[The obligatory image is an ad with the words removed.]
Dear God,
You and I are two motorcades of rebels wielding sabers while out shopping for minute maids, hoping to meet and eventually marry Miss Correct. Up from the everglades emerges a fast and easy stranger from Kyrgyzstan, with whom we both fall in love at first sight. Could this be Missus Incorrect, the one we warned ourselves about? No, we think not; for all the right records are playing: it is the soundtrack of our youth, and all of us are young at the same time. And we all have money.
Our enemy is a cowboy in a cloud pulled by ospreys. He tries to win our sympathy by reminding us how many people it takes to make a hit single. Napoleon reappears. I begin to think that a snow owl stole my nest; so I unholster my .38-caliber handgun and enter the building. It is a large, luxurious dwellingplace. I walk slowly around everyone in the room. Coming to the orchestra, I discover that, contrary to the Cowboy’s claim, it does not consist of individual musicians, but it is rather one massive group-photograph: I knock over this cardboard cutout, revealing that its audio was coming from a cassette player’s loudspeaker.
2
If only the law were made of wood, then one could cut through it with a saw.
Why do topless Puritans look as sound as a bell on television? They tap your glass and say: “You’ve come to the right place.” But a screen separates you from them, and so do the many years that have passed since their extinction.
When you write in a journal, you don’t really think of selling it, do you? Movie producers worry about how many people will buy tickets to their film, which is why they will re-cut an ending that the test audience dislikes. But do you really need to lie about what happened during your day, just to boost your diary sales?
Never give up. Make this entry number one: first place. A gold medal from the Olympics. And have fun doing it. Just think of your memories as the batter, and the finished composition as a flapjack. Those critics who will determine for the general public whether one’s offering is worth consuming are like a landscape of postcard-level beauty, having in the foreground a scene of breathtakingly innocent smut.
After their opening night’s performance is finished, the cast members of a stage play leave the theater and walk together to a nearby tavern, to await the reviews. For, within a few hours, the drama tastemakers will finish typing up their reactions to the production, and these will appear as articles in the upcoming newspaper, which shall be delivered early on the morrow.
And what if you are the airport agent who must check passengers’ footwear for explosives, and when at last you discover a villainous shoe bomber, it turns out to be your own mother? What do you do? Toss your mom in the pile of terrorists?
Movie plot: A man heads out, as usual, to work, on a sunny day. But his hang glider breaks, and then his scooter gets stolen. He meets a woman who offers to give him a lift. Before leaving, however, she seduces him, and they sleep together in a nearby grotto. This grotto scene takes up the bulk of the movie. Then, when they are dressing, at the end of the film, the man picks up the woman’s hat, with the intention of handing it to her; but, out of the inside of the hat falls a paper document: the man unfolds this, and it is revealed to be the blueprints for some sort of Death Machine. The movie ends.
This will be one of those films that young couples go to see when they are dating, and they can sit down to dine afterwards and enjoy conversing about the picture: What does it mean? Who was that woman? How shall the man act, now that he knows the inventor of a mass-murder mechanism is carrying his child: Will he still accept the ride to work which she had promised him?
3
Mary and her little lamb went walking into the forest. She was carrying a basket that contained the following items: badminton, horseflies, FBI, CIA, IRS, a double play from a baseball game, and the father of the seven seas.
4
Are you stuck in a rut? unable to move? growing numb and complacent? The only way to solve these problems is for you to purchase all my products: I’m selling them at a fair price; you can either buy them or die. This offer is good for one week.
The reason I’m such an excellent author is that I write Book-of-the-Year material and drive nice cars. I’m the king of New York. I’m that one French aristocrat who was totally out-of-touch, because I can afford to be that way. I taught you all how to dance. You will remember me when I abandon you. I found your earliest ancestor in the desert, and I rescued him; then he gave birth to all of you modern folks, and you turned away from his style of worshipping me: You worship devils instead. But your children will return to the proper path, which leads to my holy habitation. Then they will get out onto the dance floor and really let loose. Times in the past and those to come both please me well, but I am pissed at the present: I give your forefathers and that future generation a high grade; but you moderns aren’t even a seven; I’d probably rate you a three.
Was Jesus of Nazareth for or against pink bubblegum? I do not ask “And why should I care?” because the import is obvious.
And how come some people listen to a lot of music when they are young, but then when they grow old they don’t listen to as much music?
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