” “hand job” “puttin’ the Kleenex kids through college” “spankin’ the monkey” “jerkin’ the Gherkin” “full knuckle shuffle” and the ever popular “jackin’ off.” Onanism, or the act of masturbation (from root word εζεα, “penises” and Latin turbare “to disturb”), extends from the Biblical character, Onan (Talmud Niddah 13a, wherein the act is likened to adultery), who spilled his seed upon the earth and earned for this act the wrath of the terrible Pre-Christian God. As a result, masturbation is frowned upon…at least in the Bible. Philosophically (at least in German philosophy), Immanuel Kant regarded it as a violation of moral
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law, making the a posteriori argument that “…such an unnatural use of one’s sexual attributes strikes everyone who thinks upon it as a violation of one’s duty to himself.” He thought suicide less of an immoral act. (He felt that the immorality lay in the fact that a man gave up his personality when he used himself as a means for the gratification of a bestial drive.) What a differing view from that of the Olde Aegyptians who believed that when a god masturbated it was a creative act! Or the Greeks who regarded it…well, you can probably imagine how the Greeks regarded it. On a more contemporary note, Dorothy Parker, the divine Miss Anthrope, reportedly said she had named her parrot “Onan” because “…he is always spilling his seed.” And the poet Allen Ginsberg, according to one biography, came up with the idea of his celebrated poem, “Howl,” while masturbating with a broom. 10) Physicist David Bohm is not into building blocks. This doesn’t mean he is childless, only that he eschews reductionism. (Reductionism means what it sounds like: that the nature of complex things cans always be reduced to or explained by more fundamental, smaller things. For an example, read The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins.) For Bohm, the Whole encompasses all things, structures, processes, abstractions, continua and quanta. In other words, parts are considered in terms of the Whole, constituting independent “subtotalities,” rather than the status of atomic units, or building blocks. The implication, of course, is that nothing is entirely autonomous. Bohm: “This new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement.” This view assumes that “flow” is prior to “things” (think vortex structures that occur in a flowing stream of water, wherein we might think of structural reality—even ourselves—as the vortices). This brings to mind the precepts of Taoism as discussed in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. “The Tao that can be told of is not an Unvarying Tao.” “Tao begets one; One begets two; Two begets three; Three begets the myriad creatures.” “Tao is like an empty vessel that yet may be drawn from without ever needing to be filled.” This thinking is underlain by the striking symbol of the blending entanglement of Yin and Yang, opposites that are not opposite mixed together into the vortex of the Whole. Also hinted at here is the Indian concept of “samsara,” which means “to flow together,” to pass through many states, to wander through a revolving door between incarnations, in between and amongst
Life and Death. In other words, the insights gained through Bohm, Searle, Einstein, Heisenberg, etc., brings our imagistic thinking closer to the shamanistic experience of the contextual Oneness of the flow of Universe, and breaks down the Western mythos of the “individual against nature” as epitomized in Bruce Willis movies.
11) In contradistinction to “spirit,” souls are conceived of as being eternal, immortal and to have existed prior to their being slipped into this physical world dimension. The use of the word does not correspond with the usage attributed to ancient Western thinkers such as Plotinus, Heraclitus, Plato, et alii. The root of “soul” seems to have originated from OE sawol, which has Germanic links to the root from which also is derived “sea.” Think living water. The Greeks called it ψχη, “psyche,” and the much later Latin word was anima, both meaning something like “breath.” There is a difference, by the way, between infinity and eternity. The figure 8 is symbolic of the former; the circle of the latter. One can only wonder if God caused mankind the most pain simply by our creation, or by giving us prepositions. Theists say God is eternally existent. This may mean either that God exists in eternity, where past, present and future do not apply, or that God exists through eternity, meaning at all times, so that past, present and future again are meaningless, only in a different way. In any case, the truth is infinity is a mathematical concept that may nudge us in the direction of eternity, but the difference between them (as far as the human mind is concerned) is not significant. But then (some may argue) neither is the human mind. 12) Reference to Honoré de Balzac (1788-1850), French novelist whose many books was collectively entitled La Comédie humaine. He finished 95 books, left 48 unfinished, and apparently died from drinking too much coffee. “When women love us,” he wrote, “they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.” He also suggested that…“No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.” 13) Uncertain; perhaps a reference to apocalypse (literally “disclosure”), the eschatological end of the world
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(as in millennialism); or it may refer to the so-called “rapture,” which event will precede the Last Days. During the “rapture” all the saved souls will go directly to Heaven, while the rest of us will have to slog it out on earth dealing with fire and brimstone, rains of frogs and spotty cellphone coverage. He might also simply mean Old Age, or even macular degeneration. Who knows? 14) It has been argued by anthropologists (imagine a roomful of anthropologists arguing) that “giving one the finger” is a variant of the phallic aggressive gesture used by primates to threaten and belittle an enemy. In other words, the “bird”—to use the parlance of our times—has been around a long, long time. Roman Emperor Caligula, that towering rôle model, made supplicants kiss his middle finger. Throughout most of the Middle Ages the MF went underground; the use of digits was severely restricted by the Holy See, who believed extended fingers belonged in the Mass only and not to the masses. We wouldn’t see it again, so to speak, until it cropped up in an 1886 photo of the Boston Beaneaters baseball team’s photo. In this image, Hall of Fame pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn can be seen slipping the finger to the camera. Thus sanctioned by sporting heroes, it soon became as American as mom and apple pie. And, why not? America in those days was a melting pot, a polymorphic polyglot of wretched refuse, of tired, poor, tempest-tost souls, of huddled masses, none of whom could understand a word the other spoke—what richer soil for so simple a gesture to sprout and grow? Yet, had it not been thus, a second chance would have come along with the introduction of the automobile; can you imagine a safer way for drivers to communicate their feelings to each other without letting go the steering wheel? “…remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness…” Isaiah 58: 910. KW213
15) A reference here to Antisthenes and his student, Diogenes of Sinope. This might stand as signet to their attitude towards the world. 16) Pantheism is the view that God-ness is in everything
(even dog doo); i.e., God is immanent; Universe and Nature are equivalent. In Hindu theology, moksha (from the Sanskrit for liberation or release) refers to breaking free from the cycle of death and rebirth by transcending phenomena and leaving behind any sense of time, space and causation; it is, in short, to become one with the God-ness of All Being-ness which is the Everywhen-ness of the Everynow. This is not the same as Christian “salvation,” which only recognizes the world as a battlefield and God as a supernal being far removed from His/Her creations. For the believer in Brahman, God-ness is like the light emanating from a prism; it only appears to be broken into colors, but is in fact unchanged. We also find this concept localized in the Jewish Kabbalah, which inspired and informed Spinoza’s own form of pantheism. (Funny enough, a now forgotten philosopher once criticized Spinoza for believing God was immanent in all “things,” making the point that it was a doctrine of “pure materialism” that, in itself, would lead finally to “pure atheism.” Seems silly now, but it did set the stage for the XVIIIth Cent. Einstein, by the way, claimed Spinoza as his greatest religious influence.) Problems abound, as you can imagine, with pantheism. For instance, what about Free Will? And for that matter, what about free beer and a good five cent cigar? And Free Verse, what’s that about? So, in summation, the thought that God might be dog poop may not be so far-fetched, after all. 17) Haven’t a clue. 18) Ah, yes, Latin again. Literally, “after this, therefore because of this.” Also “If, then therefore, because.” Post hoc, as it is known by those in the know, is a logical fallacy (or false clause) that assumes if one event happens after another event, then the event that came before must be the cause of the second event. This is known also as affirming the consequence, or massaging the facts, or fibbing. An example: a) Ice cream sales go up in July; b) Car theft goes up in August; c) Therefore, people eating ice cream cause car theft. Here’s another: a) A Republican is elected into the Presidency; b) The economy, driven by decisions made by two former Democratic Presidents, finally swings upward strongly; c) Therefore, Republican Presidents are better for the economy. 19) Insufficient space to pursue the topic. 20) A hypothetical, subjectivist evaluation diametrically opposed to juridical providence. 21) A Zazen approach to nationalism, as in “the watercourse
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way,” or “get out of my way,” or “do you know the way to San Jose?”; anything to do with the USA, or its inhabitants, especially those who inhabit the Pentagon; doing things unlike the French; only speaking one language; PepsiCo; Wal-Mart; Tri-Laterialism; reality TV; John Wayne. 22) Capital of Florida, USA.
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not a blank page
“It’s not worth the wile to go round the world to count the cats of Zanzibar.” —Thoreau
“Anything that happens happens, anything that in happening causes something else to happen causes something else to happen, and anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again. Although not necessarily in chronological order.” —Douglas Adams
Comes the Time of Capt. Twenty-Z Skidoo! → or ← Mr. Bland Builds a Blog!
The difference between a blog and a website is the difference between Rice Krispies® and the deep blue sea. Twenty Questions Asked: 1) How can a person, once having been dispossessed and lost to society, access the technology that would permit his or her thoughts publication on the World Wide Web? 2) What do brutal people think about when they masturbate? 3) Is “love” equivalent with “consciousness”? Is “will” the same as “hate”? 4) What is the significance of irony in relation to our notion of god? 5) What is the meaning of money in relation to the corruption of the human soul? 6) How do we reconcile the spiritual and material impulses that dwell within us side-by-side? 7) Is every new relationship a word? 8) If philosophy and theology are ideas-about-reality and not realities themselves, how can we know how to make right actions? 9) If the path of things is silent and we are really symbols, what should our relationship be to silliness? 10) Is death real or only sleep as a notion? 11) If poetry is as powerful as poets claim, why can’t it change the world? 12) Is Zenophobia the irrational fear of Zenos? 13) Is there Mind, or do you Mind? 14) Is the world and its enfolded events pre-ordained, or is it just Wednesday?
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15) Are order and disorder artificial divisions, man-made concepts, or do such things exist beyond our level of distinctionmaking? 16) Is any one thing more true than any other? 17) How can we ever know what, if anything, really happened in history? 18) Can there be ultimate wisdom if all knowledge is guesswork? 19) If there is no meaning to anything we do and there is no such thing as absolute morality, may I please have another milkshake? 20) If we removed the demarcation “decades,” would we still see patterns in history?
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Phinneas Jogger & Capt. Teuthry Chapter 2 (Part III) AMONG CANNIBALS!
Being an Honest and Truthful Rendition of Their Awful Adventures as Provided by a Drunken Amanuensis and Corroborated by Total Strangers
BEAR ON THE BEACH
∞ A Case for Spontaneous Combustion (also known as) Order, Disorder and the Secret Life of Rubber Bands (Part the Twenty-third) Wherein is Revealed the Whys and Wherefores Of Our Current Misfortunes And the Inevitability of the Loss of Inhalers Worldwide “Brothers,” he began, for one has to begin, “you either is the solvolutionist of the problems, or you is the problematic hisself.” To this there was attendant thunderous applause and sniggers. “The world is divided into dumbasses and asswipes, and I shall leave it unto your own hairy selves to discombobulate which one you is.” More souls gathered at the river. “They say drinks is bad for you; they say nickel bags of spontaneous combustion is a mixed blessing; they say you gots to read this, you gots to read that, you gots to toe the line, lift those bales, you gots to keep your mouth shut lessen you is in agreement-amIrightoramIright?” “Yeah you is!” sent up the chorus of assent.
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“Why is it you think inhalers can’t be found? Has you looked as I has in every Albertson’s in every Payless in every Safeway in all of Seattle?” “No, No!” An astonishment of glances clung to his coat. “Item not won--“ he glowered as his spoken words churned the surface “--similar items found.” “Ooooh,” Oh’d the crowd. “We looks upon the world through crosshairs like a killer of rhinos. Everybody got hisself a different sight to see through. And as if that weren’t enough, we’ll never get anywhere defining terms.” “Noooo,” No’d the crowd. “Why, a culture ain’t nothing but a bunch’ve folks what looks through the same damned sight.” “Amen,” amen’d a few mindfucked mumblers in the mix. “Some sights they is more pretty than others, and some sights they is more useful than others, but no sights is more better than others.” “At’site!” “Huzzah!” “Mamihlapinatapai!”
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“Make no mistake, friends--dividing life into order and disorder is the wrong way to head the horse. The belief that order is true, that order is good, and that disorder is its opposite--that’s plain dumb-ass. How do I know this is so? Look at me! Look at us! We has suffered the destructive aspects of their order. They have laws and rules and guns and mules to stop us from parking in the red zone and from partaking in the creative uses of disorder. They call it--civilization.”
“Hut! Hut!” “Consternation!” “Cavil and riding crops!” The crowd had grown from a fruit stand into a dizzying array of retail outlets. “Totally fallopian tubular!” “Outrageous!” “Steatopygous!” “Philosophizers has concerned themselves from time on high to get down low with sorting through all the sights we look through trying to find the perfect KW226 one that will describe all Reality, when all along this ain’t nothing but a hound dog just lying all the time. It’s a big-assed illusion’s what it is! Little t truth is what they call Big T Truth. Little t truth is the world defined relative to the sights we is looking through. Big T Truth is the sights themselves, the stuff the sights is made of and at the same time is Big T Totally Big U Unrelated to the Big Ass Sights themselves!” “Paradoxical!” “Far flung out!” “Anagogic to the Max, fat!” ‘Where are our inhalers now that we needs them?” The crowd, packed tight as jam on Samba Night, trickled forward. “The tyrant needs broken spirits!” “You got that right, Onk!” “Let the manchild sing!” “Just as broken spirits needs a tyrant!” “Perfect parallelism!” “Droll!” “Not bad for an assscratching nonentity!” “Historically, species at the end of their tether tend to reproduce and recombine in strictless mismea-
sure. The big question then on my fat lips is--is we is or is we ain’t got the juice, baby?” “We is!” “We ain’t!” “Jiz!” “Jeeze!” “Wilted lettuce let us waffle!” “At the best, nothing; at the worse, this again. BUT. Where are all the flooble inhalers? If the Buddha craps in the woods does anybody smell it?” “Tell us!” “Yell us!” “Yellow jaundice!” “I’ll tell you where you need to go, what’s you needs to know. Them inhalers is there, and they is there, but there ain’t any of them here--that’s an irrefudecidable fact.” “What we gone do?” “Is we gone make it?” His hand raised, dribbling a fat chicken. “Let us discuss tragedy and Popeye cartoons. Let us discuss the autopoetic way of life, the antichristial antievolutionarial antirevolutionarial antientropical antiverse! With a dollop of mayonnaise! And you and you and you, mister and missus Manapes! And just so’s you’ll know what it is I’m talking about, hear this truly: tragedy is when that that is secondary is acceptable for that that is primary--dig? Take money.” “Whoo Hoo!” “Over hear, boss!” “Lumped in an analogous group!”
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“Once filthy lucre replaces the quest for selfknowledgeability as the primary goal and ass mover in all things human and unpiggy-like, then there is trouble in Rubber City! Money must serve, not swerve! Lookit dudes--do I have money? You see me covered in filthy human detritus?” “Nyet!” “Not yet!” “You bet!”
“No, I doesn’t got money! And why doesn’t I? Let me express it thusly. I doesn’t gots money because I dunst wants to be its slave like bullhocky ballsboys, like until you Rolex’ed Few, you Choosing Faux! For I am circular and you is flat as Wiley T. beneath an Acme anvil! What is working for a limping but pimping for the man? Make it so he can add to his brood of blond, well-groomed hominem. It’s all Capitalism and Sex, my manfreudes. Lotta hot and cold running crapualism and sexualism. If money is the meaning of life and more is better than less, then let’s de-mentalize and re-group and long live the co-creators of chaos! But if they’re wrung--as I believes they is-then we is on the wrong goose step to heaven and we ain’t never gone get our gossamers! The world is the dream of an unconscious body--maybe and maybe not-but it ain’t what they says it is, it ain’t a battlefield, dudes and dudettes, and it ain’t no strip mall! Long as we doesn’t care what happens in the world, long as we dasn’t play close-ass attention, then we is the material world’s prisoners! Reality is the real between worlds! Money blinds us by solving little p problems! You gots a toothache--money is the answer! You’s got a fuse blew? Throw a wad of clash! But a soul ache? Feel lost and alone? Can’t figger out the mumble of things here in your lifeblood? Then you don’t buy a new pool! And you dasn’t buy more jewels! And you didn’t dip in no twice-bitten whore! Nossuh! We is so dumbass we usually wind up just wanting what money can buy! Mentalize and not Materialize! Don’t let or allow true inner experiences to be replaced by GameBoys or DVDs and on up the foolchain and ’way up the wazzu! Heck, noisy girls, everything is a symbol once you’re seeking! What did that old Greek fartflosser say, that God is just mind aware of itself? Then you can be God, white fools! Don’t let God in--be the bugger Hisself! Paradox is the just way! Hell is attachment to this so-culled world! Credit Cards are the lease to a condo in hell--have anything, pay with your brief residence, be a nothing--that’s credit, wobbleheads! Buy cheap, cost’s drear! Selling out means
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turning away from the path! There was a time when silver linings were mostly free, when corduroy smiled and bakelite mooned; now we is in a post-nuclear, post-pasty, post-toasty, past-greenhouse, post-ozone, posit-pistol, poast-dervish, post-inhaler world, and it’s as it has been since Topsy went Turvy and the goose cooked the gander--we is all misshapen without a pint to our names cradled in mama’s smelly arms! So get a leg up! Get a clue! Get a move on! And keep them doggies rolling!” “Rawhide!” whupped up the crowd of dumb-asses before it drifted off to views of lesser assaults and batteries. PJ & Z passed away into the shadowy shrubbery of unsanitized seattlilized mentalized reality, shapes and forms transposed, traipsing along sidewalks, tripping delightedly, fantastically, mumblingly unto themselves something or other.
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Murray Murnau’s Muddled Maps of Mistery Sect. 032; Subset 5; Quad. 1 presents
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AMAZING MEAT COMPUTER by Mr. Suck & Mr. Nobodaddy Bud Barclay groaned, cracked open sleep-encrusted eyes and blinked up at the man wearing a white lab smock. Tom Swift, Jr.™ smiled down at his old friend. In his seventies now, Tom still wore his hair in a crewcut, still went clean-shaven, still had steely blue eyes. Besides his features being more deeply-set, only his hair had changed from when they first met as boys; it had gone from blond to silver. Bud Barclay had not been so lucky. But then, Bud Barclay had not been a genius. Especially not a genius with an insanely rich father. He had not grown up with vast privileges and expensive schools. His parents had ridiculed him for his friendship with the high-falutin’ Swifts. But Bud hadn’t listened. He had even gone so far as to date Sandy, Tom’s sister. But, ultimately, girls had never been central to Bud and Tom’s lives. Adventure had been the binder that made them stick together. And adventures they had aplenty. But the last few decades had taken their toll. Tom’s father had been found guilty of embezzlement, and it had taken almost all his money to keep out of jail. Besides his fortune, it had robbed him of his most important currency—respect. The Swift star—for so
long among the brightest in the heavens—had forever fallen. The elder Swift retired from the world and eventually committed suicide. As for his son, Tom Junior, he withdrew from public scrutiny for many years, as many as he judged necessary for his memory to be forgotten. Chow Winkler™, they say, died of a broken heart. After that, Bud fell into a deep depression. It was the sixties, legendary decade of Free Love and Acid. Bud partook himself of both these offerings with great frequency and in deep draughts. He had not cared if he had sex with man, woman or beast; he had not cared if he overdosed; again and again, on his psychedelic trips, he saw Tom’s burnished face, his sandy hair, his steely blue eyes that danced with ideas; over and over, he heard Tom’s voice in his ear whispering his love and adoration, and he would bury his face in his lover’s chest and inhale deeply of his scent. There had also been lots and lots of alcohol. It was, in fact, alcohol that prevents Bud Barclay from being able to focus on his friend’s chiseled features. Bud—once considered good looking and by some (mostly men) even dashing—had not aged well. Drinking and smoking dope and cigarettes had taken its toll. He had grown blowsy and fat. His gut hung like a giant breast over his belt. His hair and beard had gone frizzy white and usually went uncombed and untrimmed. “What th’fuck?” He had not seen Tom for over forty years. “Zatyou?” “Bud, how the deuce are you?” “I’m fuckin’ fine, Tom. Fuckin’ fine.” “Excellent.”
Tom Swift, Jr.™ grinned in a boyish
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manner. “I’ve been looking for you. Ready to get back to work?” Bud Barclay groaned. Was he a sidekick dreaming he was a man, or a man dreaming he was a sidekick? He needed a drink. The bottle of Tequila lay empty on the floor between them. Bud had been sleeping in his own vomit. “Come on, then, old chum. Time’s a wasting! I’ve got the guldurnest gizmo for you to see!” Bud iterated his groan. It was as if Tom had not changed with the years. FuckinA. Hadn’t he dropped out during the sixties? Hadn’t he self-actualized throughout the seventies? Hadn’t he profiteered along with everyone else in the eighties? Hadn’t he cocooned through the nineties? Now, on the cusp of the end of the world, on the brink of his own crummy life, he comes waltzing back wearing a crisp, white lab smock, with the same moderately handsome features—in an ordinary one-in-ten-guy kinda way— and wants him to giddyup because of a guldurned whizbang gizmo? Fuckin-A. “What is it this time? A new Repelatron®? Trouble with the Kranjovians? The dingus on the Challenger fritz out?” Tom Swift, Jr.™ chuckled. Bud could always be counted on for comedic relief. KW233
“No, my friend. The biggest thing of all.” He wasn’t gonna tell; the fucker wasn’t gonna tell. Bud in a flash recalled how often he used to think Tom was an arrogant asshole. “Fine, whatever.” Bud sat up. He had been sleeping, besides in his own vomit, upon a dirty mattress without
sheets or blankets in a room that hadn’t been cleaned in eight-and-a-half years—the length of time he had been renting it. The last six years Bud had been earning his keep begging on the streets of Seattle. Early on in this career he had staked out an unclaimed Starbucks™ and managed to rake in a tidy sum of change every day. It was hard work, standing in all kinds of weather, people averting their eyes, tossing you coins to get rid of you. It had not been good for his self-esteem, but his mental state was far too delicate for him to engage in the Real World in any other manner. Thanks to the guilt-ridden, coffee addicted patrons of Starbucks™, he always had enough money for rent, booze and a few cans of potted meat— not to mention the occasional Frappuccino™. After all these years, he didn’t need any shit from Tom Swift, Jr.™ “Spill the beans, Tommy boy, or you looked me up for nothin.” Tom nodded and appeared thoughtful. Realizing the bind he was in—and wishing, despite his appearance of bonhomie, to get the hell out of this shithole Bud lived in—he came to an abrupt decision and smiled. “OK, old pal. You win. Here it is in a nutshell.” Tom bent down closer to Bud, but not so close as to smell him. “I’ve invented the world’s first meat computer.” “Say what?” Tom chuckled. “A computer that doesn’t need hardware because it’s all software, get it? It’s a biological computer that learns on its own and doesn’t need constant upgrades. It only requires a tetrawatt of power to operate, and I’ve supplied them with an atomo-cyclic-transgenerator® for that!” Tom waited for a reaction.
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Bud threw up. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and frowned at the dirty kitchen window. “Zit rainin?” He hated to beg in the rain. Tom had expected more. Quite a bit more, in fact. He been hard at work over the last four decades. He had redoubled—nay, retripled—his commitment to invention after his father’s embarrassment and then his gruesome death (by exposing himself to the 3D Telejector® Tom had invented when he was only thirteen), and all with the single-minded goal of relieving the world of MicronSearch™ and its inept technology. Now, poised on the pinnacle of success, he had located his old friend so they could share the fame and glory, not to mention the boundless wealth and power that would result—wealth and power far beyond anything achieved by his father. Greater wealth and power even than that enjoyed by Ron Delworthy himself, founder and CEO of the evil MicronSearch. Bud crumpled his face into a smile, exposing a mouthful of missing teeth. “Tom, old buddy, old pal, I gotta ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth—promise?” Tom frowned and produced a solemn nod. “Promise.”
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“Fine.” Bud leaned forward. Tom wrinkled his nose. “Got any spare change?”
Zid Tarbox is Alive and Well, And Eating Meat in Existential, Texas And then there’s the story of the man who, every morning, when getting into his car, noticed as if for the first time the inescapable fact of his gas tank being nearly empty. Every day he re-filled it, barely drove it at all, then every night went to bed to awaken next morning to find his gasoline almost gone. This happened for twenty-three days in a row. He is now a Charter Member of our Society. Next up: a man with two children and a fairly happy life arose one morning, dressed and ate, then walked out to his baby blue Volvo station wagon. Twenty-three minutes after he started the engine he was idling at an intersection waiting for the light to change when a car full of teenagers pulled alongside. From a distance you could hardly hear the shots. The following year his wife joined our Club. Fellow once got on a plane only to hear the pilot announce the flight had been delayed as a result of “two or three little problems…” Two hours and twenty-three
KW236
minutes later, he and his fellow passengers were escorted onto a new plane—flight No. 023. Before this fellow could board, his knees started shaking, his fillings started buzzing, and he needed to pee and cry at the same time. Short form—he never did get on the plane. Flight 023 crashed on takeoff, killing all aboard. Anyone ever tell you that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, and that the earth’s axis is tilted at a 23° angle? And how about this little ditty— The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. The 23rd Psalm, in case you didn’t know.
KW237
Did you hear the one about the Army football player who wore jersey No. 23? It was during the 23rd annual Army/Navy Game. Second half of the game and three yards from touchdown, a jagged bolt of lightening filled the sky and struck the player carrying the ball—No. 23. Did you know Pope John XXIII is an ac-
complished alchemist? In ASCII, character 23 is ETBEnd Transmission Block. Is it any wonder that so many people are fascinated by the number 23? Have you long suspected the numbers 2 and 3, written and spoken in that order, might be super symbolic, might contain darkly magical powers? Then you, too, could be a 23rdian! Look for the 23s and they will multiply! How can you refuse? What do you have to lose? The path of things is silent. ETB
KW238
What, Exactly, is Zaniism And How, Precisely, Do We Prevent it? Doctor Nebo Gipfel in Conversation: (Feb. 3, 2023 transcript)
Q: Doctor, we’re back. NG: About time. Q: Where were we? NG: Discussing, I believe, the benefits of genocide. Q: Uh, no. Zaniism, how to prevent it. NG: Oh, that. Q: Quite. Let’s sum up what Zaniism is for any new listeners. NG: Must we? Q: I believe you described it as “feminine”? NG: I would hardly have been so kind. Q: “Female spirited” then? NG: More like vaginated eunuchs. Men who put down the toilet seat when they’re done. KW239
Q: I see. What else? NG: Oh, it’s such childish crap. They prefer “harmony” to conflict in ridiculous resistance to the thesis/ antithesis—or the yin/yang—nature of our hierarchical universe.
Q: So they don’t see the valuation of the world, as it were, as a series of steppingstones? NG: No, of course not, little man. They see everything as being neutral, therefore negative and useless. They’re Romantics, with a capitol A for asinine. They’re holists, do the whole “synthesis thing.” Accretive. They believe poverty’s our natural state, and the acquisition of artifacts—“stuff ” as an extension of ignorance, what they term “greed”—is an aberration. It’s nothing new, it’s syncretic, it’s ultimately shallow post-modern posturing. Q: This may be, but how do you explain its growing popularity, especially among the weak, the poor, the downtrodden and dispossessed? NG: That should be obvious. Weaklings have always clung to messages that exalted them—look at the whole Jesus thing. Thank God that’s behind us. Q: Of course, but not everyone can be a millionaire. NG: They could if they weren’t vaginized, if they didn’t ascribe absurdity to everything. See, this is what happens when your life doesn’t have a sense of meaning; when you drift and ogle the stars. Q: So you would characterize this more as a movement than a religion? NG: Religion? Ha! You have to have structure to have religion. These people are nothing more than agonists, cheap contrarians, anarchists. They present us with nothing—no programs, no plans, no blueprint for a better world. Really, all they want is to destroy. They want to rip down what Western Man has so painstakingly erected. They want us to become Communists. There’s not an original thinker among them. They would have us close down schools, stop wars, feed everybody! They don’t understand that poverty is not the natural state of man, but is the natural result of laziness. Poverty is punishment.
KW240
Q: So these people are…lazy? NG: Every one of them. Otherwise, they would find ways to work within the system. It’s a mug’s game to be a critic—lazy people do it all the time—but it takes work, lots of it, to build a civilization. To design and construct the infrastructure, say, for a town. To design and manufacture better cars and boats and missiles. But all they do is talk and throw rotten fruit. And isn’t that appropriate, since that’s what they are in relation to us—rotten fruit. Q: Nevertheless, the movement is growing worldwide. Police are confronting thousands, in several cases tens of thousands, of these people, and they won’t fight, they won’t move, they just sit and smile and appear to be happy. NG: Happy? Drugged you mean! We haven’t mentioned the relationship of drugs to this sub-culture, have we? Q: Drugs? No, I. I don’t quite follow. NG: Drugs, man! You don’t think this thing would have caught on without drugs, do you? That’s what undercuts a man’s will to be a man—mind-numbing substances. Q: I see. I don’t believe anyone so far has been charged with possession— NG: Are you calling me a liar? D’you know who I am? Q: Well, of course, Doctor, we all know who you— KW241
NG: Their leader, this Zero fellow— Q: Zeno. NG: Whatever. Best not to give him a name, it only makes him think we respect him. Drugged out nonentity.
Q: He’s only one of— NG: Setting themselves up as revolutionaries! Q: You know what they say, that revolution is not political, but human— NG: What’re you—a sympathizer? Q: Uh, n-no. Of course not, ha-ha. NG: Then toe the line, mister. Get with the program. Q: Yes, of course, I was just— NG: You were just about to lose your job, is what. Q: No, no. Honest. I was just. Uh. So you. You think we need to handle this threat how, exactly? NG: We need to exterminate them, man! And we need to do it soon, before they cause irreparable harm, before they assassinate the President! Q: Assassinate the President? NG: You heard me. Our best intel indicates they may already have set up terrorist cells just for this purpose. Q: But they’re peace loving… NG: Until we eliminate this sub-human trash, our streets won’t be safe for women and children. Because of them there will be a greater need for prisons and gated communities. Q: I see, but what you’re suggest sounds like some sort of ethnic cleansing— NG: Until we get a spine and admit the world needs our direction—American direction—and incorporate the uneducated brown and yellow people into line with the need of production, distribution and consumption—
KW242
Q: Yes? Until then what? NG: What? Then what? Why chaos, of course. You want to live in chaos? You want to wake up to a cold shower, go to hospitals filled with doped-up doctors, have your children taught subversive thoughts? Chaos will destroy all we hold dear and true! We have to build bulwarks against its encroachment! Have I told you anything about my experiments with water? Q: No, no sir, you haven’t. That will, unfortunately, have to wait for another. We’re out of, uh, time. I’d like to thank my guest, the distinguished Doctor Nebo Gipfel of M.I.T. and C.I.A. And this is Mutton Jefferies saying have a good night and a brilliant tomorrow.
KW243
Entr’acte
Angels Without Wings Wingnut & Nickledick present ≡ A Dialogue on Filth and Depravation as Proper Components of a Eudaimonic Existence W: The fuck’s that? N: Mine. Found. W: Lying sack of shit. Stole. N: Heresy. Damned lie. A pox upon you. W: The fuck that mean? Gimme some. N: Nay! I henceforth require more space than before. Move away, barbarian. W: The fuck you—say, what’s with the faggot talk? You homo now? N: Brother, I have changed my ways. I have seen an alternate path. I am pursuing a greater good. W: You’re pursuing a knuckle fucking sandwich is what, you keep this shit up. N: For your information and edification I no longer wish to associate with the likes of you and your salacious imagery. W: My fucking what? N: You heard me, scallywag. Begone. I have
gefilte fish to fry. W: Your shit back up into your brain or what? N: That’s just the sort of crudity I have come to expect and abhor. W: Don’t fucking call me a whore! N: I am beginning to find your barely prehensile existence and lowbrow harangues intolerable. W: Oh. Oh? You are, huh? N: Yeah. I are. W: Nerd-ass freakazoid. N: Am. W: At least you’ll admit it. N: What? W: Huh? N: Oh yeah? W: Yeah. N: Yeah? W: Yeah. N: Oh—yeah? W: Yeah! N: Fuckin-A! W: Fuckin-C!
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N: Furry-assed turd sucker! W: Limp-dicked granny fucker! N: Oh, yeah? W: Yeah! N: Oh YEAH? Etcétera, etcétera, etcétera…
KW247
GOD AT LARGE Bondi swore he heard someone knock. How many days has he been down here in the bunker? Four? Fourteen? He was prepared to remain a long time. Where else was there to go? As far as he knew, everyone else in the world was insane, except for him. And sometimes he wasn’t so sure about himself. Not since he switched on the first machine. He had meant nothing by it, beyond the measure of a desire to do good. No one suspected at the beginning it would come to this. Nevertheless, he had been warned. In a dream one night, during the period when his experiments had developed to the testing stage, Gottfried Leibniz had come to him and spoke in perfect English, telling him there were areas in his mathematics that bid gross errors entry, areas wide and deep enough to prohibit any chance of a successful test. In fact, had insisted the three hundred year old philosopher, such a usurpation—the very word he used—such a usurpation of matter would result in a rending of the fabric of the universe. No one, Leibniz had insisted, should do what he, Bondi, was about to do. But that had only been a dream. What finally happened was a nightmare.
KW248
He had switched on the machine. The machine that was guaranteed to produce sweet, clean energy. Energy that was essentially free. Energy that left no radioactive mess. Energy squeezed as if lemon juice from the hardrined fruit of our world. Who would have thought Spinoza was right? Bondi switched on a computer. A generator had started automatically as soon as the power grid fell. According to his calcs, if he uses his generator sparingly, he might have enough juice—at reduced usage—for nine months, maybe a year. Then what? Then would he—so long deprived of human contact—throw open the door and rush out to join the crowd? Would he become one of them? Wouldn’t that be condign punishment? Hoisted on his own petard, as it were. After all, it was all his fault. The madness. The bloodshed. And now this world war. How many have fallen? How many lives has he spoiled and destroyed? And how many miracles have there been? Too many to count. Bondi smiled. Maybe God would like it if he prayed. Then why doesn’t he? Why doesn’t he—the first human in the world to prove God exists—why doesn’t he pray? Why doesn’t he want to bend his will before the Great Creator? KW249
Bondi opens a bottle of cognac. His larder had been thoughtfully and thoroughly stocked. All his friends—back when he had friends—had laughed at him for building this bunker. “The Cold War is over!” they told him. “You’re throwing away money!”
But it was his money to throw away. He had earned it, every penny of it. All sixty-eight hundred million dollars of it. How he wished money could still buy things! If he could he would use it to buy back his sense of security, his feeling of safety. At one time he could have afforded to buy and live on a deserted island. Why hadn’t he? Instead he had flipped the switch that ended it all. Ended cascading waterfalls. Ended moonlight walks on the beach. Ended lovers’ kisses. Ended the laughter of children. How he hates himself for his arrogance! His greed. His need for control. All he has left now is this. An expensive hole in the ground. Yes, someone was indeed knocking.
www.Brainsweat/blog
KW250
“Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded.” —Plato
“Think slow, act fast.” —Buster Keaton
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The heart gives the world a glancing blow. —Z
Happiness and property are usually incompatible. —Z
The next great leap will come from a garbage heap.
—Z
Thesis, antithesis, suckerpunch. —Z
Is that your Weltanschauung, or are you just sad to see me? —Z
More realism! More humor! More helium in the rhubarb! —Z
I’m just a boy who made god. —Z
Money buys everything but meaning. Unless you think the world itself is without meaning —Z
Thanks to all the little people. —Z
To pretend is to do; therefore pretend to pretend and you’ll do. —Z
Capitalism only cares about making us more comfortable in the world.
—Z
Ethics and elegance are analogous. —Z
The more people there are who think you’re real, the less real you are. Really. —Z
Once you question the front lawn, you are liable to question everything. —Z
But we do not have choice whether or not we have choice. —Z
The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious. —Z
Virtual Reality, as compared with what? —Z
Sentience is neither a gift nor a necessity, but it does help pass the time. —Z
Never ask all trees to have the same bark. —Z
How long does it take to know how to go on?
—Z
The obvious is not always apparent. —Z
If Jesus were to come back he would be very old. —Z
Relax, uncertainty is good for you. —Z
Comfort yourself with the awareness that selfawareness is uncomfortable. —Z
If truth is a virus, then paradox is its penicillin. —Z
Deep contradictions means you’re on the right path. Or not. —Z
When not in doubt, why not? —Z
What would you like to disorder today? —Z
Hurt ’til you laugh. Laugh ’til you cry. Rinse. Repeat. —Z
Who am I? I am a gruff, tough, squat, fat, balding, frog-faced, parchment-skinned, destitute, obdurate, old, oblate-spheroidal, hemorrhoidal, snaggly-toothed, hirsute, intransigent, intransitive verb. You? —Z
If Hierarchy is the metaphor for the Middle Ages, then Dance should be the metaphor for now. —Z
It doesn’t get any simpler than death. —Z
Keep your faith in the water, baby! —Z
Collect entropy as you would dried sponges. —Z
If you don’t laugh, who will? —Z
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ETB
“The last act is bloody, no matter how charming the rest of the play.” —Blaise Pascal
AND FINALLY! Trankas Drooking Expatiates on Syllogomania, the Diogenes Syndrome & the Evolution of Dirty Jokes By Lord Buddha’s Tooth! Shiver me lingam! What’s that you say? Let him talk, let him speak, for words soothe me. Yes? Say what? Louder, damn your eyes! I see. Yes. Interesting question, if ineptly phrased. Why are there so many old men and women about on the streets, is that it? You fear them, do you? Ah, for your purse or your life? I see. Of course. Your purse. Have you ever offered alms? No. Only encourages them, eh? By the horns of Beelzebub! That ties handsomely into what my film is about. After all I am here to pander. My latest picture, Karmic Warriors, is a quintessential slice-of-life about a high-level menial who loses his job. Since he has no idea how to do anything other than what it was he was doing, he eventually runs out of money and starts living on the street. That part, by the way, is played by Thug Candy, a recently discovered genius. Believe me, he needed less directing than most of the “A-list” names I’ve worked with. Natural talent. He just seems to “get it.” Quite epicene, but very very funny. One day, between set-ups, he visited my trailer and offered me a blowjob! I thought I was going to die. Funny stuff. God is this kid talented! But—zounds! Lest we forget. The old guy plays Zeno, KW329 right? Swear to God, found him on the street. Swear to God. Man of mystery, goes by “A.A.” And he’s not even an alcoholic! Another natural. We never learn his real name, he’s just Z. He walked away from wife and life and kept walking until we run into him who knows how many years later. Always writing things
down. Real philosopher type. Only begs when he needs to buy books. He’s released the programming, you dig? Let it all go. He’s not about performance or results. His gut doesn’t ache every night because of a mistake or a bad decision or a crushing schedule. I live scheduled. So I can’t get inside this Zeno character, he’s too unlike me. So I make shit up. That scene when he introduces Max Crwth? I was at a party when the idea came to me. And don’t you love the castration story? To me, some of the “philosophy” gets in the way. But then, hey, I didn’t write the book. And what a neat bit of writing it is, too. But long, my brothers. Too-many-fucking-words long. I KW330 had to do some serious editing. I know, I know. In Part III there could have been more scenes. But we had seriously run out’ve money by then, so we were only too happy to be able to get anything in the can. We missed out on some stuff, like Pomjar—that’s what we call him—starting his blog. Sitting in public libraries all over town, outside raining like mad, grokking his blog. I think that shit would have been awesome. Instead, we focused on the voices and, since we could no longer afford real people, we started using giant marionettes. But we could afford voice actors. So we blended all the strands together. Now you don’t so much see the scene as inhabit it. Be-there-likenow, you know? I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Personal freedom? Mine. Yours. We’re all in this shit together, folks, don’t forget. Chee-wow! So it’s all about unplugging. Anybody? No, it was not a conscious choice not to have Afro-Americans in the cast, just happened that way. Next? Clichés are the armature of the universe, baby. You over there? The one in the blue coat. Yes, you. Right there. Yes you. What d’ you want? Oh. We used a Panaflex, and edited in Avid. Can’t beat the tried and true. No, I’m not a Scientologist! I’m tired of being asked. Yes? No, we haven’t spoken since we broke up, last May. She’s doing a movie in Spain, some Spielberg spew. Let her do it. She’s made her bed. I’m fine without her. But it was a glorious, deep, soul defining three-and-a-half weeks. Maybe one day we can be friends. Yes? What do I think it’s about? I told you already. Why don’t you people listen? Yes, I will. But
I hate repeating myself. Personal freedom. You, teal top in the corner. Yes, it was my inspiration to use real street people as real street people. Talk about art imitating life! Lotta great shots. Wonderful faces. The French love faces, you know. I like French films. Never understood the whole Jerry Lewis thing, though. Another question? Yes, I know, but we decided to cut out all the nude scenes. We wanted a PG-13. The director’s cut will be out soon. As it is, there’s cussing and, well, cussing. So far, people are really dug-out on Wingnut and Nickledick. Am I right? Hear that? Well—they’re coming back! We’re already working on KW2. It’s going to be bigger and better, with more sophisticated special effects. Different writer. Without Z and Pomjam. Just a sort-of let the boys go really wild. Maybe follow them around and do the cinema verite thing. When I was in film school, I did a lot’ve hand-held. I love Soderbergh. And Dick Lester. I’d like to get back to that 60s verve thing, you know? Anyway. Again? That must be some potent crack you’re on, lady. I already told you what it’s all about. I’m not going to repeat myself. I hate repeating myself. What? My films are not all alike! Rasputin 3 and Shaman 2 are completely different. In R3 the killer is a shemale. In S2 the killer is only pretending to be a pre-op, post-hormone therapy transgendered male. Are there any intelligent questions out there? You, in the tweed? Ah, yeah. Thank you. No one has even asked about the whole rubber band thing. The bowling bags. Retro cool, eh? Can’t have people smoking or eating white bread anymore. But no laws—yet—against bowling bags. See, by collecting rubber bands, they’re reducing disorder in our universe. That sorta makes them warriors of a kind. You know? Yeah. It’s all about metaphysics and who knows anything about that, right? But the way we do it, if you never cracked a book, or even went to school, no problem. The what? The bathroom KW331 thing? Well, turns out it’s a kind’ve fixation of the author’s, the guy who wrote the book. That was in the contract. The boys had to visit five different bathrooms and the camera had to let the viewer read what’s written on the walls. I thought it was kinked at first, but it turned out pretty cool. What? Oh,
the whole 23 thing so creeps me out. Once you hook into it, you start seeing 23 everywhere. My room number tonight is 223! I’m not saying which hotel, though. By Jove and Buddha’s Belly! It’s time. Hate to, loves, but I have to go. Got another interview to do. Been real. Stay cool. Thanks, thanks, thanks.
THE ENTROPY INCREASES SPONTANEO
Y OF UNIVERSE DURING ANY OUS PROCESS
Habent sua fata Libelli
Your Thoughts Go Here
And so on...
The dudleyclark Story highbrow slapstick dudleyclark was born ahead of his time and somewhat against his will in New Orleans, Louisiana, wintertime 1952. His parents failed to be impressed when he began reading at three. Likewise, they were not much interested when, at ten, he declared himself a writer. Later in life, he dropped out not only from high school but also Tulane University where he vainly attempted to study philosophy––a subject that, ultimately, rendered him even less employable than he naturally was. Thus began his years of wandervogel (literally, wandering bird), and his accumulation of sometimes humiliating, sometimes stimulating, always excruciating jobs. In his time, he has been––presented here as neither a complete cataloging, nor in chronological order––a movie projectionist in a porno theatre, bookstore manager, welder, carpenter, rock ‘n’ roll roadie, television cameraman, advertising rep., yacht broker, bartender, waiter, nightclub manager, deck hand, assistant ranger, private investigator, building contractor, newspaper reporter, preschool teacher... and so on. Amazingly––considering the time-frame of his youthful years––he managed to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of alcoholism and drug abuse, and arrived at middle-life relatively healthy and robust and capable of completing not only whole thoughts and entire paragraphs, but books as well. His first book, monkeydo, proves this point admirably (as does the one you hold in your hand). An historical phantasm set in fin de siecle Africa, it is a comic send-up of the Tarzan story set within the confines of a pen-and-ink jungle. “Filled with the calls and cries of unfamiliar birds, along with caricatures, formulaic plotting and all-too familiar cliches, monkeydo somehow manages to break new ground, albeit with a very small spade, and provides fresh air to the stale genre of jungle-dwelling, vine-swinging he-men.” --The Charenton Post-Dispatch. He followed this up a few years later with Apocalyptic Crawfish!, a comic gem set in the green diadem of rural south Louisiana. AC! not only convolutes McCarthyism, mutant monsters, homosexual Air Force officers, and the ’50s dread of eggheads and all things foreign, it also provides a classic recipe for etouffé. dudleyclark, a man of some leisure, when not polishing another opus of post-modern comic primitivism (such as Roy Rogers in the Twenty-first Century, Vol. 4), can usually be found in a stupor hoeing in the veggie gardens of his heavily-fortified family estate, “elsewhere.”
Also by this Author: Woodman & Wonderboy Apocalyptic Crawfish! monkeydo Karmic Warriors Neither Here Nor There My Terrible, Horrible, Wonderful Life Remembrances of Old Pard (childrens) Roy Rogers in the Twenty-first Century (vols. 1 & 2)
And so on
ABOUT TIME PUBLISHING
New York Seattle N’Awlins Eugene Licensed under Creative Commons A-N-SA 2008 www.abouttimepublishing.com www.dudleysworld.com
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Z ya!
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