Tip of the iceberg

Today’s image is another artistic rendition of the selfie that I tried to take in my 17-Aug-2020 post — this time it’s colorized (that is, it’s the same subject but an all-new version) — & again, it is the work of M.P. Powers. If you cannot tell, I’m pleased as punch with these results. In fact, I now declare: This composition of me offering my very 1st Diary Volume to the viewer in the shape of a VHS-cassette, thru the looking-glass, is hereby the official flag of my disposition.

Dear diary,

I wanna imagine that my life is so exciting that my sole desire this morning is to pretend that I’m writing one of those descriptive passages that always begin all traditional novels. Because the rule states that every novel must open with a long passage that describes in detail the environment where the subsequent plot will take place. But I don’t wanna bother with the plot itself or any of the characters — I just wanna focus on that opening description and then terminate the fancy. So, if I succeed, the present entry will feel like the beginning of a really good novel that, were it to continue, would eventually focus upon the relationships that develop between the inhabitants of a small town.

Pretend novel beginning

At 6:16 a.m. the town of Hyperborea is still asleep. The air is pervaded by a green mist. There is ice everywhere. The sun is barely peeking over the horizon. This is the most of the sun we shall see all day: just a sliver of light. To the east, there are hills with push-carts on them filled with tomatoes. To the west, handcarts with pumpkins; and to the south are barrows heaped with cucumber sandwiches. A very old dog now comes limping across the only street in town, and his forepaw brushes against our metal boot as he passes.

“May the Devil ruin this day for you, because you overstepped your boundary and pranced on our foot,” we curse the dog. Then we take the musket from our shouler and aim…

However, we’re interrupted by the passing deliveryman:

“Two letters for you, Mister… Mister…” the deliveryman pauses, perplexed; “I’m sorry, I cannot ever remember your name.”

“Why do you ask after our name?” We say. “And how is it that you reckon that these letters need to be delivered to us when you can’t even recall our true identity?”

“Well who do YOU say you are?” asks the deliveryman, timidly and with reverence.

We answer: “Well, sometimes I say that I am John the Baptist, sometimes I use the alias Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets… But now recall that I asked you first: how do YOU know that these two letters addressed simply ‘To the Zar’ are properly ours?”

And the deliveryman sez: “But thou art the Zar, a true human being, son of the Alien Deity. Who else would be standing out here in the ice at this hour of the day?”

So we say: “You have my blessing, Post-Man offshoot of Jonah the Runaway: for reason has not revealed this unto you, but uncanny intuition.”

Then after the deliveryman shrugs, he turns and begins walking toward the houses in the village; but we shout to get his attention; & when he turns back around again, we address him from a distance:

“Tell no man that I am the Zar. Let this be our little secret.”

And no snow can touch the cobblestones on which the deliveryman walks, because they’re radiant red; thus the snow melts as soon as it lands there.

And there’s a rooster on top of the steeple of the tallest house, but it never does crow. It’s alive tho — it’s not one of those brass weathervane roosters.

And now some cows come down out of the pastures in the mountains, with their bells tinkling pleasantly. Other than this tinkling of the cowbells, everything is always eerily silent here. And, like I said above, there’s a green mist in the air.

Now some falcons fly overhead, followed by a few of my fighter jets. Then a horse moseys forth from behind the nearest house.

Continuing in our morning stroll, we note with a smile that some frogs are luxuriating in the fountain at the center of the town.

Now the great cedar tree that has been the pride of the town since time immemorial begins to crack. There is a distinct creaking sound emitting from its base. Soon it begins to lean to one side, and then it slowly falls to the ground and lands with a boom.

After this interruption, there’s just the tinkling of the cowbells again, on the soundtrack.

Now some women pass thru the town’s square; they are dressed in all black, and they are wearing black headresses. We wave, and they wave back in a friendly manner.

Yes, it’s a quiet morning. That’s why we chose to live in this place. It’s cold and quiet. And the people are nice.

It’s mostly dark all the time. There’s just the right amount of wind.

Everything moves slow. Even when an elderly cedar fails, it goes down in slow-motion.

We now note that there are fallen cedar trees all over the ground: so many that they blend together when viewed from a distance. It almost looks like we live in a logging community, but this is just a place for regular folk. None of us are employed at anything more than worthwhile.

And there’s a tub of sour apples on the hillside to our right. So we look to our left and see a bucket of peaches; then we turn our gaze downward and espy, on the hillside, a crate spilling over with midnight plums.

If you had enough money to hire a Hollywood movie-crew to film this place, they’d go to some alternative location and get footage of bushes and rivers; then they’d tell their editor to freeze the frame and print the title of the novel on the screen: It Takes a Village to Piss Me Off: An Yuge Blockbuster Directed by Bryan Ray, the ZAR; and then it would cut to a shot of us standing before a hoarfrosted ice-house door.

Over yonder we see a few of the townsfolk emerging from their houses. They pace outdoors at their leisure and begin to bake with each other, happily, in the northwest region of the town square: for there’s a bakery accessible by rope-ladder hovering just above the fire pit. And they bake apple pie:

You see, Hyperborea years to be a synonym for Americana, but it’s actually superior to Americana in precisely those aspects that, on an initial viewing, one assumes have actually fallen short. You just need to give it time. Learn to love it. Rewatch it endlessly.

And the only place in this town where there’s any action is Grandma Bryan’s house. She lives in a mansion with ten thousand chickens. And it’s almost humorous (tho one never dares to laugh in her presence) because she HATES these chickens. So she’s always scolding them and telling them to get out of her way. And the place has a stuffy smell, even tho it’s a mansion, cuz of all the livestock. But they do a good job cleaning the place; and all the chickens are treated well: they’re all happy, they assure us — that is to say: the chickens themselves attest to their satisfaction with these working conditions; after all, they signed the contract — therefore no chickens were harmed in the writing of this first chapter.

And old man Ray (our evil grandfather) is always asleep, at the top of the skyscraper. There’s just one skyscraper marring the icy landscape (which is why you never see postcards of Hyperborea except in Haiti), and that’s where grandpa lives. The town agreed to leave standing this single erection, to serve as a reminder of all the mistakes that the town indulged in when this place was once a city. For Hyperborea, in its youth, was a bustling metropolis. It had doctors and lawyers.