(The title of this entry has nothing to do with its image or its text. My back just really does ache after hefting those trees.)
Dear diary,
I wanna start out by acknowledging that I was wrong, and that I shouldn’t have said what I said, in my previous entry—I think it was either one or two entries ago—when I said, regarding reading:
I hate reading; that’s why I write so many books. There are plenty of books available for those who love to read; so we reader-haters need to rise up and fight back: let our own voices be heard, by composing texts that are proudly illiterate. We who despise reading need to produce unreadable, or at least barely readable scriptures. Anti-novels. DADA-non-DADA poems for the pseudo-literate. For the pre- and post-literate. For the aliterate. For those of us who can’t stand plot, who are fed up with stories and characters; who abominate meter and rhyme, and all the conventions of poetry. And who loathe prose too.
This is correct: I still feel this way; and I stand by my words. But I also want to acknowledge that I was wrong to say such things: I apologize for letting the cat out of the bag. I actually LOVE reading just as much as the slimiest bookworm. Seriously, I adore plot: I love stories and characters; I’m enthralled by meter, rhyme, and all the conventions of poetry. And how could I, who write nothing but prose, loathe prose? I dedicated my LIFE to prose, & planted my talents firmly in the sand of prose, so that, when my body dies, the seed of my efforts might grow up as tall as a tree, in the subsequent ages, & blossom with thick green leaves & vibrant flowers, so that the birds of heaven can make their home therein. There’s really nothing that I love more than reading. The reason I speak lowly of reading (if it’s true that I do), and the reason that I have exerted so much effort to preserve my illiteracy, is that I favor MIND over all. Imagination does beat text, if the king must choose between his equally favored daughters. I believe in you, O beloved reading and writing, tho I reluctantly but firmly abase you both to THOT. Especially the creative, experimental, visionary...
But I finally figured out why people worship money. My sweetheart & I visited a store yesterday, because we needed to buy some items for our new house. We were researching bedding, pillows, and all things sleepy. Everything I looked at, I liked. Everything was so soft!
OK: I am a male, a man, so it follows that I love the rough, rugged bedware most; HOWEVER, I admit, only to avoid perjuring myself, that I even liked the typically girly fabrics: such as pink blankies that have white-wedding ruffles on one side & muppet horse hair on the other. (I fucking LOVE that shit.) I think that some company should invent an oversize quilt made entirely of silken panties. That would be soul-soothing, on very many levels.
Ah, but yes, I was talking about the attraction of money. So while we were shopping for bedtime gear at The Soft Store (I changed its name here to protect its identity) I realized that money sustains its popularity NOT on account of its scent or its natural beauty, or even the healthiness of its teeth – no, money is good because it is useful. Normally I’m against practicality & usefulness & go-getter natures & can-do attitudes; but when I saw all those slumber-time accessories (like the vast foam pads that “remember” the shape of your body, so that it feels like you’re sleeping on a magic carpet that’s sinking in a lagoon), I wanted to take them out of the store and bring them home: I wanted to put them in my house. I would fill whole rooms with patterned plush stuff. —& YET, each item that I marveled at was cursed with a price, which means the amount of money that it costs to gain possession of its soul: so this is the first time in my life that I’ve felt a desire for money; again, not because money is likable in and of itself, no, but rather because money is a bridge to acquiring dream-appurtenances.
Another item that we stumbled upon at the store which I admired was this artificial rock whose front contained a swath of translucent material, behind which was a series of luminous diodes, and there were black plastic numbers before the diodes, inside of a frame, but the fourth wall of the frame was absent, and the number “8” was half in & half out of the enclosure, & watching & wondering at the others (for there were other numbers at the far left side of this paddock – they were as random as a bar code, containing no apparent sense or purpose; unless they were intended to identify one’s house’s street position, but I highly doubt that) – so basically what I’m saying is that this object that I found for sale was a fake rock with glowing numbers preserved in the act of escaping from its display; and on its underside was a sticker with the following handwritten message.
AS IS / Returned item: Solar doesn’t work.
Which I assume refers to the black panel (on top) that is supposed to power the diodes, tho I prefer to think that whoever wrote this memo was secretly ribbing God’s son in heaven, who also doesn’t work. And then underneath were two printed phrases with two blanks that had been filled in with red marker, so altogether it said:
Original Price: $29.99
Clearance Price: $14.99
What puzzled me was that they were still charging fifteen dollars for a fake rock that doesn’t glow. So this made me experience the feeling of yearning again, because I really wanted to take this item home. If its new price had been, say, two U.S. dollars, or “$1.99”, I woulda bought it. But instead I put it back on the shelf and walked away.
Walking away from a sale is a sorrowful act. It makes you feel empty inside, almost like you’ve lost a loved one. You want to grab on to some firm support nearby, to help you cope; but nothing exists, so you just flop down onto the linoleum, right there in the middle of the shopping aisle, and make sweet moan.
Now a salesperson approaches and asks if she can help, so you say: “I wish I had more money. Then I could buy all the things that I saw here today, at The Soft Store.”
And the salesperson answers, “I know: it’s cruel of us to display all the comforters and their covers like this, and to let you shoppers touch them and fall in love with them, without letting you take them home gratis—free of charge—but you can’t alter fate; and that’s the system that we have. It’s called freedom and democracy.”
So you say, “I just wish that I could take one memory-foam pillow out of your shop, without paying for it. I’d like to try it at home. I’d like to rest my head upon it and sleep, and dream of angels and vegetarian lions. But, like I said, I don’t want to give any money for the pillow. I just want to take it.”
And the salesperson says, “Well, have you considered stealing the pillow? That’s one way to avoid paying for it.”
& you say:
“No, stealing is even worse than having to pay. Or, I mean, it’s a little better; but it’s almost as ugly: it makes me feel nervous, to hide the pillow under my shirt and try to blend in with the multitudes of pregnant shoppers who are leaving the store at that instant. I’d rather just employ a fake rock for a pillow (#75568) and sleep on a hillside without any blankets, simply using the leaves for warmth—or the snow, if it happens to be snowing. Because those effects are easily available: you can just scoop up the snow with your hands, & build an office, & hide from your boss. There’s no price tag on the natural elements. Snow falls from the sky; leaves fall from the trees. A grain of wheat falls to the ground & dies, and it abides in solitude: but soon it rises, in the form of a plant, & brings forth much fruit. Even the Kingdom of Eternal Life is like a mustard seed—the tiniest seed of all!—but, when it grows up, it becomes superior to every other herb: a huge tree that towers beyond heaven; it’s even taller than that famous skyscraper of Babel. Then the angels approach & disrobe & recline in the branches. They don’t need blankets or any clothing, because, up there, the temperature is ideal. The seasons are twofold: spring and autumn only; so there’s a mild atmospheric fluctuation twice annually, for the sake of variety, but nothing severe. It always annoys me to think about the weather and the climate. Why do we have storms and floods? It’s because the Creator of the World is indifferent to us, if not evil entirely. Or there is no Creator; there’s only ongoing chaos – this void in which we’re trapped was never created and will never be destroyed – we crawled out somehow (isn’t it strange that we don’t even remember how we got here?), and now we spend our days scouring the hostile expanse in desperation, seeking any resemblance to ourselves, semi-sanely finagling impoverished relationships with the incommensurate. Like a man cutting covenants with a furnace. The art of the deal. Are the fish honoring their side of a contract when they swim into your net? How do you catch so many fish by simply casting a net in the water? I’d think you’d have to do more work than that, like putting bait on a hook; but you just toss your old smelly net over the side of the boat and let it sink down about midway to the seafloor, and whole schools of fish race jollily to occupy the thing; then you pull it up, and it’s heavy with wriggling life. In fact, you’re not even able to lift it, because of the multitude of fishes and other aquatic forms that it contains. There are crabs in there, clutching the ropes with their pincers, as if they too are honoring an agreement. I see a couple dolphins, a whale, and a giant squid. So I help you hoist the net up, and we row the boat ashore. There’s a marketplace close by, and the merchants there are watching us from their kiosks. They see us dragging our jackpot of abundance. We’re laboring up the road, approaching the market. As soon as we come to the entrance, to the main gate, we find an open place on the dirt and let go of the net. Some beggars are sitting against the wall of the city, & a few women are dancing nearby with timbrels. We set up a fire of coals, and place the fish thereon, plus other of the ocean life from our catch; and we begin to make bread also. Now, one of the salespersons from the kiosk labeled ‘Straw Beds & Linen’ steps forth and approaches our fishing net, which is brimming with deep-sea creatures (we captured 153 distinct souls) and remarks, wide-eyed: ‘Wow, there’s so many; I’m surprised the net held.’ And we answer: ‘Come, join us! Try some dolphin fingers (that’s just their name–they’re really made from the fins & the flesh of the flank); here, have some breadsticks. Eat a crab leg. Take what you want. We’re just happy to meet more people. This wildlife hastened into our net, seemingly of its own accord – neither do we understand it, nor do we care to unravel the enigma; we just eat & give thanks. Take some fish as well: we’ve got rainbow trout; crappies; muskellunge; tuna...’ (I’m just reeling names off the top my head, at this point) ‘...goldfish; blowfish; clownfish... There’s no charge for you to join us; pull up a chair! Here’s tartar sauce, if you want. And caviar for the masses.’”
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