Ishmael
Development
Waypath

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 02:50 p.m.

SOCRATES COULD HAVE BEEN A WOMAN: A sampling of what I jotted in my commonplace book. A ‘what if,’ you know? I often had these kinds of irrationalities plague me during publications board meetings. There were no windows in our conference room. It was at the center of the fourth floor and surrounded by halls. In one corner stood an easel with a signed poster of John Cornwell and in the other corner was a coffee maker. Nearly every room on our floor had a coffee maker in it. I shared an office with fourteen other grad students, and we had two coffee makers and one desk.

Melville and Hawthorne fooled around whilst fishing.

I was one of two grad students who were allowed to attend pub meetings since I was a co-editor of the student magazine, Orange in Mind of Orange (OMO). The other grad student in attendance was an intern on the department’s cultural magazine, Echo Review (ER). You would think that a department would allow its grad students to have a more active role than just ‘interning’ at the quality lit mag, but as was quoted to me, “We protect our release time around here, dontcha know?” Theory being that if the department chair realized he could get near as good work done on the magazine by graduate students he might eliminate the release time given to our three professors in charge of ER.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 02:38 p.m.

PITTSBURGH--The Kingdom's Lord Chancellor, Sir Richard Cheney, discussed his energy policy with loyal subjects at a town meeting here, while in Washington at Sir Richard's behest, George II's Parliament has written changes into an appropriations bill so that energy costs for Sir Richard's manor will be paid henceforth by the Royal Navy. (Also written into the bill is a proviso which allows the Lord Admiral to accept forbidden gifts--delicacies such as Florida grapefruit, California raisins, Texas chili, beverages, sundries, tablecloth, tents--on Sir Richard's behalf.) According to Lady-in-Waiting Margita Thompson, the Lady Lynne has done her best to hold down energy use. Interestingly, His Lady's activities are contrary to the Lord Chancellor's recent edict: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Apparently, asking a boon from the Lord of the Sea is.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 02:28 p.m.
NOTE TO MARS FROM VENUS:
IMPORTANT!

We have to let humans land on Mars so they can find out what in Hades happened to those geschprunken landers; so they can figure out whose butts to kick before they kick the bucket.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 02:26 p.m.

Instead of a direct attack, you start at the periphery. There are these fly fishing reels in catalogs that sell for over 200 dollars. Rods I can understand, but the reels are just nothing—have you ever opened one? Not very complex. I was messing with electric guitars two years ago and the parts are outrageous for price differentials. Guitar strings can range between 1 and 17 dollars. There is this fetish aspect to these things. Mephisto shoes, for example, look like other shoes to me but they’re three times as much . . .

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 02:17 p.m.

I guess the two views of life are one that you are an idiot doomed to life or you are a character doomed to be played by an idiot. If only we could recast our character, with, say, Gary Cooper instead of Bruce Willis, perhaps our lives would work better. That means, of course, that our lives are being lived by someone else whom we watch from a precipice performing as well as he or she can on a set designed by what or whom we never know. Lighting, forget about it . . . I was responsible for the national public radio suicide challenge. Raised thousands, ongoing, until . . .

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 10:42 a.m.

ASA NISI MASA

stickiness the glue

sap or flour and water

simple jizz zoom

and there it is!

stinking of garlic

if that's the night's repast

unroped in ropes that stick

blessed with this gummy mess

stressed and unstressed

prodded

sap from wounds

a brood mingling and rising

as some unholy feat waferlike

the body daubed overmuch

with dough and spent

the sin of too much oil

water and milk and not enough

flour paste unless

kneaded

Kapor
Rosenberg
Dominey