His career spanned untold years, and he was buried alive in grand style between his three mothers. His tombstone represents him in armor, holding a shield with a vast cooking pot depicted upon it.

Dear diary,

Did that ever happen to you? Did you ever reconnect with an old friend? We’ve all been in this situation: You cancel your account on the most popular social network. You lose all your acquaintances in the process. Then, later, you meet again, by chance, in another place, a long-lost friend from that ancient network. It’s like a grade-school reunion. The weird thing about online fate, however, is that it’s entirely virtual. What I mean is this: In grade school, you speak to your fellow students face-to-face, like Moses and Yahweh, because you live in the same area of the United States. Contrariwise, the owners of online accounts are elusive: you never receive their voice on your two-way transponder; you never behold their undoctored appearance: you only know them thru the medium of the air (I mean the network, the electronic interface), like Saint Paul and Yahweh.

These musings were the first thing on my mind this morn, because yesterday I reconnected with my old friend Qualo. I don’t have much more to say about this, at the moment, because it only just occurred, but the few things that Qualo said, when he let me know what he’s been up to — making music, writing novels — sparked some embers in my kiln. So now I wanna proceed with this entry, acknowledging that whatever I end up saying here was most likely prompted by our conversation; but I only want to use our reunion as a springboard to unrelated imaginings. In other words, I don’t wanna dwell on any particular topic. I hate sticking to the subject. However, if I veer off into dark avenues, which are the type of avenues that I tend towards, I don’t want my reader to assume that she should attribute any darkness to my friend Qualo; for Qualo & I possess at least this one trait in common: We both always sleep with the lights on.

So, being that we were out-of-touch for so long, Qualo said, “We need to get caught up…” And he informed me of all the work that he’s been doing. As I hinted at above, he’s been making music, collaborating on short films, & writing novels & short experimental pieces of creative fiction. Now I ask my gentle reader, who has kept up with all the entries of this diary of mine: What can I say, in answer to my comrade? I mean: What have I been up to in the meantime, from the day that I quit Facebook to this present instant? What have I been doing?

I think it’s important to check with you, dear reader: to have a meeting, just us together; let’s sit down in the boardroom & discuss this, because you’re the only one who knows my true history, and we can agree that it ain’t too pretty.

For behold the entries that I’ve written to myself over the years: they’re like love letters. “Dear Narcissus, greetings from your admirer! Sincerely, Narcissus.” And that’s all I’ve been doing since the days of my forefathers. I haven’t been making any music; I haven’t written any novels. In fact, I’m more like a factory worker who went on strike. Or like those people who stop eating, in order to protest the inhumane treatment of fellow creatures.

Instead of contributing to the greater world of art, I just write in this diary exclusively, as a form of protest. But what am I protesting — the world itself? No. The economic system? Yes.

If our man-made economic system were passable, I’d return to writing books & singing songs & making movies. I’d even sculpt marble in the shape of a great poet with horns on her head; & I’d paint a mural of purse-dogs napping on the wings of war planes. (Purse-dogs are those dogs that live in your purse; and war planes are airborne vehicles that keep the U.S. dollar strong.)

But, as it is, there’s too much stress for us to bloom. One never sees a houseplant blossom that’s been starved for water & sunlight. So why do we artists keep generating product for free? If you want nourishment (which by interpretation means: if you want your basic needs met), then keep your appearance withered & sickly; otherwise your owner won’t know that there’s anything wrong, and he won’t change your position so that you receive more light on the windowsill, and more sprinklings from the canister; yes, if you don’t put on a sour face, your owner will forget to care for you. Look at the sheep: they don’t grow their wool for nothing: the shepherd must feed them first, by taking them for a stroll upon the green-carpeted hillock; only then will they yield up their coats (& they might even let him have their cloaks as well). But a starving sheep is a bald sheep. That’s why I refuse to grow out my hair.

And Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.”

And he said unto her, “If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” (Judges 16:6 & 16:17)

But in this parable that I am extemporizing, wool stands for artistic output.

I beheld the Ancient of days, and the hair of his head was like pure wool: and his throne was like the fiery flame. (Daniel 7:9)

Sorry to digress into a free association of quotations, but this last reminds me of Wallace Stevens’ lines from “Like Decorations...” (I follow modern propriety in leaving out the rest of the poem’s title, cuz alas it contains the ‘N’-word, which is naturally offensive to any racist society) where he also conflates the best American with Father Time:

In the far South the sun of autumn is passing
Like Walt Whitman walking along a ruddy shore.
He is singing & chanting the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were & will be, death & day.
Nothing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire & his staff is a leaping flame.

Now just one more — cuz the above reminds me of Whitman’s own “Song of Myself”, the beautiful section 11; here’s the key couple lines:

Dancing & laughing along the beach came the 29th bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them & loved them.

This part of my favorite poem is, incidentally, what I was attempting to homage, when I chose to populate the music teachers convention of my previous parable with exactly 28 young female pianists. Whitman has “Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,” so I did the opposite. For, if we employ the structure “A is to B as C is to D”, then swimming is to piano playing as shooting the piano player is to composing a new blog post.

Now I’m thrown back on that familiar recurrent thot: What’s all this artmaking for, anyway?

Have you ever visited a museum? You see all those pictures on the wall? There’s millions and millions. Or there’s at least a thousand. Or maybe fourteen, if you limit your scope to one room. But even fourteen pictures are hard to take in. It’s like trying to eat all the three-course meals of an entire sennight in a single sitting. (A proper meal consists of multiple courses: First, an hors d'œuvre or entrée — I suggest French onion soup — then comes the plat principal — say, vegetable stir fry — and finally the cheese course — fake cheese is recommended. And I usually serve a salad before the dessert. Always eat by hand: meats should be torn off in large pieces and held between your thumb and two fingers. Sniff each morsel before consuming it: this honors its aroma. Keep the sauces thick. All food should be flavorful. Each bite should make you feel as if your face has been punched by a boxer. Except bland foods: those foods should be allowed to taste how they like — they’re subtle: not quite flavorless, but close to absolute zero. I’m thinking of foods like brown rice, which is my favorite food: I could eat it all day, with just a little broth for seasoning. Even if the scientists discover that brown rice causes heart attacks, I say: bring it on. A heart attack never killed anyone. The only dish that I’d never eat is the salted meats of sea mammals. And tongues of hams should be brined and dried; cucumbers too.

If you live in artificial freshwater, such as that pond near the side of the highway which my biological father had to dive into — tho he called it a “swamp” on account of all the algae — for he’d burned his chest badly after his truck overheated, when he pulled over at the side of the road & removed the cap from the radiator, thus inviting the sizzling liquid in the engine to ejaculate upon him — I say, if you live in such a pond, and someone’s cooking you, then you can call your home a “stew” on next year’s tax form. Also you should list your occupation as “food for humans”, not “chef” — the reason for this is that chefs do the actual cooking, whereas you yourself just serve as the gourmet cuisine: you’re the item being prepared. And in the box labeled first name you should write either “carp” or “pike”; then for last name you can write “tench”, “bream”, “eel”, or “other fish”. Now claim your dependents: “wild boar”, “hare”, and “birds”. Remember what I said about beige food? Not all dishes are showy. Yet this last bit of nonsense I’m gonna leave exactly as I found it, cuz it’s already funny — or gross, if you think about it. It doesn’t need any touching-up. The award for “grandest showpiece of all time” goes to two similar meals, because there was a tie, and the judges opted to duplicate the trophy rather than engage in a re-vote, cuz it was past their bedtime: so the winner is… roast swan or peacock. Each creature, before serving, is sewn back into its skin with feathers intact, the feet and beak being gilded. Since both birds are stringy and have an unpleasant flavor, the skin should be filled with the minced flesh of tastier birds, like goose.) So if we keep producing art, such as paintings by Dutch-masters, then we’re banking on brains-in-vats existing to look at them. Cuz brains have eyes. (Eyes are part of the brain, as it is written in Synecdoche, New York, the 2008 film by Charlie Kaufman). My point is that dreams are non-transferable. So anyone who’s planning on embarking on a successful career as a dreamer better go to a good school and be prepared to work hard.

But if a person writes a few thin books and then spends the rest of their life scribbling in a diary, have they committed an unpardonable sin? I suppose one would have to read the diary, to find out. And who’d ever want to read someone else’s diary? That’s the problem that I keep running into. It’s like I’m trapped in a maze, and every dead-end barrier has that question inscribed upon it, mocking my comprehension: Why would anyone ever listen to anyone, when each of us is a world wholly adequate unto itself? (“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matt. 6:34.) Hermetically sealed & shipped to the Inferno by its artist. Signed: Jehovah. Occupation: Firefighter. Archenemy: Lucifer. Archenemy occupation: Arsonist.

So, what are we supposed to do? Ignite the world, or put out the existing blaze?

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I: he shall baptize you with flames.” — John the Dipper (Matthew 3:11)

“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” — Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 12:49)

“Since it is hardly proper that a father should be separated from his children, we shall be joined by our family in the immediate future: Madam Ubu, together with our dear Sons-&-Daughters Ubu. They are all very quiet, decent, well-brought-up folk.” — Ubu Christ (from Act 1, Scene 3 of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Cuckolded)

& I was gonna end this thing here, cuz I’m tired of writing, but then I remembered this one last passage, so I’ll copy that below; then I’ll bid ye adieu. Cuz I like the thot of John presaging Jesus, and Jesus becoming Ubu; then Ubu cycling back to Zeus’s dad Kronos:

...of all children ever born…
these were the most terrible,
and they hated their father
from the beginning…

...as each of these children
issued out of the womb of its mother
great Kronos swallowed it down,
with the intention
that no other of the children of his line
should ever obtain the chief office
among the immortals.

—Hesiod’s “Theogony” (154-156; 459-462)