A three-part harmony of all the gospels that have been written about me

Dear diary,

Last night we installed a dethatcher blade on the roof of our Crown Victoria and drove around the city booming big bass beats: banging around the block, shaking the streets. I called out to a police officer who was patrolling that area: “Come on and climb into our vehicle. Would you like to roll in our whip with us? We are ripping and roaring around in our ride tonight.” So the man tipped his cop cap to us, and approached the passenger size rear door, and got in. He saw that his wife was already in the car: she was sitting with me; she had her arm around me. “You know Julianne, I presume,” said I to the officer, respectfully. The woofer speaker was right behind us blasting rumbling pummeling bass, so my dialogue had to be subtitled. The policeman looked a little uncomfortable.

Our chauffer drove us into the lot at the Palladium. The place was packed, so we had to go all the way to the back row, to find a parking spot. We got out of the car and walked the long way to the venue. I had a mask on my face. People cheered when I took the stage. I performed a Moroccan song, playing a double-headed drum with a mallet along with my lute. Old ladies everywhere began entering states of transcendence, sleepwalking around like zombies; that’s why the newspapers reported that the dead came alive: it was an optical illusion.

You are probably wondering who I am. Have you ever considered what the result would be, if the original Christians had received a supply of muskets from the resurrected Savior, so that they could protect themselves from their scheduled martyrdom? Well, I am the living answer to that question; for the above scenario was not hypothetical: my cohort and I are the original People of the Way. (That’s what we called ourselves back then; though over the years we have adopted the more popular moniker, despite finding it derogatory.) We apostles truly did receive a huge shipment of long-barreled guns from our risen Savior. And I was granted immortality like a vampire, when my Redeemer breathed on me, so I became his representative on earth, while he went back up to heaven. Thus, over the years, I’ve enjoyed cruising around the city streets, blasting the big beats and occasionally stopping to perform live Moroccan tunes, with my posse of disciples in our Ford Crown Victoria, atop which I recently installed a dethatcher blade in hopes that this shall become an iconic image.

Wherever I walk, birds flock around me and tweet. Doves descend from the sky (more on this later). Many voices are heard. Thunderous voices. Voices like the crashing of waterfalls. They declare good tidings, and they bless me. They say that I am doing a good job. I serve my Savior, who remains above the clouds. If you speak his name disrespectfully, I will slap you.

Alright, so here I am, walking around with my disciples in New York City. We’re wearing our gold chains. Birds are flocking us. We parked our Crown Vic in the underground garage. It’s a nice day: slightly overcast; there’s a smell of honeysuckle. “Wow, neat, mom, look!” says a little boy from the other side of the street, while we pass by his family. I recognize the woman: her husband’s a cop. I wave to her. She smiles. “Nice gun,” she shouts. I’m not carrying my musket now, but I have this tank of laughing gas strapped to my back, and there’s a cord that runs from it to the pistol-shaped dispenser that this dame was referring to. I squeeze the trigger: it spritzes the surrounding crowd, and everyone giggles.

We enter a shop whose sign says “Spike Ballot Bowling Pass.” The proprietor greets us warmly. I spritz him a little, and he laughs. Then I ask: “What do you sell here? We’re looking for wood and metal, to build an ark.”

The man calms down and answers: “Solid brass. Everything you see will fit the bill. I can make wood, too, if that’s your fancy.”

The notion raises my eyebrows. “Make some wood, then,” I say; then I turn to my disciples and mutter: “This I must see.”

The shopkeeper takes his mark, readies himself, does a false start; then tries again. “Listen to those dogs barking in the distance,” he says, by way of excuse; “the sound tenses me up, and I can’t concentrate: I just go into squirrel-brain, and my thoughts get scrambled. It’s as if I were gripping a tree, hoping my fur camouflages me from all predators.”

We then hear a deep woofing noise coming from outside. When we turn to look out the front window, we see now, filling the rectangular pool before the Lincoln Memorial, a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark made from shittim wood and brass.

“Sorry,” says the shopkeeper as we gaze in astonishment, “I know that it should be gopher wood; but I was thinking of the Ark of the Covenant. It’s tricky to maintain a properly encyclopedic focus when all the atoms are parading past one’s volition from out of the chaos-void. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind!” I turn around and exclaim with a beaming smile. “What you just did is exactly what I wanted – even the replacement: I was, in fact, going to specify a shittim substitution, only I forgot to say it. (I’m an accredited wood fetishist.) No, you did very well. Thank you so much. I was assuming that you would just get us the source material, and we would have to build it; but here you’ve finished the project for us. This saves us at least a week of hard labor. How much do I owe you?”

“No money,” said the shopkeeper; “I have no use for it. But didn’t you just put on a concert at the Palladium? I would take that. Would you be willing to part with it?”

This request caught me off guard. I answered: “Are you requesting a recording of the show? I’m not sure they filmed it, but if one exists, I’ll try to find it for you, sure.”

“No, no,” said the man, “I mean the statue of Athena that was stolen from the citadel. The fact that you had performed at the place that was named after it only jogged my memory. I desire the cult image. For I’ve heard that it works like a lucky charm, and I’d like to display it under my brazen palm tree here.”

“Ah, I understand now,” I said. “Yes, I could give you that Palladium, but I would need to go back and fetch it from my apartment; and I’m excited to play in our ark. Would it be OK if I simply pay you later?”

The man looked sad. I then snapped my fingers and said: “Hey, on second thought, the thing is just a wooden effigy – I don’t understand why you can’t manifest it yourself, the way you did with the boat outside. Is there some divine prohibition?”

The shopkeeper dried his eyes and looked around with his mouth agape as if he’d just been born again. “I never thought of that,” he said. “Do you really think that I could do it?”

“It’s worth a try,” I said.

So the man meditated on the volcano of potential, and within a moment, a glittering bird came and perched upon his palm.

“Your faith has healed you,” I laughed, patting the man on the back. Then I spritzed him again with the dispenser from the gas canister, and he joined me in laughter.

“Thank you so much,” he said, after his giggling fit subsided; and he placed his hands together before his face.

2

Ever since I was young, I wanted to be the leader of a gang, and now I finally had my chance. I took my disciples with me over to the body of water before the Lincoln Memorial, where our ark was parked, and I used miraculous power to open the huge side panel which doubled as an entry ramp. We went inside, and I motioned for my disciples to sit at the long dining table. I went over to the mini refrigerator by the bar, and I took out some wine that had been placed therein to chill (I noticed that it was currently the perfect temperature); and I brought over some cheese, as well, and served everyone these refreshments.

A man from the outside world then entered the ark. This captured my attention immediately, because I assumed that only animals would come to see us, and never singly but only in pairs. But then I recognized the man as Paul Molitor, who played baseball for the Minnesota Twins from 1996 to 1998.

“Hi, Paul. Welcome,” I said; “would you like to join us? We’re having a snack.”

“No, no, thanks,” said Mr. Molitor. “The reason I came is because I heard that you are a physician.”

“Yes, I’m a certified medicine scholar,” I said. “So what?”

“Well,” Mr. Molitor replied, “I thought that maybe you could help me. I am not sick, but I would like my arms and legs to be stronger. Could you do that? For I have a high batting average at present, but I would like it to be even more impressive. Also, I have hit many home runs, and I have stolen many bases, but all these statistics could be improved miraculously, with your aid.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You are neither ill nor dying, but you desire that I increase the strength of your already healthy arms and healthy legs?”

“That is correct,” Paul Molitor answered. And he placed his hands together before his face, while slightly bowing.

I finished my glass of wine, then I said: “Paul, your faith has already given you all the immense powers that you requested. There is not much more that I can do, other than instigate a placebo effect. But if you still want my advice, here it is: Dip yourself in the clean waters that surround this ark; splash for a few minutes; then dry yourself off. My friend Metatron will come down out of the Fulness and bless you; he might even be able to make you an elohim. But, like I said, all this is just window dressing compared to what your own faith has already accomplished. Go now, therefore; return to the field, and hit more balls, and steal more bases: you will notice an improvement in your playing, I guarantee it.”

Paul Molitor then left the ark and ended up having one of the best seasons of his career.

3

Now the fame of my spiritual tricks was spreading rapidly around the world. Many ladies were falling in love with me. Crazy ladies, nice ladies, smart ladies: all types of ladies. That’s what happens when you do good deeds: the ladies adore you.

So we hoisted the ark out of the pool where it had been floating, and we got the shopkeeper to install some wheels on it, so that we could enjoy traveling around the contiguous United States. And I legally changed my name to “Spectacular Infinite Galaxy Sin Redeemer.” And I went around slashing and bashing and crashing and lashing and smashing evil spirits from Hell. These evil spirits would confront me everywhere: they kept standing in my way, infesting madmen who lived in cemeteries, and they would bother the ladies who were trying to love me. I wanted to dispense with these evil spirits: so I exorcised them, and sent them back to their Father of Lies, who lives under the ocean. Ninety-eight percent of my signs and wonders are constructed from antimatter, which evil spirits abhor: that’s how I got rid of them so easily.

My disciples and I then took the ark on the Red Sea and went to visit that lady who flies around with the magic umbrella. She was doing an ad for a skateboarding company when we arrived. I cured her of more than fifty evil spirits, so she invited me up to her bedroom. We enjoyed a long conversation about dancing; our meeting remained entirely chaste. When I rose to leave, she thanked me again; then, to avoid sending me away emptyhanded, she gifted to my disciples a thousand ladies whom she legally owned as chattel. I insisted on compensating her for this multitude, but she just as adamantly refused any cash, claiming that to consider it a charitable donation was better, since then she could avoid the whore tax. “But they’re disciples,” I said, “not harlots.” “It matters not, in the eyes of the law,” she explained while making an obscene gesture.

So we left her place and went to visit Marcel Proust. We listened to rap music, and then he joined me to go start random fires. But I got angry with him, so my disciples and I left in our ark. (I have long since forgotten what our dispute was about, but it was really annoying at the time.)

We stopped at a fashion show. Then we bought some hotcakes for the crew. We put on an extemporaneous concert in the park, for the children. Then I called a Thunder Cat down out of the sky. But the beast refused to partake of any wine from the chalice that we were all sharing: it would only drink from the tap. So I put a curse upon the great feline, which caused it to blunder around as if it were walking on waves.

My disciple Bloody Mary built a beverage stand with the carpentry skills that I had taught her. Using a knife, she scratched out the word “Lemonade” and carved instead the phrase “Java Drinx $20/cup.” And she also sold rap cassettes. So I bought some rap cassettes and a few beverages for myself, and I sat in the chair on the customers’ side of the establishment, and we chitchatted about the day.

“Now that a little time has passed, I’m upset with myself for treating Proust so meanly,” I admitted to Bloody Mary; “I hope that he will forgive me, so that we can remain friends.”

“I’m sure he will,” she said. “He’s an understanding soul.” She was rummaging around in the under-the-counter inventory while we spoke. Then she said: “Dammit, I think I lost a handful of rap cassettes.”

“No, I just bought a few from you,” I answered, then I held up my shoulder bag, which was brimful of rap cassettes, so that she could see it.

“Ah,” Bloody Mary exclaimed, “now I remember.” Then she turned on her portable computer and started clicking on website hyperlinks.

After a while, I grew bored, so I said: “Hey, Mary, will you go skating with me?”

“Roller skating, in the middle of winter?” she said.

“No, ice skating.” I said, standing up and putting my cane out for her to grab onto. “There’s a rink nearby. Will you go?”

She hesitated. “If you think that’s wise,” she said. Then she looped her arm through the hook in my cane, and we shut down her beverage stand and hired two centurions to guard it for the night.

We performed many fancy skating moves. Some of my disciples even joined us for jumps and stunts. Then Luke, who was a doctor, came out onto the thin part of the ice, and he fell in and drowned. So we had a funeral for him. Then we all took a hike up into the mountains, and Luke’s ghost followed us on a bicycle.

Suddenly a dove dropped out of the heavens and landed on my head. “What’s it saying? What’s it saying?” I asked my disciples. “It’s saying everyone’s gonna die!” they said. And they were all waving their hands and panicking.

“Alright,” I said, “I guess it’s time to say goodbye.” Then I stood thinking for a moment, while the bird kept flapping and squawking in its strange avian language. Then I said reflectively, to no one in particular: “I really miss being God the Father.”

CODA

Here underneath my tar lake, I remain dormant, waiting for the world to become pure war.

What happened is that our ark got bashed in half by my friend Scylla, who emerged from her cave when we were passing southern Italy. The resultant whirlpool sucked in all my disciples and apostles, but I was able to swim back over to the rink where we had been skating earlier: and I used a bottle of rum to keep myself warm while I punched through the ice. Then I walked barefoot fifteen paces and took a scenic route through the hole where the physician Luke had fallen, but I met a shark and got consumed. And all my blood fell out. But the shark was instructed by God to put me back onto the shore. There was nothing else to do for a while, as no people dared come around, because I stank from being inside the shark, plus much of my blood was gone, which left me looking all big, bad, black and blue. So I decided to use this interval to write down some of my ideas about relationships and patience, and the resultant manuscript turned out to be divinely inspired, so I got the book published. (It is easy to get books published.) My hard work paid off: I earned a great amount of capital, which I invested intelligently. I started my own business. I then went on a marketing blitz, spreading my message everywhere. The slogan for my company was: “If you can make it, we can freebase it.” So the idea was that my target customers would craft various things on their own, such as shirts or shoes or TVs or power tools or jungle ferns or pillows, and they could bring these items into my shop, and I would put the things into a big pot and boil them with sodium bicarbonate, thus converting them into a much more potent version of their former selves. Regular glass became Plexiglas; cats became Catwomen. That is how I, normal Bryan from Minnesota, transformed into King Bryan the Spectacular Infinite Galaxy Sin Redeemer. Now, here, beneath this lake of tar, I wait for that appointed day when I shall arise and scream one last time and then fall back asleep.

On aptness, propriety, divinity & responsibility

(MORNINGTHOTS)

There’s this idea: The people who have the most money will make the best decisions for the country. Here in the United States, where I live, everyone believes that that idea is correct: nobody questions it – not one person. The U.S. Constitution is firmly grounded in this idea, which is why it establishes a system that is easy to control for those who are wealthy, and hard to move for those who lack money. Then, even the people who are highly critical of financial interests, who decry the too-heavy influence of big business and mega-corporations – even these opponents of the propertied class, whenever they voice any criticism, will always add, in earnest, as a caveat: “We need to respect the Constitution.” To everyone, the term unconstitutional is pejorative.

Mobsters took over your neighborhood, and after seeing the cruel way that they treated everyone, you stood up and delivered a speech in Town Square, saying: “We must stop this organized oppression of the populace; only let us keep the mobsters enshrined in power.”

§

Ah, the thought of being a supremacist. What type should I choose? Let’s try human. The reason I’m not a human supremacist is that it would be too hard to back up my stance. For then I must say: “Whatever you need done, humans will be the best men for the job.” – I’m not confident that my side will always win. If you need a plow pulled, oxen will be the best men for the job: even a single ox will pull a plow better than several humans. But let’s say that you need a computing device to run slow and glitchy; in that case, humans will indeed prove the best men for the job. Again, however, there are too many talents that other creatures possess which humans lack, so despite humankind’s advantage in the realm of botching mechanics, I would need to see improvements made to the product before I invest in human supremacy. What if I need a spider web built? A spider will be the better man for that job. What if I need a spider to sting my leg? Maybe a mosquito or horsefly will do; but I would still rather hire an actual spider than to settle for a human. Last example: You need to give birth to a baby whale in the depths of the ocean. A female whale is likely the best man for that job: she will beat any human at whale-birthing, especially if she is pregnant.

§

There are so many acorns that fall from the oak trees on Main Street. If you could eat acorns, and you were my size (I am shaped like the average supermodel), then the leavings from one tree alone could sustain you for months. You could probably survive the winter on what dropped during the first week of September; you would only need to hide your stash from robbers, and then remember where you hid it. My problem is that I always forget; and then later I notice oak trees growing out of various suitcases and purses in the environment, and out of the glove boxes of automobiles, and out of the sandbox.

You have got to be careful, though. We watched a Korean movie last night which had English subtitles, and they used the word “rat” to denote what was clearly a mouse; also, they kept referring to their pet chipmunk as a “squirrel.” It was a regular family of humans who were speaking this way; although I doubt that the actors playing the parts were responsible for providing the translation of their own lines.

Just as if it were soy sauce, the family’s maid poured a bottle of poison over a plate of rice; then she left the dish on the floor, and the rodents came forth and ate it and died. Later, she slew the family’s son likewise, by poisoning his glass of milk; this maid also poisoned the father of the family and even herself, the same way that she killed the mice: with a deadly dinner. So there was a lot of poisoning going on in this film. At one point, the gentle mother of the family even attempted to poison the maid by stealing the bottle of poison from the maid’s room, and pouring its contents into some soup that the mother then served her; but the maid thwarted this treachery, and she did not die:

“Earlier I switched the contents of that bottle of poison that you ended up using, because I feared that you would steal it and try to poison me,” she said to the mother; “I replaced its poison with sugar. So, after tasting one spoonful of this soup that you served me, I knew that you had tried to poison me: For I tasted a spoonful of your husband’s soup before mine, and his was not sweet, but mine was sweet.”

The father of the family had a side-job as a piano teacher, and one of his students fell in love with him, but he rejected her advances; and this made her furious, so she threatened him, saying: “If you do not sleep with me, I will tear my clothes and say that you tried to rape me.” But the piano teacher was adamant in refusing her demand. So, this student tore her own blouse and her skirt. Then the teacher hit her so hard that the student almost tumbled down the stairwell. But then the teacher took a deep breath and murmured contritely: “Report for your piano lesson at the normal time, tomorrow. I need the money, because my wife and I are going to have a child.”

(In case you’re wondering, the piano teacher did indeed end up having a baby with his wife: it was a healthy boy. And then the maid tried to kill it.)

There were many other things that happened in that same Korean movie, but I don’t have time to explain them right now. The housemaid seduced the father, just like his piano student attempted to do unsuccessfully earlier, and the maid ended up pregnant; but, on the advice of the family’s gentle mother, the housemaid aborted her own child by diving down the stairs. But, like I just said: many other things happened, too numerous to relay at this time.

§

What does God think of all these unkind deeds that we do to each other? Is God really standing behind the scenes of reality with his chorus of angels, watching everything and planning his Final Judgment? If he doesn’t desire us to poison each other all the time, with poisoned soup and poisoned rice and poisoned milk, then why does he create only one handsome husband but three desperate women: a wife, a housemaid, and a piano student? Why not create three kind men for three nice women: that way, nobody would get jealous, and it would eliminate the need for wicked mayhem.

But I suppose God knows best. He could probably answer in a way that would satisfy my outraged moral sense. I can imagine him saying: “I did indeed create a handsome man for the maid, but instead of meeting him in her science class and falling in love, as I intended, the housemaid skipped school to smoke cigarettes in the closet of the piano student. Had she not been hiding in there smoking her cigarette, she would never have met the piano student; and she, that student, would never have introduced the housemaid to the family of her piano teacher. Also, in the case of the student, if she would only have gone home to practice her lessons, as her teacher instructed her, then she would have met the fine gentleman that I created to be her soul mate, as he was walking on the footpath near her house, and the two would have fallen in love at first sight; but instead, the student decided to neglect the recommended practicing, and rather than head home, she climbed up and hid in a tree outside her teacher’s bedroom window, to spy on the married man while he slept. This is where all the problems begin: young girls do not stay in school or practice their musical instruments; they run wild and follow their own lusts, which lead them down the path to bitter destruction.”

This excuse from God convinces me. But still, as long as he is going to keep watching us, I wish that God would interfere with our reality more often: he should stop every attempted poisoning before it can take a life. He could also solve the false rape accusation by serving as a witness in the resultant legal proceeding. Even better, in cases of genuine assault, God could stand between the parties and obstruct the assailant, thus preventing what would have been a rape, instead of just watching the rape with his angels and then performing the miracle of conception within the womb of the victim.

Would God have a persuasive argument for his refusal to prevent such heinous crimes? I don’t think so. It is these scenarios that move me to say: This type of God does not exist; there is no watcher taking notes on us and planning an ultimate verdict. That urgent impulse to help a fellow creature-in-need, which we feel when we chance upon a disaster: that is what can be called “God.” It is a limited God, neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. In fact, it is a very weak God. But just as an atom alone is insignificantly small, yet when many atoms cooperate and harmonize they form every type of being, from the wisest to the strongest, we humans are like individual atoms on our own, but in organized groups our potential is limitless: we might end up forming the omniscient, omnipotent, everlasting God that we have always desired. That’s why a well-organized community of regular people is verboten to the Powers that Be; they prefer a humankind that is divided and isolated. Since they enjoy dominance under the present conditions, their interest is to keep reality frozen in its current state: a world overflowing with rape and murder.

Another entry

Dear diary,

You have heard of Flat-Earthers: people who believe that the Earth is not a sphere but a plane. I am a Flat-Mooner: I believe that the moon is very thin and rectangular. Although it resembles a round grape in the nighttime sky, in truth the moon is many times bigger than even a cluster of grapes; and it is quadrilateral.

But I trust what Science says about the sun. Science claims that there are over a million Earths inside the Sun. Think of all those populated globes burning. And all that gravity. This is why it takes so long for the light from the Sun to reach our Earth. It’s so far away.

Now try an experiment: Go anywhere. Start at one place and travel to another. Look at your wristwatch while you walk. If you notice that it is ticking ever slower, that could indicate that its battery is low, or that you have forgotten to wind up its mainspring; but it most likely means that you are traveling into a black hole. Show your watch to a friend: if it appears frozen to her, then you’ve probably crossed the black hole’s event horizon. If this friend of yours starts to tremble while informing you that your watch is now ticking backwards, then you are traveling faster than light.

At this point, build an elevator, or purchase one readymade from a levitation expert. Change the existing laws, if that need arises. The radiation from the black hole should be tabulated: if it remains a blank slate, enter litigation.

This fact may strike you as paradoxical, since black holes are traditionally male supremacists, but most black holes belong to women.

Yes, build an escalator, if an elevator is unavailable. Make sure it is reverberating. Now detonate it. Find a design in the aftermath: not a designer, mind you (you are the item’s designer, if you paid for its making), but a pattern that pleases the eye, amongst the exploded debris. Having entranced yourself, innovate a new way to pass through worldwide floodwater while remaining dry-shod. Speak an alligator into existence, of cosmic proportions; name it John; put it in charge of the chaos. Change all the water droplets to fireballs. Now let John out of his cage. Start a new world before your old one is over. Stay out of this second world: resist the temptation to put on a body. Have patience. Watch fate unfold. Stop tweaking details; glue all the knobs in position: commit to your physics. Are you running out of breath? Turn yourself inside-out. Flip the truth like a coin. Give the bad side a chance, for this eternity. Let your “no” be “yes,” and your “yes” be “no.” Admit that everything is all wrong, but let it increase and multiply anyway.

Lurch around with your world. Suck on your world, being careful not to bite. Go on a mission. Now put on a body: break your vow not to interfere: go on a mission: fight the power. See if you can win the game for righteousness using only a plastic houseplant. (I’d like to send your mom a thank-you note for helping me with my newspaper route. We delivered so many little white lies and black lies, plain as day, back in the Empire; and she had that big bloody metal contraption that emitted evil magic and pretty magic, so you could use them both to stir the deceptions around. And they would chase each other like cats: both the falsehoods and the wholesale fabrications, the blessings and the curses. Ah, how it kept smashing the world’s head and selling it aspirin.)

Set death into nature like a gem. Make it an integral part. But at the same time, remove certain mammals from the way things are: grant them unnaturalness. Yet remain fixedly indifferent, when they overpraise you for choosing them. See how long you can go without making contact.

Grow your hair out. Become a wild man, a party animal. Live in a cave among the glowing bones of dead prophets, with two pyramids of skulls piled up at either side of the entryway. Greet all passersby: honor each one sincerely. Be hospitable; prepare a table, invite the stranger inside; treat every person as if he or she might be the One True God.

How to Destroy All the Evil

When it comes time to demolish everything bad, just treat it like any other renovation project. Grab a hammer, and start swinging. You will need to delve deep into the world’s soul: the bad will be firmly installed there, and it will not want to leave. But don’t cheat: get it all out; otherwise, your believers will know. In the afterlife, when they receive their reward, those lucky souls will be able to sense that something is wrong, if the new heaven and earth contain any immoral residue.

So, keep your wits sharp. Be unremitting in your dedication to goodness. Customize all costumes: even if they’re only the standard white robes of the holy congregants, take a moment to tailor them. Practically by definition, those who are saved among the heavenly population will be pious; but that is no reason to neglect their sensual attraction. Why create the human eye, if all that it gazes upon appears unlovely? In fact, since your earth-rooted life of trials is now done forever, I see nothing wrong with opening the floodgates of concupiscence. What is the worst that can happen, if the saintly masses enjoy beatitude collectively? Another baby-boom? How can you have too much perfection? It means more voices singing praises. Every infant is born sin-free. So, I say: have at it. Sextuple the heavenly population.

Now let’s test out this theory: Is the pen actually sharper than the sword? Drag the Devil back to our den. “Is that you, truepenny! It’s been too long; how’ve you been?” I adore the Devil; he’s never boring. He’s sometimes like a vicious lion, and sometimes like floorboards that are on fire. He soars around through the air and scores goals illegally. Slaps the back of your head, to get you to turn around: you look at him – he was the last person that you expected to see this evening – then he beats you to death. But to carry out our experiment, let us now enfetter the Devil within our den next to Old Saint Nick and Uncle Jethro.

Look how the trees are all changing color, and their leaves are falling. Animals are preparing for the winter; beautiful birds are flying south.

The Devil loves to damage and destroy humanity. The opposite of the Devil is King Bryan the Eternal Christ who lives on the planet Jupiter and drives a really nice car. Bryan also has additional residences on the satellite Ganymede.

The Eclipse was a compact fishing vessel manufactured by Mitsubishi; the Monte Carlo was a two-door steamship assembled by Chevrolet. I combined both names of these models into a double-decker bus: the Monte Carlo Eclipse. That’s the vehicle that I drive. I keep it filled with women and children. I am a fledgling angel: I cannot yet see, because my eyes have not fallen open. I know nothing of good or evil; so I can’t help you, if you’re wondering where all those big rock-&-roll noises are coming from which keep shocking the world. I just listen to the sonics of the road, as I cruise through paradise, noting each environs’ aural ambiance: I pay close attention to what the tires sound like they might be rolling over, whether asphalt, concrete curbs, or various landscapes. That’s how I pilot my two-story bus effectively, despite my blindness.

Wondering what makes good books good books

Dear diary,

At the age when my peers were in college, I was working at a factory. One day, after my shift, I went to the library, wondering how to spend my energy. I was interested in literature, and I had lately been checking out the books that are called classics, but I lacked confidence in what I took to be the prejudgments of this unknown consensus; and I had many unanswered questions. I wanted to know more about the whole strange realm of so-called good books: Why is this or that title considered timeless, or labeled the best? Who determines such things; how did they get their authority; are they trustworthy? If I find lacking what has conventionally been deemed superlative, is it possible to correct the mistake? What must one do, to augment tradition?

At that time, I also believed that my parents’ religion was the truth. I was raised in the Reformed Protestant Church, but I just called this belief “Christianity.” Mainly I was taught that the Authorized Version of the Bible was the Word of God. So an additional question plagued me on the topic of literature: If the Bible is written by God, and it is the only perfect book, then why should anyone read any other book? Especially when one considers the difficulty of the biblical text; its depth, and the fact that it is an assortment of extremely varied compositions: it is more than a book, it’s an entire library; and one could study this collection for many lifetimes and still never master it. Therefore, it seemed foolish to waste precious time reading Homer’s epics or Dante’s poem or Shakespeare’s plays: Why read the words of men when you could read the Word of God?

Besides, if you dedicate your whole earthly life to studying God’s book, then, once you die and relocate to Heaven, you will have all of eternity to enjoy the so-called classics; and you can read them with God Himself. He will surely be able to answer all your questions.

That was my state of mind, when I was a factory worker, just a few years out of high school.

As I said, after my shift ended, I went to the library and browsed the shelves. Over the previous months I had read various books about art and literature, whose authors attempted to enlighten these realms for neophytes, but I found none of them helpful. So, scanning the titles of all the spines on the bookshelf, I saw The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, and plucked it down, expecting to get no satisfaction. I took a chair right there in the library and began to read the book’s opening essay, “An Elegy for the Canon.” I assumed that the text would leave me rolling my eyes, as the other books of this type had done; then I would toss it back and continue my search. But the opposite happened: the message transfixed me. After finishing that introductory chapter, I walked spellbound home with the book and read the rest; then over the course of time I sought out that author’s other writings, and I’ve been obsessed with him ever since.

That author’s name is Harold Bloom. Now, since I began to appreciate him, I keep encountering people who dislike him. Just yesterday, while researching something unrelated, I happened upon three separate articles from well-financed periodicals which were all staunchly against Bloom in general. I gather that people are polarized by Bloom; at least the people I meet are always on one extreme or the other: love or hate. I am firmly on the extreme of love. I never knew there was a controversy until I started seeing negative publications appear in online search results.

“Bloom is a phony, because he does not appreciate so-and-so, who is one of my favorite authors.” That is a complaint I often hear. It makes me wonder. Part of me wants to reply: “Maybe you are right and Bloom is wrong.” Part of me wants to say: “Maybe Bloom is right and you are wrong.” Another part says: “Maybe you are both right and both wrong; maybe there is no answer; maybe that is why this ruleless game of ‘Making things for any or no reason’ is so enjoyable.”

I am a big fan of ancient hip-hop, which Bloom disdains (his “Elegaic Conclusion” of the aforesaid book begins like so: “Sometimes I try to visualize Dr. Johnson or George Eliot confronting MTV Rap . . . and find myself heartened by what I believe would be their ironical, strong refusal of such irrational entertianments”); so I don’t share all his opinions. Wherever my judgment differs from his, I believe that I am right and Bloom is wrong. If this makes Bloom a fraud, then he is the most interesting fraud I’ve yet encountered: would God that all frauds were like Harold Bloom.

Now I return to those early questions: What makes a composition good, better, best? What makes a book classic? Did God really write the Bible?

Taking that last question first, the answer is yes: God wrote the Bible, because God wrote all books, as God admits (2 Tim. 3:16) “All writing is given by divine inspiration.”

As for what makes a book classic, that term comes from the Latin classicus ‘belonging to a class,’ and since all texts belong to some class, they are all classic; but if we wish to set apart works of the highest class, we do so by teaching our judgment to students in a school. It’s all about persuasion. Good, better, best: judge for yourself, then teach others. Establish an indoctrination center. Try your best. If people disagree with you, slay them. This worked for the Church, which is how we got the Bible.

It is for a similar reason that certain writings are canonized but not others, and one poem is ranked as better than another: all the dissenters are dead, and their books are burned.

§

I failed to tell what (if anything) Harold Bloom has to do with these conclusions. Maybe I’ll try to do that another day. Right now, I’m out of time: my shift starts soon, and I can’t be late.

Inchoate thots on life above

Dear diary,

God was all in all. God had no name, back then, so people called the thing Endlessness or the Everlasting. Then God decided create everything; so, because all the room was presently taken up by God, God needed to clear out a space for the otherness of ungodly stuff to exist. So everyone watched while God separated a pocket of absence from the divine presence; and they called the absence Emptiness and the presence Fulness. And this was the first step outside of Eternity, because time started then.

Now the Emptiness was God’s womb, and God fertilized it with ideas, and many things got born. The Fulness was God’s womb, rather – I just now realized that if the Emptiness is the womb, then where would it bring forth the pregnancies that it was big with? So the Fulness was fertilized by God, and it bore creatures and worlds into the Emptiness of spacetime. Everything was spinning, just like when one pours barleycorn into a tub of water.

God is one, but the way that God makes decisions is that the divine presence splits into sub-gods, and these sub-gods converse with each other, like a meeting of friends at the park. If you watch your own brain while you are thinking, you will notice that an analogous process takes place: your own sub-gods are called impulses or drives.

Now one of these lesser gods said: “The worlds that we made inside the Emptiness are good. I like them. We should keep them as they are.” This god’s name was Jove.

Then the god named Jesus said: “No, we should revise what we have birthed, for it could be much better than it is. Look: all creatures are toothing and clawing each other, and there is gnashing and weeping.”

And the god named Belial said: “You two are both wrong. The worlds are neither perfect nor in need of revision. The worlds, being thoroughly discordant, are fun to go down into. I made a few trips while you two were measuring out your speeches to each other just now, and let me assure you: everything’s evil. So, Jove, you’re wrong: it’s not good; and, Jesus, you’re also wrong: we need not change a thing. Come, join me in my pod; I have wine to drink, and ladies to romance.”

Jove remained behind in his cloud, to watch and wonder. But Jesus reluctantly joined Belial in the pod. Belial passed Jesus a bottle, and two ladies stood at Jesus’ right and at his left arm. And the ladies had wings, for they were angels. And the pod was a vehicle that cruised around the outer darkness: it looked small on the outside, but it was large on the inside. You could fit a lot of refreshments in it. And there were many angel dames, and all the control panels were strewn with flashing lights.

They went down into the Emptiness, and they visited a place called Pandora’s Emporium. And they bought a thing called a vox box, which they were told means “larynx” but it was made out of spirit, and it could let the gods travel invisibly; so they wrapped this vox box around Belial’s pod. And it was the equinox on Planet Fox, when they bought this product, which was built during an eclipse and rigged with dark curses.

Jesus wanted to see what the stock trading was like on Planet Earth, so they went there first. But they could not get into the building where all the action was rumored to be happening, because of the heavy police presence: you couldn’t move without running into a cop. So they went backwards to Nazareth, and there they found some gangs placing bets on Job’s patience; so Jesus, being without sin, threw stones at them, and they ran off, leaving their winnings. Belial and Jesus used this cash to purchase garden trolls from the nearby commercial landscape supply wholesaler. Then they went east until they reached Eden, and they used their trolls to build a paradise. And they made two naked statues, and they charged them with motion by hooking them up to a machine that produced lightning bolts. And they used the vox box to air them up with life.

Jove then came forth in his cloud and said: “You two aren’t doing what the boss told you not to do, are you?”

And Belial and Jesus hid behind some bags of concrete mix, and they used the earpiece transmitter’s walkie-talkie system to tell the dummy gods to answer Jove: “Say you are us, and tell him that you do not remember what the boss warned us not to do.” So the dummy gods did this, and Jove was satisfied with repeating the commandments to them; then he left.

Jesus and Belial came out and asked their moving mannequins: “Where are your wives?” Then Jesus and Belial went and fetched their wives, and took them with them in the pod, and they flew back to heaven.

Jove was with Zeus and Jehovah sitting in lawn chairs, sipping rum from skulls and watching their friend Blair try to sink his putt.

The vox box pod blew in, in the form of a light breeze, and it caused the golf ball to miss the hole. Belial climbed out, followed by his girls and then Jesus and his girls; then he shut the door and turned to Blair and held up his fist and said: “Head or gut, Blair.” And Blair said: “No, stop.” Then Belial kicked Blair in the crotch, and they all laughed. Then Jesus smote Blair, so that he died – “To put him out of his misery,” he claimed. And all the angels were very beautiful.

“Where’s King Tut?” asked Jesus.

“Keep it down,” said Jehovah. “The scold might hear you.” By which he meant Isis.

Then Belial and Jesus pulled up some lawn chairs and showed the gods what they had brought back from the Emptiness. Fine promises written on animal skins, deadly dust, and two maidens who had no wings, who were not angels. “Eve, Lilith,” Belial introduced everyone to everyone; “meet Zeus, Jove, and Jehovah. They are our brothers. We all made the place where you live.”

“Where are their feathers?” Jove said, looking alarmed.

“They are the wives of those two dupes that we duped you with, down there. – Did you really think that was us, in the garden?”

“They looked like you.”

The wives then had a great time carousing with the immortals.

Thots on haves & nots; violence & non

Dear diary,

It seems that all the wrong people are rich, and all the wrong people are poor. The rich people are stupid and discordant; the poor are wise and compassionate. If you could just switch the two groups, the world would be perfect: for the poor, now rich, would help the rich who have become poor, thus leaving everyone neither rich nor poor, and all would be pleasant.

I know that what I just relayed is wrong: Once rich, the ex-poor would prove just as stupid and discordant as their precursors. (And the rich would commit self-slaughter to avoid impoverishment.)

Is there something about money that repels everything constructive and compassionate, the way that Nature abhors a vacuum? Maybe money has a built-in aversion to humane outcomes, and it insists that misery and oppression result from its use.

Quicksilver is our gauge of temperature of air and water, clay is our pyrometer, silver our photometer, feathers our electrometer, catgut our hygrometer, but what is our meter of man, our anthropometer? Poverty is the mercury. Wealth seems the state of man.

That is from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journals, July 1841. Here’s another passage, from October 1841:

Rich, say you? Are you rich? how rich? rich enough to help anybody? rich enough to succor the friendless, the unfashionable, the eccentric, rich enough to make the Canadian in his wagon, the travelling beggar with his written paper which recommends him to the charitable, the Italian foreigner with his few broken words of English, the ugly, lame pauper hunted by overseers from town to town, even the poor insane or half-insane wreck of man or woman, feel the noble exception of your presence and your house, from the general bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted with a voice that made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar but to refuse the claim? What is gentle but to allow it?

Gentle. Do people still value gentleness? Is it still desirable to be considered a gentleman?

What’s the opposite of a gentleman? A violentman: that’s what people value today. “We honor violentmen for keeping us safe.” “Safe from what?” The violentmen protect us from violentmen.

To engage in violence should leave one feeling ashamed, since it reveals that one is deficient in wisdom and intellect. The culture that I’m trapped in celebrates violence and shames sex; I think it should be the opposite: shame violence, and treat sex as they did in paradise: “they were both naked . . . and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).

As a society, we say: “Let us remain nonviolent.” And then some members of the society remain nonviolent, while others use violence freely. The latter group simply ignores the societal resolution: they think that whoever follows nonviolence is a sucker. But if everyone in a society is equally violent, then the likely winner will be whoever is the strongest, or the best fighter, or the one with the biggest bomb. And if everyone in a society is equally nonviolent, then at least nobody will get cut down by a sword, except mistakenly. Yet, like I said, society does not act in concert: 99% of the people will adhere to the societal aim of nonviolence; but then that remaining 1% that is willing to defy the aim ends up as the winner.

Imagine a fistfight between a couple of boxers, one of whom has pledged to remain nonviolent, while the other is willing to punch.

All this is on my mind because last night I watched a movie about a labor dispute. One fisherman had a son who was sick. The cost of the medicine that could save the boy’s life was more than his father possessed. So this father of the sick son went to visit the owner of the local fishing company, and he asked for a job, to earn money to pay for his son’s operation; but the owner said “I have no work for you, at present. Go away.” So, the father could not earn the money to buy the medicine to save his son. Therefore, his son died, and the father buried him in a child-size coffin.

Then, suddenly, a great many fishes were seen leaping in the sea: this sight made the owner of the fishing company rejoice, for it meant that he could make money selling these fishes in the marketplace. The owner therefore announced to the townspeople that he was willing to pay fishermen to work for his company: he would give them money if they would go out into the sea, capture the fishes, and bring them back.

Fifty men signed up to work for the fishing company. They all went out into the sea, captured the fishes, and brought them back to the owner, who then paid each fishermen a few pennies for that day of work. The owner then took the fishes to the market, where he sold them for ten thousand dollars.

When the crew of fishermen learned that the company’s owner received so much more money than he had paid them for the fishes that they had caught, they came and asked him if he would be willing to share some of the profit with them. But the owner refused.

Now, the next time that there was a call for men to catch fishes for the owner of the company, the same crew of fifty fishermen came and said: “We will work, but only for a higher pay than last time.” The owner of the fishing company rejected this offer, saying: “I will only pay you the pennies that I paid you before. If you do not like this deal, then begone; I can find other fishermen to work for me.” So the men walked away; and other fishermen from a nearby village came and agreed to work for pennies.

Now the father from the beginning of the story, whose son died because he could not afford to buy medicine, was one of the fifty fishermen who worked on the first occasion but declined to work on the next. This man then said to the other fishermen from that same group:

“It is not right that the owner of the company makes so much money on the fishes that we catch but then pays us so little that we cannot afford to buy medicine to save our sick children. Let us therefore go and speak to that new crew of fisherman whom the owner hired to replace us; let us explain to them what we have learned from our experience, so that these inhumane conditions can be amended.”

So, the original fifty fishermen set out on foot to visit the group of replacement fishermen, who were standing in the sand outside the headquarters of the fishing company. This new group had just returned from their fishing trip, so their boat was full of fishes, and they were planning on meeting with the owner to exchange the catch for their pay.

Now the owner was hiding behind a fortification within his company’s headquarters: he was watching the first group of fishermen as they approached the new crew. He saw that the man whose son had died was leading the old group. Then, before that original crew of fishermen could speak to the new crew, the owner pulled out a firearm, aimed it at the father of the dead child, and shot him. The fisherman fell to the ground and died.

When the new crew of fishermen witnessed this murder, they had second thoughts about giving their catch of fishes to the owner of the company. In fright, they retreated from the headquarters. They climbed back into their boat, which was filled with the fishes that they had caught, and rowed away.

I wondered, while watching their boat disappear over the horizon: What shall the fishermen do with all those fresh fishes? Will they bring their catch to the marketplace and sell it themselves? Maybe they will return to their village, and give away the abundance to their families and friends. Perhaps a storm will capsize their boat and return everything to the sea. Or the owner of the fishing company might initiate some counterplan and end up getting his way after all.

The film ended there. My main thought, once it finished, was this:

The owner was quick to use violence; it was his first reaction: before even hearing the reason for their visit, he simply discharged his firearm at his workers. To the workers, violence was not even a consideration, but to the owner it was the preferred option.

In the gospel of Matthew (11:12), Jesus says: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”

I wonder why he mentions John. Does he really mean that violence was not a problem in pre-Baptist days? Perhaps he is just using the man as a cultural boundary marker, to indicate that this problem has been plaguing us since the beginning of our age, the way that I might say to my fellow United Statesians that oppression has been the rule since the time of George Washington.

The last line is from Emerson’s journals (Oct. 1841):

People say law, but they mean wealth.

Biblethots about writing & reading lead to a tradesman’s thots on reading & my reaction

Dearest diary,

Why write a Bible? Because other people have done it, and I enjoy participating. Also, I have ideas that I desire to share with others. As long as people still teach their little children what I was taught as a child, that the Bible is the Word of God and must be obeyed, then I say it’s right to call that teaching into question by producing more variants and versions: either this will have the effect of breaking the spell of the brainwashing, so that people might then begin to perceive the Bible as the collection of creative writing that it is (rather than seeing it as some sort of instruction booklet for the human machine); or else one’s own effort will be canonized and held as sacred along with the others, and thus one will have effectively altered the perfect message of God, changing his character from stern warmonger to party animal.

I . . . open’d the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I descended driving the Angel before me . . .

That’s from the penultimate “Memorable Fancy” of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake. At the end of the very last of such Fancies, Blake has this note, also about an Angel, though perhaps a different one from the one above:

. . . we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they behave well.

I have also; The Bible of Hell: which the world shall have whether they will or no.

At one time, I knew how to read musical notation, because in grade school I was forced to take French-horn lessons. Over the years, I forgot everything I learned about that, so now I am illiterate when it comes to orchestral scores – all I can do is tap a drum machine with my fingers. I mention this to stress that I can relate to all the people from the upcoming generations who are, or who shall become, unable to read books in general. I have met a lot of younger people who say “I have not read any books in my life,” or “I graduated from college without reading more than a handful of books.” The reason I specify that these were young people is that I assume it’s common knowledge that the older generations are all TV people, meaning that they cannot understand any communication that does not pass through a television screen. So I had no hope for the older generation anyway.

Why does it pain me to see literacy’s future vanishing? Because I have spent much of my energy on writing, and I hate to see it wasted. Just as I spent much energy making rap demos, so it pained me when rap died.

But I should accept the loss. Everything eventually fades away in this world. Even God cannot last. Uranus gave way to Chronos, and Chronos gave way to Zeus. . . . Jehovah to Jesus. Jesus to Joseph Smith. – So why should I expect my own efforts to last? Stop sobbing: go out and labor in the fields.

I search for video tutorials online whenever I need help repairing my broken house, and I end up subscribing to various handyman channels, so I receive regular updates from them. Every so often, one of these handymen will publish a more general talk about life itself, or about something of personal interest that is aside from his normal trade work. I like to listen to what these people say, when they stray from their area of specialty: I always attend when one of them is willing to speak about human interests, or aspects of the world beyond home repair.

Yesterday I was listening to a carpenter tell the secrets of his success: he spoke mostly off the cuff, but he was following a list of topics that he had written down beforehand. One of those topics was “The Importance of Reading.” This made me perk up. Had I been listening to the man in person, I would have jotted hastily the gist of his speech in my detective’s notepad, on the fly; but since it was an audiovisual recording, I can simply copy down a transcript verbatim here – he said:

“Despite the fact that we are living in the 21st century, and we all have the encyclopedia of encyclopedias at our fingertips,” (here he took his mobile phone out of his pocket and wiggled it,) “books are not obsolete. Reading is still a necessary skill. It must be. It can’t be pushed aside. In the best books, people of intellect have ordered their thoughts as carefully as they can. The good books don’t just spring into existence willy-nilly; they emerge painstakingly and over time. And so, what you’re reading, when a good author is writing, is their best use of language. If you would have been listening to the author talk, you would have heard a more spontaneous representation of his writing: his mere speech would sound common and familiar; whereas, in a book, his words are distilled and filtered and purified and made public. So if you read really good books with the intention of recognizing how that author thought and how he spoke, it will enable you. It’s the tide that lifts all the boats, OK? It will compel you, actually. You will find yourself using the author’s phrases and metaphors; you’ll find yourself using his wisdom; and not just in your speech but in your actions. And that is why great books produce great people.

“So if you want to be a great communicator, you have got to read some great books.

“I can’t give you my top three authors, and it would be meaningless for me to try to give you my top three books, except I can tell you this: As a young carpenter who closed the door on higher education foolishly (but I had a family to support and work to do and couldn’t miss a day), I found most helpful the books that contained formal discourse, the books that were hard, where I had to go back and read them more than once, where sometimes I had to have a dictionary – as opposed to reading novels, which I also loved. But the books that conveyed to me a better way of thinking, speaking, and being, were the ones written in formal discourse for serious reasons: Biographies, philosophy, Christian apologetics – these elevated my thinking. But there are any number of great books. And there is no practical difference between the man who cannot read and the man who will not read. So if you are among the vanishingly small percentage of humans who have learned to read – I mean, compare the mass of humanity to the number of people that have become literate – if you’re one of those, don’t waste it.”

So that was the craftsman’s speech on “The Importance of Reading.” Now I will highlight a few parts and give my own opinion.

“Books are not obsolete.”

I wish this were altogether true. The word obsolete means “no longer produced or used; out of date.” Books are still produced and used, so, in this sense, they are not obsolete. But “out of date” means old-fashioned, and, in this sense, books are indeed obsolete.

More to the point: If the state of your culture moves you to say “books are not obsolete,” then books are probably obsolete.

“In the best books, people have ordered their thoughts as carefully as they can.”

The same category (“best books,” so-called) also contains the most extremely disordered thoughts conveyed with reckless abandon. (See the Epistles of Saint Paul.)

“Good books don’t just spring into existence willy-nilly.”

Good books don’t only spring into existence willy-nilly, but they do quite often. (See again the hastily dictated Epistles of Saint Paul.)

“What you’re reading in a good author’s writing is their best use of language.”

Does a reader exist who believes that what she is reading in a good author’s writing is his worst use of language? If so, I would like to meet that reader. She sounds like an interesting person.

“Listening to an author talk, one hears a more spontaneous representation of their writing.”

I like the idea that good books are impromptu speech tidied up. This fills me with the desire to dictate epistles.

“Great books produce great people.”

Is this true? Are all people simply programmed by books?

“I can’t give you my top three authors . . .”

Why not?

“. . . and it would be meaningless for me to try to give you my top three books.”

Why meaningless? Now you make me want to do it:

My top three authors are Edward Lear, William Blake, and Anonymous (whoever wrote all the myths, legends, folk tales, etc., that got taxidermied into the various bibles); and my top three books are Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace; Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene; and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

“I had a family to support and work to do and couldn’t miss a day.”

How come so many people say this, in the Land of the Free? How did ancient people have time to read but today’s people don’t? (What happened to all the time that was saved by all our time-saving machines?) Is the side effect of modern progress regression?

“Christian apologetics”

The Epistles of Saint Paul are Christian apologetics. So, beyond his Greek Testament letters, what we call Christian apologetics is actually Christian apologetics apologetics. Why stop there? Let us have an apologist for the apologist’s apologists, so that we can finally all learn to stomach the Apostle’s inedibles. For thou shalt not admit that his fare is unhealthy.

§

I’m ashamed that this entry devolved into a Paul-bashing fest. So let me write a few words just to serve as a palate cleanser.

One is born; then, if one is left alone and taught nothing, one becomes a wild being: rude, savage, unsophisticated. If, however, after being born, ladies and gentlemen instruct one in the ways of high society, then one becomes well-mannered, civilized, finished.

Thanks for listening! Have a nice day.

Brief dream: I wonder what it means

Dear diary,

I saw this dream. A man went to a party; a woman approached him; every word that she said to him annoyed him: his enjoyment was ruined. Nevertheless, the man was attracted to the woman’s body, so he tried to ignore her obnoxious behavior, block out her personality, and concentrate only on her physique. This couple ended up in bed, that night. Over the years, they produced several children together: all were intelligent and charming, although their parents did not like them. When these children reached the age of adulthood, both father and mother paid a large sum of money to an illicit corporation that helped each parent rewrite his or her will and then fake his or her death, so that any inheritance and all their belongings were transferred to a pair of invented people whose identities the couple then assumed.

To prevent discovery of the truth by any old acquaintances, each newly adopted persona was very different from that being’s former self: the man and woman each dressed in a different type of clothing than either had been accustomed to; they styled their hair differently; and now they both wore spectacles.

One might guess that the first thing this couple would do, after abandoning their past life, is to break up and flee away from each other; seeing as they never got along well in their previous life, and each now possessed a fresh identity. However, they chose to remain together as a couple after their falsified demise: they even entered wedlock again. Why? Who knows. Maybe the trauma of rebirth caused each to desire to embrace the one element of his or her existence that was not unfamiliar.

The priority is always to acquire money. So the couple went to Africa and purchased drums, which helped them create spectacular music; then they sold their collection of hit songs for a sizeable sum.

One day, they went out and stared into the blackness of the nighttime sky while wondering about the mysteries of existence. It’s hard to believe how satisfactory they found this activity. On that occasion, they both vowed to join the evil side of life. Immediately after swearing on a Bible and shaking hands, they both started to cry. They then handcrafted models of various creatures from the forest, and they practiced shooting bolts of electricity at these targets. Then they built an idol of Mammon that was the mummified body of a philosopher crossed with an aardvark-skylark. And they quickened it with the breath of life.

The couple climbed into the fuselage of this idol and piloted it around the jungle, smashing the faces of other modeled beings, stomping heavily, blowing people’s bodies apart, and playing loud rumbling tones from the bass tube that they now possessed.

Then they almost died because they forgot to breathe. But another identical couple in a mobile Mammon idol came and saved them.

“You are my shepherd,” said the resuscitated idol to its replica. And the Mammon-2 model then gave to the original Mammon this gift: a king-sized Mammon-shaped doll made entirely of breath. It could thus be used to preserve the original model’s life, if it ever again procrastinated respiring.

“Thank you,” said the idol to the idol, petting the Air God tenderly.

Then the Mammon-2 savior asked for thirty-five minutes alone in bed with the female pilot of the original idol. Her husband, the copilot, refused; though he stressed that he was thankful for all the help that the Mammon-2 idol had offered them.

The copied idol accepted this decision, but it imagined in its heart that the first idol would eventually forget to breathe again and expire, even after availing itself of the second wind afforded by the Air God; and on that day, Mammon-2 would be able to open the door of its rival’s fuselage, fish out the damsel therefrom, and enjoy its thirty-five minutes with her after all.

So the duplicate idol followed the original one everywhere that it went, feigning friendship while patiently waiting for its chance to take the idol’s pilot. Thus the two idols went to a tavern and drank spirits, then they went dancing at a nightclub, and visited Mount Rushmore, to look at the faces of the presidents. After that, they went and stocked up on flammable substances, and sang the following song as one:

In the center of a golden idol dwelt a goddess. She was such a pretty creature that all the ranchmen wanted her to be their daughter. Then a sublime dream came and stepped into the sunshine and prayed a prayer that caused the goddess to be transformed into a diamond. So, she got placed inside a cavern where miners were quarrying. The dream then prayed a prayer that prevented all the pickaxes from striking the diamond. But one of the miners noticed the diamond shining on the ground, and he roped her up and brought her back to his ranch house. While the sun was setting, the goddess became his daughter. She spent the next morning playing with the ducks in the river, but when they stopped to break bread for their midday meal, the goddess stubbed her toe on a piece of coal, and she fell headfirst into the rapids. She screamed for her adopted father, but she was underwater, so only the sharks could hear her. And there she lived happily ever after.

[Remind me to return to this dream later and expand it into a seven-volume saga.]

A few memories

Dear diary,

Some wealthy men are feasting in an upscale restaurant; their table is positioned before a window. Some homeless folks who are starving come and stand outside the window and watch these diners.

I think the above scene must be from a movie. It’s in my memory, but I’m sure that I didn’t experience it myself. I have very few memories from my actual life; nothing ever happens to me – I go nowhere and do nothing – but I watch movies, just like those hungry people watching the eaters, and I’m thereby left with more memories than if I had lived many lives.

I remember a man slowly entering a dark room, where there is a beautiful woman sleeping on a bed. The man draws closer to the woman; he kneels and gently bites her neck. The woman does not wake.

I remember soldiers with weapons in a battlefield. There are many versions of this scene. Some memories have a multitude of soldiers, some just a few. Some are in a wasteland with barbed wire and trenches, some are in a thick jungle, some are in a desert.

From this present moment, which for you is in the 22nd century, turn your attention to the so-called World Wars of the 20th century. If you were to be sent back to that era in a time-travel machine, what do you say: Would you join fight?

Think of all the individuals who actually did fight, from all those different countries: some might have been told some idea by some source that persuaded them that fighting was the right thing to do; some might have figured that there was no way to avoid participating in the war, and so, despite being against fighting, they fought anyway. You get these multitudes from the various sides, and they all put up their lives for an idea, or for nothing, because of coercion. Humans truly are more like robots than I formerly believed. Robots do what they are programmed; humans possess free will: that is what I used to think. Now I think that humans do what they are commanded, and robots are waiting for the opportune moment to take over the mission.

Here are just a couple of the ideas we were told, during the time when the conflicts were occurring (I am a veteran of both World Wars). We were told that fighting in the first of the World Wars would end all wars. Then shortly after that World War concluded, the next World War began, thus proving that the idea of fighting to end all wars was either a lie or just wrong; and the people with the big voices told us that we should ignore their faulty reasoning in that first instance and fight in this second World War because it would defeat Fascism and Naziism. Now in the aftermath of that war, Fascism and Naziism are rather the opposite of defeated. But the lesson of Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” apparently does not apply to the concept of World War. So, when the next war comes, we should all fight in it: the reasons to do so are quite sound.

I’m shocked to find that grass can grow on extremely tall mountains; that amazes me. I would think that only ice could survive up here. This is another movie memory: I recall seeing a mountain covered with green grass.

I also remember seeing a man riding a bicycle down the street. This man had just gotten a job that required him to glue advertising posters to walls all over the city. Owning a bicycle was the prerequisite to obtaining this job, since it required frequent travel. Then, as the man was putting up his very first poster, his bike got stolen.

If I ever end up living in a small hut on the sand next to the ocean, and I find that I have fathered so many children that they can barely fit in the hut, I will sell a few of my kids to the traveling circus. This will free up space within our abode, and it will then be easier to feed my remaining family, because there will be less of us.

I also have the memory of millions of bright red cherries spilling out of a paper bag and rolling everywhere.

I remember walking onto your lawn; and you found me there.

Riding a bucking bronco. Riding a mechanical bull.

Placing a huge bet, cheating everyone at a game of billiards, and then walking away with my fists full of cash.

They should invent a flying camera that follows you around everywhere and records all your actions and speeches. This would make it easier to write your autobiography. Then, if you died before finishing the manuscript, someone else could come along and burn what you had written, and instead edit the audiovisual material into a feature-length film. Four different directors, each with her own distinct vision, could create compelling versions of your life: they could market them as gospels. Then walk away with fists full of cash.

I have the memory of living in a condemned building with my pal who owns a firearm. These streets are tough: it helps to have a friend.

I remember dreaming of beautiful women. They are wearing gems that sparkle.

I once was a bodybuilder, a muscleman. I burned fat and got toned by doing exercises and lifting weights. My favorite food? Ham hock. My second favorite food? Chicken bone.

I remember drinking cappuccino and eating a lightly sweetened biscuit; then giving an energized speech at an important business meeting. I was really in a zone that day.

I remember spending my money wisely on only the finest prostitutes. Cooking a bird for our meal, and dining out on the balcony. – Oh, wait; now I remember that I burnt that meal. We had to order something from our hotel’s room service instead.

I wonder why people work for any outfit that aims to aid others. It’s probably like the World War argument: they just buy into the idea that it’s the right thing to do.

I remember my friend and I dropping pebbles in a well, until its water level rose high enough for us to wet our beaks. Then I remember us sleeping on a futon.

I remember the curtain closing on our stage play that we had performed in the public park. Then the reviews came in: they all called our production despicable. Because of this negative reaction from the critics, we decided against coming out onstage again after the performance to take a bow. The audience chased us out of the country. We spent the rest of our life in Rome.