The “A-HA!” moment contrasted with the “Cosmic” moment:
"A-HA!" shouted the Supernatural Proctologist, his dowsing rod in hand, erect at the hint of paranormal activity.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A spirit to be sure!"
"But whose? Is it the spy? Like I suspected?"
"Ohhh, Spirit...give us your name?!"
The Supernatural Proctologist nodded his head serenely. "Yes...I see. ..."
"Well? What did it say?" I demanded.
"She is claiming to be...” The S.P searched for an answer, eyes closed, attempting to eavesdrop into the hereafter, "...Princess Mary Adelaide of....Cambridge? Oh, Great Spirit! What is this Cambridge of which you speak?"
"Never mind that, ask her about Project 54! What does she know?!"
"Ummm," ummed The S.P, "She says she's not interested in anything like that..."
"Well, what is she interested in?"
A look of bewilderment came across The S.P's face, "She says she wants to be an....advice columnist...?"
"Bah! Just what we need now! More advice columnists...Ask her if she's noticed any spies in the house of LIBRA?"
"Uhhhh...She says there have been traces of psychic reconnaissance..."
"E.s.p.ies..." I said, biting my bottom lip...
The Abstract Algebra of chance encounters:
the formula for soul mating:
6,756,000,000= 6,756,000,000 (1+1) = Cosmic Moment (2(6,756,000,000=777))
Of all the fields of abstract algebra, Love was possibly the most abstract and the most algebraic... Few mathematicians ever fully comprehended the complex system of relationship...The formulas seldom made sense and just when a leading "expert" in the field boiled it down to the perfect mathematical unification ("breed" as in Clement Allsworth's book of the same title, or Marie Lansing's "the consolation prize for the absence of God" in her fascinating study "Pieces of Christine") some new dewey-eyed moonfaced kid or some bitter-down-on-his-luck reject would come along and debunk the latest accepted theory.
Scientists of the day feel love had something to do with the release of dopamine or something ...
Dictionaries defined love as : "1 a (1): intense affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties
Maria Sharapova defined love as a score of zero.
These were all completely correct and dead wrong.
Marie Lansing later revised her definition of love as, "the absence of indifference."
"What about hate?" asked Clement Allsworth.
"Love = Hate," said a controversial Mathematician.
"Let's see some hard evidence on that..." her secret admirer asked.
"The two sensations are both products of basically the same region of the brain, " calmly explained the errr...Brain-ologist.
When Julie Hales looked at Marie at the bus stop, her brain lit up like Sirius. Marie wanted to start a new world with Julie.
She felt she must have had everything in the universe in common with her.
She wanted to spend the rest of her life unraveling Marie's infinite mysteries.
She wanted to fuck her sideways for no reason.
She wanted to protect her from the rest of the sick world.
She wanted to put her among the stars and worship her.
Marie hated the fact they might never be together…
...and she was pretty sure her tennis score was zero.
So most of the above definitions were fairly accurate in this particular case.
They were also totally inaccurate in the sense that what she felt could never be explained or reduced to a few billion sentences, let alone a single one.
That's why since the dawn of mankind roughly 100,000,000,000 people have spent an average of 65.23 years trying to come up with the answer. The cosmic joke being that there wasn't one.
The Cosmic moment was answer enough...
Tomorrow: an abstract algebra pop quiz and a 500 word essay on how the E.S.P.ies were responsible for the fall of The Berlin Wall...
Punk rock dating chapter 14: The Lunchroom Linguists...
Backstage at the 2008 Literary Choice Awards:
Marie Lansing stepped off the stage after presenting the "Binding of the Year" award and found herself face to face with a middle aged man. His eyes like a closed casket, eyebrows like a great horned owl, clothes like an unmade bed, the physique of a Christmas pudding, and tendrils of hair reaching high to the heavens.
"Uhhh...nsspch....," he murmured.
"Excuse me?" Marie asked sharply.
"Errrr...NICE SPEECH," he repeated loudly, attempting enunciation.
"Thank you," she said with a false warmth and started to walk away.
The man grabbed her by the arm, "No, wait..."
Marie looked back with her most offended "how-dare-you" look.
"Wait...let me introduce myself...ummmm... my name is Clemmen Allzzrthh." he mumbled, staring at the floor.
"Who?"
"Clement Allsworth," he Clement Allsworth-ed.
"Oh."
"No, no...I'm a writer too, I wrote some stuff too...Awhile back..."
"Oooookay." She felt no artificial kinship with this wreck.
"Sorry if I'm coming off kinda weird or something... I'm just kinda nervous...I'm a big fan of yours and..."
"Would you like an autograph?" Marie offered, pulling out a copy of her latest book, "Who should I make it out to?"
"Ahhhh... sure...sure. I never read one of your books before. I'll check it out, let you know what I think..." Clement, now sweating profusely, felt around in his pocket, looking for a few bills to pay for the book, there was nothing in there except a handful of change, a few pieces of lint, and his cock.
"Wait. You're a fan of my work but you never read one of my books?" she asked, becoming more and more sick and suspicious with every halting new sentence.
"Your...ahhh...TV work.. I saw you on....What's the girl's name...'Oprah', I think it was...I don't know...I try not to watch too much T.V...I try to keep it under 10 hours a day..."
Really, Clement shouldn't have been so nervous. Even if Mr Allsworth had been the most charming man who ever walked the face of the Earth, he couldn't have had Marie. At bare minimum he could have been friends with her. But she pitied this ineloquent creature. Little did she know in his mind the gorgeous blossoms of his next book, "Rhododendron Door" were beginning to bloom. The geysers-of-rose-petal imagery wouldn't have impressed her really either.
She felt flowery poetry was manipulative and questioned the shaky foundations that romantic love was built upon. Clement thought he felt this way too but he found himself mid-sonnet dead ass wrong. I don't mean to give the impression Marie never felt love. On the day she met Julie Hales, for instance, she felt love with the same fiery, soul-scraping, cry-yourself-to sleep intensity as Clement.
Normally, Marie's love felt like an especially warm, firm handshake that ended with a cigarette.
Dr. Coorgan was pleasantly surprised with the endless variations of love produced by the human mind. Looking at the brain-scan, you would see the same area of the brain light up, but when Dr. Coorgan entered their minds each experience was unique and each one was correct...
"Here," Marie said, handing Clement the book, "It's yours," and walked away.
Clement knew he had blown it. He wanted to hide and wanted to prove himself to her all at the same time. She was a bright, beautiful, young, successful girl, and he was a shambling old ghoul who had drunk himself into a premature middle-age. Clement felt his hand twitch. Somewhere deep in his mind he had the urge to write "Why, oh, why" all over the walls with his Sharpie.
Dr. Coorgan sat deep in the Tropic of Pineapples with his pencil and paper out, taking note. Clement had become his most fascinating case...
Tomorrow! The origin of the Tropic of Pineapples and the "All-Star Puppet Show"
Punk rock dating no. 15: 502 Bad Gateway
The Guided Tour Bus of the Mind:
It's a well-known fact that directly before a medium has a psychic flash he smells oranges. This was how I knew Dr. Coorgan was different; he was a telepath of a higher order. He explained that directly before a psychic encounter he caught the strong scent of pineapples. Dr. Coorgan was able to transport his soul-self beyond the "orange grove" and into an island in his mind that he referred to as "The Tropic of Pineapples."
I can still recall the day when he showed me how to access the Tropic of Pineapples:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Repeat your mantra (usually the name of your first love sung in the tongue of the indigenous dialect of the astral plane, a sort of psychic pidgin English.)
3. Descend the spiral staircase of the mind.
4. Rinse, repeat.
As you step barefoot into the sands of time and look up to the pink eye in the black sky it will invariably rain pineapples. This is a sign that you are not ready to wade in the deep end of the Basal Ganglia. But do not despair, dear reader, let the reassuring voice of the memory of your mother be your lifeguard. There will be times in the deep dark jungles of the Medulla Oblongata that you will forget your mother, but you will still feel the tingle of her life lessons in the pit of your stomach. Hold on to this; not what she said, per se, but what she meant...
This will be your currency in the Tropic of Pineapples...
Join us Tomorrow when the coffee cups fill themselves and the number 1 hit in the nation is the cries of the lonely...
Punk rock dating chapter 16: The Golden Age of Channel Zero...
The Waterfall:
Clement Allsworth wasn't kidding when he said he tried to keep his television watching less than 10 hours a day.
Ten hours was actually a light day. If Clement was feeling ambitious he could squeeze in a good 18 hours. He never actually watched one particular channel or even one particular program. His favorite show was just endlessly flipping through channels.
When Clement did spot something he liked, he'd watch it for 5 seconds and then realize that there might be something more important on another channel. He would then panic, change the channel, and continue to repeat this ritual for 10-18 hours straight. When people would ask him what he watched on T.V last night he would reply, "Everything."
"Everything?" asked the Limo Driver.
"Yes. I watched everything that was on T.V last night. Was a hell of a night..." said Clement
wistfully.
"It must be hard to watch everything. There's so damn many channels these days. When I was a kid we only had three! Can you imagine? Only three Channels?!" the Limo driver shouted incredulously.
"Yes... The world was a much smaller place then," Clement mumbled looking out the window.
"You're telling me! I have at least three hunnert stations on my TV and all the kids do is bitch about there being nothin' on! Can you believe it? That's when I tell 'em to go outside. It's good for 'em to get air. Hell, my old man made me play outdoors all day. Gave me a real appreciation of nature, y'know?"
"Ummm, yes, nature...there's a station dedicated to that too, I believe..."
Clement looked out the limousine window at all the people walking down the sidewalks, preoccupied with their own lives. Clement wished he could hear all their stories, observe all their lives.
"They should give all these folks their own shows..." he mumbled to himself again, "I'd watch it..."
Come back tomorrow to hear the dread secret of Propaganda Channel Zero and Uncle Bill$ kicks it old school like a slide rule...
Punk rock dating chapter 17: Soft Revival...
Common Astrology:
E.S.P.ies are the telepathic assassins of the House of SCORPIO. The evil manipulators behind such mass mind control as Channel Zero and the 2000 Election. The fact that they were here told us that SCORPIO and their leader, the Escorpion, already knew about Project 54.
O' Escorpion:
Escorpion, seven headed beast,
SCORPIO: aligned themselves with the equally insidious House of CANCER, united enemies of the other Zodiac houses (even alienating the other disgraced sects, such as the Divided House of GEMINI and the shadowy House of CAPRICORN).
Escorpion addressed the werewolves, Billy Boys, and the chitinous-shelled horrors of the House of CANCER:
"As the Glorious House of SCORPIO rises, the sickness that has infected this world burns away...So it has been told...in the pages of the eyes that have seen it... Our rivals shall go the way of the house of OPHIUCHUS... Behold, the new age of the Sacred Grove..."
Fists and armored claws pumped the air in exaltation...the Houses chanted in thundering unison....
"Escorpion! Escorpion!"
The Escorpion lowered himself back onto his throne and in a bliss-induced trance, slowly closed his fourteen eyes.
Join us tomorrow for a very special episode of "Strawberry Forever" and 15 signs that he's a good kisser...
Punk rock dating chapter 18: The Shuddering Impact of Love at First Sight...
The Knife:
My Wife and I met August 23rd , 2085...
I was at a Love's truck-stop just outside of Amarillo when I saw a face that made the sweet science of poetry obsolete...
Black tar eyes ... Strawberry on the tip of her tongue...Gun in her pocket...Reading a now-vintage copy of "Breed," flush with the meaning of life...
"Clement Allsworth," I pointed out the obvious, obviously in love....
"You know him?" she asked, looking up from the book.
"He's kind of a hard person to get to know, but..."
"Ummm, he died, what 60 years ago? I know you don't 'know him' know him...I meant do you know his work?"
I smiled, "Yes. That's what I meant."
"Oh," she owed.
"I'm actually his biographer... I wrote Clement Allsworth: Between the Unmade Covers."
The title of the book was a play on a well-known quote from Clement. Shortly after the 2008 Literary Choice awards Mr. Allsworth called Marie, trying to invent questions just so he could have an excuse to talk to her.
"Hi, Marie...This is Clement ..."
"Who?" Marie who-ed.
"Uhhhh...we met at the whatchacallit..the 'Literary Awards' or some such thing..." he attempted to explain, half-drunk/half-high.
"Oh, yes. I remember you, Mr. Allsworth. How may I help you?" she asked with the the icy tones of a frigid telephone operator.
"I wanted to know how you got on the television. I saw you on Oprah or whatever her name is and I saw you on the Today show this morning...I wanted to know how you do it...Y'see I'm kind of a T.V buff, and I was thinkin' about promoting my book on there or..."
"Well, you might want to start by showering...A haircut maybe..."
"I'm a writer...You're not supposed to look at me...Just read me..."
"I'm afraid that doesn't work with television, Mr. Allsworth...People are going to look at you and they're not going to think about your book or the things you're saying. They're going to be distracted, thinking; 'That man needs a shave, some nice clothes...."
"You can't judge a book by it's unmade covers..." shrugged Clement.
At the time Marie had no idea what the hell Mr. Allsworth meant. After Clement's death she revisited his work and figured it out...
Tomorrow we meet Bob Lewitz, the mute Speech Coach and other broken promises...
Punk rock dating chapter 19: "Nail me to the wall, distant friend..."
The day I found out all the jokes were pointed at me:
Amarillo Texas 2085:
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Bernadette Peyton," she said.
This was not to be her permanent last name. When we were later married she took my last name: Which happens to be five seconds of silence.
In my profession it was frowned upon to take a mate.
Think of it! Silent Societies secretly responsible for the course of civilization! Hooded U.N. Peacekeepers! Presidents consulting zodiac street gangs! Reptilians walking amongst us, holding positions of unassailable power! Hidden tracks on compact discs!
Secrets are paramount to the existence of a hidden agent.
Having dedicated my life to surreptitiousness, I had become quite used to girls not knowing I existed. Marie was different. One look from her and all my secrets disappeared. She read my face like an open book.
She had her face in an open book. My favorite, actually. It was too perfect. Me, being Clement’s biographer. I couldn't yet tell her that I did actually meet Clement Allsworth in the prime of his life...
Me, Clement, Julie Hales, Marie Lansing, Dr. Coorgan and the Supernatural Proctologist all together in a cheap late-night diner. Travelers from various points in time, meeting on a balmy summer night in 1980.
"Hmmm, my cellphone's not getting a signal...." Julie pondered....
Meet us in the same place tomorrow for the historic conference and the breakdance of the spheres...
No comments:
Post a Comment